City of Whispers Read online

  Zotikos studied me with an open scowl. "An old friend, you say. What words do you have for me, girl?"

  Little rankled me more than a man's casual scorn. My reply was cool and calm. "Many you won't wish to hear, Zotikos of Hull. And many you would not wish your wife to hear either."

  His lips curled in distaste. "A dirty pleb should speak no words to my wife. Leave us, wench. We have business to discuss."

  His bodyguard turned toward me. My heart, already racing, began to gallop, but I continued to ignore the big man. "As do we. If I were you, I'd send Feiyan's man away. You don't want an audience for what I'm about to say."

  Kako watched with open amusement. "Never fear, my dear. I freely leave you to your fear-mongering. But remember the last time you meddled in Feiyan's business. I would think carefully before you interfere again."

  With a subtle bow, the honor turned away and disappeared back into the crowd.

  Relieved as I was to see Kako's back, the full attention of Zotikos and his henchman was no easier to bear. The merchant was red in the face as he turned back to me, but before he could speak, a collective gasp turned our heads.

  "Yes!" Asileia was shouting. "The elder Eleven, the Eidola of old, have spoken to me. And as no other mortal has experienced, I have become—"

  Her voice cut off as Despot Myron ripped Hilarion's hand away from her neck and slapped it to his own. "Thank you, Daughter," he said. As his low, powerful voice rolled over us, I could feel his rippling anger. "We are all happy to see you home."

  Asileia stood for a moment, quivering with rage, then stalked off the dais.

  Zotikos and his bodyguard turned back to me. "An ominous night for interruptions," he said coldly. "You spoil my business and threaten my wife. Who are you, Airene the Finch, and what do you wish to say?"

  I didn't flinch from his glare. A Finch for nine years, I'd encountered more men like Zotikos than I cared to recount. And at the core of every one of them were the dark secrets they kept hidden from the world. Lies they whispered to themselves to obscure the truths that defined them.

  But I knew how to unravel them.

  "You've been keeping a secret, Zotikos. One that would break your family if it were revealed. Your wife might not care for honors, but I doubt she would excuse you… mishandling her handmaid during her evenings away." Despite the revulsion hollowing me, I pasted a knowing smile on my lips. "But it's up to you whether she hears of it or not."

  The merchant's expression spasmed, and his eyes darted from me, to his impassive guard, to the crowd around us.

  "Liar!" he hissed, but the words caught in his throat. "It's all lies! You know nothing!"

  "No doubt you wish to believe that. I, however, would not risk your reputation over a misplaced shipment from the Bali highlands."

  Zotikos' eyes widened, then he gave a wild laugh. "Aha! So that is what this is about! You want a cut, do you? You think to threaten me so I'll just hand over the profits to you, you greedy strumpet? I know people, important people. I'll have you strung up for your slanderous words!"

  I glanced at the bodyguard, who stared daggers into me, then pulled my gaze back to the smuggler. This was the critical moment. I had to hold firm. Swallowing hard, I prepared to lose a few teeth.

  "That will not keep your family from falling apart, Zotikos. That will not keep business partners from looking at you twice and deals falling through. But all of that can be prevented. Your secret will be safe with me. All you must do is return what you stole to those with whom you broke contract."

  The river merchant stared at me balefully, his mouth pressed into a hard line. He was considering my offer. Soon, he would relent. He just needed one last twist of the knife.

  "Think carefully, Zotikos. Everything you possess is on the line. Your dignity, your relationships, your fortunes — everything. And it can all be safe if you do the right thing."

  I reached into my robes and seized the object concealed there. The bodyguard, no doubt suspecting a weapon, snaked his hand forward, grabbing my slender arm in a bruising grip. Pain raced up my arm, but I didn't struggle. I just had to wait a moment longer.

  Xaron and Nomusa stepped into view behind the smuggler and his brute.

  "I'd listen to her," Xaron said with a nonchalant air. "She won't let it rest until she's had her way."

  "And you won't rest either," Nomusa said coldly. "This is the best way out for you, trust us."

  Zotikos whirled. His bodyguard didn't release me as he eyed the newcomers warily.

  "And who are you two?" the smuggler demanded.

  I gestured toward them. "Zotikos, meet my fellow Finches. The other people who hold your fate in their hands."

  "Finches?" His eyes narrowed. "Airene the Finch… Now I know why you sounded familiar. Filthy spies and thieves, the lot of you!"

  "Can't dispute you there," Xaron said easily. "But it's hard to feel bad about it when we blackmail scum like you."

  I could see we had him. If I had been alone, he might have forced down the fear of someone knowing his secret, assuring himself that his bodyguard could take care of it. But he couldn't stop three people from talking.

  "Fine!" the river merchant snapped. "Fine. I'll give my investors their due, so long as you never speak of this to anyone." He eyed me shrewdly. "Which one of them put you up to this?"

  I smiled thinly. "Best make sure you don't leave out anyone, just in case."

  Zotikos bared his teeth in nearly a snarl, then gestured sharply to his bodyguard. The brute gave me one last bald glare, then released me and followed after his master.

  Xaron grinned openly as he and Nomusa joined me. "That went well. As soon as you called us in with the lodestone, that is."

  I rubbed at my prickling arm as my fingers brushed the concealed lodestone. Bonded somehow through magnesis, one of the energetic elements, to a stone Xaron carried, each would move when the other was touched. It had been useful for faraway communication on many occasions.

  "In the end," I conceded. "We'll have to follow up tomorrow evening to make sure he remembers what's at stake."

  "I'd expect nothing less of the pig than to try and weasel his way out now." Nomusa stared at their retreating backs, then turned her head aside with a small shake of disgust. "Come. There's a little of the festival left. We should give off this thankless work for a bit, find an untapped barrel, and celebrate."

  I sighed, trying not to think of Zotikos' wife, and whether we did a greater injustice by keeping quiet or telling her. But it didn't matter. I wouldn't inform her of what scum her husband was unless Zotikos failed to deliver. A Finch was only as good as her word.

  I followed after my companions as we claimed our last piece of Radiance.

  Several turns of the sandglass later, Nomusa, Xaron, and I stumbled back up the stairs of the derelict tower we called home. With wine-logged heads and sour stomachs, the climb to the top seemed never-ending.

  As much for distraction as out of curiosity, I asked Nomusa, "Asileia truly said she was — what was it, 'the Hand of Clepsammia?'"

  "So she claims. And she supposedly has oracles following her around declaring the same thing."

  "Two circles left," Xaron panted. "We're almost to Canopy."

  "It's not that far," I chided him. "What happened to her governing the Peninsula?"

  Nomusa shrugged. "How should I know? Myron made it seem like a good thing she'd returned, but he'd have to spin it that way."

  "She was probably booted for burning her subjects alive," Xaron interjected.

  I cast him a disdainful look. "Don't believe every rumor you hear. It's a long way from the Oedijan prefectures. Events are often inflated."

  "But do you really doubt it? The woman mutilated herself. She cut off her ear markings and disavowed her mother's heritage. And now she's back when she's not supposed to be."

  I just shrugged. Being Qao Fu himself, Xaron was particularly offended that Asileia had severed the additional ear lobes of their people. It was typicall
y a point of pride for the Qao Fu, and many — including Xaron — wore earrings through their ear markings. We didn't know why Asileia had removed hers, but it didn't incline Xaron toward her.

  We finally reached the top of the tower, the eleventh circle. The previous ten floors were filled with poor families or young men and women with nowhere else to go. At least in the loft atop it, we had the circle to ourselves. It was the best our bribes could afford. As Finches — hunters of secrets, misdeeds, or other knowledge that might turn a profit — we didn't have the most reliable income, and couldn't risk trying for something more expensive.

  Living on top of the tower was both a blessing and a curse. At the moment, with unsteady legs and a head already pounding from sour festival wine, I wondered what had possessed us to move here.

  Yet as we pushed inside the door, Canopy was a welcome sight. Opposite the door, a great bay window, only a little cracked and grime-covered despite our negligence, afforded a stunning view of Oedija's cityscape. Along the right side, four small enclosures we'd fashioned into bedrooms with ceilings open to the rest of the loft, huddled against each other. To the left lay the kitchen, cluttered with unwashed pots, and the pantry. I breathed in the faint smell of mildew and bird droppings, which wafted in from the finch cage on our balcony. Foul though the scents were, they were part of being home.

  Saying their goodnights, Xaron and Nomusa closed themselves into their bedrooms. I, however, wasn't ready for sleep yet. Despite my better judgment, I drew a cup of wine from the barrel that our last loftmate, Corin — who worked as a cartwoman rather than a Finch — had claimed for us, then moved to the bay window. The festival lights glittered in the inner and outer demes of the city, as both inside and outside the wall the celebration continued. Bonfires, pyr lamps, and torches illuminated the city from below, while the green light of the radiant winds and the three moons, full as they were every Radiance, shone above. The gray Pillars rose ominously from the demes, the magic-forged columns shadowed specters in the darkness. Beyond the city wall, a gargantuan bonfire burned, so large I wondered for a moment if it were spreading.

  But as I swirled my glass, my thoughts drifted. The sense of disquiet that had filled me of late, a cloud that followed we wherever I went, rose in me once more. Amid the hunt earlier, it had dampened so that I could almost forget about it. But it had always been there, simmering beneath the surface.

  I feared to think what it meant.

  Secrets had been my pursuit for as long as I could remember. Ever since I'd been old enough for Mother to bring me to the markets, I'd listened avidly, sieving conversations for scraps of scandal.

  By the time I was five, I'd learned the patricians' most salacious stories from the washerfolk. More people should be wary of washerfolk — they always know your dirty laundry.

  By the time I was eight, I’d sought more dangerous tales — street-side scams, moneylender muggings, even a few political bribes. I'd return home after a long, dusty day, and illustrate my hard-earned stories in colorful detail to my brothers for their amusement.

  By the time I was twelve, I'd sold my first secret.

  At fifteen, during the Calling when adolescents decide their life's work, I had named myself a Finch after the Order of Verifiers, a long-disbanded branch of the government, to carry on their mission of exposing truth wherever deception obscured it. When I'd set to the work a year later, I found myself more often chasing profit than justice. But always, I'd told myself it was in the eventual pursuit of that noble goal.

  Standing atop our derelict tower, staring over the glimmering city, I wondered what had come of my nine years of striving. Perhaps it had never been about the truth. Perhaps it was the power of it, of hunting down a story and claiming its truth for your own. But the hunt could only thrill for so long.

  And it was hard to believe it mattered when I couldn't even find Thero's murderer.

  A sudden sound yanked me from my thoughts. It took me a moment to recognize it. Not since I was a child had I heard it, for it only sounded in the direst circumstances. It blared over the rooftops and poured into the reveling forums and silent alleys. It vibrated in my chest and shook all other thoughts away.

  The shell horns of the Laurel Palace called over Oedija, solemn and forlorn.

  Three warnings came by the horns. The first, for fire. The second, for war. And the third, for a death.

  Fire was likely. With wood buildings common along the peripheries of the city, the bonfires of Radiance posed a grave danger if mismanaged. The fire that burned in deme Thys beyond the wall seemed a likely candidate.

  War, beyond rare skirmishes, had not been known in recent history, not since the Concordance of the Four Realms. The Bali ishakas to the east quarreled among themselves. The Qao Fu jaitin to the northeast remained isolated, their power waning. The Avvadin Imperium to the south seemed content with conquering their southern neighbors along the Rift.

  The horns sounded twice, then a third time. I had heard this call once before when I was young. I'd clutched to my father's robes and asked him if we were safe. He'd taken me into his arms and cradled me back and forth. Three horns are nothing to fear, Little Songbird, he'd murmured. Three horns are nothing to fear.

  As the echo of the horns died away, the late festival-goers below pantomimed their distress. Some cried into their hands. Others clutched their heads and fell to their knees, disregarding the mud that caked the street. Some just stood staring up, as if asking the gods how this could happen.

  I closed my eyes. The fading vibrations of the horns seemed to shake me awake after a troubling dream, filling the gaps that had formed in me over the past two and a half years.

  Three calls of the horns announced that Despot Myron Wreath was dead. Three horns made me remember what it was to be a Finch.

  2

  Changing Winds

  By all measures, Myron Wreath has proven to be a moderate and even-tempered man. Aware of his powers' bounds, he has rarely, if ever, strayed into dangerous waters. In his twenty-two year reign, he has done much to preserve the traditions and state of the nation, and despite his efforts having a negligent effect on decreasing belief in the Eidola, he has done well in improving the commercial state of Oedija…

  I find that few, if any, are opposed to his continued reign for many years to come.

  - A Modern Account of the Wreaths; by Acadian Helene, Master Historian; 1170 SLP

  In the turns after the shell horns blew, I flitted through the streets, dredging up every contact I knew. Some of the lights from the festival still glowed, but many had been extinguished. People had fled to their homes, waiting to see what would come in the wake of the Despot's death.

  I could not have slept had I tried. I didn't know what was behind Myron's death, or what it meant. But this represented change, more change than Oedija had seen in a century, and I needed to follow the threads.

  Most of my contacts were missing, but a few were still around. I squeezed them for information, shelling out copper cullets and nickel magnes for whispers, and clung to their every word.

  All agreed that the Despot had died within the Laurel Palace itself. His manner of death, however, was disputed. Some speculated it had been an assassination. Others suspected a natural death. Considering I had seen Myron Wreath alive and well earlier that evening, I guessed the former more likely.

  But who would want the Despot dead? The Despot had been well-liked and inoffensive. He'd been seen as strong but had done little to provoke either a foreign power or the true rulers of Oedija. The Conclave had always seemed content with ruling from the Laurel Palace's shadow.

  But maybe the reasons were more personal than that. Myron's daughter, Asileia Wreath, had just returned from her governance of the Peninsula, the most northern lands within Oedijan territory. And from the whispers I heard that night, her rule had been exactly as Xaron expected: autocratic and brutal. She was said to have founded a sect of the Eidolan religion centered around herself, and to execute oracle
s who had not acknowledged her supremacy. Had it become so embarrassing for the Conclave that they recalled her? Or had Myron done so himself? Either way, Asileia did not lack for ambition, nor the will to achieve what she desired. Perhaps, if she truly wanted the Evergreen Wreath, she would not blanch at murdering her father.

  Of foreign insurgency, Avvad was the most likely suspect. The Avvadin Imperium, led by a priest-king known as the Kahin-Shah, was ever in a state of war and expansion. Their focus had been on their southern neighbors for the last several decades, but it was only a matter of time before they turned their attention northward. Whispers told of increased activity around the Valemish temples, the seed of Avvad's religion in Oedija, which had grown to include nearly a fourth of the population. It might not mean anything; adherents might be particularly inclined to seek comfort during trying times. But why now, after all these years, would they strike? Perhaps they, too, suffered the drought and needed war to distract and cull the hungry and desperate.

  Gray twilight edged into the sky by the time I let off my search. Though I needed rest, I only stopped to reconvene with Xaron and Nomusa, who I assumed had left to dredge up whispers of their own. I'd bolted from Canopy without waiting for them, fire already coursing through my veins. I hoped that between the three of us, we could find a clear path forward.

  Weary as my body was, my mind still turned. Inside me burned a thrill that I had not felt in a long time, reminding me why I'd first become a Finch.

  I slowly ascended the eleven circles of our derelict tower to Canopy. Reaching the door, I turned the handle. It was unlocked. Hesitating, I cracked it open and peered inside. A single pyr lamp lit the shadowed room. It was just enough to detect the silhouette sitting in a chair, a goblet held in its hand. Only when I saw the gleam of the figure's golden hair did I let out my breath.

  Entering, I latched the door behind me and crossed the room. "Linos. What are you doing here? And don't tell me you've tapped our festival wine."