THe Grave at Storm's End

by Devin Madson

  You will be that man again.

  Hope trembled. Pain grew in his bones for every moment he stayed outside of his orders. ‘I have to go,’ he said, still looking at me. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.’

  He turned and pushed through the gathered soldiers, leaving only a memory behind.

  Your father is dead. Your Grace.

  Chapter 16

  I watched from the window as Shimai burned. The day I was elevated to Minister of the Left, Kin had invited me to stand here beside him, not an equal, but not a servant, the space in-between the treacherous ground we would tread in the years to come.

  But I had knelt at his feet and kissed the hand of a liar.

  Beside me now Malice stood with his hands clasped behind his back, reading the scrolls that lined the walls. ‘“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”,’ he said. ‘That isn’t particularly apt for the situation, yes?’

  ‘Shut up, Spider,’ Katashi snapped, the tap of his sandals across the floor like a chorus of snapping beetles. ‘This is insane. I am winning, Laroth. I could have taken the bridge by now.’

  ‘You will take the bridge soon enough,’ I said, not turning my gaze from the window. It was starting to drizzle.

  ‘What general in history ever called a truce to play a game of Errant with his enemy?’

  ‘General Mikuzo, in the ninth century. He lost the game but went on to win the battle, I believe.’

  He stopped pacing, and reflected in the glass I saw fire flare on his fingers. ‘Just give me Hana and be done with this stupidity. She is mine.’

  I turned. ‘Stupidity?’

  ‘Stupidity!’

  ‘Your opinion of my skill at Errant is not high, it would seem,’ I said. ‘Tell me, what would hurt Kin more? Losing Hana to you without having the chance to save her, or having the chance to fight for her and failing?’

  ‘“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others”,’ Malice said. ‘Now that one seems much more appropriate, yes?’

  Ignoring Malice, Katashi said: ‘I don’t care what hurts him more I just want him dead. I want my throne and I want Hana.’

  ‘You will get her when I say you can have her.’

  Katashi leered. ‘Well, aren’t you snarky. Missing the use of your hand?’

  ‘You can do better than that,’ I said. ‘You know I would much rather stick it in your sister.’

  Malice cleared his throat. ‘“When two tigers fight, one limps away terribly wounded, the other is dead”. I like that one.’

  ‘Shut it, Spider, or I’ll burn you from your cock up.’

  ‘Oh yes? Why don’t you try it.’

  Flames roared and heat filled the room.

  ‘Stop!’

  Katashi’s hand froze as though it hit an invisible wall inches from Malice’s face. Every finger was engulfed, curling as though trying to claw solid air. ‘You stinking shivat!’

  Malice took a deliberate step back, mildly smiling. ‘Manners, Katashi. Manners.’

  ‘Put your hand down.’

  He did not immediately obey my command. With his teeth bared in a snarl, Katashi fought, his hand beginning to shake with the effort. Then all at once his hand dropped.

  ‘As much as I am enjoying this pissing contest,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘At least one of us ought to be alive to meet our guests when they arrive.’

  Katashi turned his back on me and strode to the dais, and ignoring the replica throne entirely, he sat instead upon the empress’s divan. There he touched a finger to the crimson silk and watched it char.

  Outside the city was quiet, no screams, no sounds of battle, just a thin drizzle cutting orange firelight. Inside, the smell of burning silk and the tap of Malice’s sandals as he walked around the room reading the wisdom of Kisia.

  A search of the palace had turned up only a small amount of opium.

  The doors slid open. Malice turned and Katashi looked up from the pattern of burn marks he was creating. Hana stood on the threshold, regal in her armour and crimson surcoat. She had been filthy from battle, but her maid had been among the palace servants and had done her best. Hana’s clothes had been neatened, her hands washed and her face scrubbed clean of blood, even her hair was freshly brushed with a jewelled comb employed to keep her increasingly unruly curls tidy.

  Without waiting for an invitation, Hana strode in with her maid. Katashi leapt up from the divan, his long stride taking him quickly across the room.

  ‘Hana,’ he said, taking hold of her chin and looking her over with the familiarity of ownership.

  ‘Katashi,’ she returned.

  ‘I’ve missed you, sweet cousin.’

  He pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was gentle, even a little tentative, but although her fists clenched Hana did not pull away. A knowing smile turned a corner of Malice’s lips. He could feel it too. She had loved Katashi too long and too fiercely to ever let him go. But in choosing Kin she had condemned the cousin who had once been her god.

  Hana emerged from the kiss flushed, her face glistening with sweat.

  ‘You should never have left me, Hana,’ he said, not seeming to care he had an audience. ‘We could have achieved so much together.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before you sent a man to kill me.’ Hana put her hand to his chest and set him from her, locking her elbow as he stepped back. ‘I have made my choice, Katashi. I chose to fight for Kisia, not for your revenge.’

  ‘My revenge?’ he ran a finger along her jaw. ‘Oh sweet cousin, what happened to my fierce Regent? What happened to the woman who told me she would prise the crown from Kin’s dead fingers if she had to. He took everything from us.’

  ‘He took only our responsibilities.’

  Katashi’s hand dropped. ‘He cut off my father’s head.’

  ‘Yes.’ She walked on past him, head held high. ‘I don’t know what you’re planning to get out of this farce, Darius,’ she said. ‘If it’s Kimiko you want I can assure you she is being well looked after.’

  ‘I think Lady Kimiko is quite capable of looking after herself.’

  She frowned at me. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘Is there something else I am supposed to say?’

  ‘Do you love her?’

  Both Katashi and Malice awaited my answer with intense stares. I let my lips part into a false smile. ‘Love has many meanings, Lady Hana, and many faces, as I am sure you are fast discovering.’

  ‘That isn’t an answer,’ she said.

  ‘It is the only one you are going to get.’

  For the second time the door slid and Avarice returned, bowing low. ‘Master,’ he said. ‘Emperor Kin has just arrived.’

  Hana’s face paled. ‘No, no Kin would never make a deal with you. Why is he here?’

  ‘He is here to play for you, my dear,’ I drawled. ‘You see we have called a truce while we sort out our… unfinished business. And you, my dear, will be the property of the winner. Bring in the table, Avarice.’

  ‘Yes, Master.’

  ‘Avarice.’ Malice strode to the man’s side and spoke low. ‘My Vices?’

  An infinitesimal shake of the head. ‘Only Hope, Pride and Conceit,’ Avarice said. ‘They haven’t gone out again since fulfilling their missions.’

  ‘Keep them in. Tell them to stay together, yes?’

  I shared his unease. A few missing Vices was an anomaly, so many was a pattern. I looked at Katashi. No Vice had ever fought back before, but then I had only ever made one other. Whatever the outcome there was no going back now.

  Avarice departed and I beckoned to Hana. Although she scowled, she came without complaint. ‘Your wish, Lord Laroth?’

  ‘Sit,’ I commanded, pointing to the throne. ‘You may watch the game if you wish, but as Kin is here on m
y invitation, not yours, you will not speak to him unless given permission to do so, yes?’

  ‘And if I do?’

  ‘Things will go very poorly for you and your emperor. You have my word.’

  She bowed, haughty grace in every line of her body. Hana was shedding the child and becoming the empress that ran in her blood. Katashi watched with a fascinated eye – lust, remorse and anger all bursting from a heart that knew it was running out of time.

  While Avarice brought in the table, Katashi went back to the empress’s divan. Together, Hana and Katashi made an impressive picture. Hana sitting proud upon a twisting nest of crimson lacquer-work, the man at her side both warrior and emperor in bearing and proportion. Katashi the black to her red, the fire to her new, cool assurance, an image so perfect it was sure to break Kin’s heart.

  You’re going to ruin them all, Darius.

  ‘And which one of them does not deserve it, my dear,’ I answered without thinking. But the voice had been in my head. I forced myself not to look up, just shifted a cushion into place with the toe of my sandal.

  Justice? Or Revenge?

  It was Kimiko, so clear she might have stood at my side. Malice’s eyes followed me, hawk-like.

  Footsteps sounded beyond the door. Hana gripped the arms of the throne as the rhythmic clack of sandals grew louder. Again the doors opened. This time it was Kin who strode in without announcement or pause, owning his throne room completely. He was battle stained, his crimson surcoat choked with ash and splattered with dried blood. Close behind came his chosen guard – General Ryoji, no surprise there, but neither was armed and that was a surprise. I had given no order, yet even their dagger scabbards hung empty. I looked again at Katashi, but he did not look at me, all his attention on the two men now standing in the middle of the room.

  Kin halted at the Humble Stone and surveyed the room. Katashi lifted his brows in a sort of welcome, while Hana, stick-straight upon the throne, neither moved nor spoke, barely even seeming to breathe. Her maid stood beside the dais and stared at the floor.

  ‘Darius,’ Kin said, turning at last to me.

  ‘Majesty.’ The name came by habit and I let it go rather than try to retrieve the slip. ‘It is so good of you to come.’

  ‘Somewhere on these walls it says that it is more shameful to distrust one’s friends than to be deceived by them.’

  Friend. The word bit and I fought the clenching of my fist. He had never called me so before.

  ‘And General Ryoji,’ I said. ‘I think you have not been properly introduced to our other emperor, the exiled Lord Katashi Otako. Otako, this is General Hade Ryoji, the commoner’s commoner.’

  Ryoji neither nodded nor spoke, though Katashi sprung to his feet and bowed majestically, sliding his palms down the black leather facings of his breeches. ‘A great honour, General,’ he said, the bow bringing Hatsukoi into sharp focus.

  Neither of our guests spoke, but Kin turned his attention from Katashi to Malice, who returned his stare with one equally bold. My stomach constricted as I realised they had never met before – these two men, the two halves of my life.

  ‘I thought you would be taller, yes?’ Malice said, finally breaking the deadlock with a shrug. ‘No, Darius, I still fail to fathom what our little Hana sees in him.’

  ‘More than I ever saw in you, Malice,’ she said coldly. ‘If you insist on going through with this farce, Darius, then dispense with the pleasantries and get it over with.’

  Malice took the few steps to the raised platform upon which the throne sat, and there looked up to Hana upon her crimson seat. ‘That’s it, little lamb? No introduction? You have exchanged bridal prayers with this man but you will not even introduce him to me?’

  ‘More that I will not introduce you to him,’ she said.

  ‘Careful, Hana,’ I warned.

  ‘You said I could not speak to Kin, not that I could not speak at all.’

  Malice turned to me, dripping amusement. ‘Go on, Darius, give her permission to speak to him so she might introduce us properly, yes?’

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Hana, you may speak.’

  In the middle of the floor the two stiff statues of outrage remained unmoved, their faces betraying nothing. But in betraying nothing they gave away their fear that emotion meant danger.

  Hana sniffed, but when she spoke her voice rang proud. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said. ‘Pray allow me to introduce the bastard son of Nyraek Laroth, better known to the world as Malice, leader of the ill-famed Vices. This is the man who brands his crimes with the Eye of Vice. This is the man who helped Katashi take Koi. And this is the man who I called my guardian for five years.’

  A little grim, Malice bowed. ‘Most apt, little lamb,’ he said. ‘Although you might also add that I am the only reason your emperor still lives. Were it not for me, your charming cousin would have executed him at Koi, yes?’

  ‘If you expect my thanks you are to be disappointed,’ Kin said. ‘What a man does to serve his own ends is no virtue.’

  ‘Is that written on these walls somewhere? I have had quite a time sifting through all this wisdom, yes?’

  ‘Then it is to be hoped you have learned something.’

  Malice grinned.

  ‘The night gets no younger, Majesty,’ I said, indicating the table Avarice had set in the middle of the floor. ‘Our game?’

  ‘I am no stranger to our games lasting long into the night, Darius,’ Kin said. ‘But I would play without an audience.’

  ‘No,’ Katashi said. ‘This idiotic truce hangs upon one order from me and right now your precious Laroth is the last man in Kisia I trust.’

  ‘Your feelings are fully reciprocated,’ I said. ‘The audience stays, Your Majesty.’ I knelt at the table and gestured to the place opposite. Kin took it, spreading the skirt of his surcoat, graceful despite the bloodstains. There was no emotion in his face, but I could feel him more clearly now than I had ever allowed myself to do before. Despite everything the great man owned more anger than fear, more determination than pessimism, and when he looked at me with those dark eyes I felt so much like the minister I had once been that I nearly bowed.

  ‘Lead or follow, Majesty?’

  ‘Lead.’

  He took up his pieces, and holding them in one hand he picked through them, searching for the king. I held mine in the crook of my useless arm, spreading them out until I found the one with the tiny carved crown.

  ‘I see you have lost your right hand, Darius,’ Kin said, setting his pieces with his usual promptness. ‘That must have hurt.’

  I set my own, but it took much longer with my left hand, practice not yet making perfect.

  ‘Or how much you continue to suffer,’ Kin said as I placed the last one, having to shake my sleeve to get it out of the way. ‘You have lost your grace, Darius.’

  ‘Play,’ I said. ‘I want none of your pity.’

  ‘So you said last time we played.’ He moved his first piece then returned his hand to his lap. ‘Your turn, Darius.’

  I made my move, trying not to think back on the last game we had played. I had let him crush me in return for my life, always respecting him too much and liking him too well.

  ‘Do you like what I’ve done to your city?’ Katashi asked from the dais. ‘Fire is so pretty, don’t you think?’

  Kin did not look at him. ‘Have you heard the saying: “before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”?’ he asked.

  ‘I have, and I would give my life to end yours.’

  ‘For a quarrel of your own making?’

  Katashi leapt to his feet. ‘Of my making? You executed my father, the true emperor of Kisia.’

  For years I had believed Grace Tianto responsible for the assassination of his brother’s family. For years I had believed that Katashi knew, might even have been a part of a plot that h
ad gone awry only thanks to Kin’s intervention. And for all those years I had been wrong.

  ‘Katashi,’ I said, speaking before Kin had a chance to respond. ‘I want you to tell me a story.’

  ‘Going for your nap, old man?’

  ‘Tell me about Shin.’

  There was the slightest of pauses between Kin picking up his next piece and setting it down. No one else in the room moved. The burning braziers crackled loudly in the silence.

  ‘Shin Metai?’ Katashi said at last. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Tell me why your father gave him that scar.’

  I shifted my next piece. Katashi did not sit, but stood in front of the divan, the raised platform adding to his already great height. ‘What makes you think my father gave it to him?’

  ‘Use of my not inconsiderable intellect,’ I said. ‘Disfigured so he would not be recognisable, and as punishment for a crime he ought never to have committed, yes?’

  ‘I think it’s time you shut your mouth, Laroth,’ Katashi growled. Doubt. Anger. Pain. Even Katashi did not know the whole truth.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re going to tell me a story. You’re going to tell me, tell us all, why Shin Metai killed Emperor Lan.’

  Across the table Kin did not look up, just moved a piece forward with more care as though not to disturb the silence. It was a mistake. He had only one chance to speak first.

  Katashi lowered himself onto the empress’s divan, avoiding Hana’s stare. ‘Because he was paid to.’

  ‘Because he was paid to?’ Hana repeated. ‘Who paid him?’

  The Errant game was playing out as well as the scene around me. Kin’s play was getting careless, his pieces spread out and vulnerable.

  ‘Katashi,’ Hana said when he didn’t reply. ‘Shin was your father’s general.’

  ‘My father never paid him to kill Emperor Lan.’

  I leapt a piece from the back of my pack to the front, following deliberately laid runs that reached like webs across the board. Still Kin did not speak.