Enshili

Enshili is the sole princess of Usmai, the only daughter of His Tranquillity Oparan and the Blessed Kaleithi, and the fourth of the Alkhand's four children. By the gendered law of the Mirror Throne she cannot inherit, and her political value is reduced to a marriage alliance: the narrator in Days of Shattered Faith calls her "a shackle of iron to bind some powerful man into loyalty to the throne" - ch 5. She first appears in the series as a thirteen-year-old glimpsed in the gallery of the duelling hall in Alkhalend during a clavamachy bout, where the narrative notes flatly that her inheritance will consist of nothing but that marriage - Lives of Bitter Rain, ch 8. By the time she reappears in Days of Shattered Faith, aged nineteen, she has spent two years training in forbidden combat under a masked foreign fencing tutor and, separately, under the demon Caecelian, rejecting every role prescribed to her and resolving to embrace chaos rather than submit to whichever brother ultimately seizes the throne - ch 5.

Her arc across the two books is that of a political pawn who becomes a weapon and then an inheritor. In Days of Shattered Faith she escapes the palace permanently after Gorbudan's seizure of power, aided by Caecelian, who kills the four palace staff sent to retrieve her - ch 19. She operates thereafter in the Sand Lanes as Caecelian's apprentice and swordswoman, participates in the fighting that ravages Alkhalend, and at the Battle for Alkhalend inherits Caecelian's demon-contract in the moment of the Viper's death, receiving the blood-smeared contract and the instruction Yours now. Go to Jack. Tell him - ch 48. The alias by which she is referred in some chapters of the later book, "Caecelian's girl," is a designation that becomes known in Days of Shattered Faith ch 36 and is the same person as the princess seen in Lives of Bitter Rain ch 8.

Enshili matters to the series as the living inheritance of Caecelian's project - not merely a student of wickedness but the one who carries the demon-contract forward after Caecelian's death, the successor to an arsonist's life. She also functions within the books as a sustained argument against the Usmani gender order: the daughter of the Alkhand who refuses to be a shackle, who sneaks through ventilation shafts and stolen windows, who turns her brother's paints into an act of mercy and a palace guard's ear into a killing. She is the point-of-view character for her own escape - the only member of the Alkhand's family given interior access in Days of Shattered Faith - and her final act in the book is to hold the contract Caecelian bled onto paper and be told to go to Jack, passing the Viper's unfinished work into uncertain hands - ch 48.

Character

Personality

Enshili is described as a "sharp, difficult girl" who found escape routes from the palace as a child, a trait that became the basis for her two-year programme of covert movement through the palace unseen, likened to "the worm that carves its trails in the fruit without blemishing the skin" - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 19. Beneath the rebellion, however, the narrator records a vulnerability: when four palace staff refuse to see her as anything but "a disobedient little girl who should be in bed," their dismissal "disarmed her. Robbed her of the ability to fight them" - ch 19. She carries open hatred for Gorbudan, whom she calls "Gorbudan Kinslayer; Gorbudan Exile" in her own thoughts - ch 19 - and she suspects Dekamran of "building a prison around her" even while she misses him most of her siblings - ch 19. Her loyalty is fierce and particular: she stays with Loret at the Cotto cellar rather than flee, whispering "I don't want her to be alone" - ch 36 - and she insists the group wait for Loret before departing the Sand Lanes, drawing Tally's antagonism - ch 46. When Caecelian tests her loyalty by asking whom she would draw for, the answer "Me. Against anyone. If I have to" is offered with a self-sufficiency that Caecelian finds delightful - ch 36. She grieved Premath's death by carrying his paints through a ventilation shaft and fulfilling the last promise she made him - ch 19.

Beliefs & Motivations

Enshili's governing principle, drawn from two years of Caecelian's instruction, is the maxim "Misery and wickedness in all things" and its corollary, "In this only do we have our hand at the throat of the world" - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 19. The masked fencing tutor who preceded Caecelian instilled a pragmatic contempt for tradition: "She teaches the princess that rules are things you can throw before your enemy's feet so that they trip" - ch 5. Caecelian's teaching condensed to the imperative "If they show you an opening, put the knife in" - ch 10. Enshili's central motivation is freedom from the role of marriage pawn; she tells Caecelian, "I want to be free like you. I want to be able to do everything I want, like you" - ch 24 - and her refusal to be weak drives her even to the demand for demonic transformation - ch 24. She refuses to abandon those she has chosen: she stays with Loret, she returns to the palace to rescue Dekamran, she insists on waiting for Loret before the group departs - ch 36, ch 43, ch 46.

History

Lives of Bitter Rain

Enshili, the sole princess of Usmai, is the thirteen-year-old youngest child of the Alkhand and appears only in passing during Angilly's first month in the country. She is seen briefly in the gallery of the duelling hall in Alkhalend while Angilly watches the clavamachy bout between Gorbudan and Tarcomir, and the narrator records that her inheritance will consist of nothing but a marriage alliance - ch 8. No direct speech, interaction, or private interiority is attributed to her in this chapter; her presence functions as part of the structural sketch of Usmai's gender order, in which women duel with the skia and men with the clavar, the two tracks never meeting, and the daughter of the Alkhand has no path to the succession herself - ch 8.

Days of Shattered Faith

The Duel with Tarcomir

Enshili is introduced in Alkhalend as the Daughter of His Tranquillity Oparan, nineteen years old, the fourth of the Alkhand's four children and the only daughter. As a woman she cannot inherit the Mirror Throne, and the narrator states that she "is like a shackle of iron to bind some powerful man into loyalty to the throne" - a political piece to be married off by whichever brother ultimately seizes power - ch 5. She barely knows her father, who sends "at least one voice from the needy" sponsored by the prince each session as a lesson in justice, nor her mother Kaleithi, who left the family for the Grove monks - ch 5.

For two years prior to the book's opening, Enshili has secretly trained in forbidden, pragmatic combat under a masked foreign fencing tutor who wears a bone mask carved as a demonic visage and teaches her to reject rules and formal tradition: "She teaches the princess that rules are things you can throw before your enemy's feet so that they trip" - ch 5. The tutor finds Enshili's desire for a matching mask delightful - ch 5. By the time of the chapter's narration, Enshili has decided to embrace chaos rather than submit to her prescribed role as a marriage pawn - ch 5.

The Day of Milk and Flowers

On the night of the festival's sanctioned transgression, Enshili rejects courtiers' advances at the palace in accordance with Caecelian's teaching - ch 10. She privately opens a black-ribboned box containing a demon mask made by the Beast Artists of the Sand Lanes, a gift from Caecelian signifying freedom, described as "a gift, teacher to student, in recognition of lessons well learned" - ch 10. Caecelian had earlier taught her the maxim "If they show you an opening, put the knife in" - ch 10. The boy Kilbery, fifteen and of the Fever Lodge, hovers near the palace intending to deliver a shark ring given to him by the Cotto to a girl he believes is a servant's daughter (actually Enshili), but his nerve fails and he retreats to the Sand Lanes - ch 10.

Gorbudan on the Mirror Throne

Six days after Gorbudan seizes power following the death of Dekamran, he visits Enshili in her quarters. She glares at him with open hatred; he resolves to exile her to a foreign court as a diplomatic match - ch 18. Enshili has seen him two or three times since the succession fight and suspects "blood as sure as on his hands" - ch 19. She refers to him internally as "Gorbudan Kinslayer; Gorbudan Exile" - ch 19.

Enshili is the point-of-view character for the chapter in which she escapes the palace permanently. She reflects on her history: a sharp, difficult girl who found escape routes from the palace and was recruited by Caecelian two years earlier, learning real sword-work in the Sand Lanes while maintaining the appearance of a palace princess - ch 19. The narrator describes how Caecelian first saw her: "Caecelian had looked into Enshili's face and the expression on the foreign woman's face had been an arsonist seeing a stock of oil barrels, a poisoner confronted with the city's water supply," while "Enshili had looked on her and seen freedom" - ch 19. Her movement through the palace unseen is likened to "the worm that carves its trails in the fruit without blemishing the skin" - ch 19.

She passes through a secret ventilation shaft with ornate gilded grills to the chambers of her brother Premath, the Third Son, whom Gorbudan has confined and denied his paints to prevent him becoming a death-cult figurehead. She promises to bring him his paints and steals antimony, lead, white, and black pots from the Moerend wing - supplies marked with the dead Moeribandi alphabet, belonging to His Quietude the Grand Moerend Arkanith's staff - and passes them through the vent. They say goodbye; both are leaving their former lives - ch 19. Enshili recalls Caecelian's teaching: "Misery and wickedness in all things" and "In this only do we have our hand at the throat of the world" - ch 19.

Disguised in stolen servant's clothes, she exits through a hidden window and heads through the Constellar Gardens toward the Sand Lanes. Four palace staff - a snooty woman and three servants, sent under Gorbudan's authority to retrieve her - stop her and refuse to see her as anything but a disobedient child. The narrator records that "Their sheer refusal to see her as anything other than a disobedient little girl who should be in bed, it disarmed her. Robbed her of the ability to fight them. This was it, her grand rebellion. Put down as easily as the Pals did their troublesome subjects in the Sway" - ch 19. Caecelian appears from the dark and kills all four: stabbing the armed woman through the back, driving her sword under one servant's ear, and knifing the last. The narrator notes "Murder, in that smile, but also that toxic thing Caecelian had instead of love" as Caecelian looks at Enshili - ch 19. They exchange their ritual greeting - "Misery," whispered her teacher. / "Wickedness," Enshili said - and flee together into the Sand Lanes - ch 19.

• implied, ch 19: Enshili left the palace permanently because the succession crisis and Gorbudan's seizure of power made it a prison with a murderer at its head.
• implied, ch 19: Her method of sneaking out had been a network of hidden routes and one particular window, maintained for two years under Caecelian's tutelage.

The Killing of Kakrops

Enshili accompanies Caecelian on the night the Palleseen column advances through the Sand Lanes. Caecelian's internal narration recalls Enshili's earlier demand for demonic transformation: "Make me like you," Enshili had insisted. "Have your man brew the potion. Have your woman balance my humanity from me. Have your surgeon drip your blood into my veins. I don't want to be weak, like this. When my brother comes to claim me I want to laugh in his face, show him my fangs" - ch 24. She has also said, "I want to be free like you. I want to be able to do everything I want, like you" - ch 24. Caecelian's inner response to this is described as "a stab of love for her that was painful, agony" - ch 24.

At the Sand Gate, Caecelian and Enshili encounter the demon Croskin, who wears the actual uniform and badge of a Palleseen soldier and claims the rank "Cohort-Monitor Croskin, Ventures Department of the army of Pallesand" - ch 24. Croskin makes a threatening movement; Caecelian steps in, saying "She is mine. You shall not harm her" - ch 24. Enshili identifies the uniform as a Kepishi uniform, a Pal's - ch 24. When other demons arrive, Enshili stares at the assembled monsters; inside she is "leaping," "grinning, behind her mask," her duellist's pose still - ch 24. Caecelian tells her Get your mask. We hunt - ch 24. Caecelian also calls her "My child. My wild one" and refers to her as her "apprentice in wickedness" - ch 24.

During the assault on the palace, Enshili is at the Fever Lodge with Caecelian, sitting on the demon's other side and receiving a bowl from the boy - ch 26.

Drathel's Operations in Alkhalend

A month after Dekamran's coronation, Enshili is mentioned as vanished. The official story is death at Gorbudan's hands, but Dekamran suspects she fled and searches only half-heartedly, hoping she is alive - ch 31.

The Arrival of the Salient

Enshili, now operating in the Sand Lanes as Caecelian's apprentice, sits with Loret on the Fever Lodge's makeshift rooftop balcony after sunset, legs dangling over the district. She reveals that Caecelian "got free" and that she wants to be like her. She tells Loret she helped her youngest brother - Premath - die, saying "He wanted it more than anything" - ch 36. She confirms that her father Oparan and brothers knew what she was: my father knew what I was - ch 36. On Caecelian's capacity for affection, Enshili says: "If she could love, she'd love me. I'm her greatest work of wickedness," and adds that Caecelian "can't love me... Not me, not Jack, not anyone properly. But she says she'll try, for as long as she can" - ch 36. Caecelian calls her "childling" - ch 36.

When Caecelian, Enshili, and Loret move through the Sand Lanes at night, dodging Palleseen patrols, Caecelian tests Enshili's loyalty: "Who would you draw for?" Enshili answers "Me. Against anyone. If I have to." Caecelian is delighted - ch 36. Caecelian then asks whether she will stay and watch what is done to Loret at the Cotto cellar, or flee; Enshili whispers "I don't want her to be alone" - ch 36. She chooses to stay with Loret rather than retreat.

Wattery's Contracts and the Occupation of the Palace

In the ship's hold in the Water Lanes, Enshili - referred to in this chapter's notes by the alias "Caecelian's girl" - watches the Cotto shark rite performed on Loret without intervening - ch 40. When Tally the surgeon arrives furious and is compelled to stitch Loret's abdominal wound in the harbour water, Enshili urges Tally to help; Tally protests the harbour's filth but sews - ch 40. Caecelian's grin grows "all-devouring and beautiful" when the girl chooses her own path during the rite - ch 40.

After the rite, Loret, Tally, and Enshili retreat through the city toward the Sand Lanes as news arrives of Palleseen occupation of the palace and the effective imprisonment of Alkhand Dekamran - ch 40. At the Fever Lodge, Enshili announces she must go to the palace and apologises to Loret: "There's something I need to do. I'm sorry. I need to. I have to leave you. I'll... if I can, I'll come back. But I-" - ch 40. Loret promises to join her "tomorrow night," and Caecelian confirms she too has business at the palace at that time - ch 40.

Gil's Arrest and the Destruction of the House of Hard Angles

Enshili infiltrates the House of Tranquillity alongside Caecelian and Loret to rescue Dekamran from Palleseen captivity. When the guards are found dead and Caecelian appears down the corridor in a blood-coated skia and fanged demon mask, Enshili reveals herself to her brother. She identifies Caecelian: "She is the Viper. She's my teacher. She saved me. She's a demon" - ch 43. It is revealed that Enshili is Caecelian's swordswoman, trained in Palleseen six-spurred fencing - ch 43. The three escape through a hidden window into the Constellar Gardens, where Caecelian fights six people to death in a Palleseen six-spurred pattern around a fountain while Enshili and Loret engage a patrol - ch 43.

They reach a backroom tavern near the docks where anti-Palleseen conspirators have gathered. Dekamran addresses them and is publicly rejected by Follo, Preceptor of the Usrani, who declares his name has been eaten away one decision at a time. At the chapter's close, Dekamran says "Wait," understanding at the last, and steps back, beckoning Enshili to him - ch 43. What he understands and intends by this gesture is not stated.

Two streets from the House of Hard Angles during the Housebreaking, Caecelian whispers "He's done it," clutching Enshili to her, feeling "a vicarious triumph, that there's no chain large enough that it can't be broken" - ch 45. When Gil and Loret emerge from the House's shattered doors, Enshili throws her arms around Loret; Loret releases her and turns to Gil - ch 45.

The Surgery and the Duel in the Constellar Gardens

At the Fever Lodge, as Palleseen house-to-house searches continue through the Sand Lanes, Enshili insists the group wait for Loret before departing. Tally dismisses Loret as "the Cotto's" and snaps at Enshili: "Only I hadn't realised you'd got yourself promoted to anybody giving a shit what you think." Caecelian shifts her sword guard in warning, and the argument is settled - ch 46. Enshili stands "loyally by the side of her demon mentor" - ch 46. When Caecelian announces she is going to fight in the streets - "This is Alkhalend's nonsense. Chaos and the breaking of things. Drawing a blade against all chains. Down with the Palleseen Sway" - Enshili joins Oathan's party. Tally and the Reckoner stay; Jack wants to go but Caecelian shakes her head and he does not follow - ch 46.

The Battle for Alkhalend

During the coalition assault on the Kakrops Jars transport, Enshili watches from the wounded-area street in the Sand Lanes - ch 48. Caecelian walks across the killing gap, holds Flint and Steggers motionless, speaks "Misery and wickedness," and runs Flint through the throat. She is shot twice and pulled from the fray by Oathan. Enshili rushes to her dying mentor. Caecelian kisses her, slashes her cheek, smears blood on a paper contract, and tells her "Yours now. Go to Jack. Tell him." Caecelian dies and passes to hell - ch 48. The demon-contract that Caecelian had bound to herself over Wattery's corpse is thus transferred to Enshili in death. What Enshili tells Happy Jack upon his arrival is not recorded in this book.

Relationships

• Caecelian - The defining bond of Enshili's life. Caecelian saw in Enshili's face "an arsonist seeing a stock of oil barrels, a poisoner confronted with the city's water supply," while Enshili saw freedom - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 19. Their relationship is teacher and student, mentor and "apprentice in wickedness," and something the narrator describes as mutual love - "Enshili loved her... And Caecelian loved her back, if the Viper could love" - ch 19. Caecelian calls her "My child. My wild one" and "childling" - ch 24, ch 36. The demon mask from the Beast Artists of the Sand Lanes is "a gift, teacher to student, in recognition of lessons well learned" - ch 10. Caecelian kills four palace staff to free Enshili and they flee together into the Sand Lanes - ch 19. At the Sand Gate, Caecelian declares to the demon Croskin, "She is mine. You shall not harm her" - ch 24. The relationship ends at the Battle for Alkhalend, when Caecelian, dying, kisses Enshili, slashes her cheek, smears blood on the demon-contract, and tells her Yours now. Go to Jack. Tell him - ch 48. Enshili mourns by saying "If she could love, she'd love me. I'm her greatest work of wickedness" - ch 36.

• Loret - A bond forged in the Sand Lanes. They sit together on the Fever Lodge rooftop, where Enshili reveals her past and Loret confesses to her - ch 36. Enshili chooses to stay with Loret at the Cotto cellar rather than flee - ch 36 - and watches the shark rite, calling out for Tally to help - ch 40. She apologises before leaving for the palace rescue: "I'm sorry. I need to. I have to leave you. I'll... if I can, I'll come back" - ch 40. They fight together at the House of Tranquillity and the House of Hard Angles; Enshili throws her arms around Loret after the Housebreaking, though Loret releases her and turns to Gil - ch 43, ch 45. Enshili insists the group wait for Loret before departing the Sand Lanes, drawing Tally's hostility - ch 46.

• Gorbudan - Brother and sister, in mutual hostility. Gorbudan intends to exile Enshili to a foreign court as a diplomatic match after seizing the Mirror Throne; she glares at him with open hatred - ch 18. She suspects "blood as sure as on his hands" and calls him "Gorbudan Kinslayer; Gorbudan Exile" - ch 19. He sends palace staff to retrieve her; Caecelian kills them - ch 19. The official story of her disappearance is death at his hands - ch 31.

• Premath - The Third Son, Enshili's youngest brother, confined by Gorbudan and denied his paints to prevent him becoming a death-cult figurehead. They share a secret ventilation shaft between their chambers. Enshili steals antimony, lead, white, and black paint pots from the Moerend wing and passes them through the vent; they say goodbye, both leaving their former lives - ch 19. She later tells Loret she helped Premath die: "He wanted it more than anything" - ch 36.

• Dekamran - Brother. He was kind to her, and she misses him most of her siblings, though she suspects he may have been "building a prison around her" - ch 19. After the succession crisis he searches for her only half-heartedly, hoping she fled rather than was killed - ch 31. She infiltrates the House of Tranquillity to rescue him from Palleseen captivity, reveals Caecelian to him defiantly, and he calls her by name - ch 43. At the chapter's close he says "Wait," understanding at the last, and beckons her to him - ch 43.

• Oparan - Father. Enshili barely knows him; he sends "at least one voice from the needy" sponsored by the prince each session as a lesson in justice - ch 5. He left the family to follow Kaleithi to the Grove monks - ch 19. Enshili confirms that my father knew what I was - ch 36.

• Kaleithi - Mother, who left the family for the Grove monks; Enshili barely knows her - ch 5.

• Kilbery - A fifteen-year-old boy of the Fever Lodge who hovered near the palace on the Day of Milk and Flowers intending to deliver a shark ring to a girl he believed was a servant's daughter (actually Enshili), but his nerve failed and he retreated to the Sand Lanes - ch 10.

• Tally - Antagonistic. Tally dismisses Enshili's authority at the Fever Lodge: "Only I hadn't realised you'd got yourself promoted to anybody giving a shit what you think" - ch 46. Enshili nonetheless urges Tally to stitch Loret's wound during the Cotto rite - ch 40.

• The masked fencing tutor - An unnamed foreign woman who wears a bone mask carved as a demonic visage and teaches Enshili to reject rules and formal tradition for two years; she finds Enshili's desire for a matching mask delightful - ch 5.

Notable Quotes

"She teaches the princess that rules are things you can throw before your enemy's feet so that they trip" - narrator, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 5

"Misery and wickedness in all things... In this only do we have our hand at the throat of the world" - Caecelian's teaching, recalled by Enshili, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 19

"Make me like you. Have your man brew the potion. Have your woman balance my humanity from me. Have your surgeon drip your blood into my veins. I don't want to be weak, like this. When my brother comes to claim me I want to laugh in his face, show him my fangs" - Enshili to Caecelian, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 24

"I want to be free like you. I want to be able to do everything I want, like you" - Enshili to Caecelian, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 24

"If she could love, she'd love me. I'm her greatest work of wickedness" - Enshili, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 36

"She is the Viper. She's my teacher. She saved me. She's a demon" - Enshili to Dekamran, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 43

"Yours now. Go to Jack. Tell him" - Caecelian to Enshili, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 48

Tags

1. princess · #fencer · #demon-student · #usmai · #royal-children