“I know,” he said in a more sombre tone. “I just don’t like it when you go down that road.”
I turned my attention back to the meeting. I couldn’t hear what they were saying at first, not with the muttering of the officials behind them. But Ryia eventually stood up, and the crowd fell silent. “I came here to see the shambles this nation has fallen into.” She turned to Ozo and pointed at him. “The queen was missing for nearly a year and this man knew. You knew, you cantankerous old fart, and yet you did nothing! You didn’t think the rest of Jin-Sayeng would care to be informed? A missing queen—”
“A missing Dragonlord,” Ozo said easily. “Now, where have I heard that before? Between your son and your brother before him, you’d think you could be more lenient when it comes to other people’s failings.”
“What did Warlord Ozo’s reports say about the queen’s whereabouts?” she snarled.
An official cleared his throat and stood up, a scroll in his hands. “On the summer of the Fifth Year of Queen Talyien’s reign, an emissary from the Jeinza clan was sent to Oren-yaro to discuss Sutan road conditions with the queen. Lord Ozo—”
“Warlord Ozo,” the old man corrected with a frown.
“You were only a lord at the time,” the official said, turning back to the scroll. “Lord Ozo aren dar Tasho,” he continued, without missing a beat, “claimed the queen was spending a few weeks by the sea for her health.”
Ryia laughed.
The official cleared his throat. “He met with the emissary and signed papers using the queen’s seal.”
Ozo gave a snort and turned away.
“In late winter of the Fifth Year of Queen Talyien’s reign,” the official continued, “it was confirmed that she had travelled to the Empire of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro the previous summer. Lord Ozo pretended to be ignorant of the entire thing and laid the blame solely on the queen’s shoulders. ‘Off doing her own thing, like always,’ he said. ‘Pup never did know what was good for her.’”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Ozo said.
“I am merely reading the transcript,” the official pointed out. “Or are you denying what the scribes have written?”
Even from where I was, I could see Ozo’s face turning red. “I wasn’t aware I was the one on trial.”
“We need to uncover everything from the beginning,” Ryia said. “My greatest of apologies if it offends you, Warlord Ozo.” Her words were anything but sincere—the sarcasm was so thick, you could scrape it off with a spoon.
“So you do recognize my authority.”
“I recognize that you felt the need to intervene only after my son announced what has truly been happening in this region. Infidelity is a grievous sin, Warlord Ozo, particularly when an heir is involved. The queen proclaimed her son, this supposed grandson of mine, as Rayyel’s trueborn. She presented him to court days after his birth, right in the very halls of the Dragon Palace. Is this not true?”
The officials nodded solemnly at each other.
“If it is found out that you assisted in hiding the truth from the rest of us…” She let the ensuing silence carry the weight of her message. The woman wielded power with more viciousness than I ever could.
“And now,” an official beside her announced, “we have war in the west. A farmers’ rebellion. Would commoners have had the audacity to rise against their warlord if the queen had been around to rule, as she should have? I can hardly blame them for taking advantage.”
“Soon we’ll have more of these rebellions, more commoners foolishly thinking they have what it takes to rule,” another official snapped. “And of course the Oren-yaro don’t care. Their commoners are as frightened of them as bleating lambs. What did you expect from scum?”
Ozo’s hand dropped to his sword. “You’re surrounded by these Oren-yaro scum, boy. Learn to pay your respects before I give you a close shave!”
“Stand down, Warlord Ozo!”
“And you, Princess Ryia, if you weren’t a woman…”
“Are you threatening me, Warlord Ozo? Why does my sex still your hand? Your own queen would eviscerate you given half the chance.”
“I’m giving you advice!”
I pulled back from the window and made my way to a shadowed corner of the rooftop. There, I let out a soft sigh. “It’s like being around children. Only you can at least distract children with sweets.”
“This happens a lot, I’m guessing.”
I prodded a loose roof tile with my foot. “Enough to drive anyone insane.”
Khine smirked as he put the tile back into place. “I think I can understand why they don’t want you to sit there until they come to a consensus. Which doesn’t seem like it will happen any time soon.”
“Does this amuse you?”
“I—”
“Because it shouldn’t. Ridiculous as they appear, they have power, and power does not always belong to the wise. Ironic words, coming from someone who was queen. But you’ve seen how it really is. You’re wrong about Agos. He knew what he was dealing with. We both grew up here. Khine—”
“I’ll be careful,” he said under his breath.
“It’s not just that.” I inclined my head towards the meeting below. “I told Rayyel I don’t believe his mother has any intention of letting tomorrow’s trial run unimpeded.”
His brow furrowed. “Has she made threats?”
“Thinly veiled,” I said. “But you can tell. She isn’t here out of concern or the goodness of her heart. She’s here to dig me a grave, and she means to push me into it herself.” I glanced back at him. “Whatever happens tomorrow… when they proclaim Thanh as a bastard…”
“You’re not sure, are you?”
“It doesn’t matter what the truth is. Don’t you see? She’ll have made the arrangements. Ryia has no desire to prove my innocence. Do you think for even a moment that we could trust Belfang, of all people?”
“Of course not,” Khine scoffed. “The man hasn’t changed much since we were boys.”
“Ryia’s got her claws into him. I just know it. Rai thinks he can do this the right way—the proper way. He’s still counting on Belfang’s help. I think there’s a limit to how much scheming that man’s brain is capable of, but he’s too stubborn to say otherwise. I know better now.” I placed a hand on his arm. “When they declare my son a bastard—”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“When they do,” I said firmly, “I need you to be on a horse heading to the Sougen. No matter what happens to me, find him before they do.”
I think he wanted to argue that it wouldn’t come to that, but I saw him hesitate. “I will,” he finally said.
“Khine—”
He placed a hand on the back of my head while his other brushed my cheek. “I will,” he repeated. “I promise.” He suddenly looked like he wanted to kiss me, and I saw him stop himself again.
I gazed into his eyes. “This isn’t about debt,” I told him. “You know if I didn’t want this, I’d say so.”
“I know,” he whispered. He kissed me then. Third time, I thought, before wondering why I was counting these. His lips were fire; I felt his tongue brush briefly over my teeth, felt myself sinking into his arms.
He said nothing when he pulled away, and not a word the entire time he walked me back to my room. At the window, I paused. I wanted to invite him in, to shut the world out for just a little while. Imagining what it would be like to drown out the darkness in his heat and scent made the ache to touch him again so tangible, my fingers trembled. But the memory of Ryia’s threats burned even more than my desire, and I stood there, racked with indecision. I knew I couldn’t. Not now, if ever at all. I also knew I loathed the idea of being the one to let go.
He broke the spell by allowing his gaze to wander over to the broken window. A shadow crossed his face and I realized why he had been hasty. They were locked. The curtains had been closed. He said he feared I was in danger, but was it more than that? Did he think I called for my husb
and and betrayed him somehow? Was I even in a position to betray him at all? Whatever it was, I could tell from the look on his face that he was sorry—that he knew it was uncalled for.
We spent the next hour putting my windows back together, trying to find where we fit in the grating silence of it all.
The days passed at a snail’s pace, filled with seemingly endless hours of politics and meetings and ironing out minuscule details that seemed to have nothing to do with what was at stake. The morning of the trial, I watched my handmaidens’ faces as they scrubbed me in the bathhouse. “Yayei,” I said, out of nowhere. “And Ingging.”
“My lady?” the one called Yayei asked.
“I’m reminding myself that I know who you are,” I replied. I remembered when I didn’t bother, because I was taught such concerns were beneath me. But so much had changed in a year, and I was determined I needed to begin setting myself apart from my forefathers. They may have taken the crown from me, but deep inside, I was still queen. I had always cared for my people—I just didn’t know how to show it. It was time I learned how.
“But you do know,” Ingging said with a laugh as she polished my fingernails, brushing dirt out with expert ease. She had been taking care of me since she was a girl and knew exactly what grooming habits I lacked.
“Sometimes, I wonder. I’m lady of this castle, and yet I know so very little of what’s going on inside it.”
“My lady,” Yayei said. “It’s not your duty to pay attention. We take care of you, and you take care of the land. It was ever how it should be.”
“Although you should take better care of your hands,” Ingging added. “They’ve been getting worse over the years. Callused fingers are so unseemly for a queen.”
“I’m not queen anymore,” I reminded her.
“Callused fingers are unseemly for any lady,” Ingging corrected, shaking her head at me. “Have you been digging through the mountain with your bare hands? Lord Rayyel’s fingers look far lovelier.”
“Of course they would,” I grumbled. “His hair’s better, too.”
Yayei pinched my drab locks in agreement.
“How are you doing, Beloved Princess?” Ingging asked, growing serious.
“Well enough.” I stared at the water.
“We didn’t know how to talk to you after… after everything that had happened.” Ingging snipped off a hangnail before handing me a towel. “We were all in mourning, Beloved Princess. Our poor Agos…”
“Ingging—” Yayei warned.
The older handmaid made a sound in the back of her throat. “You didn’t grow up here. Both of them did. It doesn’t matter what cruel words they throw about outside of this castle, what those strangers think of the princess. We take care of our own. Princess…” She took my hand again, this time to press it between her palms. “We saw you at Agos’s funeral the other morning. Between everything that had happened and Lord Ozo’s command to keep out of it, we didn’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Ozo told everyone to keep away. To keep me in the Zarojo Empire,” I said.
Ingging looked embarrassed. “He assured us your soldiers would take care of you.”
“But it’s not as if you were alone,” Yayei broke in. “You found Lord Rayyel, didn’t you?”
“I did. And he’s the same as he ever was.”
She gave me a knowing smile. “His attendants say he refuses to let them serve him. A shame—Jing’s missed him. He was looking forward to his return the most.”
“Poor Jing,” I said, shaking my head. “Still, Rai keeps himself relatively neat these days.”
“He must have learned how to brush his hair himself.” Yayei cleared her throat. “And what about the young foreign man who speaks our language so well, and goes around asking about you every chance he gets?”
I felt myself grow serious. “A liability.”
“Such a lovely liability. Have you—”
Ingging clicked her tongue. “That’s enough, Yayei. They’re waiting for her.”
We left the bathhouse and returned to the east wing and my chambers. I stood over the edge of my mattress and for the first time in over a year allowed myself to get dressed by others. As Ingging slid the sleeves over my shoulders and tightened the belt around my waist, I watched the wind chimes hanging beneath the eaves outside and thought about Khine. If my handmaidens saw it, who else did?
“There,” Ingging said, breaking my thoughts as she took a step back to view her masterpiece. “That’s lovely, my dear. You do clean up so well. Look at you.”
She held up a mirror. The flash from the jewellery threatened to blind me. Golden earrings, so delicately wrought they looked like lace, streamed down to my shoulders. I wore a golden necklace with a plate beaten with a pattern unique to the Orenar clan, as well as plain gold bracelets on both my wrists. Even my red dress was threaded with gold, all along the robes and the sleeves that were cut short near my elbows. The only thing missing was the crown. It had been replaced with a corded golden rope that kept the hair out of my face. My head felt bare, made all the more obvious because they didn’t scrimp on all the other ornaments.
“If only you had tattoos…” Ingging continued, touching my unmarked arms. “But the Ikessars wouldn’t hear of it. They thought it made us look like savages.”
“Could you imagine Rayyel with tattoos?” I asked. “I’m surprised my father didn’t fight them for it.”
“He had to pick his battles. Still, you do not look half bad. You almost look presentable,” she added, with a smirk.
Yayei cocked her head and made a sound. “They’ll ask where we’ve been keeping this one, and what happened to the stray dog we called princess—”
“Hush,” Ingging chided. But I could see something in her eyes, a reflection of why it seemed so easy for her to talk to me now. I was a child to her once more, the same one she used to wrangle into frilly skirts—not the precious queen upon whose shoulders rested the fate of the nation. She couldn’t ruin me any more than I’d already ruined myself.
“Did you know my mother?” I suddenly asked.
Ingging didn’t even look surprised. She finished patting my dress. “She was such a beautiful girl.”
Girl. She said it deliberately.
“What was her name?” I asked.
This time, she kept her mouth shut. I suspected Yeshin had forbidden them to speak of her in my presence. I wondered how much of my father remained hovering over us all.
“We didn’t just lose lives in the war,” Ingging finally said. “We lost homes. Lands. Fields. Entire families of loved ones who decided it was better to seek peace and security elsewhere. And so many of us, your mother included, lost their innocence. She came here against her mother’s will thinking she would get to meet a prince, and instead…”
“I thought my father abducted her.”
“He might as well have. He courted her openly. She cherished the flattery like you wouldn’t believe. The letters, the gifts… not strange, I suppose, for her age.”
“They said she was very young.”
“The rumours exaggerated her age, but she was young enough. Young enough to think she knew better.”
“Did she know… what he was?”
“She was warned that he had been her own mother’s husband, that she fled him for a reason, but she wouldn’t believe anyone. She wouldn’t believe me. I went with her all the way out here hoping I could get her to change her mind, but even after she saw what she was getting, she decided to follow through. You and her are alike in that. Stubborn.” Ingging passed me a wistful smile.
“I didn’t know you were her friend.”
“I still am.”
I turned to her in confusion.
“Come,” Ingging said, tugging my sleeves.
I rose to follow her. We walked in silence, a handmaid on each side. Back on the grounds and towards the main doors of the great hall, under the arches on the stone path, I stopped. Khine stood near the steps. His eyes f
ell on me, but he didn’t crack his usual smile. We hadn’t talked since that morning on the rooftop. Between the sudden flurry of officials and my own mother-in-law’s presence in the castle, I could argue that I just didn’t have the opportunity. But the truth was I was deliberately avoiding him. With Ryia’s snakes around, the last thing I needed was to be looking longingly at anyone. I glanced away before realizing he was approaching me.
Startled, my handmaidens stepped aside to give him room. Khine bowed and took my hand.
“Beloved Queen,” he said in that deeply accented Jinan. “May the gods favour you today.”
“You are too kind, Master Lamang,” I replied smoothly.
He pressed the back of my hand to his lips before he looked up.
“You are…” he began, gazing into my eyes.
I pulled away, flushed, and returned to my handmaidens, every step echoing with my beating heart.
An Ikessar retainer announced my arrival with about as much enthusiasm as a servant informing his master that his least favourite dog has been found at last. I glared at the man as I walked past him, wishing they’d let me carry a sword. The council didn’t think it was wise for me to carry a weapon, which was hilarious given everyone else had, at the very least, a ceremonial blade shoved through their gold-threaded belts. It wasn’t as if I owned anything like my father’s sword, one that had cut its way through Jin-Sayeng’s history as easily as a knife through paper.
“Does she always smile to herself like that?” Ryia asked, her voice—for all its natural softness—stinging like a whip.
I gazed at her in stunned silence. She had directed her question to my husband, who was sitting cross-legged on a cushion beside her, on the dais where my throne had once stood. It had been removed for the occasion, to give room for all the officials. She didn’t turn to greet me, even when I strode close enough that I could smell the perfume on her skin.
Rayyel ignored her question with his characteristic blank-faced expression. It gave me a measure of satisfaction when he greeted me with more warmth. “My lady,” he said.
I said nothing to him and turned towards Princess Ryia, reaching for her hand to press it on my forehead. They may have chained Yeshin’s bitch pup, but I still carried every trick my father had ever taught me. Everyone would have seen how I ignored my husband and deferred to Ryia first. Every single man and woman in the great hall grew silent. All eyes fell on her.
The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng Page 8