The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(5)

Deerhead Island was swarming with the Emperor’s soldiers. And here I was – a trader without an Imperial contract, who’d had more than one run-in with the Empire’s soldiers. I held the edge of my sleeve in my fingers as I navigated the streets. I’d gotten the rabbit tattoo when I’d passed the navigational exams. It was less pride and more practicality. How else would they identify my swollen and bloated body if I washed ashore? But now, as a smuggler, the tattoo was a liability. That and my face. They’d gotten the jawline wrong on the posters, the eyes were too close together and I’d cut my curling hair short since then, but aye, it was a likeness. I’d been paying gutter orphans to take them down, but then five days later I’d see some damned construct putting another one back up.

It was a shame that Imperial uniforms didn’t come with hats.

I should have taken my witstone and fled, but Emahla was a string in my heart that fate couldn’t seem to stop tugging. So I set my feet one in front of the other and did my best to appear as bland and blank as possible. The man at the docks had said the disappearance was recent, so the trail was still fresh. I didn’t have much time. The soldier hadn’t seen me before I’d clobbered him, but he’d patched a section of the left elbow and he’d recognize his uniform.

The street narrowed ahead, sunlight filtering down through gaps between the buildings and laundry hung to dry. Someone inside called out, “Don’t keep me waiting! How long does it take to put on a pair of shoes?” I wasn’t far from the ocean, so the air still smelled like seaweed, mingled with cooking meat and hot oil. They’d be preparing their children for the Festival, and preparing the Festival meal for when their children returned. Good food couldn’t heal wounds of body and soul, but it could soothe them. My mother had prepared a feast for my trepanning day. Roasted duck with crisped skin, grilled vegetables, fragrant and spiced rice, fish with the sauce still bubbling. I’d had to dry my tears before eating it.

But that was a time long past for me – the scar behind my right ear long since healed. I ducked beneath a shirt hung too low and still damp, and found the drinking hall the man at the docks had described.

The door creaked as I opened it, scraping a well-worn path along the wooden floorboards. This early in the morning, it should have been empty. Instead, Imperial guards lurked in dusty corners, dried fish hanging from the ceiling. I made my way to the back, my shoulder against the wall, my wrist hidden by my thigh, my head down. If I’d been a better planner, I’d have wrapped the tattoo. Ah well. My face was the bigger problem, and I couldn’t wrap that.

A woman stood behind the counter, her broad back to me, hair tied up in a handkerchief with a few loose strands stuck to her neck. She hunched over a wooden cutting board, her fingers nimbly pleating dumplings.

“Auntie,” I said to her, deferential.

She didn’t turn around. “Don’t call me that,” she said. “I’m not old enough to be anyone’s auntie except to children.” She wiped her floured hands on her apron, sighed. “What can I get for you?”

“I wanted to talk,” I said.

She turned around then and gave my uniform a long look. I don’t think she even glanced at my face. “I sent my nephew along to the square already. The census takers would have marked him by now. Is that what you’re here for?”

“You’re Danila, right? I have questions about your foster daughter,” I said.

Her face closed up. “I’ve reported everything I know.”

I knew the reception she’d received upon her report, because Emahla’s parents had gotten the same – the shrugged shoulders, the annoyed expressions. Young women ran away sometimes, didn’t they? And besides, what did they expect the Emperor to do about it?

“Just leave me in peace,” she said before turning back to her dumplings.

That soldier in the alleyway might be waking up right now with a splitting headache and a good many questions on his lips. But – Emahla. Her name chased itself around my head, spurring me to action. I slid around the end of the counter and joined Danila at the cutting board.

Without waiting for any sort of approval, I picked up the wrappings and the filling and began to pleat. After a startled moment, she began again. Behind us, two soldiers bet on their game of cards.

“You’re good,” she begrudged me. “Very neat, very quick.”

“My mother. She was – is – a cook.” I shook my head with a rueful smile. It had been so long since I’d been home. Another life, almost. “Makes the best dumplings in all the isles. I ran about a lot, sailing and studying for the navigational exams, but I always liked to help her. Even after I passed.”

“If you passed the navigational exams, why are you a soldier?”

I weighed my options. I was a good liar – the best. It was the only reason I still had a head on my shoulders. But this woman reminded me of my mother, gruff but kindhearted, and I had a missing wife to find. “I’m not.” I slid my sleeve up enough to show the rabbit tattoo.

Danila looked at the tattoo, and then at my face. Her eyes narrowed, then widened. “Jovis,” she said in a whisper. “You’re that smuggler.”

“I’d prefer ‘most successful smuggler in the last one hundred years’, but I’ll settle for ‘that smuggler’.”