The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(92)

Ilith would have sentries, of course. The thought seemed to exist in the eye of a storm, a calm spot in the turmoil of my mind.

The beast pushed against me, its maw trying to reach my shoulder. The lamp dropped from my hand and hit the mineshaft floor, the flame mercifully staying lit. Its light showed me a beast like a bear, its eyes flashing. I scrambled with my hands, trying to keep it from biting me – shoving, pressing, my arms a weak counterpoint to the creature’s strength. I wouldn’t be able to stave it off for long. It would tear me to pieces in this passageway. Sweat gathered in the small of my back as I fought for some measure of relief.

Wait. It was a construct.

Its teeth seized my shoulder. I only had one chance at this. I stopped resisting, took in a breath and plunged my right hand into its body.

I felt coarse fur, and then my fingers were inside the creature. It froze, its teeth still digging into my flesh. I winced as I searched inside of it for the bone shards, each movement aching. I found the column of shards near the creature’s spine and pulled the top one off the stack. I had to pry the beast’s jaws from my shoulder before I could move. It had barely broken the skin, though I knew my whole shoulder would be bruised by tomorrow morning. I lifted the lamp to the shard.

“Attack anyone except Ilith, Shiyen and spy constructs.”

That was easy enough to fix. With my engraving tool, I added “and Lin,” and held it over my breast as I carved the identifying star. I pushed it back into the construct and continued on my way before it could awaken. The passage seemed to get darker after that, the path leading ever downward.

I caught the next construct before I rounded the corner where it lived, plunging my hand inside it before it could even react to my presence. Again, I rewrote its attack command. The walls down here shone with a vein of chalky, white witstone. It nearly made up the entire left wall. A wealth of witstone, right beneath the palace. Why had my father shut down these mines? Was it for fear that these passages riddling the rock would destabilize the palace? My father wasn’t a greedy man, but he was practical. If the mine was still producing, he wouldn’t have shut it without good reason.

A little way from the next construct, I found another door.

It looked strange here in the rough passageway, a little brown door with a brass knob. It sat in a round alcove, and the sides had been plastered and bricked off. I tried the doorknob even though I knew already it would be locked. It rattled but didn’t turn. Father didn’t like to leave many doors unlocked. I supposed I was lucky he at least left the latrines unlocked. I pressed my ear to the lacquered wood. It was cool against my cheek. I couldn’t hear anything except my own breathing.

Whatever lay behind that door, it would have to wait until I could find the key and again make my way into these tunnels. Ilith’s lair still lay ahead, if I’d chosen the correct fork.

The passage sloped down again, so steep in some places that I had to use my hands to help lower myself lest I slip. I grew disoriented in the dark, sure but not sure that I’d doubled back somewhere, that there were now tunnels above me in addition to the palace. I felt the weight of so many layers pressing down on me, making it difficult to breathe.

When I first saw the glow ahead of me, I thought it some trick of the light. But when I tucked the lantern below an arm and could still see the glow outlining the passage ahead, I knew – I was close to Ilith’s lair. I knelt and quietly set the lamp on the passageway floor, careful not to let it click against the stone. I drew the engraving tool from my sash and held it in front of me even though I couldn’t do much damage with it. But the weight of it felt better in my hand than nothing.

I crept around the corner.

Something skittered past my feet. I nearly jumped out of my skin. A flash of red fur disappeared around the corner.

My heartbeat pulsed at my throat; my mouth went dry. I froze just like Bayan had the night before, like a rabbit sighting prey. It had been a spy construct. It was here to report to Ilith and it had just passed me on my way into her lair. I wanted to run. My legs were poised to carry me away from here, back up the tunnel, to the safety of my room where I’d spent most of the past five years, under the covers, my breath warming the space beneath the sheets.

But if I went, Ilith would still know. The incontrovertible truth of it made my insides wither. I didn’t have another choice. If I stayed here frozen, I’d lose any chance I had. My chances were already dwindling.

Courage. I crept into the glow of Ilith’s lair.

Three lamps were scattered across the walls, their light dim as tiny moons. Ilith didn’t line her den with fresh hay, not like Mauga or Uphilia. Thick strands of webbing obscured two of the walls. White lines of it were strung across the floor, glittering in the lamplight. I stepped over them, not wanting to test their stickiness. Ilith sat in the center of the room, her back to me. Her hands were busy at work. She wrote missives with two of them. Two others moved over her hair and body, as though they could somehow improve her appearance. The little spy who’d brushed past me sat on its haunches in front of the Construct of Spies and gave its report.

“While they did laundry, two of the servants gossiped about Jovis, the smuggler who has been stealing away children. One of them wondered if he was handsome . . .”

I let out a breath slowly. These rudimentary spy constructs were not people. They did not lead with the most interesting information first. It was going through the day in chronological order. It would take some time before it reported its sighting of me in the corridor.