Sakura frowns. She would like that, except that she isn’t going to stay anymore, because her cousin is an idiot who deserves to be remembered. “I had a change of heart.”
“I see,” says Baozhai. “One that you are not bringing up with your cousin.”
A detail like that was never going to escape Baozhai’s notice. Sakura fights the urge to cross her arms.
When Sakura gives her no more thread to pull on, Baozhai makes a small, amused sound. “I can grant you passage,” she says.
“What’s the price?” Sakura answers. There’s got to be one, and it’s better to ask sooner rather than later.
“It’s terribly impolite to be so direct,” says Baozhai. “In the North, it’s custom to refuse a gift three times.”
“Is it still a gift if I’m paying you?” Sakura says. Her patience is wearing thin—she does have enough money of her own to charter a ship, but whatever Baozhai gets her will be fast.
“A fair point,” Baozhai says. She takes a fan from her belt and opens it. The sight of it sets Sakura’s stomach twisting—the whole thing is mother-of-pearl and onyx, with gilt leaf accents. “My price is small, and I’m certain you’ll agree it’s fair. All I ask from you is that you keep an eye on your cousin.”
Sakura’s brows nearly meet over her eyes. “That’s it?” she says. “That can’t be it. And how do you know I’m going to be with her, anyway? I could be leaving all this behind.”
Baozhai fans herself. “Oh, it’s a simple thing, Sakura-lao. A scholar can recite even their least favorite texts,” she says. Sakura bristles, but Baozhai snaps the fan closed to cut her off before she can begin. Her voice goes from her usual haughty tone to something far quieter, far more personal. “I am serious about my request.”
“What’s it matter to you, anyway?” says Sakura. “If she dies—”
“She won’t,” says Baozhai firmly. “I shall say this only once to you: I owe you a great debt. The Lady of Ink is my dearest friend. There were days when I, trapped as I am here, could do nothing but watch her dance upon her own funeral pyre. You are the woman who kept her from that end. I do not know why you need this ship, though I have some idea; I do not know why you are not asking her, although I have an idea there, as well. I do not need to know. All that needs be agreed on is this: I will grant you your ship, and the debt between us will be settled. Is that clear?”
Sakura knows all about their friendship. She saw it grow herself, during Shizuka’s rare visits to Xian-Lai. Even when Sakura had gone to Hokkaro, she saw stacks of Baozhai’s letters kept carefully apart from all the others. There were days that Shizuka was so drunk she could not remember her own name—but she remembered to write Baozhai back.
In some ways, it makes sense. Both women are as immensely likable as they are difficult—and they can talk about flowers for days. Where Shizuka is a fire, Baozhai is a cooling spring. The two of them together make for a fine summer’s night.
Keeping an eye on Shizuka is the whole point of this trip. Sakura can’t shake the feeling Baozhai knows this. She doesn’t like that. It feels as if she’s fallen into the same pit twice—going to war in behalf of two queens.
She’s always wanted to travel, hasn’t she? And if she makes it back to Barsalai, maybe she can ask her about the letter again.
“Fine,” Sakura says. “Fine, I’ll keep an eye on her.”
O-SHIZUKA
TWO
Minami Shizuka stands on the docks of Nagosu, a fishing village half a day’s sail south of Nishikomi. Before her, the Father’s Sea stretches out like a living eternity, rising and falling, rising and falling. Strange that an ocean should breathe steadier than an Empress. Stranger still that she should choose to face it at all after the things she’s seen.
She must remind herself that it is a gift to even face such a thing. So many of her comrades were scattered to the wind four years ago. So long had she stayed before their pyres that she is sure some of their ashes soaked into her skin. Surely, too, those who had drowned beneath the Great Wave had lent something of themselves to her. Why else would she see them so often in her nightmares? Perhaps, then, she is less alone than she thinks.
But with Shefali off to the North and Sakura back at the palace, Shizuka feels more alone than she has in years.
It is the thirty-fifth of Rokai. Summer has trampled over gentle spring now, and pressed her glaive to its throat. Soon it will be Shizuka’s birthday.
The head of the Traitor would make a fine gift, or so she tells herself as she forces herself to look on the ocean. Difficult, it is, and yet the simplest thing in the world: her mind scrambles away from the sight like a frightened hunter, but her muscles lock in place like a stag’s, and so she continues to stare.
At the endless blue.
At the imagined shapes beneath it.
At the cresting waves, who know well what she did on the shores of the Kirin.
The waters are hungry—she can feel this in the pit of her stomach—but they are not the waters of the Kirin. Bodies do not lurk below. Up ahead there are children sitting at the edge of the pier with makeshift fishing poles. In the time Shizuka’s been staring out at the water, not a one of them has caught anything—but that doesn’t stop them singing their songs, doesn’t stop them waving their sand-covered feet.
Live children. Not dead ones. Listen to them sing—there isn’t anything wrong. They aren’t afraid, and so why should Shizuka be?
It’s a sensible thought, but fear is rarely sensible.
A wave rises up. She tenses, expecting somehow to see Mizuha beneath the glassy surface. When it crashes against the shore, when the spray of it hits her skin, Shizuka flinches.
A sea battle. Why did she think this would be a good idea? She should have hired some navy captain to handle this, she should have manned the infantry and Shefali the cavalry as they’d agreed, but her stubbornness got in the way. What is she going to do if one of those waves knocks her overboard?
Walk on the water, she thinks. I’ve done it before, haven’t I?
She closes her eyes and imagines that she is on the banks of the Jade River as a child, with her parents, watching her mother try to catch fish barehanded. She pictures the flopping fish, pictures its glittering scales, pictures her mother chasing after her with it.
Water has not always been terrible to her.
Another sensible thought drowned by the memory of the Kirin. Here the water is safe enough, but when they are out to sea, who can say? They’re sailing toward the Traitor, after all; what will she do if they pull her under once more?
What will she do when the water is rushing up her nose and down her throat and into her lungs?
What will she do when there is darkness all around her and no light, no light; what will she do when she sees the bodies again, what will she do when Daishi—?
“Your Imperial Majesty—eight pardons, but are you well?”
Captain Munenori. Shizuka forces her eyes open. The sea is there, waiting for her; she summons all her willpower to turn away from it and face the man next to her instead. Captain Munenori Tsurushi spent the better part of his youth stationed just south of Tatsuoka, his parents sailors who ferried merchants to and from the Sands. The leathery look he won then has not quite left him even after years inland. Shizuka’s grateful for him, and grateful, too, for the Doanese sea captains who’ve volunteered for the mission. Now that she has looked away from the sea, she realizes most of her army—her fleet, now—has already boarded.
Only Munenori and the other captains remain on the pier, decked in their armor, awaiting her. Again she is the child among adults, but at least she has grown old enough to be comfortable with the position.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, Munenori-zul, I’ll be quite all right. Have we settled on a plan of attack?”
The captain nods. To question the Empress would be beyond impolite—it would trespass into blasphemy. And so he does not, in spite of the disbelief plain on his face. “If Your Majesty woul
d follow me to the others?”
And Shizuka does, every step creaking against the pier, every creak against a backdrop of waves. The sound alone is enough to sour her stomach—and this on solid ground.
She thinks of Shefali vomiting over the side of a ship years ago. She thinks of the things she said to her then, the teasing. She wishes that her wife could have come with her on the ships, instead of staying with the cavalry—but there was no arguing it. Shefali wants to fight alongside the Qorin. It is the best place for her, too; should the worst happen and a demon assault meet them, Shefali alone would know their names.
It is for the good of the Empire that Shefali is not here.
But, oh, how Minami Shizuka suffers without her. How alone she feels!
But the Empress is not alone; the Empress has business to attend to. Four Doanese captains await her. Trin Kiyam is the first of them to speak—youth triumphs over experience when it comes to these things.
“Thread-Cutter Empress!” he calls with a short bow. “It is good to see you have joined us. Are you well?”
Why is it that genuine concern can so often feel like an invasion when it comes from someone you do not know well? Still—etiquette must have its due. “Yes,” says Shizuka again. “Trin-tun, Dai-tun, Nuyoru-tun, Nim-tun—the Empire thanks you for your services. Have you eaten rice?”
Nuyoru, the eldest of the Doanese captains, tugs at his beard. “We have,” he says. “Have you?” He does not say that it is an honor to serve, which is what any Hokkaran would be compelled to say in such a situation. Shizuka respects them all the more for it. The threads binding Dao Doan to the Empire are stretching thinner and thinner.
“We had a small breakfast with the departing army,” Shizuka says.
“Then if we are all well fed, all that is left is to discuss the matter at hand,” says Dai Hoyan. Studded rubies decorate her sailor’s coat—a tradition relating to the amount of journeys she’s made. Dai is the only one who bears rubies—Nuyoru has lapis, reedy Nin has jade, and Trin has pearls. Geometric patterns adorn them all: crisscrossing lines and overlaid triangles nothing like Hokkaran flowers or waves.
Trin claps his hands together, grinning ear to ear. “We’ve kept it nice and easy, Your Majesty.” Has he seen combat before? Shizuka saw that sort of excitement only on the greenest recruits, only on the village bullies who thought their dominance would transfer to the battlefield.
Nin is the one who unfurls the rough-drawn map over their makeshift table. To the northeast, Nishikomi; to the north, the Father’s Teeth. Ships are marked here near Nagosu. Arrows travel from Nagosu to Nishikomi, where someone—probably Trin—has drawn old-fashioned demons. Another set of arrows points from the demons to the Teeth, where there are more ships helpfully drawn ramming into the demons, and demons drawn cut in half against the rocks.
“We approach from the south and trap them against the Teeth?” says Shizuka.
“Easy as can be,” says Trin. He points to a spot on the map closer to shore, where he attempted to draw horses and instead drew funny-looking dogs with people on them. “The horsetamers are going up to the Tokumas, in case something comes down toward us.” He points to the shore itself, where he elected to draw a forest of glaives instead of an army. “Your infantry wait on the shore in case something shows up there.”
“We don’t know yet how many enemy ships we’re facing,” says Dai. “This plan is simple enough that it can be adapted to a variety of situations, as needed. Once we’re closer, the White-Winged Crane will signal more detailed maneuvers.”
“Your ship, Heavenly Ambition—it’s the huge one over there, do you see it?” says Nuyoru. He points to the largest of the ships, and the strangest of them. All the Doanese vessels have simple roofs reinforced with bronze to protect them from projectiles—but for the most part, their decks are open enough that you can see the sailors within.
The Ambition yields little of itself to the viewer. Because the ship is covered from top to bottom with only slits here and there, it is difficult to imagine there are people within it at all. More of a floating castle than a ship, really; the Ambition is at least three times larger than anything else in the fleet. Shizuka’s throat closes at the thought. Of all the places to spend a battle.
“If the Grandfather brought down his hammer on that ship, it would not sink,” says Nuyoru. “The safest place you could possibly be. I don’t know what the southerners are paying their shipwrights, but it’s well earned. Only one problem.”
“The cannons,” says Nim. It is the first time he has spoken, and Shizuka understands why. The man is more rasp than voice.
“We don’t have cannons,” says Nuyoru. Again he is tugging his beard. “That doesn’t sound right to me. We weren’t allowed to have them when we sent word to your requisitions officer.”
“Seems to me that if we’re going up against the Two-Tongued Prince, we should have ourselves the best weapons we can,” says Nuyoru.
“Dragon’s Fire is volatile. Don’t forget what happened to General Hirota when he attacked your people. All his cannons ignited at the same time, and to this day, there’s a crater where the man once stood,” says Munenori. “Good reason to forbid the stuff, if you ask me. Are your people used to working with it?”
“Are yours?” says Nim.
Sailors are much like soldiers—put too many officers in one place, and a fight is inevitable. Shizuka decides to put an end to this one now.
“We’ve thirty Surian firebreathers,” she says. “We can spare ten of them. You’ve no cannons to speak of, and we’ve no time to craft them, but they are skillful with many types of weaponry. You may find yourself with something useful.”
Nuyoru and Nim nod, Nim smiling a little like a weasel. “A pleasure doing business with you,” says Nuyoru, “Thread-Cutter Empress.”
Dai sniffs. “Leave the trickery to Nim and Nuyoru,” she says. “I’ve no need for unnecessary risk. Have you any further questions, Your Majesty?”
How shall I do this? How shall I walk into a ship like that without screaming?
“No,” she says. “We thank you all again, and wish you smooth sailing.”
A small smile tugs at Dai’s lips. “In Dao Doan, it is bad luck to say a thing like that,” she says. “Choppy waters teach you more than still ones ever will.”
“We say ‘may you be up to the task’ instead,” offers Trin.
“Then may you all be up to the task,” says Shizuka. How little time she has spent in Dao Doan. She wishes she’d traveled more before all of this. “We shall see you on the sea.”
They bow to her and she nods to them, and soon Munenori is walking with her to the Ambition.
The gangplank is before her now, inviting her up into the darkness. Up in the ship itself, she sees the vague shapes of her sailors. Shadow swallows them, and for a moment, just a moment, it is easy to imagine them floating in the blue.
Munenori has taken his first step onto the gangplank. He is walking now, while Shizuka remains at the foot of it staring, staring.
If she boards this ship, there is no returning. If she boards this ship, she cannot simply tell them to turn around if she gets frightened, if the world starts to close in on her. She cannot let the others see her in such a state. She must be the Empress, resolute and serene; she must be anyone but the girl beneath the waves—
“Your Majesty?” says Munenori. He has stopped midway on the gangplank.
Shizuka’s forehead is slick with sweat.
There is still time to join the infantry—but that isn’t what her mother would do, is it? That isn’t what Alshara would do when faced with her greatest fears, either.
If she hesitates, she is lost.
She takes a step. The wood gives a little beneath her, and her heart sinks into the earth itself.
Captain Munenori Tsurushi walks toward her. There is enough room on the gangplank for the two of them to stand shoulder to shoulder, and that is what Munenori does. He turns his body so that no one can
see Shizuka from the shore—and then he offers an arm.
“If you need it,” he says.
The sailors waiting at the gates can still see them. Then again, they can already see her trembling. The proper thing to do would be to force herself to walk the whole thing on her own regardless of her fears.
But she thinks of Baozhai’s admonitions to be safe, to accept help.
And she takes the captain’s arm.
BARSALAI SHEFALI
THREE
Plumes of white smoke curl against the ash gray sky. Shefali counts them in the early hours of the morning. Two hundred. Her heart swells at the thought—when last she left her mother, there had been only one hundred twenty gers in the Burqila clan. How many more cousins await her? How many wide faces, how many full cheeks, waiting to be pinched? To see their numbers swell in such a way …
Barsalai may have journeyed eight years so that she could return to her wife—but part of her always dreamed she might look out on a sight like this again.
The gers, the dogs running free, the children squatting over a game of anklebones—she sits astride her gray mare and she drinks in the sights, the sounds, the smells. Like warm kumaq, they fill her belly. Her vision goes a little fuzzy around the edges; giddy laughter bubbles up from her throat. Look at them! That boy’s chasing after his sister, his miniature deel flapping against his body!
Is there anything more joyous than seeing your people prosper?
Being among them.
Ah, but that—that will take some doing.
Barsalai Shefali once stared a serpent woman in the eyes. She has wrestled with stone men; she has raced a lightning-dog twice around the palace of Ikhtar; she has refused the advances of a fox woman and paid her price in flesh.
But going to see her mother after eight years apart frightens her.
She will be happy to see you, says the gray.
“I know,” Shefali mumbles. Alshara’s letter had said as much and more—things Shefali never imagined her mother might say to her.
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