her face with soil. “Stupid girl,” said Nessaket, wishing Rushes was here instead-but she had disappeared after giving her warning about Jenni. She hoped the girl had not met an ill fate-she was the best spy Nessaket had found thus far. She rocked Daveed in her arms and looked out over the edge, ignoring the guards who hovered, hands reaching out towards the baby lest she lose her grip.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” said Dreshka, “I am a stupid girl.”
Nessaket sighed and looked towards Beyon’s tomb. Odd stories had been told about that place. A curse on her son, they said, for bearing the pattern while he sat the Petal Throne. Now ghosts haunted his grave. And that was not the only place. Some of the women insisted the women’s wing was haunted. “Foolishness,” she said aloud, though the sight of the tomb disturbed her. It was more than the fact her son was buried there; she had become accustomed to dead sons. No, something about the shadows there made her uneasy.
Shadows. That would be where Jenni was hiding. The Grey Service hunted the palace for her, the better she did not give warning to her master. But Nessaket was certain she had not left, that she lurked somewhere in these soft halls, waiting to strike. For Jenni’s master could offer her nothing but death now, unless she completed her mission.
Six more guards climbed the stairs, three and three, with Mesema between them, Pelar in her arms. She smiled and gave Nessaket a kiss on each cheek before pushing between another set of guards to settle on the bench. Nessaket sat beside her and together they looked at the new rose bed.
“She has not been found,” said Nessaket, before the empress could ask. Mesema sighed. “At least we have not been poisoned.”
Nessaket silently agreed. She did not know if she would ever eat normally again, without picking apart her food to check for the crescent-shaped seeds. “I am glad to see you well. This sickness… We may need to leave this place.” “We will survive it,” said Mesema. “Disease has tried to defeat us once before, and failed.” Us. Mesema had named herself Cerani. “We will stay.” But this pale-sickness was not the pattern, and killing its master would not cure. She had lived through other plagues before the blue marks had come, plagues that had killed nearly all the children. She did not feel the empress’ confidence. Her throat felt dry. “Dreshka…” she began, thinking to ask for a cup of fresh water, but a high, keening noise made her turn.
Dreshka fell to one side, her arm jerking among the thorns of a rose bush, blood appearing in streaks where the thorns tore her skin. Her head rested on the stone wall, and she held her eyes open with a confused, lost look. At first her legs kicked lazily away from the garden bed, as if she were cooling herself in a pool, but then with more power, her back arching, head finally falling backwards to hit the floor on the other side. Her body twitched between soil and roses, her legs spread scandalously apart, urine running down to pool upon the tiles.
Mesema screamed. Nessaket put out a hand to stay her. She had seen this before.
The guards lifted Dreshka from the bushes and held her down on the tiles, whether from propriety or to try and save her, Nessaket could not guess. She could not be saved. Spittle flew from Dreshka’s mouth as she tried to speak. “Ah-Ah-Ah-”
Lapella had died silently. “Shhh,” said Nessaket, “Don’t be afraid.”
The convulsions had her now, pulling her up into the air as if held by ropes and dropping her again. Her skull made a rapping noise against the roof, rap, rap, rap. “Can’t you stop her head from doing that?” asked Mesema, tears streaming down her cheeks, hiding Pelar’s face so that he could not see.
It would go on like this for several minutes. Nessaket had seen it before and did not wish to witness it again. “Kill her,” she said to the guard at Dreshka’s shoulder. “Stab her heart.” To her credit Mesema made no protest.
The guard drew a dagger and hesitated. “She’ll die anyway,” Nessaket insisted. Dreshka’s chest was heaving so much that the guard struggled. Five of them held her down, two of them sitting on her hips and legs, so that he could do it. The slave-girl jerked once more, then went still.
Nessaket crouched by the girl, careful not to touch the blood with her silks. She examined Dreshka’s dirty hands, checked her pockets and reached inside her robes. There she found it. Linen folded into a square, containing a bit of bread, some half-eaten cheese, and the stem of a candied fig. “The servant’s meals,” she said, “Of course. She wanted to kill the slave who could identify her.”
“But this wasn’t her-”
And Lapella had been barren. “Yes,” said Nessaket, “sometimes things don’t work out fairly.” She turned to the guards. “Take her away.”
Besides her anger and pity Nessaket felt victorious. Jenni had wasted her only weapon. She might still be in the women’s wing, hiding in niches or under beds, but she posed no threat. By doing nothing but planting flowers Nessaket had defeated her. It would not be long, now. She would be found.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sarmin held his gaze on the Pattern Master’s stone. A year spent in darkness within that oubliette and Helmar had kept this simple river stone, made a hiding place for it, treasured it. He must have turned it in his hands ten times a thousand times. In the blindness of that place he set his brilliant mind upon this stone and worked wonders. And I can find no single hint of any piece of magic. He had hoped it would free him from the Many, stop the emptiness from spreading out from Beyon’s tomb. That was what Helmar had promised, when he had reached out to him from the past. The stone was the key to the pattern.
He sat alone in his room. Azeem pestered him with messages and with visits, pleading for him to hold court, to be seen in the Petal Throne, to be emperor. Even the priests visited him, clambering up the many stairs to stand before him sweating in their robes and symbols. Dinar of Herzu’s temple, his shoulders as broad as Ta-Sann’s, almost scraping the sides of the doorway as he entered, had talked of duty.
“In time of war the emperor must lead, Excellency.” He held his staff of office tight, skin pale around the black tears tattooed along the arcs of index fingers and thumbs.
“We are still at truce, high priest,” Sarmin had told him. “Herzu is patient-do they not say that of him? He has no need of wars to hurry us through his gates.” Sarmin kept the Pattern Master’s stone in his hands, smoothing it between them as it were his own creation and he was finishing off the final touches.
Assar of Mirra came too, his grim face given colour by the climb, a man ill-suited to sharing out Mirra’s love.
“The empire has been sick with this plague of patterns for generations, my emperor. Even with the agent of the disease removed our recovery is not complete. Such conditions leave scars and the road back to health can be slow. The Longing grips our people and a new sickness emerges. We need our emperor among us, showing our strength and unity. The loneliness of this tower is an illness too, and surely your wife-”
“The empress needs your attentions more than I do, Assar.” Sarmin cut across him, his tone sharp. “And if I am alone here then you are years too late with your company.”
Others came, last of them a pale young woman, a native of Kreshta, south beyond even Yrkmir, and newly appointed priestess of Ghesh-Sarmin had been introduced briefly at Pelar’s birth feast but couldn’t recall her name. She strode in past the sword-sons with such purpose that Sarmin imagined they would have stood nose to nose but for Ta-Sann’s intervening arm. Her passage blocked, the priestess came to a halt, diaphanous robes in blackest silk swirling about her like smoke.
“I bring you the blessings of Ghesh, my emperor.” She made the bow that the holiest may offer in place of obeisance.
“Ghesh, clothed in darkness, eater of stars,” Sarmin smiled at her seriousness. “Zanasta used to speak of him often.”
“I-”
“Remind me of your name,” Sarmin interrupted her. Better to put her on a new course than explain Zanasta. Perhaps though Ghesh would approve of his having been raised by demons.
“Maniloot, my emperor.” She had no accent. Perhaps she had been raised in Nooria despite her looks and the strangeness of her name.
