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Protocol was lost. Joy found herself beside Nan and Corinna as the princess spoke with her grandfather upon a balcony, looking north at snowy farmland, blue mountains beyond.

“You will not claim the throne, Grandfather?”

“It belongs to the young. Our people will need your straight back and shining face. Ah, Corinna. How is it that Ragnar died?”

“Bravely.”

“Do not humor me. How did his army, on which we’ve spent so much effort, perish so utterly?”

“By the Oxilander Huginn’s report, the Karvaks are a force unlike any ever seen. Now our whole country lies open to them. We must assume Garmstad Town lost.”

“They will come here. They must. To Svanstad. The walls must be our mountain now. And there may yet be time for alliances. Send to the Five Fjords.”

“They have already stabbed us in the back,” Corinna said.

“There’s Swanisle, and the Eldshore. Mirabad. Kpalamaa.”

Corinna nodded. “Haytham says he’s completed a small balloon for us, one fit for two or perhaps three. I’ll send him to King Rainjoy in Swanisle. Nan . . . you go with him. You’re the best Runewalker we have now. He’ll need you to command the winds.”

“But Joy—” Nan objected.

“She may go with you, and you may instruct her as you fly.”

Joy could not believe it. “Again you try to send me away when a fight is coming. Why, Corinna? Are you afraid of me?”

It was an ill-chosen word, but Joy saw it struck home. There was indeed a wariness in Corinna’s eyes as her grandfather said, “You are an old power, Joy . . . your mother is Snow Pine, yes? Joy Snøsdatter, then. You are alien to our land, but you have power, and courage. Corinna has always liked being the toughest person in the room.”

“Grandfather . . .” Corinna said, in a warning tone. “Joy, if you don’t wish to go, by all means stay. We’ll send one of those two Oxiland boys who survived, the hairy one or the bald one. They want to do me service, but I am tired of putting children at risk.”

For the next few days Joy threw herself into her “training,” trying to visualize the Great Chain of Unbeing as the Karvaks grew ever closer. She sparred with Walking Stick and attempted the visualizations of Nan. But Walking Stick was, it seemed, everywhere at once and only sometimes able to help her. And after the breakthrough that let her perceive the approaching riders the visions again eluded her.

Now she stood upon a turreted tower of the Fortress. From here she could look south down the fjord and to the sea, wondering when Haytham would return from Swanisle. And she could look north past the city walls and the wooden outer district, across the farmlands and woods, whence swift riders arrived from inland, crying woe.

In the afternoon light she saw why. The dark mass of the invading army filled the land to the northeast.

As the minutes passed she saw something she didn’t understand. She’d been given to believe the Karvak army was a mounted force, but there were throngs of footmen. She slowly realized the mob in front of the horsemen were no warriors but rather captive villagers, prodded along by the Karvaks as living shields.

Rage filled Joy. She shut her eyes, shaking with it.

She saw the Great Chain, its vast metal links, its huge runes. She saw the island it wrapped around.

Upon that island stood Innocence Gaunt, and she sensed at once he was engaged in much the same project as herself. She saw him glance upward, left, right, as though hearing distant music.

A voice murmured in Joy’s ear, though no one stood there. A cold, tight sensation tickled her spine. The voice was a woman’s and young, but it was not her own, nor anyone’s she knew.

Call to him
, the voice said.
Let him know your anger, dragon-touched one
.

The voice worried her, but she decided to trust its advice.

Innocence
, she thought.
Innocence Gaunt! My friend! How can you tolerate this? How can you work with Karvaks and trolls?

What?
came his voice, as the vision of him frowned.
Joy? Could it be?

Your parents do not want this. Walking Stick does not want this. I do not want this. Leave that place, my dear friend! Come back to us!

You
. . .
Disbelief fled his face, anger taking its place.
You don’t own me, Joy! None of them do. Not Walking Stick, not the Karvaks, not the trolls. But I’ve seen what endless fighting does to people. It warps them. It turns even wise men into traitorous bastards. It kills ten-year-old kids. The Karvaks didn’t bring war to these islands; it’s been going on for ages. The Karvaks just have a chance to stop it. For good. That’s a cause worth fighting for.

You’re confused! You’re bringing war, not stopping it.

I’m confused? You’re helping a bunch of savages. The Karvaks are closer to Qiangguo’s civilization than these butchers.

This land chose me. I will fight for it.

The land?
In her mind’s eye she saw him kick dirt onto the dark metal of the chain. Upon that link she saw a rune resembling a flag on a pole, or an axe.
What chose you is an artifact of humankind, drawing on the power of dragons. Same as what chose me. It’s no different, really, from some lord investing you with authority. You can be grateful, certainly. But the authority is yours, Joy. Take the power, and make it your own. You didn’t ask for it. You have the right.

Something in what he said stirred her. But she thought of Malin’s determination and Inga’s rage. She could never dismiss her friends as “savages.”
Come tell me all that to my face, Innocence. Then I’ll think about it.

She willed him gone.

It was only after her vision ended that she realized the rune he’d stood before was
wunjo
, which could mean “joy.”

Soon the invaders covered the nearer plains, and Joy could believe there were ten thousand. The front ranks were near enough that the wails of the captives reached the heights. They were being prodded toward the walls.

Her companions joined her. Flint gripped the turret stones. “I’ve heard of this. The captives provide cover. But also, they can be used to breach defenses.”

“What?” Inga said. “How?”

Flint’s voice was cold and steady. “They will be crushed against the walls to form a hill of flesh.”

“No,” Inga said.

“It won’t be allowed to happen,” Snow Pine said.

When the captives reached the abandoned wooden district outside the walls, explosions burst up in scores of places within the buildings. Soon everything was ablaze, including many captives. Thanks to their expedient of using human shields, no Karvaks were lost.

“Walking Stick’s work,” said Flint, shutting his eyes. “He has many more surprises. Most of them grisly.”

“Are you all right?” Snow Pine asked.

“There is such suffering down there, and more to come. I wonder how I’ve spent my life. I don’t believe in the Painter of Clouds, but I’m a man of the Brush yet. I’ve sought treasure instead of performing deeds of kindness, craved adventure instead of restoring light to the world.”

“Surely that’s not all on your shoulders.”

“Some of it is. If we survive this I will use my rationality to help end human suffering.” He stroked his chin. “Meanwhile, I may have an idea how to help matters here.” He turned and looked out at the fjord, to where the vessel
Anansi
lay at anchor, watching, waiting.

As the stench of human burning reached Joy’s nose and made her shudder, Flint said, “I think I know a way to tip the balance.”

CHAPTER 29

SISTERHOOD

As she watched the captive Kantenings driven forward on Jewelwolf’s order, Lady Steelfox could not help recalling her younger sister as a child.

It was even before Steelfox had bonded with the falcon Qurca. Steelfox had been eight years old and Jewelwolf seven, and one afternoon their father, the Grand Khan, had summoned them forth to ride. Of course they had no difficulty doing so, having spent much of their toddlerhood in the saddle.

The Grand Khan’s personal forces had been encamped in a green region just north of the Qiangguo’s Blue Heavenwall. The local tribes hated Qiangguo and its demands of tribute, so the Karvaks had taken the country without a fight. The garrison at the wall fired arrows and catapult stones at Father’s riders now and then, and Karvak wheelships sometimes lobbed spiked wooden balls back at them. It was like boys at play, Mother would say. Father had no intention of attacking the Wall, but he wanted Qiangguo to seethe at his presence, even as his sons struck far away in Qushkent.

“If they feel threatened in their home territory,” he told his daughters that day, “they’ll worry less that we are testing the Braid of Spice like a musician plucks a tobshuur.”

“Don’t you want to claim Qiangguo?” Jewelwolf said, shaking a fist. “They are cowards, hiding behind their walls.”

Father laughed. “You believe their own stories. The Heavenwalls are not the same as the walls of a town. I do not comprehend their magics, nor do I wish to. But I understand enough: through them, herds cannot pass. They are lines drawn against the Karvaks and against all those who move at will upon the land. They mark the end of the free world and the beginning of tyranny.”

Steelfox frowned. “Then you think the Walls are an attack, not a defense.”

“You begin to see! Much in the world makes more sense when you glimpse it topsy-turvy. Come! I have more to say about this.”

Yet at first the Grand Khan seemed to forget everything concerning war and nations. Out of sight of the Walls and the encampment, they trampled over whispering green grass until they came to a stream winding its way through a stand of poplar trees.

There they began looking at clouds.

Their grave, imperious father, who had brought his clan back from the brink of destruction until it ruled the great Karvak nation, who had crushed the steppe under Karvak hooves and wheels, and who now set his sights on the whole vast world, this khan among khans now talked about wispy tigers and mastodons and steppe mice like a boy. For the moment Steelfox and Jewelwolf were no longer Karvak princesses, students of conquest, but little girls admiring billowing ponies and flying ships.

After they compared clouds in this manner for a time, the Grand Khan did something peculiar. He rose and climbed the tree. “Stay there,” he told them.

Once situated in the branches he said, “Daughters, I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that up is down.”

They’d giggled, for surely this was their father in a whimsical mood, such as they’d not seen him for many years.

“Daughters, I know this seems silly, but it is serious. Imagine that the world exerts an upward-pulling force upon you, and that you are looking down at the branches below you, down at the swirling clouds. Now, do you see your father? Look down upon him.”

The Great Khan waved, and his daughters, despite his earlier words, laughed again. Then it was as if they’d offended him, for he shifted into more distant branches, out of sight.

But he had not been angry. “Daughters, you cannot see me, but you are still looking down at your father. You are looking down at endless Father Sky.”

Moved by the words, they’d stared into that vast blue.

“We are taught,” said the Grand Khan, “that Father Sky looks down upon Mother Earth, and has lordship over her. I tell you that is a trick of the mind, and it is just as valid to say Mother Earth looms over Father Sky, and envelops him. This is what I learned when I fell near to death at the battle of Mudwater Lake, staring up at the endless void. Earth and Sky are co-equal. This is something you must remember. I have, so far, two daughters and four sons. Tradition would say that it’s a son who should follow me as khan. Yet I tell you in secret, each of you is worth any two of them. I do not know which of you will prove better suited to rule, but it is in my heart that one of you will succeed me.”

Steelfox did not know what Jewelwolf was thinking, but she felt the blood pulse in her body. Were these forbidden words? They could not be, for they came from the Great Khan. Yet she felt as though it was a secret to be kept from everyone but Mother Earth and Father Sky.

Father said, “Mother Earth taught me to value the strength of women for a reason. But it will take all my will to make our people understand. Even your mother, the beloved khatun, has an older view and will make trouble. But this is as it must be. If this new empire is to flourish, it will need the best guidance—one of my daughters, with the other daughter as counselor. I have faith in you. For women are better than men at putting pride aside and working with shared purpose.”

Steelfox could say nothing. But bold younger sister spoke sure and swift, as if she’d been waiting for such words her whole life. “We are grateful for your trust, Father. Whichever of us rules, we will always be loyal to each other. We will show each other love and our enemies despair. Our strength will drown the world in blood.”

Even bursting with her father’s pride, it had unnerved Steelfox how eagerly Jewelwolf dreamed of destruction.