by Claire Luana
“Stop!” Azura said, stepping forward. “Perhaps we should hear from both parties before we make any judgments. To hear the truth of their stories with our own ears. Are we so uncivilized that we would come to blows so quickly?”
The two monarchs were silent, loathe to be seen agreeing on something. Finally, King Ozora assented. “A wise idea,” he said.
“Agreed,” the queen said grudgingly, motioning for her guards to sheath their swords and fetch Takeo from the dungeon.
Airi told her story first, while they were waiting for Takeo to arrive. She sobbed in all the right places, describing the horror of Takeo’s advance, his fury when she rebuffed him, the pain of the vase smashing into her head. Azura’s rage roared within her as her sister recited her tale. How could Airi do this? True, they hadn’t always gotten along, but Azura had thought of Airi’s jealousy as petty and childish—something she would grow out. Azura had never imagined that it would grow into something so deadly.
Takeo was led into the room in heavy sets of shackles, flanked by two moonburners holding spears. It was a purposeful display, and by the tightening of the king’s jaw, the effect was not lost on him.
“He’s not a murderer,” the king muttered.
“That we know of,” the queen said.
Then it was Takeo’s turn. His blonde curly hair was messy, and his normally open face was tight and pinched.
“I was sleeping,” he said. “Airi made her way into my room somehow…” his brown eyes flicked to Azura, full of pleading. “I thought…I was dreaming. When I realized I was not, I pushed her off of me and got out of bed. She bashed herself in the head with a vase and started screaming that I raped her.”
“Preposterous,” Queen Isia said. “My daughter could never do such a thing.”
Azura had to admit, the story did sound farfetched. She knew Airi was capable of such a fit of madness, but did anyone else? She tried to catch his eye again, to communicate silently that she believed him.
Isia continued. “The man must be punished for his crimes. The punishment is death.”
“I will not stand by and let you kill my captain,” King Ozora said, his voice low and threatening. “Not even under the guise of justice. To do so would mean war.”
“To allow a blatant attack, on my daughter in my own palace, to go unpunished, would mean war.”
Azura ground her teeth in frustration. Though she knew the truth, she couldn’t suggest that her mother just trust Takeo’s version of events. Even if Airi hadn’t threatened to reveal her and Takeo’s illicit relationship, what type of precedent would that set in a future case? What victim would ever come forward if that was all the protection the crown would give her?
“Perhaps,” Azura broke in again, “before declaring war, we should speak to others in the citadel who might have seen Airi or Takeo before this happened? Who might be able to support Airi or Takeo’s story? Perhaps someone will be able to shed light onto the truth of what happened.”
Airi glared at Azura.
Ozora seemed mollified. “It is a good suggestion, Azura. Queen Isia, would you agree to have the staff and guards interviewed? We would want to sit in, of course.”
“Fine,” the queen spat. “But this isn’t over.”
CHAPTER 12
Takeo
The look of misery on Azura’s face had been almost too much to take. After returning to the supposed scene of the crime to retell his story, Takeo had been brought to a holding cell in the citadel dungeons. He had never felt so impotent. He couldn’t explain what happened without revealing his and Azura’s relationship, and he would rather be executed than besmirch her honor in the eyes of her mother and his king. But now they were trapped by their deceit. Airi had placed her snare perfectly.
A commotion sounded down the hallway, and he stood up, peering through the bars of his cell.
“Horses are not allowed in the dungeons!” a shrill voice cried.
“He’s not a horse,” a calm voice responded. “He is a seishen. Would the gods be pleased knowing you treated one of their divine representatives no better than a common barnyard animal?”
He heard some grumbling. The guard must have stepped aside, because Bako galloped down the hallway, his head practically hitting the ceiling.
Takeo’s heart twisted as he stuck his hand through the bars of his cell to stroke Bako’s soft nose.
Azura walked up beside Bako, leaning against his shoulder. She still wore her robe and slippers. Her silver hair was messy, curling around her face.
“What happened?” she finally asked, meeting his eyes. Hers were brimming with tears.
“She slipped into my room somehow,” he said. “I was asleep. I thought…I thought she was you. Of course I stopped as soon as I realized something was off. You have to believe me, I would never force myself on any woman.”
“I believe you,” she said. “Airi basically admitted to me that she lied.”
“What?” he said, his hands forming fists. “Can’t you tell your mother?”
“Tell her what?” Azura laughed harshly. “That you wouldn’t force yourself on Airi because you’ve been with me? You don’t know her like I do. She distrusts men. It would only hurt your case.”
“So it’s my word against Airi’s? Your mother against the king? Miina and Kita go to war over your sister’s jealousy? I won’t allow it,” he said. “I’d rather let them execute me.”
“I wouldn’t rather!” she said. “I can’t…I can’t live without you. You’re my sun. Thinking of losing you steals the breath from my chest. I feel like I’m suffocating.” Her tears began to flow freely. “There has to be a better way.”
“What other way?” he said, his words gentle. “I want to be with you too. But it was always impossible. Even before…”
“We will find a way,” she said, her bottom lip quivering.
Her sorrow broke him. He could feel his heart collapsing in on itself. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her they would find a way. But that would be a lie. There was no way out of this.
“Princess,” the guard said from the stairway, clearing her throat.
Azura hastily wiped her eyes and turned. “Yes?”
The guard took a step forward, and then faltered. “I’m sorry, but we have new orders from your mother. The prisoner is allowed no visitors.”
“And what reason did my mother give for such an order?”
“I receive the orders, Princess Azura. I don’t question them.”
Azura blew a lock of hair out of her face in frustration. She turned back to Takeo and for a moment her anguish flashed back across her face, before her carefully schooled mask of serenity slid back into place. “Don’t despair,” she said quietly. “We will find a way out of this.”
Takeo nodded, afraid that his voice might waver if he spoke.
She turned on her heel and he watched her go, her silver hair flashing behind her.
The guard stood for a moment, looking warily at him, before retreating back up the stairs.
Takeo sat down in the corner of the cell, wedged between one wall and the bars. Bako laid down next to him on the outside. Takeo stroked Bako’s warm shoulder, drawing comfort from his seishen’s presence.
Takeo’s emotions roiled within him, crashing in waves of frustration, sorrow, anger, and helplessness. He was furious at Airi for jeopardizing the peace accord with her childish jealousy, for coming between him and Azura, for landing him in this cell. But if he was honest, he was more furious with himself for not seeing Airi for the threat she was.
“I was such an idiot!” he exclaimed, half to Bako, half to himself.
“Not going to argue with that,” Bako said.
Takeo ran his hands through his tangled hair. “I can normally see three steps ahead of anyone around me. But this caught me blind! How did I not see what was Airi was up to?”
“Because you were only looking at Azura,” Bako said softly.
“You should have said something,” Takeo said.
“Would you have listened?” Bako asked.
Takeo considered that. “Probably not. I don’t know what I could have done differently,” he finally admitted. “Well, I wouldn’t have kissed Airi,” he added.
“Either time,” Bako said.
Takeo groaned, knocking his head against the bars.
“I have to make it right,” he said. “No matter what happens to me, I can’t let Azura be harmed, and I can’t let the peace be undone because of me. She deserves to be happy, to live a good life. So do our people.”
Takeo’s mind whirred, considering plan after plan, turning each option over to examine it from all angles. Escape? No, his cell seemed sturdy, and surely the ensuing manhunt would damage relations between Kita and Miina even further. Trial by combat? No, he wouldn’t kill an innocent moonburner. Convincing Airi to admit her false accusation? Not sure how he would do that, even if he wasn’t stuck in solitary confinement. There was one other idea that flittered in the background, rising to the surface, though he kept forcing it back down. He really didn’t want that to be the way. But slowly, certainty settled over him.
There was only one way to protect everyone. The queen would get the justice she called for, and the king would have no choice but to go along with it. Azura would be safe, her honor intact. No longer distracted by thoughts of him, she could move on with her life, maybe marry and have a family.
A calmness washed over him, and he felt strangely at peace. He knew what he had to do.
He had to confess.
CHAPTER 13
Azura
Azura fled up the stairs from the dungeon, her face hidden in her hands as she flew passed the moonburner guards.
She stopped outside the building, leaning against the wall to collect herself. She was shaking and tears leaked down her face despite her desperate attempts to stem them. She could not, she would not, let Takeo be tried and executed. It was madness!
“What are we going to do?” she asked Lyra, who had stayed silently by her side, flanking her through the whole nightmarish day. “We can’t let them kill him.” Even saying the word sent her into a tailspin of emotions, fresh tears streaming.
“We will figure something out,” Lyra said. Though her seishen had warned her against Takeo in the beginning, Lyra had soon recognized that Azura’s love for the man was true, and had become a steadfast ally. “They can’t just kill him,” Lyra continued. “There has to be a trial, right? We know Takeo is innocent, so won’t the evidence show that?”
“Yes,” Azura said. “But if my mother is the judge, she will find him guilty, no matter what the evidence shows.”
“And then King Ozora would be furious,” Lyra said. “Maybe furious enough to abandon any peace talks.”
“If hostilities between Kita and Miina resume, thousands could die. We can’t let that happen,” Azura said. “There has to be a way to fix this.”
“Maybe…” Lyra said. “Maybe there is some sort of loophole. So he can’t stand trial, or if he did, they couldn’t execute him. Some treaty or law? If your mother didn’t have a choice…”
“She’d be forced to let him go,” Azura said, growing excited. “Lyra, you’re a genius. Let’s go see Master Vita.”
The library was silent and still; it appeared that this corner of the citadel had managed to avoid the previous hours’ excitement. Azura and Lyra ran through the library towards the back, where Master Vita’s little room was located. The door was closed.
She pounded on it. “Master Vita,” she cried. “Please wake up. We need your help.”
The door jerked open and Master Vita stood blinking sleep from his eyes, his spectacles clasped in his hand. His torso was bare and his graying hair stuck out at wild angles.
“What’s all this commotion?” he said. He took in her disheveled form and tear-streaked face. “What’s wrong?”
Azura blushed and stepped back. “Please, I need your help. It’s a matter of life or death.”
“Is someone ill?” he asked with alarm. “Dying?”
“No, but someone will be if you don’t help me.”
He sighed, motioning her out into the library. “Tell me everything.”
Master Vita retrieved a shirt and put the kettle on for tea. He sat Azura and Lyra down at one of the big tables, and Azura poured out her story, sharing everything that had happened over the last few hours.
“We can’t let him be tried and executed,” Azura finished, her voice twisted with anguish. “He’s innocent.”
The tea kettle boiled and Master Vita rose, retrieving it and pouring the hot water into two cups before them.
“Azura,” he said gently after he sat back down. “Are you sure…you can trust him? We don’t know much about these sunburners. Is it possible that he did attack Airi?”
“No,” she said vehemently. “It’s a lie. You should have seen her face. She practically admitted it!”
“I don’t doubt that Airi would be capable of such a thing,” he said. “But…we don’t know much about this man’s character.”
“I know everything about his character I need to know,” Azura said, her emotions roiling within her. He needed to believe her. She needed his help. “I…love him,” she finally admitted. “And he loves me. I know he would never do this to Airi because he loves me.”
“Oh Azura,” he said, shaking his head. “You may think you love him and he loves you…but you are very young.”
“I am old enough to know when something’s real,” she said, standing up in a rush, knocking her chair out from under her. “And if you won’t help us, I will do it myself!” She stormed away from the table.
“Wait.” A command came from behind her. Azura stopped in her tracks, turning back. It was Lyra. She had jumped on the table.
“Master Vita,” Lyra said. “Perhaps a man can be false, but a seishen cannot. A seishen is no more capable of falsehood than the summer is capable of pretending to be winter. It is what it is. And Takeo’s seishen and I have seen what is. Their love…it is real. As much as I want to scold Azura for getting lost in a childish flight of fancy…I cannot.”
Azura crossed her arms over her chest. Childish flight of fancy?
Master Vita took off his spectacles and pulled out a little white cloth, wiping them down. “Come sit down,” he said to Azura. “We’ll think of something.”
Azura and Master Vita worked tirelessly all day. Master Vita instructed her on what books to retrieve and she fetched them, bringing him old treaties, legal tomes, histories, religious texts. He sent her to change her clothes and wash up, and to gather provisions for them from the kitchen.
Finally, after hours of painstaking work, their efforts paid off. They found something.
CHAPTER 14
Azura
Azura entered the throne room, where the hearing of the evidence was to take place, with an ancient scroll clutched in her hand like a lifeline. Master Vita walked by her side to the front of the room where the crowd was gathering.
The atmosphere in the room felt heavy and stiff. The queen sat like a statue on the tall throne, wearing a shimmering navy blue dress embroidered with pale ivory thread. On one side of the room stood Airi, tiny but fierce, her eyes glistening with a hatred that still surprised Azura, despite the venom of her sister’s words the prior day.
A few minutes passed before Takeo entered the throne room, Bako at his side. Takeo’s hair was tangled and his clothes were rumpled, but he looked calm, almost peaceful. Azura wanted to wrap her arms around him and to soak his serenity into herself. Perhaps he truly didn’t feel the crippling fear that coiled through her own limbs at the thought of what today could mean.
On the other side of the room stood Ozora, Ipan, their seishens, and the two other sunburners who had made the trip with them. Azura avoided making eye contact with the king. She didn’t have it in her to play the pliant princess today. It was all she could do to hold together her ragged nerves.
Queen Isia called the hearing to
order and her words washed over Azura. Her haughty pronouncement about justice. Her statement that the witness interviews had been “inconclusive.” Had her mother always been so cold?
And then came Airi’s recital of Takeo’s supposedly vicious attack once more. Azura stared at the floor in front of her as her sister spoke, tracing the thin gray grains in the marble with her eyes as they swooped and swirled. She didn’t trust her expression not to betray her.
When her mother called on Takeo to give his testimony, Azura dragged her eyes up to look at the man she loved. Her mother was leaning forward expectantly, looking at Takeo. “Your testimony?” Queen Isia asked, eyebrow raised.
Takeo cleared his throat. “I will not retell my testimony. I admit my guilt.”
It was as if the floor shifted beneath Azura, suddenly falling away. Master Vita caught her arm and gripped it tightly, steadying her. Admit his guilt?
“What?” Ozora exploded. “You aren’t guilty!”
Airi’s jaw had dropped in shock. Even Isia was sitting back in surprise.
Takeo looked at Ozora with pleading in his eyes. “I am guilty,” he said more firmly. “Of what the princess accuses me of.”
“Bullshit,” Ozora said.
“I don’t know what sort of hero play you are making here,” Ozora continued, “but I don’t believe it. If you’re really guilty, I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say that you forced yourself on that girl. Because I don’t think you can.”
Takeo looked at Ozora with exasperation. “Is that really necessary?” he looked to the queen.
“No,” she said, standing. “He has confessed, so this matter is closed. I sentence this man to death.”
At the word death, Takeo closed his eyes. Suddenly, Azura understood his strangely calm demeanor. He had planned this. He had known when he entered this room that he was walking to his death.