Runes are, in one way or another, powered by the epperstrom. It takes a natural property of the epperstrom and applies it into the human world. The most common example of this is the use of runes as a means of controlling daemon-kin. The epperstrom is the home realm that confines and regulates daemons; subduing them and preventing them from breaking free. Runes that are used to bind, punish, or otherwise control daemons are simply channelling this nature of the epps in the human world.

—Of Runes and its Crafte, by Remminsk

20

↝ THE CUNNING ONE ↜

The next weeks passed in an unproductive haze. Isla was down to her last tether by the end of it. Her investigations had yielded nothing. Twice more Aldir went to the dungeons, under the pretense of observing the prisoners and their compliant nature. To take something, he claimed, the Elings could learn from. Kiet accompanied him both times. A third would have been far too suspect.

'She isn't there,' Aldir had told her. Not a single girl was kept in Kathedra's dungeons.

She would be of marriageable age, now. Isla counted the years. Seventeen. And left to rot Wise Father knows where.

She had combed through every book she could think of. Volumes on all six of Surikhand's provinces, histories of her marchdoms, studies on each district ... but while most held their own form of detention cells, Isla found no reason why her sister would be hidden in one of them. Whichever one of the rajinis is my enemy would want to keep her close and under tight watch. Tamma would not be left so far from her reach.

The only other possibility was ...

'It's turn for the element-raisers.' Tran pulled on Isla's sleeve, snapping her from her morbid thoughts. The sounds of the crowd returned in full, crooning with oohs and aahs.

All the academy students had been put into their respective theurgic divisions, and for the inspection were made to perform in the large courtyard separating the academy's rear buildings from the infirmary.

The balconies that ringed them were filled with observers, the highest floors reserved for the most important of them. Isla spotted Rajini Dhvani watching from her seat of petrified wood, Arya alert and unmoving behind her.

But most of the other guests were men. Older men, Isla noted, come for a taste of the market. Do they get hard off girls fighting? A torn syarong or two? Filthy pigs.

'Where's Phrae?' asked Tran. They were huddled in the colonnade along with all the other dhayang and palace servants.

Isla ribbed and jostled the crowd to maintain their position at the front. 'There, by the northern posts.'

The rarer of the divisions had performed first. Essence-shifters; of which there were only a handful, the most impressive being a young girl with superior sight who was able to accurately relay messages written on the other side of the infirmary walls.

Next had been the time-weavers, in which a second-year student enthralled the crowd by relaying one's entire history by touch.

Only after twelve-bells did the skin-shifters perform; none of whom – first- or second-year – were able to display a complete transformation.

The mind-weavers had been just as dull. After all, there was not much to see when a telepath was plucking thoughts out of another's mind. When it came her turn, Isla had kept to her plan. Mind-crafters were a rarity like no other, and she needed to avoid that sort of attention. However, mind-readers—what the Eling called telepaths—were as common as ticks in a stray. All she needed to do was pass as a lousy one.

Her examiner had been one of the academy archivists. The principles were the same – Isla needed to force her way into his mind, like any mind-reader would. She had followed the sparks, singled out the cavities that thrummed and echoed with the archivist's every thought; planted a seed in there and coaxed it into a blossom. 'You're ... thinking about getting some pandan cakes after all this is over?' she had said, and just like that, she had passed.

Now it was four-bells in the afternoon, and the courtyard belonged to the final and most common group.

They had changed things up for the element-raisers. Instead of performing individually to an examiner, the instructors had the girls face each other off, elimination-style.

'She's been practicing for weeks,' said Tran. 'Late at night in the bathing pools when no one else is about.'

And with good result. Phrae had survived a barely-functioning terrakin and now was paired with an epprakin. Isla winced as Phrae lunged at her opponent and rammed a burning fist into her cheek. There's another one for the infirmirary.

'Will you tell me how she does? I'm afraid I have to go.'

That was unlike Tran. Normally she would cheer her friends on the entire day. 'Is your peculiar gentleman back in Kathedra?'

Tran blushed. 'I promise I'll introduce you.'

She disappeared into the crowd, but Isla later saw her in one of the lower balconies, in the company of a young man. The only noble spectator who isn't over fifty. Looks like she wouldn't have to be carried off to the Water Palace, after all.

Isla never thought she could be happy for one of these dhayang to be married off – one of her own friends, no less. But this is what Tran wants. And she seems truly happy.

A loud crash, and Isla's attention was jerked back towards the combat.

'Ogbu's eye ...' Whatever she missed, Phrae had hit the pillars and now lay writhing in a shower of dust and debris. Isla quickly pushed through the colonnade to help Phrae to her feet.

Back on the field, a tutor had stepped out and declared Phrae's opponent the winner.

'To the epps with that wench!' Phrae threw an offensive gesture towards the field. 'Coward! All she did was stand there, hiding behind her shield. Not a spine to attack!'

That's the whole point of epprakindry. 'Let's get you to the infirmary.'

'I'm fine!'

'She might not have a spine to begin with, but you ought get yours checked after that fall.'

'Clear the way!' a voice was shouting somewhere ahead, followed by the bellow of a horn.

The crowd parted like a rolling tide. A man marched through, ivory horn hanging off the belt clinched over his tabard, marking him as a royal herald. Isla grabbed Phrae's arm and pulled her out of his path, but he stopped before her.

'Lilja Shapor! Her Honourable Consort, Rajini Chei, requests your presence immediately.'

Phrae looked at her as though she had just assassinated her entire family. Her voice was low but full of venom, 'What does a rajini want with a mind-reader! Maybe she knows your true theurgy.'

Perhaps she knows my true identity. 'Impossible.'

'This way, girl!' said the herald. Isla tailed him, looking back at Phrae until the crowd swallowed her.

He took her into the infirmary and down its halls. Nondescript doors stood every dozen strides apace, but the herald ignored them all and led her further along. Up the stairs, through a great chamber, down another hall ...

'What business does the rajini have with me?' Isla could not take the silence any more.

The herald did not even deign her a glance. 'Her business is none of mine, and you'll do well to wait until she reveals it of her own accord.'

They climbed another set of stairs, Isla's heart thumping in her chest with every marble-white step she ascended.

For the past two weeks, she had attended both Rajini Chei's Day of Audience, hoping to find a clue. But the rajini had never appeared. Ironic, now that you finally get to see her, you'd rather jump off the bell tower.

What was her plan, now? She could not continue to rely on luck.

Isla dug into her pocket and felt Pepper's reassuring warmth. Would murdering a maha rama's consort still be considered regicide? She's not the sovereign queen, after all.

The herald came to an abrupt stop, and Isla found herself facing a door much larger than the others. The herald pulled on the knocker and rapped twice.

Isla looked around, desperate for anything that could help. A nurse walking by with a tray filled with herbs and ointments. Another herald escorting a fellow dhayang through the adjacent door. Isla recognised the epprakin who had defeated Phrae, but what help would a complete stranger give?

The door opened to a leather-clad guard, and the herald nodded Isla in.