by Natasha Ngan
Myself.
For a long time, the General and I ride in silence. The carriage is luxuriously decorated, the bench adorned with perfumed cushions and silks, intricate carvings detailing the wooden walls. Scatters of light feel their way in through the shuttered windows. There’s a slight charge in the air, an electric quiver that, even with my limited experience of it, I recognize as magic. That must be what’s guiding the horses, what lends them their unnatural speed.
Another time and I would have been fascinated by it all—the mysticism of shaman work, the beauty of the carriage. But my vision is red-tinted, filtered through recent events, an unrelenting bombardment of one nightmarish image after another. Bao, speared through. Blood on my father’s brow. Tien’s scream when the General came for me. My home, our home, our lovely little shop-house shattered and broken, and farther from my reach with every sway and bump of the carriage.
And instead, drawing ever closer—the King’s palace.
A Paper Girl.
Me.
“Don’t look so sad, girl.”
General Yu’s rumbling voice makes me start. I press further against the side of the bench, but there’s no way to ignore the reek of him, the wet heat of his breath.
Is this what the King is like? The thought of touching—of being touched—by a demon like this sends a fresh wave of nausea into my throat.
“You have just been handed a fate girls across the kingdom can only dream of,” the General says. “Surely it would not pain you to smile?”
I swipe my tears away. “I dream of a different fate,” I reply with a sniff.
He laughs, smug. “What better life could a daughter of an herb-shop owner wish for?”
“Anything than being the concubine of the King.”
The words have barely left my lips when the General seizes my face with his brown-haired hand, pinching my cheeks so hard my jaw pops open. “You think you are special?” he growls. “That you’re above being a Paper Girl? You have no idea what the rest of the kingdom is like, foolish girl. All you country folk hiding here in your nowhere corner of your nowhere province, thinking only of your small, closed lives…” His nostrils flare, hot air hitting my face. “You think you are beyond the reach of the court. But you are wrong. The Demon King’s rule is all-powerful. You felt that power once seven years ago, and you feel it again today. How easy it was for me to take you from your home—like plucking a flower from a bed of weeds. Just as it happened with your whore of a mother.”
With a throaty rumble, he casts me aside. My cheekbone dashes into the wall. I can’t help but cry out, and I stuff my hand quickly over my mouth to smother it.
General Yu smirks. “That’s it, girl. From what I hear, the King enjoys it when his whores scream.”
Glowering, I sit back up, rubbing my cheek. “You know what happened to my mother,” I say through gritted teeth. “What those soldiers did to our village.”
“I might have heard something,” he replies with a shrug. “But I can’t be sure. Those kinds of things all merge into one another.”
My hands bunch into fists. “They destroyed our village. My family.”
The General’s voice is cool. “You’d best forget you ever had a family, girl. Because you won’t be coming back.”
“Yes, I will,” I whisper as he turns away, and the words feel like a promise on my lips.
A new thought comes to me then, so brittle I’m scared to let it take hold: Did Mama make a similar promise, too, once? Seven years ago, did she travel this same route that I’m on now, whispering a wish for the wind to carry to the kinder gods? Burumi perhaps, God of Lost Lovers? Or sweet, patient Ling-yi with her wings and blind eyes, Goddess of Impossible Dreams? Mama always held the gods closer than Baba and me. They might have listened to her. And if, and if…
I always imagined the soldiers would have taken Mama and the other women they captured to the royal palace—the very place General Yu his soldiers are bringing me.
I gaze out the window through glazed eyes, a warm kernel of hope working through me. Because as much as I don’t want to leave my home, this might be my chance to finally find out the truth about my mother.
And, just maybe, find her.
The horses ride on for hours, showing no sign of slowing. We sweep through the Xienzo countryside, a green-brown blur of fields and low mountains, flowering meadowland, and forests. I’ve never been this far from my village—not even more than a few hours’ walk home—but the scenery is recognizable so far, similar to the landscape around our village.
Until, suddenly, it isn’t.
We’re looping past a patch of scorched land. The horses keep their distance, but we ride close enough to smell ash in the air. The charred area is vast, a wound on the earth. Stumps of what must have once been buildings poke from the ground like broken teeth. Scarlet flags snap in the wind, stamped in obsidian with the silhouette of a bull skull.
The King’s symbol.
It takes me a few moments to recognize the ruins for what they are. “This… this was a village,” I murmur. I lick my lips, then say louder “What happened?”
“A rebel group was found hiding in the village,” The General answers in a flat, impassionate voice. “It was burned, along with every keeda in it.”
Keeda: worm. It’s an old insult for Paper castes. I’ve heard the word just once before, from a wolf-form demon who had come to our village by accident, half dead and delirious from an infected wound. He’d spat the word like a stone from his mouth, and it had felt sharp to me even then, when I didn’t understand what it meant.
The wolf had refused to let our doctor near him. Some of the men found his body on the road that winds from our village a few days later.
“Are there other places like this?” I ask.
The General cuts me a smirk. “Of course. We’re taking the scenic route. Just for you.”
I turn away from the window, my stomach knotted. Our village is so isolated that I’ve never given much thought to what the King’s rule has done to the rest of Ikhara. To my fellow Paper castes. But here is the evidence before me, in ugly brushstrokes of destruction and scarred earth.
We ride on into the falling night. Somehow, despite everything, tiredness eventually overtakes me. Rocked by the steady sway of the carriage, I drift off into an uneasy sleep. The next thing I know, I am opening my eyes to stillness and lantern-lit dark.
General Yu is gone.
I sit up so quickly I bang my head on the side of the carriage. Rubbing my temple, I perch on the edge of the bench, breathing hard and listening harder. There’s activity outside. Beyond the carriage comes the muffled noise of footsteps and shouted orders, the thud of boxes being dropped. And there’s something else, underneath it all. It takes me a few moments more to recognize the sound for what it is.
Water. The rhythmic slap of waves.
I’ve never been to the sea before. I take a deep inhale and taste salt in the wind.
Salt, sea. With those two words comes another one.
Escape.
Blowing the mussed hair from my eyes, I spring up and scramble to the front of the carriage. Light spills across my face as I loosen one corner of the fabric covering to look out. We’re on a backstreet of what seems to be a seaside town. The road is lined with two-tiered buildings with roof-covered porches, paper lanterns hanging from the eaves. Someone has tethered our horses to a wooden column at the base of one of the houses. With the covering open, the noises of the town are louder, and the hairs on my arms prickle. The General and his soldiers could return any minute.
Before I lose my nerve, I suck in a deep breath and launch out of the carriage.
I land heavily, knees buckling. The drop was bigger than I’d expected. It startles the two horses still tethered to the carriage, and they rear up on their hind legs, whinnying and kicking out. Rolling out from under their hooves, I clamber to my feet.
And run.
The packed earth of the road is hard under my ba
re soles, but I bite down the discomfort. I run fast. Everything around me is a blur of nighttime hues, the disorienting newness of an unfamiliar place. Colored lights glaze the edges of my vision. Faces turn as I pass—human skin, demon eyes.
A crazy image comes to me of what I must look like to them, my clothes scuffed, feet bare. I let out a mad laugh, knowing what Tien would say—Aiyah, look at you! What a mess!—choking off as I come to the end of the street.
Doubling over, I gulp down air. I spin left. Right. Neither looks much different, so I swerve left, away from the sound of water. Swimming would be impossible, but maybe I can find somewhere to hide in the town, some stable-horse to steal. I can lead the General and his soldiers away from my home. Get word to Baba and Tien. We’ll be able to be together again once this is all over.
The General will give up on me, and it will be safe for me to go home.
I dash down one unfamiliar street after another. There are shouts now, cries at my back. I drive myself faster. Panting, my calves screaming for respite, I reach the end of the street. Just as I turn the corner, I risk a glance over my shoulder.
And barrel straight into someone.
The impact makes my teeth jam down on my tongue. We crash to the ground in a tangle of limbs. All the air rushes out of me as I land painfully on my back. I roll over, groaning. Spitting out a wad of blood, I dig my hands into the earth, trying to push myself to my feet. But before I can stand back up, a scaled arm loops round my neck.
“Stupid girl,” a serpentine voice taunts. “You run on my watch?” The point of a dagger presses against my throat. “I’m going to make you pay for that.”
Sith.
The lizard soldier drags me back down the street, ignoring my screams and thrashing. People are watching from the shadows of porches and walkways. I shout at them for help. But they shrink back, silent. They must have noticed Sith’s uniform, the King’s crest stitched on his shirt.
When we get back to the carriage, Sith tosses me inside. I skid across the paneled floor. There’s the click of clawed feet as he climbs in after me, and I start to push myself to my knees, but a second later his foot crushes down on the small of my back. My jawbone cracks on the floor. I cry out, more in surprise than pain, and he digs his heels in harder, grinding my hips against the wood.
He leans over me. Turning his ugly, scaled face to the side, he fixes me with a cold stare. His glassy eyes are reptilian, a vertical strip of black slicing through the blue-gray. There’s a streak of pink as his tongue darts out to taste my skin.
He spits. “Disgusting. The stink of the herb shop is all over you.” His leer rolls down my body, slow, creeping. “Perhaps you need a good licking to clean it off.”
Panic flares inside me like a firecracker: bright and burning, a sudden flare.
“You—you wouldn’t,” I stammer. “I’m a Paper Girl—”
“So you’ll admit it now?” Sith laughs, cutting me off. “Well, you know exactly what is expected of you, then. Better start practicing.”
He runs a hand along my shoulder and tugs my shirt back. Rough fingers brush down my arm, sending a wave of nausea into my throat. I squirm away, buck my hips, trying to throw him off. But my struggling barely moves him.
So I scream.
Sith clamps a hand over my mouth. “Quiet!” he hisses. “Not a sound, or—”
“Get off her.”
The command is delivered quietly yet firm as a fist. At once, Sith lurches off me. General Yu stands framed in the doorway, one hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his belt.
Sith points at me. “The girl tried to escape, General,” he starts, and I’m glad to see a tremor in his outstretched finger. “She’s fast, but I caught her and brought her straight back. I was just—just keeping her here until your return.”
“Liar!” I snarl.
The General regards us in silence, his face impassive. “The boat is ready to set sail,” he says, turning. “Follow me.”
I sense Sith relax. “Yes, General.”
“But, Sith?” The General pauses, continuing over his shoulder, “If I ever catch you touching the girl inappropriately again, it will be your job to explain to the King how you soiled one of his concubines. Do you understand?”
Sith flinches. “Yes, General.”
This time when he grabs me, Sith takes care to keep to where my shoulders are covered. But he marches me forward with the same aggression and shoots me a sideways look, slatted eyes narrowed in disgust.
I scowl openly back, but I don’t struggle. His grip is tight, and ahead of us the General’s fist is still around the hilt of his sword, reminding me how easily he would be able to turn it against me.
We follow General Yu in the opposite direction to which I ran, out to the oceanfront. There’s a port, busy even at this hour. Lights glint from the wooden gantries, rippling the water with color. A wide, star-speckled sky stretches out to an invisible horizon. Despite everything that’s going on, my eyes go wide at the sight.
I’ve always dreamed about seeing the sea.
Behind us, restaurants and hookah cafés line the street, the night filled with raucous laughter, the jeers and yells of an argument bursting into life. Wherever we are, it doesn’t seem like a rich town. There are only a few demon figures amid the crowds and all of them are Steel. Outside one of the shops, a salt-stained banner snaps in the wind. I make out the faded pattern of two rearing canines back-to-back painted in sweeping brushstrokes across the fabric—the famous dog clan of Noei, the Black Jackals.
I do a double take. “Noei?” Louder, I call ahead to General Yu, “We’re in Noei?”
He doesn’t turn, but his head tilts, which I take as a yes.
My mouth goes dry. Noei is the province to the east of Xienzo. We’ve traveled farther than I hoped.
As the General leads us to the far side of the port, we pass young ship hands dressed in grubby sarongs and fishermen deftly picking squid from clouds of tangled nets. We come to a stop at a large boat moored at the end of a dock. A crowd of cream, fin-shaped sails, unfurled, flutter in the wind.
The tiger soldier is waiting at the top of the gangplank. “The captain is ready to set sail, General,” he says with a tuck of his chin.
“Good. Sith—take the girl to her room.”
“Yes, General.”
“And remember what I said.”
As soon as he turns away, Sith scowls. He lowers his mouth close to my cheek, and I stare ahead with my lips pressed, holding down a shiver as his words unspool silkily in my ear. “You’re welcome to try to escape again, pretty girl, but this time it will be the sea’s arms waiting to catch you. And I think you’ll find them an even crueler embrace than mine.”
FOUR
NO ONE TELLS ME HOW LONG we’ll be sailing. I watch for differences in the ocean, scan the horizon for signs of land, any opportunity for escape. But after three days, the rolling slate-blue of the sea still looks identical. And besides, most of the time I’m crouched with my head over a bucket, watching another kind of liquid slop back and forth. I’m so seasick I barely have the energy to worry about what will happen when we arrive at our destination. Resignation is beginning to settle in my bones like a poison, black and slow.
There’s no going back now. I’m ready for whatever is coming my way, I tell myself, so many times that I wonder who I’m trying to convince.
Two times a day the General sends a ship hand to bring me food. After I throw up the steamed taro dumplings he serves me one night, the boy sneaks back with a second helping. He’s a Moon caste fox-form, probably just a couple of years younger than me. Maybe it’s because of his age, or how he can barely look me in the eye, but for whatever reason it’s the first time I haven’t been completely intimidated by a Moon demon. Over the days I’ve come to appreciate the lovely umber hue of his fur. How there’s something beautiful about the way his jaw is molded, a hard curve tapering to a sharp chin.
“Wait,” I say now as he hurries to leave. I
don’t dare touch the bamboo basket, even though the smell of the dumplings inside makes my mouth water.
The fox-boy stops in the doorway. The white tip of his tail flicks.
“It’s just… they’ll notice,” I continue. “That some food is missing.”
He hesitates. Then he says jerkily, “It’s my portion.”
This simple act, the kindness of it, surprises me so much—especially coming from a Moon caste, willowy vulpine haunches showing beneath his worker’s sarong—that I just blurt straight out, “Why?”
Looking over his shoulder, he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “Why what?”
“Why help me? I’m… I’m Paper.”
The fox-boy turns back to the door. “So?” he answers. “You need the help more than anyone.”
I blink, glad that he’s gone before he can see how much his comment has stung. I consider not eating the dumplings out of principle—who needs pity dumplings, anyway? But I’m too weary to hold out for long. Still, his words stay with me. It makes me recall something Mama once told me, when I’d come back from a trip with my father to a neighboring town to collect a batch of rare herbs.
“A fat man threw his banana skin at us!” I told her when we arrived home, indignant, my eyes puffy from crying.
My mother had shared a look with my father before crouching down in front of me, hands cupping my wet cheeks. “Oh, darling,” she said, before asking me calmly, “Do you know why?”
I sniffed, my little fists bunched. “He told us we shouldn’t be in the same shop as Steels or Moons.”
“He was a demon?”
I pouted. “A fat, ugly dog one.”
Behind me, Baba snorted—falling quiet quickly at the look my mother gave him.
“Would you like to know a secret?” she said, pulling me closer and tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ears. “A secret so secret not even those who know it are always aware?”
I nodded.
Mama smiled. “Well, despite what they look like, all demons have the same blood as us. Yes, even fat, ugly dog ones. If the gods gave birth to us, why should we be any different? We are all the same really, little one. Deep down. So don’t you worry about what the silly man said.”