The Diminished

I vaulted down the stairs and tore through the maze of corridors that led to the Shriven’s wing of the temple. I’d made it a point to stay as far away from the Shriven as I possibly could manage over the years, but I’d been sent on errands for them often enough that I knew my way to the large training room.

I paused outside for a moment to catch my breath before easing the door open, hoping to enter unnoticed. But the old hinges squealed, and I winced as every pair of eyes in the room turned to glare at me. There were maybe twenty of the Shriven initiates, all sitting cross-legged and silent. One of them grinned, baring newly sharpened teeth at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Curlin, her face flicking from surprise to a callous sort of amusement as she realized that my being there had nothing at all to do with her. I managed to keep my expression neutral, looking instead to the Suzerain. They stood at the front of the room, their arms crossed over their chests, identically impenetrable looks clouding their faces.

“Obedience,” Castor said, his voice at once familiar and disconcerting. “Anchorite Sula suggested that you might consider joining the ranks of the Shriven and would be well served by observing and assisting with the evening training sessions as we saw fit. In the future, do attempt to arrive in a timely manner so as not to disrupt our proceedings.”

Amler’s head cocked to the side, like a bird trying to decide if the creature in front of it could be eaten. I kept as still as I was able and did my best to fade into the wall. Standing there, with the full weight of their attention fixed on me, made me feel like they could see through to my very core and riffle through every secret I’d ever kept. My mind kept slipping to the loose floorboard beneath my bed and the box hidden there—my collection of pearls, waiting, glowing like so many miniature moons, still unbroken, inside.

“She doesn’t want to join the Shriven, brother. She wants to be rid of the temple as soon as we’ll consent to her leaving.”

“I simply stated Anchorite Sula’s suggestion,” Castor observed. “I didn’t say that she was correct.”

Amler nodded. “A fair point, well made, but we’ve lost two full minutes to this disturbance, and I would not like to divert from our schedule any more than absolutely necessary. Obedience, please remain in the back, out of the way. We’ll let you know when you’re needed.”

I bowed my head and shrank farther into the corner. As the evening passed into night, I found myself strangely fascinated by the Shriven’s training. I’d seen them at work in the city, of course—I somehow always managed to find myself nearby when one of the other dimmys fell into their violent grief, and the Shriven inevitably appeared to put a stop to their violence. But it’d never occurred to me that to become that capable, that deadly, the Shriven would have to work very, very hard.

The Shriven initiates mimicked the Suzerain in an endless series of exercises that inverted, balanced and stretched them in ways that didn’t seem to translate into combat at all. They practiced the same movements again and again, so many times that even I, in the corner of the room, could see their muscles quivering.

Eventually, the initiates separated into pairs, the dimmys in the room silently finding one another, and the twins turning to face their other halves.

“The staves, Obedience,” Castor called, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Bring out the staves.”

I glanced around the room helplessly. Blunt clubs hung in clusters in one corner. Racks of blades—everything from throwing stars to swords almost as long as I was tall—decorated the wall behind the Suzerain, but I saw nothing that remotely resembled the deadly, metal-tipped staves some of the Shriven carried on their prowls through the city.

Finally, rolling her eyes, Curlin peeled off from the group, darted across the room and shouldered me out of the way. She slid open a door that I’d completely overlooked, despite the fact that I’d been standing right in front of it. Blushing, I helped Curlin heave the padded staves out of the closet and distribute them to the rest of the initiates.

The Suzerain exchanged a cryptic glance as I shrank back into my corner, fuming at myself and Curlin in equal parts.

“You’re dismissed, Obedience,” Amler said. “Remember, when you plan your day tomorrow, that to be on time is to be late, and to be late is to be an embarrassment to your faith.”

With no need for an excuse beyond my burning cheeks and the terrifying attention of the Suzerain, I turned on a heel and fled.

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

BO

After a solid week of cold, gray rain, the skies cleared and the sun finally came out. Queen Runa suggested to my tutors that I might be allowed an afternoon dedicated solely to relaxation. While I would have been more than content to while away the entirety of my rare free time reading a novel, Claes and his twin, Penelope, insisted that we take advantage of the beautiful day and go for a ride. Just after lunch we took off across the city on horses borrowed from the Queen’s stables.

We three had grown up riding, and all of us were as comfortable on horseback as we were on our own two feet. Nevertheless, it had taken a great deal of wheedling and pleading to convince the stable master to give us mounts with a bit more spirit than a hay bale. We’d still ended up with a set of stodgy, dependable Alskad Curlies that made me desperately miss the horses I’d left behind at my estate in the country.

Penby had grown up around the palace and temple, and as such, there were almost no palace grounds to speak of. However, there were wide swaths of parkland across the whole city—acres upon acres of green lawns, cultivated forests and trails that dotted the city like emeralds scattered over a field of ash. The parks had been a gift to the people from one of my queenly ancestors, and Queen Runa had recently declared that their upkeep would henceforth be entirely funded through a tax on luxury items like fur, kaffe and imported Denorian wool and Samirian silk. Just when I thought my mother was finished ranting about the subject, she brought it up again, appalled that the rich be punished “for having good taste.”

The memory made me wrinkle my nose in disgust. For someone who had as much wealth and privilege as my mother to be upset by a tiny uptick in the cost of her unnecessary luxuries felt ugly, especially when that money went to providing all of Penby’s citizens with something as lovely as free, public green space in the middle of the capital city of the empire.

“Smells like rotting fish, doesn’t it?” Claes asked, misinterpreting my expression.

Penelope glanced over her shoulder and shrugged. “Better to suffer the stench of the wharf than chance getting our pockets picked by the riffraff in the End.”

“Oh, please, Penelope,” I said with a sigh.

“What? Didn’t you hear what happened to Imelda Hesketh three weeks ago? She was robbed blind coming home from a party. I’ve no idea why, but she decided to walk through the End. A gang of miscreants jumped her—they took her wallet, her jacket, her shoes, even her hairpins. Fortunately, she wasn’t hurt, just embarrassed by the whole affair.”

Claes raised an eyebrow at his sister. “Are you certain that’s what happened?”

“Of course. Imelda told me herself.”

“I heard that she’s been spending more than a little time in the gambling dens in Oak Grove, and she used the story about the End to get herself out of trouble with her wife. Patrise told me she’s in debt up to her eyebrows.”

I kneed my horse forward, up a hill and away from the wharf, and let the rest of their gossip drift away behind me. I focused instead on the city, watching the people I would someday rule as we rode into Esser Park, the most fashionable neighborhood in Penby. Tall brick houses, their doors and window sashes painted in bold colors, ringed the largest and most carefully tended of Penby’s parks. The houses were trimmed with ornate stone fripperies and built so close together, their occupants could open their windows and gossip without raising their voices. My father had owned one of these houses, but my mother had closed it up after he died. I tried to pick out which one had been his, but it had been too long since I’d visited. None seemed more familiar than the rest.

Alskaders had thronged to the park, drawn by the lovely weather. The benches and pavilions were full of picnickers popping bottles of fizzy wine and laughing. Vendors hawked their wares from colorful carts, and people crowded around them, buying fry bread dusted with sugar, flaky meat pies and baskets of steamed, spiced crab, shrimp and clams. Children played on the rolling lawns, and their parents watched from blankets as they tumbled down hills and tossed balls to one another. There were other riders out, too, and I nodded at the familiar faces we passed.

Despite the fact that this park was free and open to the public, the only people enjoying it were the nobility—the same nobles who attended the parties and dinners at the palace. Who visited our countryside estate. Who sent me birthday gifts year after year, not because they knew me, but for the simple fact that I was a Trousillion—and though the announcement would not come until my birthday, everyone knew that I would be the next king.

It was as though there was some kind of unspoken rule, more effective than walls, that made this space inaccessible to the poor.

“Why is it that the only people out on a day like today are the same ones we see at court all the time?”

Penelope and Claes exchanged one of their infuriatingly meaningful twin looks, and Claes shrugged.

“Did you give Gunnar the afternoon off before we left?” he asked.

The heat of a blush crept up my neck as I realized my mistake. I hadn’t thought to give him time off. Of course I hadn’t. I was a fool to think I had any idea what it was like to be poor in Penby—or, for that matter, to be employed. It suddenly made perfect sense that the park was crowded with the nobility. We were the only people who could afford the time to enjoy these green spaces.

The entire sum of my life had been devoted to work and pleasure in nearly equal portions. The work I did in preparation for the duties of kingship was challenging and extensive, but if I took ill or needed a day off to rest, I could have that. Queen Runa had always emphasized that the role of a monarch was to be a servant to their subjects, but the reality of my life was such that I rarely interacted with people who were actually poor. Those people I knew who worked for a living, by and large, worked for me in some capacity or another.

Penelope tapped my thigh gently with the end of her riding crop and said, “There’s no reason you ought to have done, Bo. With your birthday around the corner, he hasn’t got the time for gallivanting around a park all afternoon. And frankly, neither do we. We must decide on the menu for your birthday party, not to mention the entertainment...”

I stopped listening, and my eyes drifted to the edge of the woods, where a group of the Shriven stood, their white robes stark and austere against the dark evergreen tree line. I glanced around, looking for the city watch, but there were none in sight. Like the rest of us, the watch depended on the Shriven to protect us from the diminished, but it was odd to see a group of them standing there, as if waiting for something.

“Bo? Bo. Are you listening?” Penelope’s voice snapped me back to the present, and I tore my eyes away from the Shriven.

“Obviously not,” Claes drawled.

A hunk of grass exploded a stride to my left. Then another, closer. I looked over my shoulder, confused. A sound like a thunderclap reverberated through the park, and my horse sidestepped, flinging his head up and snorting anxiously. It was the most activity I’d seen from the beast since I’d mounted. I glanced at Claes, but before I could say anything, something whizzed by my shoulder, and this time, I recognized the sound. Gunshots. One voice rose up in a scream, and in no time, it was joined by a chorus of panicked yells.

I’d hunted for sport all my life. I knew the sound of a rifle, but it was so out of place here, so unexpected in this beautiful park in the middle of the city. There was no game to hunt, no reason for a person to come armed. I was as baffled as I was frightened; it simply didn’t make any sense.

Realization dawned on me suddenly. Someone was shooting. At me. There’d been attempts made on my life before, but they’d been flashy, easy to identify and avoid. Poisonings, cut stirrups, clumsily hidden explosives. It was tradition more than anything—a show of strength and power. The singleborn threatened each other with assassination all the time, but never with firearms, and people rarely actually died unless in some kind of horrible accident.

The horse jigged beneath me, and I knew he was on the verge of taking off. It took nearly all my focus to stay in the saddle, but even still, I saw the Shriven streaming up the hill toward the copse of trees at the edge of the bluff. They moved like silverfish streaking up a stream, silent and focused. Something about their coordinated movements, and the way they’d been waiting—it left a bad taste in my mouth. An overwhelming wrongness, like biting down on a copper tvilling.

Another shot rang out, and this time my horse wheeled and started to bolt off down the hill. I sat deep in the saddle and tightened my grip on the reins, murmuring soothing nonsense and slowing his pace. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Penelope and Claes catch up to me as people dashed out of the park, leaving hampers and blankets behind in their rush to get away.

“We have to get back to the palace!” Claes yelled over the din of the crowd.

“Follow me,” Penelope called. “Side streets will be faster.”

We rode at breakneck speed through the city, dodging street vendors and pedestrians. Our terrified horses needed no encouragement, and they only gathered speed as we rounded the last corner and finally caught sight of the palace.