Philippa Ballantine: Spectyr

For Dad and Mum.

You lit the fire and kept it burning.

Words of thanks are barely enough,

but they are all I have to give in return.

Like Raed, I have many people on my ship without whom I would be stuck in port:

My navigator and agent, Laurie McLean, who is not only a fantastic business partner but also a brilliant mentor and friend. You told me this would happen, and I really should have believed you.

My quartermaster and editor, Danielle Stockley of Ace Books. She knows how to make sure things are where they should be, and what I really need on a journey.

The head of the press-gang, Brady McReynolds, one of Ace’s marketing whizzes. Thanks for helping people find Geist in the sea of books.

My redoubtable first mate, Cathy, who has listened to my complaints and fears for nearly fifteen years. Though we are on different shores right now, I know the tides will soon bring us together again.

My captain, who provides advice, support and motivation. Also, you make me laugh when I really need it. You set sail with me, and I am looking forward to discovering what lies out there.

My marines on this ship, who are all my new friends and family in America: Jen, Elena, Linc, Mary-Ann, David and the cardnight ladies.

My crew on the ship, who are, of course, my podcast listeners. Thank you for helping me row out from the shallows into deeper waters.

In the Imperial Palace Grand Duchess Zofiya slept on sheets of polished white satin in a grand bed painted and carved like a sailing ship. Around her gleamed the treasures of her brother’s and father’s dominions.

These, however, did not guarantee her a night of peaceful slumber. Her long black hair lay in a sweaty tangle, while her tawny limbs were twisted in the covers. Nightmares crashed through her head, breaking her famous calm in ways that would have surprised any of her Imperial Guard had they been privileged enough to witness it.

Finally Zofiya jerked awake, lurching upright in her bed with a half-swallowed scream. Her hand instinctively went to the medallion around her neck as she tried to control her rapid breathing.

The bedroom was nearly silent; there were only the fine curtains blowing in the wind, and far off in the corridor the sounds of the many clocks ticking away to themselves. That noise was familiar and calming; her brother had inherited a love of machinery from their father. Still, what she was not used to were nightmares. In this one a person had been killing Kal, and she had been unable to reach him in time.

Her brother the Emperor was a great man, but his sense of personal safety was limited. He firmly believed that he had tamed this continent and the worst was behind them. Zofiya knew better.

Slipping from her elaborate bed, the Grand Duchess padded to the window and looked out over the sleeping city—not realizing that she had failed to let go of the medallion. Thousands of lights twinkled all over the lagoon. The bridges were reduced to a string of bright pearls. Even the slum areas of the Edge were smoothed to attractiveness by darkness and the occasional gleam of a streetlight. Directly below she could make out not only her own Imperial Guard at their posts but also the swathed forms of the soldiers from Chioma.

The delegation had been in the capital for a month, testing the waters for a marriage between the Emperor and Ezefia, daughter of the Prince of that distant principality. No promises had been made, but she knew Kal was entertaining the idea. The throne had to be secured quickly, and Onika, the Prince of Chioma, was fabulously wealthy.

Her brother, she knew, would have preferred the group marriage practiced in their homeland, Delmaire, but he was wise enough not to try to push that custom on the citizens of Arkaym. Change came slowly here, but it did occur. Take the city, for example. It was not as majestic as Toth, her father’s capital, but it was pulling itself out of generations of misery and torment. All of which was her brother’s doing. Yet there were plenty who wanted to stop him.

Zofiya clenched her fist on the curved edge of the medallion until it hurt. She had lost the one she brought from Delmaire a week before in the training ground. No amount of sifting the sand—which she had gotten the servants to do—had located it.

However, when she had come in that evening, this new one was lying on her pillow. It was not the same; there were five diamonds set in the snaking curve of stone that represented Hatipai’s constantly moving nature, and it was larger than the one she had lost. Some aristocrat had probably had it made to curry favor.

In Court her faith was an open secret. The little gods were not persecuted, but they were figures of amusement and derision. Nearly a thousand years was a long time to hold on to faith in the face of derisive public opinion, but the sect of Hatipai that the Grand Duchess subscribed to had managed it. Though she kept her medallion tucked inside her clothes during daylight hours, she would not deny her goddess. If the people around Zofiya wanted to gossip, then she had no way of stopping them.

Kal knew of his sister’s beliefs—though he dismissed them as superstitious nonsense. When the geists had come and the Otherside had poured in, most of the population had lost faith—including the royal family of Delmaire. Zofiya was made of sterner stuff.

Yet, now as she looked out over the city, her mind turned to the dark realities of the world—and most especially the events that had occurred under the ossuary.

“The Murashev.” Zofiya shivered under her spider-silk nightdress, as if even mentioning the geistlord’s name would bring its arrival. Only a month before, the creature had almost been brought forth into the heart of Vermillion—an event the city would not have survived. She had been at the secret briefing from the new Arch Abbot and had shared her brother’s shock. “Hatipai, give us strength,” she murmured.

That was when she heard it: a clatter of pure notes, like those from the bells of the Temple in Delmaire. She recalled them clearly, because even as a child she had spent much time there. The bells had been strung in long skeins across the doors so that each penitent who went in made them ring, high and sweet.

She heard the cluster of notes again. It was not the sound of one of the clocks in the hall. The Grand Duchess slipped on her coat, took her belt and scabbard from the chair close to her bed, strapped it on and went out to investigate. She had already dismissed her personal guards for the night. If trouble was going to come to one of the Imperial siblings, she wanted it to be her and not her brother.

Growing up in Delmaire, she had been used to the fact that she would always be the surplus child. Kal had wanted her to come to Arkaym, and their father had not protested. He had daughters enough to fill a royal barge—all of them far more compliant than her.

She stepped into a hallway lined with lush carpets woven in red and yellow, the Imperial colors. The sound came again, and this time it could be clearly heard over the numerous clocks ticking gently to themselves on this floor. With one hand on her sword hilt, Zofiya went down the back stairs and out into the courtyard. The ringing had come from the garden. The warmth radiating from the goddess symbol spurred her on, through the mist-shrouded topiaries and flower beds. Finally she reached the walls of the palace. The bells rang a third time, so she found herself sneaking out of the postern gate and into the city itself.