service.” Her voice dropped into a whisper. “Did he?”
“Yes.” It was partly true — I did start off in the salt farmer’s house as one of the kitchen drudges — but what would be the use of telling her the whole story? The farmer’s wife who eventually sent us all to the salt when her husband noticed us, and the choking misery of the long days, and the nights spent with breaths held, listening for the tread of the whipmaster.
“What happened to my brother?” I asked.
In an instant, her face aged, the sweet tilt of her mouth lost in bitterness. “He took up soldiering a year ago and died in the Trang Dein raids.”
I felt a cold, unexpected plunge of loss, although in truth this woman and her son were strangers to me. Yet there it was — an ache for the lost chance of a family. Or maybe it was the stark sorrow on my mother’s face.
She looked up and forced a smile, touching my arm hesitantly. “I thought I had no one left. Until Master Tozay’s men came.”
“You know why you are here, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Master Tozay said that I could be used against you — although I do not see how. I am nothing.”
“You are the Mirror Dragoneye’s mother,” I said, watching her closely. “And you may be awed by the rank, but you are not shocked by a female Dragoneye like everyone else, are you?” I smiled, trying to take the edge out of my words. “Can you see the dragons too, Mother?”
Her eyes were steady on mine. “Daughter, until a few weeks ago, women who claimed to see dragons found themselves either chained to other madwomen or dead.”
I clasped her shoulder. “Did you know I could see them?”
“All the women in our family can see them. It is our secret.”
“What can you tell me about Kinra?” She stepped back, breaking my hold, but I followed her retreat. “Please, tell me what you know. It is more important than you think.”
She licked her lips. “I gave you the plaque. I taught you the rhyme.”
“What rhyme?”
She leaned closer. “The rhyme that is passed from mother to daughter.
I froze. I did know it, or at least the first part of it: I remembered sitting opposite my master in his study, before the approach ceremony, and hearing its simple rhythm in my head. I had thought it was something I’d read in one of his history scrolls.
“We used to say the rhyme together — when we walked along the beach where no one could hear,” my mother added.
Kinra had tried two ways to send her message across time: a rhyme passed through generations, and a portent written in code in a Dragoneye’s journal. I wished that she had not hidden her meaning so well, but I knew why; to protect the Mirror Dragoneye bloodline, exiled by her attempt on the Imperial Pearl.
“What does the rhyme mean?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I was told by Charra that it came from the same Kinra whose plaque had to be handed down from mother to daughter. It was our duty to pass along three things.” She counted them off on her fingers. “The plaque, the rhyme, and the riddle — which, frankly, is not a true riddle, and does not bring any honor to her name.”
I stared at her; I had no recollection of a riddle. Was this the missing piece of the puzzle?
I caught her arm. “What riddle?”
Startled, she looked down at my tight hold. “Her daughter had two fathers, but only one bloodline. Two into one is doubled.”
“Two into one is doubled?” I echoed.
The words rang no sudden chime of understanding through me. The puzzle did not click into place. But I could at least guess the two fathers: Emperor Dao and Lord Somo. Only one bloodline. Two lovers, but only one was the father. My breath caught as an intuition gathered force, a roaring build of hope and possibility.
Kinra’s line could have royal blood. Dao’s blood.
Kygo — we could be together. Truly together. My blood would be both royal and Dragoneye. And that would stop any other royal blood from binding me with the black folio. I would be invulnerable. I would have everything.
“Which one was the father?” I tightened my grip on Lillia’s arm. “Which one? Do you know?”
She pulled away from me and stepped back against the bulkhead, eyes wide. I knew I was frightening her, but she had to answer me.
“‘The one she loved.’ That is the answer to the riddle. That is all I know!”
But I knew more than she did.
“No!” I clasped my hands on either side of my head, trying to stop the truth from forcing its way through my hope. “No!” But I knew Kinra had loved Lord Somo. Not Emperor Dao. Dela had told me that Somo was the nameless man in the journal, and Ido had read it in his records. Kinra had loved the Dragoneye, not the emperor. I did not have royal blood. I had double Dragoneye blood. It had probably given me my strong dragon sight, but it did not give me what I truly needed — a way to save both Kygo and the dragons.
I bent over, sobbing for breath under the crushing return of desperation. For just one glorious moment, I had seen a way out.
My mother edged closer, her hand hesitantly touching my shoulder. “Why are you crying, daughter? What does the riddle mean?”
“She loved Somo.” I took a shaking breath. “She loved the wrong man.”
Her hand patted my back. “She will not have been the first,” my mother said. “And she will not be the last.” She peered into my face. “You are very pale. Come, sit down. When did you last eat? Or sleep?”
I let her usher me to a chair and press the cooled tea bowl into my hands.
“Tell me what all this means,” she said.
In the clear golden liquid, I watched my reflection summon a mask of courtesy.
I smiled up into the face that was so very like my own. There was no denying that we were mother and daughter — but for the moment, we were also strangers. “You are right, I need to sleep. Perhaps we can talk about it later.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I HAD NOT lied to my mother — I did need to sleep. Master Tozay assigned me the chief mate’s quarters farther along the mid-deck. It was a cramped cabin, but one of the few private spaces on the ship. The narrow bunk was set into a nook created by two tall cupboards at head and foot, and a low bank of storage lockers above. I stretched out on the bed and tried to ignore the boxed-in sensation and the dank smell. If I’d not had the oil lamp burning, it would have felt like a tomb.
Under my fatigue and discomfort, another kind of restlessness scratched at my spirit and kept me awake. At first, I thought it was the enigma of my mother’s rhyme. What would the Rat take — the pearl, or something else? And what would the dragon break to wake the empire? The Covenant, the pearl, my word … my heart? There was no doubt that it meant Ido and me, but was it a prophecy or a warning?
Even after I had exhausted the rhyme’s grim possibilities, the scratchy unease kept my eyes wide open and my body shifting against the hemp mattress. The pitch of the junk had deepened, the plunge and sway not quite rhythmic enough to lull me to sleep. Finally, I gave in to the need to move and the hankering for fresh air.
I lurched along the creaking passageway, my approach watched by Ido’s guard. The Dragoneye’s jail — a
