“Commander,” Madam Himura croaks. “What is the holdup? It’s late, and Lei-zhi has an early appointment with a diviner tomorrow.”
“There is some sort of commotion a few streets away,” he says. “Half the guards are to remain here with you while I bring the others to investigate. Do not leave the carriage—”
A light erupts beyond his head; an unreal, blue-white flare.
It blooms in the sky. Then—
Whoomph!
I’ve just enough time to throw myself down before the blast of air hits.
The carriage quakes. We tip to one side. There’s crashing and the drumbeat of things beating the walls, the wood rattling under their force. Something strikes my hands where I’m cradling my head, igniting a spark of pain. The air is thick. I gasp, huddled in a ball, feeling the world shudder and shake, until, as abruptly as it began, everything falls still.
Trembling, I lift my head. Palls of dust swirl all around. After the violence of the blast, the sudden stillness is jarring. I cough, dust stinging my throat and eyes. The carriage has completely tipped on its side, the open doorway now above me. The curtain Commander Razib drew aside has been torn away—along with the Commander.
As I move to get up, my hands press into something warm.
Madam Himura.
I jerk back. Through hazy eyes, I notice the subtle rise and fall of her torso where she’s been tossed onto her side, one wing spread across her like a blanket. She’s alive, then.
The realization gives me pause.
If I ever wanted to get rid of her without implicating myself, here is my chance. I could slip my hands around Madam Himura’s neck and that would be it. An unfortunate accident. Another casualty from the explosion.
Long seconds pass as I survey her prone form, debris drifting down like pyre ash, the gods seeming to sense my intent. But I don’t move. Where I was expecting fire to light my core, all that rises is a sad, empty feeling. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t seem right to murder someone in such a vulnerable moment. Or maybe it’s because, no matter how much Madam Himura has hurt me and those I love, I know how trapped she herself is by the King and the palace. Even though she wouldn’t offer me any, I can’t help but pity her for it.
With a frustrated growl—and a prayer that my decision to spare her doesn’t come back to haunt me—I get to my feet.
Spitting out the dust that swirls into my mouth, I reach for the opening overhead. It takes me a few unsteady tries before I lift myself through. I clamber over the side of the carriage and drop to the ground.
What had been a bustling street now resembles a battlefield. Beneath drifts of ash, bodies and debris are strewn everywhere. One of the guards’ horses lies behind our carriage, its eyes wide and white, its chest pumping quick. A second later, the poor thing falls still. I lurch away. My heel hits something. I catch myself before I fall and look around to find a human leg on the floor. No sign of the rest of its owner.
I stagger on. Garnet splatters of blood mark the road and previously busy walkways. Everything is lit in an eerie orange glow, half the buildings on fire. A few streets away, a great plume of smoke mushrooms into the sky. The blast site—and my diversion.
Wait until you hear the blast. Go to the Temple Court entrance opposite Madam Kim’s Seafood Palace.
I stumble into action.
Figures flow past me, some silent, some wailing, others muttering blankly to themselves. I push through them, bundling aside the skirt of my hanfu to free my legs.
It doesn’t take me long to orient myself. I’ve been enhancing my mental map of the palace with each outing. Once I’m far enough from the blast, the dust starts to clear, and I move faster, gulping down lungfuls of fresh air. I have no idea where Madam Kim’s Seafood Palace is—which I’m guessing is a restaurant—but I start by heading toward Temple Court. Tonight’s dinner was held in a sake house on the far east side of City Court, placing me close by. Though I’ve never been inside, Temple Court is impossible to miss, being housed within the perimeter walls of the palace themselves. All I have to do is run straight for the towering slabs of onyx rock I’ve come to know so well.
I wind my way through the snug streets. Shop and bar owners have emerged from their buildings, many more hanging out of windows, pointing at the roiling smoke and exclaiming to one another.
Soon, I’m only one street away from the walls. They climb so high the buildings around are cast in perpetual shadow. Not even a single glint of moonlight reflects off a metal idol or ornamental pond. I take note of the name of the kopitiam in front of me, then move right, scanning for Madam Kim’s Seafood Palace. If I don’t find it, I’ll head back to the kopitiam and try the other way. But not even a minute later, I see it: a large restaurant with gaudy red signs and fish-shaped lanterns dangling over its door.
“Hello, Madam Kim,” I say, and slip down the dark alley beside it.
I crouch in the cover of the shadowed eaves of the back of the restaurant, positioning myself right across the closest entranceway leading inside the walls. Apart from when I’ve entered and left the palace, I’ve never been this close to its walls before. Their black stone moves with a liquid sheen, bronze characters from the shamans’ never-ending daos infusing it with its unbreakable protection. Yet while the magical light shimmers within the rock, it doesn’t illuminate anything beyond.
Thank gods. I’ll need the darkness if I’m to approach unseen. Because, just like the outer side of the wall, there are guards everywhere.
There must be a hundred of them in my line of sight. Due to the explosion, they’ve scattered from their usual posts, most standing in clumps, no doubt speculating about what happened. A few of the commanders call guards over, sending them off in groups toward the blast site.
My allies have done well. On a normal night, I’d never make it past them. Tonight, I might just have a chance.
Just like at the military parade, a stray pebble comes to my aid. This one is larger. I heft it toward the wall as hard as I can.
By sheer luck, I strike one of the guards in the back. His yell of surprise draws the attention of the nearby guards—including those outside the entrance I need to get to. Heart hammering, I dart from the cover of the building and dash to the wall.
The instant I make it through, I press my back to the passageway within, anticipating guards to come rushing. But none do, and as I soften with relief, I’m suddenly aware of the charged shivers brushing up and down my skin.
Magic.
So much of it I feel it with every ounce of my body, alert to the fact I am inside magic itself, the air alight with powerful daos. Ghostly chanting reverberates in the tunnel.
The royal shamans. Thousands upon thousands of them, within these walls.