I caught my breath, understanding at last. I had grown up before, hundreds of times; I knew the pattern that my body normally followed. I should have been heavier, taller, more finished, with a deeper voice. Eighteen years old, not sixteen. “Shahar and Dekarta,” I breathed. “My aging has slowed to match theirs.”
Shevir nodded, looking pleased at my reaction. “You do seem rather thin, so perhaps you lacked nourishment while you were… away… and this stunted your growth. More likely, however—”
I nodded absently, quickly, because he was right. How had such a crucial detail escaped me?
Because it is the sort of thing only a mortal would notice.
I had suspected that my condition was somehow linked to the friendship oath I’d taken with Shahar and Dekarta. Now I knew: their mortality had infected me, like a disease. But what kind of disease slowed its progress to match that of other victims? There was something purposeful about that sort of change. Something intentional.
But whose intent, and for what purpose?
“Let’s go to your laboratory, Scrivener Shevir,” I said, speaking softly as my mind raced with inferences and implications. “I believe I can give you those samples right now.”
I was getting hungry by the time I left Shevir’s laboratory, just after dawn. It wasn’t bad yet—not the sort of raw, precarious ache I’d known a few times during my slave years, whenever my masters had starved me—but it made me irritable, because it was more proof of my oncoming mortality. Would I starve to death if I ignored it now? Could I still sustain myself with games and disobedience, as I normally did? I was tempted to find out. Then again, I considered as I rubbed my upper arm, where a bandage and healing script concealed the divot of flesh Shevir had taken from me, there was no point in making myself suffer unnecessarily. As a mortal, there would be pain enough in my life, whether I sought it out or not.
Noise and commotion distracted me from grimness. I stepped quickly to the side of a corridor as six guardsmen ran by, hands on their weapons. One of them carried a messaging sphere, and through this I heard the speaker—their captain, I assumed—issuing rapid commands in a low tone. Something about “clear the north-seven corridors” and “forecourt,” and most clearly, “Tell Morad’s people to bring something for the smell.”
I could no more resist such temptation than I could Shahar’s summons—maybe less so. So I hummed a little ditty and slid my hands into my pockets and skipped as I headed down a different corridor. When the guards were out of sight, I opened a wall and tore off running.
I was almost thwarted by the Tree, which had grown through one of the most useful junctures in the dead spaces, and by my stupid, infuriatingly lanky body, which could no longer squeeze through the tighter passages. I knew plenty of alternate routes but still arrived at the courtyard late and out of breath. (That annoyed me, too. I was going to have to make my mortal body stronger, or it would be completely useless at this rate.)
It was worth it, however, for what I saw.
Sky’s forecourt had been designed by my late sister, Kurue, who had understood two key elements of the mortal psyche: they hate being reminded of their own insignificance, yet they simultaneously and instinctively expect their leaders to be overwhelmingly dominant. This was why visitors were confronted with magnificence at four cardinal points as they arrived on the Vertical Gate. To the north was Sky’s vaulted, cavernous entryway, taller than many buildings in the city below. To the east and west lay the twin lobes of the Garden of the Hundred Thousand, a mosaic of ordered flower beds each crowned by an exotic tree. Beyond these one could see a branch of the World Tree, wild and miles vast, spreading a million leaves against the blue sky. Kurue had never planned for the Tree, but it was a testament to her skill that it looked like she had. For those who dared to look south, there was nothing. Only the lonely Pier and an otherwise unimpeded view of the landscape and very, very distant horizon.
Now the forecourt had been defiled by something hideous. As I emerged from the garden via the servants’ ground entrance, no one noticed me. Soldiers were all over the place, disorganized, in a panic. I saw the captain of the guard on one side of the gate mosaic, shouting at the coach driver to take the coach away, away, away for the Father’s sake, take it to the ground station at the cargo gate and let no one touch it.
I ignored all this as I walked forward through the hubbub, my eyes on twin lumps on the ground. Someone had had the sense to lay them on a square of cloth, but that barely contained the mess. Pieces of the lumps spilled and scattered every which way, not helped at all by soldiers who stumbled around retching even as they tried to scrape everything back onto the cloth. As I got close enough to get a good look at the mess—flesh gone gelatinous, so rotten the only thing solid in it was spongy bone—the captain turned and spotted me. He was warrior enough to drop his hand to the sword at his side, but sensible enough to avoid drawing it as he realized who I must be. He cursed swiftly, then caught himself and threw a quick glance to be sure his men weren’t looking before he bowed quickly. Not a subtle man.
“Sir,” he said carefully, though I could see he would rather have used my lord. He was no Itempan, either, though his forehead bore an Arameri mark. He held up a hand, and I stopped a few feet from the outermost edges of the foulness. “Please, it’s dangerous.”
“I don’t think the maggots are likely to attack, do you?” My joke fell flat because there were no maggots. It was easy to see that what lay on the blanket were the remains of two very, very dead mortals, but that peculiarity did puzzle me. And the smell was wrong. I stepped closer, opening my mouth a little, though the last thing I wanted was a better taste of it. I had never liked carrion. But that taste gave me nothing but ammonia and sulfur and all the usual flavors of death.
“Arameri, I take it?” I crouched for a better look. I could not make out marks on their foreheads, or their faces at all for that matter, which were oddly blackened and featureless. Almost flat. “Who were they? These look long-enough dead that I might’ve known them.”
Stiffly, the captain said, “They are—we believe—Lord Nevra and Lady Criscina, second cousins of Lady Remath. Fullbloods. And they died—we believe—last night.”
“What?”
He didn’t repeat himself, though he did stir from his pose in order to kick over a globule of Nevra. Or Criscina. The soldiers had by now managed to get all the scattered bits onto the cloth and were wrapping it carefully for transport. I could see smears along the ground between the Vertical Gate and the cloth. They had brought the bodies up to Sky in the coach, but they hadn’t bothered to wrap them first? That made no sense… unless they hadn’t realized the couple inside were dead before they’d opened the door.
I went over to the captain, who stiffened again at my approach, but held firm. I was surprised to see a lowbloods’ simple bar symbol on his forehead, though it was also hollowed out at the center in the manner of all the blood sigils I’d seen, except Remath’s. It was rare for lowbloods to achieve high rank within Sky. That meant this man either had a powerful patron—not a parent, or he wouldn’t be a lowblood—or he was very competent. I hoped the latter.
“I must admit I pay little attention to mortals once they’re dead,” I said, keeping my voice low. “No fun, corpses. But I was under the impression it normally took them a few months, if not years, to reach this state.”
“Normally, yes,” he said tersely.
“Then what caused this?”