I must have heard him wrong.
O-Shizuru, Queen of Crows, who sent more to the Mother’s cold embrace than any other—dead? And her husband—O-Itsuki, the man who made stones weep and trees grow with only his words—who would kill him? No. This was wrong. They couldn’t be dead. Your parents could not be dead.
My mother drew away. With complete disgust, she made sharp, cutting gestures. Her face contorted into a war mask.
“Get out of my sight,” Otgar translated. She was doing her best to keep my mother’s tone, but her voice wavered. “You come into my ger and spread lies? How dare you! I should have you executed on the spot!”
But the messenger did not leave. He stood there with his arms crossed behind his back, his shoulders bowed as if bearing the weight of his news. He had the audacity to meet my mother’s eyes.
“O-Itsuki and O-Shizuru are dead,” he repeated. “By now, their funeral will have passed. His Serene Majesty the Son of Heaven has taken O-Shizuka in for now—but it was O-Shizuru’s wish that you raise her, should the unthinkable happen.”
Numb. I could not feel my fingers. Otgar steadied me with her free arm. In the privacy of our ger, my mother shook.
She was pale, Shizuka. The earthy brown of her skin changed to tea. Sweat trickled down her brow.
One gesture. Alshara’s hand trembled like a branch in a storm.
Otgar’s voice cracked. “You lie.”
Tears watered the messenger’s eyes, but he did not falter. His voice was clear as a funeral bell.
“On the sixth of Nishen, O-Shizuru and her husband departed on a mission from the Son of Heaven,” the messenger said. “They did not return. I wish I could tell you otherwise, Great Kharsa, but I cannot. I speak to you the truth. They are dead—”
My mother rose to her feet. Wordlessly she left the ger. Lightning in her footfalls, thunder in the slam of the door. Otgar, the messenger, and I remained.
My mouth went dry.
“Shizuka,” I whispered.
“Barsatoq will be all right,” Otgar whispered. “She is a stubborn girl. This will not slow her down.”
But Otgar did not know how much you idolized your parents. She did not know—
Again, the sharp aching in my chest painted my vision red. My lips went cold. All I could do was imagine you in your rooms at Fujino, weeping and raking your cheeks, too proud to admit you need company. Too proud to let anyone near you.
“I’m going to Fujino,” I said.
And I, too, left the ger. Otgar followed behind.
I saddled my horse. We were a month’s ride, perhaps two, if the entire clan was coming. But with only myself and Otgar, we could make the trip in a week or two if we rode hard enough. I availed myself of two geldings; I was going to need a change of horse if I planned to make it to you quickly.
“Barsalai,” said Otgar, “do you not think we should take a few riders with us? We might meet bandits on the way, or wolves.”
I shook my head.
Otgar ran her hand through her hair. She had two braids now, though she did not earn them in battle. My mother allowed her to wear one for each new language she picked up. One for learning to read and write Ikhthian, one for learning the tongue of the Pale People from a book written in Ikhthian. We hadn’t met any Pale People yet. She wanted to be prepared.
“I’m not going to convince you, am I?”
Again, I shook my head. With my whip, I eased my horse into a trot.
“Then let me go with you,” Otgar said. “I won’t stay unless you want me to. But someone has to make sure you get there all right.”
“Temurin,” I said.
Otgar drew back, hurt written on her face. “You don’t want me with you?”
“Mother needs you.”
Otgar looked at her reins. From the pout of her lips, I could tell she did not like this; from the furrow of her brow, I could tell she knew I was right.
“Burqila will leave for Fujino, too,” she said. “And then we will be going the same way.”
“Not right now,” I said. “She will mourn.”
Otgar’s mouth made a thin line. Could I never get my words right? Why couldn’t people be more like horses? They got on just fine without talking.
“Stay with her,” I said. “She needs someone to talk to.”
“You need someone to talk to,” Otgar said, her voice dark.
I stopped my horse. I rode over to her, and I squeezed her hand. “I will be fine,” I said. “Mother will not.”
As an old man senses when rain is coming, so I sensed that my mother would not return to camp for some time. Alshara swore an oath of silence. It changed her into something of a symbol: a looming, silent statue of a woman. Hokkarans liked to say her sword did all the talking for her.
No one heard my mother speak. No one saw her do anything but glower at people. Where others’ emotions fluctuated, she was as consistent as the dawn. She did not cry. She smiled only in the presence of Shizuru.
And she never wept.
That was not going to change. No one would see her weep, no one would see her beat her chest, no one would see the tears streaming down her face or her bloodshot eyes. No one would hear her scream herself raw.
That was why she needed Otgar. Someone was going to have to meet her when she returned, haggard and drained. Someone was going to have to speak for her when she did not have the energy to sign. Someone had to comfort her as I could not.
Otgar was the only one I trusted with such a task.
And so I left her to it on the cold, windy steppes, and I did my best not to look back on the white felt gers as I left.
Temurin said little on the way, save to chide me for being so single-minded.
“You should’ve waited for Burqila,” she said, “and arrived with the clan at your back, as befits a future Kharsa.”
But when I arrived in Fujino, it was not as a future Kharsa. It was barely as Oshiro Shefali—were it not for the Imperial Seal you gave me, they never would’ve let me into the palace.
A string’s tied us together all our lives, Shizuka. No matter how far we are, I can feel you tugging at it.
Perhaps it was that tugging I followed, for on that day, the very first door in the Jade Palace I threw open somehow was yours.
There you were, dressed in white from head to toe. No ornaments in your hair. No jewelry on your neck or your fingers. Since I last saw you, you had not grown much in height—but your figure was beginning to fill out, and your face was changing into a woman’s.
Our eyes met, yours rimmed with red.
“Shefali,” you said.
I stepped forward and opened my arms.
You embraced me. “I was worried you would not come,” you said.
“I always will,” I whispered.
If you ask any Qorin what home is, the answer would vary. Their mother’s ger. This spot by the Rokhon where the sun caught the silver grass just so. On the back of their mare, their cheeks worn red, a good bow in hand.
But my answer has been the same since that moment when we were thirteen.
Home is holding you. Home is the smell of your hair. I would give up the howling gales of the steppe to listen to you breathe. All the stars in the sky, all the fallen Qorin guiding us through the night, could not compare to the brightness of your eyes when you looked at me. Your eyes were wide, so wide, like campfires burning.
There are certain moments that tie themselves into your soul. Like a mother beating felt into the walls of the ger, they hammer themselves into you. So it was, then, with you in my arms and no one around to watch us.
So it was, then, when you flushed the color of cherry blossoms.
So it was, then, when my heart hammered from being so near to you.
The two of us may well have been statues, for neither of us could move. My neck felt hot. My hackles rose, and suddenly my lips were so dry, I just had to lick them, and yours were red, red, red.
Fireworks shot off between my ears. Touching you made me wonder when you were going to leave me in a pile of cinders. I felt in my bones that I had to be nearer to you. That I had to consume you, and let you consume me.
When we parted, I went cold as a Qorin night. We spoke to hide the crackling of our emotions.
We did not speak of what had happened to your parents. I will not repeat the details here. In all the years since their passing, you’ve never mentioned them. You keep a shrine, of course, in your rooms. A piece of your mother’s war mask sits next to a scroll of your father’s poetry. Every morning you kneel, you light incense, you speak prayers in hushed tones. The shrine was there when I arrived that day, and I have no doubt you’ve taken it with you to your current holdings.
Wherever they may be.
No, we did not speak of your parents. You asked me what I’d done out on the steppes, and you chided me for my awful handwriting.
“Four years away from me, and this is what happens?” you said, holding one of my letters. “All my hard work undone.”
Though I laughed to boost your mood, I shifted in my seat. I knew what the letters said; I could recite them from memory. But reading them …
I opened my hand and closed it. Maybe I was just dumb.
You furrowed your brow. “Shefali?” you said. “Is something the matter?”
As if I had anything to worry about. As if your parents had not just died.
I shook my head, but you weren’t having it.
“Shefali,” you said, “I do not have to tell you to be honest with me. I cannot lie to you, and you must be the same. We are the same.”
You reached for a brush, inkblock, bowl, and paper. They were always within arm’s reach of you, as if you might wake in the night with a powerful urge to practice calligraphy.
“I want you to write my name,” you said. “And do not stress too much over it. I want to see something.”
Do not stress over it, you said. The finest calligrapher in Hokkaro wanted to inspect my handwriting, but it was nothing to stress over.
Breathe in. Raise brush. Make the stroke, then breathe out. Except that line didn’t look right. What did that symbol look like? I racked my mind for it. How many times had I seen your name?
I bit my lip. You were staring at me, at the paper.
By then I was trembling. I added another line. That wasn’t right either. With my free hand, I took hold of my braid.
What did your name look like?
You squeezed my shoulder.
“All right,” you said. You reached for a sheet of clean paper and set that out in front of me. “Now, in Qorin, I want you to write everything I say starting … now.”
I inked the brush and waited for you to begin. You stood, got on your tiptoes, and picked up my bow.
“My name is Barsalai Shefali Alsharyya. My favorite hobbies are hunting, shooting things full of arrows, and sitting quietly at dinner parties. My best friend is the illustrious O-Shizuka of Fujino, Imperial Niece, and the finest swordsman to walk the earth since Minami Shiori. Together we are going to slay a god. But first we are conducting a simple test. I like horses. Especially gray ones.”
By the time you finished, you grinned from ear to ear. I was fighting off a smile myself. The whole thing was so silly. There you were in a mourning dress, doing a terrible impression of me, and there I was, taking down everything you said.
Yet when I looked down at the parchment, there was every word. No false starts, no terrible handwriting.
You leaned over and studied it. You knew enough Qorin to make your conclusion. “I think,” you said, “that you cannot write in Hokkaran.”
You did not say this as an accusation. Somehow hearing someone else say it relieved me. I nodded.
“When I write to you, your friend Dorbentei reads it for you,” you said. “And you tell her what you wish to say.”
I made no motion to argue.
You studied me for a moment. I worried you’d say something dismissive.
“Do you think,” you said, “we could write Hokkaran words in the Qorin alphabet? Would that be easier?”
I tilted my head. But the Qorin alphabet was much simpler; it did not have as many letters. That was the whole reason I liked it.
Yet … the more I thought about it, it was possible, if we added one or two more letters.
“Yes,” I said.
“Very well, then,” you said. “I tire of Hokkaran characters, anyway. A change of pace will be welcome.”
I found myself grinning. I spent so long worried what you’d think when you pieced it together.
You smiled a soft, infant smile and sat down next to me.
Long hours gave way to night. It occurred to me I did not have anywhere to stay in the Imperial Palace. Before I brought it up, you called for your servants and commanded them to bring up an additional bed. Not to prepare another room, oh no. You wanted a bed brought into this one.
I pointed out the hallway. Was there not another room we could use—one with two beds?
For your answer, you waved me off. “We stay here,” you said firmly.
Though I thought it unjust—what you were doing to your service staff—I said nothing. There was a certain look about you. Had you left this room since the incident? You must have. This was you. This was O-Shizuka, Flower of the Empire. You wouldn’t lock yourself away to wilt.
Except …
That pile of papers on your desk tall as a helmet. The more I looked at your dress, the more wrinkles I saw. You slept in it. Your hair free of ornaments, your fingers stained with ink …
You hadn’t left your room, in all this time?
“Shizuka?”
Moments before this, you had sat on the painted bench near your bed. Now you bent in on yourself like a branch bearing too much weight.
“For tonight,” you said. “We stay here.”
A strange thing happens when one speaks aloud: words take on their own meaning. They move in through the listener’s ears and make themselves home, decorating their meaning with whatever memories they find lying around. And you did not want Shizuru and Itsuki to leave you just yet.
So as you broke down—as your shoulders shook with the force of your tears, as your breath came to you in shallow gulps and gasps—I held you.
“These are the finest rooms in the palace,” you choked out. I put a finger to your lips to try to stop you from forcing yourself to talk. You batted my hand away. You fought to sit upright, but you were too dizzy to keep up for long. “My uncle picked them out himself.”
Your tears soaked my deel. I ran my hands through your hair. I took a deep breath of your perfume, hoping I might siphon some of your sorrows away. But it did not help. Nothing helped.
Though you opened your trembling mouth, you could speak no more. So I rocked you back and forth for what seemed an hour. When the servants came with my bed, I pointed to an unoccupied corner of the room and dismissed them, rather than let them see you.
So I lay with you that night until you fell asleep. I did not bother changing out of my deel. When Grandmother Sky’s golden eye peeked in on us, you were turned toward me, your head nuzzled against my chest.
I woke before you. Hunters wake before dawn as a force of habit. As a lotus petal floating on placid water, so you floated on the bedsheets. Your dress spread out around you, your hair a black fan against white. No traces of worry, no traces of sorrow. Only peace remained on your features.
Looking at you in the morning light, Shizuka, watching you sleep—it is like cresting a hill and finding a valley sprawling before you, full of flowers, teeming with life and colors you cannot name. I was awestruck.
And in the back of my mind, I wondered when your hairline got so bright, when your lips became bows, when the Daughter herself painted spring onto your cheeks.
I touched your cheek, and I immediately disturbed your sacred slumber. Your eyes fluttered open. Dawn cast them gold.
“Shefali?” you muttered.
I sat up quick as I could, hoping you were too sleepy to notice I was gawking. Why was I gawking? I knit my brows together; why? Why was I so fascinated by your face?
You lurched up and rubbed at your eyes. “What time is it?”
I held up two fists, one finger raised on the first and two on the second.
“The first hour of Second Bell?” you said. You pulled the covers over your head. “What are you doing awake?”
I shrugged. You could not see me, but I shrugged.
“You are a fool,” you said. “A fool who needs her rest. Go back to bed, Shefali. We will have to go to court today.”
The idea of spending even more time mired in etiquette and propriety was less appealing than riding for ten days straight with no saddle and no time for breaks—but you needed me. So I swallowed up my discomfort, my trepidation, and I thought of how miserable you’d be if you had to go alone.
A bit past Second Bell, servants woke us. They gathered around you like moths to a flame. A dozen hands undressed you, and redressed you. One girl carried the white dress away; another brought in a vibrant blue gown. Peacock feathers adorned the collar and sleeves. The back and train bore iridescent paint in gold and green and black. One of the girls held a tray of crushed gems properly treated; you dipped your fingers in sapphires.
I was fascinated by it. Every one of them had a different job, and they all set about doing them at the same time. Like worms making silk, like women weaving. Your face they painted pale white; on the back of your neck, two sharp blue points; on your forehead, gold leaf shaped into a peacock feather.
By the time they finished with you, the Shizuka I grew up with was gone. In her place was a young empress. In her place stood the Daughter made flesh. In her place, the image of spring; in her place, the Sky in all her splendor.
The servants surrounded you and bowed. You held one hand up and dismissed them.
“Now that my armor is ready,” you said, “I suppose we will have to face my uncle.” You fixed me with your amber eyes. “You will keep me company?”
I was in the same deel I wore yesterday—the one my grandmother made me, embroidered with colorful shapes. I hadn’t bathed in a week, at least. My hair was greasy, my braid a knotted mess. I smelled like horses and rotten milk.
But you wanted me to go with you to see the Emperor.
I flapped my deel’s collar.
You came closer. With your shining fingers, you reached for my braid. “You rode all the way from the steppes,” you said. “If anyone chides you, they will deal with me.” You smoothed my deel. “Besides,” you said, “this is a very fine coat.”
My cheeks flushed. I cleared my throat and nodded. It was then that I noticed you weren’t wearing your sword. I touched the wide belt around your waist, then touched my scabbard.
You covered my hand with your own. “If I wear my mother’s blade,” you said, “people will think it’s an invitation. And I don’t mean to get blood on this dress.”
Temurin accompanied us on the way to the throne room. So did half a dozen Imperial Guard, who did not speak to you. As mist in the morning, they appeared behind us. You paid them no mind, but I found myself glancing at them. Sharp, crescent blades crowned their pikes. When did those come into style? And why did they need to carry them inside the palace, when a sword would do? No blackbloods wandered the Imperial Halls; no demons.
“Barsalai,” said Temurin, eyes darting behind her. “These men have been standing outside Barsatoq’s door all night.”
I crooked a brow. “And you, too?”
Temurin frowned. “That’s not the point. They were waiting for her to leave. Six men to guard a single girl? Six men in full armor, with pikes indoors? I do not like it. This is not an honor guard.”
* * *
ONE OF THE guards spoke, rattling his pike as he did. “All conversations in the Imperial Palace must be conducted in Hokkaran, as the gods intended.”
He must not have known very much about us, if he thought that was intimidating.
“The gods are not stopping us,” you said briskly. “I see no reason for a tall boy in armor to stop us, either. You will cease interrupting my companions.”
You did not look at them as you spoke. Instead, you kept right on walking, your shoulders back and your head held high.
“O-Shizuka-shon, we are under strict orders—”
“Your orders do not concern me,” you said. “Your manners do.”
If the guard had anything more to say, he bit his tongue.
The path to the throne room was long and winding. I followed you, walking just behind you, and fought the urge to keep your dress from dragging along the ground. Surely something that cost so much should not be exposed to dirt. But you did not seem concerned about it, and neither did any of the guards.
The courtiers we saw on the way were another story. There were so many! For every twenty steps you took, another begged your attention. Young magistrates, old lords and ladies, generals, and diplomats. Anyone who laid eyes on you wanted to speak to you.
“O-Shizuka-shon!” they’d call. “You grace us with your presence! May we come to court with you?”
“You may not,” you would say, and you would keep going rather than entertain their arguments. What of the fine silks they could send to you? What of the dress they’d sent for, just for you? What of the jewels? What of the poetry?
They were nothing to you.
And so you kept walking, leaving only the scent of your perfume in your wake.
When we entered the throne room, a gong rang.
Before its brassy ring finished sounding, one of the servants announced you. “O-Shizuka-shon, daughter of O-Itsuki-lor and O-Shizuru-mor, enters! May flowers sprout in her steps!”
You flinched at the mention of your parents’ names. Then, in an instant, the look of despair was gone, and only your Imperial mask remained.
As well it should. A warrior might put on a mask of bronze to face demons and blackbloods, but to face these jackals in men’s clothing, one needed a different sort of protection.
No, come to think of it, I prefer jackals. At least they are honest about their hunger. The people milling about the throne room that day had the same desperation in their eyes for you, the same bright avarice. Yet they had the nerve to smile to you, to bow when your name was mentioned.
But for the moment, you ignored them and turned your attention to the young man by the gong. “Crier,” you said. “You did not announce my companion.”
I shifted. Did I really need to be announced? I did not think of myself as a noble. At least, not the learned Hokkaran noble. I passed no exams, I received only minimal tutoring. My father did nothing to teach me how to run my lands; indeed, being in Oshiro too long chafed. My name meant nothing to these people.
“The Qorin?” said the crier. He studied me and Temurin both, as if trying to decide which one of us was more likely to be a barbarian.
“Oshiro Shefali, daughter of Oshiro Yuichi and Burqila Alshara,” you said. Strange to hear my mother’s child name coming from anyone but your mother or my grandmother. Most of the time, she was “that woman,” or “that demon.”
The crier stiffened. He clenched his jaw. Seeing him, I felt my stomach twist. Either my mother killed part of his family, or he was racist—or perhaps both. I did not wish to deal with either.
You narrowed your eyes. Just behind you, some courtiers were coming; you did not have much time before you had to brush them off. “Is something the matter?” you said.
The crier could not lie to you. Lying to the Blood of Heaven was lying to the Gods themselves. But he could not insult me either, since I technically had higher status than he did. And so, however bitter his qualms, he swallowed them.
“Oshiro Shefali-sun,” he said, “daughter of Oshiro Yuichi-tur. May her life be long and peaceful.”
It was then that the courtiers approached you: a middle-aged man with a topknot and his young wife, in black and yellow. Fuyutsuki Province, then. Were they the lord and lady? I did not know. Both of them wore a honeybee crest on their clothing. I racked my mind; had I seen it before? A dull ache dissuaded me from thinking too hard.
“O-Shizuka-shon,” said the man. “We are pleased to see you. It’s been so long since you attended court.”
Was it the crest that was bothering me? I felt a darkness in the room, a wrongness. Whenever I took a breath, the back of my tongue tasted terrible. I ended up holding my breath rather than deal with the nausea.
“We are sorry for the loss of your parents. They shall be missed,” said the woman. “O-Itsuki-lor’s work immortalizes him.”
Perhaps it was the environment? All the courtiers together, speaking their honeyed falsehoods? Why did I feel as if I’d caught scent of a tiger?
Again, you flinched. “Thank you, Fuyutsuki-tun,” you said. Wasn’t that the lowest form of address for a lord? “Have you met Barsalai-sur?” And a third-degree honorific for me. Shizuka, sometimes I wonder how you did not invite duels from everyone you met.
Fuyutsuki appraised me and my worn-out deel. His wife didn’t bother.
“Are you Yuichi-tul’s daughter?” he said. “I’ve heard stories about you.”
I said nothing, simply nodded. I did not like being in the spotlight.
“O-Shizuka-shon,” said Lady Fuyutsuki. “You know you are always welcome in our lands. My son, Keichi, is about your age. I’m certain you’d enjoy dueling him.”
“I would enjoy defeating him, if that is what you mean,” you said.
Lord Fuyutsuki laughed. It was a loud, pompous sort of laugh—one single “ha.” “Is there anyone you cannot defeat?”
Next to me, Temurin grumbled. “These Hokkarans and their simpering,” she said. “Barsalai, must we stay for this?”
“Barsatoq asked,” I said quietly.
Temurin crossed her arms. I did not blame her. In her position, I’d do everything I could to leave early. Expansive though the throne room may be, it still had a ceiling.
I do not need to describe the throne room to you, Shizuka. You know its secrets better than I do. Its hundred jade columns are as familiar to you as the rivers and brooks of the steppes are to me. Gold tiles line the ceiling, lending everything a brighter look; braziers shine like alarm fires. Around the perimeter of the room is an undulating jade dragon statue. I’m sure you tried to ride it as a child. In the center, near its yawning head, is the Dragon Throne.
On it sat your uncle in Imperial Green. Next to him, one of your three aunts. His first wife, nearing forty-two now, gray hairs tucked behind her ears like flowers. The current lord of Shiseiki was her nephew if I remembered correctly. My father liked to ramble about her when he’d had too much to drink.
“Now, there is a woman,” he’d say. “The beauty of a phoenix, cunning as a fox. O-Yoshimoto-tono is in safe hands with her.”
What was her name? Sand slipping between my fingers. Only the image of my father’s drunken face remained, of his pale gold cheeks flushing red, of the glassy look in his eyes. He and the Empress knew each other as children, thanks to my father’s friendship with your father. Maybe they played together as we did. He did not speak of her much except when the liquor got into him.
I lost track of the conversation while staring at the Empress, at the woman my father so prized. What few wrinkles she had only emphasized her handsome features. Not that it was easy to focus on her face. Where you were cloaked in peacock feathers, the Empress wore genuine phoenix feathers, passed down through the Imperial line for Ages. The slightest movement sent them swaying. Bright red, deep crimson; dawn’s gold and dusk’s orange trailed in their wake.
I could not look away from those feathers. Each plume bore a single green spot, almost like an eye, near the top. I found myself leaning toward them. As the smell of fresh brewed tea incites thirst, these feathers incited …
I could not be sure. My fingertips tingled; my forehead felt hot. What was it like to touch them? Would they sear my flesh?
And yet I knew I had to have them, and when I glanced down at my hands, I saw it there in my palms, and all around me were thousands of candles in different shapes and sizes, and my hand was not my hand, it was gray and twisted and topped with sharp claws—
“Barsalai,” said Temurin. “You gawk.”
Clearing my throat, I tore myself away. Lord and Lady Fuyutsuki left our company while I was busy making a fool of myself.
Only you remained, your hands tucked into your sleeves. You looked down your nose at me. “Shefali,” you said, “you are as bad as my suitors.”
Suitors? I grimaced. We were thirteen, and you had suitors? Your parents had just died—and you had suitors?
“Do not be so surprised,” you said. Venom crept into your voice as you glanced around the room. I saw them now—the men standing by the jade columns, looking over to you just often enough. Demure smiles. Dangerous eyes. “Three wives in, and Uncle has not conceived a child. There are fools who think they can use me to get on the throne.”
You kept going back to one of the men. He wore white and bright green, the colors of Shiratori. He was not tall, but he bore himself as if he were, all broad shoulders and puffed-out chest. Night-dark hair pulled into a horsetail complemented the shadow of a beard on his chin. At his hip hung a straight sword with an elaborate jade hilt.
Something about him soured my stomach. Have you ever seen a sick dog, Shizuka? Have you seen it shamble about, frothing at the mouth? Have you seen ticks coating a dog’s flank, so many and so fat that they look like mushrooms growing on a tree?
So I felt when I looked at him. He made my teeth hurt and my ears ring.
Four, five times you looked at him. Each time, you shivered as if something wet crawled down your neck. “Do not,” you whispered, “let him look at me.”
I stood in front of you to block his view.
Qorin height had its advantages. In the entirety of the throne room, only Temurin and a handful of guards were taller than I. I made it my duty to know where that man stood at all times, and as you went about your business entertaining conversations with people you did not care about, I stood between the two of you.
For the barest of moments, you slipped your hands free of your sleeves, and your fingertips brushed against mine.
And then I felt two pinpricks of heat on my back. I reached for the bow I left in your chambers out of habit as I turned. I was careful to keep you behind me.
He was there. So close. Shorter than I was, as a thirteen-year-old. I was struck by how clammy his skin looked, like raw fish. Beads of sweat collected on his forehead. When he smiled, his teeth were painted black. Fashionable two decades ago. Strange. He was no older than thirty, by the look of him.
He bowed and his coalfire eyes met mine. I did not allow myself to shiver, but the hackles on my neck rose all the same.
“Oshiro-sun, I take it?” he said. “I do not believe we’ve met.”
I fought the urge to bare my teeth. Temurin took a step closer to me, one hand on her scimitar.
The man glanced at her and scoffed. “Shizuka-shan,” he said, “you should call off your dogs.”
Instantly you pushed in front of me. Though you were cloaked in peacock feathers and sapphires, you burned with anger. “Call me that one more time, Kagemori-yon,” you snarled, “and I will show the entire court just where you belong.” Yon. I’d never heard that one before, but only the Brother’s titles started with that sound.
But Kagemori did not flinch. He laughed, once, as a man laughs at a child’s flailing. “And where is that, Shizuka-shan?” he said. “What ferocity. Did you slay the tiger, Shizuka-shan, or did you switch souls with it?”
In the years to come, many people would write about this moment. They’d swear they saw you draw a shimmering sword from the light itself and point it at his throat. I’ve seen paintings of it, you know. None include me. Some include Temurin. Temurin is more important to the story.
For it was Temurin’s scimitar you drew, Temurin’s curved blade catching the golden light of the throne room. To say you drew it in the blink of an eye would be to do you a disservice. One moment, you were empty-handed. The very next, you were not.
The sound of steel rang throughout the gilt room. Guards moved in, their pikes lowered, forming a tight circle around us. You kept the sword leveled at Kagemori’s throat.
“O-Shizuka-shon! Are you all right?” called the guard captain.
“I have been insulted,” you said. “And disrespected by this foul excuse for a human being.”
At once they turned their pikes toward Kagemori.
He sneered. “What a willful child you are,” he said, “drawing steel in the Emperor’s presence.”
“Uncle!” you shouted.
No one addressed the Emperor. The proper thing to do was to wait for him to speak in any given situation.
But you have never been one for waiting.
Your uncle bristled. He did not rise from his throne. Instead, he waved a hand, and the guards stepped back. The other courtiers went quiet in anticipation of his holy words.
“Shizuka,” he said, “you have demanded our attention. Out of respect for your father’s memory, we shall allow it, but you are to keep a closer guard on your tongue in the future.” Each syllable was heavy, each word formed according to the most formal rules of Hokkaran.
“This man refers to me as a child,” you said. “He speaks to me with familiarity he has not and will never earn. He has not heeded me when I have told him to leave me alone. I demand the right granted me by our divine blood. I demand a duel.”
As a stone dropped in a puddle sends out ripples, so you sent out waves of hushed whispers through the crowd. Kagemori—still held at sword-point—knit his brows.
Your uncle did not stand. To stand would show too much emotion. Nor did his wife have any visible reaction, save to reach for one of the phoenix feathers and stroke it.
“You cannot be serious,” your uncle said. “You are thirteen. He is a grown man.”
“Three months ago, I faced older men, and soldiers,” you said, your voice crackling with pride. “My age was not an issue then. It should not be an issue now. I am worth twenty of him with one hand tied behind my back and blindfolded. I demand a duel.”
This was the first I’d heard of it. But then, it had been three months since you last wrote to me. You must’ve been composing the letter when …
“That was a tournament,” Yoshimoto intoned. “One your mother did not wish for you to attend—”
“Uncle, do not speak to me of my mother’s wishes,” you snapped. Sky save you, you were snapping at the Emperor. Did it at all matter to you that he ruled Hokkaro? “If my mother were here, I would not be asking your permission for a duel, I would be watching his body be dragged from the throne room. I demand a duel.”
The silence in the room was like glass shattering.
I longed to touch you, to give you some sort of reassurance. But you stood in front of me, and all eyes were on us. I could not touch you without further sullying your reputation.
Instead, I whispered your name so low, only you could hear it.
And I swear, I saw the taut muscles of your hand relax.
“Uncle,” you repeated, your voice calmer, “if I am old enough to receive marriage proposals, I am old enough to duel.”
Yoshimoto said nothing. The Emperor is supposed to be serenity made flesh, but in your uncle’s doughy brow, I read nothing but anger. The Empress leaned over and whispered in his ear. He said something sharp and cutting to her I could not hear. She spoke again, more timidly this time.
Finally he sighed. “Very well,” he said. “If you so insist, Shizuka, then we shall grant your request. You may duel to first blood in the courtyard.”
So the courtiers filed one by one out of the throne room. Still you stood before Kagemori; still you held the blade to his throat.
He bared his blackened teeth. “There was no need to bring the Emperor into our little lovers’ quarrel,” he said.
Lovers’ quarrel. He spoke in such a way to a thirteen-year-old girl! I growled at him.
His eyes flickered over to me and he scoffed. “I did not know your dog spoke Hokkaran,” he said to you.
“Get to the courtyard,” you roared, “before I behead you where you stand.”
Another soft laugh. As he stepped away, he hummed to himself. “If you insist,” he said. “It will not change fate’s path. You will be mine one day, Shizuka-shan.”
Only you, I, Temurin, and your guards remained in the throne room. Even the Emperor had departed on his palanquin.
You bit your lip. “I will kill him,” you said. “Not today. But one day, when I am older, I will kill him.”
I squeezed your shoulder.
Next to us, Temurin shifted from foot to foot. “Barsalai, I may not speak Ricetongue, but I know a challenge when I see it. Does Barsatoq need our assistance? Say the word, and I will gladly use him to test my arrows.”
You gave Temurin the respect of looking at her when she spoke, though you did not share a language. I was going to ask if you wanted us to help you in the duel (though I had no idea how that would work) when you spoke to her.
“Guard,” you said, “I do not know your name. Barsalai will tell me soon, I am sure. I thank you for the use of your sword.”
“Temurin,” I said, pointing to her. Then I tapped on the sword with my fingers.
“She can keep it, if she likes. I have more, and she does not seem to have any,” Temurin said.
You held out the scimitar to Temurin, pommel toward her. She slipped it back into its sheath.
“You. Tall boy,” you said, pointing to the guard who’d chided us before. “Go to the courtyard ahead of us. Let it be known that my mother’s sword is to be prepared for me.”
This order chafed him, but it did not stop him from taking off at a run.
Then you began walking.
* * *
THE HALLS RANG with the clacking of your wooden sandals, but not your voice. So many twists and turns. So many identical portraits of this emperor, or that emperor. How was one fat Hokkaran different from any other fat Hokkaran? Couldn’t they dress differently, at least? But no. Each one wore the same Dragonscale crown. Each one sat on the matching Dragonscale throne. Each one was fat, each one was pale, each one had the same forced serenity painted onto his face.
How, I ask you, did you tell your ancestors apart?
To this day, I cannot navigate the palace without you. I do not know how anyone can live in such a place, with walls and ceilings and hallways of identical men staring at you. Cages are for animals, not people.
So it was to my great relief when we entered the courtyard—the opposite of the labyrinth you’d just led me through. Here was a forest in miniature. Here peonies in all the colors and patterns known to man blossomed on tree branches; here rows and rows of chrysanthemums swayed in the soft morning wind. A single tall, white tree grew in the center, almost as tall as the palace itself. Around it, a small pool of water glittered in the sunlight. At the northern end of the yard was a raised dais upon which your uncle and aunt sat. Everyone else picked a bench and staked their claim.
I took a deep breath of the fragrant air and greeted Grandmother Sky for the first time all day. But then I saw Kagemori waiting just in front of the great white tree, and my prayers died unspoken.
But you continued walking. And you stood three paces away from him, cloaked in your pride, armored in dignity.
A servant scurried by me—a young boy so nervous, he bumped into my knee on his way to the inner ring. In his hands he held a black lacquer box almost as big as he was. He finally sank to his knees next to you and opened the box.
Your mother’s sword rested inside. The Daybreak blade, its sheath lined with solid gold and carved from finest ivory. An intricate sun on the cross guard, a crescent moon for a pommel. It was a thing of impractical beauty. How the Queen of Crows used it with any regularity baffled me. There was not so much as a single chip on the sheath.
You reached for it, and you took it in your hands, and I swear to you, I saw the cross guard flash. You stepped out of your wooden sandals and pushed them aside with one delicate toe, standing barefoot on the grass. Kagemori may’ve been taller, but you looked down your nose at him all the same.
The crier, too, was present, and it was he who sounded the gong. “O-Shizuka-shon, daughter of O-Itsuki-lor, challenges Kagemori-zul to a duel,” he announced. “They meet with the blessings of the Son of Heaven. Let the first shedding of blood hail the victor.”
Silence. Kagemori sank into a fighting stance and drew his sword—plain, unadorned, and antique in style.
You did not draw yours.
Indeed, even as he circled you, you did not draw your sword, nor did you change your posture.
Next to me, Temurin crossed her arms. “Rice-eaters and their rituals,” she muttered.
I shushed her.
For you were a coiled spring. Any second now, he’d make the mistake of setting you off.
“Do you fear me, Shizuka-shan?” he asked. “Why do you not bare steel?”
“I do not need to, for the likes of you,” you said. “And you will not goad me into attacking.”
In the shadow of the great white tree, I saw him tug at the corners of his mouth, saw the disappointment on his face. What a quandary he faced: If he struck first and you countered him, this duel would be over in a single stroke.
Minutes passed. A quarter hour he circled you. A quarter hour you stood unmoving, your gold eyes fixing him with feline malice. Your breathing was shallow and unnoticeable.
Then he got tired of waiting.
Then he raised his sword high overhead. A bloodcurdling scream left his painted mouth. He ran toward you.
And then …
As a man lost in the sands signals to a passing caravan with a mirror, so you signaled your victory with the flashing of your blade. You drew your sword, slashed him clean across the face, and sheathed. One smooth motion too fast to follow with the naked eye, and it was over. Kagemori stopped. The sword fell from his hands and clattered to the ground. Red seeped from his wound like juice from a fresh-cut plum.
“You do not deserve to hold a sword,” you said.
He screamed. “My face! You cut my face!” He clutched the gash as if it were a seam he could hold closed. A man in doctor’s robes ran to his assistance, but Kagemori pushed him away, shambling toward you with one hand on his face. “You insolent brat!”
“Insult me again,” you said, “and I will have your tongue. You’ve been defeated. Continue your aggression, and I will not be so kind to you a second time.”
But still he lumbered for you. “My face,” he muttered, over and over. “You took away my face!”
Guards leaped rows of chrysanthemums, surrounding him within seconds. A ring of pike blades pointed straight at his throat.
“Stop where you are!” shouted the captain. “You threaten the Imperial Family!”
“I threaten a puffed-up child,” he snarled. “Can you not see what she’s done to me?”
“What sort of a man enters a duel and expects to escape unharmed?” you said. As you spoke, your voice grew louder and louder. “A coward. A simpering coward. Your presence offends me!”
For a moment, you stared him down, one hand white knuckled, holding your mother’s sword. I glanced toward your uncle—how could he abide this in silence?
And yet he sat on his dais and he watched, and he did nothing.
You spoke through teeth clenched tight. “Take him away.”
Guards tied rope around his hands. Roughly they dragged him away, likely to throw him into the infamous Hokkaran prison system. In the south of Fujino, a fortress nearly the size of the palace loomed like a noose at the gallows.
In the days when your mother acted as the Emperor’s Executioner, the prisons were always empty. After her death, they began to fill again—and I do not envy the thought of returning to them. Your uncle will throw anyone in the fortress, for any reason at all. With my own two eyes, I have seen a man hauled off in chains for having the audacity to call your uncle Iori. The name he was given at birth. The name he wore until he put on the Dragon Crown.
I have seen women arrested for stealing a handful of rice; I have seen hunters locked away for killing the wrong color stag.
Your uncle likes to say he is civilized—that your mother’s death enlightened him, that he realized executioners were a base thing for an Emperor to have.
But there is nothing civilized about flinging someone into a dark room, with no windows, for the rest of their life. There is nothing civilized about letting them stew in their own excrement and beg for week-old bread.
But I am only an illiterate brute. What do I know of civility?
I watched him go. Already gossip flew from mouth to mouth to mouth; by nightfall, you would again be a legend. A girl of thirteen who struck down a grown man with a single stroke. Your mother’s sword flashing in the light; her Daybreak blade come to life. More than one of them joked that you’d already slain a tiger, so a man was no trouble.
You stood proud in the face of it all. As sycophant after sycophant sang your praises, you nodded and smiled and thanked them in a distant way. For hours I stood by your side. When you needed a moment to yourself, you’d casually tap my leg with your sheath, and I would pretend I had something to say in private. And so we’d steal moments from the crowd.
“Bees,” you muttered. “With their incessant buzzing. Why should a phoenix concern herself with the buzzing of bees?”
I had some idea. Though your uncle did not speak to you, he made a point of looking in your direction. Every quarter hour, a messenger jogged up to you and whispered something in your ear. You never reacted well to that.
“Too mouthy,” you said to me after one such occasion. “Too unladylike. As if he has any right to define what a lady should be.”
I pressed my lips together.
By the end of Sixth Bell, purple fingers crept across that beautiful blue sky. Moon reaching for Sun. Courtiers began to make their excuses. Wives waiting in their rooms. Children who needed to be put to bed. Would they have the pleasure of your company, should they wish to call on you?
The answer, universally, was no. And you made no excuses when Seventh Bell rang. You walked right out of the garden, leaving a collection of awestruck faces behind you. Your guards followed; as did Temurin and I. And so you led us back to your rooms, where Temurin again waited outside.
When the door closed behind us, you let out a groan. “Shefali,” you said, “I think I would rather live on the steppes than let those fools nip at my toes.”
You sat before your mirror. With sharp motions, you removed the peacock feathers from your hair, removed the ornaments and the bells. These you set on your table. You yanked a cloth from its hook and wiped off your makeup. At least, you tried. Though you swiped only once, smearing blue and black and green across your painted-white face.
But you tossed the cloth at the wall anyway, rather than continue.
I sat on the bench next to you.
You held your head in your hands and slumped forward, as if your skull suddenly was very heavy.
“Meaningless,” you mumbled. “Meaningless tripe. Our crops are blighted, our livestock die in droves. Our fishermen bring up hundreds of terrible, blackened things. Every day peasants gather outside the palace and beg to be heard. But instead, we let grown men harass thirteen-year-old girls. Instead, we parade about in our finest and do our best to ignore the problem. ‘We will endure.’ What tripe.”
My throat hurt.
My people, too, had seen such things. Wolves that did not die when we shot them, that did not stagger. Dogs that laughed like men in the dark. Some of my clanmates’ horses died overnight, and in the morning, only their heads remained. The rest of their once-proud bodies was reduced to …
It was like stew. Raw meat stew, left out in the sun to rot.
I cannot describe to you the anguish on my clanmate’s face when he discovered his horses in such a state. For days he screamed at the sun. Foul blasphemies left his lips: How could Grandmother Sky allow this to happen? She saw all, did she not? She sheltered the souls of the fallen Qorin on her starry cloak—why did she not strike down the attacker with lightning?
Because there was no attacker.
Because dark things ride the winds at night, while we huddled near our fires and pretended we were safe.
Silence hung between us.
You reached for my hand. Yes, that was lightning, striking me dumb and deaf and blind. I was frozen in place by the slightest touch.
“Shefali,” you said, “you and I will stop this, one day. We will go North, where the blackbloods go, and whatever it is we are meant to do, we will do. Together, Shefali, like two pine needles.”
Your face smeared in half a dozen shades. Your hair not quite brushed.
Your eyes.
From our childhood, you’d been saying this. As we grew older, you said it with more and more conviction, as if you spoke of moving to Sur-Shar. Difficult, yes, but doable.
But you did not speak of moving across the Sands. You spoke of finding your way North, where the Traitor dwelled, and if I knew you at all, you meant to challenge him. As if he could not simply squish you between his forefingers like overripe fruit.
But may the Sky slay me where I sit now if I did not believe it more and more each time.
I swallowed and squeezed your hand. Then I reached for the cloth you’d thrown away. I dipped it in a bowl of water on the desk and I wrung it dry.
I reached for your face.
You did not stop me. Instead, you closed your eyes and let me wash away your mask. When I was done, only Shizuka remained. Only the finest sword in the Empire; only the finest calligrapher.
Only the most …
I shook my head rather than fully voice that thought. You were my best friend. I could not allow myself to think such things about you. I could not allow my heart to hammer as it did; I could not allow myself to dream about touching you.
When you began speaking, I wanted to heave a sigh of relief. Something to listen to other than my own thoughts.
“My mother let me into a tournament, you know,” you said. “The Challenge of the Sixteen Swords.”
Held every eight years to commemorate the first Challenge of Sixteen. Being allowed to enter at all was a great honor. Each province was allowed only two participants. To think that Imperial Fujino sent a small girl as one of their champions!
I laughed. Oh, how I pitied anyone who crossed swords with you.
“For years I begged her, but all she ever did was speak to me of danger. My father pointed out the Challenge is to first blood, and healers would be nearby. He pleaded and pleaded. Finally my mother relented.”
As I wiped the last of your lipstick away, you smiled like a knife.
“And, of course, of the Sixteen finest blades in Hokkaro, mine is the finest.”
Ah, Shizuka, how I wish I could’ve seen it! How I wish I could’ve seen you strike down fifteen duelists—fifteen adults who prided themselves on their swordplay. Sometimes I imagine it. I’ve tracked down a few descriptions of that tournament, and had Otgar read them to me. You must tell me one day if you really lopped off Isshi Keichi’s nose with just the point of your sword!
“Was she proud?” I asked.
Your amber eyes darted toward the shrine. Your mother’s war mask stared back at you.
“She was,” you said. “She called me a pompous show-off. But she was proud, I think. Before…” You licked your lips. “Before she left, she promised we’d begin lessons together.”
Gods, but that hurt to hear. Again, I squeezed your hand.
And it was then I noticed you had a scar on your palm from that day in the woods, when we were eight. I touched it with my fingertips.
“Together,” I said.
“Together,” you said.
And you leaned your head against my shoulder, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. You slipped your arm around my waist. The smell of peonies met my nose. My lips went dry, and for a moment, I wondered what might be the right thing to do.
I pulled you closer, leaned my head against yours.
We held hands. Scars brushed together.
I decided that I did not care whether or not it was right, so long as I was doing it.