Rushes saw them everywhere, Mylo’s followers, identified by their secret signal, a finger across the chin. They gathered over simple meals and work-tables in every place where marble changed to plain tile, where silk tapestries gave way to white-washed walls, and where the silk-clad did not venture. They whispered and planned though their Fryth austere had disappeared, likely into the dark oubliettes where Rushes had first found the Megra.
Rushes was hiding from Beyon, from his wrath at her betrayal. She kept herself hidden in plain sight, among other female slaves, far from the women’s wing or the Little Kitchen. She found that if she walked back and forth in Nessaket’s livery nobody questioned her. Nevertheless her eyes scanned for threats, and she walked on the balls of her feet, always ready to run towards the Ways.
The whispers ran along the corridors like a rustling in the wind; Irisa was dead. The physician had left the women’s wing, his satchel clutched at his side, all the herbs and potions within it useless when it came to a girl who had lost all colour and will. At the end of her life the concubine had at last been given a room of her own, the bed high, the walls painted with birds. But it was said she did not notice, that her eyes stared straight ahead, at nothing. And now more fell ill, not just concubines but slaves too, and some of the silk-clad. When people spoke of the sickness they used the word “catch,” as if a person reached for it like a ball. Instead Rushes believed that the sickness was trying to catch her, and so by always moving, she tricked it.
Lanterns were lit day and night, reflected in the gleaming doorknobs and bright mosaics, but the brightness did nothing to keep the ghosts away; they drifted through the halls, formless, but threatening all the same. They watched, and waited-for what, Rushes could not tell. When frightened Rushes thought it was best to proceed normally, completing tasks as if she noticed nothing amiss, but sometimes, she felt a coldness sliding along her skin and she knew that a ghost had passed by too closely.
So when Kya, who carried the silk runners to and from the administrator’s hall, grabbed her arm and whispered, Rushes screamed-but it was only one of Mylo’s secret messages. Every few days she received a new one, usually instructions to appreciate Mogyrk’s blessings or to pray for strength, but this one was different. “Fire is the signal. You must bring something precious to the courtyard.”
“What?” But Kya was gone, her arms wrapped around her purple bundle. Rushes did not see how fire could be a signal. Fire burned everywhere, in the lanterns and the ovens, all day and all night. And what was meant by something precious? She spied a group of slaves standing around a table polishing silver candlesticks, their voices low, so she came closer, pulling a bit of silk that she used to polish Nessaket’s comb from her pocket.
“They say Lord Zell beat her so hard she could barely move.”
“They’ll kill all of us by the end of it, with their patterns, their beatings, or their ghosts. I tell you…”
“…waiting in a grave for another…”
“Excuse me,” said Rushes, and all turned to look at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. She drew her finger across her chin and they relaxed, nodding and returning to their work. “Who died?”
“Mina from the Little Kitchen,” said a young woman, hair the colour of the oak door behind her. “She got beaten.”
“W-What?” Rushes stumbled and turned, her mouth moving with no words.
“Some silk-clad caught her,” she said, expression going dark with what was left unspoken. “After that they took her to Mirra’s temple but there was nothing to be done.”
Mina. Dead. Rushes had seen Lord Zell in those passageways, cloaked in black like Herzu himself, hunting girls in the Little Kitchen. Nobody would stop him. Nobody could. Rushes got away, but Mina had been caught. Her chest felt tight, so tight she could not breathe. She wandered, crookedly, her shoulder hitting against the wall, drained of hope, the Longing filling her at last.
Her mind fell deep into memory-Gorgen, her brother, Emperor Beyon, Mina, Demah-Zell-and her feet went their own way, turning and stepping, following a well-worn path into the Ways. She huddled against the damp stone, smooth from the touch of a thousand hands, some shining and clean, others filthy, bloody.
She could jump. It was what Demah had chosen, what many others had chosen. It was the easiest way. To just stop. Stop worrying, stop trying. She moved forwards, feeling with her feet for the edge of the stone. She would not be alone. There were bones down there, thousands of them. It would be like being part of the Many, only all would be quiet. Peaceful.
But she remembered the apple Hagga had given her, here in the Ways. How it had tasted. How a butterfly looked, fluttering in the sunshine. The empire mother’s perfume and how Daveed felt in her arms, squirming and reaching for her hair. The things that coloured a life.
Daveed. She remembered him, the curl at his temple, his smile. He did not have the choice to go on or to stop. He was helpless in a hall where ghosts moved and illness picked one girl, then another without regard, and where slaves planned their secret rebellion. She had betrayed Beyon but she did not have to abandon Daveed. Fire is the signal. Mylo’s followers were everywhere, perhaps even in the women’s wing. Something precious. She backed away from the edge. Daveed did not have a choice to stop. She had to protect him.