People, yes, but monsters and creatures too. So much flesh just waiting to be used, to be animated, to be bent to her will.

“Coral.” She reached back, seizing Coral’s wrist before she could leave. “Wait. This doesn’t have to be the end. We don’t have to turn back.”

Coral’s voice was wary. “What do you mean?”

“Take the war constructs. Go back to the city. Gather all the survivors in the palace courtyard – all the ones that will fit.”

“It’s getting late…” Coral trailed off.

“Which is why I need to get started now,” she responded. The deaths of Grass and Leaf would haunt her, but with stormy skies came much-needed rain. These bodies, monstrous and human, would be enough for her to storm the next islands. If she could take Gaelung, she would have a serious foothold in the Empire.

Shell, Frond, Leaf and Grass would not have died for nothing. They would have died to wreak vengeance on this Empire and to build the foundation of a new one.

Nisong rose to her feet. She needed a fresh change of clothes, to bathe the salt water from her limbs. And then the work could begin.

36

Phalue

Nephilanu Island

Phalue shifted on her chair in the entrance hall, always unsure of whether she should lean forward or lean back. She didn’t feel like she was made for sitting, but she knew her height could be intimidating, and she wanted petitioners to always speak their minds.

She needn’t have worried too much about that.

“… and what in all the Endless Sea am I supposed to do with them, Sai? I’m a good man; I fed them when they first arrived, but now they’ve overstayed their welcome. I’ve got my own family to feed and a living to make. They can’t stay.” The man in front of her was the last petitioner of the day, and had come from a village on the eastern side of the island. It wasn’t a short trip, and he wasn’t the only one to make the trek. Petitioners filled the perimeter of the entrance hall. Some she’d already dealt with, but she’d made a habit of making sure all petitioners received a good meal before they left – so they waited for the kitchens. It was the least she could do.

“They have nowhere else to go,” Phalue said. A few scattered survivors from Unta had been arriving on the shores of Nephilanu, searching for a place to settle into. More than Phalue had expected given Nephilanu’s distance from Unta. But Nephilanu did not have a witstone mine and she supposed that appealed to many.

“Isn’t it the duty of the governor to enforce the laws? It’s my land. Send some of your guards to remove the refugees.”