The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(74)

This one was not a command shard but simply a reference shard engraved with the tax formulas for witstone.

Another shard dealt with the constructs that reported to Mauga. There were general shards about behavior and temperament. Mauga should be “slow to anger” but “ready to use his claws in defense of the Empire”.

Other shards related to the system of island governors, and the management of the Empire’s mines. One, near the bottom, was a command to never reopen the mine on Imperial Island. That one I considered for a while before replacing. I hadn’t known there had ever been a witstone mine on Imperial.

The light was fading. I dared to open the curtain wider. I needed to come up with a command that would allow me to assume control of Mauga when the time came.

Obey Shiyen always. “Always” was the sticking point.

Time ticked past until I almost thought I could hear the knocking of the water clock in the entrance hall. Sweat trickled down my shoulders and tickled at the small of my back. I wished I’d brought parchment and ink with me so I could scratch out possible solutions. Instead, I turned the words over in my head, trying to find a weakness in them.

I replaced it several times, pulling out other shards and puzzling over their meanings. But I always came back to the first one. This one took precedence, and if I moved too much, Mauga wouldn’t function properly and Father would find me out. I needed to be subtle.

The moon rose and an ache started behind my eyes.

I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. It was my place to succeed him and my place to make him proud. It was my identity.

Identity.

The identifying mark. With trembling fingers, I reached into Mauga and seized the highest command again.

The star next to Shiyen. Mauga didn’t have an independent concept of who or what Shiyen was. My father had held the bone to his bare chest and engraved the mark.

I could do the same. I could be Mauga’s Shiyen.

I moved aside the collar of my tunic, held the shard to my chest, and took up the engraving tool. I carved over the star, carefully, and felt the change take place in the command.

I placed the shard back inside Mauga and began removing others.

If I let Mauga go, my Shiyen would contradict my father’s Shiyen. Mauga wouldn’t function properly, if he functioned at all.

So I sifted through the other shards for mentions of my father’s name. And when I found them, I added one more stroke, changing Shiyen to Shiyun.

It was close enough to my father’s actual name, and the constructs so rarely ever used his actual name, calling him “Eminence” or “Emperor” instead. It could work – at least until I’d finished rewriting all four of my father’s highest constructs.

As I sifted through them, I searched for one I could modify to replace the highest command. Mauga would still need to obey my father, at least until I was ready.

At last, near the bottom, I found one I could use. Ey Shiyen ome nelone vasa – tell Shiyen about unusual things. A catch-all.

I thought for a moment and then put my engraver to the bone, modifying the command to Esun Shiyun ome nelone bosa – obey Shiyun about most things.

Sloppy, but it just might work. I put it back into Mauga’s body, just below the command to obey me always.

And then I backed away from the construct just as he began to come back to life. I left, swiftly, before he could notice I was there. I blinked in the light of the hallway; the servants had lit the lamps while I’d been working.

I’d done what I could. If it worked, it worked. If it didn’t, I’d have to face the consequences.

I hurried back to my room, trying to run the scent of Mauga off of me. My door, when I returned, was ajar.

My heart pounded in my ears; my mouth went dry.

I pushed the door open, nudging it a little at a time. Someone was sitting on my bed, shrouded in the darkness of the room. Whoever it was sat still, as still as Mauga had when I’d removed shards from his body.

I wanted to run, to go anywhere but into my room where that dark figure waited. But it was my room, and the journal was in there, hidden beneath the bed. If I fled, I’d be leaving my room to be ransacked.

I took a lamp down from its hook on the hallway wall and thrust it before me, trying not to tremble. “Hello?”

No reply. And then, soft and rasping as a cat’s tongue: “I need your help.”

Bayan. The fear left me in a rush, like a wave eroding the sand beneath my feet. It left my knees weak and my step unsteady. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I couldn’t think of where else to go.” His head jerked to the side.

There was something wrong with him. I could tell by the way he moved and by the way he didn’t move. I caught my breath and stride into my room, a little bit annoyed. “Father is probably better equipped to help you, no matter what the problem is.”

“No!” he cried out.

I stopped in my tracks, the lamp held high. This close, I could see him shaking, as though he’d caught a chill. “Bayan?”

He turned his face to me.

I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak. Dread dropped a weight in my belly. Bayan’s high-boned cheeks sagged. His lower eyelids fell away from his eyes, leaving red pockets of flesh gaping like two extra mouths. It was as if he were made of wax and someone had held a flame to his flesh. “Do you know what he does? He’s growing things down there, Lin. He’s growing . . . people. His experiments.”