The Diminished

“When’ll you leave?”

“Couple of days, I think.”

I reached out and smacked his arm, hard, without thinking. “A couple of days? How long have you been planning this?”

He scowled at me, but when he saw the tears streaking down my cheeks, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and drew me close. “Vi...” His voice trailed off, and I knew there wasn’t anything he could say. Our friendship, no matter how important it was to both of us, was nothing compared to the bond between twins.

“You couldn’t’ve told me sooner?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Lily only settled the details yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you until it was a sure thing.”

I shoved my anger and pain down, cinching it tight into a heavy ball of misery in the pit of my stomach. Anger was dangerous, and I wouldn’t let Sawny’s leaving be the thing that broke me. Not after all this time. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Obedience,” he said, teasing me with the given name he knew I hated.

I elbowed him in the ribs. “I take it back. I won’t miss you at all,” I said, laughter slipping into my voice.

But we both knew that wasn’t true.

* * *

Some days, there was no way to avoid the actual temple itself. On high holy days, the cusps of each season and the Suzerain’s Ascension Day, every person who ate at the temple’s table or was under their protection was expected to stop everything and haul themselves to adulations. Most folks in Penby made a show of attending adulations, even the Queen. Not many had so little to lose that they could afford to find themselves on the bad side of the Suzerain. Even folks like me, folks with nothing, weren’t stupid enough to risk it. Because I knew that even with nothing at all, I might still have something to lose.

On the day the Suzerain celebrated their twenty-third Ascension Day, I sidled into the haven hall just after the adulation started, but—thank all the gods—before the Suzerain made their entrance. Lily and Sawny were perched on the edge of a bench on the far side of the hall. As I navigated my way through the crowd toward them, Lily caught sight of me first. She shot me an evil look, but I grinned at her and winked. Even though she’d never have to think about most of these folks again, the girl still couldn’t stand to be seen with a dimmy.

“Scoot,” I whispered.

Sawny passed me a cantory, and Lily heaved a sigh as he nudged her over to make room for me. I settled onto the long, scarred wooden bench next to Sawny just as the gathering sang the final note of the Suzerain’s Chorale. The anchorites were at the front of the hall decked out in their finest, with pearls gleaming at their necks and wrists and their hair tied up in intricate braids, freshly shorn on the sides. Their silk robes, in shades of yellow and orange and red, whispered as they stood, and a hush fell over the crowd. Everyone’s eyes turned to the two initiates drawing open the thick metal doors at the back of the haven hall. The high holiday adulations followed the same damned formula every single time, but somehow, folks still acted like it was some kind of glamorous and captivating performance.

The Shriven initiates entered the hall first, their white robes and freshly shorn heads gleaming in the light of the sunlamps. Their staves smacked the stone floor in unison with every step as they filed to the front of the hall and spread out to flank either side, leaving gaps at each of the altars. Sawny elbowed me.

“See Curlin?”

I shook my head. “Don’t know how you could pick her out at this distance.”

“She’s the one with the black eye.” He pointed, squinting. “She’s gotten more tattoos since the last time I saw her.”

I rolled my eyes. “Give it up, Sawny. She’s one of them now. Our Curlin is dead to us, and starting tomorrow, you’ll never have to see or think of her again.”

My words struck a nerve in my own heart, and I knew they’d hurt Sawny, as well. I missed Curlin, and every time I saw her or one of the other Shriven, the thought of her betrayal poured salt water into the still-fresh wound. We’d promised years ago, in our spot on the temple roof, that we wouldn’t join them. None of us. For a lot of temple brats, serving as one of the Shriven was the best option. The only option. But over the years, the four of us had seen what the Shriven did to dimmys—to people like me and Curlin—and not one of us wanted any part of that brutality.

Or so we’d thought. Until three years ago, the day Curlin turned thirteen, when she’d disappeared from the room she and I had shared. The next time we saw her, her head was shaved and her wrist was banded with the new ink of her first tattoo. She’d not spoken to any of us since, but where I held on to that betrayal like a weapon, Sawny’d always wanted to find a way to forgive her.

Steady me, Pru, I thought, leaning on the comfort I felt when I reached for my long-dead twin.

The catechized Shriven prowled into the hall on the heels of their initiates, all dangerous feline grace and coiled energy. They weren’t the only people in the empire who had tattoos, but few bore so many or such immediately recognizable designs. The Shriven’s tattoos favored stark black lines and symbols that evoked a time long forgotten. It was as though they’d inked a language all their own into their skin. Even in plain clothes, a person always knew the moment one of the Shriven came close. Everyone sat a little straighter on their benches and chairs, and their eyes flicked to the dimmys in the room, looking for a reaction, a sign, a threat.

I gripped the cantory in my lap and stared straight ahead, trying to calm my nerves.

At most adulations, Queen Runa was the last person to enter the haven hall. On Ascension Day, however, she shared her entrance with the Suzerain as a token of respect. They were an odd triumvirate. The Suzerain were tall, with porcelain skin and white-blond hair that, when combined with their white robes, made them look like a pair of twin icicles. Castor, the male Suzerain, was covered in grayscale tattoos of flowers that crept up his neck and onto his scalp, a portion of which was shaved to show off the largest of the flower tattoos. The female Suzerain was named Amler. Her hands were covered in a network of tiny black dots so close together, it looked as though she was always wearing gloves that faded up her arms and over the rest of her body, growing sparser the farther they got from her fingertips.

Before Curlin’d joined the Shriven, she used to joke that Amler looked as though she’d been spattered with ink.

Between them, Queen Runa was small and round as a teapot, the top of her crown barely clearing the Suzerain’s shoulders. Every time I’d seen her on her own—mainly during her birthday celebrations, when she handed out sweets across the city—Queen Runa had been the very picture of imposing authority, wrapped in piles of furs and dripping with jewels. But when contrasted with the Suzerain’s sharp faces and piercing blue eyes, the Queen looked positively friendly. Kind, even.

The Queen settled into a fur-draped chair in the place of honor at the front of the hall. The Suzerain stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the Queen and looked out over the silent crowd. Their eyes fixed on each person, taking stock, tallying. I kept my eyes on the cantory in my lap, avoiding their searching gazes. I knew it wasn’t possible that they knew each of the folks who lived in Penby, but they certainly knew who I was. Maybe not on sight, but they knew my name. My story. They kept track of dimmys.

All I wanted was a life outside their line of sight. Outside their reach.

The rest of the adulation went as these things always did. The Suzerain lectured on the holiness of twins, giving particular weight to their own divine role as the leaders of the temple; the power of the singleborns’ judgment and wisdom, Queen Runa first among them; and, of course, the role of the Shriven in protecting Alskaders from the violence of the diminished. Afterward, the Suzerain led the hall in an endless round of the high holy song of Dzallie, gaining speed and volume until the whole room echoed with the reverberations of their worship.

Sawny and I were silent, despite Lily’s black looks and prodding elbows. Since our promise to each other that we wouldn’t join the Shriven, neither of us had worshipped at adulations, either. We showed up when it mattered, of course. We weren’t stupid. But we were always silent, much to Lily’s everlasting chagrin. She worried that our silence singled us out, and the last thing any of us wanted was to be noticed.

After the adulation, the Suzerain stayed in the haven hall for hours, greeting, blessing and doling out advice to those folks rich enough to make it worth the Suzerain’s time. Sawny, Lily and I filed out of the temple as quickly as we could and stood together in the square, soaking in the near-warmth of the early summer sun. The anchorites would expect us to report in for our various chores before long, but none of us seemed to want to be the first to break away.

“Tomorrow, then?” I asked. “What time?”

Lily shifted from one foot to the other. “The sunship leaves on the first tide.”

“I’ll come see you off.”

“There’s no need—”

Sawny cut her off. “Of course you will. But we’ll have supper tonight, too. We’re not saying goodbye. Not yet.”

Anchorite Lugine strode toward us, scowling. Dozens of strands of pearls were wrapped around her neck and braided into her hair, glowing like fresh-fallen snow against the orange silk of her robes.

“I’d best get down to the harbor,” I said, loud enough that the anchorite could hear me. “I’ll be diving until sunset to make up for my lost time this morning. I’ve got to find Lugine some nice pearls if I want supper tonight.”

Lily rolled her eyes, and behind her, Anchorite Lugine crossed her arms and glared. I gave her a cheerful wave, grinned at Sawny and darted toward the temple to get my diving gear from my room.

CHAPTER TWO (#u32bd4549-2432-517d-945f-61a820fc6dc7)

BO

Like all great houses, the royal palace was a living, breathing thing, and the people who lived and served there shaped its personality. It was never entirely still. Even in the middle of the night, servants carried pots of tea and bottles of wine to guests’ rooms; bakers kneaded endless rolls and loaves in the warm, steamy kitchen; and guards shifted and paced, warding off sleep. There were always books that wanted shelving, forgotten closets filled with the everyday relics of monarchs long dead that needed sorting and fires endlessly burning in the hearths of the palace—which, somehow, even in summer, never managed to fully drive off the chill that clung to those old stones.

No one so much as looked at me twice as I took the long way back to my rooms through the palace’s wide stone hallways, my hands deep in my trouser pockets and a scarf wrapped tight around my thick Denorian wool sweater. I had a stack of books from Queen Runa’s personal collection tucked under one arm, and a small journal full of scribbled questions and notes stuffed into the back pocket of my trousers. After I’d let slip the vast gaps in my knowledge about the shipbuilding industry in Alskad, the Queen had given me a pile of reading on top of my tutor’s regular assignments, and I’d been up half the night trying to make some headway.

Alskad dominated the world-wide shipbuilding industry, and being a nation lacking many natural resources, we held that technology close. We were the first nation to perfect the solar technology that fueled the world after the cataclysm, and none of the rest of the world had managed to harness the power of the sun the way that we had. Denor and Samiria had ships, of course, but they weren’t yet capable of the speed and distance that Alskad sunships managed regularly. Our sunships commanded the trade to and from Denor, Samiria and Ilor, and through our monopoly on ships and trade, the empire had become not only rich, but powerful, as well.

The great irony of a country that spent its winters in the blanket of northern darkness harnessing the power of the sun did not escape me. The sun’s power lit our homes and sent great iron ships filled with hundreds of people hurtling across oceans, and while I knew the history—I’d been captivated by sunships when I was a child—the engineering details eluded me. Queen Runa would undoubtedly pepper me with questions throughout the day tomorrow as I observed her dealing with the monthly petitions from the people of Alskad, and there was little chance that I’d absorbed enough to hold my own under her sharp scrutiny.

There wasn’t enough kaffe in the world to keep me awake through another chapter about the evolution of Alskad’s shipbuilding technology, and I had to be up distressingly early, but there was a restless thread tugging at my mind. It was always like this on nights I spent in Penby, like the buzz of the city’s energy pulsed through my veins, too, amplifying my emotions and keeping sleep just outside my grasp.

I paused outside my door, listening for my valet, Gunnar, and his telltale wheezing snore. In a few short weeks, I’d move from the comfortable, out-of-the-way guest rooms that had been mine since I was a child to a luxurious suite in the royal wing. I’d have to relearn all the creaking floorboards and fiddly sunlamps, and while my new rooms would be closely guarded, the rooms I occupied now were so far off the beaten path that no one bothered to visit, a small boon I would deeply miss when my duties forced me to become even more social. I took a deep breath, bracing myself, and opened the door.

Gunnar sprang to his feet and, after rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, gave me an admonishing look.