Girls of Paper and Fire

by Natasha Ngan

  Chenna-zhi

  The calligraphy ink is red, like a splatter of blood.

  Relief clangs through me, so strongly I instinctively brace as if it were audible. But all the girls are looking at Chenna. Even Wren. Her eyes are lit with something unexpected and sharp, though not at all like the jealousy or relief playing in the other girls’ gazes. It’s more… steely. Challenging, almost.

  Chenna herself doesn’t react. Or at least, not visibly. Her expression is calm, her posture straight-backed, the image of perfect Paper Girl. She keeps her eyes trained on the chip.

  “Congratulations, Chenna,” Madam Himura croaks into the quiet. She glares pointedly around at us.

  “Congratulations, Chenna,” Wren echoes smoothly.

  “Y-yes, congratulations,” Aoki stammers with a faltering smile.

  The rest of us follow suit until it’s only Blue left. Her mouth is set, but she manages a quick curve of her lips. “Yes, well done, Chenna.” Then she taps her empty bowl and snaps, “Well? Is lunch going to come anytime soon?” earning a scolding from Madam Himura that she seems almost grateful to receive.

  The rest of the meal passes in near silence. There’s a stiffness to the girls’ interactions, everyone’s eyes frequently sliding back to Chenna, and even I find myself watching her, trying to see through her serene exterior. But she keeps her face calm, a glaze over her eyes as she focuses on her food, eating slowly but steadily.

  “Chenna,” Madam Himura orders when it’s time for us to leave for our afternoon lessons. “You stay with me.”

  And that’s when I see it. For the first time since her name was revealed on the bamboo chip: a tremor runs through her hands.

  She turns her cheek as we file out of the room, making a strange, fleeting gesture with her fingertips across her brow that perhaps could be something religious—or could also just be her brushing aside a stray hair—before one of the maids closes the door behind us.

  Even though I can sense they want to discuss what just happened, the girls manage to keep from talking as we trail down the corridor. But as soon as we turn the corner, Blue speaks up. “That was a surprise.”

  A few of the girls make noncommittal murmurs. Though I hate to admit it, I can tell most of the girls agree with her. Still, I bristle at the way she puts it.

  “I wonder what his reasoning was,” Mariko says with a purse of her lips. She shifts, hips jutting to one side. “Chenna is beautiful enough, I suppose. And her family is somewhat prestigious. At least for Jana.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Zhen, one of the twins, offers. “He wanted to connect with a part of his heritage.”

  Blue scowls at her. “What part? Desert slum?”

  “I just mean,” Zhen continues, though her cheeks are pink now, “that Jana is where the original Bull King was from—”

  “And is now where half the rebel nomads are hiding,” Blue interrupts. “Or at least according to the rumors. I doubt that’s something the King wants to align himself with.”

  Zhen lifts a shoulder. “Maybe he’s trying to send a message to them, then.”

  “Or maybe,” her sister, Zhin, speaks up, with a cool glance at Blue, “politics has nothing to do with it. He could just be picking the girl he was most attracted to.”

  “I agree,” I reply. “Chenna is beautiful, and she seems smart, and interesting. No wonder the King liked her.”

  The twins nod, smiling at me, and I see Wren look my way, something curious in her warm brown irises. Beside me, Aoki is silent.

  Blue and Mariko swap smug looks. But if they want to throw an insult my way, they manage to refrain. “Anyway,” Blue says, in a crisp tone that makes it clear we are done with this discussion, “the first few choices are just based on his initial impressions of us. I’m more interested to see who he continues to pick.” Her eyes slide to me. “And who he doesn’t choose at all.”

  TWELVE

  I’M STILL BLURRY FROM SLEEP WHEN I’m woken the next morning by the slide of doors. There’s the patter of bare feet in the hall outside, then muffled voices, excitement barely constrained by whispers. With a yawn, I untangle from my sheets and pad out blearily into the corridor, arms folded across my waist.

  “What was he like?”

  “Did he tell you any secrets about the court?”

  “One of the maids told me his bedchamber is covered completely in moonstones and opals—is it true?”

  Chenna’s room is at the opposite end of the hall, and though I can’t see her past the backs of Zhen, Zhin, Mariko, and Aoki crowding in her doorway, I assume she’s somewhere inside. Sure enough, her voice floats out a second later.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I roll my neck as I amble over, easing out the crick from sleeping. Wren’s door is shut, and so is Blue’s, but as I step in front of her room, there’s a movement behind the rice-paper screen and I notice the very Blue-shaped shadow bunched at the edge of the door. I push down the urge to call her out, instead turning to where the other girls are clustered in the doorway across the hall. Zhen and Zhin greet me as I join them, but Aoki and Mariko don’t look away from Chenna.

  “Just a few details,” Mariko presses, leaning in, the shoulder of her robe slinking down her arm. She flips it back up distractedly. “We’ll find out for ourselves soon enough.”

  “Exactly.” Chenna’s face is tight, a slight flush of color darkening the apples of her cheeks. But apart from that, she looks just as she did the day before—unruffled. The picture of composure. “So you don’t have long to wait.”

  Mariko pouts at this, but the twins nod.

  “We’re sorry,” Zhin says. “You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to.”

  “But if you do need to talk,” Zhen adds, “we’re here.”

  With a kind smile, the twins return to their rooms with their arms linked, heads close. As Mariko huffs and moves away, I slip in beside Aoki. She blinks, barely registering me.

  “Oh! Hi, Lei.” Her eyes click back to Chenna. “Well, thanks anyway…” she mumbles before heading off.

  “Lei,” Chenna greets me unsmilingly. “I suppose you have a hundred questions, too?”

  “Actually, just one.” I drop my voice. “How do you feel? I hope… I hope you’re all right.”

  Chenna blinks at me. She smiles, though it’s stiff. “I’m just fine. Thank you for asking.”

  Her eyes glide past my shoulder as the door behind me opens. I brace myself for the cutting remark that’s surely about to come, but instead Blue’s voice floats out calmly and politely.

  “Good morning, Chenna. Nine.”

  I lift a brow, glancing round to see Blue slink down the corridor, her long azure hair swishing.

  “Wow,” Chenna says once she’s gone. “She’s really annoyed.”

  I give her a wry smile. “She was so sure she was going to be picked first.”

  A frown puckers Chenna’s forehead. “You know, I thought so, too, what with her father’s position in the court. But when I asked the King why he chose me, he said it was because of some dream he had the night before. He’d been in Jana, flying over the southern deserts. He thought it was a sign from the heavenly rulers that they wanted him to select me.”

  “Maybe I can bribe a shaman to keep his dreams out of Xienzo,” I murmur.

  As she goes to shut the door, Chenna adds, eyes not quite meeting mine, “Or all of Ikhara, for that matter.”

  As the days sift past, my life dissolves into a blur of routine and ritual. It surprises me how quickly I fall into the palace’s rhythms, the shape of my world before coming here erased as though by water on ink and replaced with a new life of lessons and gossip, banquets and ceremonies, rules and rituals. I don’t forget about wanting to find out what happened to my mother, but I’m so busy I don’t get the chance. I also know that kind of thing won’t go unnoticed, and General Yu’s threat is still fresh in my mind.

  You are going to try, and you are going to succeed! Or
else your family—what pitiful part that’s left of it—will be punished. Make no mistake, keeda. Their blood will be here. Do you understand me?

  On your hands.

  Any time I have the urge to give up or defy Madam Himura’s orders, the General’s cool voice slinks back into my ears, and I know the only option is to keep going.

  At least, for now.

  Each day as a Paper Girl begins with the morning gong. The maids will have woken earlier to ready the braziers and bathing barrels and light incense, their smoky-sweet scent always in the air. Lill takes me to the bathing courtyard to wash before dressing me in simple cotton robes, my hair swept into a tight bun on the top of my head. Once we’re ready, we have breakfast—usually rice balls, pickled vegetables and salted fish, and delicate cuts of fresh fruit: peaches, papaya, honey apple, winter melon—before heading to our first lesson of the day.

  After my embarrassing performance at the Unveiling Ceremony, most of the teachers don’t seem to expect much of me. One of them especially takes an instant dislike to me. Mistress Tunga is a broad-hipped woman with wide-set eyes who leads our lessons in movement, covering everything from how to walk elegantly to the proper way to kneel in robes. She often singles me out as an example of how not to do things. She’ll have me pace the length of the room in front of the other girls, a practice block held between my knees, while she points out every mistake. “No, no, walk taller, Lei-zhi! Remember what I said last week? Imagine a thread running from the base of your feet to the top of your head. Now, lean back just so and let your hips jut out the tiniest amount.… Not like that! You look as though you’re about to keel over from too much sake. After what happened at the Unveiling Ceremony, that’s the last thing you want others to think of you. All right, settle down, girls! Sniggering isn’t becoming.”

  Just as bad are our dance classes. They’re taught by Madam Chu, a dignified old swan-form demon, the pearly feathers flowing over her slender body tinged with gray. She flits around us, feathers rustling as she sets us into place. This isn’t dancing the way I saw it done back home, all abandon and laughter and loose limbs. This is a kind of clockwork, technical thing. Every flute of a wrist, every curve and bend of a limb is measured—or not, as it often applies to me.

  After our morning classes we return to Paper House for lunch, either with Mistress Eira or Madam Himura, to update them on our progress. If the King desires the company of one of the girls, this is usually when we’re notified, and that girl is taken away for preparations. For the rest of us, it’s back for more lessons until sunset. By then I’m desperate for sleep, but our nights are just as busy. There are banquets with court officials, trips to plays and dance recitals, ceremonies to attend.

  By the time we finally return to our rooms, it’s often past midnight. Despite our tiredness, Aoki and I usually stay up for a while, sipping tea and snacking on pineapple tarts Lill sneaks us from the kitchens. In these stolen moments, all the stress of our lessons, of being away from our families and having to adjust to this new way of life, melts away, and I go to sleep afterward with a smile on my lips and warmth in my chest that feels a lot like happiness.

  And yet.

  As the days go by without my name appearing on the bamboo chip, an uncomfortable notion starts to grow inside me: that it never will. And while part of me, most of me, is relieved, there is also shame, and the bright, cruel sear of failure.

  Even though Aoki still hasn’t been chosen, either, it’s me Madam Himura scolds. Every day she reminds me what a disappointment I am. “You’d better find a way to show him those heavens-blessed eyes of yours soon, before I throw you out like the waste of space you’ve so far proven to be.”

  Once, I dream of the Unveiling Ceremony. But when I stagger out of the enchanted pool, it’s General Yu who gazes down at me from the King’s throne, a half smile twisting his face.

  “Look what you’ve done.” He holds up his arms. From his hands, my father’s and Tien’s severed heads hang, blood dripping to the floor. “Catch,” he calls, and throws them to me.

  I wake up, a scream dying on my lips.

  There’s nothing more I’d like to do than try to escape. To go back home. But every time I consider it, the General’s threat comes back to me, along with the sound of the guard’s club coming down onto the servant woman’s head on the bridge outside Royal Court. And I remember that if I fail, I might not even have a home to return to.

  After a month at the palace, I’ve barely improved in any of our lessons. When my attempt at the fan dance Madam Chu is teaching us ends with my fan flinging from my grip after I shake it too vigorously and hitting her between the eyes—which unfortunately she couldn’t see the funny side of—she keeps me behind after class.

  “But lunch—” I start hopelessly.

  She flutters a winged arm. “Don’t you have a banquet tonight? You can miss one little meal.” Then, raising her voice, she calls, “You too, Wren-zhi.”

  Wren pauses in the doorway, the other girls filing out past her. “Madam Chu?” she asks, turning.

  “Practice with Lei-zhi. Maybe she’ll pick something up from you.” Then the swan-woman strides out the door, her feathers ruffling.

  “Well,” I say into the silence. “At least we’ve got a Blue-free hour.”

  Wren doesn’t laugh, but when she approaches me, her expression is a little softer than usual. “So, what are you having trouble with?”

  “Um… all of it?”

  She arches a brow. “Helpful.”

  I sigh. “I don’t know. It’s just so… precise. I can’t control my body the way you can.”

  “That’s what it looks like when I dance?” she says, a wrinkle creasing the tip of her nose. “Controlled?” I’m surprised—there’s hurt in her voice.

  “No!” I say quickly. “That’s the point. You’re in control, but it’s like you’re not. Natural, that’s what I mean. It seems so natural to you.”

  It’s true. I’ve watched Wren in our classes, and though she excels in all our lessons, dancing is where she comes alive. There’s an effortlessness about the way she moves that reminds me of the bird-form demons I used to watch flying over the mountains beyond our village. She is graceful. Free. When she dances, she loses her usual haughty, absent look, something gentle taking over her features—and sending a warm new sensation through me that I can’t quite place.

  Wren collects a fan from the cabinet at the side of the room and flicks it open. “All right. Let’s start with something simple.” Her posture loosens, a slight bend in the knees, a tilt to her hips. Closing her eyes, she holds both arms to one side. She pauses here, and her stillness is as purposeful as movement. A shaft of muffled light filters in through the rice-paper walls of the rehearsal room, casting her outline in an amber glow, and my eyes trace the high arches of her cheekbones, limned in gold. As graceful as all the times I’ve watched her before, she draws the fan across her chest, rippling it like a wave.

  Then she opens her eyes. “Your turn.”

  “That’s simple?” I grumble as she hands the fan to me, our fingers brushing.

  “Just try it.” But I’ve barely gotten into position when Wren stops me. “Not like that. You’re too forceful with your movements. You have to move more lightly. See?” Her eyes travel over my body. “Even the way you’re standing is wrong.”

  A ripple of irritation runs through me. “I didn’t realize standing was on the list of Paper Girl requirements,” I retort. “I thought the King was more interested in the lying-down kind of activities.”

  Her lips purse. “You don’t need to say it like that.”

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it? What’s the point of all this, all these stupid lessons? There’s only one thing we’re really here to do.”

  And I haven’t even been wanted for that.

  The thought squirms into my head before I can stop it.

  “You have to think about the future,” Wren says, frowning at me. “After this year, you’ll still have
some role to play in the court. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be?”

  “Not a dancer, that’s for sure.”

  That earns a half smile from her. “Come on. At least try. You might be better at it than you know if you just focus. And you’ll never get better if you don’t give yourself a chance.”

  I open my mouth to argue but catch myself. Because she’s right. I haven’t been giving it my all. Even though I’ve fallen into the routine of palace life, my heart isn’t in it.

  How can it be? It’s still back in Xienzo, with my father and Tien, and a life I wish every day was still mine.

  “Oh, fine,” I mutter, glowering. Tears are pricking my eyes now, and the last thing I want is to cry in front of Wren. Gritting my teeth, I give the movement she demonstrated a few more tries while she hovers nearby, providing pointers. I try to concentrate on the wave of my wrist, the tilt of my hips, but I can’t seem to get it right, I grow more frustrated with every minute. Without warning, Wren moves in close. Her fingers curl round my arm to pull it into position, and the intimacy of her touch, her nearness, flusters me, and I drop the fan.

  “Focus!” she snaps.

  I clench my jaw. “I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  I shrug her away from me. “Well, maybe I don’t want to perform well. Maybe I don’t want any of this.”

  “And you think I do?” Underneath her usual stern tone there’s something delicate, almost broken. Her chin lifts, rich brown eyes regarding me. “None of us had a choice in this. But we do it for our families, because otherwise the King will—”

  She stops abruptly. The end of her sentence hangs in the air between us.