The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(113)

“There’s still time.”

The smile he gave me was half-rueful, half-wry. “So she says, before they go into battle against their very creator.”

I squeezed his hand back. “There is always time.”

We slipped into the hallway together, after sending the spy construct to scout the way, Uphilia on our heels. As we stepped toward Mauga’s room, the scent of his lair growing in my awareness, Bayan’s palm slipped against mine. I wasn’t sure if it was my sweat, or his. Either way, we both gripped tighter. If I’d put aside my pride, if I’d figured things out earlier, we might have seen past the rivalry the Emperor had set upon us. He’d manipulated us both, and I’d fallen prey to it. I might have been able to save Numeen and his family. But I couldn’t change what had happened, no matter how much I wished it. And oh – how I wished it.

Mauga was awake when we entered, sitting on his haunches, straw scattered beneath him.

Bayan’s support gave me courage. I did not whisper, or creep forward like a mouse. “Mauga, you must come with me.”

He blinked and then lowered himself to all fours. “I knew you would come for me.”

Uphilia stepped to my side, stretching her wings and resettling them. “It’s time.”

“I need to find my father,” I told the constructs. “I need to set everything right.” As much as I protested, as much as I kept telling Bayan I was not a Sukai, the identity was pressed too deeply into my bones. I’d find a way to leave it behind someday – if I lived through this.

“He is in the dining hall with Tirang,” Mauga said, “plotting a war against the Shardless Few.”

“Ilith?” Bayan asked.

Uphilia shook her head, as though she’d bitten into something distasteful. “No one knows.”

Hopefully she was still incapacitated in her lair. The engraving tool that Numeen had given me was still in my sash pocket. “I’ll need you to cover for me from time to time,” I told them. “The more time I get to rewrite the commands of basic war constructs, the more we’ll have on our side.”

“And if we win?” Bayan said it like he was starting to believe we could.

“We bring back the servants, the soldiers. We open up the palace again. We treatise with the governors and form alliances. We become strong again. The rest . . .” I thought of the shards within Bayan that even now were draining the lives of the Empire’s citizens. I didn’t know how to reconcile that with who Numeen had wanted me to be. He’d wanted me to stop the trepanning rituals, to provide succor to the people. I closed my eyes, hoping for a vision of the future that made sense. I found only darkness behind my eyelids and my heartbeat pounding like a drumbeat in my ears. But there were rooms I’d not been in yet, and secrets I didn’t yet know. Perhaps I’d find answers there. “The rest we will have to figure out.”

The march to the dining hall felt an eternity. The one servant we saw went pale as she spotted us, retreating into a room, her head bowed over her basket of linens. I’d reclaimed my hand from Bayan’s grip and had fished out the engraving tool. He held his own in his hand like a weapon. His was much more elaborate than mine, carved with vines up and down the handle. Uphilia padded beside us, her footfalls silent, and Mauga strode behind, his bulk a comforting presence at our backs.

For Numeen. For his wife, his brother, his children – his family that he’d entrusted me with.

Bayan waited at the dining-hall door. This was my plan, so this was my move to make. The trick, I thought, was not to think about it at all. I took in a breath, opened the door and stepped inside.

Shiyen, the Emperor, stood over the table, leaning on its surface. Tirang loomed behind him, his wolf’s snout pointed at the map, his clawed ape’s hand holding the edge flat. Both of them looked up as I entered, my engraving tool in hand. A flash of surprise crossed my father’s face, so quickly I barely saw it. It was enough to know – I’d not met his expectations.

This time, I yearned to break them.

As Bayan, Mauga and Uphilia filtered in after me, understanding smoothed Shiyen’s features. “I locked you away. You . . . you are not supposed to be here,” he said slowly.

“No, I am not. But I’m not who you think I am.”

“That’s because I need to fix you. It’s not your fault.”

I straightened. “I’m happy as I am.”

Shiyen sneered. “You don’t know what happiness is. You don’t know what sadness is. I grew you in a cave beneath this palace from stolen bits of flesh. I put memories into your head. You are my creation. You are mine.”

I was not. But the only language he understood was violence. “Mauga. Uphilia. Kill Tirang.”

They rushed forward. I felt Bayan’s arm, pressed against mine, trembling. I might have been ignored by Shiyen, but he’d suffered Shiyen’s wrath much more often.

Shiyen slammed a hand on the table. “Ossen!” he shouted. The word echoed from the walls. Even as Mauga and Uphilia rushed at Tirang, I heard the drum of distant footsteps.

I’d never expected this to be as simple as killing Tirang, but the confirmation of it made me quail.

Tirang seized Uphilia in his jaws, and Mauga slammed his massive bear-shoulder into Tirang’s chest. With a contemptuous glance at me, Shiyen plunged his hand into Mauga’s side. The construct froze.