The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(30)

It was my book. I snapped it shut before I could lose my grip on the ladder. This book too I needed to take with me. I hurried down, nearly spilling the books from my grasp. The lantern swung from where I’d hooked it around my arm, the light casting moving shadows across the rugs. I hopped the last rung, relieved to be back on the ground again.

The sound of scratching emanated from behind me – nails against wood. I whirled, my heart sticking in my throat.

A spy construct watched me from the shelf, its tail twitching.





11





Ranami


Nephilanu Island

Ranami sat in the bamboo chair her captors had politely led her to, her hands clasped over a book in her lap. She’d read it through three times already. It was a shame it had to come to this. She didn’t want this, despite appearances otherwise.

Gio, the leader of the Shardless Few, sat across from her, head cradled in his palm. He kept his gray hair clipped short to his head, the same length as the stubble on his chin. He regarded her with his good eye while she tried not to stare at his milky one. “You’re sure she’s coming?” Gio asked.

“She’ll be here,” Ranami said. Or at least she hoped Phalue would be. They’d had another fight. It seemed to be something they did often nowadays. The first weeks of their courtship had been infused throughout with a golden haze, everything brighter and better. But then Phalue would say something or do something that reminded Ranami of the vast differences between them. Phalue might be beloved because of her common mother, but she lived in a palace. She ate when she was hungry, she slept when she was tired and she wore her simple clothes not because they were all she had but because she disdained the silken ones. Phalue had a wealth of choices.

Ranami had not had the same.

“We had a fight,” Ranami admitted to Gio. “But she has always come back.” Phalue’s temper often sent her careening from Ranami’s home, a whirlwind of biting words and slammed doors. Ranami loved how passionate Phalue was, though it made her seem a little foolish at times. Because she’d always return, usually a few minutes later, with sweet apologies and a yearning to start over.

So Ranami was sure, when she’d contacted the rebellion for this false kidnapping, that Phalue would arrive at the Alanga ruins, storming in like a typhoon that very same night. Instead, they’d all slept here, morning fog leaving dewdrops on their eyelashes.

“Perhaps this is the time she does not come back,” Gio said. He scratched at his stubble and then laid his hands on the sword in his lap. “Phalue has always cast off lovers the way an unlucky fisherman throws back fish that are too small.”

Ranami knew she was not a small fish, not to Phalue. She knew it surely as she knew all the back alleys of the city. “It’s been three years,” she said. “What fisherman holds on to a fish that long that he does not intend to keep?”

Gio shrugged, acquiescing. “That may be. But she is not here.”

“Keep your men and women at the ready,” Ranami said. “When she arrives, she’s like to knock a few heads on her way in.”

This wasn’t ideal, but every other tactic she’d tried had fallen on deaf ears. How else could she get Phalue to listen? The island was fractured, its people at cross purposes. The only one who could heal such a wound would be the governor. Ranami couldn’t just tell Phalue all the policies that needed to be implemented. Phalue needed to understand the reasoning behind them.

It was a tall order, Ranami thought miserably. She hadn’t asked Phalue to change when she’d turned her down. Phalue had come to it herself without any of Ranami’s help. Like so many street urchins, Ranami had long admired the governor’s daughter from afar, dreaming of finding Phalue’s favor, of climbing out of the gutters and into a palace.

But dreams had a way of only making sense while you were having them.

Something rustled outside. Ranami straightened. “I think that’s—”

It was all she had time to say before she heard a cry from outside, a thud, the sound of steel against steel. She looked to Gio, who gave her a nod.

Phalue knew how to make an entrance at least. Stupid, reckless Phalue, whom Ranami loved beyond all reason. She leapt from her bamboo chair and ran toward the doorway. The walls of the ruins were covered in moss and vines, but the main walls still stood. It must have been a beautiful sight in its prime. There were still pieces of carved plaster littering the ground. As soon as she reached the outer door, she saw Phalue. Even now, her heart jumped; her stomach swooped – as though she were leaping from a cliff and into the Endless Sea. Phalue stood over an unconscious rebel, her expression thunderous, her jaw so tight Ranami was sure her teeth must be hurting. There was no soft beauty to Phalue’s face, no gently curving brows or generous lips. Her cheeks looked carved of jagged coral, her nose a piece that had not been smoothed away. Black, thick brows were like slashes across her forehead. Hers was the beauty of ospreys, of sea serpents, of a wave crashing against rocks.

It was a wonder Ranami had been able to turn her away at all.

“Phalue!” she called out.

When their eyes met, Ranami remembered: they had fought. “I’m safe,” she said. “No one’s harmed me.”

Phalue apparently had not remembered their fight because she sheathed her sword in one smooth movement, took two steps forward and buried her hands in Ranami’s hair. Their foreheads pressed together, and Ranami felt Phalue’s fingers tremble. “I was afraid,” Phalue choked out. “I thought—I should have known someone might want to hurt you. What do they want? Money?”