The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(37)

There wasn’t time to take the servants’ entrance. When I climbed back to the top of the wall, the constructs there eyed me but did not raise the alarm. I picked my way back to the palace by rooftop, doing my best to keep my footfalls soft against the tiles. Below me, I saw the few servants sweeping the empty pathways of this walled city in miniature, or carrying buckets of water from the well to the palace itself. The periphery buildings all remained empty – free of dust but with cracked and fading paint. Someday they’d be alive again, when I was Emperor.

By the time I’d reached the palace itself, the sun had risen above the harbor. Light glittered off the ocean, making jewels of each cresting wave. The seabirds had begun to call to one another. Here, at the palace, I felt a step removed from the ocean – nestled into the foot of the mountains. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that. I found a window at the far end of the palace, swung down from the roof, and slipped inside.

I saw a few constructs on my way back to my room – trade constructs, war constructs, and bureaucrat constructs – here to report to their superiors. I wasn’t in their purview, so they paid me no mind. Still, I only breathed easily once I shut the door of my room behind me.

The journal and the beginner’s book of commands were where I’d left them, shoved hastily beneath my bed. One held the key to my past; the other to my future. I ran my hands over the covers. Here, in the quiet of my room, Numeen’s words turned over in my mind.

What was it that I intended to do?

The spy construct had made it clear: I couldn’t just sit around waiting for my father to die, hoping that if I learned enough, he would choose me as heir. Too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. And Father had taught me this much at least. Do not rely on that which you cannot control.

I had to seize control.

I rubbed at the green cloth cover of the journal, yearning to devour the information within. Reluctantly, I set it down and reached for the book of commands. There would be time for both, but I had to prioritize.

My father ruled his Empire by proxy, all his power and commands distributed to his four most complex constructs: Ilith, Construct of Spies; Uphilia, Construct of Trade; Mauga, Construct of Bureaucracy; and Tirang, Construct of War. It occurred to me that this must be why he guarded the secrets to his magic so zealously.

If I were smart enough, if I were clever enough, if I were careful enough, I could rewrite the commands embedded into their shards. I could make them mine. Father didn’t think I was enough. My memory was lacking. But I knew who I was now. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter.

And I would show him that even broken daughters could wield power.





14





Sand


Maila Isle, at the edge of the Empire

Sand saw to her own stitches that night, after she’d brought her haul of mangoes back to the village. No one commented that she hadn’t brought a full bag. She wasn’t sure anyone noticed at all. Everyone else was focused on the completion of their own tasks. Once everything was gathered, Grass began to sort through it. That was her task. Sand couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been.

Surely, though, there must have been a time? Grass’s face was scarred as a fallen coconut, the brown backs of her hands spotted as a seal’s fur. Her hair was still black, and her back straight. She wasn’t ancient, but she wasn’t young either, and there must have been a time when she’d been young.

The others all lined up for their dinners, waiting patiently for the food to be scooped into bowls at the cookpot. Fish stew by the smell of it, probably with a side of mango and the hard grains Cloud always harvested from seagrasses.

Sand dipped the needle in and out of her forearm, flinching at the pain and yet relishing it. It seemed to sharpen her senses and her mind – which had felt dulled until she’d fallen from the tree.

She tied it off at the end and gnawed at the string to sever it. And then she went to talk to Grass, whom Sand judged was the eldest among them still living.

“When did you come to Maila?” she asked Grass.

Grass frowned up at Sand, her spotted hands sorting everything into piles – things to eat now, things to eat later, things to save for as long as possible. “Come to Maila?” she repeated. “I’ve always been here.”

“You grew up here?” The words tasted strange on her own tongue. She couldn’t imagine a child-Grass, running about the island. With parents, friends, family. The image wouldn’t cohere. And then Sand thought of herself here as a child, and found she had no concept of herself as a child at all. There must have been a time she’d been a child. She frowned. She couldn’t remember her parents. Surely that was a thing one remembered.

“I’ve always been here,” Grass said.

“Yes, but what about before?”

“Before what?”

“Before Maila. Someone must have come from somewhere . . .” Sand trailed off, suddenly unsure what she was asking. They had always been here. The thought reverberated in her skull, like a chime struck true that wouldn’t stop ringing.

No.

It wasn’t true. How could it be true? They hadn’t sprung up from the rocks like some storied monsters. They were people, and people had parents. People had places they’d come from. Her eyes darted over the people waiting in line.