But Tau-indi was not moved. A child would run back and apologize. A Prince would go do work. “I must go see to my mother’s house!” they called back airily. “I am sure Abdumasi needs you very much.”

Mother Tahr had written a letter to Tau-indi, explaining that she had to go away for a while. But she’d sent the letter to Padrigan to deliver, and he’d put off reading it. For as long as it was unopened, you see, it might still be a love note.

Of such things, the Whale Words tell us, are the destinies of empires made. Not of armies or great notions or the glitter of wealth, but the most delicate motions of our hearts.

7. Hesychast, Whose Flesh Is a Temple

7

HESYCHAST, WHOSE FLESH IS A TEMPLE

SVIR kicked the treadle too hard and the grindstone’s crankshaft threw a gear. The bad gear jammed against its mate and the shaft bucked straight upward, slamming the grindstone into the mirror and shattering it right down the center.

Svir had destroyed his telescope.

“No,” Svir said, “no no, that didn’t happen,” and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to worm through the walls of the world into some other place where he hadn’t broken his mirror. His foot hurt. The broken things in his hands. This priceless, flawless, unbelievably pure glass disc, glistening with the oil he used to soak up glass dust, the disc he’d been grinding for months for his new catoptric telescope.

The mighty cryptarch Apparitor had been thinking about Baru and he’d kicked too hard.

“Iraji,” he groaned. “Iraji, come here—”

But Iraji wasn’t on Helbride. He was up in the Elided Keep, spying on Baru, slipping into the role of her lost secretary.

Very fucking clever, Svir. You sent your confidant to your enemy.

He set the broken mirror down and went to his cabin’s little washbasin. The mirror had sliced a perfectly fine crease across his palm, thin and cold as a winter sun. Blood, of course, very much blood: a red patina on pink flesh. Svir licked the salt off the wound, as he’d been taught back home (never waste salt), and then he stepped gently on the basin’s footpedal. A valve clicked. He listened, never tiring of this marvel, as the footpedal opened a tap to the reservoir casks on the afterdeck. The faucet gave him a thin cool stream of water.

Svir watched his damned royal blood swirling to the drain.

Everything was fucked.

The navy had someone, he knew it, he knew they had someone no matter how often Croftare and her Merit Admirals denied it. An Oriati syndicate captain or Federal Prince or a griot who’d seen too much. They were plotting against him, and against Lindon. They were going to use their prisoner to start Armada II.

Falcrest had no idea what wrath they’d awaken if they went to war.