What’s left is lost. The Spider opens its mouth wide, wide, and sinks its teeth into Shizuka’s chest. How long, those teeth! How sharp! The blood’s running—
She doesn’t want to look, she doesn’t want to hear her wife screaming, doesn’t want to be here—
She wants to die.
For the first time since her encounter with Ren in Shiseiki nearly ten years ago, Barsalai Shefali truly wishes for death. Today is the appointed day, isn’t it? Let the Mother take her now. Let her die, rather than face any more of this.
Rage fills her belly, rage and hate and bitter, bitter agony—and even these are not enough to overcome the failings of her body. Still as the great trees of Fujino, she cannot break her bonds.
By the time it is over—by the time the thick red is bubbling down the Spider’s throat, by the time the gaping hole in Shizuka’s chest finishes pulsing—Barsalai Shefali knows two things.
First: much as she wants to, she cannot let herself die—not until she has torn the heads from both these demons and pulped them with her bare hands.
Second: there is a part of her, however small, that will never forgive Shizuka for agreeing to this. Which is not to say that Shefali loves her any less—she does not, could not, will never—only that some wounds ache long after they’re healed.
When it is done, the Spider licks at its long fingertips and laughs.
“She’s all yours, Rikuto,” it says. “What delectable flesh. Take her, before I eat the rest.”
Shizuka isn’t meeting her wife’s eyes anymore.
Shefali wants to call to her, wants to tell her that she will find her, that no matter what happens, she will find her.
But she doesn’t have the air left to speak.
“Got to get rid of this one first,” says Rikuto.
What?
It wrenches the dagger from its chest, holds the point to her throat.
And in spite of all that has happened, in spite of her missing heart, Shizuka struggles. She slaps at the Spider, bats at it as the anticipation rises.
“No,” she says. “You said you wouldn’t. You swore. You swore—”
“That’s right,” says the Spider. “I swore. Rikuto made no such oaths about her safety. What a shame, what a shame.”
And so in the end, it does not matter whether or not Shefali wants to die that day. It’s funny, in its own way—struggle all you want, but fate’s hunting dogs will always find you.
The last thing Barsalai Shefali sees: her mother’s knife in the hands of a demon, cutting through her throat.
The last thing Barsalai Shefali hears: her wife’s screaming pleas.
The last thing Barsalai Shefali thinks: I’ll come back for you.
O-SHIZUKA
TEN
So long as she lives, Minami Shizuka will never forget the sight of her wife’s death.
She wants to. Already she does. As the demon Rikuto hauls her along the winds to the towers of Iwa, the world spins around her; Shizuka’s stomach empties and empties, two boulders clap together on either side of her temples, the wound on her chest drips Imperial blood onto the earth her ancestors stole. She is in agony, and yet it is not the physical wounds that trouble her.
It is the memory.
Shefali’s green eye going wide. Her gasp as she realized what it was Rikuto was about to do. Her hand, outstretched, falling limp. The sound of the knife …
The loss of her heart is little in comparison.
In truth, the wound itself does not bother her as much as she thought it would. It aches of course, and an intolerable coldness has settled in its wake. All her breathing, all her rage, cannot melt the block of ice where her heart used to be.
But then her anger is not so hot as it was before the Spider ate her heart.
“I will kill you,” she mumbles to the demon carrying her, but the words are paper tigers. It is the right thing to say. She knows it is. But …
But she’s having such trouble feeling. As if she is trying to light a fire with wet tinder. There are sparks and smoke—but no heat.
“Is that so, Four-Petal?” Rikuto says. It is holding her as a husband holds a bride. The cold is heavy, too heavy—she cannot summon the strength to squirm away from the demon. Even if she did, where would she go? The world is passing in a blur around them, beneath them. Wind fills her ears. She can’t afford to open her eyes—the nausea would again overwhelm her—but she feels the wind pressing against them. Arrows in flight could not hope to catch them.
Except for Shefali’s arrows.
But Shefali isn’t here anymore, is she?
A quiet gasp, an outstretched hand, the anguish of knowing there was nothing she could do to change Shizuka’s mind … if Shizuka were to look on her hands, her wife’s black blood would coat them.
“I will,” she says. “For what you did to her.”
“For what I did?” It scoffs.
The wind stops. She lurches forward, almost falling out of its arms, and it presses her back to its chest with a firm hand. After ten heartbeats, the world comes to a halt—and that is before Rikuto begins to walk.
Feet on mats. The hushed flap of clothes—courtiers bowing. A familiar, nostalgic melody, played on a biwa and complemented by a flute. The smell—ugh, the smell—of peonies and incense.
Court.
This is court, isn’t it?
“This is the problem with you,” says Rikuto. It’s walking, its steps long and confident; she feels her body bobbing along with every footfall. “If you’d made me swear to leave that mongrel alone, I would have. You did not, and so I had no reason to. Whose fault is that?”
Yours, she thinks. In spite of the headache, the exhaustion, she forces herself to open her eyes. What she sees sickens her once more—the entranceway to the Traitor’s palace is a perfect mirror to her own. There, two lion dogs rampant near paintings of previous rulers; there, carefully arranged flowers speaking to the season. Chrysanthemums. It was winter when they left, and yet the Traitor is displaying chrysanthemums. Everything—from the dark finish on the maple rafters to the gold tiled floor—is the same. Even the uniforms worn by the dead-eyed Qorin are an exact match for those used in Fujino—although they are several generations out of fashion.
“If a man shoots another man with a bow, we do not blame the arrow,” says Rikuto. “And yet you are blaming me.”
How tired she is of listening to the demon already.
She closes her eyes again. If the layout is the same—and that is impossible, given the towers’ construction—Rikuto will turn right in twenty-five steps. This will take it to the throne room. It will go eight hundred eighty-eight steps through there and make a left. Up the stairs and to the right—the Emperor’s chambers.
“You do not accept responsibility for your actions,” it says. “You never have. That is why you shall never be the Eternal King’s equal.”
Twenty-five steps.
It turns right.
She opens her eyes out of curiosity, out of spite for the ancestors whose blood courses through her veins. Yes—even this is largely the same. The jade columns, the massive statues on either side of the Dragon Throne, the coiling dragon wound throughout the room. A perfect replica.
Which came first?
It must have been this. Once Iwa fell to the Traitor, his children must have tried to make a new home for themselves in Fujino—one exactly like the old. His children. She’d looked up to Yusuke the Brawler in her youth. To know that his unnatural strength came from the dark blessings his father must have given him …
Nothing about her is pure.
Not with Shefali …
She can’t bring herself to think of the word.
If she does, then it will become real, and what is left of her world will shatter like a pot struck by an arrow. Calamity—that is the word for it. If Shefali is … really gone, then Minami Shizuka has failed utterly at everything she ever set out to accomplish.
The ice is a boulder on her chest.
Breathing is hard. Her lungs can’t expand.
Kill it for me, Dorbentei had said.
Keep her safe, Kenshiro had said.
But Shizuka couldn’t do either.
Some Empress she is—some god.
Perhaps Rikuto is right about her.
Perhaps the Traitor is right about her, too. Perhaps she is the worst Empress Hokkaro has ever had, perhaps she is an insult to her parents. Perhaps it would be better for everyone involved if she lived out the remainder of her life in a garden somewhere, tending to the flowers she has never betrayed.
These are the false thoughts of her sorrow, the knives searching for her in the dark. Shizuka knows them for assassins—but she has not the strength to fight them off.
Eight-hundred eighty-eight steps. Up the stairs.
The palace is staffed entirely by Qorin. They move in perfect harmony—every footfall lands the same across the palace. They blink at the same time. They wear the same antiquated Hokkaran hairstyles—shaved pates for the men and wide fans for the women—and they greet her with the same phrase, over and over.
“Welcome home, Four-Petal. We will treat you kindly.”
The same phrase delivered from a hundred different mouths, at least. They all turn to face her as Rikuto passes, all bow from the shoulders to just the right angle. Not a hair out of place.
Shizuka hates it.
She does not want to watch it happen, for she knows what it would mean for a Qorin to work in a place like this—to work beneath a fixed ceiling, to stay forever in this place, to wear the clothes of a people who did their best to wipe them from existence.
In each one she sees her wife. Here, a woman passes with eyes that are precisely the same shade of green. There, a man who wears his braids the same way.
Shefali.
Her Shefali, cold and alone, lying headless on the floor of the cave …
Despair rushes up her nostrils as the water did four years ago; she sucks it deep down into her lungs. It is this feeling alone that has not been dulled, this feeling alone that hits her at full force.
Shefali.
All her life she’s … At least … At least Shizuka will never be able to hurt her again.
Rikuto’s turning to the right.
Two tall, broad guards clad in green enameled armor stand on either side of the carved jade door. They wear no war masks over their brown faces; they wield Hokkaran straight swords and not elaborate glaives.
The Emperor’s Chambers.
“The Eternal King is gracious and merciful,” says Rikuto. “He thinks you can be taught. I have told him otherwise.”
The guards bow to them. To her.
“Welcome, Four-Petal. We will treat you kindly.”
They speak with the same voice.
“If you continue to be so stubborn, if you continue to throw a fit over the consequences of your own actions—well. One way or another, he will bend you to his will.”
She thinks of Shefali’s vision—of Minami Shiori arguing with him when he was still Yamai, of his blood under her nails, of the fury burning in her stomach.
But in the end, she lost to him as well.
In the end, the Traitor stamped out her ancestor’s fires, and she became his servant.
Hopeless. Even her childhood heroes, even her favorite stories—all of them end the same way.
Together we will slay the Traitor.
What a childish thing to say.
She sees that now. Her mother, her father, her army, the people of Shiseiki, and now her wife—yes, Rikuto is right.
She’s never truly accepted responsibility for what she’s done.
Knives in the dark.
The door opens. Rikuto carries her over the threshold. There, in the eastern corner of the room, is Emperor Yamai—her ancestor.
The first thing she sees of him are his irises, like two golden crescents in the relative darkness of the room. They shine in stark contrast to the rest of him. The rest of him is plain and understated—nondescript, even. He wears four layers of robes, with only the innermost bearing any hint of Imperial Gold—all in solid colors with no patterns to be seen. Though he wears a beard, it is kept closely trimmed, as if he once saw a painting of a scholar and now strives to replicate it in perfect detail. In truth, he has a scholar’s face—thick brows meant to furrow over lost texts, a mouth shaped for recitation, the sharp cheekbones that speak of his refinement. The thin Dragon Circlet he wears is hardly necessary when he carries himself in such a way.
He sits in the proper, courteous style, though they are the only people in the room. When the door closes behind them, he does not incline his head, he does not smile, he offers her no visible trace of kindness.
Rikuto sets her down on the mats in front of this man—the Eternal King. It places her forehead right against the ground, places her hands in front of her, bends her knees. Prostrate. Proper. Only then does it do the same.
“Your Imperial Majesty, Eternal King, True Light of Hokkaro,” it says, “I have brought to you your errant descendant, Yui.”
If there were anything left of her that could feel anger, she would have felt it then. Her Imperial name, bestowed by the Toad.
Even here, she could not be Minami Shizuka.
She tries to look up at him from where she is kneeling, but it is difficult to get a good view—her hair obscures much, and her dizziness the rest. Blood drips onto the mats. Her fingers brush against the edge of the wound, against the hole in her chest. The macabre urge to stick her own hand inside it is strong.
“We thank you for your service, Rikuto. You are dismissed.”
His voice, too, is terribly nondescript. Deep but not too deep; cultured and well accented, but only in the same way all other scholars are. If Shizuka walked into the White Leaf Academy with her eyes closed, she would not be able to discern the Traitor from any of the other instructors.
Rikuto hesitates. Shizuka notes this, for it is at odds with all its talk of the Traitor’s wisdom. Still, it leaves all the same, taking her mother’s sword with it.
And then they are alone—the First Emperor and the Phoenix Empress.
All her life she has dreamed of this moment. In the haze of her condition, she reaches for a sword that is not there. Some part of her still thinks she can solve all of this with one cut. They’re close enough that she could, even prostrate as she is.
But if she strikes him down, what will happen to all the Qorin in the palace? Will they die, too, linked as they are to him? What will happen to the palace itself? For the Octopus King’s dominion faded once it died. If she kills him here, elevated as they are—will she fall to her death afterwards?
It would be worth it.
It would.
Ending all of this. Cleansing the stain that her family has laid upon the land. Avenging her wife, her Shefali—yes, it would be worth it.
If she had a sword, and if she could draw it in her current state.
But Shizuka doesn’t, and she can’t.
She won’t endure his presence alone for long—this she swears. The assassins have not killed her yet—there is still some of the fire burning deep within her. A single flame, flickering but still there.
Shizuka presses her fists into the mats to prop herself up. Almost immediately she starts to waver—but she does not find that she cares. It is meeting his eyes that is important, and it is meeting his eyes that she does as she sits upright, in the Qorin style.
It pains her—how it pains her!—to do this. Blood seeps into her armor, and she knows she does not have long before she loses consciousness; the cold is starting to sink into her stomach.
But for the moment she is awake. And so she will meet his eyes—for they are equals here, two gods alone in a room, two sovereigns, two scions of lost families.
“You will not break me,” she says. The words come out scarcely louder than a whisper, but that does not lessen their strength. A blade wrapped in silk may not be able to cut—but it is still a bludgeon.
Yet if the Traitor feels its impact, he makes no sign of it.
“Child,” he says as the world begins to go dark around her, “I already have.”
THE FATHOMLESS SEA
Darkness, cool and sweet. Waves rise and fall at the surface. Up above, Grandmother Sky’s fine studded cloak covers the heavens. The stars—the ancestors—look down on the eternal ocean with trepidation.
She has joined the others.
Wasn’t she meant to be with us?
A tragedy, a tragedy.
So they whisper to one another. Trapped for eternity within the bounds of their orbits, their celestial bodies hurtling along practiced routes, they nevertheless take the time to speak of the fallen god.
Of the ocean that has swallowed her whole.
But the ocean, too, looks up at them. Beneath the glassy surface—beneath the mirrored waters—life is teeming. The souls of the dead have no eyes, no ears, no skin, no self—and yet in their pining for the Sky, they are united.
In all things, they are united.
But one thing drives them more than any other, these fallen souls, these discarded hopes and dreams: the shore.
For there is a shore. A distant one. A fine ship could carry you to it within the hour—but no one could swim it on their own. To do so would be folly. You would begin strongly enough, as they all do—you would swim with confidence, your legs kicking the swirl of souls, your arms cutting through them as you propelled yourself forward.
But it would not take long for the burdens of those lives unlived to weigh you down. The water that rolls down your back is heavier than molten iron—though it does not burn. Instead it is cold—but not the cold of winter, nor the cold of a scorned lover’s glance—it is the inexorable cold of time. Of age.
You will not notice it at first.
Farther and farther you will go. As your muscles start to fail, start to scream, you will think that you have trained all your life to swim this distance—to reach the distant shore. How can you fail now? No, you must keep going. You must reach it. Otherwise, what have your family’s struggles meant?
The Warrior Moon Page 39