by Devin Madson
“You are right,” I said when he ended upon a sigh. “My mother, for all her professions of love and duty, was the worst thing that ever happened to this empire. But we cannot undo what has been done, we can only make the best of what we have and seek to build something bigger and better than ourselves. You have my word, Lord Oyamada, that I will seek to do this selflessly, for the good of Kisia, not myself. But to do that I need your help.”
Behind the man, Manshin scowled, but he did not interrupt either my assurances or Oyamada’s silence. Lord Oyamada’s jaw worked as he sat with his thoughts, and again I waited. Not so many hours since this man had tried to end my life and now here I was appealing to his honour so I might spare his.
Eventually he fixed me with a narrowed gaze. “You’ll name me minister of the right?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll let me send out proper announcement of Jie’s ascent to the throne as well as his parentage? Even into the north?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll let me tell the story of his end as more… glorious than it was?”
I thought of the boy’s dead, staring eyes and forced out a whispered “Yes.”
I had given him a position of trust, and a proper place in history for his grandson and his family, yet still Lord Oyamada gnawed upon his thoughts. I acquitted him of being stupid enough to demand things I would never give, but as he was already rich in both land and gold, I held my breath. At last he spat out his final demand.
“And you’ll not marry without our agreement?”
I had given no thought to marriage, but though I wished to snap that I would marry whom I willed, when I willed, I swallowed the words. Kisia had always had an emperor, not an empress. Because of that, whoever I married would gain more power as an imperial consort just by being a man than any woman had ever done. An eventuality Oyamada was right to fear.
“Yes,” I said at last. “It is Kisia I want the people to fight for. I will do nothing to jeopardise that.”
Lord Oyamada tilted his head just enough to glance up at Manshin standing over him. “Does that include having a minister of the left whose daughter is married to the Levanti emperor? I own I am surprised that Her Majesty puts so much faith in you, Ryo.”
Cold fear gripped my heart. Sichi. Lady Sichi, who had been promised to my brother, who I had last seen in that bathhouse south of Shami Fields making a plea for information. Lady Sichi, who we had thought dead, married to the man who called himself Emperor Gideon e’Torin. Grace Bahain was her uncle. Had she known that day in the bathhouse? Had she begged for information because she stood upon a precipice I had never dreamed could be coming?
I forced myself not to look at Manshin as doubt flourished. He had served Kisia unfailingly and had turned on Bachita to protect it. If I ever stopped serving Kisia the way Manshin envisioned, would he turn on me too? Or could Bahain’s plot already run that deep?
“That he married my daughter is all the more reason for me to be here,” Manshin replied coldly. “It must be made clear that my daughter’s betrayal of her empire is not my betrayal. I fought the Levanti. I stood up to the Levanti. I survived the Levanti.”
Oyamada’s only reply was a slight smile and an inclination of his head that seemed to mock even as it agreed.
“You sneer, Lord Oyamada,” Manshin said. “But I remember what all you southerners forget. Every time we let someone step across the border and take our lands, we set a new and dangerous precedent. That same precedent has seen Chiltae shave more and more land off our border every year. If Kisia accepts rule by barbarians without a fight then invaders will never stop coming. We will be seen as weak, conquerable, and our border and our lands will never be safe again. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you down here because we northerners fight and die to keep your lands safe, but let the Levanti keep the north and your families and your way of life will never be safe again no matter how peacefully this Gideon e’Torin attempts to rule. I would fight for that before any child of my blood.”
Impossible to answer such a speech, but his fervour quelled the strongest of my fears, even if it did nothing to allay my lingering doubts.
“We are running out of time, Your Majesty,” Manshin added a touch impatiently when neither of us answered. “The sun is up. The generals have gathered.”
Oyamada smiled with his lips alone. “Then let me go clean myself up so I do not present the wrong picture upon the stage.”
Manshin looked to me, his way of asking if I was sure. I nodded, and he cut the sash binding Oyamada’s hands and let the man rise. With nothing but a mock little bow, he departed.
“He will bury a knife in your back at the first opportunity,” Manshin said.
“Then we must try not to offer him such an opportunity.”
“We should be rid of him as soon as possible.”
Again the thought of Jie stuck in my mind like food in my gullet and I could not answer. I had not spoken my fine speeches merely to win Oyamada temporarily to our side. If we were going to beat back a Levanti emperor supported by Grace Bahain, we would have to stand united.
Today the soldiers of the southern battalions had expected to fight the Levanti. They had expected to march to death or glory in an attempt to wrest Mei’lian back from the invaders. They had not expected to stand upon the hillside and watch their city burn.
Lord Oyamada ordered them all to assemble before the stone plinth of the estate’s shrine. There, in another life, another time, they might have gathered to see me executed before they marched to battle, but nothing had turned out quite as anyone had planned.
While they gathered outside, I stood inside the shrine and tried to calm the urge to be sick. I pressed my palms to my stomach, cupping the elaborate knot in my crimson sash—Jie’s crimson sash. Kin’s crimson robe had looked overlarge on him even with its hasty alterations. It fit me as though I had been born to it, but I could not stop thinking about what Jie had said, that all Kisia needed was a leader, not an emperor. Fear buried deeper. Fear that I, and any others who could claim imperial blood, were outdated, unnecessary, and replaceable. Fear that I had fought so hard and lost so much for nothing, because Kisia didn’t need me at all.
The gathered mass of soldiers stilled to something approaching silence as Lord Oyamada stepped out to speak.
“As you have all seen,” he began, shouting over the wind. “The Levanti cowards have burned the city rather than face us in battle. What you do not know is that they were so desperate to destabilise our army that they sent an assassin after our emperor. It is with a heavy heart that I must announce this assassin succeeded. My grandson, Jie Ts’ai, Emperor Kin, second of his name, is dead. Killed by a Levanti assassin.”
The wind sought to carry away all outcry, yet it still rose through the gusts like thunder. Whatever the generals had thought about following Jie, their rage at the Levanti would be complete. Not only had they named one of their own as emperor, they had burned our capital and killed Emperor Kin’s only living son.
“He will be farewelled as an emperor,” Lord Oyamada said when the noise of the crowd subsided enough to continue. “But even as we mourn his loss we must keep moving forward. Fortunately, before the city was torched Emperor Kin’s minister of the left, Minister Ryo Manshin, escaped imprisonment, killing many Levanti, and he is here with us now to fight this barbarian scourge.”
Cheers rose and some of my fear escaped in a slow breath. He had been minister of the left for years, had been beloved by the army, yet still I had worried. Now I only had to worry for myself.
“The barbarians have taken his daughter and forced her to marry their false emperor”—boos and hisses rose as Lord Oyamada continued, his overdramatic play for the crowd exactly what the soldiers wanted—“but we will not be tricked into tolerating their existence with the theft of one woman, no matter how noble her family.”
His words fanned their righteous fury, but even as that turned them toward our cause my heart ached for Rah and I wonde
red how many Levanti were just like him, not barbarians at all, just warriors far from home. But there was no space for such nuance when we needed these soldiers to fight, so I clenched my hands and awaited my moment.
“They think they have weakened us,” Lord Oyamada went on, his voice rising with every pronouncement. “They think they can burn our city and kill our emperor and we will roll over and let them conquer our lands, but they are wrong! We are born and bred to the snow and the storms, to the stony plains and the bitter sea winds. Our southern skins are thicker than hide and it will take more than the thundering hooves of some foreign horsemen to make us bow. The Levanti may have killed Emperor Kin’s only surviving son, but they did not kill his daughter.” He waited out the sudden outburst of noise before he could add: “I, Lord Tashi Oyamada, minister of the right, pledge my allegiance to Empress Miko Ts’ai, last surviving heir of Emperor Kin, that we might stand united and see off these foul invaders.”
“I, Lord Ryo Manshin, minister of the left,” Manshin cried, adding his voice to the storm of noise, “pledge my allegiance to Her Majesty, Empress Miko Ts’ai, a warrior amongst women.”
I could stay where I was. I could hide behind the altar or find a back door and run while they were all distracted. I could… but I would not.
I drew a breath and stepped out before I could recall my steps. Out into the light, out to face the avid stares of the soldiers filling the courtyard. Surely the farthest away couldn’t have heard the speech, but Oyamada’s words must have spread all the same, for silence fell. And there I stood, grateful for the wind that pulled at my clothes and my hair, hiding my trembling from rank after rank of soldiers waiting for me to claim their allegiance. Oyamada had played his part well. Now I had to play mine.
I parted my lips but nothing came out. Someone coughed. I had practised the words over and over in my head, yet I could speak none of them. So many lives could be saved if we just abandoned the north and defended the river, but then we would never be free of the Levanti or the Chiltaens or Grace Bahain’s ambition, never be whole again, and bit by bit Kisia would weaken until it faded to nothing. For the sake of their children and grandchildren, for a future as yet intangible, lives had to be spent.
Kin had not had a lesson for this.
“Kisia will accept no rule by barbarians,” I said, hating the high, nervous pitch of my voice as I threw it to the wind. “Kisia will not allow her borders to be infringed. I am the daughter of Emperor Kin Ts’ai and like my father before me”—I allowed myself a quirk of a smile, I alone knowing to which father I referred—“I stand before you ready to fight for the empire. For our empire.”
Silence. The wind fanned my robe and pulled strands of hair from its elaborate crown of jewelled pins. Jewels hung around my throat too, making up for the absence of the Hian Crown. A few steps away Manshin stood in his armour, his sword at his side like the warrior we needed, yet I had been presented as a god because Kisia had always been ruled by gods, not men, not beings of flesh and blood who lived and died, who loved and hated and fought to their dying breath as every one of these soldiers was expected to do.
I tore the pins from my hair and scattered them to the watching crowd. One of my ministers choked in dismay as I tugged the necklace from my throat, but neither moved nor spoke as I stepped to the edge of the shrine’s plinth. “I am no god,” I shouted over the wind and the whispers. “I am flesh and blood the same as you, with a heart that bleeds and a soul that rages.” I picked at the elaborate knot in my sash as I went on: “Rages for a Kisia that is whole again. United again. Strong again. A Kisia that can stand proud against all invaders, a Kisia that is everything our ancestors fought for and more.” The knot came loose and as I threw my sash to the wind it flapped away like a flag let fly. “Power lies not just with me, but with you all,” I cried, shrugging off the crimson robe so I stood before them in no imperial trappings, just a pale-hued half robe and breeches. “Power lies with every single person who picks up a weapon and fights for Kisia because without you there would be no Kisia.”
Two steps took me to Manshin’s side. I gripped the hilt of his blade and drew it free, lifting it to the heavens as the cheer of the soldiers lifted me. “I will fight for you if you will fight for me. I will fight for your families and your lands, your comfort and your freedom, for all Kisia’s people. For her rich and her poor, for her city folk and her farmers, for her women and her children and her merchants and her weavers, I will fight. Are you with me?”
Upon their deafening cheers I soared, and in that moment, I was a god.
The story continues in…
WE CRY FOR BLOOD
Book THREE of the Reborn Empire series
Keep reading for a sneak peek!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Another book, another slew of people to thank for all their hard work, enthusiasm, and encouragement. So here we go!
NIVIA! I complain dramatically about the day edits arrive as being Ego Punching Day, but that you tirelessly rip through my work and see everything it can be helps to make it the very best I can write, so thank you. And to Emily Byron and James Long, my UK editors, for all their hard work. Also to my copy editor, Vivian Kirklin, for putting up with my inconsistencies and magically making sure I don’t do anything truly foolish. Copy editors are magicians, if you didn’t know.
Enormous thanks to Nico Delort for the stunning cover art; you continue to bring such energy to these books and I love it. Thanks to Lisa Marie Pompilio for the design that really makes it jump off the shelf/screen and into people’s arms. And to Charis Loke for her amazing map with so many beautiful details. I think I forgot to thank her in the last book and feel MONSTROUS! (More magicians, these art folks.)
Thanks to Ellen Wright and Angela Man, my super publicists, and to Paolo Crespo and Nazia Khatun for all things social media, including just being fun humans to interact with. You are all amazing and I cannot thank you enough for your work getting me and my books out and about.
Also thank you to all the Orbit folks I don’t know to name because you are secret ninjas working behind the scenes to make these things happen. I KNOW YOU’RE THERE! I see you. Thank you.
Once again, since this book was originally to be self-published and only pulled six days before its publication date, I would still like to thank the people who worked on that version. Without them it may not be the book it is now. So, some original credits…
… Ahhh, Amanda, one day I will run out of words to thank you for everything you do for me. You aren’t just editor and best friend, but support staff, reading buddy, and occasional bed and breakfast. I would be lost navigating the shoals of this career without you.
A huge thanks to my whole production team. To John Anthony Di Giovanni for the art that captures scenes and characters I cannot see in my head, and to Shawn King for taking that art and dressing it so sharply and with such character that the whole thing speaks to all who look at it.
To Dave Schembri for continuing to lap up every design brief and turn out miracles; Dishiva’s symbol is really something. And of course to John Renehan for always bringing so much energy and enthusiasm to any map project I throw his way…
… before I move on to the rest of the acknowledgements.
JULIE! My wonderful agent who always has my back, it’s a huge comfort knowing you are there to fight for me whenever I need, so thank you!
Also, thanks to Belle for always being there for me and for reading everything I throw her way, even though it occasionally results in a campaign to include more smooching. And as many thanks to Sam Hawke for sharing her experience and knowledge, but even more for always screaming back in all caps whenever I squee at her. To Jack for answering all my ridiculous medical questions about terrible wounds, Belinda Crawford for checking for glaring horsey errors, and to Matt McAbee for giving Itaghai such a cool name.
Thanks to Hiu and Petrik and Swiff and Lynn and Matt and Jordan and Esme and all the other early readers and reviewers who took a
chance on the self-published version of We Ride the Storm and went on to shout about how much they loved it; I wouldn’t be where I am now without you. And to Mihir and Lukasz at Fantasy Book Critic for all their support and for choosing We Ride the Storm as their finalist for SPFBO4; it has been quite the journey.
And to my Discord fam, too numerous to name (you know who you are), thank you for the safe, happy place where I can be my oddball self, thank you for celebrating with me, for laughing at and with me, for putting up with me, and for inviting me along in the first place. I love you all.
Thank you always to my parents for never suggesting I choose a different profession to pay the bills and for having so many books around as I was growing up. And to my kids who (for now) think I’m pretty darn cool for having my name on book covers even though they are too young to read them.
And thank you to my partner, Chris, for whom no words will ever be enough. For always being there to celebrate or commiserate, to listen or advise, and to hold the fort against the kids while I work. Without you there would be no books.
A book like this is such a long journey from start to finish that I always fear I will forget to thank someone at the end. If I do, I am very sorry and it does not mean your contributions were not valued. There are so many people who make this community such a joy to be a part of, and to all of you, thank you.
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meet the author
Photo Credit: Leah Ladson
DEVIN MADSON is an Aurealis Award–winning fantasy author from Australia. After some sucky teenage years, she gave up reality and is now a dual-wielding rogue who works through every tiny side-quest and always ends up too over-powered for the final boss. Anything but Zen, Devin subsists on tea and chocolate and so much fried zucchini she ought to have turned into one by now. Her fantasy novels come in all shades of grey and are populated with characters of questionable morals and a liking for witty banter.