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We exchanged nervous looks—Bartholoh to believe herself the dead Apostate reborn, perhaps death would be a , “I know that your predecessor suffered greatly after the war—”

“No, nawed at ue I watched your precious Cveti close up my severed breasts in a silver box And I listened to the soldiers praise her false naod for power This body is new, but I aue which will burn through the marrow of the Anointed City The croill turn east to Shadukiaods; they will bow to the Rose Dome in wonder and awe The ruins of your corrupt Toill becoht to tell the tale of that decadent and wasteful clutch of nearsighted ht them loill not even be slowed by your lu underwench, and her lapdogs are nothing to me”

“You eance is not yours, but the Caliph’s He is using you to take the wealth of our city for his own Why do you think he has installed you so near the treasuries, the granaries, the littlediamonds in darkened rooms? What has Shadukiam ever been but a bank vault, a plate for the Caliph to feed fronhild, if you have such power, you reed—why not loose your hatred upon he who led you like a little calf to the broad-faced butcher? What offense has Al-a-Nur given, save that we have endured in peace and prosperity, that we have worshipped our gods with piety, that we have built beauty into a barren world? Yet the Caliph has used you like a painted whore, dressing you up in a corpse’s clothes and reaching out with your hand to clutch handfuls of Nurian gold”

“The Caliph is a dog licking himself on a tin chair,” she snapped “The first time, I was a fool, and he whispered in my ear that I could be holy, I could wash my skin in crushed sapphires; he kissed my throat and promised to make me the Queen of Heaven This ti before me on a silken leash…”

I WAS THE CALIPH’S LOVER FROM THE AGE OF sixteen—the first tinhild, and the first Caliph I loved I went happily to hi, and suess He loved that my skin showed bruises so prettily, he loved that , when his ith the Southern Kingdoms had raised a cacophony of metallic death in the desert, he kissed the od

I was a little fool Anythingand adulation He stroked old of Al-a-Nur to continue the war, and that their succession was in doubt He would put a cloak of fur and shining bronze on my shoulders and a diadem on my head He pro to breed goats on a wretched patch of scrub-brush! He promised me the diamond turrets of Shadukiam, if I would callCity for my own

I understood nothing of politics, but I cherished every rich meal and soft dress I was carried on a litter overland toby a hundred castrati as I entered under the Doh those petals What could Al-a-Nur have to compare with the beauty I saw that first day? I was closed into a house grander than a Palace, and took my vows dizzy with sweet, black wine I made my mark on requisitions to be filled by the Caliph’s men at Al-a-Nur, on conscriptions and taxations— of the city whose riches I was allocating, or whether the requests were acknowledged; I sihts when the Caliph would return from the capital and press his face into my neck

Until the day I was told that there was another Papess, that she had reat sacrifice for the Twelve Towers—little did I know that she had damned herself for a hat and a sword She had called me Apostate, they said She had called me the Black Papess and led even

now a gried to be allowed to seede of the Papacy, I was only a child scribbling on scraps of paper; ould this beast do to ht to possess the title I wore as lightly as a sparkling brooch on a festival day?

But the Caliph had gone—his little gambit had failed He could not beat back the new Ghyfran’s army and continue to hold the desert line He had abandoned nored proclauardthe Papacy—he was not a serious man I was a bauble, no more than expendable If I could hold my chair, so be it; if I lost it, the cost to the throne was less than that of a modest feast

I cowered inback and forth while my hair fell out in my hands Every creak of the floor seized my heart in its fist and wrenched cries fro a knife I fancied that I could hear the ivory trumpets of the Nurian horde each day at dawn, and before e of their slavering faces—everyone knew that strange beasts lived in the Anointed City, and their grotesqueries floated throughfurrows in my flesh

When I had been told that the arhi Celesti—words I could barely pronounce—were encaates, a boy ca behind the dais, and stroked hter, yet he was no more than a child, ruddy-faced and ruddy-haired

“What if I told you,” he crooned, “that you could survive this?”

I stared like a wounded fawn at his pink cheeks “Surely you don’t mean to be my protector, do you? You’re no more than an oversized housecat! The Papess will kill me and bathe in my blood It’s what they do, you know” The boy frowned

“Well, perhaps ?survive’ was hyperbole But I am not exactly what I appear Bodies, you see, are as cheap as daffodils in a spring market This boy died of a fever nota child My name is Marsili I traffic in the dead, in vacant flesh I cannot technically save you from what the turncoat Papess will commit upon your pretty limbs, but I can keep your spirit safe until the world’s wheel turns again and you eance Or to live a naoats, if that is your preference Do I hear a yes or a no?”