When Shizuka catches Shefali’s eye, she sheepishly looks away.
Sky—what could have happened? For instead of the amber Shefali has known all of her life, Shizuka’s eyes are gold. Pupil and iris together are luminous bright; so, too, is her newly gilt scar.
Again Shefali tries to stand, but her mother eases her back down.
“Shizuka,” Shefali calls as her wife nears the door. “Are you—?”
She cannot finish the question, for her wife crosses from the door to her side and kisses her.
A woman walks through a cherry orchard in the early spring. It is Second Bell, and she has left her lover’s home only moments ago. Her hair is in shambles. If anyone sees her blushing, or her disarrayed robes, they will surely know where she has been. The woman cares for none of this—she is lost in the memories of the night.
How many ways did he say he loved her? With his lips, with his tongue, with his fingertips each in turn …
Midway through her walk, a breeze caresses her much the way he did. So, too, does it caress the flowers. Hundreds of petals—thousands—allow themselves to be seduced, to be carried away from their mother’s homes.
The woman thinks to herself: Each of those petals is one of the ways he proved his love to me.
Barsalai Shefali wandered eight years with only the thought of petals to keep her company. Now, to be so near to them again sets her mind aswirl.
How is she meant to think, when her wife is smiling against her lips? How is she meant to remember that she must breathe?
Soon—too soon—they part, and it is only then that Shefali recalls the look in Shizuka’s eyes as she approached. By then, the amber’s gone soft again; by then, there is only laughter bubbling beneath the surface.
“Dearest,” says Shizuka, cupping Shefali’s face.
“Hmm?”
“You taste awful.”
That laughter bursts out. What is Shefali to do but echo her? Yes, of course, the medicine must still be on her lips—and of course it tastes awful to Shizuka.
Let whatever angered Shizuka wait. For now, they are together.
War can wait an hour or two.
* * *
PACKING UP THE camp takes the better part of a Bell’s time. Seeing the gold-clad Shizuka among the Qorin in their embroidered deels fills Shefali with a sense of nostalgia. She’s shed her war mask to better hear the calls—all kneel, all lift, set the pegs down over there, make sure the foreigners don’t touch Burqila’s mares. It is good work, honest work—the sort that Alshara used to insist Shizuka do when she lived among the clan.
“It’ll be good for her character,” Alshara said, though it was Otgar who voiced the words. “Do you think that girl’s worked a day in her life before this?”
And she hadn’t, of course, but in those days, she threw herself into whatever was put in front of her. Within two weeks of travel, she knew the routine so well that it did not matter if she did not understand the calls.
Back then she wore Shefali’s childhood deels and pants. Now she stands clad head to toe in dragonscale armor. She’s keeping her hair back, too.
A married woman, grown.
“Keep staring at her like that, and your eye’s going to melt out of your skull,” says Otgar.
Shefali shoves her. Otgar—stout as a Hokkaran gelding—does not move.
“At least your wife’s helping,” Otgar teases. “Not standing around, mooning over a pretty girl.”
“I helped yesterday,” Barsalai says. Not that Otgar is wrong—she has been standing in the same spot, watching Shizuka for the better part of five minutes. It’s only that she can’t let Otgar get away so easily. With one hand she hefts the bundled ger her aunts and uncles have laid in front of her. Shefali puts it onto the cart, claps her hands free of imaginary dust, and shrugs at Otgar. “That better?”
“Think I like you better when you’re the Beast,” says Otgar. “No talking back to me.”
Shefali has half a mind to stick her tongue out at her, but they are not young girls anymore. To do so would be absurd. Instead, she sets another of the packed gers onto the cart. A lock of hair falls into her face. She flicks her head to clear it away, getting a look at the assembled Hokkaran army as she does.
Strange to see them so close to a Qorin camp—but the feeling is mutual. Though there are plenty of them standing around, looking imposing, none offer to help with breaking down the camp. Had they made such an offer, this would go by far more quickly.
But Shefali isn’t sure she wants it to, and she doesn’t know that Shizuka does, either. While they break down the tent, they don’t have to worry about the mountain pass.
She can see the mountains from here, too, if she just turns her head. As a child, she thought Gurkhan Khalsar was the highest peak in the world—the closest place to Grandmother Sky. Journeying to the east has taught her otherwise. The White-Winged Palace in Ikhtar gets its name from resting atop the Shalakai Mountains. For the better part of the three months she had been forced to stay within its walls, Shefali hated that place for many reasons; the altitude was the first, and the most chronic. Looking out the window always made her dizzy.
The Tokuma Mountains are not so tall as the Shalakai, but they’re closer to the Sky than Gurkhan Khalsar. The horses are already complaining about the trip. Later, when they are about to leave, Shefali will try to talk to them about it. It’s easier to convince Qorin than it is to convince their horses. They’re uniquely aware of their own importance, Shefali’s found, compared to other horses. She can hardly hold a conversation with Axion war-steeds.
All of this is to distract from the reality of the situation: There is no Wall of Flowers here. It ends abruptly at the eastern foot of the mountain. As they go through the pass, the only things keeping their joint army safe will be the gods that lead it.
Perhaps that is why the Hokkarans are so stoic.
There are exceptions. Shizuka’s second-in-command, a wiry man named Munenori, is trying to herd the sheep. The dogs are doing a far better job than he is. Uncle Batbayar leans on his walking stick and watches in amusement—but he offers no assistance.
And there is Sakura. Shefali had been surprised to see her, and more surprised still that she had not been able to pick her scent out from Shizuka’s. They’d arrived at the same time. As a pheasant among sparrows, that woman. She flits from group to group with a portable lectern balanced on her arm, asking in very loud Hokkaran for everyone to tell her what they’re transporting. An inventory. Shizuka mentioned them briefly when she spoke of going north, but …
They truly are an army now, aren’t they?
“What do you make of that one?” asks Otgar.
Shefali tilts her head. Otgar jerks her finger toward Sakura, who is approaching with a look of indignant frustration. With her Xianese jacket and those smudges of ink on her fingertips, she reminds Shefali of Baozhai.
That is not a comparison she will be making out loud.
“Roots,” says Shefali. “Like Barsatoq, but sensible.”
“No such thing,” says Otgar. She sniffs. By now, Sakura is close enough to hear them, and so Otgar decides to be as loud as possible. “Hey! Minami-lao, was it?”
“Sakura-lun, please. Minami-lao makes me sound like Shi—like Barsatoq’s aunt,” she answers. “You must be Dorbentei.”
“Technically, it should be more like Jurgaghantei by now, but I won’t put your soft western tongue through all that work,” says Otgar, standing a little straighter. “Dorbentei will do.”
Sakura raises a brow. “Right,” she says flatly. “Everyone kept telling me you can answer my questions.”
“That depends on the question,” says Otgar. “You’re keeping track of logistics, aren’t you? Dalaansuv’s husband is the one in charge of that. If you’re looking for how to swear in as many languages as you’ve got fingers, though—”
Sakura rolls her eyes. Without so much as missing a beat, she curses up a streak so blue that Grandmother Sky mistakes it for a ribbon i
n her hair—and then repeats it in three different languages.
Otgar whistles.
“I grew up in a pleasure house,” says Sakura. “What the fuck did you expect?”
“A Hokkaran,” answers Otgar.
“You’ve got one,” says Sakura. She sets the lectern down on the cart. Out of habit, Shefali dumps out the ink bowl; Sakura does not stop her. “I don’t actually care about logistics, either. A lot of other people do, though. Can’t crack open a scroll about the Five-Province Period without someone going on and on about how many soldiers there were, and how many horses they brought, and all the captains with their absurd titles…”
Shefali’s eyes glaze over a little.
“… and it’s the strangest thing, I haven’t met anyone who actually gives a shit about any of that when you’re telling a story.”
Shefali smirks. She picks up another bundled ger and sets it in the cart, careful not to disturb the lectern. Yes, this is why she likes Sakura.
“And is that what you’re here to do?” says Otgar. “Tell a story?”
“Tell her story,” says Sakura. Shefali does not need to be able to see her to know where she is pointing. “I’m her historian.”
Otgar laughs—two quick bellows from deep in her stomach.
When Shefali turns to rejoin them, Sakura’s crossed her arms. “What’s so funny?”
“You being her historian,” Otgar says. Otgar might be half Surian, but the other half must be wolf—just look at the way she is smiling! “What with your being a westerner, and all. Barsalai’s story is ours to tell. There’s all sorts of nuances you wouldn’t understand.”
Sakura purses her lips. Here is the difference between her and her cousin: Shizuka would’ve said something outright. No—that is unfair. The Shizuka that Shefali had left behind would have snapped at her. This Shizuka, the one she knows now, would listen.
“And if I tell you I’ve been invited to write the story, by your cousin?” Sakura says. The tip of her pen slips between her lips. Shefali wonders if that is on purpose—it reminds her of the sort of thing Ren might do. “If I tell you that I am doing this as a gift to her?”
“She has already written her story,” says Otgar. Notes of anger in her scent, a rumble in her voice. “What use are you? What do you bring? Barsalai’s been listening to Barsatoq recite poetry since they were knee-high. She’s got that in her soul by now. What’s your writing like?”
Sakura’s brow twitches. Shefali fears what will come if the two of them are left to their own devices like this. “She’s a scholar,” says Shefali.
“And?” says Otgar, hands on her hips. “Your wife’s grandfather was a scholar, too, and see where that got us.”
“Sakura isn’t like that,” says Shefali. Now she is the one getting angry. “This is a gift she’s giving me—”
“And what kind of gift is that?” says Otgar. “We’ve got your letters, Barsalai; we can tell your story for anyone who wants to hear it.”
“If you treat anyone who comes asking to hear it the way you’re treating me, then she’ll die out in the Empire within a generation,” says Sakura flatly.
Otgar sucks her teeth. Shefali can almost taste the thought brewing in her cousin’s mind: Then let her die in the Empire, let her be ours.
Yet Shefali is not only Qorin. Loath as she occasionally is to admit it, she is Hokkaran, as well—and would it not do well for the Hokkarans to have their own version of events? For surely they will want to hear Shizuka’s story, surely they will keep her name alive forever. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to give them as few reasons as possible to deny Shefali’s presence?
All of this crosses Shefali’s mind, and yet she speaks none of it.
Otgar knows only her own image of Sakura; only a woodcut, and not the woman. To her she is nothing more than a fashionable scholar stepping outside her borders.
But Shefali knows her as a friend.
You aren’t what I expected you to be, Sakura said to her once.
“Let her tell a story,” Shefali says.
“What?” say Otgar and Sakura at once.
Nothing unites people like having a common enemy. The unconscionable deeds of Shizuka’s grandfather galvanized the Qorin, allowing Burqila Alshara to unite the survivors of the blackblood into a single army.
Shefali does not hope to make herself an enemy—but she does hope to allow Sakura and Otgar to consider someone other than themselves.
“If you’re so concerned,” says Shefali, “then have her tell a story.”
“We’re leaving in two hours, if you hadn’t noticed,” says Dorbentei. Her hands stay planted at her hips. She looks like a perfect caricature of a displeased housewife.
“The army’s leaving in two hours,” says Sakura. From the lightness in her voice, she’s catching on to Shefali’s plan. “One third of you are going back to the steppes. They’re not packing at all.”
Otgar glances in the direction of those returning to the steppes. Older couples, mostly, with the children and a few youths unwilling to gamble their lives on this fool’s venture. Most of them are sitting outside their gers, playing anklebones or wrestling.
She sniffs. “They’re not going to give up their gambling for you.”
Sakura scoffs, and this time, Shefali joins her. “Like I haven’t had to charm people away from dice and cards before,” Sakura says. She shoves her lectern into Otgar’s hands—and Otgar, to Shefali’s surprise, does not immediately drop it. “If no one in that group rolls a single anklebone the whole time I talk, will you stop giving me shit?”
“Like hell Yorogei’s going to sit quiet the whole time,” Otgar fires back. Everyone in the clan knows Yorogei will gamble away his grandmother’s felt if you let him.
“I asked you a question,” says Sakura. “Will you leave me alone or not?”
Otgar shifts Sakura’s lectern so that she is holding it beneath one arm. She spits on her palm and holds it out to Sakura. “You get Yorogei to stop gambling, and I’ll do whatever you want.”
Sakura laughs. “Follow me, then,” she says, “and you just fucking watch, Dorbentei.”
For three heartbeats, Shefali wonders if Otgar will listen—if she will do as a Hokkaran tells her to, even if that Hokkaran is doing her a favor.
Three heartbeats is all it takes for Otgar to follow after her.
Strange. She doesn’t smell angry at all anymore. Is that … Is that excitement?
Shefali purses her lips. The day is full of surprises, it seems—even more than the sight of her wife doing manual labor.
“Shizuka,” Shefali calls. The Empress of Hokkaro looks up from her work. Sweat glistens across the surface of her scar, lending it the look of burnished copper.
“I’m going to take a break,” Shefali says. She nods toward Sakura. “With your cousin.”
Shizuka laughs, shaking her head. It’s delightful to see—and yet not entirely genuine. Something in that smile does not reach her eyes.
Shefali flares her nostrils. Is it her, or does Shizuka smell more…? There is more char to the flames now. As if someone has just thrown wood on the fire.
“Enjoy it,” Shizuka says. “And make sure she does, too!”
There is something behind those words, something her wife is not telling her. After hearing the horrors of Ink-on-Water, Shefali is hardly about to ask her wife what happened out in the bay.
But she will wonder, all the same. And perhaps someday her wife will tell her.
* * *
THEY CROSS THE pass that same night, after Sakura makes Otgar dance like a singing girl in front of the whole clan. Watching her cousin fumble through the steps is ridiculous. Watching her do it with the Tokuma Mountains rising up behind her, knowing what the rest of the day will bring …
The Qorin take their comfort where they can. Shefali is no exception. She watches her cousin dance, and she laughs until her ribs ache. For an hour—let her not think on the mountain, or on her wife’s strange behavior of
late. The children steal Little Mongke’s drum and beat a rhythm. The older folk join in, clapping their weathered hands. Otgar complains that the movements are too strict—that there’s no room to be herself.
Sakura bops her on the nose with her fan. “That’s the point, Dorbentei,” she says.
Otgar tells her that sounds stupid, and it is about then that Burqila leaves her meeting with the sanvaartains. Shefali smells her scent on the air and turns to look—Burqila’s heading right for them. She carries a large skin of kumaq in each hand.
Skins that large have one purpose and one alone: blessing horses before a long journey. Shefali idly wonders whether there was any need for her mother to consult the sanvaartains at all. Could she not have performed the blessing herself? Would it hold?
Ah, but that would be breaking tradition, and there is untold power in traditions. The Qorin have been doing things the same way for two thousand years, at least. To change on the whim of a young god—that has never suited them.
Blessing the horses this way had worked for every long journey of her life before her exile.
It would work now.
“Dorbentei,” Shefali says. “Aaj is coming.”
Like a hunting dog snapping to attention, Dorbentei rights her foreign posture. Sakura pouts, but only for a moment; she recovers just as soon as she begins to fan herself.
“Well,” says Sakura. “Suppose we’ve all got to start dancing for our audience now.”
* * *
HERE IS HOW they cross.
Shefali rides ahead with the scouts—her mother’s five quickest riders. The rest of the clan lies in wait. Shefali does not need to be among them to know how her wife wilts away with worry—she can smell it on the winds, even as they approach the pass.
The mountains rise up around them like the hands of a massive sculptor. Shadows cross their faces as the Tokuma peaks scrape against the ash-gray sky. Two of the other scouts spit on the ground at the sight of them. The horses, despite Burqila’s blessing, do not want to look at the mountains either.
Yet they have been summoned here to look, and so look they shall.
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