Ghost Nails by Jonathan Moeller

Chapter 1: The Magistrate’s Cake

    My name is Damla, daughter of Torzamus, sister of
Agabyzus, wife of Bahlar, and I have endured many losses.
    My father owned the finest coffee house in the
Cyrican Quarter, once called the House of Torzamus. After he died,
the coffee house went to my eldest brother Agabyzus, and so became
the House of Agabyzus. I helped him to run the House and took over
most of the work, for Agabyzus had a secret. He was a member of the
Ghosts, the spies of the Emperor of Nighmar, and was the leader of
their circle in the city of Istarinmul. He never spoke of it, and I
never asked, though I would not learn the truth for several
years.
    In time I met Bahlar and he courted me, and Agabyzus
consented to our marriage. I miscarried twice, alas, but in time I
had two sons, Bahad and Bayram, and they grew up strong and
healthy. Bahlar had a good head for the coffee business, and the
House of Agabyzus prospered. Those were good years, happy
years.
    Then the war started.
    Bahlar was conscripted into the Padishah’s army and
had to go to war, else the emir Rezir Shahan would have seized the
House of Agabyzus and sold me and our sons as slaves. My husband
fell in the great battle of Marsis, but Rezir Shahan, may the
Living Flame roast his black soul, was slain as well. Our
misfortunes continued when his brother Tanzir Shahan ended the war.
Riots erupted in Istarinmul, inflicting damage upon the coffee
house, and my brother Agabyzus was slain in the chaos.
    I endured. I had no choice. I carried on, and with
the help of my sons, kept the House of Agabyzus running. I vowed
that I would make the House of Agabyzus a prosperous business, that
when I died I would leave the coffee house to my sons for their
livelihoods, that they would not have to become soldiers or
laborers or be sold as slaves.
    Then fresh disaster struck.
    Ulvan of the Slavers’ Brotherhood forged papers,
claiming that I owed him money, and he seized my sons as slaves to
pay the debt. I didn’t know what to do. I was desperate, and I
would have done anything, turned to anyone, to get my sons
back.
    Instead, Caina helped me.
    I did not know what to make of her at first. A
madwoman, probably, but she was willing to help me against Ulvan. I
thought she would get herself killed, or get me killed, and I wept
alone in the House of Agabyzus, certain I would never see my sons
again.
    Instead, she saved Bahad and Bayram, freeing them
from Ulvan’s pens.
    She ruined Ulvan, destroying his reputation, stealing
most of his fortune, and crippling him in the process.
    And she found my brother. Agabyzus had been a
prisoner, and Caina snatched him from the Widow’s Tower before it
burned.
    Later she told me that she was a Ghost of the Empire,
sent to rebuild the city’s Ghost circle, and I agreed to help her.
I suppose that makes me a traitor to the Most Divine Padishah, but
I do not care. The Most Divine Padishah and his magistrates sent my
husband to his death, and they did nothing to protect my sons from
Ulvan’s greed. I saw the scars the torturers of the Widow’s Tower
wrote upon Agabyzus’s flesh.
    Caina helped me, and the Padishah did not.
    Though serving as a Ghost has brought little change
to my life. Sometimes Caina sleeps in my guest rooms. Sometimes she
brings other people here to discuss business. Often she asks about
rumors or stories I have heard, for many merchants and factors take
their coffee at my tables, and they speak of many things. I pass
those rumors on to Caina…and sometimes a few days later a master
slaver is robbed, or a corrupt merchant experiences a sudden
downfall, or an Alchemist is banished from the city.
    When that happens, I wonder at the dangerous turn my
life has taken. Caina is the most wanted woman in the city, and the
Grand Wazir and Grand Master of the College of Alchemists offer a
bounty of two million bezants for her, dead or alive. If the secret
police and the city watchmen knew that I had aided Caina, my family
and I