The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(97)

Numeen.

Even if this was a test, and I’d passed it, my actions had revealed a traitor among his citizens. Perhaps Bayan was right and Father would not beat me for my insolence, for my overreaching. But Numeen would not fare so easily. I sucked in a breath. Or his family.

I reached for Ilith’s face. If I figured out how to fix her before dawn, I could move forward with my plan, could still pretend—

The flesh of her face was cold to my fingertips. I stopped. What was I doing? If I failed, I wouldn’t be the only one paying the price. Even if I succeeded, there was no telling I’d have the chance to see Numeen again. I knew now, and Father might read it on my face. I’d been moving forward with only one goal in mind: prove to my father that I was fit to be his heir. Prove I could be an Emperor like him. A hollow ache started in my chest. Everything I’d done, and I still couldn’t earn his love or his approval. What did my memories matter? I was still his daughter. I’d nearly forced Numeen into helping me, I’d never fulfilled my end of the bargain and he’d brought me to his family. They’d shown me kindness.

I should have broken into Bayan’s room, given Numeen and his family their shards when I’d had the chance, the Endless Sea swallow the risks. They could have been gone from here, escaped to an island on the fringe of the Empire or found shelter with the Shardless Few. I’d made too many false promises, had told too many lies.

I didn’t know how to make it right, but I had to try. How could I be the Emperor they needed if I was always trying to be some past version of myself?

Father would still be asleep. There was time. I left Ilith’s body on the floor and dashed for the door. My heart pounded in time with each step – up, up, out of the old mines and back to the shard storeroom. The palace was calm, undisturbed. My world had shattered, but the world around me remained unchanged. I tried to keep my breathing steady as I closed and locked both doors behind me.

One more task before I left. I put one foot in front of another, darting down the hallways until I came to Bayan’s room. I pounded on it fit to wake the dead.

He opened the door, bleary-eyed, and my ribs were like a vise around my heart. I still couldn’t quite believe it. But I didn’t have time to waste. I pushed past him.

“Why are you—?”

His room was neat and organized – had my father written that into his bones? It was easy to find the unused shards laid out in rows on the desk. I shuffled through them.

“Hey,” Bayan said from behind me. “I’m using those. What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said as I grabbed Numeen’s shard and stuffed it into my sash. “Go back to sleep.”

Bayan grabbed my arm. “You wake me up, rifle through my room and tell me to go back to sleep?”

He didn’t remember. As far as he was concerned, we were still rivals. So I looked him in the eye and thought about what to say. “I’m sorry my father beats you. He shouldn’t. I’m so sorry.”

His eyes went wide, his fingers going slack. “How did you . . . ?”

But I was gone already, out the door, closing it gently behind me. I could only hope he wouldn’t tell my father. I made my way to the palace’s main entrance – because what did it matter now that the spy constructs had no one to report to?

The streets of the city were silent, washed gray by moonlight. It wasn’t raining, but a light drizzle laced my eyelashes with silver. I tried to remember the twists and turns to Numeen’s house, my heart leaping into my throat. Maybe, if I were lucky, I could get there and back and still fix Ilith.

I found the blacksmith shop first. The door and shutters were closed and locked, the lights out. I struggled to orient myself. When Numeen had taken me to his house, it hadn’t been so late. The streets had still been lit, the sounds and smells of dinner cooking wafting from the surrounding buildings. We’d taken a right down the street, that much I remembered. Each of my steps felt hesitant, the darkness a shroud I had to push past.

But I recognized the corner of a house with decorated gutters, another street with uneven cobblestones, a building with a recessed doorway. And all the while my heart beat like I was running, my breath raw. The cold damp of the air met the warm damp of my sweat, mingled into a swampy mixture at the back of my neck.

There.

I wasn’t sure how late it was by the time I found Numeen’s house. Without thinking, I grasped the doorknob and found it locked. Of course.

I knocked.

Nothing but silence greeted me. I knocked again, louder, and waited. Something creaked above me, a dim light shining through the shutters. Shuffling of feet against wood. Light peeked out from below the door.

What if it was one of my father’s constructs? If Bayan wasn’t real, I couldn’t be sure what was real anymore and what was not. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, shook my head, trying to dislodge the fear. I took a chance. “Numeen, it’s me.”

A long exhalation, and then the doorknob rattled. Numeen opened the door, his expression mixed, a lamp held upraised in his left hand. His brow had furrowed somewhere between annoyance and confusion; his lips pressed together and twisted to one side. He was not happy to see me. Still, he stepped to the side to let me in. “You shouldn’t come to my house. Only the shop.”

I didn’t enter. Was my face as bloodless as it felt? “Here.” I reached into my sash pocket, pulled out the paper packet I’d tucked the shards into. “Your shard and your family’s. You need to leave Imperial now. Get as far away from here as possible. Beyond the reach of the Empire.”