I did not spend much time around your mother, and for this I will always feel some regret. O-Shizuru exists in stories as a dark woman, hands forever coated with blood, trailed always by crows. I know these stories cannot hope to capture her essence, just as the stories of my mother fail to capture hers.
But I remember distinctly the way she spoke about her position. Imperial Executioner. Whenever the subject came up, she would scoff. Once, I awoke in the middle of the night, after dreaming a dragon ate my leg, and I saw your mother sitting with a cup in one hand and a bottle in the other. Her gray-streaked hair was all a mess.
“I’m no executioner,” she said. “Yoshimoto calls me that only so he can feel better about himself. I am either his butcher or his last resort.” And here I remember she took a sip of her rice wine, which was always at her side. “Bandits or blackbloods. That’s all I ever fight. He never sends me after nobles, never has me act as anyone’s second. Between the two, Shefali-lun—between things that were once people I liked, and people who turn to robbery to fill their bellies, I’d rather have…”
I never got to hear her answer. Your father emerged not long after that, and with gentle words convinced her that it was time for bed.
I have thought on that moment many times since then. Which is worse—to confront the dead you once knew, or to confront strangers you sympathize with? Whose blood is heavier?
I will tell you:
The worst thing in life is to face your family after you have shamed them. For the moment I spotted my mother’s white felt ger, I knew that if I told her of my condition, I might as well be killing her.
I wished it’d been bandits instead. If bandits approached camp, I’d know precisely what to do: draw my bow and fire until no one remained. If guards caught me, then I would’ve raced them back to the barracks. They would have had no hope of catching me on my good Qorin mare.
But she was my mother. My mother, who hated boats as much as I did, and warned me as a child never to take one. My mother, who abhorred leaving the steppes for any reason, except to see your mother. From what I knew, she had not been to the Wall of Flowers since she traveled with O-Shizuru and the Sixteen Swords. What was initially a mission to clear out invading blackbloods became a lasting warning against confronting them.
Oh, our mothers slew one of the Traitor’s Generals—for this, the entire Empire sang your mother’s praises—but every one of the other Swords died in the effort. Fourteen of the most renowned warriors in Hokkaro, from all walks of life. General Kikomura fought alongside a cobbler from southern Fuyutsuki Province. The youngest daughter of silk merchants, a man with grandchildren about to marry. All that mattered was their swordplay—and look where that got them. Whatever triumph our mothers felt was tempered by the loss of their companions.
No, my mother had not returned to Shiseiki since she spent eight days in a cave being tortured. Yet here she was; here was her ger with its banner flapping in the wind.
She did not know what had happened to me. I could not tell her. I could not. My affliction, so feared by my people, had not killed me. Instead, I felt myself becoming something else.
Should I run? I sat frozen in the saddle. Should I run from my own mother, rather than tell her what had happened? Should I rouse you from your slumber, and ask you what to do? What if our riders spotted me first—what then? What was I going to do, what was I going to say? As far as she knew, I’d run off on some bullheaded adventure. She could not know. She could not imagine the thoughts drifting through her daughter’s mind, could not know how afraid I was to leave the room when I knew others would be near.
But I could no longer listen to the voices calling me a coward.
Before all this happened, I faced a tiger, and felt no fear. Before all this, I faced a demon. I was Tiger-Striped Shefali, not Shefali the Fearful. And if I could endure the pain of a slow death, I could endure the shame of returning to my mother’s ger.
And so I rode toward the bright white gers. And so I dismounted. Temurin, standing outside my mother’s ger, had to look twice to confirm it was me.
“Barsalai!” she called, and she reached for me, she tried to take me by the shoulder and embrace me. “Burqila has traveled long to find you.”
I recoiled from her touch, not out of malice, but concern. Some small part of me worried even that contact would infect others.
Temurin stared at her four-fingered hand. A deep frown engraved itself onto her brown skin, her wrinkles only adding to it. Our most loyal guard was earning a crown of gray hairs for her service. I had not noticed them before I left; when did they appear?
“Barsalai, you do not want my greeting?”
I licked my lips. No, I did want her greeting. I wanted everyone’s. But if she sniffed my cheek, she might smell the rot that hung around me like a cloud. I could not risk making her sick.
“Mother,” I said.
“You are acting strangely,” Temurin said, crossing her arms. “You will not let me smell you—how am I to know you are truly Barsalai? You might be a demon wearing her form.”
I opened my hand, closed it. My fingers twitched. My nostrils flared. Why was I standing around, listening to this, when I could barrel through?
No. Those were not my thoughts.
Instead, I leaned forward and sniffed both Temurin’s cheeks. She smelled of old leather and horses. Yes, that was Temurin as I remembered her. She took me by the shoulders, and I forced myself to relax. I cannot deny the fear that grasped me as she pressed her nose to my cheek. What if, what if? What if this simple act killed her?
When she pulled away, she wrinkled her nose. “You smell different,” she said, “like too-sweet flowers.”
I flinched.
“Mother,” I said again, my voice more sharp this time.
She narrowed her grassy eyes at me. “All right,” she said. “Barsatoq must be turning you into something more Hokkaran, I suppose. Go in. Burqila is sleeping. If it is you, she will not mind being awoken.”
I opened the red door.
Four bedrolls laid out around the fire pit. No warm orange light filled the inside; the pit had long since turned to ash. Only the roof of the ger allowed any sort of brightness. At the center of the roof was a small opening to see the stars through. On full moon nights, this illuminated a ger nicely.
That night was not a full moon night.
And yet I saw perfectly in the dark. I stepped among the sleeping bodies of my family with ease. Scattered pots and pans, bows tucked under pillows, empty waterskins and bowls—I avoided all of them. I do not want to say that the room was not dark in my vision, for it was. But it was not … not so deep, I suppose. Ink in water.
I found my mother sleeping on the western side of the ger. I shook her awake. She shot up and immediately reached for the knife she kept beneath her pillow. She got as far as grabbing me by the hair and pressing it to my throat before she realized whom she was about to kill.
Her lips parted. A sound escaped them akin to a mouse’s squeak. She dropped the knife and touched my face, cleared my hair away.
“Mother,” I whispered.
She drew me close and sniffed my cheeks. She squeezed me so tight, my back cracked; she rocked with me back and forth.
My mother swore an oath of silence at sixteen. I was sixteen then as she embraced me, as the soft sounds of tears filled the tent like clashing swords.
I was sixteen when I heard my mother speak for the first time.
I thought I imagined it. Honestly, I did. The voices must be taunting me. It was not my mother. It could not be my mother.
Except this voice was not like the others. It was warm and sweet and rich, like spiced tea thick with honey.
“You’re safe,” she whispered.
My jaw dropped. I did not know what to say; I was not safe, but my mother was so worried, she had actually spoken and …
No. I would not tell her tonight. Instead, I let her hold me. I let her count my fingers and toes, as she had when I was a child, and check me for new scars. The wound Leng gave me had already healed by then; she saw no trace of it. Even the cuts the surgeons gave me had healed. To my mother’s trained eyes, there was nothing wrong with me.
After a few minutes of this, she grabbed a pot and banged her knife against it until the entire ger sprang awake. The entire ger cursed, too, but I do not blame them. It was long past Last Bell; no one in their right mind is awake at such an hour. Otgar, her mother, her father, and another one of my aunts angrily rubbed their eyes.
“Burqila,” Otgar murmured, “I swear by Grandmother Sky, you must be deaf as well as mute—”
She stopped upon seeing me. A grin spread across her wide, flat face. She pulled me into a hug so fast and so tight, I slammed right into her, but she was the one who staggered backwards.
“Cousin Needlenose!” she said, quickly sniffing my cheeks. “Did you get heavier, lugging all Barsatoq’s things around?”
And it made me chuckle. After all these months, that is what Otgar said to me.
“Your laugh tells me it is true!” she said, slinging an arm around me.
My aunts and uncles gathered around and welcomed me home, despite the hour. We lit a fire. We drank kumaq together, and no one questioned where I’d been. No one questioned what I’d been up to.
No one questioned why I did not sleep.
In the morning, I excused myself from the revelries. I needed to return to you, and I wanted to do so before too many people were out. Otgar demanded to come along. After all, the last time I left camp alone, I ran off to the north to fight demons.
A man leaves home to fight for the Emperor. When he leaves, he is a young man, perhaps twenty-two. His wife is pregnant. He swears to her he will return before their son is named. For ten years, he serves. Only when he loses an arm does the Emperor discharge him. The man returns home, traveling through the Empire on his own. He dreams of what kind of boy his son has grown to be. He decides to spend his meager earnings on books and ink for his son. When he reaches his old house, he does not recognize the weathered woman on the porch as his wife, does not realize the young girl selling flowers at market is his daughter. His home is the same—but nothing else is.
So it was with me. Every time I saw myself I was surprised. No, that could not be my reflection. It had not changed. My features were as dark as ever, my nose just as thin, my lips just as full, my hair the same shade of flaxen blond. My eyes had not changed color—still tea-leaf green. How was that possible when my mind was so different? How was it possible, after what I had suffered?
I kept my thoughts to myself. Otgar did not know, and I was not going to tell her.
Lucky for me, she had other concerns.
“You’ve got some explaining to do, Needlenose,” she said when we were out of earshot.
I stiffened. My cousin spoke in her usual jovial manner. On the surface, nothing was amiss. She had no reason to suspect me.
But that does not stop the demons whispering in my ears that she knows. That she is going to tell my mother. That she and my mother …
I swallowed. No. Demons lie.
“That’s right,” Otgar said. “You should be afraid. Did you think you could bed the heir to this gods-forsaken Empire in my ger and get away with it? My ger, that I made with my own two hands?”
Oh.
I coughed. My cheeks felt hot. I was so wrapped up in my own troubles, I’d not considered that.
I opened my mouth to say something apologetic. She slapped me hard on the shoulder. It did not hurt as much as she expected it to.
“You’ve always hunted dangerous game,” Otgar said. “Always picked the most difficult path. But this time you’ve really outdone yourself. Are you aware what will happen if others find out?”
As if I had not had nightmares about your people finding out. But wait a moment.
“You are not angry?”
She scoffed, staring at me as if I’d asked a question with an obvious answer. After a few seconds of this, her disbelief only grew. “Barsalai,” she said. “You truly did not notice?”
I frowned and shook my head. I did not know what game my cousin played at, but I did not much like it.
“Barsalai, your mother loved Naisuran.”
“Obvious,” I said. My mother only ever smiled in your mother’s presence. Of course she loved her. They’d been through unimaginable pain together; their friendship was forged from heavenly steel.
Otgar palmed her face. She tugged at her gelding’s reins and brought him to a stop.
I am sure you know by now that Qorin do not stop riding until they’ve reached their destination, or their camp for the night. It is very bad luck. So Otgar spat on the ground before she continued speaking.
“Barsalai,” she said. “Crawl out of your lovesick cave for one moment and listen to what I am saying. Your mother loved Naisuran. Loved her.”
“Obvious,” I repeated. Anyone could see what good friends they were. The two of them used to exchange war stories though my mother never spoke. Shizuru never learned a word of Qorin, but she still knew what Alshara wrote or signed just from reading her body.
Otgar tugged at her hair. “Barsalai,” she said, her voice curt. “Your mother wanted to bed Naisuran.”
What?
No.
No, no, no. That could not … no. My mother had two children. My mother had never in my sixteen years brought a lover into the ger. Certainly she and my father did not speak, ever, but that did not mean they were unfaithful. I’d never seen my father with a lover either. No, I did not see him as often, but … it just could not be. Not my mother. Not Burqila Alshara.
“Why do you think,” Otgar said, “I had to go fetch her after Naisuran died? Because she wanted to go on a trading trip?”
No, she was just mourning her only friend—it was not that out of the ordinary!
I must’ve been gaping. I cannot imagine the look on my face. You will have to imagine it. I’m certain you know it better than I do.
Otgar pinched her temples. She took a deep breath. “Your mother keeps a clipping of Naisuran’s hair with her to this day,” Otgar said. “She wears it beneath her deel, where no one will see. It is the only such favor she received.”
As she spoke, her voice rose higher and higher.
“No matter what Burqila did, she could not win Naisuran over. Her many fearsome deeds, her prowess with a sword, her skill as a Kharsa, her beauty—none of these caught Naisuran’s attention. A poet did. A poet, Shefali! A man who never saw a day of battle in his life, over Alshara!”
Alshara.
Otgar used my mother’s birth name.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. This was not how one spoke about an aunt. The demon’s words echoed between my ears: Your mother lies with your cousin, Steel-Eye.
Otgar’s eyes went wide. She covered her mouth, as if to try to hold in the words she’d already spoken. “It … It is a very sad story,” she mumbled. But she did not meet my eyes. “I only meant to say that you must be careful, Shefali. If her people find out, they will not be so accepting. Remember how her uncle hates us. He could have you executed.”
I grunted. Though birds soared overhead, though the wind rustled tree branches, I heard only screaming. Laughing.
“You should trust us more, Steel-Eye!” they said.
I screwed my eyes shut. My cousin meant well, she did. I am certain she set out to do nothing more than berate me, possibly congratulate me. But she did not know what was going on in my mind at the time. She could not have known what a storm would envelop me.
My mother loved your mother.
My mother wanted to bed your mother.
What did she think, then, of the two of us?
And why did Otgar use my mother’s birth name?
We rode the rest of the way in silence. When we reached the barracks, the guards questioned me. Who was this other … woman? A pause there. They meant to say “barbarian,” of course, but they did not know if Otgar spoke Hokkaran.
“Dorbentei Otgar Bayasaaq is my name,” she said, sounding for all the world as if she were born and raised in Fujino. “I am Barsalai Shefali’s cousin.”
“True cousin?” said the guard.
“No,” said Otgar. “False cousin. I was created from a vat of clay by my mother, who happened to be Burqila’s sister.”
The guards blinked.
“Yes!” snapped Otgar. “I am her true cousin!”
It was only after some muttering that they let us in. I had Otgar wait outside while I spoke to you. I found you pacing our rooms, racked with worry. You, too, held me tight; you covered my face in burning kisses; you smelled me; you whispered into my ear that you missed me. In your embrace, I felt human again. Something about your voice drowned out the chorus of insults.
“Fool Qorin,” you said. “Leaving in the middle of the night. I thought…”
I squeezed your arm. I was here. That was the important thing.
“Did you get any rest?” you said.
Pain in my chest. You fell asleep so quickly, and so deeply, that you had not noticed I left most nights.
I did not want to lie to you. If I did, the demons would approve. Nothing they approved of was good. Beyond that, it is hard to look at you and lie. It is as if the truth shines from your eyes.
But all this was becoming so heavy. My mother and her feelings, whatever they were. Otgar’s strange outburst.
The demon blood coursing through my veins.
I could not do this alone.
“No,” I said. “I do not sleep anymore.”
Your amber eyes widened; you paused. You looked as if someone had struck you. I regretted speaking—I hated seeing you like this, knowing that my state of existence brought you pain.
“Shefali,” you said. You cupped my face. “My love. We will find some way to heal you, and we will leave this place soon. You and I will find some place all our own. We will find somewhere quiet, somewhere you can ride your horse, and I will be safe from the court’s prying eyes. And we will find a way to heal you. This I swear.”
The only way to cure me is to kill me, I think, but I did not say that to you then. For you were so full of hope. Gods, Shizuka, it is so hard to look at you sometimes. I feel as if my whole being bends to your will; as if I have no choice but to follow wherever you may lead. What a terrible thing, to love someone so completely! What awful joy!
“We should leave today,” you said. “Before your mother arrives.”
“She has,” I said.
You winced. “Do you want to tell her?”
I shook my head. Truth be told, I was not sure I wanted to return. My mother keeping something so important from me for so many years left a bad taste in my mouth, and my stomach twisted at the thought of seeing her and Otgar in the same ger.
This was my family. This was my home. And yet it felt alien now, or the people did. As if I’d been living with strangers my whole life.
“Shefali,” you said, “she will hear, one way or another. Would you not prefer she heard it from you?”
I’d prefer she never learn that her daughter found the sight of blood appetizing, but I knew that was unlikely.
I looked at my feet. “Shizuka,” I said.
You instantly looked up, stopped pacing, and came near to me. “Yes?” you said. “Is something wrong? Did something happen? Say the word, and I will find whoever—”
“My mother is like me,” I said. “With women.”
You tilted your head, squinted. “Like us?” you said. “How are you sure?”
“Dorbentei,” I said. “Dorbentei told me. She said—”
The words stuck in my throat. What I wanted to say: She said Alshara loved your mother. But what left me was a strangled sound, a whimper. I laid my head against your shoulder; you ran your fingers through my hair.
Perhaps you sensed I was not done speaking. You scratched my head and whispered to me that it would be all right, that you would wait as long as I needed.
But there was so much I wanted to say. My mother loved yours and never told me. My cousin speaks of my mother in terms too familiar; my thoughts weren’t my own anymore; my mother didn’t know what happened to me, and I did not want to tell her.
There was just so much going on.
Wet lips against my ear. The smell of soggy death.
“Why not leave?” it said. “You can distract that cousin of yours easily enough. Leave, Steel-Eye. Why face such foul people ever again, when you can do so much more on your own?”
I forced myself to swallow the razors in my throat, grabbed handfuls of your beautiful robes. My decision was made.
I would not be the person my demons wanted me to be. I would not run from these mounting problems.
I held you at arm’s length. When I spoke, it was more clearly, more loudly. “She said my mother loved yours,” I said.
You leaned in, cocked a brow, parted your lips. The sort of face one makes when they are sure they’ve misheard something. “As more than a friend?”
I nodded.
Fingers flew to lips. Your delicate brow furrowed in thought. “My mother loved my father,” you said. “They did not stray. They could not tear their eyes from each other.”
“Your mother did not love mine,” I said.
Your shoulders slumped. You sat on the bed, head perched on your hand, the bells in your hair singing a bright song. “Do you remember, Shefali,” you said, “when we were eight?”
“The tiger?”
“The feast,” you said. “Or the next morning. You were in your ger at the time, and your mother, too. My mother got it in her hungover head to say good-bye to Burqila’s mare.”
I flinched. One did not touch a Kharsa’s horse. Not unless one had a death wish, or … well, a husband could touch his wife’s horse. No one would question that. But Shizuru’s husband was a Hokkaran poet, not the Kharsaq.
“I told her it was a fool thing to do, since horses cannot speak. She ignored me. I remember she touched that mare between the eyes, fed it a sweet, and told it to behave.”
How on earth did no one see that? But, then, most of us were hungover that morning, and we left very early on.
“My father saw her do this, too,” you said. “And this is the only time I can recall he ever raised his voice to her. ‘Shizuru,’ he said, ‘you would not do that if you knew what it meant.’” You paused. “I do not know what it means.”
“Married,” I said.
At this, you spared a bitter smile. “Is that why you insisted we ride together?”
Ah, I’d been discovered. To hide my guilt, I kissed you.
“You could have just proposed and saved us all the time,” you said.
We were thirteen then! You would not have said yes. In no way would you have said yes. Even if you had, that was entirely too young to enter a marriage.
Except I knew full well it would’ve given you three years to pay your bride-price, and you would’ve said yes without a moment’s thought.
Your voice stayed warm as tea when you continued. “When my mother heard my father, when she heard his tone, she rounded on him. One finger in the air, like she was reprimanding me for breaking pottery. ‘Itsuki,’ she said, ‘it means nothing, and will never mean anything, save that Alshara is my dearest friend.’ My father said nothing to that, but the ride home was the quietest it has ever been, and my mother did not come to dinner that night. I thought it strange at the time.”
Now it was you who leaned on me.
“I suppose it makes sense now.”
We sat in the silence of our shared shock.
Then, as always, you spoke first. “I feel sorry for her,” you said. “It is an awful thing, to long for someone you cannot have.”
You did not look at me; instead, you focused on the box I kept my bow in, hanging from a hook across the room.
“Do not let it get to your head, Shefali,” you said, “but I do not think I could ever live without you.”
And yet on this very night, my Shizuka, you lie in the palace in rooms of your own choosing. On your grand bed covered in silk and flowers, you read this. Perhaps there is another woman at your side—I will not fault you if there is. It has been so many years, hasn’t it? Of course there is someone else warming your bed. You have always been more physical than I am, have always longed to sink your teeth into the flesh of another. No, I cannot fault you.
If we were like any other Qorin couple, such things would be commonplace. We have a saying, you see—you can never have one horse. Your sprinter is not your packhorse is not your long-distance steed. How different would things be, then, if we were together? Would I be your packhorse, Shizuka—or your sprinter?
Tumenbayar herself had more than one husband—did you know? Batumongke was her favorite, but there were others.
One day, Ages ago, when there were only two hundred stars in the sky, Tumenbayar was riding her horse and exploring the northern steppes. She found a man half-buried in the dirt, with hair the color of leaves, handsome as a man can be. He called out to her for help, for he’d been stuck in that spot for years now.
Tumenbayar took pity on him—and on his good looks—and threw her pure-white rope around him. She hauled him up out of the ground. That was when she saw the man’s bottom half was thick with gnarled roots, and his skin was rough as bark.
“I thought I might take you as my lover,” she said, “but if I took you in my arms, you’d tie me to this barren place.”
The man pleaded with her. He sang her songs sweet as the first blossom of spring. Poetry dropped from his lips as easily as dewdrops. Over and over he promised that he would not tie her to the north.
And so Tumenbayar indulged him, and she married him for a night—but before the morning light could find them, she mounted her mare and left him there.
The man was so distraught that he tore his hair out and threw it, and wherever it landed, new trees grew. Every morning he’d hobble a little bit farther south, closer to the steppes proper, and every morning, he’d pull his hair out.
So the northern forests came to be.
I wonder, my Shizuka—have you sprouted any forests for me? Though you know how I hate trees, I think I might enjoy wandering through yours.
* * *
I THINK WE would’ve kissed each other all that day and into the night if left to our own devices.
Otgar knocked on the door after perhaps five minutes. “Are you done in there, Barsalai?” she called in Qorin. “You are not going to make your cousin wait while you rut, are you?”
I grimaced. You did not need to speak Qorin to know when I was being summoned back. We pulled away; I fixed your hair as best I could, you smoothed my dress—another you’d lent to me. We’d not gone further than kissing, and we hadn’t since my injury. Blackblood is a volatile thing—I could not bear the thought of infecting you.
But my cousin did not know that.
She did, however, know that I was not happy with her. If we had been engaged in such activities, then I would’ve done my best to be as loud as possible out of spite. But we were not, and so we prepared ourselves to leave.
“We will not tell your mother,” you said, “but I think traveling with her would be wise. At least until we reach Xian-Lai.”
Yes, that did sound like a good plan, though I was not sure how to behave around my own mother anymore. Was I going to speak to her about Otgar? About Shizuru? What would I say? What a strange conversation it would be. Either I had to wait for her to write her answer on her slate, or Otgar would translate.
And I was not so sure I wanted to see Otgar around my mother.
Only after a few seconds did it occur to me what you’d said. “Xian-Lai?” I said. “Kenshiro?”
You nodded. “As good a place as any to hide from the court.”
The thought of seeing my brother, too, made me feel lighter. Ten years had passed since I last saw him. He was married now, and a magistrate, too. I wondered if he still spoke Qorin or if he’d forgotten it. He’d better start practicing.
We left the room, you and I, and we took our meager belongings with us. Otgar greeted you and said she was happy you were safe. She did not bring up our relationship, not with so many people near. But she did not bring it up on the ride to camp, either.
As we rode, we spoke of things that did not matter: the beauty of the Hokkaran countryside, the food, the lack of kumaq. I said nothing, and you as little as you could. Your eyes kept darting toward me.
When we arrived at camp, the feast had already started. There was nothing to do to get out of it. Qorin feasts involve everyone around them, whether they know it or not.
And so we sat on the eastern side of the ger, near to my mother and near to Otgar, and I watched Otgar speak for her, saw the way she looked at my mother, saw things that were not there. And when we danced around the fire later that night, I held on tighter to you than normal, and when you asked in hushed tones if I was all right, I told you that I would have to be.
Long after kumaq sent the toughest to their beds, I lay awake inside the ger. The scent of burning singed my nostrils. My stomach felt swollen and heavy, though I’d had only one cup of soup. You slept in my bedroll, curled up against me, and I counted the bumps of your spine to pass the time.
And so it became the pattern of our days. In the morning, we rose with the clan and broke our fast. We’d ride for a few hours after that, careful to keep from straining our horses. My mother chose to avoid towns when possible. I do not blame her for this; whenever we so much as used a main road, we were met with derision. It is strange how highway patrols never appeared when it was just you and I traveling—but when we traveled with the clan, they were everywhere.
“Who among you speaks Hokkaran?”
That is how it would start. And before Otgar could open her mouth, you’d go to the front of the caravan.
“I do,” you’d say. “And I imagine I speak it better than you do. What seems to be the problem?”
The patrolmen were never comfortable with the sight of you. When they spoke, they asked two questions, but voiced only the one.
“Where are you going?” they said out loud. Are you traveling of your own will?
“We are traveling south,” you’d respond. “Is it suddenly illegal for a caravan to travel south on a public road?”
“Barsatoq, I think it might be illegal for Qorin,” Otgar piped in. She rode next to my mother. Too close to my mother. Throughout our journey, I had done my best to avoid the two of them. With you near, it was an easy thing to do; we rode ahead of them, and I listened to your golden voice. But when we were all together in the ger at night, when I had to watch Otgar voice my mother’s words, my stomach twisted.
“Forgive us our caution,” said one of the guards. “We have had reports of bandits, given the Troubles.”
And even though I go cross-eyed whenever I try to read it, I know that in Hokkaran a single character may have a hundred different meanings. A skilled poet bears this in mind when he writes. Your father, for instance, was famed for writing poems that could be read three different ways, and be beautiful in each one. Yet if your father tried to wrangle the many meanings of “Troubles,” his head would spin. From crops withering overnight to bandits to stillborn babes—all things were Troubles in those days.
“You will find no bandits among us,” you said.
“Do we have your word, Noble Lady?”
Our word, of course, was not good enough. They had to hear it from you. Even though they had not recognized you as the Imperial Niece, though they knew nothing of you, they valued your oath above ours.
“Yes,” you said, exasperated. “You have my word. What is your name?”
“Kikomura Kouta, Honored Lady,” he said.
“Very well, Kikomura-zun,” you said. “To whom do you report?”
“Honored Shiseiki-tur,” he said.
“Keichi, or Toji?” you asked. By now, Kikomura was shifting his weight on the balls of his feet. You were not using honorifics. That meant you stood above both Keichi, the son, and Toji, Lord of Shiseiki. He could not answer using their names—that would be a great offense. You’d put him in quite a position.
You sat, preening, on your saddle.
He bowed. “With respect, Honored Lady, it is the younger Shiseiki-tur I serve.”
Impressive for a guardsman.
“You may return to Keichi-tun, and you may tell him O-Shizuka-shon gives her word she will not raid any villages,” you said.
To say he turned the color of milk would do a disservice to milk. I have never in my life seen a man bow so low to the ground. Up and down, up and down, like a bamboo fountain, until his forehead was covered in dirt. My clan laughed. I almost did, too, but I felt a measure of sympathy for him. How was he supposed to know he was speaking to you? It was not as if you wore your name around your neck for all to see.
But after some time, you dismissed him, and we continued on our way.
Three, four times this happened. Guards stopped us. You, or sometimes Otgar, would explain that we were just passing through. They’d ask for our word that we meant no harm. They’d leave, and we would grouse. One would think the highway guards would communicate a bit more; they’d save themselves an awful lot of trouble.
But no. Again and again, it happened.
So it was that the eighth time we were stopped along the road, we did not bother listening to the guardsman.
“We mean no harm, you have our word,” you snapped. “We are simply traveling. Go. Do not trouble us further, or my family will hear of it.”
This man did not recognize you either, but he recognized your sharp dismissal.
“Careful up ahead, Honored Lady,” was all he said as he left.
It happened to be that we were three weeks into our journey by then. Keeping my secret was growing more difficult; I forced myself to eat at feasts only to succumb to nausea later. Temurin kept asking why I rode in the middle of the night. I was being watched at all times, though no one meant any harm by it.
My mother, too, behaved differently. Perhaps it is just that I saw her differently. No longer was she the fierce warlord, striking fear into Hokkaran and Qorin hearts alike. No, she was a woman who wore an old token of favor around her neck; a woman with wrinkles; a woman I no longer felt I knew.
Hunting was slim in that final week. I found only a few rabbits, nothing more, and I was the most skilled of the group. We were coming up near Imakane Village. You suggested we fetch some supplies.
“Supplies?” scoffed Otgar. “Barsatoq, we are people of the steppes. We survive. It is our one great talent.”
“Do not be a prideful fool,” you said, and I tried my best not to laugh at the irony. “We need meat, and grain, and good cloth. I am almost out of ink.”
“What use is ink to us?” Otgar asked. But before you answered, my mother gestured. Otgar crossed her arms. “Burqila says you pay for things with your calligraphy. Is that true?”
“It is,” you said. “My calligraphy is worth more than my uncle’s money.”
At times I think you are a peacock in the body of a woman.
Otgar mulled this over. My mother, again, gestured. They had their silent conversation.
“Burqila agrees with your idea,” she said. “She says you, Barsalai, Temurin, and Qadangan can stop for supplies at the next village.”
Imakane was not a large village. It was the sort of place that had only one market, if you could call it that—really one old man who traded with merchants along the road. As the four of us approached, we saw one small temple, roughly twenty homes, a statue of the Daughter, a smithy, and a bathhouse.
I learned later that Imakane is famous for its bathhouse. As it happens, it stands near a natural spring whose waters are said to cure any ill. Idle talk, of course—the waters did not heal me. But either way, they brought in travelers along the road to Fujino.
We entered the village, the four of us, and the first thing we noticed was how silent it was. People make noise no matter where they live—yet there was no one tending the smithy, no one leaving flowers for the Daughter, no priests muttering mantras over burning prayers.
At once, I was on edge. I reached for my bow; you wrapped your hand around your sword. Together we dismounted. With quick hand signs, I told Temurin and my cousin Qadangan to scout the village.
Sure enough, they saw no one.
We had options: We could have left. We could have checked the houses, one by one. We could have called out to see if anyone answered.
But you have never been one for choices. You had an idea in your head, and you went with it.
“That guardsman,” you said, “told us to be careful. Bandits must’ve attacked.”
Ever the detective, weren’t you?
“We are going into the bathhouse,” you said, and I translated to Qorin. “It is the largest building here. Temurin, Qadangan, you will wait near the exit. Barsalai and I shall enter through the front door.”
Yes, that rather sounded like one of your plans.
After you spoke, you turned to me. In hushed Hokkaran, you continued. “If you are up to it,” you said. “I will not fault you, my love, if you want to wait at the exit with the others.”
You were asking me to walk into a bathhouse that may or may not be full of bandits. We wore no armor, and I had only my bow and hunting knife with me. The last time you asked me to do something so insane, I woke up with demon blood in my veins.
I suppose nothing can go worse than that.
“I will follow,” I said, “wherever you lead.”
And so we took our places. Temurin and Qadangan circled around back. With one hand on the pommel of your sword, you opened the door.
Beyond the door was the reception hall. A small table stood close to the ground before us. Steam coming up from the springs fogged up the room. The walls, I noticed, were covered with stalks of bamboo split down the middle, so that the whole area was a hazy green dream.
But there was no one there in the reception hall, no girl wearing a thick layer of white paint, no man in flowing robes.
I took a breath. The air smelled of ginger and … something else. My nostrils flared. Something else. Sweet, but salty at the same time.
We toed our way forward. Up ahead, the hall split into two paths, left and right. Each was labeled in Hokkaran.
“Men there, women here,” you said, pointing. “Which would you prefer?”
“Together,” I said.
“What if we are surrounded?”
“Then we are surrounded together,” I repeated. I love you, Shizuka, but at times I wonder how you are still alive. Were you born with an intrinsic desire to run headfirst, alone, into danger?
As we moved farther down the hall, the first noises reached us. Screams. Human screams, not the shrill wailing in my mind. Men, women; both voices mingled together. Laughing, too—so loud and so long that at first I thought it was the demons. Soon we heard the words to go along with it.
“How does the water feel, Blacksmith-kol?”
It was a man’s voice. Shortly after that, another man’s voice cut into my ears—but this time it was a wet, desperate wail.
I nocked an arrow.
“Doesn’t look like it’s healing that stab wound of yours.”
It was about then we reached the end of the hall, which opened up into one of the springs. We were far underground now—the ceiling above us was rough stone streaked with minerals. The spring itself lay in the middle, shaped close to a circle but not quite. It was deep enough for one person to sink in, and wide enough for five to float in.
I knew all this because five people floated in the spring, four of them already dead. Commoners. Two dead men, two dead women; one man still splashing. One of the women was younger than we were. She floated on her back, her guts spilling from a large wound in her stomach.
Standing around the springs were the bandits: shaggy, starved-looking men and women with yellow scarves tied around their necks. Behind them, lined against the wall, were the rest of the villagers, bound and gagged and watching in abject horror as their family members were killed.
One of the bandits—a tall, lanky man with unkempt hair and a bristling beard—stood closest to the spring. He speared the squirming man. Short, shallow thrusts, meant to wound but not kill. The blacksmith splashed so hard that the floor was slick now, covered in bloody water.
“Aren’t your type supposed to be hale and hearty, Blacksmith-kol?” He raised his spear again.
I sent an arrow into his mouth. It punched right through the skin of his jaw and kept going, landing with a clatter near the back of the room.
All at once, the bandits drew their weapons. Spears for the most part—cheap and readily accessible—though I saw a few swords among their number. One dozen.
One dozen bandits, against the two of us.
“Who’s playing the hero?” shouted a stout woman with a naginata.
“O-Shizuka!” you roared. And as you entered the room, two of the bandits lunged at you. I remember distinctly your wooden sandals clattering against the ground; I remember you leaping up. You landed on the shaft of the spear with just enough time to cut the bandit’s throat. Spraying blood coated you in deep, dark red.
As you landed, you made a second, overhand strike. The second bandit was too shaken by your first strike to react in time; you cut him deep down the middle.
And I watched.
I do not like to admit this, Shizuka, but I was slow in drawing my second arrow. For there you were, cloaked in ruby, sticky with red. There you were with the snarl of war on your perfect face. There you were, at the zenith of your glory.
I licked my lips. I remember this. I licked my lips as I fought off the sickening thought that I should lick you clean.
No. No, no, I was not one of them, that was not how I thought, those were not my thoughts—
I forced myself to raise my bow, to nock an arrow and pull back—
But I snapped it. I snapped my own bow by pulling on it too hard, too fast. Qorin bows are notoriously flexible; when not in use, we can fit them in hoops hanging on our saddles. And I just broke one.
My hands shook. Blood rushed through my veins, but it was not good blood, not red blood. I could feel my heart pumping waves of black against my ears. Suddenly my teeth hurt; my whole jaw felt like it was splitting in two. I clutched my face, screaming in agony.
In front of me, you danced with the bandits. With every stroke of your flashing blade, you felled one. Droplets of blood flew from the tip of your sword like ink from a brush.
But even you cannot account for everything. Like a bandit, half-bleeding to death, chucking a throwing knife at you with the last of their strength.
I saw it land in your side.
I saw you crumple.
And then … ah, my Shizuka, I am glad you were not awake to see this.
Here is what happened, as near as I can remember.
Everything stopped. This is not to say that the bandits stopped moving because you were hurt. They did not. But in that moment, time stood still as ice for me. There you were on the blood-soaked floor, your lips parted as if you were sleeping, a jagged knife jutting out from between your ribs. There you were: my other self, my walking soul.
Unspeakable fury boiled within me. So far gone was I that I did not think in words anymore, only emotions, only images.
The bandits shared a laugh at your expense.
They did not laugh when I roared.
If you are going to imagine this, you must imagine it correctly. This was not the roar of your voice, nor the roar of a fire, nor the roar of a general. This was the roar of a creature twice as large as any tiger, and three times as hungry. This was the roar of an inferno swallowing an entire town whole.
And after it left me, I licked my teeth. Sharp. When did they become sharp?
Fast, faster than their eyes could follow, I lunged forward. With one hand, I grabbed the bandit on the floor, the one who threw the knife. My grip was strong enough to crush his throat; my nails were talons now, and sank into his flesh.
I took this man I held by one hand and I threw him at the others. They slammed against the wall. Four of them, I think; it is hard to keep track. But I can tell you I smelled their blood. I smelled their fear, sweet as nuts fixed in fat.
One threw a knife at me. It landed in my shoulder with a wet thunk. I did not feel it. I simply pulled it out and threw it back. A wail of pain asssured me it struck true.
I jumped forward again. I do not know what drove me to tear that man’s throat out with my teeth, but that is what I did, and when his coppery blood filled my mouth, I swear to you I grinned. It is the sorry truth. His body sank beneath me, and I leaped to another before he fell. A panicked young man this time, scarcely older than we were, pleading, pleading … I do not remember what he was pleading for. Leniency, perhaps.
It fell on deaf ears.
I sank my claws into his stomach. He emptied his bowels, and the smell made my stomach churn but did not stop me. As he screamed, I tore his throat out, too, and I sank to the ground.
Four bandits stood, four struggled with the body of their companion. I stooped opposite them, blood and gore stuck in my pointed teeth; my shoulder wound weeping black.
Weapons clattered to the ground.
“You’re a demon!” shouted one.
“Worse,” I said.
One still held her spear. She made a thrust. I grabbed the shaft and pulled her toward me, and I impaled her with my arm. I flung her body away from me; the crack of her broken bones rang out against the cold rock ceiling.
With every breath I took, I felt more powerful. Not only could I taste their fear—I could savor it, too. I could let it wash over me and give me strength. And, yes, they cowered before me now. Yes, their pants were dark with their own urine. Yes, I was something dark and horrible and wicked.
But they had hurt you, and so dark and horrible and wicked I became.
When one tried to run, I picked him up and slammed him against the ground so hard, his head split.
And when a second tried to run, I grabbed him around the waist and broke him over my knee.
Two.
Two left.
I was laughing. I do not know when I started laughing, or what it is I found so funny, but I was laughing. Already the gore was drying on my hands into thick cakes. Everything was so bright, Shizuka. The blood, the gore, the off-white chunks of bone. For once, I did not hear the voices at all. I was free of them.
And gods above, it felt wonderful. As if I’d had blinders on all my life.
“W-We surrender,” muttered one of them. He fell to his knees before me. The other soon followed suit. “B-blackblood-mor, we surrender, we did not know, we were hungry—”
“Hungry?” I repeated. I laughed. “You kill because you are hungry?”
“Our leader said we could get food this way—”
“Thirsty?” I asked.
“N-No, Blackblood-mor.”
I grabbed the two of them by the back of the head. As easy as lifting children, I picked them up and took them to the spring.
“Shame,” I said. Then I plunged their heads beneath the now-fetid water. “Drink.”
And I held them there as they kicked. I held them there as they struggled. I held them there until their bodies finally stopped their insipid protesting and they fell limp in front of me, until the whole room was thick with the glimmering of departed souls.
The remaining villagers were watching me, but if I am honest, I did not care—I could still barely think. But I knew you were bleeding, and that I could not touch you without contaminating you.
And so I picked one of the villagers to untie. I removed her gag.
She screamed.
“Pick her up,” I snapped, pointing to you. “I won’t hurt you.”
But I could taste it again. Fear, sweet and potent. I felt as if I’d drunk an entire skin of kumaq in one sitting.
“Pick her up,” I repeated. “I won’t hurt you. I swear.”
I met her eyes. She was a mother, I think—I could smell childbirth on her. That sounds strange. If I said I smelled the sweets she made for her children; if I said I smelled long nights awake stressing over a cradle—would that be less strange? Or more, perhaps? These images land on the back of my tongue and play on the back of my eyelids.
She scrambled to her feet and scooped you up.
“Follow,” I said.
So it was that I left the Imakane bathhouse, blood caked so thick on my skin, I may as well have emerged from a mud pit. My teeth came to a point now; the veins on the back of my hand were visibly dark; and, though I could not see it, delicate black veins colored my eyes, too.
When Temurin and Qadangan saw me, they screamed. I suppose they thought I was a demon.
“Barsalai,” I said, pointing to myself. “Barsatoq needs help.”
For in that moment, I did not care what I had done. As long as I brought you out of the bathhouse safe and alive, nothing else mattered.
It would not be until later, when you were bandaged and healing, when I had to explain to my mother what had happened, that I broke down weeping at this thing I’d become.
The more I try to remember this, the deeper a nail’s driven into my skull. I returned to the ger. We returned, I think. Otgar covered her mouth when she saw us, spat on the ground. To my disgust, she moved in front of my mother.
“Disgust” is not the word. As if Burqila Alshara needed protection.
The dark bubbling within me simmered over. Their voices were the hiss of steam in my ear—hurt her, make her suffer, look what she has done to you!
“Whatever you are,” Otgar said, “leave here now—”
I bared my teeth. Fangs, now. Each of them came to a point, so that when I smiled, I looked like a wild animal or worse. My nails grew so thick and dark, they reminded me of a hawk’s claws.
I was keenly aware of many things in that moment: One, Otgar’s heartbeat. Two, the vein on her temple pulsing to unseen drums. Three, the shaking of her sword. Four, the power coursing through me. Drunk. I was drunk on it, Shizuka, on the knowledge that no one could stand before me and live—
But Temurin’s strained voice returned me to my own mind. “Dorbentei,” she called, this woman who had fought with my mother in the Qorin wars, this woman who now sounded terrified. “Dorbentei, that is Barsalai. Something happened, she is not herself—”
“Barsalai?” Otgar called. And my mother shoved her out of the way so hard, she fell to the ground.
Burqila Alshara slew her brothers without a trace of regret. Burqila Alshara rode with one hundred men and women to Sur-Shar, and rode back with five hundred, despite not speaking a word of Surian. Burqila Alshara blew a hole in the Wall of Stone with Dragon’s Fire. Burqila Alshara conquered half the Hokkaran Empire with five hundred men and two thousand horses.
Yet when she saw me—when she realized it was her own daughter standing there, painted black with arterial ink—she covered her mouth. Slack-jawed and pale she was, the agony of recognition writ large on her brow. With trembling hands, she made the only sign I recognized. The one she’d made with a beckoning wrist, with a sharp flick; the one she’d made look soft; the one she’d made to call me to dinner.
My name. No, not even that—the name she alone called me. Shefa. My name was among the few hand signs I knew; when we were alone, my mother would always leave off the last syllable. You did not know this name, and this now may well be the first you’ve ever seen it.
And I heard Temurin’s soft weeping; I heard your labored breathing. I looked down at myself. At the claws I once called fingers. At my skin, thin as rice paper, trying to hide thick black eels. I looked to you, to my wound, weeping darkness.
“Mother,” I said. “Mother, I’m sorry.”
Was that my voice? I didn’t sound like myself anymore; I was echoing in an open field. My knees knocked together as the weight of my actions came upon me, as I saw everything that had just happened with my own eyes and retched.
I’d torn a man’s throat out with my teeth. I’d drowned people. I’d enjoyed it, all of it, the thrill and the power and the rush.
“Mother,” I repeated as I sank to the ground.
“Mother,” I repeated as she held me.
And then I wept like a child who’d wandered onto a battlefield.
Otgar took hold of you. While my mother rocked back and forth with me, she tended to your wound. All the while, she kept looking up toward my mother and me. With her free hand, my mother spoke.
“When?” came Otgar’s voice.
“Two months ago,” I muttered. “We were fighting a demon.”
Rocking, rocking, rocking. What was I going to do? What was she going to do with this abomination she’d birthed? Was she going to kill me? She should kill me. If this was the way I was going to behave now, I needed to die. Better to put down a wild dog than let it loose. I’d almost attacked Otgar, of all people, and even as my mother held me, I had to fight the thoughts flooding my mind.
“Your blood,” said Otgar. She could not say it without cracking.
I nodded, eyes shut tight.
“Shefali,” Otgar said. “Shefali, what happened?”
In bits and pieces, I told them. We wanted to help. That was all. We went into that bathhouse thanks to your amber-colored idea of heroism. We went in to make sure the villagers were all right and then you were hurt and …
My mother held me for some time.
I spent the night alone, in my own tent. I refused to be near my family. I refused to be near anyone at all, lest that creature I’d become overpower me again. No one quite knew what to do. We untied the villagers, of course—Qadangan and Temurin did that before we left. They were safe.
But they were going to talk. You’d shouted your name when you entered. They knew who you were. And how many other Qorin did you travel with, Shizuka? Soon tales would spread. O-Shizuka travels with a demon, with a woman who tears out throats with her teeth.
What were we going to do about me?
That night, the Not-You came into my bedroll. That night, she wrapped her arms around me, and I did not have the will to fight her off. She stroked my face with decrepit hands. She breathed, and I smelled fungus, smelled death.
“Ah, Steel-Eye,” she said. “Look at you. You are so much more beautiful now.”
I buried my head in the pillows, but her nails dragged across the nape of my neck.
“With your teeth, perfect for biting,” it said. “Your eyes that see so much. Yes, you are more beautiful now, and you will be more beautiful yet.”
“I do not want to be,” I said.
“Ahhh,” it said, planting a rancid kiss on my shoulder. “Finally you have spoken to me, my love.”
“Leave me,” I said, pulling the pillows over my head.
It placed its hand on the small of my back and I thrashed, I spun, I punched and clawed. I screamed. It melted away from every blow like a flickering shadow. Like Leng, like Shao, like the thing I was becoming.
“Leave me! I do not want you!” I yelled, pressed up against the tarp, clutching my bedroll. “Haven’t you bothered me enough? Haven’t you … I do not want to be like you!”
The Not-You sat laughing at my misery. How cruel it is, Shizuka, to see a face so like yours in such a state. How cruel to have the one person you love above all others laughing at your pain.
Someone opened the tent flap. I braced myself for Otgar or Temurin or my mother. Instead, it was you. The real you, bandaged and swaying. At the sight of your radiance, the Not-You dissipated.
I scrambled for you and embraced you.
“Shefali,” you said, cupping my ear, “what is the matter, my love?”
“Your wound…”
You kissed me. A measure of my panic slipped away, as if you breathed it in. “It is a small thing,” you said, “soon healed. Wounds do not bother us. Remember the tiger?”
I touched my own bandages. The skin beneath felt solid and whole. I frowned. With my knife, I cut through the gauze.
Sure enough, the gaping gash I’d gotten earlier that day was already healed. Only a faint line remained, a bit lighter than the rest of my skin. I tore off the bandages and tossed them to the edge of the tent, far from you.
You reached out to touch the skin, but I waved you away. No. Too risky. You could not touch me. Not yet. Not until I was sure that I wasn’t contagious. You drew away only slightly.
“Shefali,” you said, “I heard you screaming.”
“Nothing,” I said, wrapping my arms around my knees.
“Nothing,” you repeated. You laid your head against my shoulder, the one that had not had a knife in it earlier. This I allowed, if only to feel your hair against my skin. “Awful lot of noise, for nothing.”
I stared at a spot on the floor.
“Nothing,” I said.
You sighed. “My love,” you said, “I am yours, no matter the circumstances. You know this, yes?”
I flinched. “Do you know?” I asked. “About today?”
Your grip relaxed. Pensive was your gaze. You, too, had picked a spot on the floor to stare at. Perhaps the same spot.
“I do,” you said. “And I am still here. We will find someone who can help you. You are Barsalai Shefali, you slew a tiger at eight, a demon at sixteen! This…” You gestured to the bandages soaked in black. “This is something to slay. We will face it. Together.”
You shifted, so that you were in front of me, and you took my face in your hands. The tips of our noses touched. Your brown-gold eyes warmed my spirit.
“And no matter what happens, Shefali, I know who you really are,” you said. You brushed your fingertips over my heart. “The person who killed those people was not you. I will have relief brought to the town. But you and I, we are going to Xian-Lai. We are going somewhere far away from prying eyes. Somewhere quiet, where the voices cannot rule you.”
And then you chuckled.
“After all,” you said, “I should be the only Empress on your mind.”
We laced our fingers together. You cleared the hair from my face and kissed my forehead.
“What if I never get better?”
“You will,” you said.
I do not know what imbues you with your confidence. I think I trust more in your decisiveness than in the sun rising every morning. I have never seen you falter, never seen you think anything over for more than a few seconds at a time.
At times your confidence is a terrible thing. It’s what led us into Imakane bathhouse, what led us into the abandoned temple, what led us into that clearing in Fujino where the tiger found us. But it is also what makes your calligraphy so prized, why you are without equal as a swordsman. It is why I have always trusted you.
Of course I would get better. You will not allow anything else to happen.
And yet we sat in the tent near Imakane. There was blood beneath my dark fingernails and flecks of bone in my hair.
“Together,” you said. You lay in my lap. The thought occurred to me—it would be so easy to snap your neck. You knew what I’d done, and you lay there anyway.
But you fell asleep in my lap without a trace of fear.
On that day, stories began to spread. The Demon of the Steppes. The Living Blackblood. The Manslayer. We would not hear the first of these until we were in Xian-Lai. We would not know how the villagers perceived me.
For in their eyes, I was as terrible, as awesome, as frightful as the Mother in all her fury.
And yellow-scarved bandits, for the first time since your mother’s death, kept watch all through the night, afraid that I would come for them.
In the morning, when dawn’s fingers crept into the sky, Otgar came to the tent. Red pinpricks dotted her face, mostly below the eyes; her already full cheeks were puffier than usual.
“Barsalai, Barsatoq,” she said. “Burqila wishes to speak with you.”
I squeezed your hand. You shook the sleep out from your head and stood. When I thought you might fall—you’d lost a lot of blood the day before—I offered you my arm. Did you notice how I trembled?
The ger was only a few steps away, but we might as well have been walking to Gurkhan Khalsar. White felt was not so far from white snow. Kharsas retreated to both when they needed time to think. If mountains were made of felt, they’d be gers, I think.
When someone is summoned to Gurkhan Khalsar, it is a momentous thing. They must take the winding path around the mountain, not the one carved into it by Grandfather Earth. Half a day it takes to climb the mountain this way. Some fall. The path is narrow. The summons always comes in the middle of the night—stepping on the bones of your predecessors is a real danger. After all, no one can remove anything from the mountaintop. The whole of it is sacred, even the bodies of those who died climbing it.
No bones barred the path to my mother’s ger. No real ones. But I swear to you, I saw them all the same. Faded deels and clumps of hair; off-white bones turned black with dirt and grime. I stared at my feet the entire time we walked, not out of nervousness, but out of fear. With each step, I hoped I would not hear crunching beneath my boot.
Yet I knew the bones were not there. In my mind, I knew they were not there, that they could not be real—what were Qorin corpses doing so far north? They’d not been here yesterday. No, I was seeing things again.
But Shizuka, it was so real to me. More than once, my boot met something hard, something that creaked when I put my weight on it. I jumped away, staring at the spot.
“Shefali,” you’d whisper under your breath, “they are only shadows, my love. Walk in the light with me.”
You took my hand.
In full view of Temurin and Qadangan, in full view of my aunt and uncle, in full view of Otgar, you took my hand.
I clung to it as we entered the ger.
My mother sat on the eastern side, on her makeshift throne. She wore a fine green deel, embroidered with golden triangles that almost shone against her deep brown skin. Emeralds glinted in her hair, too, as beads on the ends of her many braids. She was stooped low with her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. When we entered, her mossy eyes flickered up.
I do not think I’ve seen her more pained.
Otgar stood at my mother’s right. And there is a certain way people stand when they are …
I squeezed your hand.
My mother began signing.
“Barsalai Shefali Alsharyya,” she said, through Otgar. “Barsatoq Shizuka Shizuraaq. You stand before Burqila Alshara Nadyyasar, Grand Leader of the Qorin, Breaker of Walls. You stand in her ger awaiting judgment.”
I stiffened. This was a trial?
But, then, I deserved no less. If anyone else in the clan had done what I did, my mother would’ve put them down on the spot. This was her being gracious. This was her mercy. This was her sorrow.
“Yesterday, Barsalai slew ten people,” my mother signed. “We know this, as we have counted the remains. Ten. Only one died to an arrow. Nine, then, Barsalai slew with her own two hands.”
I hid the offending hands behind my back. My teeth felt awkward in my mouth now, as well—every time I moved my tongue, I risked cutting it open. My fingers, my teeth—alien parts that did not belong to me. Evidence of what I’d done.
“They were bandits, Burqila,” you said. “They held an entire village prisoner. Barsalai did what I would’ve done, had I not been wounded.”
My mother scowled. Her signing now was sharp and sudden.
“You would’ve drowned them? With your bare hands?” Otgar said. She could not keep herself composed. Her voice cracked; her shoulders shook. Still my mother signed. “Barsatoq, I knew your mother well, and I delivered you myself. If you had not been wounded, we’d have ten corpses with neat, slit throats. Not bits of bone and organ scattered across a floor.”
“She was angered, Burqila,” you protested. You knew better than to raise your voice—that would not help your case at all—but you spat flame nonetheless. “What would you have done if someone hurt my mother in front of you?”
My mother half rose from her seat. She raised her hand, then set it back down. Fury on her face, she finally shaped her trembling signs.
“It is not the same, Barsatoq. Do not presume. In Hokkaro, you may be an Empress, but this is my ger, and the whole of the world beneath Grandmother Sky is my empire,” Otgar translated. “I love you dearly as my own blood—but you will not speak to me in such a fashion.”
You scrunched your face in response to this. There was more you wanted to say, but you would not. For now, you would not.
A pause. My mother took an audibly deep breath. Then she continued.
“Barsalai,” she said through Otgar. “I find myself conflicted. Killing bandits is not a problem. Foul people deserve what befalls them. But killing them as you did is not permissible; you’ve known this since your childhood. Yet … yet there are other things on your mind.
“I do not know the extent of your illness. I do not know if it is permanent. I do not know if you will suddenly die tomorrow, or if you will once more tear people apart because you are angry.
“You have done many things, my daughter, my blood. In your youth, you slew a tiger. You and your cousin sneaked out to fight a demon when you were only ten. So you sneaked out again, with Barsatoq, to do the same.
“You at sixteen slew this demon, too. You have allowed the people of Shiseiki to reclaim their temple, and that is a good and noble thing.
“But…”
Otgar stopped. My mother, too, stopped, making a fist near her forehead. She screwed her eyes shut.
“You are my daughter,” Otgar creaked. “From birth I have been with you. I have kept you warm, I have fed you, on the steppes where these things have weight. I taught you to fire a bow, I taught you to read and write. At every turn, you’ve repaid me. If I am remembered for nothing in this world other than giving birth to you, I think I should be pleased.
“But there is a shade about you, Shefali. There is a cruel darkness that was not there yesterday. You are a Kharsa; you will not succumb. I know this to be true. In eight years’ time, you will break your demons and ride them into battle.
“But until that day, I cannot…”
Again, a pause. Otgar turned toward my mother. I think she might’ve whispered something. I did not hear her. Then once more they turned.
“I cannot allow you to travel with our people,” Otgar said, choking on the words. “I cannot claim you as my own. You are not my daughter when you do these things—you are the tiger’s. And you will wear her name, not mine. Barsalyya Shefali Alshar you will be, until the day we are certain you can control your outbursts.”
We Qorin were sired when Grandmother Sky lay with wolves. Long have they envied us, for Grandmother Sky favors us over them in all things. We ride strong horses while they lope through the night; we hunt with bow and sword where they must use their teeth. But at our cores, we are the same.
Wolves do not travel alone, and neither do Qorin. You hear of lone Qorin in stories. A woman who murders her Kharsa might be cast out. A man who steals a mare from the Kharsaq’s family, too, would be cast out. Deserters, killers, horse-thieves, and traitors. These are the people left to wander clanless.
And so my cousin’s voice was a bow, and my mother’s words the arrow. For the first time since my sickness, I ached, really ached; cold disbelief froze me in place. I tried to draw breath but could not.
Exile. She was exiling me. I was not going to see my family again; I was going to wander the world with only you at my side. Never again would I enjoy kumaq; never again would I dance around the fire to a sanvaartain’s two-voiced songs.
Not even to be able to hear my true name …
“You cannot be serious,” you said. “Shefali is your only daughter! And you abandon her when she needs you most!” Your voice was shrill, sharp, as if speaking such things cut your throat from the inside.
My mother rose. She met your eyes with unwavering determination. Her fingers moved in heady motions, like hammers striking nails.
“I do not abandon her,” Otgar said. “I leave her with you. The two of you had plans to travel, did you not? Go. Travel. Return when you are yourself once more.”
You stormed toward her. “How dare you,” you said. “My mother would be—”
I squeezed your shoulder. That was not something you wanted to say. You did not want to start that fight, not with my mother, not with the woman who loved Shizuru as much as your father did. This was not a negotiation.
It was a trial, and I was guilty.
You turned toward me. I shook my head.
Otgar handed me a package: rough-spun cloth tied with twine. “This is your mother’s parting gift,” she said. “May it keep you safe from harm, Cousin.”
And that was that. It was final.
Exile.
I embraced my mother.
She stroked my hair and pressed a kiss into it. It was a good embrace—warm, loving, and strong. Tears dropped onto my deel; I pretended they were not there. A Kharsa does not cry in public.
But then, my mother never assumed that title.
Otgar soon joined us, wrapping her arms as best she could around Alshara and me. “Be safe, Shefali,” she said. “We will be waiting for your return.”
No, they won’t.
I squeezed them tighter.
They won’t mourn you, Steel-Eye.
I bit into my tongue. No. I wanted to enjoy this moment while I could. I wanted to remember my mother’s smell, remember Otgar’s. For just two minutes, I wanted to forget what I’d learned.
Don’t they smell alike?
Bile rising in the back of my throat. Within this warm embrace, I began to shake.
Otgar drew away first. She frowned. “Are you all right?”
But as she spoke, her face changed. A second mouth opened up; a fat gray tongue the size of my arm rolled out of it. Slobber drenched her deel. Now her teeth came to a point as mine did.
“Are you all right?” she said with her first mouth.
“Thank the Sky you are leaving,” said the second.
I freed myself of them, covered my ears with my hands.
“Shefali?” you said, but I was already going. Eyes closed. Do not open them. Opening them meant seeing things I knew weren’t real.
No.
Better to pack up my tent, throw it onto my packhorse, and mount Alsha. Better to feel her heart thrumming between my legs, hear her nickering, better to strap myself into the saddle.
But as I neared the tent, you took me by the wrists. “Shefali,” you said, “look at me.”
But what if it wasn’t you? What if the Not-You learned how to speak in your tone, what if I was still in my tent and this was all a nightmare?
By all the gods in the world, Shizuka, there is nothing worse than doubting your own senses.
“Look at me,” you said again.
When my eyes remained fixed on the ground, you took my right hand, turned it upward. With your fingertip you traced the thick white scar on my palm. Nail dragged across skin. My palm tingled the longer you touched it.
I took a deep breath and focused on that, instead of the voices.
“Together,” you whispered. “Come what may, we will always be together.”
The words are so bitter to me now, Shizuka, that I fear they will burn the paper I write on. The scent of dried pine is nowhere to be found here.
Together.
We left not long after that. I could not bring myself to return to the ger and face my family after being so overcome. My mother did not get to sniff my cheek for one last time. We bundled our tent, our meager belongings, and we rode away from my mother’s ger.
It was only once we were gone that I opened the package. Pangs of sorrow twisted my stomach. There, neatly folded, was the tiger-skin deel I’d made for my mother when I was eight. A small piece of parchment lay atop the deel, bearing my mother’s neat Qorin handwriting.
Tiger stripes, for the woman who earned them.
I wore that deel all throughout our journey to Xian-Lai. In the cold of the winter, I wore it. When the last snows began to melt, I wore it. My mother wore it so long that it still smelled of her. In that way, I did not feel quite so abandoned. If I could smell her, then a piece of her soul traveled with me, after all.