“Thank you,” she said. She took a deep breath in, trying to center herself despite the shouts. It had taken her a few tries on the last island to create constructs from the villagers’ bodies. She’d been more than a little out of practice. There, she’d done it while the world around her was calm. Here, she was trying to create constructs to stave off an attack already underway.

There was a place for her in the heart of the Empire. It would be worth all of this.

Nisong tried to hold on to that thought as she palmed the commands – her and Shiyen, together and unbroken. She tried to drown out the crack of wood breaking, the sobs of children. Only her body, the shards of bone and the body in front of her, his face still wide-eyed in shock.

She reached for his chest, her mind calm. Cold, dead skin met her fingertips.

“They have broken through,” Coral said breathlessly, back at her side once more. “They have axes. They are taking apart the gate.”

Nisong had died once already, her memories showing her sickness, flashes of nausea and weakness. That had been painful enough: she wasn’t ready to die again. She wasn’t ready to give up.

Coral seized her arm. “You’ve told me of your memories. Go back earlier,” Coral said. “You were never able to center yourself around the Emperor. Think of your sister.”

“She dismissed me too,” Nisong said, shaking off the woman’s soft hands.

“Not always. And that was enough. Here.” Coral seized a branch of juniper and shoved it beneath Nisong’s nose. Behind them, she heard the creak of wood as the attackers pried boards loose, growls and metal clashing as her remaining constructs did their best to defend the courtyard.

They were going to die. She might as well humor her. Nisong breathed in deep.

And was transported. She stood at the stairs in the entrance hall of the palace on Hualin Or, watching her servants load her things into a palanquin.

“It should have been Manlou from Gaelung,” her sister, Wailun, said from behind her. “Not you.”

Nisong only shrugged one shoulder. She’d heard as much from the servants’ gossip, from whispers in the streets, from her own parents. She was to be the Emperor’s consort; the words couldn’t bother her anymore. She’d outrank all of them.

“He doesn’t care about you,” Wailun said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Nisong said. “I am now his most advantageous match.”

Wailun let out an amused snort. “And I suppose you had nothing to do with that scandal, just as you had nothing to do with Enara’s on Deerhead. Attempting to coerce the Emperor’s steward into poisoning you – that was not something a potential consort should be caught doing.”