The fizzle of rumor and speculation became a runaway chain reaction, unstoppable by any means. Romulus and Remus pulsed with fervor. A growing breadth of the Empire bubbled over with tales of Misery Nomaki the Blessed, chosen of the Demiurge, the Ninth Messiah who had come to guide the Faithful toward the path of righteousness, from which they had strayed. The galas and the parties of the nobility lit up with impassioned, drunken arguments. On the chattering balconies overlooking the pink salt flats of Romulus, at grandparents’ tables in the working-class districts, skepticism fought a losing battle to wonder. Exhausted by generations of war, rendered hopeless by the passivity of the Truce of Logan, the Faithful latched upon this hint of change like a fount of wine. By the time the Emperor exited from his cloistered meetings, brow furrowed and fingers on temples, Misery Nomaki was already being heralded as the Ultimate Savior even in the farthest-flung duchies. An enterprising youth unearthed Misery Nomaki’s bio from Apis recordbases and flooded the waves with a mockup of them in Saint Ono’s pose. A well-subscribed pastor on Remus named the incident at the Grand Amphitheater the Messiah’s Reckoning, a phraseology that captured fevered imaginations and flooded the waves in no time. In Apis, the halls of the House of Bichap trilled with yearning and excitement. And in his churchhall back on Rootsdown, Cremoline Nomaki knelt before an altar in prayer, waiting for the salves to still his thoughts.

CHAPTER 7

The Throne’s jailors have learned their lessons. This time Misery’s thrown in a saint’s cell, a white honeycomb block lined with indestructible plastic she can’t bend to her will. The door is solid all the way through, and it’s harder than her fists. Her swollen knuckles are testament to that. She might punch the door again. Bruise-pain overrides the hunger eviscerating her. Saints metabolize light and can survive without food, so they don’t send any to this block. Misery hasn’t been fed in hours, or days, she can’t tell. Time is meaningless in this nothing cell with no furnishings and no sound but the rush of her blood. Feels like acid has eaten a hole through her belly. She’d rather have broken bones.

Crem did this when she was a tot, locking her in a room with only light for company to prove that she wasn’t a saint. A delightful test: if Misery survived they could call her a saint, and if she died of starvation then her stoneshifting was voidsickness, inherited from their mother. And Crem didn’t think she was a saint.

In any case he was right, and it was Mother who furiously rescued Misery, unseamed by hunger, before nature could take its course. This time, though, no one’s coming for her. It’ll be over if they don’t let her out soon.

You fucked up, Misery. You stupid fuck.