The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(60)

“Do you live nearby?” Numeen’s wife asked.

“Not far,” I said. “Closer to the palace.”

She nodded. Most of the wealthier men and women in Imperial City lived close to the palace. It must have served some function years ago, under the rule of prior Emperors, when the palace gates were open, and people could seek an audience. “Your home is very beautiful,” I said to her. It was modest, but large, and someone had painted the beams.

“Very crowded, I think you mean.” A glint of amusement in her eye. She looked pointedly at the clutter in the kitchen, and the two wooden toys splayed out where someone might trip on them. “There are nine of us here, and we all share a room except Grandmama.”

I wasn’t afraid of offending her by letting the assumption stand, but I corrected her nonetheless. “No. I meant it the way I said it.” I tried to think of how to put into words the feeling of being walled in by Numeen on one side and his daughter on the other, elbowing me accidentally each time she took a bite. There was something comforting in that closeness, in the smiles around the table, in the regard they held for one another. “It’s the people who fill it that make it beautiful.”

Her cheeks reddened, though she seemed pleased. “Well, see?” she said to Numeen. “It’s not messy. It’s beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.” He brushed his fingers against her jaw.

It was odd to see him in this environment. In his shop he was gruff and silent, and I’d never seen him smile. Here he relaxed, and even the admonishments to his children were soft. He was like a snake with a freshly shed skin – brighter and more polished, made anew.

I’d lifted a bite to my lips, my head low over my bowl, when my gaze trailed to an open window. A spy construct sat on the lip of it, watching us with black, shiny eyes.

It wasn’t my construct.

What had it seen? What had it heard? I shot to my feet before I realized I’d done so, the presence of my construct a buzz in the back of my mind. “Hao! Capture the spy!” I cried out.

The scrabble of little footsteps sounded, and the spy construct stiffened, its ears swiveling. It darted into Numeen’s house. His brother leapt up, alarmed, and all four children screamed.

Hao appeared in the window, looked for the other construct and dashed for it. They leapt over the pots in the kitchen, unseating one and sending it crashing to the floor. Numeen’s wife seized a spatula and began to chase the creatures, trying to beat them with it.

“Not the one chasing!” I said, but no one seemed to hear me.

Finally, Hao cornered the other spy near the table. Hao jumped, scuffled with it and then pinned it to the ground. Before Numeen’s wife could beat either of them to death, I strode over, the etching tool still heavy in my sash. I knelt, seized the other spy and reached into its body. The shard came free easier this time. And then I took the spy in my hands, went to the window and pushed the shard back into its body. It lay there for a moment and then came back to life, leaping to its feet and scampering away, its mission forgotten.

The room behind me had gone silent.

“Lin is a common name,” Numeen’s wife said. “But it’s also the name of the Emperor’s daughter.”

I turned to find them all looking at me. The house, that had seemed so warm a moment before, now felt frigid as snowmelt. Numeen’s wife took a step toward the children, putting her arms over their shoulders, pulling them in just a little. It was a subtle movement, but one I understood. And Numeen’s brother reached for the soft spot on his skull, the place where his scar was.

I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter.

And I had worked bone shard magic in their home. A place where they could at least pretend, for a little while, that they were safe.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted.

I fled.





22





Jovis


Nephilanu Island

We were already late. I crept through an alleyway toward the city’s marketplace, where the Tithing Festival was being held. According to the locals, they cleared the marketplace of stalls for the Festival every year.

Mephi, now as tall as my knee, pressed his body against my leg. “We do a very good,” he said in a stage whisper.

For what felt like the thousandth time, I made a lowering gesture with my hand.

“A very good,” he said, only a little more quietly.

This was becoming a habit. And people always talked about habits like they were a thing that would kill you one day. “Jovis has a habit of gambling” or “Jovis has a habit of drinking too much melon wine” or “Jovis has a habit of steering his ship into storms”. It seemed, apparently, that what Jovis had actually developed a habit of was rescuing children from the Tithing Festival, and thus getting his face painted onto more stupid posters. It was probably the most foolhardy way to get a lot of portraits done for free.

But how was I to turn all those people away? They hadn’t come empty-handed. I needed the money. Back in that drinking hall, among the ruin I’d made of the Ioph Carn, and their awed faces, I’d felt larger than I actually was. A sparrow who’d mistook himself for an eagle.

And they’d written a bedamned song about me. A song.

So many justifications. So many little lies I kept telling myself. I’d even once told myself that Mephi would be disappointed if I didn’t cave to those people’s pleas. So a habit was best to describe it. Habits were things done with little reason, over and over, until momentum made them more difficult to stop than to keep going. Click click click. I looked around for the source of the noise. Oh. There was the tip of my steel staff, clicking against the stones as I walked. Very stealthy of me. I’d commissioned it at the last island, because hands weren’t great at stopping blades. And now I’d formed yet another habit – tapping it against the ground when I was nervous. I stopped, leaned on it and took a deep breath.