Or it used to be.
Since the Womb …
She hasn’t truly changed since the Womb. Not all the way. Wearing a different form is like … it is like floating atop a lake when the current is trying to drag you under.
Part of her is afraid that shifting will disturb this peace she’s won, that her body will disobey her as it so often has. Will she land as the wolf, or will she sink into the water?
Shefali tells herself it will be the wolf, and she pictures it clearly in her head, more clearly than ever, now that the pain isn’t distracting her. Four times the size of her mare, with teeth as long as her fingers used to be. For the first time, she imagines herself a coat of shaggy brown fur; for the first time, she imagines her ears.
Grandmother Sky made the Qorin from wolves, and so the wolf she shall be, whole and complete.
When her bones shift, it is a victory; when her muscles tear apart, it is a triumph, when her—
Agony like a knife driven between her vertebrae. Stars explode across her vision even as her eyes have not finished changing; there is a spike being driven up into her skull—
When she lands, it is not on all four legs: she hits the ground like a sack of millet. Her head knocks against the ground. The world spins like an Ikhthian woman’s skirts as she tries to steady herself. She’s had worse, she’s had worse, but the current is pulling her deeper.
Steel-Eye, do you really think you can hold me off so easily?
The beetles descend on her as they would a corpse. Soon the pain in her head is the least of her worries: the ravenous mouths of the beetles are upon her. They’re gnawing on her now, taking bites of her as she forces herself to stand.
Qorin break horses by tying rocks to their saddle. Two small pebbles at first, hardly anything at all—but each day, you add more and more, until the horse is comfortable carrying the weight of a person.
Though she wears a wolf’s form, Shefali feels akin to that horse. The beetles are heavy as mountains. Once, twice, she tries to stand—but how is she to do so when her back is a twig about to break?
And she feels the Traitor Yamai now, his influence spreading to her. She hears it in the chittering mandibles of the beetles, hears it in the beat of her own heart. The image she holds of herself starts to change: the fur falls off, and so, too, does her skin, leaving her skinless once more; her eyes go red and her jaw splits down the middle like some unholy, toothy flower.
As long as your blood runs black, I will be with you.
Her muscles are starting to twitch. She knows this feeling, knows it means she’s about to lose control of herself again, but—
But who are they to speak to her? And who is He?
Does he think that she is afraid of him? Does he think that the daughter of Burqila Alshara, the Wall-Breaker, will allow herself to be leashed?
No.
Not here, not now. She is Barsalai Shefali, the Laughing Fox; she is a hero in Shiseiki and she is a hero now.
She is just as much a god as he is—and this is her body. Ren told her she was losing her shape because his will had overpowered hers.
Let him try now.
Larger Shefali pictures herself, larger and larger, until she is taller than the trebuchets Dalaansuv constructed farther up the mountain. The ache of it! For her body was never meant to stretch to sizes like this, never meant to become anything like this at all. For the first time, she feels the weight of her own flesh against her bones; for the first time, she feels her bones bending.
So she imagines them firmer. Unyielding, as everything about her must now be.
A flash of the other image comes to her, but she pushes it away before it can distract her. Will. This is about will.
Teeth dig into her shoulder and she does not waver.
The beetles throw themselves against her; she topples over and she does not waver.
Larger she grows, larger and larger still, and she does not waver even when the chittering speaks to her, even when she hears the call of the undercurrent, even when she feels the caress of the darkness against her skin.
This is a matter of will, and will she has in spades.
The larger she gets, the more it aches, the more she is torn and rebuilt—the more she can bear the weight of the beetles. When at last she rises on all fours, they are so small that she could swallow them, if she wished.
And she does wish to.
For she is hungry in this form, as she always is.
But they will know fear first, as she has known fear. At the bottom of her throat, the howl is building. The buzzing of the beetles, the chittering, threatens to drown out her thought—but she is stronger than this, stronger than them. They are the waves; they are the current.
She has risen above them.
In Nishikomi, they hear the howl that leaves Shefali then, in the Minami lands, in the ruins of Shigeoka.
My blood is my own, she says to him. Try harder next time.
Only then does she lunge forward; only then does she bite into a dozen beetles at once; only then does she swallow them. The taste of them! How long it’s been since she tasted anything at all! Biting into them is like biting into a grape—the carapace pops and their innards fill her mouth with flavor. How it delights her! They fling themselves at her, and it is easy to bat them away, easy to trample them underfoot, easy to send them scattering into the night as the blood trickles down her maw.
With each one of them she eats, the pain fades, until she can no longer feel the current tugging at her, until she is free.
And then, only then—when her belly is full and her hunger is sated—does she sink back down on her haunches.
Only then does she imagine the form of Barsalai Shefali, exhausted and spent, lying at the bottom of the valley.
BARSALAI SHEFALI
FIVE
Barsalai Shefali wakes in her mother’s ger. The sunlight filtering in through the felt tells her that it must have been hours since their battle, and yet she is hesitant to call this rest “sleep.” Especially when it is the pain that wakes her—the throbbing ache in her shoulders a stronger nudge than any her cousins might give her. It is as if someone is driving a stone between her shoulder blades, as if her whole body has been caught between mortar and pestle.
And so she does the most reasonable thing anyone awaking in that much agony might do: she groans.
The gentle clack of her uncle’s knife against his cutting board stops. So, too, does the rattling of her younger cousins playing anklebones. Someone much closer—Otgar, it’s Otgar—laughs.
“Needlenose, you handsome idiot!” she says. “Six years conning foreigners out of coin, and you never told me you could get that big!”
Shefali groans again. She loves her cousin, she does, but the sound of her voice is like two spikes being driven into her temples. “Medicine,” she says.
“Oh, right,” Otgar says. “Soyiketu! Get that concoction from her saddlebags.”
The boy, seated before the makeshift table with a map spread out before him, gives his half sister a plaintive look. It earns him no favors. Otgar repeats her command and off he goes.
“How long?” mumbles Shefali. Sky, she hurts.
“All through the night,” Otgar answers. “It’s a bit past Fourth.” Her cousin purses her lips. “Your eyes are getting glassy. You all right?”
If she were in a better mood, she might point out that her left eye is steel, not glass, but that is a retort for a woman in better condition. As it stands, Shefali’s directing all her attention to not screaming. “Medicine,” she repeats.
“It’s coming,” Otgar says. “Don’t you go wasting away on us yet. The babies are too young to know what happened, and they’ll never believe me if you’re lying in a sickbed when they meet you.”
Shefali does not want to think of children. She grunts again. If only she could roll over—but the agony that fills her even at the thought dissuades her.
“Flower,” Shefali says.
“Your f
lower?” says Otgar. She laughs, and Shefali wishes that she wouldn’t. “On the way back from Nishikomi now. The morning scouts saw their banners. Shouldn’t be long before she’s here. If you weren’t in so much pain, I’d flick your nose for asking a thing like that.”
Shefali closes her eyes. It’s about the only movement she can make on her own at the moment.
“My belt,” she says.
The sticky-sweet scent of embarrassment meets Shefali’s nose as Otgar leans over her. The moment Shefali feels her trying to pluck the flower, she grunts again. Otgar has the sense to stop.
“Put my hand on it,” Shefali says.
She half expects her cousin to say something smart. Thankfully, she does not—only picks up Shefali’s hand. Even this is difficult, for the stiffness in her joints makes lifting her hand akin to breaking a branch with one’s bare hands.
“Brace yourself,” Otgar says.
Shefali remembers to breathe.
Otgar’s got to throw her back into it. Now she’s the one grunting as she lifts Shefali’s hand, as she pulls it over to her belt and drops it there without ceremony.
The scream that leaves Shefali then is enough to terrify her family. All at once they leap up out of their seats, staring at her as if she has brought home a rabid wolf and called it their morning meal. Sweat clings to her brow; she’s breathing like one of Burqila’s hunting dogs in the summer, and each breath only makes things worse.
“Otgar, are you hurting her?” asks Zurgaanqar. The world is spinning—Shefali does not see her aunt coming over, but does smell her. “Get away from her. Poor girl fends off an army on her own, and you’re tormenting her like this!”
“I’m not—” Otgar begins, but her mother shoos her away.
“Someone going to get Burqila?” asks Dalaansuv. How anyone tore her away from maintaining the cannons is a mystery to Shefali.
“She’s waiting outside for Naisuran’s daughter,” says Big Tagurmongke, Aunt Khadiyya’s husband. This is perhaps the second time Shefali has ever seen him inside the ger during daylight. His deep voice is perfect for stories, and an absolute terror to her now.
“I’ll do it,” says Otgar. “Soyiketu’s coming with her medicine, Aaj. You’re going to have to help her drink it.”
“Help her drink it?” says Zurgaanqar. “Don’t be an idiot, Otgar, she can drink—”
“No,” says Shefali. “I need help.”
She could go the rest of her life without smelling so much pity in one room. How weak she feels, flat on her back and unable to sit up! How awful! Is she truly the same woman who fought off an army? For now she feels she is a burden; now she can feel their respect for her eroding.
Barsalai swallows.
“Our sister leaves for ten minutes to check for the banners, and you’re treating her daughter like this,” says Aunt Khadiyya. A weight settles at Shefali’s side, and she recognizes the scent of crossbow oil on her aunt’s hands. “Come on. Soyiketu’s at the door now, let’s get you sitting up.”
Sure enough, Soyiketu soon shouts for people to catch their dogs, though the dogs are all outside with their master. Shefali hears him hurrying toward them.
Aunt Khadiyya and Aunt Zurgaanqar must coordinate their efforts to get her sitting up—each one slipping their hands beneath Barsalai’s shoulders. When Khadiyya says to, they lift as one, pushing her upright. Zurgaanqar has the good sense to sit behind her so that Shefali does not fall backwards.
“Come here,” says Khadiyya. Soyiketu does as he is told, placing the bottle in Khadiyya’s waiting hand. She uncorks it with her thumb and wrinkles her nose. “This is medicine?”
“Yes,” Shefali says. She feels more ashamed now than ever—but her aunt is at least looking at her kindly.
“Well, if it helps,” she says. “Open your mouth.”
When she swallows, she is aware that the whole clan is watching her, as if the effect should be instantaneous. As if she should jump to her feet and run to her gray, desperate to return to her wife.
She is eager to see Shizuka again—the scent of peonies is faint but present—and yet she knows she will not be moving. Not for an hour, at least. The Empress of Hokkaro is just going to have to be the one doing all the embracing.
Khadiyya sets down the vial. She looks around the ger at her siblings and frowns.
“Will all of you give the girl some room?” she says. “Sky above, you aren’t sitting with Tumenbayar.”
In some ways, Shefali is lucky she is so stiff this morning—cringing would take too much effort to do. In some ways, her aunt is right. In others …
“How are you feeling?” asks Zurgaanqar. “Are you … does it hurt?”
“Yes,” says Shefali. “But it’ll get better.”
“What can we do to help?” says Khadiyya.
They aren’t calling her weak? And Khadiyya does not smell as if she is lying, does not smell as if there is anything amiss. All Shefali can smell on her is concern and, perhaps, a little guilt.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” says Shefali. For getting her medicine and getting her upright have brought to a halt all the procedures of the day. She has precious few days remaining to her—she does not intend to spend them as a disturbance.
“That’s all?” says Khadiyya.
“You don’t want anything to eat? You’re getting skinnier every day—”
“She can’t eat, Zurgaanqar,” says Dalaansuv. Already she is turning her attention to a stack of papers in front of her. How fascinating—only a generation ago, she might have been working in Surian, but now she works in Qorin. “Stop asking her why she’s so skinny.”
“I worry,” is Zurgaanqar’s answer. “When Dorbentei was her age, she was wide as two Hokkarans shoulder to shoulder. Barsalai’s a strong girl! She should look it!”
Ganzorig drops his finely chopped tubers into the pot. “That’s what I keep saying.”
“Ganzorig agrees with me,” Zurgaanqar says. She brightens immediately, and Shefali cannot help but smile. The two of them are so transparent. Why had they ever married anyone except each other?
“He does whatever you tell him,” says Dalaansuv.
“No, I don’t,” answers Ganzorig. “Wouldn’t catch me transforming into a giant wolf to fight off an army.”
He winks at Shefali with that last.
Yes—this is home, isn’t it? Her family teasing her like this, the conversations that go everywhere and nowhere.
It is easy to forget what has brought her here.
But before she can lose herself too thoroughly in the soothing barbs of her family’s banter, there is a knock at the door, followed shortly by the scratching of excited hunting hounds.
“Catch the dogs,” says Otgar, who is likely holding them all by their scruffs herself. Soyiketu opens the door for her. Shefali isn’t surprised to see her mother standing at Otgar’s side, but she is surprised by how quickly Alshara bolts from her. The concern on her face! As if Shefali’s been gravely wounded, and not merely overexerted herself.
Alshara’s sisters know her well enough to understand her, even without being able to speak. Zurgaanqar gets up—Shefali can thankfully sit up on her own now—and Khadiyya gets a chair. Alshara doesn’t bother with it. The first thing she does is kiss her daughter’s forehead.
The second thing—and the third, and the fourth—is to check her for any sign of injury.
“Two weeks left,” says Shefali, a wry smirk playing across her lips. “Not sooner.”
Her mother’s eyes have never been more piercing. Burqila looks up from checking Shefali’s arm to flick her on the nose. It lasts only a moment—Alshara soon embraces her, and Shefali allows herself to feel some small measure of pride in what she’s done.
We will remember you, her mother wrote. And they shall—Shefali’s sure of it. Stories are to the Qorin as beauty is to Hokkarans; they live in the perpetual pursuit of more.
Last night, she was a hero.
This morning, she is her mother
’s daughter, niece to seven women and seven men, cousin to more than she can count.
Yes—it’s starting to hurt less now.
Otgar hasn’t shut the door yet. Sunlight makes her skin glow, and the cocky smile does the rest. Shefali catches sight of her over Alshara’s shoulder.
“Hope your heart’s not giving you any trouble,” says Otgar. “Barsatoq’s coming down the road now.”
Until that moment, Shefali’s heart had given her no trouble at all. The moment Otgar finishes speaking, it flutters. Shizuka. She hasn’t thought to ask how the naval battle went, and she isn’t sure the Qorin would know to begin with—but to know that her wife is safe …
Shefali tries to push herself to stand.
Her mother squeezes her shoulder. Alshara points to Shefali’s bed and glares—the message is clear. There will be no leaving bed until she has rested.
Shefali pouts.
Alshara does not budge.
Well—if that is to be the way of things, then Shefali will simply simmer with excitement from where she is.
The scent of peonies grows thicker. Yes—fire, steel, and flowers. Her wildfire woman. Does the world outside seem brighter now that she knows Shizuka is in it?
Two minutes pass between Otgar’s speaking and Shizuka’s appearing at the door. For Barsalai Shefali, it may as well be two years. Any time apart from her wife is too much time.
The air itself hails Shizuka’s coming. A faint glow of gold heralds her arrival. The gold of her armor, shaped by the finest smiths in Xian-Lai, cannot hope to compare. What delight does the sun take in shining on simple metal? No, its true delight has always been to illuminate the eyes of Minami Shizuka, to lend her hair its luster and her skin its radiance.
Every single time Shefali looks at her, she is convinced of this anew: the sun exists solely for her wife.
Yet the moment their eyes meet, Shefali knows there is something wrong. As a dye maker can discern between Blush-of-Heaven and Maiden’s Kiss at a glance, so, too, can Shefali discern her wife’s moods. See the glower in her amber eyes! See how the amber flares!
The Warrior Moon Page 15