The beast was heavier than I’d expected; only my Alanga-enhanced strength kept me from tumbling to the ground below. A shove and then the weight on my shoulders lifted. The pounding at the door increased. I pulled myself up onto the roof. Thrana’s claws scraped against the tiles as she struggled to keep her footing.

Below me, I heard voices I did not recognize. “Eminence? Eminence!”

We fled toward the city.

32

Jovis

Hualin Or

Viscen is unrepentant. Philos, only a little. Viscen blames it all on Philos. The wet season is almost here, and the people on her island have suffered from bog cough each season. Philos isn’t keen on sharing his supply of caro nuts. He needs them for his people.

I point out their disagreement killed twenty-three villagers.

“And what about the three hundred that died on my island from bog cough?” Viscen says.

“Destroying the village was unintentional,” Philos says. “Or maybe Viscen did intend it; I don’t know how her mind works.” They’re working up to another fight, I can feel it. Philos and Viscen have always hated one another and look for any excuse to bicker.

When I say we should all be more cautious with our powers, they shrug and turn away. How can they not care? All these vibrant lives are more than a number. All these vibrant lives winked out.

Perhaps Ylan is right.

Perhaps something needs to be done.

—Notes from Jovis’s translation of Dione’s journal

Of all the people I had to run into while engaging in subterfuge, Ragan was the one I least wanted to encounter. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t here, there simply was no faking that. But I could fake confidence, and Ragan was from a monastery; how much did he really know about life outside of it? “Oh, Ragan,” I said, putting as much friendliness into my voice as I could muster. I could still feel the pounding of my heartbeat, and had to make an effort to keep my breathing even. “You’re up late.”

“And you are supposed to be at the palace with Lin,” he said. His ossalen, Lozhi, peeked out from behind his robes, blue eyes wide. “She sent me back to the ship,” I said. I worked through a thousand excuses. She was angry with me, she wanted to check on something at the ship, she was afraid someone might have breached her rooms. As I studied Ragan’s narrowed eyes, though, I knew he would follow up with Lin about them. So I chose something else. “She was having…” I lowered my voice, leaned in conspiratorially. “… woman problems. She asked me to fetch some herbs she left here on the ship.”

But unlike many of the men I’d known, who would shift uncomfortably and let the matter fall, Ragan wasn’t deterred by this revelation. “And she didn’t send one of her maidservants instead? She sent you?”