Empire of Exiles E-Book

Erin M. Evans

• Herausgeber: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Book of the Usurper
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 665

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

"Detailed and mysterious, a place to explore and relish. Empire of Exiles is highly recommended!"—R.A. Salvatore, author or "The Legend of Drizzt" and the DemonWars novels The Imperial Archives holds the treasures of the ten nations that fled the collapse of the world to settle in Semilla behind a wall of salt and iron. When Quill, an apprentice scribe, arrives to request the loan of several artifacts for a client, he's hoping for a tour and maybe a glimpse of some of the rarer relics the archives' sorcerous caretakers are rumored to protect. Instead, Quill finds himself a witness to a ghastly murder tangled in present-day politics and the history of the empire—worse, the accused killer is his own shy and scholarly best friend, a very unlikely assassin. Quill's amateur investigations run afoul of an archivist dodging questions about her buried past, an investigator eyeing Quill's motives too closely, and threads that lead back to a long-dead usurper—nothing makes sense, and Quill doesn't know who to trust. But if he can't find allies, the next victim may be the empire of Semilla itself. This edition includes a brand-new illustrated guide to the peoples of the empire. Praise for Empire of Exiles: "Readers will be drawn in by the memorable cast, vibrantly drawn fantasy cultures, and vivid prose. Epic fantasy fans will be eager to see where the series goes."—Publishers Weekly "An excellent new fantasy series by Evans (The Devil You Know), perfect for fans of Katherine Addison or those who enjoy slow-burning and complex court intrigue."—Library Journal "From the rich world building as these remnants of humanity hide from changelings behind a Salt Wall, to the interesting culture, a unique magic system, and a variety of humanoids, readers will be delighted that nothing is predictable in this intriguing story."—Booklist "Empire of Exiles by Erin M. Evans is a triumph of fantasy, murder mystery, and political thriller that handles grief, PTSD, panic, and anxiety disorder with tact.... I cannot wait to read what Evans has cooking up for the follow-up."—Geekly Inc "Empire of Exiles has it all: characters I love, intertwined compelling mysteries in the past and present, plot twists that keep coming, and a unique and fascinating world and magic system! One of my favorite books of the year!"—Melissa Caruso, author of the Swords and Fire Trilogy

Leseprobe

Empire of Exiles

Copyright © 2022 by Erin M. Evans

Published as an ebook in 2024 by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

Originally published in the US by Orbit in 2022

Excerpt from Relics of Ruin copyright © 2024 by Erin M. Evans

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Ivy Lee

Interior art by Jorge Santiago Jr.

Cover design by Lisa Rodgers

ISBN 978-1-625676-71-9 (ebook)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

49 W. 45th Street, Suite #5N

New York, NY 10036

awfulagent.com/ebooks

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Table of Contents

Dedication

Dramatis Personae

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Part II

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Part III

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part IV

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Part V

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Part VI

Chapter Eighteen

A Tour of the Imperial Federation of Semillan Protectorates

Acknowledgments

Sneak Peek: Relics of Ruin

About the Author

Also by Erin M. Evans

For Susan

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Ahkerfi of the Copper: a sorcerer of Kuali ancestryAlletet: the lion-headed Khirazji wisdom goddess; rules over the dayAlomalia of the Bone: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsAlzari yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; nest-mother of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestryAmadea Gintanas: archivist superior of the imperial collections (South Wing); of uncertain ancestry, mostly SemillanAppolino Ulanitti: “the Fratricide”; a former emperor of Semilla; Clement’s second-eldest brotherAsla of the Salt: a martyred sorcerer whose affinity magic helped form the Salt Wall; an Orozhandi saintAye-Nam-Wati: the snake-tailed Datongu wisdom goddess

Bayan yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; father of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestryBeneditta Ulanitti: the Masked Empress of Semilla and Grand Duchess by Custom of Her Protectorates; wife of Ibramo Kirazzi; daughter of ClementBijan del Tolube: corundum specialist; married to Stavio Jeudi; of mixed ancestry, Kuali and BeminatBiorni: a horned rabbit skullBishamar Twelve-Spider ul-Hanizan: reza of the ul-Hanizan clan and partial holder of the Orozhandi ducal authority; Nanqii’s grandfather; of Orozhandi ancestry

Chiarl: a bodyguard of the Maschano family; of uncertain ancestryClement Ulanitti: previous emperor of Semilla; Beneditta’s father and target of Redolfo Kirazzi’s attempted coupClotilda Ulanitti: former empress of Semilla; mother of Clement, Appolino, and IesperoCorolia: a coffee shop owner of Kuali ancestry

Deilio Maschano: a scrivener of Parem and heir of House Maschano; of mostly Semillan ancestryDemuth of the Wool: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are kept in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsDjacopo Kirazzi: late husband of the former holder of the Khirazji ducal authority; Redolfo and Turon’s fatherDjaulia Ulannitti: daughter of Empress Beneditta and Consort-Prince IbramoDjutubai: a peacock-headed Khirazji wisdom god; rules over the nightDolitha Sixteen-Tamarisk ul-Benturan: reza of the ul-Benturan clan and partial holder of the Orozhandi ducal authority; Yinii’s great-aunt; of Orozhandi ancestryDonatas Ten-Scarab ul-Benturan: a stonemason of Orozhandi ancestry; Yinii’s father

Eschellado Ulanitti: Semillan emperor who reigned during the Salt Wall’s sealing

Fastreda of the Glass (Fastreda Korotzma): a sorcerer of Borysan ancestry; coconspirator of Redolfo Kirazzi

Gaspera del Oyofon: retired captain of the Blessed Order of the Saints of Salt and Iron; called the Fox of the Wall and the Penitent Turncoat; joined the Usurper’s coup, then betrayed it; of mixed ancestry

Hentara: a day-sister at Gintanas Abbey; of Khirazji ancestryHulvia Manche: the Kinship of Vigilant Mother Ayemi’s imperial liaison; of Ashtabari ancestry

Ibramo Kirazzi: the consort-prince; son of the Usurper, Redolfo KirazziIespero Ulanitti: former emperor of Semilla; Clotilda’s eldest son; killed with Sestrida and their four children by Appolino; of Semillan ancestryIosthe of the Wool: a sorcerer of Ronqu ancestry

Jeqel of the Salt: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsJinjir yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; nest-father of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestryJoodashir of the Salt: a sorcerer of Minseon ancestry

Karimo del Nanova: a scrivener of Parem; of mixed ancestryKatucia Ulanitti: Iespero and Sestrida’s daughter; killed by Appolino; of Semillan ancestryKulum yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; father of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestry

Lamberto Lajonta: Ragaleate Primate of the Order of the Scriveners of Parem; of mixed ancestry; Quill and Karimo’s superiorLireana Ulanitti: daughter of Emperor Iespero and his heir presumptive; presumed murdered by Appolino but claimed to be discovered alive by Redolfo Kirazzi; “the Grave-Spurned Princess.”Lord on the Mountain: the supreme god worshipped in Min-Se, often depicted in a pillar of flames surrounded by his thirteen sage-riders

Maligar of the Wool: an Orozhandi saint whose bones were not safely translated; one of the wooden skeletons in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsMelosino Ulanitti: Iespero and Sestrida’s infant son; killed by AppolinoMicheleo Ulanitti: son and heir of Empress Beneditta and Consort-Prince IbramoMireia del Atsina: head archivist of the Imperial Archives; of mixed ancestry, predominantly Ronqu

Nanqii Four-Oryx ul-Hanizan: a procurer of questionable goods; of Orozhandi ancestryNoniva: the Ashtabari mother goddess

Obigen yula Manco: Alojan noble consul; partner of the yula Manco nest; nest-father of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestryOphicida: a former empress of SemillaOshanna of the Copper: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton Saints

Pademaki the Source: the Khirazji river god, as well as the name of the river that ran through that ancient kingdomPalimpsest (Imp): a catPardia Kirazzi: Redolfo’s wife, of Khirazji ancestryPharas Two-Sand Iris ul-Benturan: Yinii’s father’s cousin; of Orozhandi ancestryPhaseran: a beetle-headed Khirazji wisdom god; rules over the twilight hours

Qarabas of the Limestone: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsQilbat of the Cedar: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton Saints; the maker of the wooden skeletonsQilphith of the Paint: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsQuill (Sesquillio Haigulan Seupu-lai): third son of House Seupu-lai and scrivener of Parem; of mixed ancestry, predominantly Minseon

Radir del Sendiri: a generalist of the Imperial Archives; of mixed ancestryRedolfo Kirazzi: the Usurper; former holder of the Khirazji ducal authorityRicha Langyun: member of the Kinship of Vigilant Mother Ayemi; of mixed ancestry, predominantly DatonguRopat of the Sandstone: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsRosangerda Maschano: a lady of a pre-Sealing family; wife of Zaverio Maschano; mother of Deilio Maschano; of mixed ancestry

Senca yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; nest-mother of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestrySestrida Pramodia: consort-princess to Iespero; killed by AppolinoSigrittrice Ulanitti: adviser and seneschal of the Imperial Authority; “the empress’s sha-dog”; Beneditta’s great-auntStavio Jeudi: a bronze specialist of the Imperial Archives; married to Bijan del Tolube; of Ashtabari ancestry

Toya of the Pottery: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsTunuk yula Manco: a bone specialist of the Imperial Archives; nest-child of Lord Obigen; of Alojan ancestryTuron Kirazzi: Redolfo’s younger brother; of Khirazji ancestry

Uruphi yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; birth-mother of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestry

Vari yula Manco: partner of the yula Manco nest; nest-mother of Tunuk; of Alojan ancestryViolaria Ulanitti: Iespero and Sestrida’s daughter; killed by Appolino

Yanawa of the Gold: an Orozhandi saint whose bones are in the Chapel of the Skeleton SaintsYinii Six-Owl ul-Benturan: ink specialist of the Imperial Archives; of Orozhandi ancestry; Dolitha’s great-niece.

Zara Kirazzi: current holder of the Khirazji ducal authority; Turon’s daughter and Ibramo’s cousinZaverio Maschano: a lord of a pre-Sealing family; husband of Rosangerda; father of Deilio; of Semillan ancestryZoifia Kestustis: a bronze specialist of the Imperial Archives; of Borsyan ancestry

I

THE DUKE KIRAZZI

Year Eight of the Reign of Emperor Clement Palace Sestina

Redolfo, Duke Kirazzi, spends five days in solitude at Sestina, with only the garish birds in the wallpaper for company, before his younger brother finally visits. Redolfo arranges himself on the sofa as if the suit he’s wearing isn’t his last, isn’t stained with sweat, as if he’s not been on edge waiting for an answer, an ending—and maybe he hasn’t been. Let no one ever say Redolfo, Duke Kirazzi, is an easy man to read.

Enter Turon, the younger Kirazzi, folding his gloves together in one hand. Where Redolfo is arrogant, Turon is cautious. Where Turon is thoughtful, Redolfo is audacious. They might look close to twins—mahogany skin, close-shorn black hair just beginning to pepper to silver, neat goatees in the most current style—but Turon believes himself to be his brother’s opposite in every way that matters. Redolfo is like a changeling to his brother, and the daring, the cleverness, perhaps the cruelty glinting in his black eyes only confirm this belief.

This will matter later, more than Turon can appreciate in the moment.

For now, the younger Kirazzi is focused on what lies in front of him. He stands in what was once their father’s study, then Redolfo’s study, now his brother’s final prison, and the one thought that coalesces out of his grief and anger is too inane to speak.

Redolfo smirks. “Let me guess: you still hate this wallpaper.”

“No. You like it. It’s fine,” Turon says, and Redolfo laughs.

“Saints and devils, but you’re predictable.”

Turon regards his louche brother solemnly—it’s all he can manage right now, solemnity. This is goodbye, after all, and it should be solemn.

Redolfo grins back, ready to make it as difficult as possible, and Turon’s mouth locks around his solemnity like Redolfo is going to have to break his teeth if he wants to steal that from him.

“Do you want a drink?” Redolfo asks. “They wouldn’t transfer most of my selection, but there’s some fig brandy someone gave me for Salt-Sealing on the sideboard.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

Redolfo gives him a withering look. “How does that matter at this point? Fetch me some if you’re going to be a prig.”

Turon crosses to the sideboard, pours a glass of liquor for his brother. Even waiting for the hangman, there’s nothing hopeful about Redolfo, nothing fearful either. Just arrogance—gods above, his arrogance. It’s an old, patient kind of anger that fills up the younger Kirazzi, the sort that’s used to being squashed down, waiting for a better time to surge, one that never comes. Turon hands the liquor over, wants it to be a peace offering, but knows Redolfo accepts it as a concession. Whatever Turon wants his brother to be, there’s no more time for him to change.

“So,” Redolfo says, “have they decided to make a tradition of brothers cutting brothers’ throats? Or have you opted to grow some balls and make a daring rescue attempt? What are we doing here?”

Turon bites his tongue. “They thought you’d talk to me. Confess.”

Redolfo laughs. “What’s there to confess? Did someone miss me at the head of my glass army?”

That anger rises in Turon again—why you put us in the middle of it, why you raised a coup with your son beside you, a child your weapon, Pardia is beside herself, Mother’s locked herself away, do you even care—before he can press it down. Emperor Clement wants answers and Turon wants a chance to say goodbye, not one last argument.

Though, in this moment, he thinks an argument might be the most fitting goodbye.

“The extent of your conspiracy,” he says. “Your motives. What you intended to do. The names of your coconspirators.”

Redolfo’s eyes burn—and Turon knows that look. It’s the same look he had when they were boys, when they’d visit Arlabecca and some ruffian or other mistook two weedy boys for easy marks, not the heirs of ancient Khirazj. It’s vengeance and fury and power, all churning into terrible action. Turon had been afraid, but those older boys, looking for someone to dominate, looking for a war they could win, had instead felt the full force of House Kirazzi brought down on them, and he saw Redolfo had known from the first taunt he would destroy these paltry enemies.

“That’s interesting,” Redolfo drawls. “Why would I tell you anything? I’ve already been sentenced and I can’t imagine there’s anything you can pass along to Clement that will overcome treason.”

“We can try.”

“‘Try.’” Redolfo smiles slyly. He wants to talk; he wants to show off; he wants to rage—Turon knows his brother like no one else does. “They think I’ll give you anything they ask for just because we’re brothers, but you and I know better. Only one of us is in the business of betrayal.”

Turon returns to the liquor arranged on the sideboard. He pours himself a brandy he doesn’t want, and it’s too sweet, the softness of figs drowning in a sea of sugar.

“You didn’t tell me,” Turon says, eyes on the liquor.

“Of course not. Did you want to be a traitor?”

“I wanted not to be surprised when my own brother announced he had a pretender to the throne and an army and an intent to stage a coup.”

“‘Intent’ is as lazy a word as ‘try.’ Like I said, nobody missed my army.” He drains the glass of brandy. “Don’t be sulky. You didn’t want to be a traitor.”

Turon sits down opposite Redolfo in a tufted chair upholstered in crimson. “Were you a traitor? That’s not the story you told.”

“Oh?” Redolfo asks.

“The emperor’s killed by his brother. His wife, his children, all die together under the Fratricide’s madness. We fight a war—a war in Semilla!—to defeat the murderer, to crown Clement, the least of the brothers. And then you said you found Lireana—you found the daughter of our dead emperor, who should by any right have the throne instead of her uncle, if she survived that massacre. Even Clement would agree to that.”

Redolfo makes a lopsided sort of face. “Mm. But he didn’t.”

“If all that were true,” Turon goes on, “then you weren’t a traitor, you were a hero, and I don’t know how you’d think I wouldn’t stand by you.” He studies his brother’s face. “Which makes me think you’re lying about her.”

Redolfo snorts. “Is that what Clement wants to know? If she’s Lireana?”

“Among other things.”

Redolfo grins—maybe he’s glad his little brother’s come to him or maybe he knows this is all a game. Not an easy man to read, recall. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. All you have to do is ask.”

There are ten thousand places to begin, ten thousand paths to the beating heart of Redolfo’s rebellion, and as much as Turon Kirazzi wishes for one that leads to his brother contrite and pardonable, five days of grief and rage have made him understand that if this path ever existed, it is lost now.

So Turon begins along the one he thinks will save someone, at least. “Start, then,” he says, “with the girl.”

CHAPTER ONE

Year Eight of the Reign of Empress Beneditta The Imperial ArchivesArlabecca, the capital of the Imperial Federation of Semillan Protectorates(Twenty-three years later)

Quill had been hoping, before he came to the Imperial Archives, when all this was just forms and plans and schedules, that Brother Karimo had been exaggerating. But here in the entry hall with the shouts of Primate Lamberto echoing over them, he had to agree: dealing with the Kirazzis made people uncommonly irrational.

Primate Lamberto’s voice carried much farther than the head archivist’s, but Quill could tell by the way his bellows kept cutting off abruptly that up in her office, the head archivist was giving as good as she got from the formidable primate. Brother Karimo kept looking anxiously up the stairs that led out of the enormous hall.

“I don’t think she’s going to throw us out,” Quill said.

Karimo turned back to him and smiled. “You haven’t met the head archivist before. It’s still a possibility.” He glanced once more at the stairs. “Better than when the Dowager Duchess Kirazzi died, though. No one’s thrown a punch and I don’t think anyone’s set a fire.”

“Saints and devils,” Quill said, but Karimo turned back to the stairs.

Quill glanced over at the woman behind the reception desk, a pale, pretty archivist in robes of dark blue with a silver chain running from shoulder to shoulder. Her melting brown eyes fixed on the two scriveners of Parem waiting for their superior in a way that seemed somehow speculative and predatory. Quill gave her a little wave and she frowned.

“Are either of you facilitating those requests?” she demanded. “The Kirazzi ones?”

“Karimo is,” Quill said, elbowing the other young man. Karimo jumped and Quill nodded toward the archivist with an expression full of meaning. Karimo often got the attentions of admirers—he was good-looking in a way that a half dozen protectorates would have claimed. Dark curls, golden skin, light, tapered eyes. Unfortunately for those admirers, Quill was usually the one who had to point his dearest friend toward them because he was never paying the least bit of attention.

Karimo followed Quill’s gaze and shook his head with a faint smile. “Don’t fraternize with clients.”

“She’s not a client,” Quill pointed out.

“She’s an archivist,” Karimo said. Quill gave the young woman an apologetic sort of shrug, but she only continued her speculative study of Karimo.

“Anyway,” Karimo went on, “you’re the one interested in this place—you should stay.”

“If it were up to me, in a heartbeat.” The enormous doors to the Imperial Archives dominated the opposite wall, gleaming with their legendary opal mosaics. Symbols and representatives of every protectorate—every culture that shaped the Imperial Federation, every people whose wisdom and treasures had been safely gathered behind those doors—gleamed in a rainbow of shades.

Quill let his gaze drift between them: The elongated Alojan holding a bone flute. The Khirazji woman, adze and compass in hand, her braids picked out by iron banding. The Borsyan man, the curls of his pale, thick beard suggested by the undulating edge of the opals. The Orozhandi holding the horned skull of some ancestor, her own horned head tilted down as if in conversation. The Kuali with her shepherd’s crook, the Beminat with a jaguar mask and axe, the Datongu with his ornate basket, the Ashtabari with tentacles clutching a variety of religious icons Quill didn’t remember the meanings of. The Minseon man with a drawn bow, his hair sleek and eyes keen, who truly managed to look like Quill’s next-eldest brother despite being made of rainbow stones.

A ring of palest white embraced the ten figures: the Salt Wall that surrounded Semilla. Beyond, the jagged edges of a changeling army bristled in more opals of red and green and brown, the force that had appeared as if from nowhere and destroyed all those nations from within, forcing them to flee to Semilla. Eyes and arms and teeth splayed from those strange figures—as if the fearsome shape-shifters were mid-transformation. Or maybe that was what they looked like when they weren’t wearing someone else’s face—Quill certainly had never seen such a creature, locked away as they were beyond the Salt Wall.

At the center, divided by the doors’ split, stood the tenth figure: the Semillan emperor who had reigned during the Salt Wall’s sealing, Eschellado, his face the imperial mask of gold instead of more opals.

All the imperial masks were beyond the doors. The archives held the treasures of ancient Semilla and all her protectorates, all those things carried away from the end of the old world that must be kept safe and sure. There was no end to the stories: Whole libraries rescued from kingdoms burning before the changeling army. Intact temples to dead gods. The proclamations of every emperor. The skin of a changeling queen. Diamonds as big as your head. Once, he had heard, a live mammoth, but that was madness—

“You’re thinking about all the junk in there right now, aren’t you?” Karimo teased.

“You’re not even a little curious? I mean, the Kirazzi items aren’t that interesting, but they can’t stop you looking around while you’re standing there. There’s certainly a collection of Emperor Eschellado’s notes about the formation of the protectorate government—if you try to convince me you don’t want to see that, I’ll call you out as a changeling.”

Karimo shook his dark-curled head. “Eyes on the task, brother.”

“I’ve got two eyes,” Quill said. “I can do both. Just like you can make sure they find the Kirazzis’ things, nice and tidy, and ask this girl out for a coffee.”

“‘Do not be slack in your own business but busy in others.’”

“I cannot wait until you’re through The Precepts of Bekesa and on to some other way of lecturing me about how you can’t have fun.”

Karimo chuckled. But his gaze went up the stairs again.

It would be Karimo who stayed. Brother Karimo had been assisting Primate Lamberto for several years now and had the older man’s trust. The primate was highly positioned within the Order of the Scriveners of Parem, the juridical order that managed most of Semilla’s legal needs. The primate and his assistants traveled Semilla, spreading the strength and order of the imperial laws and assisting powerful and interesting clients. Assisting the primate was, in all, an excellent position, one Quill’s parents found ideal for his station. Even if it didn’t suit Quill very well.

Karimo, on the other hand, had his eyes always on the task: the client, the request, the complexities of the law, and the words that made those complexities solid and complete. He prized the duty of the Paremi in a way Quill had always found unsettling in others but somehow right and understandable from Karimo: The law is what makes us more than beasts, more than the changelings, more than even just ourselves. The law keeps us safe.

And if Karimo had given Quill a greater appreciation for their duties and their oath, Quill liked to think he’d managed to remind Karimo he could be dedicated and still live a life, deal with “clients” like people sometimes, and look up from his work.

Mostly. Karimo was still watching the staircase.

“Look, she keeps eyeing you,” Quill started to say.

But then the door to the office above banged open, and the primate and the head archivist reappeared. Quill and Karimo shot to their feet. The archivist behind the desk only folded her arms over her chest.

The primate came to a stop before them. He was a big man, pale and paunchy, with a fluff of coiled gray hair looped up beneath his miter and half-hooded eyes. Unlike Quill and Karimo, he wore his robes of office instead of traveling robes, and decked in scarlet and gold finery, Primate Lamberto looked very imposing.

And very annoyed.

“The head archivist,” he said, “has kindly acceded to our legal and approved requests. Finally.”

The head archivist snorted from the foot of the stairs. Mireia del Atsina was an older woman, with a bridge of silver braids framing a narrow, tanned face that suggested at least a little Ronqu blood, and steady gray eyes that declared a Borsyan progenitor or two. She wore the same dark, crisp dress as the girl behind the desk, but hers was accented by a silver chain of office, weighted by the sigil of the imperial crown, a lacquered red cross in the middle of a stylized nest of live branches.

“Next time,” she said, “get them approved properly and we don’t have to do this.”

Quill glanced at Karimo, who didn’t meet his eye. The whole trip to Arlabecca, Primate Lamberto had been very clear that whatever Quill was used to, this request had its own set of expectations. This was a highly discreet undertaking, for a very important client, and so there would be irregularities that must be set aside because of expediency and discretion.

Such as the permissions, signed off not by the empress’s secretary but by the Alojan noble consul, Lord Obigen.

“You don’t need to bring it up,” Primate Lamberto had assured Quill and Karimo. “In fact, until you are within the archives, you don’t need to say a solitary word. Your help will please some very powerful people.” He hadn’t, Quill suspected, thought the issue with the permissions would come up as quickly as the entrance hall, necessitating the long, contentious conference with the head archivist.

“Who gets the bronzes?” the woman behind the desk called out.

Mireia shut her eyes. “Sit down, Zoifia.”

“It’s just a question—”

“Sit down!”

Primate Lamberto grimaced. “I see the Imperial Archives are as … loose with regard to decorum as ever.”

The head archivist regarded him blandly. “Were you introduced to Archivist Kestustis, Most Reverend? She is one of the foremost experts on pre-Sealing cast-bronze works in the entire empire and the possessor of a very strong bronze affinity. When her services are available again, she will find your bronzes and identify them down to the mines their component metals were pulled from. She is twenty-two. The trade is, on occasion, she might offend someone’s sense of decorum.” Zoifia began to retort but Mireia raised a hand, silencing her. “I assume you’re not loitering around yourself this time. Which of them are you leaving to spy?”

Lamberto drew back with a grimace. “Brother Karimo is very experienced, and I will thank you not to besmirch—”

“Most Reverend?” Karimo interrupted. Both Lamberto and Quill looked over at him, startled. Karimo did not interrupt the primate.

“If you please,” Karimo went on, “I think you should leave Brother Sesquillio behind. He is very interested in the work of the archives—he’s been saying so since we left the tower, you know—and beyond that …” Karimo faltered. “Beyond that, you have clients today and tomorrow which I know are difficult matters and which I would feel more comfortable being the one to help you prepare for.”

“Or you could leave no one,” the head archivist suggested, “and let us get on with our jobs.” The primate did not so much as look at her, narrowed eyes on Karimo as if he were trying to find some sleight of hand in the words. Karimo only stared back.

Quill straightened, stinging a bit at the implication that he wasn’t capable of scribing for one of Lamberto’s clients alone. Besides, while the requests involved the archives, they came from the Kirazzi family, and if there were a more complicated client out there, Quill doubted Lamberto would take them on, wealthy or not.

But at the same time, oh how he wanted to lose this argument.

“With all due respect, brother,” Quill began.

“Please.” Karimo shot a look at Quill, bright with desperation. “Anyway, I think you’ll enjoy this assignment. Is it all right, Most Reverend?”

Primate Lamberto studied his two assistants, puzzled, and Quill was certain Karimo’s surprising suggestion would be cast aside like a misscribed contract.

“It will do,” the primate said slowly. “Brother Sesquillio, you … you can accompany the head archivist back to her office. She will apprise you of the limitations the archives insist upon.”

“Yes, Most Reverend,” Quill said, scooping up his scribe kit and his ledger.

I’ll explain later, Karimo mouthed as he passed.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Quill said, uncertain of what he’d just skimmed the edge of. The archives. The Kirazzis. Or just some tension between the primate and Karimo, some private battle. He glanced back down the stairs as he climbed them, but the other Paremi were already gone.

Whatever it was, Quill reminded himself, Karimo could solve his own problems.

And Quill would get to see the Imperial Archives.

Mireia led him to a room dominated by an enormous wooden desk, dark with age and heavily carved. The light slicing through three windows narrow enough to be arrow loops was somehow sufficient to fill the room and illuminate a wall covered with dark blue satin ropes hanging down from the ceiling, each labeled with a name in delicate script on a cream-colored tag.

“Sit,” she said, gesturing at a pair of chairs. Quill did, as she came to stand behind the massive desk. “I assume Lamberto told you not to breathe a word with regard to what this is all about.”

Quill made himself smile. “The Kirazzis merely wish to borrow some of their belongings back from the archives.”

“Let’s skip the things already written on the forms,” Mireia said, “and go on to the truth. Which of the Kirazzis hired you?”

Had Primate Lamberto not said even that much? “I … I don’t think they want their business aired.”

“Let me make this simple: Is your client Ibramo Kirazzi?”

Quill frowned. The empress’s consort, the son of Redolfo Kirazzi—but nobody, so far as Quill knew, who was associated with anything approaching mischief. In fact, he’d had the distinct impression that Ibramo Kirazzi held himself apart from anything his family did these days.

“No, no.” Quill pulled out his notebook, flipped to the page where he’d written up what he needed to know, copied from the primate’s notebook on the road. This had not been a client he or Karimo was allowed to sit down with, and Karimo had been the one to draw up the requests—but Quill had gotten the information down eventually.

“It’s … the Duchess Kirazzi,” he said. “The new one. I think that’s his cousin?”

“And the newly crowned duchess wants the Flail of Khirazj? She thinks that’s a good idea?”

It was a terrible idea, Quill was in full agreement on that much. When Redolfo Kirazzi had ridden against the previous emperor in his attempt to take the throne for the emperor’s lost niece, the Grave-Spurned Princess—but really, as everyone knew, for himself—he had always carried the Flail of Khirazj, a symbol of the ancient god-kings the Kirazzi family descended from. A reminder he was greater than what he seemed, a challenge that he was greater than Semilla.

“I cannot say what the duchess thinks is a good idea, esinora,” Quill said politely. But then he added, “I hear it’s for a Salt-Sealing event. Something in the temple at Palace Sestina.”

“And with it she requires …” Mireia lifted the requests and read from each page in turn. “One illuminated book, titled The Maxims of Ab-Kharu, bound forty years ago with Kirazzi crest on endpapers. One prosthetic arm”—she leveled a sharp gaze at Quill over the papers—“bone and hide, belonging to the late Djacopo Kirazzi. And two bronze statues of Khirazji queens, Bikoro dynasty: one with a headdress of three feathers, one with a scorpion crown. What sort of event is this?”

Quill frowned. His notes only had three items in dispute. Gods and devils, how had he missed one? Had Karimo folded in some other request by mistake? “Statues? Are you sure about those?”

“Am I sure?”

Quill shut the book, pushing down the edge of panic with the gesture. Of course Karimo hadn’t made an error. Quill had been sloppy and missed an item. Eyes on the task, he thought. He could do this. Handling clients was what he was best at.

“It seems my notes are in error. I guess Brother Karimo was correct about my scribing.” He smiled winningly at the head archivist. “But to be honest, being graced with a ducal title doesn’t necessarily shower good sense on a person. We try not to pry into private matters,” he added.

“Even with the Kirazzis?”

Quill took a deep breath and repeated Karimo’s words. “The Kirazzi family have paid their debts to society. They make no more mischief than you or I. And legally, while the majority of the items seized in the forfeiture of Redolfo Kirazzi’s effects are the possessions of the empire, the Flail of Khirazj remains joint property with the royal bloodline of that preexisting kingdom.”

“I understand how the laws work,” Mireia said wearily. “But you know as well as I do that the flail is a different beast.”

Quill folded his hands. “The requests were approved.”

“By Lord Obigen, who will sign any damned request given to him, if he thinks it takes him somewhere politically,” Mireia said. “He wants his second wall. Probably wants Duchess Kirazzi to gift him the land around Sestina.”

She sighed, then went to the long blue cords, taking three of them in her hands and considering. “While the primate is keen to pretend this is nothing at all, I’m sure the Paremi and the Kirazzi family understand that what you’re asking for is akin to kicking a hornet’s nest, midwinter,” she said. “Maybe nothing, or maybe you’re waking something that’s going to hurt a lot of people.”

“That isn’t our intent,” Quill said.

But he knew. Everyone knew, including the Kirazzis. No one talked about Redolfo Kirazzi with anything approaching practicality for fear they’d find themselves endorsing treason or worse. And there was no pretending these requests weren’t peculiar—the flail, an old hand, and Lord Obigen—but would they be so peculiar from anyone else? A duty was a duty, and ultimately it wasn’t Quill’s place to say.

“I shall be out from underfoot as soon as possible, esinora.”

She snorted. “You assume that because we are the Imperial Archives this is merely a matter of shuffling down a row of boxes and fetching what you want, don’t you?”

Quill hesitated. “I don’t dare imagine what the archives contain, esinora.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Sounds like you’ve heard stories. The mammoth?”

Quill hesitated. “That’s not true, is it?”

“If it ever was, it’s starved by now, but—this is the issue—I cannot say anything for sure. There are centuries of artifacts and writings and more in the archives, the treasures of no less than every Imperial Majesty, every king and queen and duke and warlord and reza and chief, every people that escaped the changelings. Not every Imperial Majesty allowed access. Not every Imperial Majesty had archivists. We are in the middle of a race which we were only allowed to begin halfway, and someone kept flinging pomegranates into our path. You want something from twenty-three years ago. Some of my archivists are still cataloguing things from the Salt-Sealing of the Wall.”

Quill could not have hidden his shock, he felt sure. Almost a hundred years had passed since the Salt Wall had been completed. He wondered how much the Kirazzis were paying per day. “When … when do you expect to be caught up enough to find Redolfo Kirazzi’s effects?”

“Oh, slam the shitting gates,” Mireia said. “I’m not going to make you wait. They can stop and look—they do it all the time. I mean to say that you all are a nuisance, and you in particular are likely to be underfoot for an uncomfortably long time, but your primate wants his fingers in every pie and he has the right.” She looked up, at last, from the three cords. “You never saw Ibramo Kirazzi? Swear it?”

Quill sat a little straighter. “No. Why? Why would it matter?”

Mireia nodded once and gave the center rope three sharp yanks. “I suppose it doesn’t,” she murmured, “since it’s nothing to do with him.”

It settled atop the uneasy feeling the strange request had already churned up in his stomach. Quill folded his hands on his knees and focused instead on how soon he would be within the fabled Imperial Archives.

* * *

The official title given to Amadea Gintanas was “Archivist Superior of the Imperial Collections (South Wing),” which she felt was a great many words to say “a solver of problems.”

Managing the archivists and collections housed in the southern portion of the Imperial Archives asked for many skills in service to many problems. Amadea spoke four languages, had a passing familiarity with six more, including several ancient ones from beyond the Wall, and was, specifically, the one you called when you needed Early Dynastic Khirazji translated. She knew how to preserve many treasures against time and the elements. She knew how to date clayware and basket weaves and stone carvings. She knew the faces of the Orozhandi skeleton saints and the names of the thirteen sage-riders of Min-Se and the forms of their dresses. She could level a worktable, repair a torn binding, and fix a Borsyan cold-magic panel without taking her fingertips off.

Amadea knew how to track the affinity patterns of her specialists, how to talk them down when their magic aligned and overtook them. She knew how to make a perfect cup of coffee, how to soothe a heartbreak or the crash that came when an alignment ended, a burst of anxiety or grief or shame that needed a kind word and a firm reminder that everything was all right.

Amadea Gintanas did not know what to do about the rabbit skull sitting on her desk.

“This is the eighth time this week he’s pulled something like this.” Radir, one of her newest generalists, stood opposite her desk. His dark, heavily lashed gaze was locked furiously on Amadea. “He put it under my worktable. I went to sit down and there’s this … this thing snarling up at me.”

Amadea considered the skull, the sharp points of its horns and the fierce arch of its teeth. In the cold-lamps, its shallow orbits glowed eerily, and the lacy bone of its narrow maxilla filled with shadows. A flash of gold traced the bone around the horns’ bases—an Orozhandi ancestor gift, and a cheap one considering how faint the gold and how heavy the traces of glue. It wouldn’t look friendly in the dark.

“Are you sure it didn’t fall?” she said.

“From where?” Radir demanded. “You need to assign me elsewhere. I’m done.”

Amadea folded her hands in front of her. “Where is Tunuk right now?”

Radir hesitated. “In the Bone Vault.”

“Where he is not supposed to be left alone,” she noted.

“He seemed fine.” Radir rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s not in alignment. Bone doesn’t come into alignment for four more months.”

“He’s not in alignment,” Amadea agreed, “and how very conscientious of you to keep track.”

“Why do you need someone to keep an eye on him if he’s not in alignment?”

Amadea smiled. “Because alignment raises the risks of a specialist being caught in an affinity spiral. It doesn’t create the risks. You know this.”

Radir shook his head. “He wasn’t going to go for a walk just because I said so. He hates me. I want … I want to be here, but I don’t know how to keep doing this. Maybe I’m not good enough. He keeps saying he wants you back.”

That was when the bell on the wall started jangling. Amadea pressed fingers to her right temple. “You might remind Tunuk that isn’t going to happen.”

Radir huffed out a breath and said, softer, “I’m worried he might spiral again just so you have to. I don’t know how to stop that.”

Amadea was beginning to worry about that too. “Tunuk knows that if he does any such thing, he will be sequestered,” she said as she came around the desk. “Listen, he has a good heart, but Tunuk is prickly at his best. And a month out from a spiral, he is not at his best.” Her own words tugged on Amadea’s heart, flooded her thoughts with the memory of Tunuk, a month ago, huddled in the shadows, frozen in place by plaques of bone that clustered over his skin.

“Now, a month is long enough,” she continued, telling herself, telling Radir, “that he can probably be left alone with the bones for a bit, and maybe he will appreciate the longer lead. But he needs you.”

“He doesn’t appreciate anything I do.”

“He’s not himself right now,” Amadea reminded Radir. “And our job is to help the specialists when they can’t help themselves. Which they don’t always appreciate.”

“It’s a shit job,” Radir said.

“Sometimes it is a very shit job. But someone needs to do it.” She sighed. “Obviously, the Bone Vault isn’t for you. I will work on finding you a replacement, but it will be a while, and right now, even if Tunuk can work alone for a bit, it can’t be for long. I’ll go talk to him. And if it keeps up, you’ll come back to tell me.”

The bell on the wall jangled again and she scooped up the rabbit skull. “Go. Take a walk. Buy some cakes or sit and have a coffee or go see that young woman you’ve been courting. I have to see what Mireia wants and then I’ll go return this and talk to Tunuk.”

Radir left, and Amadea followed, pausing to check her face in the looking glass that hung over a shelf of figurines. Despite how careful she’d been, fixative gummed her olive temple and the dark streak of her right eyebrow. She licked the corner of her handkerchief and scrubbed at it, noticing as she did the new shaft of silver sprouting from her hairline. Amadea cursed under her breath and pinched the hair out.

You are entirely too old to be vain, she thought, mostly because she ought to hear it. Not because she believed it. She gave the remainder of her part a cursory examination for more traitors before smoothing her hair back down and heading out.

One-handed, Amadea opened the little tin in her pocket and pulled out a knob of scented beeswax. She warmed it in one hand as she walked. An archivist washed well before touching precious things, and old magics kept the archives cool and dry. Good for the artifacts, terrible for the skin. She studied her cracked cuticles a moment, rubbing the beeswax more firmly into them with a thumb, before swapping the skull to her other arm and the beeswax to the other hand.

Vain, vain, vain, she scolded herself as she glanced over the walkway’s edge, through the ornate ironwork grating down at the archives floor below, to the archivists moving among the uncountable treasures collected there. When civilization had fled the changeling forces, they brought all manner of precious things to Semilla, and in their subjects, their materials, the names they bore, the shapes they made, lay a map to a world no one living had ever laid eyes on.

Beyond the Salt Wall, the remains of those kingdoms and countries lay in ruins, but their traces were treasured and preserved in the Imperial Archives.

Amadea drew another deep breath, full of dust and past and promise, as she came to the foot of the iron stairs that wound down to the main floor. Sometimes it was a shit job, but mostly it was exactly where Amadea belonged.

“Did she call you?” Zoifia demanded as Amadea came into the entry hall, her voice rising and rising. “Do you know if she’s giving Stavio my bronzes? Did you know there are Bikoro dynasty bronzes in there that no one’s catalogued? I don’t know them anyway, and Stavio—”

“Good afternoon to you, too. Who is it?”

“A queen consort and a queen regnant, and if they’re Bikoro, I think—”

“I mean who is making the requests, not who are the statues.” Amadea stopped and eyed Zoifia.

When Amadea had first come to the archives, she had envied the specialists. They had such clear and certain purposes. Not quite sorcerers out of stories, but born somewhere on the stairs to that platform of exaltation and madness, the specialists could connect with worked materials, “speaking” with bone and ink and metals and gems and more. Each material responded to its specialists, granting them information and even limited manipulation, but that skill ebbed and flowed. Sometimes the connection was so thin, so off, a specialist could only feel the soft, specific song of their material—yes, I know this one.

But when they came into the peak of their power, each turned to each and the magic became greedy and dangerous. A bronze specialist in full alignment could find a pin in a mud puddle, could repair an urn cast a thousand years ago, could even—for the most powerful affinities, at their very deepest depths—coax tin and copper and trace metals together, make something new like a sorcerer could. But each taste, each use, demanded more, and if the specialist wasn’t careful, they would begin a spiral of magic that ended only when they were completely merged and entombed by their material, one forever more.

Needless to say, keeping track of alignments and keeping aligned specialists distracted were the greatest of Amadea’s problems—and bronze was moving swiftly into alignment. She considered Zoifia’s tapping fingers, that too-familiar manic note in her voice, even as she brushed aside anything that wasn’t bronze.

“How are you feeling?” Amadea asked.

“I’m fine,” Zoifia said, tossing her wild curls.

Sometimes Amadea thought it was the prayer of the specialists: I’m fine. I have lost my sense of self to something inanimate, but I’m fine. I’ve been up all night eating glass and talking to bones, but I’m fine. I have smothered myself in gold and drawn trees up through the floorboards, but I’m fine.

“Did you eat?” Amadea asked, trying to gauge the width of Zoifia’s pupils, the color of the irises. She didn’t see any bronze flecks there, which was good.

“You’d better hurry,” Zoifia retorted. “Mireia wants you to handhold that Paremi. There was a fat old one who thought he could bluster his way in and a young handsome one who was stuffy as a scrivener in a melodrama, but they left. The other young one, a short one with the stupid name, went up with Mireia.” She paused, bit her lip a moment. “It’s Paremi,” she said carefully. “But it’s for the Kirazzis. You should know.”

Amadea’s chest squeezed tight around her breath, all her worries about Zoifia suddenly gone. “Oh,” she said, and then: “Oh,” again, as if that would make anything better.

All she could think of was the letter. Please never doubt: My love and esteem for you have not changed. There is no force within the Wall that could change them, my darling.

She cleared her throat. “Well. That’s surprising. What do they want?”

“A bunch of junk. And the bronzes. Which, if Mireia gives them to Stavio—” Zoifia stopped herself that time. “I have to assume they said it wasn’t Ibramo because Mireia is heartless to me but she wouldn’t have called you, if it were him.”

“It’s not anyone but some Paremi,” Amadea said. She wondered who had told Zoifia that Ibramo Kirazzi was anyone who mattered, and what exactly they had said.

But love is not enough to withstand the truth of our respective stations, and the dangers of my past are too great to bear. Wedding Beneditta could change all of that …

“I bet I could get someone else,” Zoifia said. “Some other superior. It doesn’t have to be you, right, so I’ll go—”

“You have reception duty,” Amadea said briskly, brushing the memory aside. “Thank you for your concern, Zoifia, and I’ll be sure to remind Mireia you wish to be involved in finding the bronzes when you’re up to it. Which is not today.” She lifted the skull. “Could you keep this for me?”

Zoifia seemed to suddenly notice the horned rabbit skull. “Why do you have that?”

“Tunuk.” And before Zoifia could be roused to any further kindness, Amadea swept through the entryway and up the stairs to Mireia del Atsina’s offices.

Mireia sat at her desk, finishing a request for a specialist. In front of her was what must have been the Paremi—but he was so painfully young that for a moment Amadea couldn’t accept that the venerable Paremi came in the form of boys with such guileless eyes. But there he sat, his black, shining hair shaved around his skull, with the top pulled back in an intricate knot at the crown. He smiled eagerly at Amadea, putting her in mind of a puppy. At least Zoifia hadn’t destroyed his good mood.

“Amadea, this is Brother Sesquillio,” Mireia said. “Quill, this is Amadea Gintanas, one of our superior generalists.”

He leapt up from his seat, his dark, tapering eyes sparkling, and grabbed her hand. “Very nice to meet you. I’m so excited to be here.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.” She folded her hands against her skirts, then added to Mireia, “Zoifia mentioned the Kirazzis made the request?”

“The duchess.” Mireia handed over the requests to Amadea, eyes full of warning. “But what she’s asking for is trouble. You’re going to need Yinii, Tunuk, Bijan, and then Zoifia when she’s back to herself.”

Amadea flipped through the pages, saw the words “the Flail of Khirazj.”

She caught her breath, a memory dragged up: Redolfo, Ibramo’s father, flail in hand, looming, looming. Lireana on the floor, on the carpet, the good Alojan carpet, and she’s both a million miles away and close enough to hear the beads clink together as the flail swings, before Ibramo shouts—

Amadea forced herself not to flinch, to ask, “The flail?”

“Apparently, we’re not to inquire as to the Duchess Kirazzi’s good sense,” Mireia said dryly. “Also, Brother Sesquillio has been volunteered to help you, or possibly to make certain we comply to the primate’s standards. Or possibly because the primate believes we will make off with the goods, and this one’s going to stop us. At any rate, keep him busy so the primate doesn’t bother me anymore.”

“Right,” Amadea said, though it was anything but. She flipped through the request documents as they walked back down into the entry hall. Nothing was ever all right when Redolfo Kirazzi was involved.

Ibramo looking at her, young and fragile, and it scares her. “He’s gone to the tombs with her this time. He’s going to do something—”

Amadea blew out a breath and the ghost of the memory before it could stir up anything more. A request was a request—what came of it was a question for the officials who reviewed them, not Amadea Gintanas. At the foot of the stairs, she turned and found the Paremi nearly on her heels. “Brother Sesquillio—”

“Quill, please,” he said. “No need for formality if I’m helping you.”

“Yes.” Except there was no task she could think of that she’d be pleased to hand to this untrained young man—maybe someone had a ledger he could check. She considered the requests, calculated how long to find these things, how long she would have to keep this boy—this hostage, this spy—busy to keep peace between Mireia and the primate.

“Perhaps … a tour,” she said slowly.

“Oh! That would be wonderful.” He grinned at her. “The head archivist made it sound like this would be a complicated endeavor. I’m so glad it means there’s time to see everything.”

Saints and devils, he was so young. She sighed. Tours of the archives weren’t uncommon—there were public galleries and chapels, but if you had the influence and the interest, and Mireia wasn’t annoyed, a tour of the rest of the archives could be arranged. Only, they were arranged months in advance and Amadea’s thoughts were full of the many, many things she needed to take care of. Maybe she could find someone else to take him around.

“Some things,” she corrected. She went to the reception desk and plucked up the rabbit skull. “This way.” Amadea heaved one of the great doors open a crack, and she ushered Quill inside.

Amadea tucked the requests under her arm as she mapped the archives in her mind. She narrowed his tour down to the four areas connected to the Kirazzi requests. If Quill met the specialists, perhaps he’d trust them and not worry about hanging around, being in the way. She started up the iron stairs again: The Bone Vault first, where she could collect Tunuk. Then Bijan’s workshop. Then Yinii’s library; it was close by, and the bronze rooms would be locked for another—

Amadea reached the top of the staircase and stopped. She looked back at Quill. “Did you see Zoifia at her desk?”

He looked startled. “The blond woman? No? Should I have?”

Amadea glanced back at the doors, then up to the third floor, where the bronze collections were. A flash of pale curls appeared between the railings, and Amadea cursed.

“Is something wrong?” Quill said.

“It will be fine,” Amadea told him, striding toward the Bone Vault. “But someone else will need to handle your tour. Come with me quickly, please.”

CHAPTER TWO

Yinii Six-Owl ul-Benturan had lived in her destiny for five years, but if you were to ask her family, there was still a chance this all might be a misunderstanding.

The day before, the ul-Benturan reza had come to Arlabecca, and Yinii had gone to the home of the far-off cousin the reza was staying with to have dinner with her. Yinii’s great-aunt, Dolitha Sixteen-Tamarisk ul-Benturan, had led the families descended from Benturan Canyon for nineteen years now with a pious resolve and a firm hand. Her hair had gone white, her horns now curled around her ears, but still she governed the lives of the ul-Benturans and no one gainsaid her. She was proud, Yinii knew, to have an atnashingyii, “a half-blessed,” a specialist, born to ul-Benturan. To the Orozhandi, Yinii’s people, affinity magic was a gift from the God Above and the God Below.

Only, Orozhandi were not born with ink affinities, like Yinii had been, and Reza Dolitha was dedicated to finding the key to resolving this little mistake.

“Have they tested you with paints recently?” Reza Dolitha asked, when dinner was finished. Yinii squirmed.

“No, Reza,” she said. There’s no need to, she didn’t say. Paint wasn’t ink, ink wasn’t paint. Dolitha understood that insofar as ink wasn’t an Orozhandi affinity, but not in that there could be no mistake.

“Perhaps you should pray to Saint Qilphith,” Dolitha said, heavy with meaning. “Perhaps,” she added a moment later, “you should consider making her your personal saint.”

Yinii knotted her hands in her lap and did not touch the amulet dangling from her horn, the crystal of Saint Asla of the Salt, the martyr who created the Salt Wall that saved Semilla and her protectorates from the changeling horde. Saint Qilphith of the Paint was no less revered.

But that wasn’t why you chose a saint.

“That is a wisdom, Reza.” She cleared her throat. “How long will they have to do without you in Maqama?”

Dolitha sniffed. “I shall return the day after tomorrow. Lord Obigen thinks he’s going to sweet-talk me into approving his blasphemous plan to knock a hole in the Salt Wall, as if it were inconvenient wreckage left over from the war.” She shook her head, her third, parietal eye flinching in involuntary disgust.

“I will attend his repulsive little political maneuver, I will tell him that ul-Benturan will not be quiet or cheerful while he disturbs Saint Asla and the Martyrs of Salt and Iron, and if I have any say in it, his ‘Second Wall’ will be consigned to the rubbish heap of history. Then I will return.” She folded her hands and leaned toward Yinii. “Now: I had also considered that perhaps you have only been reacting to bone black inks. Has anyone made certain of that? Have you prayed to Saint Alomalia?”

Yinii stayed well into the night, well past the point where the light had faded and Dolitha became a body of warmth to Yinii’s dark-eye. She had stayed the night—of course! What sort of reza would send a young girl strolling across this wretched city?—and when Yinii had returned to the archives that morning, it was with orders to pray to six additional saints and to convey a message to a more mundane entity.

She found Tunuk hunched over his worktable in the bone collection, the room they all called “the Bone Vault.” All the Borsyan lamps were low, their magical light bluish and dim, and the Alojan archivist’s midnight skin was lost in the shadows, his lambent eyes on Yinii as he sorted a tray of beads.

“If Amadea sent you to chastise me,” he said in his sonorous voice, “then I want my skull back. Also Radir is a liar and I hate him.”

Yinii shut the door, closed her day-eyes, and opened the dark-eye that lay along her hairline, cradled in the swell of her horns. The shift in her sight was like a sudden breath of warm air off a steaming pot. Tunuk was no longer lost in the shadows but a streak of heat, every bit of his enormous, lanky frame outlined.

Yinii crossed to the worktable and sat down opposite him, resting her head in her hands, making the charms wrapped around her horns tinkle. “I’m supposed to tell you to tell your nest-father that he had best prepare for resistance from the ul-Benturan reza tonight.”

“I will not,” Tunuk said. “Obigen’s business is his business, and anyway I’m not interested in another lecture about how I need to find some mates and a nest. Apparently,” he drawled, “bone speaking is a precious gift I shouldn’t squander by living like a hermit.”

“I got a similar lecture from the reza about how I should try harder not to have an ink affinity.”

“Of course. Because this is all voluntary. We chose this.” She heard a bead plink into another container. “Quartz,” Tunuk sneered. “What are they even paying Radir for?”

“I have to go to the chapel,” Yinii said, but she didn’t move, head down, stuck in place. She didn’t want to ask Saint Qilphith or Saint Alomalia for an intervention.

Tunuk sighed, and she heard a piece of paper slide across the table toward her. He took one of her hands, his palm cool and almost gelid against her skin, and slapped it down on the page.

Her nerves leapt over each letter, each lash of ink, as if the words were startled to sense her there.

Sense, see, feel. None of these were quite the right word, but she knew what it was intimately as the ink pulsed over her fingers, memories of the pen and the grinding, the intent and the place. It was a request form, Mireia’s sure hand, Amadea’s quick notations shivering through the fresh ink. The soot in it muttered of Semilla’s rolling hills and vineyards after the frost, prickling her nose with the memory of something like a scent of burning, of grape leaves drying in the sun.