The Bone Shard Daughter

Chapter 33. Lin Imperial Island

“Iam sick,” I said to the spy construct. “Say it back to me in my voice.”

The little construct rose onto its hind legs, its nose quivering. “I am sick,” Hao said. Its voice was a little bit higher than mine despite its efforts, but it was a fair enough approximation.

“Good.” I plumped the pillows beneath my covers and guided the construct beneath the blanket. “Stay here until I return. If someone knocks at the door, say ‘I am sick’ in my voice.” Hao’s tail twitched like it understood. And even though I knew I didn’t have to give it anything and that it would follow my orders regardless, I took a nut out from my sash pocket and gave it to the little beast.

It devoured it in moments, leaving behind crumbs on the bedsheet that it sniffed out to find and devour. I let the covers fall.

I’d rewritten Mauga and Uphilia. Ilith, the Construct of Spies, was next. The door to her lair lay within the shard storeroom – the small door at the back. I wondered if Ilith left and entered through this way, or if, like the spy constructs, she had some hole that she crawled in and out of, dirt clinging to the underside of her carapace. I shuddered.

Night had long since fallen, but I wasn’t sure how long this journey would take me. I’d known exactly where Mauga’s and Uphilia’s lairs were. Ilith’s was more of a mystery to me. That it was through that door, I knew. How far I’d go after that, I had no idea. I tucked my engraving tool into my sash pocket. This time, I’d not brought any extra shards. I’d do this the right way, without hurting anyone.

I slipped out into the silent hallway. The palace was like a shrine at night, lit by the odd lamp here or there, the wooden floorboards creaking a little beneath my weight. When everyone was asleep, I felt alone in the world. There was a comfort in that loneliness, the soft touch of black silk wrapped around me, hiding me away. My father might have ruled the Empire, but when he was asleep, when Bayan and all the servants were asleep, this palace was my kingdom. I held the keys to its doors and plied its secrets from its rooms.

The bone shard storeroom hadn’t changed since I’d last left it. I lit the lamp by the door, illuminating the rows of shelves and drawers, all neatly tucked away. So many lives contained in those drawers, so much power for my father.

It didn’t take me long to find the shards of Numeen’s family, searching by their ages and their names. They felt odd in my hands, now that I knew their owners. These little pieces of them, these bones. They clicked together like lacquered cards in my hands. I didn’t have Numeen’s but I had his family’s. That would mean something.

Tucking all the shards into my sash, I made my way to the door at the back of the room and to the cloud juniper door. With a deep breath, I drew out the key Numeen had made for me and inserted it into the lock. He underestimated his work. It turned smoothly, without the hint of give. The door swung open noiselessly, revealing only darkness beyond. The air inside was cooler, damp with moisture. It smelled like rain and decay.

There were no lanterns on the inside of this door. I had to take the lantern by the first door and bring it with me. The hallway I illuminated only continued a short distance before a set of steps descended into the earth. My insides quaked as I approached the steps. Of all the places I’d been inside the palace, this felt the darkest, like the bowels of some enormous beast, long since dead. The walls around me turned to dirt and stone. I remembered what I’d read – that there had once been a witstone mine on Imperial and my father had shut it down. Was this the remains of it? It certainly felt like the sort of place Ilith would make into her lair.

I came to a fork in the path.

This I hadn’t expected. Both passageways looked the same when I held my lamp into their mouths. What if I got lost? All I could imagine was being trapped in these passages, the weight of the earth above me. I’d gone willingly into my own tomb.

I swallowed the fear. This wasn’t a maze. Not yet. I could easily find my way out by tracing back my steps. If I panicked here, how much more would I panic when facing down Ilith herself with her eight limbs and eight hands? I breathed in deep and then out, and chose the left passage. The darkness seemed to swallow the sound of my footsteps.

A smell hit me when I’d gone ten paces in. It smelled like Mauga – musky, like old dried urine, hay and dung. I swung my lantern in front of me, my hand trembling. A growl. The flash of yellow eyes. And then something slammed into me, a wall of coarse fur, the wet warmth of a slathering mouth.

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.

Ilith’s back was turned. I could make it there and start working with her shards before I was given away. I took a few rapid steps forward while the spy construct droned on. Just a little farther.

“Another servant spoke about the rebellion, and wondered how long it would take them to get to Imperial…”

Another few steps. I caught a foot on the sticky web and had to bend to extricate it. Despite the cold of the cavern, sweat trickled down my scalp and behind my ears. I didn’t dare wipe it away. I was close to Ilith now, so close I could touch her. She smelled earthy and faintly of mold. Her carapace was thick and shiny. I hovered a hand over it. Would it give the way the other constructs’ flesh had? Or would my fingers just bounce against it?

“And on my way here, I saw Lin Sukai in the passages.”

Ilith stopped writing. She set down her pens and rose, her body rising from the floor. “Lin Sukai? How far into the passages?”

I didn’t wait for the spy construct’s answer. I reached for Ilith’s body. Her slick carapace met my fingertips. I pushed against it and found no give.

Ilith screeched – a sound halfway between man and beast. She whirled, her abdomen knocking me to the ground, the nails from her eight hands clicking against the stone floor. I tried to rise but couldn’t; I’d fallen on a piece of web and it clung to my tunic. She was over me in a flash, her old woman’s face next to mine, her body blocking the light. “Lin Sukai,” she said. Her breath smelled of old blood. “Did you think to sneak up on the master of spies in her own lair?”

“I nearly did,” I spat back at her.

She grabbed me by the front of my tunic with two of her arms. Another two seized my ankles. “I could tear you limb from limb right here.”

“Is that what my father commanded you do?”

She laughed. “You have no idea what sort of commands live inside my flesh. You think you can move about this palace and maybe even use bone shard magic, but there are complexities you could never understand.”

In answer, I wriggled free of one of her hands and pushed my fingers into her face. She stiffened. The carapace hadn’t given when I’d tried, but flesh was flesh. The sight of my hand submerged into her face made me feel a bit ill, but I had to rewrite her commands. I felt around for the shards.

I was elbow-deep in Ilith’s face before I found them. They weren’t in a thin column like in Mauga or even Uphilia. They were crowded into clusters. They felt like pine cones. I pulled one at random, trying to imprint in my memory where I’d pulled it from.

When I pulled it out and held it to the light, my courage failed. Ilith was right. I didn’t understand what was written there. There were some formulas, a few words I didn’t know. Frightened, I pushed it back inside and pulled another one. This one had a few words I knew: “when”, “never” and “look out”. I blinked, hoping I just wasn’t seeing the words correctly. I’d read so many books in the library – had I thought those would be enough? I must have just gotten lucky with Mauga and Uphilia. Ilith was a strange, solitary creature, and Father trusted her counsel. He’d made a construct that was nearly as complex as he was.

I pulled shard after shard from Ilith, examining them, trying to discern a pattern to the commands. Of the ones I could decipher, I could see that my father had given her much of her own judgment, marked by parameters I didn’t understand.

At last, I found a shard that spoke of obedience to Shiyen.

“Obey Shiyen unless it runs counter to your wisdom and intelligence.” Both “wisdom” and “intelligence” had numbers written above them. I searched for the reference shards and only found shards that each held at least five more references.

I wanted to tear out my own hair. How could I rewrite something I didn’t fully understand? This would be an even messier job than I’d done on Mauga and Uphilia. But while both of those had been sloppy, they seemed to have held up. My father had called them both to the dining room since I’d rewritten their commands, and he hadn’t seemed to notice a difference.

I puzzled out the obedience command again. I bit my lip. I could still change this in a way to work to my advantage. The number “11” was written next to wisdom. I could change that. I held the shard against my breast and went over the “11” with an engraving tool, molding it into a identification star. Ilith would now obey my father unless it ran counter to me and her intelligence. And I could give her another command. I reached inside her and removed the original intelligence reference shards. This would work. It would have to.

The last construct I had to rewrite was the Construct of War. His lair wasn’t difficult to find. It was a suite of rooms across from my father’s.

I pocketed the reference shards and stepped away from Ilith. She’d awaken soon, and I’d need to get away. Like the other constructs, she wouldn’t remember the moments just before I’d rewritten her.

I stepped carefully over the floor, avoiding the webs. The lighting here was dim, and the webs were difficult to see. My foot caught in a web despite my best efforts. I pulled and shook my foot, trying to dislodge it. A scraping sounded from behind me, and I glanced back to see if Ilith was awake yet.

She writhed on the floor, her eight limbs kicking out to the sides as though she’d fallen onto a patch of ice and could not rise from it. A moan emerged from her mouth. “What happened?” she said. I shrank back, wishing there was something I could hide behind. Ilith managed to get two of her feet beneath her. She pulled herself toward me, dragging her abdomen across the floor. “You. You did something to me.”

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.”