Tansoong looked apprehensive. The emperor, no longer bothering to hide his curiosity, barked at him to hurry.
There was not much to retrieve of the unfortunate boy. His meager bones and the scarlet cloth instrumental in identifying him were brought before us, carefully wrapped in a small blanket.
I summoned Raising, and a small stampede broke out as officials and courtiers scrambled out of each other’s way, as far from the corpse as they could get. Emperor Shifang stood his ground, though he looked ready to join his subjects at any moment. The only Daanorian unmoved was Shaoyun himself. He studied his hands with a strange detachedness common in the newly risen and concentrated on me.
“You will not be inconvenienced long,” I told him, with Shadi translating between us, and the dead boy inclined his head in affirmation. “Was Baoyi responsible for Princess Yansheo’s collapse?”
“It was a foreigner,” came the grim reply. “An Odalian. He drew a strange red light from the princess’s chest, and she fell. But then he too shimmered and changed, and I saw it had been Baoyi’s servant all along.”
“Where is the pendant now?”
Slowly, the boy shook his head.
“The princess is ill. We need it to restore her health.”
He shook his head again, but the movement was strangely hesitant.
“Shaoyun.” This time it was Shifang who spoke. Even in death, the emperor held some sway over his subjects. The boy froze in recognition, limbs creaking as he began to kneel, almost from instinct.
“There is no need for that,” the emperor ordered. “This woman speaks the truth. If you care for Princess Yansheo, then where is the pendant?”
The boy’s lips moved. “I snatched it from him before he could work more foul magic. I ran, and they pursued me. The—the pendant filled me up.”
“What does that mean?” I asked Shadi, sure something was lost in the translation.
But the asha was just as puzzled. “I don’t understand it either.”
“The pendant filled me up,” Shaoyun repeated, “and the servant was furious. He…took control of my thoughts, but try as I might, I could not tell him what I had done with it. That was the last thing I remember before the pain. And then nothing.”
“That doesn’t make sense though,” Zoya muttered. “Where did the heartsglass go?”
Khalad was pale, stepping forward. “I am a Heartforger,” he told the corpse. “I don’t know if the title means anything to you, but I can heal the princess. You loved her, didn’t you?”
The corpse closed its eyes and sighed its regret.
“You protected her from one who wished her harm. And now he is dead, and she is safe—but you still possess what is needed to restore her to life. Will you help me?”
The slightest of nods was his answer. Khalad lifted his hand—and plunged it through Shaoyun’s chest. Slowly, he drew it back out—and in his hands was a luminous sphere made of brilliant red light that glittered back at us. “Thank you, Shaoyun,” he said sadly. “Rest easy, knowing that the princess is safe.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on the young Daanorian’s lips. I dissolved the spell, and the undead boy was once again rendered into nothing more than ashes and bones.
“How did you know?” Kalen asked his cousin.
“I didn’t. But few people remember that we use heartscase exactly for this purpose—to keep heartsglass at a fixed point. When you love someone enough, it’s almost instinctive to keep their heartsglass as close to your own heart as possible.” He looked down at the remains and sighed. “I haven’t been in this trade long, but I’m slowly realizing that when it comes to matters of the heart, nearly anything is possible.”
? ? ?
The old forger and Khalad stood on either side of the sleeping princess’s bed, the former holding out a vial where a thin sliver of thread lay nestled within. The last few weeks had taken their toll on the old man, the strength gone from his heartsglass. He could no longer attend to his duties when we return, and the expression on Khalad’s face told me he knew that. “It should have taken us three days to make,” the old man said. “But Khalad here found a way to shorten the process to six hours. Would never have thought of it either. If you didn’t keep sedating yourself into insensibility, taking out your own memories to fashion heartsglass for every poor soul who asks, imagine all the things you could have done by now.”
That didn’t sound like a compliment, but Khalad beamed like it was. “I’m glad you approve, Master.”
The man laid a hand on his shoulder. “Your father’s a mess of a man and more a fool for rejecting you for prejudices you have no control over,” he said gruffly. “But you’re as close to a son as I’ve ever had, however badly I word it at times, and I don’t think I’d have been any prouder, even if I had one of my own.”
Khalad swallowed hard. “That means a lot to me,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
The old man clapped him on the back. “Let’s get to it anyhow. Girl’s been sleeping long enough.” He held up the small container. “We never forget any of the heartsglass we’ve touched,” he said. “I can replicate each of the sleeping noble’s urvan at this point, and I’ll show Khalad every one too, just to be sure.”
“But that also makes you a target all over again,” Princess Inessa told him, troubled. “The Faceless won’t need their heartsglass anymore—all they’ll need to replicate shadowglass is one or the both of you.”
The old forger smiled. “That’s a problem for another day. Khalad?”
Reverently, Khalad placed the shimmering heartsglass on the sleeping girl’s chest, and it shone a bright ball of red and pink hues.
The Heartforger carefully unstoppered the lid, and the new light burned brightly in the room; it was like looking into the sun. I shielded my eyes from the glare, endeavoring to peek through my fingers. Both forgers appeared unaffected. As I watched, Khalad lifted the small yarn-like thread out of its container and extended his hand toward the sleeping princess.
As if seized with a life of its own, the thread drifted slowly toward the girl, landing on the center of her heartsglass—and passed through it like it was slipping through water. The surface of her heart rippled.
Princess Yansheo opened her eyes and noisily sucked in a great big gulp of air. It was done.
The body was draped in heavy black cloth when I returned, and the blood had been cleaned; I knew enough not to ask questions. Princess Yansheo came with me, white and trembling. I had told her all I remembered, but she took the discovery better than I had. “Shifang was always arrogant and selfish,” she said, “but he was never wicked. Your story explained many things he had done these last few months. I was fortunate enough not to be harmed, but others were not so lucky.”
I did not have the heart to tell her that Usij kept her unharmed because he intended to harvest her urvan once more should the forger fail to help him. To tell her, I decided, was unnecessary cruelty.
The bone witch never looked down at the corpse and continued to watch from her window. “Tell the soldiers to draw back the gates,” she said quietly. She still held the Faceless’s heartsglass; though Usij was dead, his heart lived on. It was no longer the sooty black it had been in life but a sparkling silver.
“Ironic,” the bone witch said with a smile, “that we would recreate Blade that Soars’s lightsglass from the most repulsive man I ever had the displeasure of meeting.” She looked down at her own heartsglass and sighed. “And that I would recreate Hollow Knife’s in mine. Open the gates.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“We are leaving Daanoris. We have what we came for.” She turned to Princess Yansheo. “Whatever your people might think of this in the coming years,” she told her, “know that I leave your kingdom without a madman on the throne.”
“But who will lead us? Usij killed my true emperor.”