She couldn’t shake the image of Tuer in the council room, of his shadowy fingers brushing Niren’s brow. Eda had no illusions as to why he had come: to remind her of her oath price, of what it would cost her if she didn’t hold up her end of the bargain.
Eda reached the top of the hill and ordered her guards to wait for her there. All Enduena knew about their Empress’s religious habits, but she had no wish for her petition to be observed. The guards were clearly unhappy with the command, which meant them standing for an unspecified amount of time in the driving rain. But she fixed them with the knife-sharp gaze that had won her an Empire, and they obeyed, leaving her to wend her way between the gravestones, memorials, and raised marble tombs on her own.
She went straight to the old doorway, squeezing behind the slanted stone, out of the rain and down into darkness. She scrabbled in a niche in the stone for the matches and candle that she kept there. A tongue of orange flame flared bright, illuminating the interior. Dust lay thick on the floor, centuries upon centuries of dead flowers and ashes, disturbed only by the track of her own footprints. Other than that, the chamber was empty.
Eda walked to the center of the room, dripping rainwater on the floor, and knelt down, her candle wavering. She dipped her finger in the jar of ashes and oil she’d brought, smearing it across her forehead and pouring the rest onto the floor, an oblation to mix with the rest. Sometimes she brought bread or wine; sometimes gold. The evening before her coronation she’d sacrificed a goat, its blood hot and sticky on her hands. But more often than not she brought oil and ashes, which were ancient symbols of petition, of humility. They felt simultaneously slick and gritty against her skin.
“I’ll get the stone,” she said, her voice strong in the echoing chamber, “I’ll finish the temple and serve you all my days, just as I promised. But you can’t take Niren. I haven’t failed you.”
“It has been a year already,” came a voice behind her, soft as a whisper, light as spring rain. “Still there is no temple. Still the people do not turn back to the gods.”
Eda swallowed a curse and shook where she knelt, her fear nearly smothering her. Despite Tuer’s appearance in the council chamber, the gods had not spoken to her since the day she made a deal with Tuer as a child. She stared at the floor, where dust consumed her offering, and the puddle of rainwater vanished like smoke. “What must I do?” she whispered.
“You must honor your promises.”
“I’mtrying.”
“The gods will have their payment.”
“I’ll get the stone. I’ll finish the temple.”
“But how? When? Will it be soon enough to save me?”
Eda jerked her head up and gasped. Niren stood in the doorway, staring back at her.
But she wasn’t Niren as Eda knew her. Her form was blurred about the edges, her skin gray, her eyes blank and haunted. She looked like a shadow of Niren, or the memory of her, beginning to fray.
Eda’s heart stuttered. “What are you?”
“A warning. The Circles are fracturing apart. Soon, the spirits trapped in the void will be free, and if you do not honor your vow, my death will be only the beginning.”
“You’re not going to die!” said Eda fiercely.
Niren’s shadow vanished.
Eda jerked to her feet, cursing, and dropped her candle in the dust. The oil caught fire and flames leapt high. Smoke poured through the temple. Eda fled up the stairs and out into the rain, coughing and coughing. Her eyes and lungs burned.
For a long moment she stood there, tilting her face to the sky, letting the rain wash the ashes from her forehead, trying to quell her terror.
Behind her, the fire sputtered and died.
“Eda?”
She jerked up from her dressing table and wheeled toward the door, dropping the jar of perfume she was holding. It shattered on the marble tiles, filling the whole room with the overpowering scent of jasmine and lilies. “Niren?” Eda whispered.
“Of course it’s me.”
Outside, the rain went on and on, echoing off the domed roof. The late monsoon would temper the summer fury of the sun and make the air breathable again, but it would also flood the city streets if it went on too much longer. It was already midafternoon, and it had been raining for hours now. Eda’s attendants had persuaded her to close the heavy wooden shutters to prevent water flooding through her windows, so the cloying perfume had nowhere to escape. It clung to her, choking her breath away.
Niren closed the distance between them, a wry smile on her lips, and grabbed a rag off the dressing table. She knelt down to wipe up the mess. “You are jumpy as a jaguar today. I came to see if you were all right after the council session this morning. You were acting … strangely, to put it mildly.”
Eda crouched beside Niren, the heel of her sandal grinding the shards of the perfume jar into powder, and touched her friend’s arm. “Leave it. One of the attendants will sweep it up. And I wasn’t actingstrangely.”
Niren raised an eyebrow and shook Eda off. She finished wiping up the biggest pieces of glass and then straightened up and threw the perfume-soaked rag into the dustbin beside the empty fireplace. Remnants of the perfume jar were still scattered over the marble. Niren stepped carefully over them and pulled out the stool of Eda’s dressing table, waving her onto it.
Eda sat, unnerved by the memory of Shadow Niren in the Place of Kings, so wholly different from her warm, vibrant friend. She caught Niren’s eyes in the mirror, trying and failing to tamp down her panic.
Niren picked up the carved ivory comb from the dressing table and began working it slowly through Eda’s hair, which was wet from the bath she’d taken to wash away the smoke fromthe temple. “I don’t think you should press the Barons so hard about the temple. It isn’t the best way to win them to your side, especially when you start threatening them about the stone and then … act like you did.”
