The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(83)

“But will you remake what’s broken?”

“We will build something new. No more Tithing Festivals, no more Emperor. Free trade and movement between the islands,” Gio said. “No governors, but a Council made up of representatives from all the known islands.” He pulled out a couple of jars, looked at my face, mixed some colors from them and then dabbed them on my nose.

“And what happens to you when all this is done?”

“I build a farm somewhere, live out the rest of my days. I don’t want to be Emperor if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m just the midwife for something new.”

His words sounded practiced, like he’d said them a thousand times. I knew a liar when I met one. I recognized one each time I saw my own reflection. And now, looking into Gio’s remaining eye, I felt as though I looked upon the glassy surface of a lake on a windless day.

He met my gaze. “What does it matter to you? You’re a smuggler. You’re not invested in this society. You live outside it.”

He was redirecting my question, trying to put me on the defensive. I knew these tricks. “And how will we choose this Council, Gio? All these people who hate the Empire, who hate everyone who has been involved in it – how do we get everyone to join into a common purpose? Will you be the one to heal these wounds? How will you do that from your quiet farm? The Sukais once thought they would heal the wounds left by the Alanga.”

He straightened my leather jerkin and checked his work. He nodded, evidently satisfied. “Here.” He drew a straw hat from the bag at his side and handed it to me. He apparently thought a little farther ahead than I did. “You do what you said you would. I can tell you what I will do, I can make pretty speeches, but it’s the doing that counts. Go.”

The best of intentions could be subverted by greed. And beneath the practiced speeches, Gio was the same as most men I’d ever known. He had a wanting heart. They all did. I just didn’t know what he wanted. But I went. This wasn’t my fight. I wasn’t one of them, swallowing their lies the way a drowning sailor swallowed seawater.

Emahla, for you. I would drink a thousand lies just to see your face again.

I used the map to trace my way through the trees and toward the road, looking for the landmarks I’d seen on my way in. Even so, everything appeared different than it had a few days before. A jaguar yowled somewhere in the forest, making me jump. When I scratched an itch at my forehead, my hand came away damp with sweat. Much as I hated to admit it, Mephi was right.

Alone was bad.

But I made it to the road and to the city before noon. Children scampered across the streets, searching for food in the kitchen scraps thrown from windows the night before. They were ragged and desperate as hungry rats. A few of them eyed me, as though they might find something worth taking on my person if only they all attacked me at once. Back home on our small island, we hadn’t had cities large enough for gutter children. Any unwanted babes were quickly fostered by families who desired children.

I’d seen them huddled in alleys before, but I didn’t think it was a sight I could ever become accustomed to. Gio helped the shard-sick. Would Gio do something for the orphans, too? I dropped a few coins onto the street for them and increased my pace. I was more afraid of hurting them than the other way around.

I heard a scrape behind me – an orphan stooping to gather coins? – and remembered Ranami’s words. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw only the cobblestones of the street. If someone had been there, they’d moved quickly. I tightened my grip around my staff and felt the thrum in my bones. I did not need to fear, even if Mephi was not with me. The woman Gio had sent had walked this same path, but she hadn’t had the strength I did.

Still, I’d not lived so long as a smuggler by denying my instincts. I ducked onto a side street, found a crowd of fishermen heading to the market from the docks and slipped into their midst.

“At least we have boats,” a woman said to the man next to her. “If it happens here, we’ll have the chance to escape.”

It took me a moment to realize they were talking about Deerhead.

“Do you think that matters?” the man replied. “You could be crushed in your bed, or not get your boat unmoored in time. I wish we knew why it happened. How could a mining accident sink an entire island?”

The smell of them reminded me of my father, and the one next to me even looked to have some Poyer blood. He was shorter and ruddier than his fellows, and just the feel of him at my side reminded me of my father. I almost expected him to start muttering random facts about fish or sails or seawater. My father had been born outside the reach of the Empire, up in the mountains of the Poyer isles. He’d not had a shard taken from him. But the Endless Sea called to him when the Poyer isles had ventured close to the Empire, and he liked to say that when he met my mother, he knew he’d never go back to the mountains. The man shifted away from me, breaking the illusion.

I’d have to double back to the drinking hall.

I should have hurried but I took my time, relishing being out in the open again, away from the dark corridors of the Shardless hideout. An ocean breeze tickled my scalp; the calls of seabirds sounded in the distance. Mephi, had he been here, would have been weaving between my feet, begging me to buy him some treat he could smell on the wind. I stopped in a couple of places to take a look behind me. If someone had followed me, they were gone.