by Devin Madson
That voice. I shivered and did not turn. Did not speak.
‘That’s what I said, wasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘The first time we met. And you told me you would rather set the men on one another. Looks like your wish came true.’
I held my Empathy close, the pain of it like stones in my gut. Perhaps if I did not turn she would remain nothing but a voice. A memory.
A soft step on the reeds. A rustle of fabric. And her smell, dragging forth unwilling recollections with its sweetness. We had held one another in the darkness like children hiding from a storm.
‘Is that not what I said?’
The voice was closer now. Too close.
I turned, and there she was, real, solid, standing in the centre of my room with her thick brows arched in question.
‘That’s what you said,’ I agreed, the voice not sounding like my own. ‘You should have left me to die that night.’
‘As I recall, I tried to. It was you who was too soft hearted, Darius.’
She came toward me, slow steps crunching old reeds. Even without my Sight there was anger and hurt, in the lines of her face and the set of her brows, her hands stiff and her back proud. There was a cut on her cheek and a bruise on her jaw, but the eyes that looked steadily up at me had not changed.
‘It is you who looks worse for wear, Darius,’ she said quietly, and I flinched as she touched my right arm, drawing back the sleeve to look upon the stump I hated. It had been well tended, had been healing for weeks, but still the sight of it filled me with disgust.
‘It hurt a lot,’ she said, a little smile turning her lips. ‘Thank you for sharing it with me.’
I had known it would be bad, but not this bad.
‘Don’t thank me,’ I growled, snatching my arm from her grip. ‘And for the gods’ sake don’t act as though I was giving you a gift.’
‘Like every time you came to my bed knowing I would die if I gave birth to a girl?’
I fought the urge to turn away. How much easier it would have been to die without putting myself through this hell.
‘Who told you?’
She set a hand on my cheek and I could not move, wedged between her warmth and the rain-splattered window. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Darius? You opened the door, but I walked through it.’ Her other hand found my scarred cheek and she turned me ruthlessly to face her. ‘Every time you came to my bed you gave me a little bit more of yourself, and unlike your lips your soul did not lie.’
I slid along the wall, pulling from her hold. ‘Where is your anger?’ I said. ‘Don’t forgive me like you always forgave Katashi. Hate me. I am a freak. I am a curse. I’m a fool who has survived on lies because I could not face the truth.’
‘Do you love me?’
‘Kimiko—’
‘No, don’t try to wriggle out of it now, Silver Tongue,’ she said. ‘The truth. Honesty. Try it.’
‘I like my façade better.’
‘I don’t. Malice made Mastery, not you. You gave him a face and a voice and took joy in controlling every little twitch, but you wouldn’t have needed to if Malice hadn’t forced you to retreat into yourself, to build Mastery layer by layer as each new injury scarred over.’
‘How pathetic you make me sound,’ I said. ‘I assure you I hurt him as much as he hurt me. Laroths don’t breed happiness.’
She stepped back then, lips turned down. ‘No, but I think we might still have made each other happy, Darius. I loved you enough to try.’ She touched her sleeve, no longer looking at me.
Since the moment I had first seen her at Koi, she had torn at my control, clawing smiles from my lips and tears from my eyes, eliciting love and fear in equal measure. Life was safer without her. Life was safer hiding behind my protective personas. I had left myself behind a long time ago.
‘Loved?’
‘Still quick,’ she said. ‘But what happy ending can there possibly be to our tale. It’s a tale that might be over before long, even if we get out of here alive.’
‘Over?’
She lifted a brow. Mocking. ‘Come now, Darius, you’re better than this. I half expected you to tell me you already knew. You’re going to be a father.’
The weight of the word dropped through me, crushing every bone.
Father.
It sat wrong, the shape of it filling my mouth with hatred. Until Kimiko I had been so careful. First only Malice, then other boys, and then a discreet yiji house that knew how to manage its women. I wanted to call her a liar, but the same signs were there as they had been in Hana, the same change to how she stood, more loose, her grace impaired, her breasts shifting her weight ever so slightly forward.
Father.
‘You’re pregnant.’
She neither nodded nor spoke, but her silence was answer enough. I stared at the rough fabric of her servant’s robe.
My child.
‘I should have let you die back in Koi,’ I said. ‘I should have gone to the executioner and ended it there. Now…’ I could not bring myself to say the words. If a boy, a new curse to walk the world as Malice and I had done, if a girl…
‘The gods tell me it will be a boy,’ my mother had said. She had seen me peering around the screen and had come to kneel before me, her stomach bulging beneath her robe. ‘Don’t worry, Dari,’ she had said, her hand warm against my cheek. ‘By tomorrow you’re going to have a little brother.’
I had heard the screams long into the night, and in the morning my mother lay covered in silk.
‘I listened to her die, Kimiko,’ I said, hating the choked sound of my voice. ‘I listened to her scream for hours.’
‘And what happens if you kill the child now?’
‘It makes no difference. If it’s a girl, she’ll take you with her regardless of when. It’s been tried.’
And if it’s a boy… Another Laroth that would have to die to rid the world of our curse. Could I snap the neck of a screaming infant? Could I slide a knife into its tiny body while she waited to hold him, to love him, as my mother had once held me?
Never before had I considered my father’s failure in such a light. Had he been unable to kill me because he loved me? Had he suffered the same love and hate for the curse that stole his wife? How different the world looked through those eyes.
Kimiko stood before me, framed by the rain-battered window.
‘Is it too late?’ I asked, closing the space between us with a single step. ‘Is it too late for us? Gods know I’m a walking curse. I’m a broken mess of a man who has no right to even breathe the same air as you.’
I knelt at her feet. My head was spinning and my heart pounded with fear and joy and desperate hope. Maybe this was what it felt like to be free.
‘Get us out of here and I’m yours,’ I said. ‘Every ragged shred of soul that’s left is yours if you will have me. Will you marry me, Kimiko? Preferably without your delightful brother’s blessing.’
The hand in mine fluttered like a frightened bird. There was no smile. No laugh. Nothing in her expression beyond horror.
She pulled her hand away. ‘Damn you, Darius,’ she said. ‘It’s too late. Laroths and Otakos don’t get happy endings. There is too much hatred and anger and hurt for that.’
A sneer contorted her beauty.
‘We could leave,’ I said, still kneeling. ‘We could leave all this behind and build something new. We could forgive.’
Kimiko actually laughed. ‘Forgive?’
‘I’m willing to try.’
Another laugh, less sure this time. ‘Who is this man who speaks of forgiveness and marriage? Not my Silver Tongue.’
Silver Tongue. Monstrous Laroth. Mastery. So many names, but all I had ever been was a boy lost in a storm.
Chapter 30
Whisper by whisper souls were sneaking back through the opium clouds. Th
oughts. Memories. Intentions. Fear. The fear stank as the palanquin was carried through the crowded streets like a silken fish swimming through rising panic.
‘He carries the fire of the gods,’ someone shouted beyond the curtain.
‘They say he can set things alight just by looking at them.’
Rumours flowed, spreading more stinking fear.
‘Clear a path!’
The palanquin slowed. Through a slit in the curtain there were glimpses of silk-clad shoulders and pinned hair, of brown peasant sashes and merchant-green, the whole seething mass shouting as one as they pushed against lines of soldiers blocking their way to the palace.
The city guard were here in force.
‘Clear us a path!’ one of Ryoji’s men shouted to them as the palanquin rocked and jolted.
An elbow broke through the curtain and I tucked myself into the corner, pressing both hands to my pounding head. Out there a man was preaching.
‘The wrath of our gods bears down upon us,’ he shouted. ‘At Kisia’s birth the gods made the Crimson Throne for the first divine Otako. Now we have turned from their choice, turned from our gods, and we are paying the price. Lord Otako visits their wrath upon us, and he will not stop until we give penance, until an Otako once more sits upon the Crimson Throne.’
We deserve to burn.
Treason!
Get him out of here.
We’re doomed. The city is going to burn. We’re all going to die.
Where is our army? Why aren’t we fighting?
Against the palanquin the mass of men and women swelled like a tide. A rotten persimmon hit one of the carriers, adding a pungent odour to the emotional din.
‘Ignore their warning and Mei’lian will burn too!’ the man shouted. I peered out in time to see him rip the hem of his robe away from grasping hands. ‘All for pride. Our pride in believing a man could ever do the job of a god. All hail the Otako gods!’
One of the Imperial Guards shoved someone away from the curtains. ‘Get back!’ he growled.
The freak will eat you alive. Lady Hana is mad to keep this dog to heel.
Three hundred and eighty-seven. Four. Seven thousand and two. One million, three hundred and nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy.
‘They are coming,’ I muttered. ‘Why didn’t I leave last night like the Katos? I should have gone with them. They asked. Too proud. Too stupid. Now it’s too late. Everyone says the gates are locked. There’s no way out. Maybe I can hide. There’s always the waterway. Even if the stories about giant rats are true I’d rather face one of them than Katashi bloody Otako. Oh gods we should never have let a commoner take the throne. The Crimson Throne isn’t for ordinary people. It’s for gods. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’
The soul faded as the palanquin moved on, slowly pushing its way toward the palace gates. Another soul drew close. ‘At least if the city burns the records will burn with it. No one need ever know what happened. I could make sure. I could go to the court and make sure they burn.’
One of the guards tugged the curtain back and glared in. ‘What are you muttering about?’
‘You scare me,’ I said. ‘I wish the general did not pick me for this mission. If he thinks this freak is safe then Lady Hana has blinded him. Oh shivatsa he’s reading my mind.’
The man threw himself away from me and the curtain fell gracefully back into place.
I heard he can kill with a touch.
One million, three hundred and nine thousand, eight hundred and sixty-eight. Kill with a touch. Not kill. No, I didn’t kill. I judged. It was my duty.
‘Keep them back! Keep them back!’
Who is that?
Is Emperor really dead?
Lords burn the same as peasants. Your silk palanquin won’t save you. We’re all meat in the end. Or tinder. Ha!
The palace gates clanked open.
I had never been to Mei’lian before now, not as Endymion. Prince Takehiko had called this city home, this palace, and had I still been His Imperial Highness I might have been carried toward the gate in just such a fashion, flanked by guards while the crowds pressed in upon me. His Imperial Highness Prince Takehiko Otako – the life Kin had stolen from me.
Running steps followed as we drew away from the crowd and into the greater peace of the courtyard. Here servants and soldiers bustled, but their whispers were less panicked. Here there was purpose.
Buckets. There might be more in the lower storeroom. Have to be quick. They’re already coming.
If he’s going to burn the gate we need an open formation. Bucket chains through the centre.
I hope the stress doesn’t cause her to miscarry. Poor Lady Hinton, this is not what she needs right now. Food. Water. Smelling salts. Captain Rill says the library will be the best place to hide.
There has to be another way out.
I’ll just play dead.
One million, three hundred and eight thousand, nine hundred and ninety-one.
The palanquin hit the mounting stone with a bump.
‘Lady Hana, Minister Bahain is requesting—’
‘Not Lady Hana, my lord,’ one of the carriers hissed. ‘The strange boy.’
A man with a single thick eyebrow yanked aside the curtain and scowled in at me. ‘Him,’ he said, that brow wriggling like a black snake. ‘Where is Lady Hana?’
‘I could not take it upon myself to say, my lord,’ the same carrier said. ‘But she ordered this boy brought back safely.’ Pompous shivat. Mama always wanted me to become Master of the Court. No thanks, not if you have to look down your nose as though everyone is a worm.
How is he important to the Otako bitch?
The Master of the Court held out his hand to help me from the palanquin. It was his job. As judgement was mine.
I took his hand, laying his soul bare. Self-importance. Pride. But he had been nothing once. A younger son, destined for the priesthood until he stole gold from the temple. Fear. No one could know. No one could ever know.
I threw the fear back. His knees buckled. He let go of my hand but I did not let go of his. Tightening my grip, I stepped from the palanquin. ‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ I said. ‘That money had been collected for the poor.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The gold you stole. You didn’t need it. You weren’t starving. You had clothes on your back and a noble name, but you wanted more.’
I squeezed and the fear bled into him, bitterly cold. He slumped into a puddle, gasping for breath, still trying to yank his hand from mine. ‘No,’ he cried. ‘No, no I needed it. I couldn’t let them throw me away like rubbish. I—’
The Master of the Court grasped at his throat with his free hand. His eyes bulged. The rhythm of his pulse quickened. Faster. Faster. Eyes wider. Breath caught.
Then silence. His hands stilled. I let go.
Is he dead?
What just happened?
‘Someone get help! He’s not breathing!’
‘He’s dead,’ I said, stepping over the body as it slipped further into the puddle. ‘He deserved death. He was a fraud and a thief. I am a god and I have judged him unworthy of life.’
‘Who are you?’ someone demanded.
‘My name is Takehiko Otako,’ I said, not turning around. ‘And I bring justice.’
Shouting broke behind me as I strode away. Hana’s two Imperial Guards ran to catch up. ‘Stop! Did you just kill him?’
They didn’t touch me.
‘I don’t kill,’ I said, striding on into the bamboo court. ‘I judge.’
‘Takehiko Otako is dead.’
They jogged along beside me, keeping their distance.
‘I’m breathing,’ I said. ‘My heart beats. What other signs of life would you like?’
Anxiety oozed off them lik
e the sweat dripping from their brows.
‘What proof do you have?’
‘What proof would you accept?’ I stopped walking and turned on them. Both jumped back, hands close to their sword hilts. ‘If I had something with the Otako crest on it you would say I stole it,’ I said. ‘Papers I could have forged. And if someone were to vouch for me you would call them a liar.’
‘But if you’re Takehi—’
I didn’t need skin. Their souls screamed to me and I threw their judgement back. Cruelty in one, perversion in the other. They dropped, crumpling like unwanted dolls.
Nausea crashed over me and I fought to catch my breath. Shouts echoed from the central courtyard, while out in the city the crowd roared. ‘Burn!’ the preacher was screaming. ‘Burn all you sinners who reject the gods, our divine Otakos. Throw wide the gates and welcome Lord Otako, bringer of justice!’
His delight tingled through my limbs. The man was unworthy, bringing fear for his own ends.
The nausea doubled, but I staggered on while out in the square shouts turned to screams. Justice was my duty. It would come to everyone in time, even gods.
My brothers were waiting.
Deep memories directed my steps from one courtyard to the next, through reception rooms and small gardens, gates and walls. The outer palace was a maze built to confuse enemies, to force them into narrow passages where they could be picked off one by one, but I knew this building in my bones, born to it as I had been born to my duty.
The next guard eyed me warily. ‘State your business,’ he said, resting a hand upon his gold-edged crimson sash.
‘My name is Takehiko Otako,’ I said.
His first reaction wasn’t one of disbelief, but of amazement. ‘Really?’
The man had drawn no weapon. Mine lived within my skin, invisible to the eye as I walked toward him. ‘Really,’ I said. ‘Let me show you.’
Perhaps he thought I might bring forth papers or marks of the Otako family, for certainly there was eagerness in his face, but he flinched as I took his wrist.
Frustration. Dread. His thoughts upon a family he feared he would never see again. Friends in Shimai. Friends among Kin’s army. Doubt. There was no cruelty, no vicious desire for violence.