CHAPTER ONE

      VI

      The first queen built the Alskad Empire from scorched earth and ash after the goddess Dzallie split the moon and rained fire from the sky. The god Hamil called the sea to wash away most of what was left of humanity, but the people who managed to survive gathered in the wild, unforgiving north, calling on Rayleane the Builder to help them shape an idyllic community that would be home and haven to the descendants of the cataclysm.

      They failed.

      I came up feared and hated for a thing I had no control over in a world divided. My childhood wasn’t the kind of unpleasant that most brats endure when their ma won’t let them spend all their pocket money on spun sugar or fried bread filled with jam. No. My days coming up in the temple ranged from lean and uncertain to hungry and brutal with shockingly little variation.

      There were bright moments among the terrible ones, sure, and my best friend, Sawny, was there for most of them. But even the shiniest days as a dimmy ward of the temple were tarnished. It had to do, I think, with the endless reminders of how unwanted I really was. Even Sawny and Lily, whose ma’d given them up, enjoyed a little more kindness than any of the anchorites ever managed to show like me.

      One night, a month before I turned sixteen, I waited in my room, boots in hand, for Sawny’s knock on my door. It had been about an hour since our hall’s anchorite called for lights out. She was a rich merchant’s daughter who’d recently committed to the religious life, and she slept sounder than a great gray bear. Though we’d be hard pressed to find an anchorite who cared that two brats nearly old enough to be booted out of the temple were sneaking out in the middle of the night, Sawny and I were still careful. Neither of us had the patience to endure even one more tongue lashing, halfhearted or not.

      Keep them sleeping, Pru, I thought.

      While I’d stopped praying to the gods and goddesses years ago, I kept up a sort of conversation with my dead twin, Prudence. Ridiculous as it sometimes felt, a part of me wanted to believe that she was looking out for me—that she was the reason I’d been able to keep myself from slipping into the violent grief of the other diminished for all these years. All Ma’d ever told me was her name and that she’d died a couple months after we were born. After that, it didn’t take long for my ma to dump me at the temple in Penby, unwilling to raise a dimmy. Ma and Pa visited from time to time, bringing my new sisters and brothers to see me when they were born, but we never got close. Getting close to a dimmy’s about as smart as cuddling up with an eel. Not even my ma was that dumb.

      There was a soft tap on the door. I slipped out of my room and padded down the dim hall after Sawny.

      We raced up the narrow staircase, our hushed giggles echoing through the stillness. Even the adulations were silent at this hour; the anchorites chanting over the altars of their chosen deities were tucked away in their rooms under piles of blankets and furs. At the top of the stairs, I jammed my feet into my boots and slid open the casement window, letting a shock of brisk night wind whine down the stairwell. Once I’d shimmied out onto the slate-tiled roof, Sawny passed me his knapsack and climbed through the window with practiced ease.

      “Lily’s asleep?” I asked, flicking my thick, dark braid over my shoulder.

      “Snoring like a walrus,” Sawny confirmed. “I put some of Bethea’s sleep herb in her tea. No chance she’ll wake up and rat us out.”

      It wasn’t that Sawny’s twin was a tattler—not exactly. Or that she hated me. She didn’t. Not quite all the way to hate, anyway. But when you spend half your life being lectured about dimmys and how dangerous and unpredictable we are, you tend to not want your twin to go clambering across rooftops with one of us. Especially a dimmy whose twin’s been dead as long as mine. Lily would’ve been a lot happier if Sawny would do as she asked, and stop speaking to me. She didn’t want to become one of us, after all, and every minute Sawny spent with me increased the odds that he’d be around when I finally lost myself to the grief. Frankly, I didn’t disagree with her. But she knew—as did I—that Sawny would never turn his back on our friendship. Not after all this time.

      So Lily ran to the anchorites every time she caught us breaking the rules. It was all she could do, and I didn’t blame her. But that didn’t mean I wanted to get caught.

      We scrambled from one