The merchant had trapped the angel in a cage so small she was forced to wrap her wings around herself. She had drawn up her knees and buried her face in her arms so that only her hair could be seen. It held the sheen of pearl, and promised silken softness.

She moved through the marble and alabaster halls of the palace as softly as any spirit: as though she had died, Veillen thought resentfully, instead of her father. But the One-Eyed Emperor's body had been placed within its tomb with all the proper rituals a full moon ago, and his daughter, in turn, was trapped in the palace. My lady empress, the courtiers and servants murmured when she passed them in the hallways, and they would make obeisance, but their eyes were full of bright, hard smiles, and the echoes of their laughter would come to her once she turned the corner. They would give her an appellation soon, either the Ghost Empress or the Silent Empress. Veillen possessed the dry, utter certainty that more than her father's memory remained, and it was his presence that still ruled here, as heavy as his jewelled crown.