The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(61)

Rescuing children before they reached the Festival was one thing. Rescuing them at the Festival was quite another. But the parents had been desperate. And generous.

“Keep out of trouble,” I said to Mephi. “You’re still too small.”

He only waggled his head and clacked his teeth at me, like a dog tasting something bitter, but I didn’t have time to admonish him. I peered around the corner.

The square was hung with multicolored flags, someone softly playing a flute in a corner. Distractions for the children. Several of them had started to cry, even in spite of the lulling effects of opium. The sound of it chilled me, reminded me of my brother sobbing that day before he’d gone to the ritual. Five soldiers that I could see, two of them in front of me at the alleyway’s mouth. Three others in the square. One was keeping the children in line. One consulted the census taker’s notes. One stood in the center of the square, chisel already in hand.

And then I caught sight of the child facing the crowd, kneeling in front of that soldier. My mouth went dry. The boy looked like my brother at that age. I still remembered my mother’s hand tight in mine at the Festival, the smell of sweat thick in the air. She’d been squeezing my fingers harder than she’d intended, I think. I hadn’t understood back then. I couldn’t.

Onyu’s gaze had met mine as the soldier numbed the spot behind his ear and peeled back the skin. Blood trickled down his neck, pooling a little at his collarbone. I’d glanced at the soldier’s sweaty face, his lips pressed together as he’d placed the chisel against my brother’s skull, wondering why he was taking so long.

“Little brother, you worry too much. My friends said only one of twenty-five die in the Festival,” he said. He’d always been braver than me.

When the soldier finally hit the chisel, Onyu had been looking at me, his mouth curved in a slight smile. I think he meant to be reassuring. But I watched the life go out of his eyes as the chisel went too far, as it dug into his brain. One moment there, the next gone, surely as a flame snuffed out by the wind.

I didn’t know. Not until my mother held his limp body in her arms and started wailing.

One in twenty-five. And I’d done nothing to stop it.

I’d only been six then, and too small to make any real difference. Now, here, I had the power to push back. I should have waited to attack, gathered more information. But I found my feet moving forward before I could stop them. Habit.

I struck both soldiers in front of me at the same time, aiming for the same spot on the back of the skull. Both crumpled. My hands ached, only briefly. The injuries I’d sustained from my drinking-hall brawl with the Ioph Carn had faded quickly. I wasn’t sure what Mephi was, and I wasn’t sure what this bond between us had done to me, but the precipice had been the day I’d let Mephi back onto my boat. I’d careened past that and now all I could do was see where this led.

Right now it was leading me to pull the soldiers’ unconscious bodies into the alleyway. The milling children and parents in the square were so caught up in their own fears that none of them seemed to notice the soldiers’ absence. When they did, I doubted they’d raise an alarm. That was the problem with ruling a populace that didn’t love you. Few people cared when you got hurt.

Five children, all of them friends and neighbors. The parents had pooled together money to pay me.

I leaned over to whisper in one woman’s ear. “My name is Jovis. I’m here to help the children. When I say ‘stop’, get everyone out of the way. Tell your friends.”

The woman stiffened a little at the sound of my voice, but then nodded and tapped on a man’s shoulder.

I felt something rub against my knee. Mephi, trotting along beside me like some sort of strange dog. People started to notice. When he’d been kitten-sized, he’d been easy to pass over. Now, his odd features couldn’t escape attention. His webbed paws smoothly navigated the uneven streets. His legs had grown only marginally, but his neck had lengthened a little. The nubs atop his head were now prominent, the fur there rubbed bare, though the horns beneath had not broken past skin. And he’d begun to shed. Not fur, but a soft and pale dandruff that shook loose like flour whenever he was dry.

One of the soldiers by the group of children followed a villager’s gaze. His eyes widened.

“Stop!” I cried out.

The square erupted into chaos. People moved toward the alleys. The soldiers all turned to find the source of the shout. Children tumbled toward me, past me, moving like molasses in their drugged states. Mephi, disobedient as ever, darted out to help round them up. “Mephi!” It was useless, it always was.

The soldiers reached for their swords. I lifted my staff and braced it between my hands, ready to meet them.

And then I heard the creak of bending wood from above. On the rooftops, four archers crept to the peak of the roofs and crouched, reaching for arrows. This bond with Mephi gave me speed and strength; what it hadn’t given me was better hearing. Or a bigger brain. I should have known this would happen. One of the parents had told the Empire, and the Empire had set a trap for me. I was oddly flattered – they’d never tried to set a trap for me when I’d been a smuggler, which was probably why I’d been able to get away with that shipment of witstone.

Two more soldiers emerged from an alley. Nine against one.

I took in a breath and the thrumming begin in my bones, like the cavernous breathing of some enormous animal. I tightened my grip on the staff.