Lilac Child Chapter 5

A troop of naval cadets puffed their way up the hill while being heckled by a smaller cohort of older pupils. They shouted at the stragglers, chastising them for being too slow. A few winked at Zini as she made room for them on the winding path, but they soon made the turn. They broke into song as they neared the square and the end of their run, their echoing voices reaching into the narrow streets lined with merchant’s homes.

Zini’s head was full of everything that Son’dali had told her and what she’d seen. Mother Olo would want to hear everything. It didn’t matter how insignificant, just as long as she presented it as a complete artifact. Sometimes a smell or a sound could provide further details. And feelings, Mother Olo loved feelings. They were the unconscious mind tapping into hidden knowledge and were never to be dismissed. Zini wasn’t sure about how she felt seeing the dead Emperor stretched out in his glass coffin. Unlike the vast majority of the empire’s citizens, she’d known the man, not his inner thoughts, but she’d witnessed his unguarded moments. Playing with his children, disciplining them when one of them went too far, consoling them when their mother died. Zini lacked a yardstick with which to measure him as a father, but if his children were anything to go by, he must have done something right. Rather than retracing her steps to the carpet shop, Zini had crossed the square, spotting the two children as they strolled unnoticed among the officials and the well-to-do. One had snatched something from a passing pocket, palming it to the other before splitting up again. Zini laughed at her small part in their crime spree.

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