by Claire Luana
“Remember all the fun we used to have? With the blindfold? You never knew what was coming next. So satisfying.”
In the darkness, the man’s hand gripped her chin and raised her face to look into his own. She could imagine the face, the twisted sneer, in the darkness.
She whimpered, her memory flashing through the ways he had degraded her, body and soul. How he had stripped her down, piece by piece, until there was nothing left that she recognized. Until she would do anything to make the pain stop.
“It’s too bad we don’t have time for fun today,” he said, releasing her chin. “But I have much to do to clean up your mess here. You did your job well for many years, but it all fell apart. You failed them.”
“The goddess said I could have a second chance,” Geisa said. He couldn’t destroy her. The goddess still needed her. “It came here…it told me.”
“Yes.” The man tsked. “I would not have been so forgiving, but it is not for me to question their judgment. I will free you and give you one more chance to prove your worth.”
“I will not fail again,” she said, hating the eagerness in her own voice.
“Your task is a critical one. Within days, the queen and Ozora’s whelp will journey to discover the locations where Tsuki and Taiyo are held captive. If they find where they are hidden, they will undertake an effort to free them.”
“Free them?” Geisa said. “It cannot be allowed. I will stop them at all costs.”
“Foolish woman,” he scolded. “So small-minded. I suppose I could not expect more from a woman, but even so, it’s disappointing to have such inferior allies.”
She cringed away from his displeasure, not daring to speak.
The man continued. “You must harry them, so they believe they are being opposed, but not stop them.”
“Why don’t I kill them?” Geisa asked, salivating slightly at the thought.
“Because we need them. The prisons containing Tsuki and Taiyo will only open to the blood of their heirs.”
“If we kill them, we will have their blood,” Geisa said. “Why the charade?”
“The resting places will only open to the blood of the true heir freely given,” he said, as if explaining to a small child.
“Why do we seek to free Tsuki and Taiyo?” Geisa asked softly. “I thought our master and mistress wanted the gods out of the way.”
“They do,” the man said, kneeling down before her. She could smell the stale odor of decay on his breath. “Out of the way for good. Once Tsuki and Taiyo are free, our lord and lady will kill them and plunge this world into darkness.”
Geisa shivered, but not at the thought of the coming darkness. At his closeness.
“I’m ready,” she said.
Kai breathed a sigh of relief when they landed in the citadel’s central courtyard. The seishen elder’s transportation had turned out to be several white eagles as large as oxen. Riding on one of their feathered backs without the security of a flying harness or saddle had left her with frayed nerves and tense muscles.
Viewing the deadly effects of the earthquake as they descended had twisted her heart. Buildings crumbled like sandcastles along the riverbed, tents of homeless citizens sprung across squares and alleys, smoke wafting from still-smoldering embers.
It was late afternoon, and the hot sun beat down mercilessly on the stones and whitewashed walls of the citadel, painting the destruction of her own palace in harsh oranges and reds.
“Thank you,” she said to her eagle after she dismounted and helped Quitsu down to the ground.
It nodded to her once and took off into the sky, sending her back a step with the force of its wings.
“Thank the goddess,” Hanae said, and Kai whirled around to meet her. Kai’s mother wore a colorful silk robe, her silky tresses corralled in a haphazard bun. It was still “nighttime” here.
Hanae wrinkled her nose as she pulled Kai into a hug. “You need a bath.”
Kai let out a tired laugh. “It was a tougher voyage than we expected.”
“We feared the worst,” Hanae said. “When Daarco came back. He told us…about the attacks. He thought you had been lost in the forest.”
“How is Daarco?” Emi asked as she approached, trying uselessly to dust off her uniform.
Hanae hesitated, an unreadable look flashing across her face. “He’s…being held in his quarters.”
“What?” Hiro asked, joining them. “Why?”
“Shortly after he returned…something happened.”
“What?” Kai asked in alarm.
“Geisa escaped.”
“What?” Kai shrieked.
“Someone helped her escape,” Hanae said. “Daarco knew she was there and is no friend of the moonburners. He’s the logical suspect.”
“How could he do this?” Kai fumed. “I thought…I thought we were making progress.”
“No,” Emi said. “It wasn’t Daarco.”
“And you base that on what, your extensive knowledge of him?” Kai snapped. “He tried to kill me twice. Come on, Hiro, you know he could be capable of this.”
Hiro hesitated, stroking his square jaw. “I…I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would he free Geisa? It doesn’t make sense.”
“But he could do it, you know that,” Kai insisted. “He’s capable of it.” If not Daarco, who? She could hardly articulate the thought, let alone voice it out loud. If not Daarco…then they had another traitor in their midst. And she couldn’t face that.
“I’d like to talk to him,” Hiro said. “Before I make any judgments.”
“Of course,” Hanae said.
Kai closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I need a hot meal and a hot bath. Please gather the council at nightfall. We have things to discuss.”
Kai lingered in her steaming bath until the water grew tepid, relishing the brief moment of stillness. After her bath, she dug into a fragrant meal of sweet glazed chicken, vegetables, and fluffy rice, further delaying the unpleasantness that she knew she would face at her council meeting. But eventually, after she pulled on a light dress of chartreuse linen and secured her wet hair in a bun, she knew she could delay no longer.
The others had already gathered in the council chamber when she arrived—Nanase, Hanae, Master Vita, and Chiya.
Kai settled into the chair at the head of the table. “Report?”
Her councilmembers exchanged glances, each hesitant to go first.
Nanase broke the silence, her face stormy. “You heard that Geisa has escaped.”
“Yes,” Kai said. “How?”
“The guards were overpowered and knocked unconscious yesterday during the day. One woman was stripped of her uniform. We believe the perpetrator dressed Geisa in a moonburner uniform and smuggled her out of the citadel. A koumori is gone. Just one.”
Just one. Meaning the perpetrator could still be at the citadel.
“This happened during sunlight hours?” Kai asked. It didn’t look good for Daarco. It would be the perfect time for a sunburner to aid an escape.
Nanase nodded grimly. “I apologize, Your Majesty. I am personally handling the moonburner guards’ discipline. I am also looking into why no one at the rookery was alerted to an unauthorized use of a koumori. It was an unacceptable oversight in security, and I take full responsibility.”
“Very well,” Kai said. She knew Nanase would punish herself more harshly for the breach than anything Kai could impose on her. No need to rub salt in the wound. “And Daarco has been questioned?”
“He has been questioned and denies involvement,” Hanae said. “But we have not used true interrogation tactics for fear of harming diplomatic relations with Kita.”
“He’s a lying rat,” Chiya said under her breath.
Kai stifled a sigh. Chiya’s prejudices could be tiresome. She examined the other woman, considering her round face, silver ponytail, heavily-muscled arms, strong hands. Those were her father’s hands—she could see him in them, gentle enough to bo
ttlefeed a newborn foal, strong enough to wrench a stray fencepost back into place. Gods, she missed those hands.
“Kai?” Hanae said, concern written on her face.
Kai started. They were all looking at her, no doubt waiting for some response. “Daarco,” she said. “I will question him with Hiro. See if we can get to the bottom of this.” Her necklace should reveal any lies—should tell her whether he was truly to blame. “Have we considered who it could be if it’s not him?”
“We’re looking into alternatives,” Nanase said. “No leads yet.”
“Keep looking,” Kai said. “Gods, I don’t want it to be Daarco, but I don’t want it not to be Daarco.” She blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “But we will deal with what comes. What other news? More bad, I assume.”
“I’m afraid so,” Master Vita said. “The food situation is only growing worse. The earthquake ruined many of the stores we had, and very few crops have been harvested. Now, we are hearing news of livestock sickness.”
Kai couldn’t keep the dismay off her face. “Treatable?”
Hanae shook her head. “It’s not something we’ve seen before. And it’s highly contagious. We are instructing people to slaughter all of the sick animals and burn them.”
“The meat can’t be salvaged?”
“We don’t think it’s safe to eat,” Master Vita said, wiping his half-moon spectacles with his handkerchief.
“That’s not all,” Hanae said. “The spotted fever has made it to the city. We’ve had to quarantine sections of the Meadow, as well as the Coin, by the docks. We’re just short of a widespread epidemic.”
Kai wanted to scream. These tengu thought they could starve them and sicken them and kill them? She tightened her fists. Not under her reign.
“Anything else?” Kai asked, afraid of the answer.
“Uprisings,” Chiya said. “We’re hearing reports of rioting in the streets. Looting near the quarantine zones. The city is near the boiling point.”
Kai took a deep breath, sorting through the parade of horribles in her mind to identify something, anything, she could help. “We need to set up a hospital outside of the city. The sick can be boated down from the quarantine point out of the city. We need to get those people outside the city before the bodies start piling up. I want all the moonburners, healers and nurses we can spare to get to work on caring for those people or trying to find a cure for the livestock ailment, and the rest of the moonburners in the city need to be giving out what food we can spare. Let’s see if we can release some pressure.”
“And then what?” Chiya said, as tactless as ever. “All those solutions are temporary. They won’t even get us through the winter.”
“And then,” Kai said, setting her jaw, “we free Tsuki and Taiyo, kill some tengu, and take back our world.”
Kai’s council listened with rapt attention as Kai detailed the journey to the Misty Forest.
“Now we need to travel to where Tsuki and Taiyo are trapped and release them. We hope they will be able to fight the tengu and show the world that these horrible events were not divine will after all.”
“Did the seishen elder tell you where Tsuki and Taiyo can be found?” Master Vita asked.
“No.” Kai hesitated. This part was delicate. She needed to convince Chiya that she held the secret to finding Tsuki without her understanding why. “The seishen elder did give us something to help reveal the locations.”
Kai produced the wooden box and handed it to Chiya, who sat next to her. “Will you do the honors?”
Chiya looked at it in confusion, but the confusion didn’t last long. As it touched her hand, the box erupted with light, just as it had in the seishen temple. But this time, the image was different.
The faces in the room turned towards the light in rapt attention, taking in the details of the scene projected by the box. The viewer was on a beach covered in fine white sand. A cluster of palm trees stood tall to the right of the scene, the green fronds fluttering in an ephemeral breeze. In the distance, a smaller island crouched in the crystalline water. As they examined the image, it began to move.
“We’re moving!” Master Vita exclaimed.
“What are you doing?” Kai asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing,” Chiya said.
They watched in rapt attention as the image transformed. A long, thin rowboat came into view, its turquoise paint peeling in the afternoon sun. They seemed to get into the boat and begin rowing towards the next island as the sun’s tangerine light slipped over the horizon to their right. Twilight blanketed the landscape and a few stars appeared. As the oars dipped into the water at the edge of the image, they left a faint trail of light in the dark of the water.
The image winked out in Chiya’s hand. Chiya stared at the deceptively mundane-looking box with wide eyes.
“It must be finished,” Kai said. “That’s all it will show us.”
“So Tsuki is on an island in the south?” Master Vita said, running his hands through his snowy hair.
“Do you know where that is?” Kai asked.
“That light in the water,” Master Vita said. “I’ve heard of such a thing.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called phosphorescence,” Master Vita explained. “Tiny creatures in the water that light up when disturbed. One of the burner scientists of old studied them, thinking that they might be linked to the moonburners.”
“It would be an ideal place for Tsuki to be hidden then,” Kai said.
“The scientist ultimately concluded that a chemical reaction caused the light, not magic. But there are only a few places where the phenomenon occurs. The Adesta Islands southwest of Kita are one of few such places. They’re tiny, practically too small to be on the map. That must be where this is.”
“We’ll have to split up,” Kai said. “The other scene is in the mountains. Snowy, somewhere in the north of the Akashi. We don’t have time with what’s going on to try to free one, then the other. Master Vita, can you work with Hiro to try to identify the other scene?”
“Of course,” Master Vita said, his eyes sparkling with the challenge. “I’ll have Jurou assist me.”
“Did the elder say how to free Tsuki and Taiyo?” Nanase asked. “Or what happens after? Will the gods help us defeat the tengu?”
“One thing at a time,” Kai said. “We don’t know yet. We’ll have to get there and evaluate. Hopefully, we can open the cages or prisons they’re being held in.”
“That’s an awfully thin plan,” Chiya said.
“I’m aware,” Kai snapped. “But the elder wasn’t there when the gods were trapped. He could only speculate about how to open the tombs. This box was the only piece of the puzzle he had. As for what happens after…your guess is as good as mine. Personally, I bet Tsuki and Taiyo will be angry about what’s been done in their absence.” She ignored the seishen elder’s warnings resounding in the back of her mind.
Chiya’s words dripped with sarcasm. “Release two trapped, angry gods and let them take their revenge against two powerful demons impersonating them. And hope we don’t get…what, squished in the middle?”
Kai tried to let Chiya’s words pass over her, but they sunk in anyway. The plan was risky. They had no idea what they were unleashing with Tsuki and Taiyo.
“I’m open to an alternate plan if anyone has one,” Kai said.
Her advisors looked down at the table. Nanase examined the end of a braid; Chiya scowled at her fingernails.
“Hearing none, we will continue forward with the only plan we’ve got,” Kai said. “And pray we don’t get squished in the middle.”
After the meeting concluded, Nanase and Master Vita filed out. Chiya reached for the box, as if to touch it again. She stopped herself just before her fingers brushed its smooth surface.
“Why did you give it to me?” Chiya asked.
Kai had spent the whole flight back strategizing what she would say. They said the best lies were half-truths. “The elder thought
you might have some connection to it. His knowledge of your seishen, Tanu, gave him some clue. Something about your heritage…your parents.”
“My parents?” Chiya said, her voice quiet.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know any more. Perhaps we’ll learn more when we find Tsuki.”
Chiya narrowed her eyes, looking at Kai.
Kai kept her face neutral, open. Inside, her stomach twisted. She felt wretched. But her friends had been right. This wasn’t the time.
“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Chiya finally said.
“Can you get supplies ready for our journey?” Kai asked. “We’ll need to leave in the next day or two.”
Chiya nodded her head and made her exit. Her seishen Tanu trailed after her, his striped silver-and-white tail bobbing.
Hanae sat still as statue, her stare fixed on Kai.
Kai straightened her obi and sat back down, examining the swirling grains of the wooden table. “Say it,” Kai said softly.
“It’s because she’s her, isn’t it?” Hanae asked, her voice strangled. “She’s my daughter.”
Kai nodded, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. “The box seems to respond to the true heir of Tsuki and Taiyo. It opened to Hiro. But…not to me. I’m not the true heir.”
Hanae deflated, sitting back in her chair and closing her eyes for a moment.
“I’m not going to tell her,” Kai said. “Not until this madness is all over.”
Hanae’s eyes flew open, but Kai pressed on. “I know you think it’s wrong, and part of me thinks it’s wrong too, but the last thing the country needs right now is a change in leadership. To have any chance of freeing the gods and defeating the tengu, we need Kita and Miina united. I can’t trust Chiya with the alliance. She’s too…hot-headed.” Kai put her head in her hands, drawing in a shuddering sigh. “As nice as it would be to turn this whole mess over to someone else, I can’t. I need to see this through.”
“I don’t think it’s wrong. I mean…it is. But it’s the right decision for right now. Sometimes you only have wrong choices, and you choose the one that’s less wrong.”