But I caught the glimpse of a quirked lip before Iloh turned away, and I knew: I’d not yet won this battle.

14

Jovis

Riya Island

I found a (person/mortal/citizen?) drowned (or drowning) on the rocks of my island. (Two sentences that might be describing the person, something about hair and a shirt. Mephi was very uninterested in this bit.) How could I leave him to die? I took him back to my (dwelling/house/cave?), (healed?) him and fed him. When he could speak, he told me he was here to talk to me, but had gotten caught in a fight between two Alanga. He’d ended up shipwrecked.

His name is Ylan Sukai.

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

Iloh was an ass. It didn’t take me long to come to that conclusion. Some faces were worn a certain way from one too many smug expressions, their assedness carved into the lines around mouth and eyes. The lines on Iloh’s face were a map leading to only one destination: the capital of asses.

His servants showed us to our quarters, and Lin walked into her rooms. “Jovis, with me, please.”

I followed and shut the door behind me. As soon as it clicked closed, she whirled. “I should have expected this.” She was angry, but this time her anger wasn’t directed at the governor or me. It was directed at herself. “I remove the constructs and they no longer fear my position. My father rarely visited, and now they see themselves as individual islands instead of part of the Empire.” Thrana dogged her heels as she paced. “They think I’m young and foolish. They think they can push my temper and then take advantage of me.”

Both Mephi and I watched her, and I thought it wise not to point out that her temper had clearly already been pushed. “Sometimes kindness is seen as weakness, Eminence,” I said.

“Don’t tell me what I already know,” she snapped. And then she sank onto the couch by the window, burying her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, you don’t deserve that sort of abuse.”

Except I was sending messages to the Shardless Few behind her back. I stuffed the thought away. “I do my best to be useful.” To more than one master. Guilt, it seemed, was a heavy burden not easily shaken.

“I wanted to ask you… Everyone loves you. Did you see the way he greeted you as opposed to the way he greeted me?”

“You wanted to ask me..?”

She pinched her nose. “I’m being rude. Please, be at ease.”

I settled into the chair opposite the couch. My hair and jacket were still damp, warmed by my body and making me feel like a living swamp.

“How do I get them to look at me the way they look at you?”