The Bone Shard Daughter

Chapter 4. Lin Imperial Island

Istared at Bayan, my throat tight, feeling my expression shift to shock and surprise. He’d scrubbed his hands and had removed the apron, all traces of blood washed away. I seized control of myself, wiping my expression clean, making sure that was all Bayan saw. He opened his mouth to ask me again what I was doing outside my father’s room. I spoke over him, my mind running just one step ahead of my mouth.

“I was trying to get in, of course,” I said lightly. I reached out and rattled the doorknob.

Bing Tai growled, the sound echoing up and down the empty hall.

We both jumped back. I caught Bayan’s eye. For a moment we just regarded one another. His black eyes were wide, his lips parted, hands outstretched to ward off an attack. I wasn’t sure if he laughed first or if it was me, but for a brief moment our gazes locked and then we both laughed. The door was locked and we were safe. Relief and an odd, forbidden giddiness swept through me. I’d never shared a laugh with Bayan before. I’d laughed at him and him at me, but that was the nature of rivalry. He had seven keys and I had six, and though I was the natural-born heir and Bayan an outsider, he had his eye on the crown. We couldn’t be friends when we both yearned for the same thing.

As if he’d remembered that at the same time I did, his face sobered.

“And besides,” I said, “what are you doing outside my father’s room? I’ve more reason to be here than you.”

“Is that so?” Bayan’s hand went to the keys around his neck. “I’m the one with more access to the palace than you. I was on my way to the library – the secret one.”

“The secret library,” I said flatly. “It’s not a secret if you’ve told me about it.”

He put a finger to his chin. He had to know the gesture only emphasized his firm jawline. “What should I call it then? The magic library? The construct library? The library forbidden to Lin because she just can’t remember?”

My insides boiled like a pot ready to accept a feast of crabs. I breathed out the heat of it and kept my face cool. “If you’re seeking a name that descriptive, might I suggest the library primarily utilized by the pompous boy of no station?”

Bayan clucked his tongue. “The Emperor’s daughter should have better manners. I am his foster-son – that’s no small station. He wanted me to look up the correct command for my deer construct, and I finished my nightly meditations so I’m off to do some research.”

He said it nonchalantly, and it fed my envy. What I would give to find myself in that library, to run my hands over the books, to smell their pages. To learn everything they had to offer. It was my birthright, not his. “You think so highly of yourself. Knowledge can only be wielded by those who dive into its depths and know the shape of it. Reading—”

“—without true understanding is only wading in the shallows without a care for the monsters that lurk beneath,” Bayan finished. “I’m familiar with Ningsu’s Proverbs.”

I hated him; I hated my inability to remember; I hated locks and the keys I needed to open them. What would be worse? My father casting me out and elevating Bayan in my place, or elevating Bayan and leaving me here in the palace to serve him?

Bayan might not have been any good at reading expressions, but he softened regardless. “You spend a lot of time skulking around the palace and playing around with the constructs.”

“I’m not playing,” I said, though I sounded petulant even to my own ears. “I’m studying them.”

“Whatever it is you’re doing –” He lifted his hands, palms to me. “I’ve seen you doing it. The Emperor has seen it. I’ve recovered many of my memories, and it wasn’t by speaking to constructs. I meditated and spent some time on my own. Perhaps if you did the same – if you went to the courtyard or the pond or even just sat in your room and meditated on yourself as you are – you might get your memories back.”

“So simple?” I couldn’t put the bite into it I wanted to. I studied Bayan’s expression – his steady gaze, his thick black brows raised, entreating, his full lips closed but not pressed together – and I realized he did not hate me. He should have hated me. When I had more keys in my possession, after I’d stolen more of them, I’d set up an easy way to frame him, just in case Father caught me. I didn’t have much choice. Bayan wouldn’t be a good Emperor. He was too much like my father, too concerned with secret places and experimental magics.

The Constructs of Bureaucracy, Trade, War and Spies were higher-level constructs that helped Father rule, but it seemed more and more that he hid behind their base competence while he worked on his own mysterious projects.

“Perhaps I will try that,” I said, and Bayan actually smiled at me. I frowned, waiting for the trick, the insult.

“Bayan. Lin.” Father’s voice echoed down the corridor. He coughed into his sleeve but kept limping toward us.

A flush worked its way up my chest, making the air around my neck feel like a furnace. I was an idiot. I’d stood here, trading barbs with Bayan while my father had been finishing his nightly routine. I should have been long gone instead of letting Bayan waylay me. Had he done it on purpose?

But he looked as surprised as I did.

Father’s phoenix-headed cane rapped against the floor as he approached; his slippered feet were silent. One of my earliest memories once I’d awoken from my sickness was seeing my father’s foot, bloodied and bandaged, and asking him what had happened. “An accident,” he’d said gruffly. He’d said it in a way that brooked no more questions.

Father stopped in front of us. “What are you doing outside my room?”

The piece of wood I’d used to hold the door open lay heavy in my pocket. The tips of my ears burned. Be like ice, I willed them. Like the ice at the tops of the tallest mountains. I avoided his gaze and waited for Bayan to answer first. My father would see it on my face if I looked him in the eye. He would study my face and know exactly what I’d done.

Bayan said nothing, and the silence stretched – too long.

“Bayan said he’d show me the secret library.” It was the only thing I could think to say.

Both Bayan and my father took in a breath at the same time, both ready to speak.

A soft tapping came from the window at the end of the hall and we all looked to the source of the sound. A hand appeared on the windowsill, and then two, and then four. Ilith, the Construct of Spies crept through the window, one leg at a time.

I wasn’t sure on which of the floating islands Father had found the abomination that made up the bulk of the Construct of Spies. But I knew I never wanted to visit. The construct looked like nothing so much as a giant spider, dark brown and glistening, as tall as my chest when it stood to attention. Human hands were attached to the end of each of its spindly legs, and an old woman’s face adorned the abdomen. I wanted to look away from the creature but always, inevitably, found my gaze tracking its every movement even as my spine prickled. There was a strange beauty in its grotesqueness. “Your eminence,” the Construct of Spies said. Its voice was hazy, as though spoken through layers of cobwebs. It held a folded missive in one of its front arms. “I’ve received word from our fastest Imperial ships. There has been a disaster.”

My father’s attention slipped from me and Bayan. He leaned on his cane and took the proffered parchment. “A disaster? Have the Shardless Few rebels attacked another island? A mine collapse?”

“No, my master,” the Construct of Spies rasped. “It is Deerhead Island. It has sunk into the sea.”