The lanterns changed course again when they stopped, this time heading directly for them, instead of on course to intercept their chosen path.
“Then we fight,” Corenna said.
He nodded, rising to his feet. Corenna matched him, shedding the cover of the tall grass.
Night sounds echoed around them. Cricket song, and a distant owl, hooting beneath the cover of the stars. The lanterns kept on course, a shining light growing brighter as they moved toward where he and Corenna stood. Minutes passed, and he kept the spirits’ gifts ready, every gift he had been granted the right to wield. The powers of the beasts: valak’ar, mareh’et, una’re, anahret, juna’ren, ipek’a, lakiri’in, kirighra, and now astahg; the blood of the mountain, the woman’s power he drew from the sacred place at Nanek’Hai’Tyat. He kept his eyes low, watchful from the corners of his vision for the flanking tactics employed by wolves and men alike.
“They’re here,” a voice called from across the field ahead. “At last; we’ve arrived.”
Memory sparked through his senses, a ripple in the still water of calm before a fight.
“Arak’Jur,” another voice shouted. A woman’s voice. “Corenna. Is it you?”
“Asseena,” Corenna called back, exhaling a breath she’d held too long. “Yes. By the spirits, yes. We are here.”
Corenna pushed past him, and he followed in her wake, dispelling a fog of battle fury he’d held too close to let slip easily. Asseena. Foremost among the spirit-touched women of the Nanerat, as good as a Sa’Shem in the aftermath of her tribe’s near-destruction at the hands of their enemies. The very people Ilek’Inari had sent them to find, and bring into their fold.
Asseena met them halfway across the field, wrapping Corenna in her arms. A weary man followed at her flank; Ilek’Hannat, the apprentice shaman, whose connections to the spirits must have been the means by which they tracked his and Corenna’s movement. A dozen more men and women trailed behind, gaunt faces cast by the shadows of the moonlight. No more.
“Brothers, Sisters of the Nanerat,” he said, extending a greeting to them in formal tones. “We came at our shaman’s behest, to bring an offer of alliance before the representatives of your tribe.”
“And we mean to accept it,” Asseena said, her eyes haunted by a mix of vigor and regret. “But this is all that is left of our people, now.”
Corenna’s expression mirrored Asseena’s, a deep sympathy born of the same pain.
“They hunted us,” Asseena continued. “The Uktani. With great beasts among their warriors, their guardians gone mad, even their women joining in the chaos.” She turned back, finding cold iron in the eyes of her fellows. “They broke us, when they came to know we had treated with the southern tribes. And now they are coming.”
“We faced astahg, and ten Uktani warriors,” Corenna said. “But we’ve gathered great strength at the Sinari village. They will find us standing together, the remnants of five—and now, six tribes.”
“Honored sister,” Asseena said. “They’re not coming to break your alliance.” She looked to Arak’Jur, her eyes glazed with pain. “They’ve listened to madness, and madness has told them your name. No, they are not coming for the Sinari, Arak’Jur. They are coming for you.”
8
TIGAI
Yanjin Palace
Jun Province, the Jun Empire
Uncomfortable silence seeped into the hallway, and Tigai waited, hidden from view.
He’d spent the better part of the morning being fussed over by his brother’s servants, primped and preened like a show hound, short only a dangling ribbon to mark him a prized specimen for the benefit of their guests. He wore a paneled skirt over too-wide hose dyed Yanjin colors, yellow and red. Knee-length leather boots swallowed his trousers like cobras, puffed out at the head, and he wore his shirt fastened with rubies set in gold, with the same in bands around his neck and upper arms.
It had taken twice as long to don the costume as it had to get drunk on potato vodka, waiting for his brother’s summons. Now the seconds ticked past on the mechanical clock in the first receiving room—only the best, for Lord and Lady Han—and he delighted in listening to his brother run out of things to say.
“We’ve had an orchid harvest,” his brother offered after a lengthy pause. “The seedcrafters labored through the winter to bring it about. The first blossoms in spring, as early in the season as any at court.”
“Delightful,” offered a woman from a chair beyond his vision. A pruned voice, like month-old cabbage dipped in vinegar, that could only belong to Lady Han.
“Yes,” said Lord Han with a grunt. “A delight. As will be the sight of your brother, Lord Yanjin. I do so hope our visit has not inconvenienced your house, or burdened you past the limits of hospitality.”
Tigai stifled a laugh, though not before the sound made it halfway to his nose.
Shit.
The room shuffled, expensive robes and dresses shifting in their seats. His brother tried a cough to hide it, but the damage was done. Ah well. All pleasures had to end, in time.
With a flourish, Tigai pushed the cracked door open wide, bowing as he made his entry.
As he’d expected, Lady Han sat in the chair in the far corner of the room, her hair pinned into an elaborate piece dyed green to match her dress, with enough cosmetics on her face to coat the walls in fresh lacquer. Her husband had the seat beside her, a narrow couch, with their daughter, Huame, occupying the same place as her father. Both wore green; the father a tight-fit robe pinned with the chain of the office of Second Chancellor, the daughter in a dazzling sheen of silk trimmed with emeralds, the very height of court fashion, last he’d been aware of the trends. His brother had the place of honor beside the hearth, befitting the Lord of Yanjin Palace, though Dao lacked the weight and gravity their father had possessed, in more than his demeanor.
“Lord Tigai,” Lord Han said. “You will forgive an old man, if I do not rise to greet you. My bones grow weak when left to sit overlong, even on cushions as fine as these.”
“It is past consideration,” Tigai said, offering a bow for Lord Han’s sake and making a point of slurring his words. “I can only offer my humblest apologies, and hope you find our meager palace up to your inflated standards of grace and propriety.”
If Lord and Lady Han were frost, their daughter was jagged ice. Tigai affected not to notice, lowering himself with aplomb into an empty seat at his brother’s side.
“Yes,” Dao said. “Well. Now that my brother has arrived, we can address the business at hand. A sponsorship for Tigai to the Magistracy of Lingzhou, and the hand of the Lady Huame. As fine a pairing as there has been at court, since—”
“No,” Lady Han said. “No, I think not.”
The matron of the Han bloodline rose from her seat without further word, sweeping the train of her green silk behind her as she left the room.
Lord Han coughed, watching his wife pass through the doors and vanish into the hallway beyond. “What Lady Han meant to say …” he said. “That is, she meant to intimate that I have suffered from a flux, and we must send for my doctors at once, which will require a return to our estate.”
Dao rose, keeping his face a mask of smooth stone. “Of course, Lord Han. Your health must precede all other concerns.”
Lord Han coughed again, affecting a stiff bow as he accepted his daughter’s help to rise. Tigai made a point of staring at Huame’s chest, enjoying the curves suggested beneath the neckline of her dress until she glowered steel at him, guiding her father from the room.
Dao sighed when they were gone.
“You are becoming far too adept at that,” Dao said, slouching back into their father’s chair.
Tigai laughed, plucking a sugared date from a tray left half eaten by Lady Han. “The other families expect a reason why your brother and heir remains unwed. What better excuse than if the court itself rejects me? Besides, you would do well to whelp a few sons in the interim. This is far from my burden alone.”
Dao glowered, running a hand across his shaven scalp. “Koryu know I’ve tried. Mei has grown distant, of late.”
“Make more time for her. And buy her a necklace of Ghingwai pearls, next you go to market.”
“This is serious.”
Tigai nodded. With Dao, everything was serious. His brother had been the reason they inherited anything at all, after their father died with debts to half a score of creditors tied to thrice as many banks. Unraveling the knot—and keeping one set of promises weighed against the others—had preserved their status long enough to establish Tigai as a bachelor at court, little as he had any desire to be snared by a creature like Han Huame, or any of the dozens of simulacra that could be found among the other noble houses.
“You want me to talk to Mei?” Tigai asked.
“If you would. And put a child in her, if she’ll let you.”
Tigai laughed, and got a grim expression in return. “You treat your wife like a sentence to a labor camp,” he said. “Mei is sweet enough, even if you prefer sour ale to spiced wine.”
“Easy to say when it isn’t your cup being filled,” Dao said, pausing to gulp down the remnants of a crystal wineglass from the table beside his seat. “How goes your preparation for Kanjiao?”
Here it was. The true question, hiding behind a veil of gripes and pleasantries.
Tigai reached for a glass himself, left behind by the Lady Huame. No sense letting good drink go to waste.
“It goes well,” he replied. “If slowly. Remarin has them drilling on the floor plan for the vaults, and I’ve found my ironcrafter for the keys. With the prisoners of Kregiaw in our keeping, we’re days away. Not weeks.”
“I need not remind you—”
“No, you need not.”
Dao glowered, and Tigai met his brother’s eyes. Almost, the knot of their father’s debt was untangled. But the men in black hoods whom Dao had seen three weeks prior at the opera would have been in the employ of the Bank of Shinsuke, and neither of them had any illusions why the Yanjin gardener’s villa had been torched, even if they couldn’t be certain which of their creditors had set the fire.
Dao broke off their stare, rising to his feet.
“Quickly, little brother,” Dao said. “Or next time I will let Lady Rin, or Lady Bilong into your rooms before you’ve had time to drink.”
Tigai answered with a long draw from his wineglass, but his brother had already vanished into his private study.
Lamplight flickered across the walls, casting shadows as he descended into the crypts. A hundred generations of Yanjin corpses, and room for a hundred more. So their father had said. He’d never have believed Dao would take up the mantle of chastising him on the family’s behalf. Still, Dao was right. Tigai’s plans at the Emperor’s Kanjiao Palace would decide whether another generation of Yanjin boys would walk these crypts. He only wished he could do it for Dao’s sake, and not his father’s.
Their father’s statue greeted him in the first chamber, a likeness hewn from granite, as hard and cold as the man himself had been. Propriety demanded they honor him, commissioning the statue and making it available for all to come and offer their respects, not that anyone would. A delicious irony, that the magi training that his father had secured for him in secret would be used for thieving and piracy, headquartered in his very tomb.
“You’re late,” Remarin said gruffly, holding a lantern in the tunnel beyond the main passage. “I’ve had the prisoners naked and wondering at your perversions half the morning now.”
“Apologies, my friend,” he said. “I was enchanted by the beauty of the Han heiress, and had to stay to offer my respects.”
Remarin snorted. “Enchanted by wine and potato liquor, by the smell of you.”
“That, too.”
Remarin shook his head, producing a silvered key from his coat and offering it on his way out of the crypt.
“They’re your problem, then,” Remarin said. “Damyu know the price we paid to get them.”
“Are we ready, otherwise?”
“We are. Another month of drills and we might do it without leaving any men behind; another past that if we want to do it without killing. But we’re ready now.”
A few weeks’ efforts, weighed against the lives of his men, and a few weeks more to balance the lives of guardsmen who’d committed no more crime than taking the wrong posting at the wrong time. But it was no consideration at all. The banks would have their due, in gold, or blood and steel.
“We don’t have a month,” he said, and Remarin nodded.
Tigai took the key, and let his master-at-arms vanish up the stairwell leading back into the keep.
Remarin had been with them from the beginning, hired by his father to instill the hard-edged iron of the frontier into boys who might otherwise have been softened by the silks and pillows of the Imperial court. More fool him that Ujibari clansmen took bonds of stewardship as heavy as they took their liquor. Remarin hadn’t balked at piracy, nor at kidnapping or murder, if that was the price for his charges to survive. A good man, more a father to him and Dao than Lord Yanjin had ever been, and worth every bar of gold they’d promised to pay him, when it was over.
The lock clicked as he turned the key, and he pushed the door inward, stepping inside.
Four pairs of eyes fixed on him. The prisoners of Kregiaw, reduced to nakedness and shivering in spite of the southern heat. Three wrinkled men clapped in irons, and the enigma, the captain who’d called herself Lin Qishan, who stood out as much for her smooth skin and supple breasts as the fact that she should never have been anywhere near the wastes.
A shame about the manacles. They’d interfere with his purpose almost as much as clothes would have done.
“A fine morning to you, my guests,” he said, offering the same bow he’d given to Lord and Lady Han. “I trust your needs have been seen to, and I apologize for the necessity of your present condition.”
The men regarded his words with a varying mix of fear and false pride, while the captain’s eyes smoldered like a doused fire.
“What do you mean to do with us?” one of the men asked—he couldn’t tell which, by sight. Feng-To, Dhazan, and Shanying, each of varying talents and ancestry, though they could have been any three naked old men, but for the connections between them.
Tigai shifted his vision to the strands before he replied. A starfield, as rich as the night sky, superimposed over top of his sight. It had come as a shock to learn that none of the other boys could see those stars, or the strands between them. His father had hired expensive tutors to visit the Yanjin estates in secret rather than pledge him to the magi for placement and training. Not an uncommon thing, for a family to keep a few of its most talented from the Great and Noble Houses. But he’d since gone further than any of them dared, and he meant to go further still.
“I mean to use your blood to summon demons,” he said. “A dark ritual, fed by darker offerings, and mysteries long missing from this world.”
A pause let their faces go ashen white, even by torchlight.
“He’s no sorcerer,” the woman, Captain Lin, said. “He wants you for your connections to the Emperor.”
Tigai’s smile dimmed, but held as he examined the starfield. There. A pulsing star that signified the first of the three men, with strands of light connecting him to the others by proximity. And yes, a pale tether linked to strands far in the distance, echoed between the three of them by the common thread of their experience. If they’d been clothed he might have found shared connections in their tailors, or the flax seeds or sheep that contributed to make their garb. Naked, he sensed only them, the true, raw essence of their experience.
“My lady is quite correct,” he said. “Though it is unfortunate for you she said it aloud.”
The chamber fell silent, and he traced the strands again, following each line far enough to be sure they led to Kanjiao Palace, and not to some quarry or forge where their manacles had been smithed, or to an academy wher
e they might once have schooled together by happenstance. Good enough. When the time came, he could use their connection to shift Remarin’s men into the secret chambers of the palace vaults, where Shanying had performed for His Majesty in his youth, where Feng-To had served as a coinsmith for the better part of a decade, and where Dhazan had been a lesser aide at the start of his career. He’d need to bring the three of them along, more to their pity; there wasn’t time to spend weeks making a solid connection for himself. But it would serve.
“How is it a scion of Dragon has turned pirate?”
Captain Lin met his eyes as he dismissed the starfield and the strands. This time he frowned, in spite of her nakedness. A pleasant surprise, to find such a well-shaped body beneath the furs she’d packed over her uniform in the snows. But for her to mention Dragon—or more properly, the Great and Noble House of the Dragon … he’d never heard of the house, not that his knowledge of the monastic orders was anything close to exhaustive. But she spoke as though she was sure he belonged there.
“Are you a Dragon yourself, to be so sure?” he shot back, intending it to settle the issue.
“I know your mind,” she said. “You’ve betrayed your order, in service to Isaru Mattai.”
Inwardly he winced. Magi politics. He had no idea who Isaru Mattai was, or why serving him would count for a betrayal. He’d been a bloody fool to take this one along with the others. He’d expected a noble ingénue, a seed planted in the far north, perhaps a part of some scheme he might unravel to sell the information for gold. But if whatever she was involved the magi and the Great and Noble Houses, he would have been better off leaving her in the ice.
“You will go free,” he lied. “All of you. After our purpose is done, we will—”
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