House of Rage and Sorrow

by Sangu Mandanna

  It’s years away from the glorious, thriving little city that the shield projects to the world, but it’s a beginning.

  I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing.

  A distraction arrives in the form of a brown myna bird. It swoops right through the window, wings brushing my face as it flies past me.

  I close the glass pane and turn. The myna drops something to the floor with a soft chink as it flies across the room.

  It’s a pair of hairpins. I pick them up. When I look up, the myna has become a woman.

  “A myna?” I ask Amba, teasing the hairpins into a more useful shape. “On Winter?”

  “The myna is my favorite form,” she replies, unconcerned. “Other than my true celestial one, of course.”

  “I thought that was your favorite,” I say, gesturing to the stern, beautiful woman in front of me.

  “This can’t fly,” she says. “It is a flaw that cannot be overlooked. Flying is like breathing to gods.”

  I glance out the window at a different unseasonal impossibility. “How is there a mango tree out there?”

  “I believe it was a gift from a local raksha girl. Sun or snow, it always bears fruit.”

  “Why did she give Alex a gift?”

  “She gave it to Bear. I suspect she may be in love with him. He, you will be unsurprised to hear, is oblivious.”

  As I gaze at the tree, bright and alive against gray stone and white snow, my heart aches. My brothers are putting down roots.

  “Well?” Amba says, pulling me out of my own head. “I didn’t bring you those hairpins for fashion’s sake. Are you going to pick that lock or not?”

  But before I can, footsteps echo down the hallway outside. Amba cloaks herself in the form of the myna again and flits out the window. I have just enough time to shove the hairpins under the pillow on the bed before I hear the unmistakable sound of the key in the lock. The door opens.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Titania

  Once Esmae and Max have gone, it’s time for Radha to get into her own ship and return to Wychstar to talk to her father. She and Sybilla stand awkwardly inside my control room, as if they have both forgotten how to say goodbye. Humans are very peculiar.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Sybilla asks. “You don’t have to ever speak to your father again if you don’t want to.”

  “He’s my father,” says Radha, as though that is somehow an explanation. He’s my father too, in a manner of speaking, but I have absolutely no emotional attachment to him whatsoever. “I can’t take back what I did to Rickard, but I can do my very best to help Esmae win her war against the boy who murdered my brother. Father would be a useful ally. He has soldiers, spies, and seventeen years of research on Alexi. It’s just a matter of persuading him.”

  Sybilla accepts this. Unbelievably, there is more awkward silence. I am tempted to remind them that they have short mortal lives. Is this really the best use of their time?

  “Why did you fail your test on the Empty Moon?” Radha finally asks Sybilla. “What were you so afraid of?”

  Sybilla looks like she would quite possibly prefer to die over answering that question. “If I could tell you that, I wouldn’t have failed.” She scuffs her boot against my floor. I really and truly wish I could eject her. “I’m sorry about what I said. I should never have called you a liability. I don’t know why I said it, I don’t think that about you. You’re braver than I am.”

  Radha laughs, surprised. “No, I’m not.”

  “You are. You looked at the thing you hate most about yourself. I couldn’t.”

  “I think you could,” Radha says. “I think you do. All the time. You’re not afraid of the things you hate. So what were you afraid of?”

  Sybilla shakes her head. “I can’t.”

  I can’t be certain, but I think Radha’s face falls a little. After a moment, she says, “I should go.”

  “Okay.” Sybilla is still scuffing that boot against my beautiful floor. “Good luck.”

  Silence.

  “You haven’t gone,” says Sybilla, looking up.

  Radha wrings her hands. “The thing is, this could go badly wrong. And if it does, if you don’t win, well, this may be the last time I ever see you. So I just want to do one thing before I go.”

  She leans forward quickly and presses her lips to Sybilla’s startled mouth. There’s a mere heartbeat of a pause and then Sybilla sinks into the kiss. It’s slow, sweet, and tender.

  Full of an unbearable longing, I wonder what these things would be like. Warm skin under my fingers, the touch of a mouth against my own, the sensation of luxuriously soft carpet against my bare feet, the rustle of silk, a hot bath, the taste of spices and sugar, the satisfaction of rolling my eyes when I am annoyed. All things I can never have.

  Unless.

  Radha gives Sybilla one last, shy smile and ducks out of the hatch at my rear. Sybilla stands frozen for an instant and then shouts “Wait!” and runs after her.

  Alone, I consider the sword strapped safely into my library of weapons. Lullaby, the sword that once belonged to Esmae’s father. The sword that, unbeknownst to her and perhaps even to him, is one of the Seven. The sunspear, the moonbow, the trishula, the seastaff, the chakra, the astra. And the starsword. It should be safe in the Temple of Ashma with the others and yet, somehow, it is here. I do not know how King Cassel got this sword. I don’t think any mortal who has seen it since has recognized it for what it is. There is a history here that I cannot yet trace.

  The strike of distinctive boots draws my attention away from the starsword and to Sybilla, who comes back into my control room with a slightly shocked look on her face.

  “Did she get in her ship and fly away?” I ask. “Or were you two too busy kissing to get to that?”

  Sybilla blushes red. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do that before. It’s very entertaining. “She’s gone,” she says. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

  “Why do humans bother kissing each other if you’re just going to turn shy afterward?”

  “I wish I had an answer for you,” says Sybilla. She opens her mouth to say something else, but then her eyes fix on one of my screens and the pink flush of her cheeks slowly drains out of her face. “Titania, look.”

  I consult the screen in question. It’s the one with a continuous feed of Sorsha in real time. She is not lying on the snow and grass outside the gates of Arcadia anymore. She’s on her powerful hind legs, head tossing from side to side, teeth snapping at anyone who comes too close.

  With a shocking suddenness, she pushes off the ground. I am at once awed and horrified by Sorsha’s impossible size as she spreads her wings to their full breadth. They knock two spaceships aside as though they were made out of paper. Panicked soldiers flee.

  Then, without so much as a backward glance, Sorsha flies into the open sky. As she goes, she uses one claw to lash out at the drone filming her. The screen goes dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Alexi comes in alone. “You’re awake,” he says.

  “So it would seem. Where am I?”

  “Arcadia.”

  I pretend to be taking this in. “Valin did this,” I say at last, as if I’m putting the pieces together. I let out a bitter laugh that’s not entirely faked. “Congratulations. You broke your promise to me, killed my best friend, duped me into almost getting myself killed on the Empty Moon, erased the cousin who betrayed you, tricked me into helping you release a great beast, and now I’m your prisoner. You got everything you wanted.”

  He shakes his head, more tired than anything else. “This was never what I wanted.”

  “So what now?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed. My hand mere inches away from the hairpins under the pillow. “Dramatic execution? A quick, private death?”

  “What about a truce instead?”

  I stare at him, profoundly mistrustful. “And what kind of truce would that be?”

  He doesn’t answer me straig
ht away. His throat moves as he swallows. He goes to the window and looks outside, as if searching for something, and his face softens. “I’ll give up my claim to the throne of Kali,” he says quietly.

  Too stunned to speak, I just goggle at him.

  “Elvar can have the throne,” he goes on, turning back to me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I don’t know my brother as well as I once thought I did. Yet his eyes, so wide and so sad, seem sincere. “Max can inherit after him. Bear and I will never make a move to take it back again. All we want in return is for the war and our exile to end. Arcadia will remain our home, but Kali will always be part of us. You know that. We just want to be able to see it again. Mother, too.”

  The frantic flutter of my heart feels a lot like panic. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Bear and I have talked about it. We could be happy here.” His face softens again, the same expression he wore when he looked out the window. “I love the snow. I love the yellow woods and the sun. We have borders with Winter, where we have friends.” He gestures around us. “We built this palace. We dreamed up everything Maya Sura created in his illusion and we can make every last bit of it real. We can make this city something special. Arcadia will never be Kali, but I think it could be enough.”

  “You’ve spent almost five years trying to take your crown back. Why change your mind now?”

  His voice is so soft, I almost don’t hear him. “Atonement.”

  “You’re a liar.” My temper rises. Atonement. No. He can’t. Not that. “This isn’t about atoning for what you’ve done. You know you crossed a line when you released Sorsha and you’re afraid of what everyone will think of you when they realize what you’ve really done. So you want to make your move before that happens. You want to be the hero who selflessly gave up his throne to end a terrible war before it could devour the world.”

  “That’s not what this is about,” he protests. “You think I imagine myself to be a hero, but I don’t.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I used to. I used to believe my talent and my honor made me better than everyone else. But I’m not that boy anymore. I’ve done so much wrong, Esmae,” he says, his voice cracking. “I just want to do something right. I’m not going to pretend I’ve stopped caring what people think of me, but I swear to you I don’t want this truce so I can be the hero who stopped this war. I just want to hate myself a little less.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?” I demand. “Your word is worth nothing, Alex. You’ve broken your promises before. Who’s to say you wouldn’t walk right into the palace on Kali and assassinate Elvar the moment he agreed to this truce and allowed you to set foot on his kingdom?”

  “I can’t make you believe me.” He rakes a hand through his hair, then says, “I don’t need your permission, Esmae. You don’t rule Kali. Our uncle does. He decides whether or not to end this war, not you. You have no real power.”

  I stop breathing. I want to tear his face off. I have worked for years to get what he was born to. I have spent my entire life fighting to get all the way across the Warlords board and become a queen. While he showed off in tournaments and shone bright in the sun, I had to claw my way out of the dark and earn every scrap of power I have. And in spite of all that, no matter what I do, there is always someone ready to remind me that I am just a pawn on the board.

  You have no real power.

  Alex seems to realize he has gone too far. The look of remorse on his face seems genuine, but I hate him too much to care. He takes a step toward me. “Esmae,” he says desperately, “There is no way you and I both survive this war. We have to stop before it’s too late. Please. We can’t let this be the way we end.”

  “What about Rama?” My voice sounds so cold and hollow. “How does his murder fit into your truce?”

  A flush burns its way across Alex’s face. He can’t look me in the eye as he says, “If there’s a truce, I would ask that there be no punishment for what happened to Rama.”

  I can see his mouth moving, but I can’t hear him anymore. I can only hear the scream inside my head.

  “Your atonement is a lie if you won’t atone for that,” I tell him.

  Then, my fist closing over one of the hairpins, I pounce. I catch him by surprise and my shoulder crashes into his chest, sending us both to the floor. I lash out with my closed fist and feel the crack against his jaw. I think it hurts my fist more than it hurts his face. We both scramble back to our feet.

  Alexi’s posture changes, his entire body realigning itself into a sharp line. I can see the warrior wake up. “Is this really what you want?”

  “You were the one who wanted a duel once,” I say. “Now we can find out which of us would have won.”

  There are no swords, but our fight is perhaps what our duel would have been. A step this way, a hand up to block a blow, an elbow to the face, a knee to the groin, duck, spin, hit, hit, hit until our fists bleed and our skin is mottled with bruises. And with each strike, each dodge, each thump of my frantic, furious heart, I see Rama dying, Rama twirling me in the ice forest, Rama sprawled across a sofa pretending to be asleep, Rama fading away into the stars. You have no real power.

  Alex is stronger than I am, but I’m faster than he is. He throws me against a wall and strikes, but I’m gone so fast his bloody fist hits only the stone. You have no real power. You have no real power. You have no real power. I snarl like the monster I am and drag my brother to the floor by his shirt. Before he can throw me off, I open my closed fist and press the sharp end of the hairpin to the fluttering vein in his throat.

  He goes still at once. We’re both breathing hard and fast, our knuckles bleeding, our hair sticky with sweat. My hand trembles, the hairpin thrumming against his skin. All it would take is a small push.

  And then we hear a woman’s sharp voice:

  “Stop!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Mother.”

  It slips between my teeth before I can stop it. Mother. The word weighs more than the universe to me, but it doesn’t move her. She’s cold and untouchable as she gazes steadily at me. I’ve looked into the eyes of wolves, garuda, demons, gods, and monsters, but none have judged me as mercilessly as she does.

  Almost eighteen years. That’s how long I’ve spent longing to see my mother, wanting answers even after I realized the truth of what she did to me, and now she’s here. And this is how she sees me. Ragged and bleeding, holding a hairpin to her son’s throat.

  I drop the hairpin and let Alex go. We both stand slowly. My heart races. Our mother stands in the doorway, silent, unmoving. She’s like a statue carved out of marble, with soft brown skin, sharp features, long hair knotted loosely on her head, and gray eyes fixed coldly on us both.

  “How alike you look,” she says, but it doesn’t sound like she means it as a compliment.

  “We,” Alex starts, “I. We.”

  “Go get yourself cleaned up,” she says to him.

  He shakes his head, a quick, sharp jerk. “I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

  That hits me deeper than any of the times his fist met my skin. Does he really think I would hurt our mother?

  “Do as you’re told, Alexi,” our mother replies. “I want to speak to my daughter alone.”

  My daughter. I shouldn’t seize hold of those words and turn them over and over, like a beautiful pebble that catches the light just so, but I do. My daughter. “I’ll behave,” I say, so desperate to be alone with her that I’ll say anything.

  Alex stays a moment longer, his jaw clenched as he stares at our mother. Then he walks out.

  I’m too shy to speak, so I just wait. I lift a hand to smooth down my loose, sweaty curls, then realize how absurd it is to worry about what my mother thinks of my hair.

  “Come,” my mother says after a moment. “Let’s go outside.”

  She walks out of the room without making sure I follow her, but of course I follow her. She leads me down the same hallways and stair
s that Max carried me up. We end up in the courtyard, with snow on the cobblestones and an impossible mango tree at the far end. The sun set a little while ago and the courtyard is cold, dark, and silent.

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t stopped you?” she asks me without looking at me.

  I want to lie, I want to not be the thing she’s been afraid of all my life, but I find myself telling her the truth. “I don’t know.”

  “You know about what happened to your father, I suppose?”

  This surprises me, but I nod. I wonder how she lives with the grief of knowing he had been alive for years only to be lost all over again. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” A polite reply to a polite gesture of sympathy. “I wanted to speak to you alone so I could ask a favor of you.” She turns now and the moonlight falls on her face, revealing something I always dreaded seeing. Fear. “Accept the truce Alexi offered you and end this war.”

  “You’re afraid of me.”

  “No, I am afraid of a curse I know I can’t escape.” She clasps her hands together. One of them gleams silver in the moonlight. “I am afraid my sons will die.”

  “One of your sons is a murderer,” I say sharply, “and he is so unwilling to make amends for it that one of the conditions of his truce was that there be no punishment for Rama’s death.”

  Her lips press together in a straight line, like she’s holding in something she dearly wants to say. “Then is that a no?”

  “Yes. He can present his offer to Elvar if he wants, but I won’t be part of it.”

  “What if I offer you something you want?”

  “What I want is to see Alexi punished for what he did.”

  “Perhaps there’s something you want more.” My mother considers me. “You know, you were born first.”

  “What?”

  “No one asked,” she says. “When the world found out about you, no one bothered to find out who came first. Everyone assumed it was Alexi. It wasn’t. It was you. You are seven minutes older than your brother. You are Cassel’s heir. So,” she goes on, with a shrug, “if you wish it, you could be Queen of Kali. Don’t accept the truce. Join us instead. We can take back the kingdom and put you on the throne.”