Usually, she laid low at the Torius Arms near the massive, key-shaped cothon on the east side of Navium. The Empire kept their fleet there, and the merchant ship docks were the largest outside of Marinn. It was an easy place to go unnoticed.

  But her client had given her gold for supplies—more than she could use in the time that this mission would take. So, she headed to Navium’s posh central district, the streets turning from packed mud to neatly tended cobbles. The stench of the gate crowd faded and Sirsha began to enjoy her walk, slowing as she passed an enormous mural.

  The Battle of Sher Jinaat. The words were emblazoned at the base of the mural. On one side, the Empress of the Martials and the storyteller Laia of Serra stood, backed by an army of Scholars, Tribespeople, and Martials. In the shadows, with scims in hand, lurked the hooded figure of the famed warrior Elias Veturius, who’d persuaded the Empress to take up arms in the war. Opposite them, on the other side of the mural, the Nightbringer loomed, a gray-white vortex of agonized faces at his back, his sun eyes glaring.

  Sirsha searched the rest of the mural, but her people weren’t represented at all, even though none of these vaunted heroes would have had a chance against the Nightbringer without them. It irked Sirsha to see them ignored, even if she wasn’t one of them anymore.

  She walked on, stopping at a lovely inn with a front window depicting an ecstatic-looking stained-glass mermaid.

  The innkeeper at the Mermaid’s Rest did not appear pleased to see—or smell—Sirsha. But he grew more amenable when she paid him a gold mark and didn’t ask for change. By the time the daylight faded, her horse was stabled, she had a belly full of chicken curry, she’d procured a better pack, supplies, and new clothes, and she was neck-deep in a bath that smelled like lilies.

  Now this, Sirsha thought as she closed her eyes, is how all jobs should go. It had been ages since she’d had the coin for a proper bath. Mostly, she scrubbed herself off in cold water and hoped the beds she slept in didn’t have fleas.

  A far cry from her life in the Cloud Forest. Her mother was a Raani of Kin Inashi, a woman who’d ruled over scores of families with Inashi leanings. She was a scenter, like her daughters, one of the strongest. While Sirsha hadn’t lorded that fact over the other children like her sister, she had enjoyed the finer things her mother’s position afforded her. Silks, dresses, gorgeous weapons—and her own bathing pool.

  Her sister mocked her for it. You’re lazy and stupid and slow. You’d rather hide in the bath than serve the Kin.

  Sirsha groaned. That was the second time today that she’d thought of her family, and it was two times too many. She pushed those memories away. They never led to anything good.

  She turned instead to the job. She’d sensed the trail when she’d entered the city, but as before, it felt muted. It was possible the killer had passed through long ago. Or maybe she was still here, skulking about.

  The wind rattled Sirsha’s window. It was a chill, clear night, and she was glad not to be out in the freezing—

  Crack.

  The window flew open, shattering the glass in one of the panes. The air that blew in stank of a fresh-opened grave, icy and putrid. It curled around Sirsha and spoke.

  Death and pain, blood and screams. Follow the bones.

  The world spun and a wave of nausea washed over Sirsha. She clutched her stomach as she staggered out of the tub.

  “How many dead?” she asked the wind. “And why do you care so damned much?”

  But the wind swept out, tugging at her to follow.

  Sirsha threw on fresh clothes and her boots. After a moment’s consideration, she grabbed her newly stuffed pack, braided her wet hair, and made her way outside. The earth tugged at her, pulling her south through Navium’s crowded streets, until the ocean appeared ahead, its waves a thundering roar.

  When she reached the wide stretch of sand beach, she looked around. There were no bones here. She knelt and put her hand to the sugar-soft sand.

  Follow the bones.

  It wasn’t the wind screaming this time, but the earth. The two so rarely echoed each other that Sirsha didn’t know what to make of it. Her client had told her that sixteen young people were murdered across the Empire. But Sirsha felt the bones, even if she couldn’t see them. In Navium alone, dozens of lives had been cut short. So many that if she found every body and buried it, she’d be here for weeks.

  The bones were hidden deep in the earth, in the sewers that carved another world beneath the city.

  Sirsha rose, perplexed. The wind had shoved her here; the earth had spoken. There must be a reason for it. Behind her, a row of seaside businesses bustled.

  Shopkeepers lit blue-fire lanterns, illuminating the night with a cerulean glow. To Sirsha’s left, a long dock stretched into the sea, dozens of vessels tethered to it, their masts undulating and creaking with the winter tide.

  They were pleasure boats, mostly, those used by Navium’s elite. Each was emblazoned with the crest of an Illustrian Gens. Sirsha frowned as she surveyed them. Perhaps the elements were telling her that the killer was a wealthy Martial. She wouldn’t put it past a bored Illustrian to start murdering children.

  To her right, another dock disappeared behind an outcropping of rock. Two Masks loitered near it. Perhaps the killer was a Mask. Skies knew Blackcliff bred them violent, even if their skill was legendary.

  But no—there was no trace of the trail around the Masks. She edged toward the seaside eateries—though she’d just had dinner—lured by the scents of almond cake, stewed apricots, and hot tea. But as she was about to open the door to a bakery, the air shifted to reveal a glowing white filament: the killer’s trail. Her relief at seeing it so clearly was overshadowed by the fact that it led not to the docks or the city, but directly out to sea.

  “Ten hells,” Sirsha muttered, drawing a look from one of the velvet-clad Illustrians behind her. She couldn’t tell if the trail led east, west, or south. It didn’t matter. A sea journey meant a longer job. Sea winds were harder to read, and water was her weakest element. The trail she was following was so strange, she didn’t know if she could track it over the ocean.

  But she’d caught it now, and even if she hadn’t made that damned vow to the Martial, her curiosity had taken hold. Sirsha wanted to find this woman. She wanted to understand how in the hells she was hiding her trail without magic. So, even though a warm room awaited her, Sirsha pulled her fur-lined cloak closer, ignoring the frost in her wet hair, and made for the merchant harbor to the east to hire a ship.

  The wind nipped at her as if irritated, and even the earth twitched beneath her feet. “Yes, yes,” she said to the elements. “You want me to leave Navium. But I can’t fly, so we must go to the docks.”

  The streets were aglow with Tribal lanterns and food stalls. It seemed as if everyone was out in the streets for Rathana. Even the docks, usually quieter at night, were packed with families and friends celebrating the Empire’s midwinter festival.

  The tracker made her way through the crowds, passing massive Mariner schooners and Ankanese dhows, their sails emblazoned with an enormous eye. She spotted a Thafwan ship, but Thafwans were sticklers for rules. What she needed was something small, fast, and discreet.

  The wind nudged her and she walked quickly. It was a clear night, though cold enough to make her teeth hurt. Unease gnawed at her. An agitation came upon her the longer she spent at the docks.

  A strange aura tainted the air. A presence that did not belong. Sirsha glanced up at the black night sky. It was patchy, as if from the weather, but there were no clouds. Instead, it looked as if the stars were blocked out.

  The wind howled in Sirsha’s ears, sudden and unmistakable.

  Run, swiftly, the wind hissed. Run, little one.

  She bolted without thought, without consideration. In seconds, she’d left the docks and turned up one of the few alleyways that wasn’t packed with people. She looked back over her shoulder.

  Musicians played and families danced, and jugglers threw up torches lit with flame as children shrieked in delight. All appeared well. Except for a sound—the strangest sound. Like a bee buzzing, but more penetrating and growing louder by the second—until it felt like a shriek burrowing in her brain.

  She clasped her hands over her ears. The music stopped. Others covered their heads too. And then, in a dreadful chorus, everyone around her began to scream.

  10

  Aiz

  Kithka dragged Aiz down deep into the prison’s depths, where there was hardly even a rumor of light. The cells were icy and hellish—holes in the ground with a latched door on top and a latrine ditch in the corner.

  Aiz thought her jailers would leave her inside for a day or two. She’d survive. She had her anger to soothe her, fuel her, strengthen her for whatever came.

  But almost immediately, she was gripped by nausea and confusion. In the Hollows, the only light came from the twisting purple ore veining the gray stone. The ore seemed to pulse like the fading heart of a fresh-felled deer. When Aiz touched it, she felt infinitely worse.

  Aiz heard no sounds at all. No whispers from other prisoners, no passing footsteps. Not even the scurry of rats. There was only silence so profound that she would scream on occasion to remind herself she was alive.

  A day passed. Three. Perhaps more, but after a time, Aiz couldn’t keep track. The walls pressed in on her, and she struggled to breathe.

  In Dafra slum, Aiz had sharpened her wrath on the ever-spinning grindstone of misery. But here, in the deepest bowels of the Tohr, her anger faded into hopelessness. She didn’t know what would happen to Sister Noa or Olnas. The children or the other clerics.

  She tried to tell herself the Sacred Tales, tried to take inspiration from Mother Div’s strength during her flight from Old Kegar, when she hadn’t known if she would find a new home or crash into a merciless sea. But Aiz heard Cero’s voice in her head, caustic. Mother Div won’t be reborn as the Tel Ilessi, Aiz. She won’t save us.

  Perhaps Tiral had figured out that Cero had the book. If so, Cero would die. It would be Aiz’s fault. Her impetuousness would have deprived the world of his creativity, his dark humor, his dreams, closely held but beautiful. What if we harnessed the sun to grow plants in the winter? What if we transported goods with our Sails for other countries and got food in return?

  I’m sorry, Cero, Aiz thought. I wish you were here. I’m lost. I don’t know what to do.

  Kithka brought food at uneven intervals, and when Aiz stopped eating, she yanked the girl out of the hole, beat her, and shoved the food in her mouth.

  “The Triarchs don’t want you dead, girl,” she said. “They want you to suffer. You’ll eat. If you don’t, I’ll shove it down your gullet again.”

  After the beating, Aiz lay on the dirt floor, body shaking and vision blurry. How naive she’d been to believe in Mother Div! Death is honorable in the service of belief. That was from the Eighth Sacred Tale, and it was rubbish.

  This ugly, stinking, humiliating fade into nothingness—this was death. Not noble. Not in service of anything. But forsaken and forgotten in the depths of a jail where Kegar’s most hated criminals disappeared. You were right, Cero. It was all lies.

  Aiz.

  The voice was distant, a whisper on the wind. Aiz tried to sit up, but her body felt weighed down with stones. Around her, the dim light of the cell shifted. It faded and transformed into the night sky, dancing with bands of purple, red, and green light. The silence in the Hollows was no longer the menacing quiet of death but the soft hush of a gentle snowfall.

  Aiz’s mind was a Sail, flying far away. She thought of her mother. How tired she always looked. Strange—it had been years since she remembered her mother’s face, thin and sharp like Aiz’s, but still soft somehow. She’d died during a raid after being forcibly enlisted. Aiz had tried to hold on to her as soldiers dragged her away. But she was too small.

  Aiz, hear me.

  “Who—who are you?” She batted at the air.

  Aiz, my daughter, finally I come to you, in your hour of great need.

  “Ma? Who is there?” Aiz called, bewildered, for she saw no one.

  Do you not know me, daughter of Kegar?

  A figure appeared above her, tall and hooded, face veiled, a crown atop her head. Aiz couldn’t make out her features, but that silhouette was familiar from statues, friezes, and coins. Aiz knew her as sure as she knew her own face.

  “Mother Div?”

  Have you lost your faith so swiftly, Aiz bet-Dafra?

  She knew people had visions before death. When the orphans in the cloister burned, Aiz heard many calling out to their mothers as they died. Not in pain or terror, but in greeting.

  “There’s no faith here,” Aiz whispered. “Only death. Only darkness.”

  Darkness perhaps, for there is beauty in the dark, and strength. But not death, daughter of Kegar. Not yet. Listen well. Corruption eats at the heart of our land. It grows most virulently among those who rule our people. A traitor to my blood seeks to fulfill my prophecy of a Tel Ilessi. A vile pretender to whom Kegari lives mean less than a mote of dirt.

  “Tiral,” Aiz whispered.

  The figure came in and out of focus. Aiz tried to shake away the torpor that weighed down her bones. She needed sharpness now. For this could not be real.

  It is real, child. If it wasn’t, how would I read your thoughts? My blood alone held the power of mindsmithing. If I was not real, how would I know that Tiral bet-Hiwa plans to claim the mantle of the Tel Ilessi before the next full moon?

  Aiz’s disgust penetrated the haze in her mind, her hunger for vengeance rekindling. Heartless, faithless Tiral as Tel Ilessi? The killer of orphans—who were most precious to Mother Div—playacting as the vessel of her spirit? It was repugnant. A desecration of Div’s kindness, her love. But before Aiz could protest, the figure spoke again.

  Heed me. The Triarchy is corrupted and cannot help our people. Only you can.

  “How?” Aiz asked.

  The highborn call the wretched poor Snipes, but we are Starlings who move together as one. The low, the broken, the forgotten, the hungry—they will be your shield, your sword, your army, the heart that beats within you. Look to them for strength. Do not let Tiral’s blasphemy stand. For as long as it does, we cannot return home. We cannot leave this accursed spit of land for the golden shores of our forefathers.

  Aiz gasped. Mother Div spoke of the Return. The tantalizing promise at the end of every Sacred Tale. Mother Div will return in the body of the Tel Ilessi, the Holy Vessel. And the Tel Ilessi shall deliver us back to the homeland from whence we fled, so long ago.

  “I failed to kill Tiral,” Aiz said. “Even if I succeeded, we don’t have enough Sails or Loha to leave Kegar.”

  Do you know what Dafra, the name of your home, means?

  Aiz shook her head.

  It was the name of the evening star, the brightest in our sky far away, in the land to which I was born. Aiz bet-Dafra, you are a daughter of the evening star. You are not meant to be caged. Despair is death. Crush it. Stoke your rage instead. Escape. Kill the pretender. Take our people home.

  “The clerics—”

  I will not leave my most loyal servants unaided. Escape. Swear it.

  “I—I swear.”

  Mother Div touched Aiz’s hand, the cool slide of the cleric’s skin as real as if she was in the room. Aiz felt sudden pain. She looked down to find a D cut raggedly into the skin between her thumb and forefinger.

  I mark you, daughter of the evening star. You are my anointed. Do not fail.

  Mother Div took one step back, then another, until she faded, the light surrounding her dimming, leaving Aiz alone in the dark.

  * * *

  Kithka returned Aiz to the main prison block hours later, hissing impatiently as Aiz limped along the Tohr’s serpentine halls behind her.

  “Thought she had another week.” Gil glanced up at Aiz from his post at the end of the cellblock, picking at a flea in his beard.

  “Orders,” Kithka said. Aiz watched her, wondering whose orders. Wondering if her early release from the Hollows was the work of Mother Div.

  Aiz ran a finger over the letter carved into her hand. Perhaps she’d been hallucinating. Her nails were bloody. She must have clawed the mark into her own skin.

  Or Mother Div did it and you aren’t meant to die here. Find a way out, Aiz.

  Before, she’d thought the ceiling of the cellblock low, the shadows teeming with nightmares. But after the dark and silence of the Hollows, the spitting torch at the far end of the hall felt like a miracle. Prisoners peered out at her from their cells as she passed. They were crowded with more people, including clerics who weren’t from Dafra cloister.

  Whispers trailed as Aiz passed.

  “It’s the tale-spinner.”

  “Aiz. She’s alive.”

  “The tale-spinner lives.”

  “Shut your holes,” Kithka snarled, voice echoing. “And you”—she shoved Aiz in her cell—“the next time you open that rat trap, I’ll stick a rusty knife up it.”

  The moment the jailer was out of sight, Noa, Olnas, and little Hani swarmed Aiz, helping her to a cot, pulling a threadbare blanket over her shivering body. She wanted to weep at their careful hands, their warmth.

  Jak hung back, shy, but Finh, the red of his hair barely visible beneath the dirt, offered Aiz a wrinkled apple.

  “I saved it,” he said. “For you.”

  Aiz took it gratefully. “I was so worried. I thought—”

  “We’re fine,” Noa soothed Aiz, though the bruises across her arms said otherwise. “Tiral sent nearly a hundred more clerics here. The ones who asked the Triarchy to release us. Our people have been rioting. A highborn neighborhood was burned down.”