The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng

by K. S. Villoso

  I smiled. “Last-century poetry?”

  “No, I made it up just now. But I’m flattered you think so. Maybe I should be a two-bit poet instead of a thief.”

  “I’m being polite. I was going to ask if you heard it from a passing drunk.”

  “You really know how to hurt a man’s feelings.”

  Rai cleared his throat, and I realized Khine and I were doing it again—slipping off into our own little world. I stepped away from him and pretended I was gathering my thoughts. “Speaking of Lushai,” I began. “Rai and the warlord of Bara are friends, I believe.”

  Khine glanced at Rai and then back at me before deciding to keep his mouth shut.

  “I am as in the dark about all of this as you are,” Rai said. I couldn’t tell if he was responding to my slight or not. “He has been kind to me in the past. It doesn’t make us allies. To hear that he has opened up his home to Prince Yuebek, of all people…”

  “It’s obviously a trap,” Inzali said. “A man like Yuebek doesn’t parley.”

  “And the ease with which he found his way into Bara reminds me of how easily Oren-yaro embraced Qun and his delegates,” I said. “What are the bastards up to?” I glanced at Namra, who was still walking around the edges of the throne room with a glazed look on her face. “And what are you busy with there, priestess? I know I should’ve laid out tea, but come and join us.”

  “Tea would have made this meeting more pleasant,” she said, lifting her head. “I’m mapping the spells in this place.”

  “Maybe we should wait until we’ve gotten rid of Yuebek to worry about that. One problem at a time, priestess.”

  “I don’t believe you get that luxury,” Namra replied. “It’s all connected.” She crossed the room towards the throne, draping her fingers along the smooth wood. “Your father has been dead sixteen years. Did you not wonder why this chamber is clean? Why the throne isn’t caked in dust? Someone else has been here recently. Someone who cared enough to sweep this whole place and wipe the throne from top to bottom.” She paused over one of the wolves and flicked her finger along the crevices, showing a lump of dirt at the tip. “Yes. Only recently. They missed some parts.”

  I remembered the servant the last time I was here. I’d been convinced she was a hallucination. Now I wasn’t sure, and the uncertainty multiplied my discomfort. Did I want the illusion to remain an illusion, even if it meant I was the one going mad?

  Silence fell across the room as the shadow of a dragon descended from the sky. It drifted along the treetops before disappearing behind a blanket of fog. I held my breath and waited; predictably, the white flash came. I heard the others cry out, but I simply closed my eyes, waiting for the buzzing, for the hair-prickling sensation to pass.

  “Fuck,” Khine finally said.

  “Should we walk willingly into a trap?” Rai murmured.

  “Do we have a choice?” I countered. “Look at that, Rai. We need to free ourselves here so we can take care of that. You and I are both Dragonlord. It’s our duty.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “Believe me, I know.”

  “Maybe you can refuse the invitation,” Inzali said. “This Warlord Lushai has no power over you. Tell him no. Let them come up with something new.”

  Khine cleared his throat. “Maybe the trap lies with her refusal. The way Yuebek’s mind works—you don’t want to be waiting for his next move. This is a man who orchestrated the machinations of an entire city just so you could be delivered into his arms. No—so you would willingly throw yourself into them. Remember when he wanted you broken just so he could be the one to put you back together? Who knows what he’s got up his sleeve now.”

  “That wasn’t all Yuebek,” I found myself saying. “My father played a bigger part.”

  Rai frowned. “He’s dead.”

  “Yeshin scoffed at death,” I replied. “You didn’t know him, Rai. He never believed he was old, never listened to his advisers telling him to slow down and appoint trusted officials in his stead. When he fell ill, he wouldn’t believe he was dying.”

  As soon as I spoke, I gazed up at the ceiling, mulling over my own words. I remembered how fast my father had faded after his collapse. The healer had declared him close to death, and he called the man a lying dog from the corner of the province. “A corner I should’ve handed over to the Baraji!” he had screamed, shattering clay pots full of herbs and strong-smelling poultices against the wall. The servants walked on eggshells around him until he was finally too weak to do anything but lie there, breath wheezing from his body like steam from a leaky kettle, as if he was falling apart at the seams. I remember sitting beside him and holding his hand for hours. Despite his weakness, his grip remained firm, like I could somehow be the link that would stop death from claiming him.

  I didn’t think the others understood.

  They left to carry out preparations and I found myself alone in the throne room, staring at the crown, at the empty, jewelled eyes of the wolf. “What kind of hell have you dragged us into, old man?” I asked out loud.

  If the wolf had replied, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Rai delivered the news to his mother during breakfast like a priest doling out a litany.

  Princess Ryia turned to me as soon as he uttered the words. “We are inviting you to Bara with us,” Rayyel had said, but she knew exactly whose idea it would’ve been. A servant arrived with tureens of rice porridge over which she dropped balls of dark cocoa. Ryia continued to glower past the steam and fragrant smell of coconut milk.

  “All these distractions,” Ryia said, as soon as the servant stepped away with a bow. She tapped the edge of the porcelain bowl with an exquisitely long fingernail, her expression almost wistful. I wondered if she was imagining stroking my skull. “If you want me to believe your sincerity, Queen Talyien, you should’ve opened this conversation with an apology for your actions over the years, followed by details of my son’s impending coronation.”

  “I was under the impression Rai was not important to you,” I replied, stirring my porridge into brown and cream swirls.

  “Says the woman who has yet to find her son.” Ryia’s cool detachment was well-practiced. It was almost enviable.

  I laughed in response. The approaching servant dropped a fork. I got up and picked it up for her. She placed a dish of dried mackerel at the edge of the table before scampering away. I twirled the fork under the sunlight. “The fondness you Ikessars have for Kag things is undeniable,” I said. “It was your father, wasn’t it, who wanted to reverse Zarojo influence by embracing yet another culture? It seems as if Jin-Sayeng is incapable of remaining Jinsein.”

  She gave that tiger’s smile, the one I was starting to get used to. No falcon, this one; my father’s war did this to her. “And yet if you Oren-yaro had your way, you would have us pandering to the Zarojo once more. Isn’t that why this prince is here now?”

  “He is mistaken,” I lied. “He thought my father and he had an agreement. My father was using him.”

  “Your father used everyone. Who do you think you’re fooling, girl?”

  “No one, Beloved Princess. But I was hoping you could understand… it’s all politics.”

  “Provincial politics.”

  “Provincial politics,” I repeated with a smile. “So why concern yourself over them, Beloved Princess? Perhaps Ozo thought he could extend that farce on the off chance that your son’s tantrum would cause more trouble than we could handle.” I glanced at Rai, who was looking at his teacup intently, even though the servants had yet to pour us tea.

  “So you decided to pre-emptively prepare for civil war,” Ryia said. She folded her hands on the table.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “And now you’ve changed your mind.”

  “We’re all getting along now, aren’t we?” I asked, smiling. “Family, and all that. So we should all go up there together to tell him he’s not needed anymore. As family.” I took Rayyel’s hand and lifted it up for her to see. />
  She stared back at me, unamused, with eyebrows that looked sharp enough to cut a finger off.

  “So you’re agreeing to accompany us,” I drawled, stopping to break salted fish into my porridge. Rai still looked confused. Nothing in the man’s life had prepared him to be in the midst of an argument between his mother and wife. I think if someone had offered him a pillowcase, he would have gladly crawled inside.

  “I won’t have you make a mockery of the throne any longer,” Ryia said, her voice growing more sombre. “For all I know this Zarojo prince is waiting to murder my son as a wedding gift to you. Do remember that if that happens, you forfeit your claim to the throne. Your animosities have been recorded. This land cannot be yours if it is not also his.”

  “A point, Beloved Princess,” Rai finally broke in. I was wondering if he had somehow lost the ability to speak. “The throne belongs to whoever the people support.”

  “And who do you think that is?” Ryia asked. “It can’t be her. Only the structures that put her on that throne are keeping her there.”

  “If she is assassinated, it cannot be mine alone, either.”

  I looked up with a start. Hearing barbed words from Rayyel was rarer than hen’s teeth. I glanced at him, and then at Ryia sitting directly across him. One stern-faced, the other still carrying that cold smile.

  “Are you suggesting something untoward, dear son?”

  “I am suggesting that my wife’s death will not secure the throne,” Rai said.

  “No. You are accusing me of wanting to kill your wife. Your own mother—!”

  “You’ve not exactly hidden your disdain.”

  “And so you’ve decided it’s time for you to speak up? To slap me in the face with this discourtesy?”

  “You’ve been just as discourteous to her,” he said. “This goes both ways, Beloved Princess.”

  Fury now danced in her eyes. “I didn’t realize I raised you to be so uncivilized. To bandy such careless words around…”

  “They aren’t exactly careless,” Rai said. “Unless you would also deny that you attempted to botch the trial.”

  Ryia’s face turned white.

  “You paid Belfang to claim he was the boy’s brother,” Rai continued.

  “You’d take the word of Xiaran scum over your own mother’s?”

  “I would take the word of someone who risked his own life to travel here with me,” Rai said evenly. “Consider that I am not using this knowledge against you, Mother. I am only trying to show you that it is futile. Why are we fighting with each other when we have enemies waiting to tear what’s left of us apart? You heard Talyien. We’re family.”

  “Does she really think that?” Ryia asked.

  “Don’t turn this on me, old woman,” I snapped.

  She sniffed. “So the pot calls the kettle.”

  “You’re the one who tried to buy off Zarojo scum. How much of a penny-pincher are you that someone like him would turn you down?”

  “He didn’t turn her down,” Rai said. “She fully believed going into the trial that he was working for her. You wouldn’t have been there otherwise, would you, Mother?”

  “And he turned on her at the last moment,” I concluded.

  Rai nodded. “He said his honour would not allow him to sink to such depths.”

  “He said…” It was my turn to frown. “Rai—Belfang said this?”

  “The man is atoning for his sins,” he said. “He deeply regrets what happened in Phurywa and the part he played in those elders’ deaths.”

  “I will not be insulted by children any further,” Ryia stated. She walked away from the table, leaving her bowl of porridge untouched.

  I didn’t even give her the courtesy of being offended. I turned to my husband. “Rai, that doesn’t sound right. I knew he came here with you because we burned that temple down and the villagers would’ve skinned him alive, but… for him to betray Princess Ryia for honour?”

  He blinked at me. “Perhaps he is a more loyal man than we gave him credit for.”

  “No,” I said, remembering the man who happily bled his own elders back in Phurywa. “Not this one. I need to talk to Khine.” Before he could respond, I rose from my seat and strode out of the dining hall.

  I went in search of Khine and found only the kitchen staff, most of whom had returned in the aftermath of the trial. One of the cooks, upon further prodding, remembered she had seen him lurking about the east wing, where the main libraries were. I dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time. Oka Shto Castle was high up enough on the mountain that you could see the ridges on the horizon from the first level. I reached the second floor, turned down the corridor, and saw the door to the library wide open. I caught sight of Belfang on a chair, his feet on the table. He didn’t see me arrive. “This is a nice, cushy position you’ve found yourself in, Khine,” he was saying.

  I drifted to a corner, as close to the wall as possible.

  “And it doesn’t look bad from my end, either. You ever imagine we’d find ourselves here? Royalty feeding off our hands. Look at you. You’ve got the queen wrapped around your little finger, don’t you?”

  “Get your head out of the gutter.”

  “It’s not mine that’s there, Lamang. Spirits, you’ve got quite the appetite for danger. Even after what happened to her last one, you’re still going after her? What kind of treasure lies between a queen’s thighs, anyway? Just grab a whore or two in a back alley and take care of it. You can even pay them to pretend to be her for a spell.”

  “I’m not in the mood to be insulted.”

  “You humourless bastard. You can’t even share a joke or two, for old times’ sake?”

  “You make it sound like we were friends.”

  “I wouldn’t make that kind of mistake! When was lowly Belfang ever friends with the golden boy, the grand, clever scholar Khine Lamang? Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not that anymore, is it? Hasn’t been for the longest time. Now you’re nothing but a fraud and a thief, and you’re after the ultimate prize. Not that I blame you! Seems like just about every ambitious man’s got his eye on that tasty title of hers, and you’re just being smart, taking advantage when she clearly favours you. I get it. I might’ve done the same thing if she was my type.”

  “Go bother someone else before I split your skull open.”

  Belfang laughed. “Bedding the queen won’t do a damn thing, Lamang. It won’t make you who you once were and it sure as hell won’t fill that hole inside of you. You’d fill hers, no question about it, but—”

  I heard a snap and saw Belfang topple backwards as Khine’s fist slammed onto his chin. Instead of crying out in pain, Belfang chortled. “All right, I’m leaving,” he said, his face red. “So much for trying to watch out for you. Your temper hasn’t improved all these years, I can tell you that much. Maybe Inzali would be less hostile, hey?” He walked away without so much as a backwards glance. He looked flustered.

  I waited a moment before walking inside the library. Khine glanced up and looked slightly embarrassed. “You just missed Belfang.”

  “He’s… ah, the reason I came looking for you, actually,” I said. “Should we really be letting him run around the castle without a guard, at least?”

  “Are loose lips a crime in Jin-Sayeng?” He flexed his fingers with a frown. “No, I don’t trust the man, if that’s what you’re saying. I never did.”

  “Rai says he’s confessed to taking bribes from Ryia.”

  “He did seem oddly confident on their way here,” Khine admitted.

  “But then he turned on her anyway. She paid him to botch the spell and he didn’t—he made it work exactly as Namra explained it would. And then he fed Rayyel this nonsense about honour and atonement…”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “When we were children, he would get the other boys to pay him to kiss his younger sister. They happily obliged.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure if th
ings went further than that. I told the other boys to stop and…” He shook his head. “She ran away the next summer and never came back. I can tell you right now: The bottom of a chamber pot has more honour than Belfang.”

  “Then it’s clear as day. We thought we picked up a stray puppy and it turns out it’s Yuebek’s rat.”

  “It’s starting to sound like it.”

  “But why come here at all? Why help our cause?”

  “I don’t know,” Khine said. “Perhaps Yuebek needed to clear your name.”

  “He was counting on my disgrace so he could swoop in to save the day.”

  “Was he, really?” Khine asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  He tapped the table. “I’ve been thinking about all of that. From the very beginning, Yuebek’s plans have evolved in his attempt to ensnare you. Back in the empire, he tried to fool you. Later, he tried to break you—threatened to take it all away with one hand, and offered you salvation with the other. It stands to reason that he’s changed his stripes yet again. He’s found something else. Something new. Why else has he been silent this whole time? Let Belfang run around like the rat he is. I’ll keep my eye on the fool. As for Yuebek, I think we’ll find out more when we see him.”

  “We,” I repeated.

  He scratched the side of his cheek. “Did… you not want me to come?”

  “I… that’s not how I would phrase it. But…”

  “You’re with your mother-in-law and your husband,” he finished for me.

  I flushed. “Namra will be with us. And Inzali. Rayyel has officially made them his advisers. A Dageian-educated mage and a celebrated tutor from the Zarojo Empire—”

  He laughed. “Celebrated? Inzali?”

  “Mayor Feng of Phurywa had her registered. Rayyel is extremely thorough, if nothing else. She’s also functioning as the official translator for the Ikessars.”

  “Her Jinan is poorer than mine. And anyway, if you leave me behind, what are the chances you’ll walk into that other castle and I’ll be right there?”

  I closed my mouth.

  He placed his hands on top of mine. “I told you. I’ll be careful.”