The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(57)

My fingers met only fur and flesh, and the spy construct squeaked.

“By Dione’s balls!” I wiped the sweat gathering on my forehead. I had time, at least. I wasn’t rushing back to beat my father to his rooms. No keys, just the beginner’s book beneath one arm. I could stay out all night before he noticed I was gone.

I wasn’t concentrating hard enough; I was angling my fingers the wrong way . . . I wasn’t even sure what I was doing wrong. My father and Bayan had locked themselves into a room to practice the bone shard commands, so I had time. I looked to Numeen. He’d be packing up soon, heading back to his family for a well-deserved meal. I should hurry. I shook out my fingers, closed my eyes, breathed deeply. What had the book said? To imagine I was dipping my fingers below the surface of a lake.

But I hadn’t been to a lake before, not that I could remember. So I thought about dipping my hands into the pond by the Hall of Good Fortune, feeling blindly for the koi fish beneath. My breathing steadied, my heartbeat slowing.

I lowered my fingers.

It was more like a warm bath than the pond at home. I still felt the creature’s fur tickling my palm, but beneath it the flesh was liquid between my fingertips. Something small and jagged met my touch. A bone shard. I had to tug a little to free it, but it came loose. The hammer stopped striking the anvil.

When I opened my eyes, I held the bone shard between my fingers, and Numeen was looking at me with a mixture of fear and awe. The spy construct lay frozen in place beneath my hand. “Do you have an etching tool?” I asked.

After a moment’s hesitation, he reached into a drawer, pulled out a thin metal tool and tossed it to me. I caught it in my free hand and turned the shard over. There was a gray smudge on it, which I wiped clean. I squinted at the commands etched onto the tiny shard and set to work.

Amunet – to observe. Pilona – servant. Beneath that, in subtext, was written remal – clothing – with what looked like a star etched next to it. Next to pilona was written essenlaut – within these walls – with another star etched next to it. On a new line, oren asul – report and obey – and then Ilith, with one more star etched next to it. I stuffed the construct back into its iron birdcage and studied the words for a moment. Amunet pilona essenlaut. Oren asul Ilith. The answer came to me, quick as a minnow darting from the shallows. The construct was to observe servants within the palace walls, and report to and obey Ilith.

I couldn’t change much. The shard had already been bound to the palace, to the servant’s clothing and to Ilith. But I had a clean shard in my sash pocket.

I pulled out the fresh shard, took the etching tool and created my own command, trying not to think too much on whose shard this might be. Oren asul Lin. And then I pressed the shard to my breast, and while doing so, carved a little star next to my name.

The construct inside the cage hadn’t moved. With a deep breath, I closed my eyes again, held my breath and lowered my fingers to its body. Again I felt the warmth, the strange sensation of moving my fingers through liquefied flesh. I lodged the shard inside and drew my fingers away.

As soon as my fingers left the construct’s body, I felt it leap to its feet again.

“You’re mine now too, little one,” I whispered to it. I gave it a little pat on the head and pulled a nut from my sash. “Your name is Hao. When I call your name, you must do as I say.”

The little thing whisked it from my fingers, turning it over in its paws, devouring it. When it was done, it groomed its whiskers and then leapt to Numeen’s shelves. It scampered along, leapt to another one and then absconded out the open window above Numeen’s head.

I was safe.

I held out the etching tool to Numeen, but he shook his head. “Keep it. Looks like you need it.” He turned back to putting away his tools and extinguishing the fire in the forge. And then, falsely casual: “Did you happen to find my shard yet?”

The question was always like a knife, twisting in my ribs. I’d checked more than once, but Bayan still kept Numeen’s shard. “Not yet.” I kept my tone neutral. “I’m still looking for the room where my father keeps the shards for Imperial.”

He nodded like that made sense. “It will be difficult, taking your place as Emperor,” he observed, “if you do not have the key to all the shard storerooms.”

“There are many rooms in the palace, and most of them locked.” I didn’t have to feign any bitterness. “I can steal maybe two keys at a time, but if I didn’t make it back in time, my father would notice. One key he might pass off as some other accident. I wish I could do this faster, I really do. But there is much he doesn’t wish me to know.”

Numeen frowned. I knew the way of it on most islands. Children often learned their trade from one of their parents, or at times from a close and trusted friend. But knowledge was meant to be shared, one generation to the next. Instead, my father locked it away from me, guarding it more jealously than he did the piles of witstone in his storeroom. I shook my head. “I should go. You need to get back to your family.” A warm home, a warm meal, a warm bed.

He rubbed his big hands over his face and let out a sigh. “What do you do for meals most nights?” He asked like he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

“Sometimes Father requests my presence at dinner. Otherwise, I call a servant to bring food to my room.”