Girls of Paper and Fire

by Natasha Ngan

  “Until she gives the King a male heir,” Wren replies, “she’s pretty much insignificant.”

  A thread of pity runs under her words.

  “You don’t think she will?”

  “I’m not sure she can. There are rumors about the King’s… ability.” She shoots me a sideways look. “No one would dare speak it here, but apparently some of the clans have given him a nickname. The Empty King.”

  It takes me a moment to understand. His fertility. Or rather, lack of it. A hazy memory returns of that first lunch in Mistress Eira’s suites when Chenna asked whether the Demon Queen had produced any children for the King. Blue and Mariko had looked aghast. They must have heard the rumors before they arrived at the palace and couldn’t believe Chenna would approach the subject so boldly.

  Suddenly the King’s anger makes even more sense. Not just anger—desperation. Because what is a King without an heir?

  A warm, feather-light feeling rises in my belly.

  Because what could Ikhara be without a Demon King?

  Just then, the crowd falls silent as the King rises to his feet. He marches forward, his gold-plated hoof-fall punctuating the tense hush, a more controlled swagger in his gait than the last time I saw him. His gaze roams slowly over the crowd. I catch a glimpse of his arctic-blue eyes, the ugly smile on his handsome face.

  “My loyal subjects, my fellow demons and humans.” Magically amplified, his voice booms out, echoing off the walls. “It brings me no joy to stand before you today. Executions are ugly events—almost as ugly as the crimes from which they are born. As such, I could tell you that it would be better to close your eyes now. To turn away when the points of the blades pierce the black hearts of these criminals before us.” The King rolls his shoulders back, chin tilting, voice gaining strength. “But that is the coward’s way! Instead, we must watch. We must observe. To remind us of everything that has been built under the blessed rule of the Demon King. A rule that I share with each and every one of you. Because it is only together, demons and humans, good citizens of all eight provinces, working alongside one another in peace and alliance with all in their rightful place, that we can keep our kingdom strong!”

  While the crowd cheers at this, I grind my jaw. With all in their rightful place. I know exactly where he believes Paper castes’ place to be.

  “When an attack like the one masterminded by these anarchists occurs,” the King continues, shouting to be heard over the noise, “it is an affront to our unity. To the world we have built so tirelessly over these past two centuries, with our blood and sweat and tears and hope. And we must come together in that very unity to bring down those who try to destroy us.” He clasps two fists, raises them to the sky. “Today we demonstrate that ours is a power that cannot be broken!”

  The noise of the crowd mounts, almost violent, a deep, wild roar. Wren and I don’t join in, but I spot Aoki’s shining face at the front of the viewing platform, her fists raised in the air with the others.

  It hits me like a punch to the gut.

  When the crowd has finally calmed down, the King strides up to the assassins. He bends down to face them. “You failed,” he says simply.

  They don’t react. But just as he’s about to turn away, the assassin who was giving the wolf trouble earlier pulls on his binds, neck arced upward, and spits in the King’s face.

  The crowd bellows. I brace myself, expecting the King to shout or strike the man. But his expression is composed. Calmly, he wipes his face with the back of one sleeve and smooths down his robes. Then he settles back onto the throne, his face cold.

  His voice colder. “Executioners, prepare your weapons.”

  The crocodile, fox, and wolf soldiers pick up their swords, the crowd’s braying growing louder. Each jian is long and thin with a jeweled hilt. The blades glint silver in the lowering light as the soldiers step behind the assassins to clear the view for the King. It’s almost dusk. As the sun dips beyond the palace walls, braziers around the stage burst suddenly into light, illuminating the scene in an eerie parallel of the attack on the theater.

  Wind whips the flames sideways. I taste smoke in the air.

  Shaking, I clutch Wren’s hand tighter.

  The soldiers draw back their swords—

  The King raises his hand—

  “Strike!”

  I shut my eyes, but it’s too late. The image of the blades disappearing into the men’s torsos is there, a searing stain on the back of my eyelids. When I finally dare to look again, the assassins are slumped over, swords lanced through their chests.

  Along with wearing black, the King sent out the order that we are not to make the sky gods salute to bless the assassins’ souls as they rise to the Heavenly Kingdom. But the crowd is packed tight, so Wren and I make the sign with our free hands—her left, my right—our thumbs crossing together, palms turned out.

  All around comes cheering and shouting. But though the King is talking, I don’t hear a word. I can’t tear my eyes away from the assassins, the jian sticking up from their backs like three broken spines and blood blooming across their clothes, winding down to paint the floor with ribbons of deep scarlet. The way they’ve collapsed is reminiscent of fallen dolls, discarded by their petulant owner.

  Wren’s heartbeat throbs against my palm, keeping time as anger rises within me. Hotter and fiercer than fear, stronger and surer than anything I’ve ever felt before, and as we stand hand in hand amidst the scream and bray of the crowd, there is no doubt when I promise myself that I will not give the King the chance to discard us.

  One day, we will be the ones discarding him.

  I go to Wren’s room late that night, the house wrapped in postmidnight hush. She’s awake when I come in, sitting up like she’s been expecting me. She opens her arms and we lie under the blankets, limbs entwined, but it’s not enough to stop the trembling, the wildness that’s been rattling through me ever since the execution.

  Wren is the one to break the silence. Her breath tickling my hair, she fans her hands across my shoulder blades and says, “I heard something about the assassins.”

  “What?” I murmur, face pressed into her neck.

  “They were allied with the court. There are rumors that Steel and Moon officials were involved, too, and guards.”

  The news buoys me. “Why didn’t the King say anything?”

  “Because it would betray his weakness. It would be admitting he’s vulnerable within his own palace. That there are those who defy him even in his own court.”

  “There are,” I say, fingers threading with hers as I lift my face to kiss her. “Us.”

  The shadows are deep when I leave Wren’s room. I head to the bathing courtyard to splash some water on my face—the memory of blood and gleaming blades still clings to my skin like dirt. But at the entrance to the courtyard, I stop.

  A girl is sitting on the steps.

  Moonlight catches on slender shoulders, the sheen of long, straight hair. The girl is hunched over, crying. It’s barely audible, but I’d recognize the stifled sound of it anywhere. What I don’t believe at first is who is doing the crying.

  I pad forward tentatively. “Blue?”

  She jerks at my voice, clambering to her feet at once. “Go away, Nine,” she hisses. Her usual scathing tone is dampened by tears. Her eyes are swollen, red-rimmed, but she doesn’t wipe her tears away, as if ignoring them would make them disappear.

  Gods. She’s so obstinate she’ll even defy herself.

  “No,” I say.

  She looks as though I’d struck her.

  “I know you hate me,” I go on, standing my ground. “And I’m not really that keen on you, either. But you’re hurting. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. No one should.”

  “I’m not alone,” she sneers.

  My eyes sweep the empty courtyard. “Sorry. Didn’t realize you could see ghosts.” Then I say, more gently, “Look, I’m sure Mariko would—”

  “I don’t want her seeing me lik
e this,” Blue blurts out, blinking rapidly as tears keep coursing down her cheeks.

  “There’s no shame in being upset,” I tell her, and take a step closer. “What’s wrong? Was it the execution?”

  She turns away. Shakes her head. “The attack.”

  “At the theater?”

  She nods jerkily.

  “Is your father all right? Did something happen?”

  A laugh spurts from her lips. The sound snaps through the quiet, a bitter bark that sends tingles down the backs of my arms. “Oh, he’s fine. Not that he checked if I was. Not that he cares.”

  “I’m sure he cares, Blue. He’s your father—”

  Her voice pitches. “All that means is I’m a pawn to use in his game! He only cares about rising through the ranks of the court. Giving me to the King was just a step to secure his promotion.” She lets out another mad laugh. “I’m the only one of us with parents in the palace, and they haven’t visited me once.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, reaching for her shoulder. But she shrugs my hand away.

  “I don’t need your pity, Nine!”

  “It’s not pity,” I retort, my face hot. “It’s understanding.” I scrunch my hands. “Gods, why are you like this all the time? You’re so adamant to put yourself apart from the rest of us when we’re all going through exactly the same thing. The rest of us are trying to look after one another, but you keep trying to divide us.”

  Blue’s top lip peels back. “We’re not going through the same thing. It’s nothing similar.”

  “Are you or are you not stuck here, forced to serve a man you don’t care about?”

  “You don’t get it at all,” she says in such a low hiss I barely catch it.

  “What don’t I get?”

  “The difference is you aren’t expected to like it.” She clamps her lips together, jerking her head stiffly to one side. “I have a family here, a father who is important in the court. I can’t go around refusing the King or speaking out against being a Paper Girl. And I keep thinking, maybe now I’ve been chosen, maybe now my father is one step closer to his promotion, he’ll finally be happy with me.” Her voice cracks. “I’ve done everything he asked. Been the perfect daughter. But from the way my parents act, most of the time you wouldn’t even know they have one.”

  “Oh, Blue,” I breathe. But she backs away, her wet cheeks shining in the moonlight.

  “If you dare—if you tell anyone about this…”

  “I won’t,” I promise, and I mean it.

  But she pushes past me as though I were the one threatening her, leaving me alone with the eerie hush of the empty barrels and the rustle of wind through the swaying bamboo.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ON THE OUTSIDE, LIFE IN THE PALACE returns to normal in the weeks after the executions, the only main change for us being that we aren’t allowed beyond Paper House without an escort of at least one guard. With the arrival of winter, the air grows icy, the wind hard and biting. Colors drain from the gardens like calligraphy paints being washed away. Since the executions, an air of unease has hung over the palace, and it seems a premonition somehow, all this gray and whiteness. A reminder that more death is to come. But while I continue to go dutifully with the other girls to classes and dinners, just as I had been doing all these months before, on the inside, everything is different.

  With the increased security within the palace, everyone in Women’s Court has been advised against leaving their rooms after nightfall. Even better, the King hasn’t called for any of us in over a month, too busy with his hunt for the assassins’ supporters and rumors of a dark new project that I suspect is just code for too much liquor. And as the days become shorter and the nights longer, this all gives Wren and me the cover we need to love each other in the dark.

  As often as we can, we sink into the immediacy of our bodies moving together—our lips, fingertips, the hungry press of our thighs. Over the nights I learn how to lick the curving slopes of her skin, the way it makes her shudder when I run my tongue down the ridge of her spine. And even though I soon get used to Wren’s body, I never lose any of the enjoyment. The wonder.

  With every kiss, the pleasure is instant—a flood of heat, a fiery rush.

  With every kiss, it consumes us.

  In our first qi arts lesson, Master Tekoa told us that mastering control of our internal energy is about understanding the concept of “nowhere.” Two words hidden inside the one: now and here. When we practice qi arts, he said, what we’re really trying to do is to ground ourselves into the here and now. That being truly in the present means to disappear.

  But with Wren it’s the very opposite. Instead of disappearing, she makes me feel reappeared. Reimagined. Her touch shapes me, draws out the boldness that had been hiding in my core. Where the King’s touch closed me, shut me down, Wren’s opens me up. When I’m with her, every part of me is weightless and free, a soaring rush igniting my veins with desire as bright as sunlight.

  Her kisses heal the parts of me that the King broke. They tell me: You are strong, Lei. You are beautiful. You are mine. And, always, most important: You are yours.

  Because these kisses, these stolen nights with Wren, are the only thing I’ve had control of since coming to the palace, and it gives me satisfaction to know there are some things even the King does not have the power to stop. It builds my confidence that one day we’ll be able to rebel with more than just our bodies and our love. That we will find a way to turn our growing hope and bravery into action.

  Desire cannot be tamed, the King told me that night in his chambers. Well, he’s got one thing right.

  We might be Paper Girls, easily torn and written upon. The very title we’re given suggests that we are blank, waiting to be filled. But what the Demon King and his court do not understand is that paper is flammable.

  And there is a fire catching among us.

  A month and a half after the executions, the King finally begins to summon us again.

  Blue is first. After that night in the bathing courtyard, I can’t help but feel sorry for her, knowing what I know about her now. But any pity I have is tempered by my relief at neither Wren nor me being called. These last few weeks have been a refuge, the two of us safe in the sanctuary of each other’s arms, the spherical world of our small, secret geography. I always knew it was just an illusion of safety, a temporary reprieve. But I wasn’t prepared for the fresh shot of fear at the moment the illusion is broken.

  After that, the names click by, each bamboo chip delivered by royal messenger a countdown to the inevitable.

  Chenna-zhi

  Zhen-zhi

  Aoki-zhi

  Mariko-zhi

  Zhin-zhi

  Wren-zhi

  As is custom, Wren has to stay behind after her name is announced for the preparations. We’re in Mistress Eira’s suite. Winter sunshine streams in through the open doors to her garden, glancing off the half empty plates and bowls on the table. I meet Wren’s eyes, struggling to keep my expression level. While the world is bright around her, she has her back to the doorway, so her face is shadowed. The corners of her lips lift the tiniest fraction, more a grimace than a smile, and I get the strange idea that she’s apologizing for something. Then she turns aside as Mistress Eira asks the rest of us to leave.

  Numb, I get to my feet.

  Someone nudges my shoulder. “Come on,” Aoki says. “We have to go.”

  I’ve been staring. “Sure. Yes, sorry.” With one last hopeful look to Wren—who doesn’t return it—I follow Aoki out of the room.

  “She seems a bit different, don’t you think?” Aoki murmurs as we walk down the corridor, the other girls chatting ahead of us. “Wren, I mean.”

  I hardly hear her, too busy trying to breathe normally, to force thoughts of Wren and the King from my mind. “Oh? How so?”

  “Just… she doesn’t seem as focused anymore.” Aoki throws me a sideways glance, slowing her pace. “You must have noticed. Has she said anything to you?”


  “Not really. I guess it’s just the stress of everything. Maybe she’s homesick.”

  Aoki nods, though she’s still watching me with an odd expression. “Some of the girls think she might be sneaking off at night to meet with a man.”

  I push out a laugh that I hope sounds disbelieving, but from the way Aoki doesn’t react, I can tell she doesn’t believe it. I tuck my hair behind my ears and carry on walking, a little faster now. “Which girls? And why would they even think that?”

  “Zhin said she saw her the night she was coming back from the King. Wren was leaving her room. She didn’t seem to be going to the toilet or to the maids’ dormitory, because that’s the direction Zhin was coming from.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t sleep.”

  “Apparently she had shoes on, and an overcoat. Like she was going outside.”

  “So she just needed some air—”

  “In the cold?” Aoki’s nose wrinkles. “At three in the morning? With the guards outside?” She stops me with her arm. “I know you’re close with her, Lei, but Wren is hiding something. I’m certain. I don’t want you getting caught up in it.”

  If only she knew.

  But I manage a nod. I palm my hands on the skirt of my robes and stride onward, wresting my face into an unfazed expression. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll ask her about it tonight—tomorrow. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.”

  That night, as I wait for Wren to return, the hours crawl by. Every second is a slow, pulling agony. I pace my room so many times that my vision spins, the floor seeming to careen sideways, and I eventually have to sit down before I faint. When footsteps finally sound in the corridor, I wait a few moments more before going to Wren’s room. I don’t mean to surprise her—I thought she’d have known I’d come. But I’ve only just slid the door shut behind me when she shoves me painfully against it, an arm across my neck, her eyes wide and alert.

  She releases me immediately. “Lei! I’m so sorry.” Blowing out an exhale, she circles her arms round my waist, dipping her forehead to mine. Her breath is sweet and warm on my skin. “I’m just on edge tonight. I didn’t realize it was you.”