Chapter 13. Lin Imperial Island
Istared at the spy construct on the shelf, my mouth dry, my heart fluttering at my ribs like a caged bird. It must have come in through one of the high windows, sent to skulk around the palace at night, checking for anything gone awry. It had found what it had been looking for.
It would scurry back to the courtyard and beneath the boulder in the center, down into whatever lair the Construct of Spies lurked in, and it would tell her I’d been found where I didn’t belong. My father would disown me and the Empire would fall into pieces at his death. It would be broken.
Like I was broken.
No. I gritted my teeth. I could not let this be the end.
We moved at the same time – the construct toward the window, and I toward the construct. It reached the end of the shelf at the same time that I reached out my hand.
I expected to close my fingers around empty air, but I was quicker than Bayan or Father had ever been. I caught the creature by its winding tail. It screeched, a terrible, high-pitched sound that rebounded from the walls and shelves. It rang in my ears. By all the isles and the Endless Sea, it would wake even the servants in their separate quarters! I pulled the creature tight to my chest, curling my hands around it. Its teeth clamped down on my palm.
That smarted. I did my best not to cry out. I jerked my hand away and swaddled the construct in the bottom of my tunic. It shrieked at me until I wrapped its head too. It could still breathe through the cloth. If I killed it, where could I hide the body? I could take it outside the palace walls, leave it somewhere or bury it.
But the shards would no longer take life from their former owners. There’d no longer be a need to suck life away to power the construct. And my father always seemed to know when one of his constructs died.
It would raise too many questions. I had to keep the construct alive for now.
Scenarios ran through my head. If I kept it in the palace, I’d be found out. Father didn’t come often to my room, but he did sometimes, and Bayan more often – to fetch me or to bother me. And there were other spy constructs in the palace, always watching.
I could only think of one place to keep the creature.
By the time I reached the blacksmith’s shop, the sun was cresting the horizon. I’d cleaned up the mess in the library and had dropped off the journal in my room. I’d taken another tunic to wrap around the construct. This would be cutting things close. My father and Bayan usually both stayed awake into the night and did not rise until well after dawn. I could not say this was an everyday occurrence though.
The bustle of a waking city was so different from the quiet within the palace walls. Doors open and shut, people strode past me in a hurry, baskets beneath their arms or bags slung over their shoulders. No one looked at me – a girl with her own bundle beneath her arm. They all had their own business to keep. Light filtered golden into the streets, chasing away the blue-tinged shadows of the night before. And the night fishermen were filtering in from the docks, their catches in buckets, filling the air with the ocean-water scent of fresh fish and squid. Water slopped from buckets and onto the street; I had to dodge puddles more than once before arriving at my destination. The drinking hall next door was silent, its patrons long since gone. The blacksmith’s shop was closed, but I heard the sound of a tiny hammer striking metal.
I knocked at the door hard enough to make my knuckles ache.
Numeen answered the door, and he frowned when he saw me. “You shouldn’t be here. You were only just here last night.”
“I know,” I said, and slipped past him before he could stop me. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”
“I can’t do favors.” But he closed the door behind himself. Sweat beaded on my scalp as soon as the door swung shut. Numeen had a small fire going, and despite the chimney and the open window, the entire shop felt like a furnace.
“A favor for a favor,” I said.
“You found my bone shard?”
“I – no.” Again, the pang of guilt. I shook it off. I’d find a way to retrieve his shard when I had the chance. I had larger things to care about. I reached into my sash pocket and pulled out the witstone I’d taken from my father’s store.
Numeen’s eyes widened when he saw it. The trade of witstone was highly regulated by the Empire. No one was to buy or sell it without the Emperor’s knowledge and consent. But I’d heard the reports from the Construct of Trade. The Ioph Carn stole and sold witstone, and a few others did as well. If you got your hands on some witstone, there was always a way to sell it, with or without the Empire. “What are you asking of me?”
The bundle beneath my arm twitched as though it knew we were speaking of it. “I caught a spy construct,” I said. “I can’t kill it – my father will know. I need a place to keep it until all of this is over. Can you make a cage for it? Keep it somewhere in your shop?”
“If the Emperor finds out, I’m dead. Not just me, but my entire family.”
“Then think of your family and what you could do for them if you sold this witstone. It won’t be for ever, and I’ll be back periodically to check on it.”
“And with more keys,” he said, his tone resigned. This was the truth of it, and I watched the realization dawn on his face. He couldn’t just walk away now. With that first key, he’d tied his fate to my own.
I proffered the bundle with the spy inside. It squirmed, but once in the grip of the blacksmith, the spy quieted. I watched his face, unsure of what to say. My father might have noted all Numeen had to gain in this bargain. He might have simply thanked him. I wondered how good at reading expressions my father really was, or if he just didn’t care – because I saw more than resignation in Numeen’s face. I saw resentment in his tightened lips and brow, his silence. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. But still, I was sorry. “If I could do this without help, I would.”
“And what is it you intend to do?”
Become Emperor. Earn my father’s respect. The words wouldn’t come out. I’d been skulking about, stealing keys, trying to unravel my father’s secrets so that I could prove to him my worth, broken though I was. I’d always been anxious that he might die without leaving me any of his secrets, with only bitter words for me on his lips. I didn’t know how to explain that. So I said instead, “To survive.”
Numeen nodded and closed the curtains. The space inside the shop seemed to grow even hotter, firelight casting everything in red and yellow. “Come back when you need another key.”
I fled the shop, the bell at the door jangling as I let the door swing shut behind me. The streets were already brighter, the faint orange glow of lanterns in windows giving way to dawn. The servants would already be about their work.
I didn’t stop to rest. I ran through the streets, dodging surly, sleepy inhabitants as they prepared for the day ahead, baskets under arms and quick huffs of breath extinguishing lanterns. I was a dancer entering the stage four steps too late – upsetting those already there and unable to find my place.
There wasn’t time to take the servants’ entrance. When I climbed back to the top of the wall, the constructs there eyed me but did not raise the alarm. I picked my way back to the palace by rooftop, doing my best to keep my footfalls soft against the tiles. Below me, I saw the few servants sweeping the empty pathways of this walled city in miniature, or carrying buckets of water from the well to the palace itself. The periphery buildings all remained empty – free of dust but with cracked and fading paint. Someday they’d be alive again, when I was Emperor.
By the time I’d reached the palace itself, the sun had risen above the harbor. Light glittered off the ocean, making jewels of each cresting wave. The seabirds had begun to call to one another. Here, at the palace, I felt a step removed from the ocean – nestled into the foot of the mountains. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that. I found a window at the far end of the palace, swung down from the roof, and slipped inside.
I saw a few constructs on my way back to my room – trade constructs, war constructs, and bureaucrat constructs – here to report to their superiors. I wasn’t in their purview, so they paid me no mind. Still, I only breathed easily once I shut the door of my room behind me.
The journal and the beginner’s book of commands were where I’d left them, shoved hastily beneath my bed. One held the key to my past; the other to my future. I ran my hands over the covers. Here, in the quiet of my room, Numeen’s words turned over in my mind.
What was it that I intended to do?
The spy construct had made it clear: I couldn’t just sit around waiting for my father to die, hoping that if I learned enough, he would choose me as heir. Too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. And Father had taught me this much at least. Do not rely on that which you cannot control.
I had to seize control.
I rubbed at the green cloth cover of the journal, yearning to devour the information within. Reluctantly, I set it down and reached for the book of commands. There would be time for both, but I had to prioritize.
My father ruled his Empire by proxy, all his power and commands distributed to his four most complex constructs: Ilith, Construct of Spies; Uphilia, Construct of Trade; Mauga, Construct of Bureaucracy; and Tirang, Construct of War. It occurred to me that this must be why he guarded the secrets to his magic so zealously.
If I were smart enough, if I were clever enough, if I were careful enough, I could rewrite the commands embedded into their shards. I could make them mine. Father didn’t think I was enough. My memory was lacking. But I knew who I was now. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter.
And I would show him that even broken daughters could wield power.