THe Grave at Storm's End

by Devin Madson

‘Then who did?’ Hana demanded.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Hana scoffed and folded her arms. ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth, Hana,’ Katashi said. ‘Shin didn’t know. He was just a common assassin, but he couldn’t stick his knife through you or Takehiko. So he left the job unfinished and threw himself at my father’s feet. I saw a stranger covered in Otako blood who ought to have died for his crime, but my father saw the potential for the most loyal servant he could ever have. You should appreciate that, Laroth. My father was your sort of clever.’

  ‘Not clever enough to stay alive,’ I said, watching Kin’s eyes dart about the board as though no conversation was taking place at all. ‘But then General Kin was already on the offensive, telling the world it was Tianto who had assassinated his brother.’

  Kin leapt a piece over one of mine and turned it, looking up as it revealed a blank face. ‘If you have something to say, Darius, I suggest you get to the point.’

  His second mistake. There was fear in him, yet still the same stubborn determination not to show weakness. But pride would not win Hana back.

  ‘It was you!’ Katashi leapt to his feet, a finger levelled at Kin. ‘You paid Shin to kill them. My father suspected, but no, you were the honourable General Kin, so patient, so good, always “Yes, Your Majesty” and “No, Your Majesty”. And Shin knew!’ Katashi was shouting now. ‘No wonder he didn’t want Hana to marry you, anything would be better than that.’

  ‘Sit down, Katashi,’ I said.

  Katashi did not obey, but jumped from the platform to stalk up behind Kin, flexing his fingers. ‘Sit down?’ he said. Ryoji took a step forward, only to find his progress blocked by Malice. ‘Sit down?’ Katashi looked around at Hana. She was pale, small, no longer the empress she had been playing. ‘You chose your family’s murderer over me?’

  Kin’s hand shook as he jumped a piece over two of mine, resolutely keeping his eyes upon the game.

  ‘No.’ It was a small, breathless whisper that came from the throne. ‘Tell me it isn’t true.’

  It was Kin’s chance to speak, to move, to do anything but ignore her like a guilty man. But he said nothing. Shock filled the silence, the taste of it bitter on my tongue. It resonated not only from Hana and Katashi, but from General Ryoji standing with Malice near the window. I could imagine his expression. Kin was his god as he had once been mine.

  ‘They trusted you. I trusted you.’ Hana was staring at Kin, balled fists barely containing her anguish.

  Katashi’s chest heaved and his fury washed over me, hardening my own. I had taken my oath at Kin’s feet, had trusted him and fought for him as my father had before me.

  You can’t get past it, can you? The whisper filled my head, its familiar tone speeding my heart. Kimiko. The only man you’ve ever respected more than yourself and he lied.

  A piece hit the board with a snap. ‘Everything I have done, I have done in service to Kisia,’ Kin said at last. He was trying to keep the game going, but he had already lost. They were the wrong words.

  ‘In service to Kisia?’ Hana cried. ‘Killing an emperor? How about my mother? My brothers? How was that your duty, General Kin?’

  He looked at her then, his expression grim. ‘I ought to have told you, Hana, but why hurt you when it was sixteen years done.’

  ‘Sixteen years never knowing my family. Left to the guardianship of Empathic monsters. Did you always plan for my uncle to take the blame so you could get rid of every Otako in one go?’ She turned her pleading eyes on me. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Only a few days,’ I said. ‘He might have taken the truth to his grave but for Endymion.’

  ‘None of it is as simple as it sounds,’ Kin said, ignoring all but the woman he had never meant to love. ‘I owe you an explanation, but now is not the time. Believe me when I say I did it for Kisia. If I had not there would have been no future.’

  ‘An explanation? Oh dear gods you think you can explain this? You think you can explain to me how the future of Kisia was the business of anyone but its emperor.’

  ‘You might look like your mother,’ he snapped. ‘But that’s your father’s arrogance spilling from your mouth.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Listen to yourself, Hana. To say that the future of Kisia is only the business of its emperor is to say that Kisia exists only for its emperor. What about its land? What about its people? They are Kisia, Hana, not me, not you, not your father. An emperor’s job is not to own, not just to lead but to protect. They need to be willing to sacrifice everything if it is required of them.’

  ‘Would you? If it was in the interest of the people would you relinquish your throne?’

  ‘I would.’

  A sneer hid her pain. ‘I don’t believe you. Shin told me no man would climb to the throne over the bodies of thousands for duty. He does it for power.’

  ‘Shin ought to know,’ Kin returned. ‘Since he’s the one who wielded the knife.’

  A sob burst from her lips and she looked away. Katashi had been standing behind Kin, but he went to her then, his feet following the path Kin cut with his eyes. But Kin was caught to the game and could only watch as Katashi touched Hana’s cheek, could only watch as she gripped the dark fabric of her cousin’s sleeve.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Your turn, Majesty,’ I said. ‘Do you play on?’

  ‘Yes. I play for my bride.’

  With his hand upon Hana’s shoulder, Katashi chuckled softly. ‘Your murderer is a determined man, my dear, I’ll give him that.’

  Hana did not answer, just buried her face into his surcoat, shoulders shaking. Kin ought to have looked away, but he did not, and for an instant his features creased as the two Otakos held each other in their own forms of grief.

  Kin’s fingers shook as he turned one of my pieces, white for black. Another mistake, one that gave away the position of his king. With my graceless left hand I gripped a piece and leapt it along his line, tap tap tap, not bothering to turn any but the last. It fell upon its back displaying a white crown upon its belly.

  ‘My round, I believe,’ I said.

  Kin said nothing, just slid his pieces off the board and gathered them in his hand. By the window General Ryoji stood statue-stiff, looking neither at Kin nor Hana, not even at the game, while Malice had eyes only for me. I had grown used to his hunger, used to his lust and his adoration. Once we had been everything to one another, but no one could live like that for long.

  Kin set his pieces, the process creating a song of staccato snaps. The room was full of tiny sounds, of the tap of wood on wood and the crackle of braziers, of distant shouts and rustling silk and a heart-wrenching sniff as Hana fought to control her grief.

  ‘All men have secrets,’ Kin said once he had finished. ‘You kept yours and I kept mine. Trust is for people with nothing to lose.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And so is forgiveness.’

  ‘And friendship.’

  I did not answer, and in silence he watched my left hand struggle to achieve quick finesse. Then he said: ‘As your guest I must say that your hospitality is disgraceful. We have played through a whole round without refreshment.’

  ‘Avarice,’ I said, concentrating on the last two pieces. ‘What will it be, Your Majesty. Wine?’

  ‘I think not. How about some tea, green pear, plain rice and thinly sliced mild fish.’

  My heartbeat sped and I looked up, hunting for signs that he was mocking me.

  ‘Am I wrong?’ he said. ‘That was always your meal of choice, was it not? I often wondered why a man who could afford so many opulent robes satisfied himself with so plain a repast.’

  I nodded to Avarice, who bowed and walked away. ‘If you were so curious, Majesty, you ought to have asked.’

  ‘And what lies would you have spun me if I had? Your play.’
r />   It was my turn to lead and I slid a piece onto the field of battle.

  ‘Who is the real Darius Laroth, I wonder,’ Kin said as he sent his first piece out to fight. ‘I used to think I knew him better than anyone, better than he thought I did. He was the best advisor I ever had. Everyone else saw the Monstrous Laroth, but what I saw was an intelligent man who was so full of fear that the mere acknowledgement of it would have seen him drown.’

  I put the next piece down with a snap. ‘Don’t try my patience, Majesty,’ I said. ‘I bowed at the feet of the man who drove my father mad, the man who murdered the woman he loved. You are the reason he left me to die in a storm.’

  ‘No.’ He gripped my left hand and pulled back the sleeve of my robe, revealing the Empath Mark. ‘It was this that did that.’

  I pulled my hand away.

  ‘You think I didn’t know? You once called me a formidable opponent. It would have been best for you if you had believed it.’

  My poor, sad, Darius, spoke Kimiko’s voice inside my head. He’s right and you don’t even see it.

  A maid placed a plate of sliced fruit and fish onto the table. I had not heard the door open or the clink of ceramic as she crossed the floor, but there she was pouring the tea, her face deferentially averted.

  Kin did not glance at the plate or the steaming bowl of tea. He was focussed on the game, so focussed that his anger and chagrin began to melt away leaving only an intense concentration lapping at my Empathy. When he did look up the gaze that met mine was direct. Determined.

  ‘An interesting play,’ he said, so much as though I had been Minister Laroth that I expected to find myself sitting beside the Crimson Throne. For five years I had served this man and for five years he had given the empire his all. That was no lie. Though I hated to admit it, no one who had watched him rule could deny his selflessness.

  You want to hate him so much. You want to hate him because he hurt you.

  ‘I am not so pathetic,’ I said under my breath.

  Kin picked up his next piece, but instead of moving it forward as I had planned, he darted left into the path of my hidden king. My stomach knotted. How had I given myself away?

  You think you’re so controlled, Mastery.

  I made my move, an unusual play hoping to confound him, but the next time he lifted his hand he turned my king. ‘My round, I think.’

  ‘What?’ Katashi exclaimed, reminding me with a jolt that we were not alone. ‘You lost?’

  ‘The round yes, the game is yet to be decided.’

  ‘The game is a waste of time.’

  ‘As you are a waste of space,’ I snapped. ‘You think I care about your plans?’

  I regretted the words immediately. I was cracking. Katashi leered, his eyes hungry. I held him by a thread.

  ‘As I care nothing for yours,’ he said almost cheerfully. ‘Finish this, Laroth, before I lose my patience, or I will burn you both.’

  No obedience. No “master”. He was growing too strong too fast. I glanced up at Malice who shot me a meaningful look. If you push it we’re dead, the look seemed to say.

  He isn’t going to remain loyal to you, Kimiko warned, echoing Malice’s look. He hates you even more than you know.

  ‘Tell me, Katashi,’ Kin said, once again setting his pieces, this time without looking for his king. ‘What have you done with my crown? I notice you do not wear it though you call yourself “emperor”.’

  ‘I can’t wear it. It melts.’

  Kin’s brows shot up. ‘A downside to your talent to be sure.’ His gaze slid to Hana. She had let go of Katashi and now sat staring at a finely painted screen beside the throne, her cheeks tracked with tears. When she did not return his gaze he turned it back to Katashi, still standing at her side. ‘Did you know your father was going to marry your sister to the Easterns?’ he asked. ‘In return for a secret fleet to pillage The Ribbon.’

  ‘Kasu,’ Katashi snapped. ‘My father would never have made an alliance with pirates.’

  ‘No? I suppose you don’t think he was capable of taking part in two-faced diplomatic talks with the Chiltaens either, discussing an alliance by day while planning an attack with Emperor Lan by night.’

  ‘That doesn’t even make sense.’

  ‘It does for an Otako who was given the empire by gods.’

  Katashi spat. ‘Your suppositions are as insulting as your presence. If you had known my father you would not dare speak such lies.’

  ‘And if you had known your father you would not call them lies.’

  ‘I will take great pleasure in burning you.’ Katashi’s bright eyes bored into Kin’s skull, but Kin just pushed a piece forward to start the third and final round.

  I followed his lead, all too aware of Katashi’s animosity pressing upon us like coals. There was a promise in the rebel’s smile. If I won, Kin was dead. But death was what he deserved for deceiving me.

  Listen to yourself! Oh, my poor broken man, you’re in control of nothing.

  The words cut into my flesh, her voice so clear. Endymion could get inside my head, but whatever skill Malice had gifted her, Kimiko was a Normal.

  If you open a door, why can I not step through it, too?

  But I had let her go.

  And I didn’t leave. You just stopped seeing me because it hurt too much, just like you stopped giving your all to Kin because it was killing you inside.

  I had called him friend.

  ‘Damn you,’ I hissed as I gracelessly thrust a piece forward. ‘Where are you?’

  No one looks twice at a maid.

  Like guards, servants were so often invisible. I had barely noticed the maid still kneeling beside the table, head bowed to the floor, but I looked at her now.

  Kimiko.

  You didn’t feel me because you don’t want to see me, she said. Just like you don’t want to acknowledge your feelings about Kin. If you admit you have a heart you will suffer too much, but if you don’t you will lose everything.

  ‘What is it that you’re afraid of, Darius?’ Kin said, his gaze slipping to the prostrate maid.

  ‘I am not afraid.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘I ought to be the one who is afraid. The second largest city in my empire is burning and my army has been pushed back to the south bank. You have captured my wife and given voice to my betrayal. You know more about me than anyone, more about my empire, more about my army, and yet it is you who sits there sweating.’

  ‘You have a vivid imagination, Majesty.’

  I moved too quickly, knocking a piece over as I reached for another. I swore, but before I could right it, Kin replaced it for me.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Kin turned an unprotected piece and I clenched the fist I no longer possessed.

  Blank.

  The move had opened up three pieces I could turn; three chances to unearth his king as he had tried to unearth mine. It was always safer to win any Errant game before the deciding round, as too much of it rested on luck and luck was hard to manipulate. But I could make use of his lines, a single move capable of turning half of his remaining pieces.

  I gripped my piece. It was a simple move, a simple leap along an obvious path, but I could not do it, could not face what would happen if I turned his king. Instead I pushed my piece toward his gate.

  Kin’s head snapped up, but I could not meet his gaze either. He leapt another of my pieces. Blank. Malice touched the back of my neck. I had not seen him move, had not heard him, but the connection blazed along all too familiar pathways. I can see what you’re doing, Darius, he said. You’re going to get us both killed.

  I ignored him, forced myself not to glance at the still form of Kimiko, and once again made a play for Kin’s gate.

  His move. Two pieces this time. Both flipped fast, both blank. Kin’s disappointment stank.
Sweat sparkled on his brow and darkened patches of his collar.

  Katashi got up; began to pace.

  I leapt three pieces, the sort that might look important to someone who knew none of the nuances of Errant. But I mentally marked every piece of his that had once been mine and knew which were safe. I knew, too, that three of mine were yet to be turned, and heedless of the consequences I moved them his way.

  Perhaps no more than four Vices in the anteroom. Hundreds of Pikes down in the city. This was a new game now. Like pieces upon a board, I counted them all: General Ryoji at the window, Malice behind me, Hana upon the throne and Kimiko kneeling just out of reach. One of Katashi’s Pikes stood at the door, but he was the farthest away, caught between us and our Vices.

  Kin gripped a piece and leapt two of mine. He turned the first without looking down at it – blank. The second, a crown.

  ‘I think you ought to leave us now,’ he said, speaking to Kimiko. ‘We don’t need any more tea.’

  She rose, keeping her face averted as all good maids should. ‘Your Majesty.’ Kimiko had never sounded so meek, but disobedience meant revealing her identity.

  ‘My game, I think.’ Kin drew a deep breath and ran his palms down his thighs.

  ‘What?’ Katashi’s heavy steps caused the pieces to rattle on the board. ‘You lost?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ I said.

  Katashi glared at the board. ‘Your skill at Errant is better even than you boast,’ he said. ‘You wanted him to win.’

  The only sound in the room was the soft sliding of the door as Kimiko exited, her reluctance equalled only by her fear.

  Don’t do anything stupid, Darius, she said. You’ve already done enough.

  Kin stood. ‘Come, Hana,’ he said. ‘I think we have outstayed our welcome.’

  ‘She won’t go with you, you fool,’ Katashi laughed. ‘She’s mine. She always has been and always will be.’

  ‘If she comes with me she’ll be an empress. If she stays with you, she’ll be a corpse.’

  ‘Shut up, both of you,’ Hana snapped, getting up from the throne and stepping off the platform. ‘Don’t you dare fight over me like I am a piece of meat. Be assured that right now I hate you both equally. I am leaving on my own, and gods help any man who tries to stop me.’