Mirrorstrike

by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  Lussadh has imagined killing Nuawa before. She has pictured it clearly. Yet this is not the same, and when she bends to scoop Nuawa into her arms the lieutenant is unthinkably light, as though every drop of fluid has been vented from her and left her a hollow husk. "Nuawa," she whispers. The catch in her voice, fragile as old vows. It has been a long time since she has ever heard herself like this. The girl from Shuriam, and later—but there is a pulse; her lieutenant's heart still beats. She presses her finger to Nuawa's throat. Yes. The vital rhythm, faint yet extant. She looks her lieutenant over: the hemorrhage must have slowed down from the cold and Nuawa's heart must have been sustained by the queen's mirror. The sliver of power which will not allow its bearer to so easily fade.

  She binds Nuawa's arm, above the ruin of wrist and hand, and wipes the vomit from the lieutenant's face. Nuawa's eyelids twitch. They open and Nuawa looks up at her, eyes glazed with pain. Then, "General?" Hoarse and broken, an echo of an echo.

  "I'm here. You will be fine. You're fine. You're too strong to perish here."

  Something like a grimace, like a smile. "I don't want you to see me like this. I must be dying. It's odd, I don't feel much of anything. Can you do me a favor?"

  Lussadh traces the line of Nuawa's jaw with her fingertips. "I'll bring down the moon and drape every living star on your shoulders, and tie asteroids around your ankles. I'll put upon you more treasury than the sun itself owns."

  The lieutenant tries to laugh. "The Heron's heart. The queen commanded me to bring it back."

  It rests in the Heron's lap, a lump that resembles unrefined iron more than it does any organ. Lussadh takes it in hand, and even through her glove, it radiates a piercing chill. She slips it into her belt satchel. "I have it." She gathers Nuawa in her arms and touches her mouth to the lieutenant's brow. "We're going home."

  Twelve

  The general was right in that Nuawa was not dying. The palace chiurgeon gives her a transfusion—the source of it she cannot guess, though she assumes the donor is either well compensated or dead—and in a week she is back on her feet, though she does not like to look at the stump where her right hand used to be. Her operation included amputating what was left of it: the remaining bones and tissue were useless, on the path to necrosis.

  At all times she covers herself in a heavy coat; she imagines she must look like a particularly bulky specter, wandering the palace at night. The dead of night, since she doesn't sleep much, and the servants avert their gazes when she passes. Major Guryin tries to ambush her, but she successfully avoids xer. Not to be deterred, xe knocks on her door morning and evening, and in the end slides short missives under her door. Reports of the state of things, gossip items. The general comes to see her once, and Nuawa turns Lussadh away too.

  She thinks of the stories of animals that know their time and flee to a place where they may die in solitude. It is not accurate, but she understands the sentiment that went into this myth.

  Major Guryin's little letters turn into a pile. She stops reading after the third or so. What Nuawa does is eat, to keep her body strong, and in idle times she would verify the sharpness of her sword, the readiness of her gun. Chamber fully loaded, trigger perfectly oiled. She becomes fascinated by the way light interacts with metal. In the short hours that she sleeps, that permeates her dreams. The material of guns, the material of bullets, and the illumination of lanterns or moon on both from this or that angle. This occupies her sleep more than even the Winter Queen.

  It is peculiar to move with half an arm gone—her balance is not what she is used to, a missing limb and a missing weight. But she does what she can to stay limber, pacing her sickroom and then the hallways of the palace wing. She is wary, at first, that Lussadh will try to do what Guryin did and lie in wait in hidden alcoves. The general does not. For this, Nuawa is thankful. She knows herself, the tensility of her wit and heart, and she knows Lussadh would disturb her equilibrium. Nuawa does not allow herself to ponder such things as last wishes, what is left behind, what is left incomplete; nor does she allow herself to contemplate what she stands to lose. It was always mirage, the things she has gathered to her after she executed her mother.

  The Heron's heart rests in a box at her bedside, enclosed in velvet and steel. Even through that she can see its light, palpitating like a heart under stress, a heart speeding toward annihilation. She muses on whether it contains his ghost too: The fabric of existence is stitched by souls.

  Eventually the queen calls for her.

  She meets the queen in what used to be the king's hall, with its high dais and its throne on which she and Lussadh fucked. The Winter Queen does not sit on that throne: instead she stands at the base. Despite the scale of this—the steep wide steps, the high petaled ceiling—she is not diminished; rather she seems greater than the mundane furniture, the mundane trappings of a mortal king and a dead dynasty. She's in full regalia, almost the same dress, Nuawa is certain, that she wore on the night Nuawa went into the kiln. The iron coronet, the armored robe, the crystals in her hair that forms out of her breath. The only piece not present is that wide blade that, Nuawa now knows, is more decorative than anything. The Winter Queen needs no weapons.

  She kneels before the queen, presents the box with her one good hand. "The Heron's heart, as you have required."

  Wordless, the queen takes it from her. The lid is lifted, and the velvet lining is discarded. She holds the heart, cradling it in her palm; contact with her skin makes it brighter still, gushing incandescence in lieu of blood that must have pumped through it many lifetimes ago. "Look at this," the queen murmurs, "the heart of my first retainer. More gorgeous than it ever was in flesh. I found him by a river, spearing fish, a child who knew nothing and who'd never seen the world beyond those banks. How we've all changed." The queen puts the heart into the folds of her robes. "In those days I would eat this to regain what he stole from me, but that's no longer necessary."

  She nudges the iron box on the floor aside with her foot. Then she holds out her hand. "Now," the queen says, "your reward."

  When the queen grips Nuawa, she strangles back every instinct to struggle free from a predator's grasp. White fingertips run across her brow, her cheeks, every point of contact like the tip of a frigid knife.

  Against the mosaic wall the queen kisses her, and her vision shifts. The world sheds its lining, its surface, revealing what burns beneath. Between Nuawa and the royal mouth, a phantom umbilicus stretches, hairline-thin and translucent. A song begins in her heart, drums and cicadas and bells, and her mouth overflows with sweetness. This time, painfully, there is arousal. To lie bare and ajar before the queen; in her this imperative rears and buckles like a rutting gold-eyed thing. The queen's skin is warm and pliant.

  She does not lose herself. She had the presence of mind to act while the Heron took hold of her; she has the presence of mind now. The queen's armor is ornamental, and there are openings in the front. She shoves the muzzle of her gun against the queen's breast, saying nothing, offering neither threats nor declarations. With her legs she clings to the queen, and with her hand she pulls the trigger.

  Had the queen been anyone else there would be guards in this room and she'd have instantly been riddled with bullets, but the Winter Queen has never seen the need for human soldiers to defend her.

  The queen crumples. There is blood, a vast amount, pooling under her and spreading out wider than her robes. Nuawa keeps firing: forehead, throat, heart again.

  A force lifts her off her feet and flings her into the wall. She tries to get a fourth shot off as ice grows over her limbs, in webs and inelegant chains, pinning her in place. Nuawa strains against them, yanking and kicking. She may as well strain against a mountain; she subsides. No point wasting her strength, even now; there may still be an opening—an opportunity—anything.

  The queen comes to her knees and clutches at the rupture in her chest. Her mouth is red, and she bares her teeth at Nuawa. "How quaint," she hisses, "that the Heron thought my old weakne
ss remains. He must've told you? Nor was he wrong, precisely."

  Where her heart or some analogous organ resides, the wound fills and closes. In less than a minute her flesh is paper-smooth, nearly as white. "He underestimated, my old servant, how much I have grown since his parting with me. And you have overestimated the strength of your mortality. You were able to make me bleed; you were able to turn me nearly human, for just a moment ... but you've changed too much inside, Lieutenant, your mortal essence has been diluted. My mirror transmutes its hosts, and you've been bearing it—activated—your entire life. And so, you could not contaminate me with vulnerable flesh, vulnerable blood. You never could have."

  Nuawa's breathing comes fast and her tongue seems suddenly too large for her mouth, but she does not let her gun go.

  "How long have you been plotting this, I wonder? All your life? When Lussadh came across you, ah, what a stroke of luck that must have been." The queen runs her hand down the lines of her robes, dismissing the blood. Red dollops fall to the floor, seeping into tiles, into the cracks between stone. The silk and armor return to immaculacy. "These months you must have watched for any weakness, clawed at every secret you can get your hand on, dreamed up a hundred scenarios and more. Along came the Heron. I'm surprised the two of you didn't negotiate, but then he was never the sort to work with anybody. No. It was always him, himself alone that must deliver the blow. And you, how did you picture this? Did you hope I would gaze into your eyes and see my demise, did you hope I would beg for my life? Were you anticipating being hailed as a hero, the one who changes it all and brings peace to these lands? Perhaps venerated as a living saint."

  "I am not," Nuawa says softly, "afraid to die."

  The queen laughs, a little wetly. "I suppose you are not."

  One strand of frost snakes around Nuawa's neck—she tenses—and pushes its way into her mouth. It is tender, at first, probing the way a lover's finger might. It wraps around her tongue, rubs against her teeth. Then it pours down her throat. She gags around the ice—her gun drops from slack fingers—as it sleets into her stomach, hooking into her intestines, her spine. Something is wrenched out and she briefly tastes the sourness of it, the slippery texture of insect shell.

  She coughs up blood as the parasite writhes before her eyes, glistening and suspended aloft. It has grown immense inside her, segmented and studded with more legs and cilia than she can count, its head helmed in nacreous carapace. Cobalt mandibles twitch uselessly as it thrashes against the grip of the queen.

  Whose smile grows wide, at Nuawa, at the creature. "So, you poisoned yourself. Was this meant for my general? Who can say. Certainly, it would not have worked against me. Either way, you won't be needing this." The queen clenches her fist.

  The parasite's shriek is strangely human, even though it could not possibly have the necessary vocal cords; it sounds, Nuawa realizes, mostly like her. It splatters on the tiles, heavy with her fluids. Lymph and saliva and stomach acids.

  Her thoughts are blank. There is no more last resort. "Kill me, then."

  The Winter Queen's head tilts, so far sideways that her neck cannot possibly support it. "Such a duty is beneath me. It falls to Lussadh to undertake it, the execution of a treasonous glass-bearer. That is the entire purpose for which I chose her. To lead, and to punish when it is required: my general, my sword. Do you have a preference, Nuawa? A bullet, a blade, or some other more esoteric means? There is starvation, there is drowning, there is quartering. I may even give special dispensation for a bonfire, for I understand it is the Sirapirat way to be cremated. Whatever the method you select, Lussadh will be the one to carry it out."

  Nuawa says nothing. She will die, one way or another. That has always been a conclusion foregone, a conclusion she's accepted since she was eight. Even if she'd succeeded it would have been the same.

  "Lussadh will do it," the queen goes on. "On my command, and because your crime is so great. Unforgivable both to me and to her. Yet being alive or dead is all the same to you." The queen puts a long, near-colorless finger to her own lips. "The real punishment is in my general's pain. Is that not so? The cold terror she will feel, watching you sink into the tides or standing there as you cook atop a pyre. The anguish that will grip her as she puts that bullet in your skull. Tell me, Nuawa, do you feel nothing for her after all? She has loved you so well, given you so much, honored you in every regard. Her passion runs deep, and it will wound her to put you down. For a long time, this grief will lodge in her like a knife. Is that all right, Nuawa? Can you bear leaving that behind, leaving her behind in such a condition?"

  Nuawa continues her silence. She turns her face away; she closes her eyes. But the queen lowers her and a hand cups her chin, forcing her forward. One thumb dips into her mouth and it is so frigid that she cries out.

  "I think," the queen says, "I already have my answer. But I want to hear it from you, aloud. Will it be so terrible, to stay alive, and to serve? I will keep Lussadh ignorant of your perfidy, and so will you. This way she can be spared all that trouble."

  "Kill me," Nuawa rasps.

  "Why would I?" The queen holds her head immobile. She is close enough to kiss Nuawa again. "Let it not be said that I have in myself no mercy. You shall strike where I point, act as I require. Not so different from what you've been doing. And my general you can still have, and you shall delight each other gloriously. So, what will it be, Nuawa?"

  * * *

  As a child Lussadh loved the desert sunset, the totality of it, the clear unobstructed line that consumes the horizon. A pure tableaux, an unblemished geometry. She stands on the balcony, tasting the wind and the conjunction of fire and sky that has made a red canvas of her city. Kemiraj has returned to its normal self, busy and loud with passage of trains. Incoming ones loaded with officials to replace casualties lost to the coup, outgoing ones loaded with stranded visitors and occidentals desperate to return home. The evening markets are opening, lanterns coming on like night-blooming roses. Strains of percussive music drift skyward, accompanied by kites advertising the wares and services of moneyed artisans. Pennants fly high, bearing the queen's insignia and face, her image reflected a hundred times over. Some more refined, some less so—there are portraits of her engraved on roofs that are almost garish in their competition to outdo others in vividity, bright and exaggerated.

  She doesn't greet Nuawa until her lieutenant is next to her, a silhouette made heavy with a dark flared coat. Nuawa holds her arms close to her, the amputated one hidden inside a long oxblood sleeve. "Are you displeased with me, General?"

  "No. What for?" Still Lussadh does not reach out: something tells her Nuawa will not wish to be touched yet.

  "That I didn't want to be seen and very rudely sent you away when you tried to visit." Nuawa's face is half-veiled by shadow, in profile. "I'm a fighter first and foremost. A duelist—or soldier—with one hand is a pathetic sight."

  "There's more to you than your prowess in combat."

  "Is there?" The lieutenant's smile is empty. "It has been my life. I am—I was—rather good at it, if I may be so arrogant. I'm not sure where else I could apply myself. I know a thing or two about horticulture but have never developed a talent. I am literate, but so are most people. I'm useless at any craft or trade. At best I might be a critic of the arts, and we know how useful those are."

  "You could be anything you want, Nuawa," Lussadh says gently. "To raise fierce animals, to make fine things. Or to continue as you are—one hand less will not unmake you, and I have at my command the best chiurgeons in winter. They can make for you a new limb, a perfect prosthesis. Whatever it takes, if you want it, you will have it."

  Nuawa touches her right shoulder. Her hand pulls away before it reaches the point where the elbow ends. "And I'm ambidextrous. Yet even that will take time, I understand; my body may reject the prosthesis. Anything could happen and while I try to make myself whole again—as whole as what's left of this can be—I will be of no use to you."

  "Wrong." Lussad
h does draw the lieutenant to her now, lightly, letting Nuawa know she can pull aside when she wishes. "You are more than your utility. You're far more important than what you can do with a gun."

  A short, abortive laugh. "Am I? To what am I so important?"

  "To—" Lussadh takes a breath. She remembers sharply the sensation of discovering her lieutenant in the snow. That moment, that frisson. "To me. You're important to me, more than I can possibly say. Nuawa, marry me."

  The lieutenant stiffens, turning to face Lussadh. "General?"

  "I'm asking for your hand. To be my wife." She could say, You make my blood sing, as few others have. But it seems a poor confession when those others, save the queen, are bone and dust. "It's sudden, I realize, and too soon. And this is not a question I've thought of putting before you until now, because I haven't thought in these terms for decades. Yet I want to ask it, because I know that if I didn't, I would curse myself for a coward for the rest of my days. Were you to say no, it will still have been worth the asking, for I'd have proven my courage."

  Nuawa stares at her, mouth opening then closing. When she laughs again, it sounds much less like the beginning of weeping. "I don't know what to say. I would never expect this of you. In fact, I never expected anyone to ... ask for my hand."

  "Take your time," Lussadh says quickly. "No matter your decision, I vow that you will have a place at my side, a place of honor and freedom to do and be as you please."

  "I don't think I will take any sort of time. My entire life I've always made my choices the way I draw my gun. Without hesitation. This is not where I thought I would be, and you're important to me. Inasmuch as I can say such a thing, and maybe that is how the heart makes its own exegesis. There is a barrier in all of us between the apparatus that thinks and the apparatus that feels." Nuawa shakes her head, blinking as if she is waking from a dream. "Please ask me again, General."