The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(94)

I couldn’t move, my throat too tight to breathe through, my heart drumming against my ribs. I pulled my foot free of the web and stumbled, my gaze still on Ilith’s face. The flesh there began to sag and wrinkle. I took two steps toward the exit.

There could be no running from this problem. It would follow me into the palace hallways above, back to my bed, to haunt me in the dining hall where I sat across from my father. He would notice if something were wrong with Ilith. I wished things could be different, but wishing so was like throwing coins into the Endless Sea and hoping for some return. Turning around felt harder than anything I’d done in my life. But I turned to face Ilith.

And then I ran at her.

I’d always been quick, and running on the rooftops and scaling the walls had refined my strength. She batted at me with her many hands and I flung them away. It was like pushing aside the branches of a fir tree to find the trunk beneath. Her face emerged from within the flurry of her hands. I plunged my fingers into her flesh. Ilith went still, all her brittle upraised hands framing her face. The warmth of her body cocooned my arm. I reached for the clusters of shards, the rough edges like eggshells. I pulled out a shard, and then another, examining my work, trying to find out where I’d gone wrong. The command I’d rewritten should be fine, but I was missing something among the reference shards.

A sick feeling seized my throat, blossomed out until I could taste bitterness on the back of my tongue. I couldn’t stop moving, shifting shards in and out, searching for the mistake I’d made, my fingers trembling.

I couldn’t find it.

I sagged onto the stone floor and felt her webs stick to my shins. I’d dealt with Mauga and Uphilia. I should have gone for Tirang before Ilith, gotten more practice in first. Because here I was, faced with my father’s most powerful construct – and I was at a loss. I gritted my teeth until I felt my jaw would crack. I had to keep trying. I shoved myself to my feet, ready to try once more.

Soft laughter echoed from the cavern walls. Ilith’s sides heaved. “You little idiot. You think this is how you show your father you are worthy? That this is how you earn his love?”

I sucked in a breath, my chest aching. “I don’t want his love.” But a small part of me did. Why couldn’t we go back to the beginning when I had my memories? I was different then; maybe he was too.

“You think he doesn’t know?”

“That I don’t want his love?” The ache turned into a roiling unease. It wasn’t that. There was something else. Something I’d missed.

Ilith’s melting face smiled, and my stomach clenched.

“Your keys, your trips outside the city. Your blacksmith friend. Your blacksmith friend’s family. He knows, Lin. And he’s never loved a fool.”





34





Jovis


Nephilanu Island

I examined the floor, trying to find the spot the man had tripped over. He’d looked so startled, like something invisible had slammed into his knees. The floor remained unremarkable.

Gio pulled out the scroll again. “If we take the correct hallways, we can almost entirely avoid guards at all. The riots should be starting any moment now – I told them at nightfall – and that will thin out their resources further. We just need to time this right.”

I pushed back the hood of my cloak, tasting rain on my lips. I didn’t think I could push people about with my mind. At least, I’d never done it before. It wouldn’t have even been something I’d thought to do. “Gio,” I said, my voice low, “that wasn’t me.”

He glanced at me and then back at the scroll. “What do you mean?”

“Whatever knocked the guard over. It wasn’t me.” A liar through and through, but sometimes the truth was the best route. “I don’t have my abilities right now. I don’t know why –” a lie “– but I don’t. I’ve tried. I tried when that construct in the city attacked me.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t do anything,” Gio said with a frown. “It could have been you. Maybe something new you’ve not done before. Maybe it just feels different. Or maybe the man tripped over his own feet.” He shook his head. “We don’t have time for this.”

And then he slipped into the hallway without waiting for my response.

What if it’s someone else? I’d never considered that someone else might have similar strange abilities to mine. Would they have a friend like Mephi, or were they like the cloudtree monks, who drank the cloud juniper tea and ate the berries for unnatural strength? The Empire was vast, and there were islands beyond even its reach. I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

I could leave. Leave Gio to his mad quest. Find some way to get Mephi through the crack of an entrance and back to my boat.

Gio was waiting for me. I could hear his breathing from the hall. “You’re a good man,” my mother had said to me days before I’d left without so much as a note. “Your brother would never have lamented the fact that he died and you didn’t. Even if you do.”

If I’d been a good man, I would have died a long time ago. “Fine,” I snarled to no one in particular. I stepped into the hall and shut the door behind me.

Gio was already silently lifting a chair from a nearby table. He wedged it beneath the door’s handle. “For our friend within,” he whispered. “Though we should be done before he wakes. Let’s go.”