His voice had cracked. He was staring at his own hands.
“Khine…”
“It sounds so ridiculous now,” he continued. “Like a joke you tell about someone else. It’s in the past. We all make mistakes. I was young, too. And stupid. So stupid.” The hatred hissed through his teeth. “But you see the result of one little mistake? Do you see what I did? If I had passed that exam, my mother might’ve been safe in Anzhao City before Yuebek got his hands on the villagers. She’d still be alive. My family… wouldn’t be scattered across two continents. My sister—my sister is involved in your messy politics.”
“I can ask Rayyel to let her go, if you want.”
“And he’d listen, no doubt,” he snapped. And then, realizing he’d raised his voice, he turned quickly away. “It’s—that’s not it. But don’t you see? You have the power to do these things—I don’t. People like you run the world. I hate it, but I understand it. And I don’t know if I followed you all this way because of that. I’ve been seeking penance all this time. Is that what I see when I look at you? A chance to redeem myself? I don’t know if…” He moved as if to reach for me.
The hail stopped. He pulled away, hands balled into fists, and stepped out onto the path. We reached the hut, ice crunching under our soles. There were herbs hanging from ropes strung between trees. The sudden turn of weather had sent about half to the ground.
Khine began to swear as he bent over to pick up the wilted leaves. I came up to help him.
“All I know is I’m here.” He wiped a hand over his knee. “Helping your son, but also helping a man who by all rights is your enemy, helping his people because… that was always when it was simplest for me. When I help others. A direction in my otherwise pointless life. Because I’ve let my own selfishness and arrogance ruin the lives of the people I’m supposed to protect. Now I’ve been a thief and a con artist for so long I don’t even know if I can be anything else.”
“That’s not true,” I whispered.
“It is,” he insisted. “I’ve created my own prison, Tali, and I can’t let you be the key to get me out of it. You have power. I don’t. What if Belfang was right? What if I’m like the rest of them, just waiting to take advantage of a good opportunity? I’ve seen what this world does to you. I’ve given you enough grief over it. But you can’t help what you are and I can’t change what you represent so perhaps what I need… what we both need… is for me to see you from another perspective. Perhaps then I could let you go. That would be a start, wouldn’t it?”
I felt a twinge of pain, but not an unexpected one.
He dropped the leaf he was holding, shaking his head. “These are ruined. I’m going to have to go get more.” Without waiting for my reply, he walked straight into the forest.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE DANCE OF THE LIVING
An entire winter of habitation had left the hut in a state of disarray. Even if I hadn’t known Khine was living there, I might’ve guessed it. There was a mortar and pestle on the single table, and more bundles of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Empty jars that needed to be washed, clay pots that smelled like rancid spices. Two thick books on the windowsill—manuals written in Zirano. Gifts from Dai, no doubt. Or Myar? I couldn’t tell how much of Dai’s actions were his and how much were those of the soul who resided in him. Perhaps there was a reason we didn’t accept such things in Jin-Sayeng. Souls, the agan, fabrics and streams… it was easier to just name things you could see.
I glanced at the floor. A single blanket lay next to the firepit. It looked slept in, with no sign of a pillow or anything more comfortable. A single woolen blanket, to ward off the cold. Something about that stood out. He had been here for months. Why did I think there would be a mat at least, or two?
The mess started to grate at me. In an effort to quiet my nerves, I picked up a broom from the corner and swept the floor. When there was still no sign of Khine, I went to fetch firewood from the shed and stacked it on the firepit in a square, one log on top of the other. Kindling in the middle, tinder at the base. I struck flint with a dagger and it caught on fire almost immediately.
I found an iron pot and filled it from the rain barrel outside. The water was cold, swimming in ice pellets. I took a quick drink before placing it on the fire. With two handfuls of rice, it was full; I stirred with a ladle, trying not to think about earlier. The spilled rice, the dead men, the flies that whizzed around the bloated bodies. The soldiers, dead by my hand. Realities of a war of which I was the center. Khine saw it clearly. Thinking about the words he had uttered was painful, but I needed to learn to accept them.
I heard a rustling sound from outside. I got up to open the door, expecting Khine. Instead, horses appeared, carrying Yu-yan soldiers. Warlord Ojika’s banner, with the brace of yoked oxen, flew over their heads.
“You said this was Kaggawa’s doctor’s hut,” one called, striking a man. A peasant, dressed in farmer’s clothes, stumbled forward. His face was covered in bruises.
“It is,” the man insisted. “I’ve helped him myself a few times. His assistant stayed at the village whenever they went here. I don’t know who this is. Please. I’m telling the truth.”
“Miss,” the soldier said, turning to me. “Where is he?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said calmly. “What’s with all the screaming? Do you want to rouse the neighbourhood?”
The soldier laughed, dismounting from his horse. “No neighbourhood for hours, miss,” he said, tipping his head forward. “We’re ridding the land of pests. Are you one of those pests?”
“Does Lord Huan know you’ve been harassing villagers?”
He laughed again. “Helping the enemy is treason.”
I tried not to shudder at how his words reflected Dai’s mercenaries. “You cowards have retreated behind city walls,” I said. “How do you expect people to survive? Kaggawa pays well and treats his men fairly. Can you say the same for your warlord?”
The soldier reached for my wrist, yanking me closer to him. He drew a dagger.
“Lord Huan,” I repeated. “If he learns of this, you know what he’ll do.”
“Captain—” one of the soldiers called out.
The captain’s face tightened. “If I kill you when I’m done, Lord Huan won’t know a damn thing.”
I smiled. “You think I’m alone?”
“Search the area,” the captain said, gesturing at his soldiers. “I’ll show this woman exactly how she’s supposed to regard her betters.”
“They were right about you, then,” I hissed. “Warlord Ojika forced himself into this land. No wonder you’re faced with rebellion. You think it ends with me? Your royals are embroiled in a pissing match in the east, the Sougen is in chaos… and you’re worried about putting some woman in her place? Put your priorities in order!”
“It’s clear, Captain,” a soldier broke in. “But there’s tracks leading away from here.”
“Find him. And take care of her.”
“I should remind you, Captain,” I said, “that Lord Huan detests mindless killing. Surely you’ve heard of what he did to the soldier who disobeyed his orders several years back. The cage. The ants. The man screamed for days, I heard.”
I saw the doubt flit across his face. “How do you know this?”
“Everyone knows it.”
“No, they don’t,” he said, yanking me so hard I could feel the blood pounding through my wrist.
I looked up. “All right,” I conceded. “Perhaps they don’t. But I do. What else can I tell you? Ah. Lord Huan once punished a man for forgetting to put his belt on properly. The knot, he said, was inside out. He made the man run barefoot around the barracks in the middle of summer, hard enough that he died a day later. Lord Huan felt awful about it, but he knows that all it takes is a reputation for tolerance, and…”
“Captain,” the soldier said behind him. “She’s right. I’ve heard Lord Huan say such things.”
“I know,” t
he captain hissed. “But this is classified information.”
“She must be a mistress of his,” the soldier whispered. “We can’t take the chances, Captain. We’ll all be punished if—”
The captain gave a roar, dropping my wrist and shoving the soldier aside. “We’ve got to ride back to the village,” he snapped. “No proof, no inquiry. Quickly!”
They mounted their horses and thundered back down the path. I approached the peasant, who remained kneeling on the ground. I touched his head. It was bleeding.
“Come,” I said. “I’ll fix you up.”
“Thank you,” the man gasped. “They killed my friends. They’re all the same… murderers, all of them.” He wiped tears from his eyes, leaning against me as he staggered towards the hut. I left him on the deck and returned with bandages.
“I’m taking a ship to the Kag,” he continued as I wrapped his wounds. “There’s nothing left for Jin-Sayeng. The people who are supposed to be taking care of us… aren’t. You were right about Kaggawa. He is fair. And committing treason. What kind of a damn nation is this, where a traitor offers better than our queen?”
“It’ll be over soon,” I said.
“I like your optimism, but I don’t believe it will,” the man said. “It’s just starting. It’ll get worse before it gets better.”
He left it at that. I finished bandaging the rest of his wounds, apologizing for the lack of salve. He shrugged it off. “Give my regards to the doctor,” he said. “And if you’re wise, you’ll get out while you still can.”
“I don’t think those soldiers will be back,” I told him.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said as he waved goodbye.
The rice was burning. I returned inside to remove it from the fire, but I didn’t eat anything—I didn’t really have the appetite. Instead, I slept, dreaming the dreams of the damned.
I woke up to darkness and the sound of crickets. The fire had died and a black sky hovered where the sun had been. I was still alone. The rice remained where I left it, a cold, hard lump inside the pot.
Wrapping the blanket around my shoulders, I put my boots on, hoping the moon would give enough light. I should’ve looked for Khine earlier. What if the soldiers had found him along the way? If he had encountered a wild animal, or fallen into the river, or…
I opened the door. Khine was asleep on the porch with his back to the wall. He looked both troubled and at peace—as if, having wandered the woods the whole afternoon, he had decided that the threshold was where he would rather be. I knew, because I felt the same way. How many times had we tried to say goodbye to each other over the last year? How many times had it failed?
You still have to face the hours between now and the day you die.
Maybe it was the silence and the cold, and the pressing shadows around us, so deep it felt like there was no one else on earth. Maybe the relief swept everything else away but that one thing, that fragile, unsustainable thing, a blade of grass on parched earth. I wrapped my heart around it, begging it not to leave, to stay another day. Tomorrow—anything could happen tomorrow. But today? This night? Oh, gods, let me have just this night.
I walked up to drape the blanket over him. His eyes opened. Without a word, I slipped beside him, pressing my lips against his. Despite everything he had said earlier, his fingers trailed over my cheeks as he returned the kiss, slow and lingering. I didn’t really know what I was doing—my whole body was shaking, but that didn’t seem to stop me. I wanted to taste him with a fervour I had never known in my life.
“I’m frightened,” Khine said when we stopped for breath.
“I am, too,” I told him.
“If I don’t have you, I could never lose you.”
“I know.” I grazed his chin with my teeth before whispering into his ear. “But my love, I think it’s too late.”
“We could always… stop.” But even as he said that, he traced a line across my cheekbone, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Khine…”
“Don’t.”
“You are the only thing I have ever wanted that has nothing to do with this damn life.”
He gazed back, disbelieving. Unwilling to understand. Whatever he saw in me, it was not a woman who would love him back.
“I can go,” I continued. “If that’s what you really want. I just thought you should know. I can go if—”
“No,” Khine breathed. “Please, Tali. I can’t bear that, not anymore.” He pulled me down to him for another kiss. Still hesitant, still restrained, like I was something fragile he could break. I noticed him fumbling with my collar and loosened my robes to help him. For a man who seemed so sure of everything else—of his cons, of the care for his patients, of his witty remarks—he seemed terribly uncertain about how to touch a woman. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to presume. I tested it by taking his hand, placing it where it needed to be as I coaxed him to follow my lead, and had my answer. The cold air stung, but his fingers were warm. His eyes never left me, as if he was watching my reaction, listening to the sound of my breath quicken. It didn’t take long. I sought his mouth as my body trembled over his, and felt his own, surprised gasp.
I settled into his lap, untying the knot in his hair. Unbound, the black strands didn’t go past his shoulders, but the added shadow gave his expression a gravity that made me shiver. His fingers slipped down my bare back. I shrugged the shirt off his shoulders before I kissed his neck, allowing my teeth to graze his jaw. He responded to my attention, his breathing growing sharp. “Out here?” he asked. “Aren’t you scared of monsters?”
“Not when I’m with you.”
The answer shocked him into silence. I could feel his heart racing under my fingertips as I touched the faintest traces of the hair on his chest, could feel him swallow as I undid his belt, freeing the rest of him. There was no room for doubt anymore. Love as duty, love as distraction… I knew these things well. Love for itself was new, unexpected. Did he know what I meant with the things I said? That I understood the danger in this lay not in who I was or what was about to come, but what the past had done to us, how we had once nearly drowned in love and somehow sworn we never would again?
Broken promises. The stubborn never learn. I lowered myself onto him, falling into his arms as he filled me. We both wanted deeper, wanted that water over our heads, the sensation of losing yourself in another even if it came at a cost. We knew, we both knew, and it no longer mattered. Nothing else in the world mattered. We moved together, breathless against each other’s mouths in a sensation that went beyond pleasure—a far-reaching darkness where I could no longer tell where he ended and I began. Heat and belonging, in a shot of darkness; I bit his shoulder to stop myself from screaming his name.
He had no such reservations. “Tali,” he gasped, kept gasping. As if we had melted into each other, leaving behind nothing but whispers, echoes of the broken in a world where nothing could ever be enough.
“Damn you,” Khine whispered, long after we were done, wrapped up in that single blanket on the floor next to the fire. “I always knew you wanted to kill me. I just wasn’t sure how.” He laced his fingers through mine, watching the shadows dance over our skin.
I didn’t answer at once. My thoughts were very far away.
“Do we head to Yu-yan in the morning?”
It wasn’t what he was really asking. I pressed my head on his chest, breathing in the salt-sweat of his scent. “Maybe another day,” I whispered. “We could use some sleep. And food. And your herbs won’t pickle themselves or whatever it is you to do them.”
He turned my hand over, pressing the fingers of his other hand over my wrist, where bruises were starting to show. A frown flitted over his lips. “Did I hurt you?”
I smiled.
“I can’t be sure,” he coughed.
I placed his hand over my cheek. “That was the soldiers from earlier. But I made sure they won’t be back. Even if they do, I’ll take care of it.” I allowed my fingers to drift over his be
ard, his face. Even flushed from lovemaking, I still couldn’t get over the feel of him.
He smiled at my touch. “And how are you planning to do that?”
“Maybe I’ll dig a moat, put up some spikes… you wouldn’t happen to have some crocodiles handy?”
“I saw some up in the river in Oren-yaro. I decided to leave them alone. I’ve had enough of things with sharp teeth.”
“I suppose I’ll have to fight them, since you’re entirely useless with a sword.”
“As you are with a broom.”
“Ingrate. In case you haven’t noticed, I swept your hut for you.”
“I did notice. Did you realize you’re supposed to dust out, and not in? Corners aren’t for gathering dust heaps.”
I smiled, tracing my fingers over the scar on his shoulder. The skin was puckered where the wound had healed, a lighter pink against his tanned skin. I didn’t look much better. “Yours and mine match,” I said, trying to drown out the memory of him getting those scars in the first place.
“They can put us on the same shelf.” He brushed the hair from my face and took another ragged breath. “Gods, Tali. I’m dreaming. I just know it.”
“I see. Are these sort of dreams, perchance, a frequent occurrence?”
He smirked. “More often than I’ll ever admit.”
“And here I was thinking you’re the sort of man better suited for sainthood.”
“Not all men are like your husband, Tali.”
“That’s a low blow, Lamang. And you certainly seemed to have done a commendable job pretending you were.”
“Now you flatter me. You yourself have mentioned I’ve been slipping. And I admit… if that beast back in the Ruby Grove hadn’t interrupted us…”
The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng Page 40