Thanh thinks of Captain Pharanea and of Eldris—Eldris, who loves Thanh but doesn’t have respect for either Thanh’s mother or her own. They won’t learn. They’re convinced of their own righteousness. They bring silver and guns and expect everything in return. But of course Ngân Kỳ won’t see this until it’s too late.
What would it take, to break free of their hold?
The thought chills her. For as long as she can remember, the Ephterian merchants have been around. There used to be priests, too, but Mother banned them after they financed a rebellion against her. But the merchants stayed: the silver and the guns they carried were too valuable to throw out. And where the merchants are the politicians follow.
Like Eldris.
She remembers Eldris’s hands on her skin and the feeling of satiation after they made love—that feeling of being seen, of being valued for who she is and not for what she can be bargained for. She remembers how good it felt, like an awakening.
It’s not Eldris who is the problem, but the problems have come with Eldris, and they can’t be untangled anymore. Ephteria is here to stay, and Thanh’s relationship with Eldris, and Pharanea’s blackmail, and Mother’s hostility to any other alternatives just make everything inextricably tangled, inextricably worse.
What she and Eldris have is an affair: the same thing she and Thanh had in Yosolis, the thing Thanh ended after six months because she knew Eldris would grow tired of her, the same way she grew tired of all her other lovers once the novelty faded. She can’t ask Eldris for help, because Eldris won’t stand up for her. Pharanea is right: she’d never stood up for any of her previous conquests, no matter her protestations of love. And . . . if she does ask Eldris to intervene and Eldris says no, what then?
She’s scared. So deeply, deeply scared of what will happen, of what it all means.
It’s like she walked into a trap with her eyes wide open and now she’s struggling at the bottom of a dark pit with the sky impossibly high, impossibly out of reach. If only she could grow wings. If only she could walk away from it all and still earn Mother’s regard, still have Eldris’s . . . affection or desire or whatever it is that they have, the thing that she still can’t name.
She misses Eldris so much.
She stares at the letter from Ngân Kỳ, her eyes catching again and again on the word “righteousness,” and abruptly it’s like some dam she’s never known was there breaks and she’s weeping in uncontrollable fits that wrack her whole body, heaving and heaving with the taste of salt in her mouth, and the sharpness of the tea she’s drunk this morning before coming to Mother’s audience—the unfairness of it all, the impossible tangle of the situation, the blackmail she can’t get out of, the relationship with Eldris that might not even be worth any of this, that might be nothing more than a fling—
A sound overhead. A clink of metal on wood, as if something were swinging in the breeze. A smell she can’t quite identify—and a warmth on her hand.
“Big sis.”
It’s Giang.
“I thought—” Thanh starts. Her mouth and nose feel clogged with salt water. “I thought you were gone.”
Giang shrugs. She’s translucent: a faint outline against the pillar, scattered gleams of firelight that barely suggest the shape of a woman. A thin thread of light ties her to one of the lanterns overhead, and the smell is burning wood, the last of the embers in the lantern consuming itself. “I left for a bit because I got scared. Too many people in your chambers. Too much noise.” A wistful, haunted look that breaks Thanh’s heart. “Humans are scary.”
Thanh tries to laugh, but everything is clogged with tears and snot. “That they are, yes. I’m sorry they frightened you.”
A shrug, from Giang. “It’s nothing. I’ll recover.” A pause, then, “Everything that burns in the palace calls to me, big sis. And you’re upset.”
“It’s nothing.” She can’t ask Giang to step in, not when Giang is herself running scared.
“Is it?” Giang’s voice is sharp. She’s wearing men’s clothes, a scholar’s tunic, and her hair is now done in the elaborate topknot of officials, the sash around her chest the color of washed-out celadon.
Thanh says, finally, “I don’t know what to do.”
Giang is silent for a while. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Is it the woman who came to your chambers?”
“You heard that? I thought you’d already left.”
“Not entirely.” Giang’s voice is hesitant. “I was . . . curious. But I couldn’t follow what you were saying.” She purses her lips. “Human diplomacy is so complicated. I just know she threatened you. I didn’t think it was that serious.”
Thanh hesitates. It’s clear that Giang doesn’t know anything, and clear, too, that she’s not playing any of the games the likes of Pharanea so love. Her power is raw fire—burning and charring—but she wields nothing else. Not even control over herself.
Oh, li’l sis. She wants to hug Giang, suddenly, but feels too ashamed and too self-conscious about it.
She could tell Giang the truth. She could admit it all—Giang might be a stranger, but she has no stakes here. She won’t judge. She won’t try to affect anything. Out of everyone around Thanh, she’s most likely to sit and listen, the way a supportive friend would. But she can’t say it out loud: the blackmail, her relationship with Eldris, everything she’s been keeping quiet. She just can’t take that risk. So instead she lies—smoothly, easily, with the same smile she brings to the negotiation table—“Pharanea tried to threaten me into doing her bidding and Mother found out.”
Giang kneels by Thanh’s side, her hand resting on the polished wooden floor, a hair’s breadth away from her. She smells warm and comforting, which is absurd because Thanh barely knows her.
But, in a way, she feels like she’s known Giang for a long, long time, ever since the night of the fire. “She was angry,” Giang says, finally. “Your mother.”
Thanh closes her eyes. She could lie further, but all that comes out is the bitter truth. “All I hear is her disapproval. She thinks I’m still a child. A bargaining chip who didn’t turn out the right way. A clumsy oaf who can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”
“She’d dismiss you?” Giang’s voice is quiet. “Remove you from the negotiations?”
Thanh closes her eyes. The insides of her eyelids feel wet with misery. “Oh, she already threatened that. And if she thought she’d gain any kind of advantage . . .” She laughs, bitterly. “She’d ship me off to Ngân Kỳ or Xứ Quỳnh Hoa tomorrow. I’m the spare. The one she doesn’t really need. She’s got Linh and Hoàng—my sisters—for everything that matters.”
A silence. Then Giang’s touch, a faint warmth on her cheeks—not the fire of her nightmares, not the smoke and choking air of the palace, but something trembling and vivid and breathless. “You matter.”
Thanh lifts her gaze, then. Giang is in front of her, not limned by light so much as made of it, a sketch of a human being, with those huge, luminous eyes trained on her. “Li’l sis,” Thanh says, and she’s not sure what she’s choking on.
Giang’s hand moves, to rest on her lips.
“Li’l sis,” Thanh says, again, and then Giang looks beyond her, startled; and vanishes into nothingness.
Thanh turns, and sees Eldris.
She’s walking towards her with that same brash confidence, as if she owned the gardens and everything within. Thanh pulls herself up, forcing herself to breathe. She still feels Giang’s warmth on her cheek, on her lips, and she doesn’t know anymore what she’s meant to think about Giang.
“Thanh,” Eldris says. She grabs Thanh’s shoulders, her sword in its scabbard swaying, bumping against Thanh’s legs. And, when Thanh doesn’t move, Eldris gently runs a hand through the sticky mess of Thanh’s hair, untangling hair and silver pins that fall to the floor. “My love. What’s wrong?”
Thanh finally says, “Mother.” Words have scattered in her mind.
“About us?”
Thanh
shakes her head. “No. About the negotiations.”
“Ah. Yes. She thinks you’re not doing your job properly.” A gentle sigh. “Thanh, whatever you do, she’ll never approve.”
“No. She—”
Eldris shakes her head. “You’re the thing she’s shaped. The puppet she made. Of course she’d never expect you to be other than what she wants in every one of your acts. She didn’t designate a head negotiator. She named her surrogate.”
You will run your letters through Long before sending them. And, of course, Long will bring them straight to Mother, querying for her approval in the least details.
“I can’t do miracles!” Thanh says, and she thinks of Pharanea, of blackmail, and of what will happen when Mother finds out about her and Eldris. “I can’t—” She says it slowly, in a barely audible exhale. “I just can’t do it at all.”
“Oh, Thanh.” Eldris gently pulls Thanh’s arms apart, and then pulls her upright—but Thanh can’t really, so she ends up leaning against one of the pillars of the pavilion, still shaking. “Of course you can.”
“You—you’re the opposite side! How are we supposed to do this at all, how are we supposed to keep this hidden? How are we supposed to see each other within the walls of a palace where every guard reports to my mother? How—”
“Thanh—”
“I told you. We can’t do this. We shouldn’t be doing this. It doesn’t matter how much I want it, how much I need it. We need to stop.”
Eldris’s face is still, as white as snow on stone. “How much you want it.”
Thanh kisses her—lips on lips, feeling the warmth of Eldris’s face—slowly at first, and then her tongue finds Eldris’s and she’s desperately trying to breathe in all of her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” The words in Eldris’s mouth are desperate and fast, as if she’s been hungering to say them for far too long. “Come with me, Thanh. Come home.”
“I told you. We can’t—”
“Can’t?” Eldris’s voice is sharp, almost wounding. “Marry me, Thanh.”
The word is like a gunshot. “You want me to—”
“Be my wife. Please. I’ll ask your mother, and that will bring it all out in the open. But you’re the one whose opinion matters. The only one.”
Her wife. That’s not possible. Thanh says the only words that come to mind. “That’s too much.”
“Too much? Oh, sweetheart.” Eldris holds her face close to hers, so that Thanh is staring into sea-blue eyes. “Do you truly value yourself so little?”
She’s always been . . . the younger child. The bargaining chip. The hostage. That someone, anyone, would see beyond that . . . “I don’t know.”
“Then let me know for you,” Eldris says. “Come to Yosolis and be my consort.” She kneels, then, holding Thanh’s hand as if to kiss it. “Do me the honor of being my wife.”
She wants to, so desperately. And yet . . . something warm and unexpected stirs within her, a remnant of fire as bright as Giang’s. She thinks of Pharanea and the ugliness in her face when she spoke of Thanh’s uncouthness, of the way she could be brought to learn proper manners. “Your advisers will see me only as a prize from a country you’ve conquered.”
A silence. She’s gone too far—she sees Eldris’s face go white, sees the way her hand wraps itself around the hilt of her sword. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“Fuck my advisers,” Eldris says. “They’ll have to understand that my wife’s home is untouchable.”
Untouchable. Pharanea, rendered toothless and powerless. It feels like a fairy-tale wish, the barbed and dangerous kind. She should be happy. She should be elated. And yet . . . “Eldris.”
“There are other countries,” Eldris says. “Xứ Quỳnh Hoa. Ngân Kỳ. Other outlets for our merchants.” She smiles, and it’s all edged teeth, and Thanh feels queasy without knowing why. “They can look elsewhere. Bình Hải will be safe. I promise.”
“Safe.” The word tastes alien and wrong, like something she’s never really known.
“Oh, Thanh. I’m sorry. I just cut you out from your own responsibilities, didn’t I? The negotiations. Of course I don’t want to leave you with nothing to do and no power. You can still be head negotiator. You can come with us to Ngân Kỳ and make them agree to our terms.”
“Head negotiator.” It all feels unreal. Like she’s been handed everything she needs, everything she’s ever wanted. Like a gift that will melt or grow barbs any moment.
Eldris still holds her hand. Thanh feels the warmth of her—sees herself reflected in Eldris’s eyes, a tall and beautiful princess, someone worth loving, worth fighting for. Worth ten thousand kisses and more. “Will you be my wife, Thanh?”
“Yes,” Thanh says—and, kneeling, kisses Eldris, hard and long, staring into her blue eyes until every little bit of disquiet, every objection and every fear, dissolves into a rush of happiness.
* * *
“So, how go the negotiations, child?” Mother moves her red elephant away from the river in the center of the chessboard to block Thanh’s black soldier.
They are playing their weekly game of chess, the one occasion when Thanh is alone with Mother for a perfectly plausible reason, without having to ask for a specific audience. Eldris—always rash and ready to rush into any fight—wanted to publicly propose to Thanh in the middle of the negotiations to force Mother’s hand. It took strenuous arguing from Thanh to change her mind, and even then she’s not altogether sure it was the right thing to do. It’s a better solution to ask privately—that she ask privately—but is it going to be enough to satisfy Mother?
She moves her black general back to the center of the palace, biting her lip. The board is a mess: Mother has lost pieces slowly and steadily, including one of her two advisers. Two of Thanh’s soldiers have crossed the river, but they’re hampered by Mother’s cannon. How much can Thanh admit to? “I bartered them down to one fortress instead of one in every trading post. We’re currently arguing location.” And Pharanea still hasn’t said anything: What is she up to? Not that it matters: once this game is over Pharanea’s hold on her will be a fraction of what it was. Not wholly gone: she’ll have to tread carefully in this interview, or Mother will take the pre-proposal liaison as a personal affront.
“Mmmm. What do they want?”
“Mouth of the Red River.”
“No,” Mother says, moving her cannon over a soldier to take one of Thanh’s chariots, which she lays by the side of the board. “That’s one of our two accesses to the Eastern Sea. Too strategic. What else?”
Thanh bites her lip, again. She moves one of her elephants away from the river, leaving Mother a wide opening. “I thought the Jade Mountains. It’s sparsely populated up there.”
“With vital goods,” Mother says, sharply.
Of course she’d never be happy. Thanh waits, in silence, for Mother to offer her solution: the only one she’ll deem acceptable. “They can have Bạch Điện.”
“It’s ruins,” Thanh says, shocked. The old Hương places, the ones conquered by Bình Hải an age ago—haunted by the ghosts of slaughtered princesses and dismembered priests.
“Which bring them quite a handy profit.”
“Only because there’s enough space there for them to build large warehouses, and because the Red River is friendly there.”
“Precisely. Don’t underestimate the value of an anchorage.”
“I don’t,” Thanh says, frustrated. Her hand hovers over a cannon—she hesitates, and moves a soldier instead, across the river that separates the board in half. A tactically unsound move, but her goal isn’t to win the game. “But anchorage isn’t what Pharanea wants.” Of course it’s not. Of course they both know it: that the fortresses they’re asking for aren’t really to protect their traders. They want to make inroads into Bình Hải itself. They want to be in a position to put more pressure on the country, and it’s Thanh’s job to find a place that gives them that impression while actually giving
them more power. “Jade Mountains gives them the impression they’re getting a stranglehold on our agarwood trade, but we can actually buy some from the Quỳnh.”
“We’re at war with the Quỳnh.” Mother’s voice is mild, but it has the strength of a full-on reprimand. “Did you already forget that? With your elder sister on the front lines, too.” She moves her remaining chariot behind of her cannon, presumably in preparation for the cannon to take one of Thanh’s pieces.
Linh is on the front lines of everything—the princess Thanh will never be.
Not if she stays here, in Mother’s stranglehold. She hears Eldris’s voice in her mind. Thanh, whatever you do, she’ll never approve. “Fine,” she says, finally. “I’ll offer them Bạch Điện.”
“Mmm.” Mother frowns at the board, and then up at Thanh. “Child?”
“Yes?”
“What are you up to?”
“I don’t understand,” Thanh says, heart madly beating in her chest. She knows. Of course she’d notice Thanh’s odd behavior.
Mother’s hand sweeps the board. “By this time of the game you’ve usually checkmated me twice or three times. And taken half my pieces. Instead, all you’ve been doing is moving the same pieces around the board, with a few added ones so I won’t notice what you’re doing.”
“Mother—”
“I didn’t get to be Empress of Bình Hải by having no brains. And no eyesight.” Mother’s voice is stern.
“I don’t see what you mean.” Thanh wasn’t expecting to have this conversation for another few turns at least—let Mother checkmate her once, let her feel a warm glow of happiness that things are going her way both in the game and outside of it. But it’s all going sideways.
“Out with it.” It’s an order, not a request, and there is no choice.
Thanh moves her general back to the center of the palace. Should she kneel? Something in her revolts at the thought. “I’ve said yes to a proposal.”
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