The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(8)

The man in front of me turned around to check the view when we reached the top. His face paled, his eyes widening. “Captain!”

I whirled, wondering what it was he saw.

The narrow street wended behind us, buildings looming over it, pressed together like teeth. Dust glittered in the air, but this wasn’t what had captured the soldier’s attention. Down by the ocean, something had changed. The outline of the harbor had widened. The docks lay at strange angles to one another. There were dark shapes near the shore, jutting from the water.

The tops of bushes. The harbor had sunk.

The captain regarded this revelation with a grim set to her mouth. “We go to the square,” she said. “We tell the other two phalanxes. Keep calm, keep order. I don’t know what this means, but we stick together.”

It was a testament to her leadership that the soldiers fell into step behind her.

I eyed the docks behind us. Promises were well and good, but I’d also promised Emahla I’d find her – and I couldn’t very well do that if I were dead. I thought of Danila folding dumplings for her nephew’s Festival feast. After mine, my normally reticent mother had held me close, kissed the top of my sweaty hair. “I wish I could have protected you,” she’d said. She hadn’t known then that I’d been spared. I’d barely known it myself. The square wasn’t too far now, and I was a quick runner.

So despite my dread, I followed the soldiers. The air had gone still; no voices, no birds calling, only our footsteps scraping against stone. After another turn and a climb, the stillness gave way to murmuring. Ahead, the street widened into the city square.

Deerhead Island wasn’t the largest of the known islands, but it was one of the wealthiest. I’d heard natives brag about their spicy fish soup, their vast markets, and had even heard one claim that Deerhead floated higher in the water than other islands. Their witstone mine produced a good deal of the Empire’s supply, and the square was yet another reflection of this wealth. The stones beneath our feet became smooth, laid in patterns. A raised pond adorned the center of the square, bridges leading to a gazebo in the middle. The vine-like carvings on the gazebo marked it as one of the few Alanga-era structures still standing in one piece. It would have been a place I’d liked to have visited with Emahla. She would have given me a sly, sidelong look: “So why did the Alanga build that?” And I would have launched into a story about how this graceful building was merely one of their outhouses. She would have laughed and added in her own details. “Of course. Who doesn’t dream of relieving themselves in a gazebo?”

But she wasn’t actually here.

I stopped at the mouth of the street, waiting until the soldiers in front of me had made their way to the other end of the square. Dozens of children stood there, hemmed in by Imperial soldiers. Like sheep being led to a slaughter. Some were calm but most looked nervous, and several of them openly wept. They’d have been dosed up with opium to make them docile and to dull the pain. I strode closer and searched their ranks. Red shirt, flowers on the hem. Too many children in red.

It shouldn’t have been me doing this. It should have been one of the Shardless Few, with their romantic ideals about freedom and an Empire ruled by the people. I wasn’t an idealist. Couldn’t afford to be.

The earth moved. Dust shook loose from the tiled roofs and I struggled to keep my feet underneath me. Panic jolted to the tips of my fingers. An aftershock, fine, yes. Three quakes in one day, and the sinking of the harbor – this wasn’t anywhere close to normal. At the other end of the square, the soldiers crouched around their charges, hands going to weapons as though that might help. The census taker presiding over the Festival hunched over his book. The children watched the buildings shake with wide eyes.

I steadied myself at the edge of the fountain, counting. One, two, three, four . . .

At five, my throat tightened. At ten, I knew this shaking might not stop. Something terrible was happening. I could feel it to the very marrow of my bones. As soon as I felt it, I could walk again. If the world was ending, then just waiting around for it to end would help no one, least of all myself.

A boy in the group of children seemed to sense the same thing I did. He rose from his crouch and ran. One of the Imperial soldiers caught him by the shirt.

Red shirt, flowers at the hem. Alon, Danila’s nephew. Short for eight years old, with a mop of black hair that threatened to overwhelm him.

Duty held the soldiers together like a piece of fishing string. A hard push and they’d snap. I ran toward them, stumbling as the ground shifted. “The island is sinking! I’ve seen this happen before,” I lied. I didn’t have to try at all to sound panicked. “Get to the ships, get out of here before it takes us all with it!” I couldn’t be sure if I was exaggerating or not, but I wasn’t about to stick around to find out.

The soldiers stared at me for a moment, stricken, the buildings behind them rumbling.

“You!” the captain called to me. “Get back in line.”

With a sound like thunder, a building on the opposite side of the square collapsed. With that, the string tying the soldiers together snapped. They ran. Children and soldiers buffeted me, threatening to knock me to the ground. I reached through the crowd and seized Alon’s arm. So small I could fit my entire hand around it. “Your Auntie Danila sent me,” I told him, shouting to be heard above the rumbling earth. I’m not sure if he heard me, but he didn’t try to slip from my grasp. That was something. “We need to run. Can you do that?”