To those who grew up on Hwabun, the ceaseless storm that rumbled to the north was as mundane a part of the landscape as the walnut planks beneath their feet or the blooming goblin vines that hung from the trellis at the back of the balcony… but on rare nights like this one, when their fathers were away to other Isles and Yunjin let them stay up late so long as they listened to her off-key singing, the distant lights that burned like incense over the grave of the Sunken Kingdom took on a sinister cast. A lighthouse for lost souls, was one of Yunjin’s better lines, a refrain that made Ji-hyeon squeeze her little sister tighter, the girls giggling together to ward off any wayward spirits that might be creeping up the cliff face beneath them. Everyone knew spirits were repulsed by human laughter, even little princesses all alone in a great big castle.
Except they were never really all alone, not on Hwabun. Besides the house staff who were never out of bell range, there were the three sets of three that minded the Daughters of Hwabun’s Virtue, Honor, and Spirit, respectively, and these guards must always be close at hand, too, for one never knew when they might be called upon to defend their charges. If only it were Keun-ju cuddling up beside Ji-hyeon instead of her kid sister, the far-off beacon of long-lost Jex Toth would have had no thrall over her, and she could have turned her thoughts to more pleasant impossibilities than a drowned land populated by the dead and the damned. Of course she knew the likelihood of her gallant Virtue Guard reciprocating her highly inappropriate feelings ranked just under the odds of the Sunken Kingdom returning to the surface, but under a full moon with a little illicit soju tickling her imagination, any dream seemed attainable, if one but wished hard enough…
If Ji-hyeon could have had one thing in all the world, it would have been time. A lot of it. Enough to sleep, then think, then sleep some more. Hustling uphill through the smoky camp of bedraggled and battered soldiers for whom she was entirely responsible, bandaged hand throbbing and back twinging and chest so tight she felt like she was drowning on the frigid morning air, she recalled how slowly time had seemed to move back on Hwabun, when she couldn’t wait for her life to really start, how fervently she had wished she could escape the monotony.
Never, ever, ever make a wish, was the moral here, learned, as always, too late to be useful. It was positively chilling how foolish she had been, how childish, and just a short time ago. Which begged the question of what she would think of her current outlook, if she lived long enough to be able to reflect back on it with a bit of distance. Was this the big secret of adulthood, that grown-ups actually became less and less sure of themselves as time went on? That you just had to charge ahead, knowing that as soon as it was too late to alter your course you’d realize how idiotic it was? Joy. Thank the devils who listen she had half a dozen experienced captains all offering her counsel; now if only she could get more than two of them to agree on something.
“You said a quick word, Fennec, not a slow thousand,” she said, interrupting the torrent of numbers he had been reciting at her ever since they’d left the tent, as though she didn’t realize just how badly outnumbered they were by the looming Thaoan regiment. “Is there a point?”
“The point is something I should prefer to relay to you in private,” said Fennec, his eyes fixed firmly on his general instead of straying to the pair of bodyguards ahead of them or the Virtue Guard who flanked her other side. “It won’t take more than a moment, if Keun-ju wouldn’t mind.”
Before Ji-hyeon could protest on his behalf, Keun-ju surprised her by nodding curtly and stalking quickly ahead, her two other bodyguards keeping pace with him. Her lover had taken an even worse beating than she during the battle, and while he’d gotten a bit more sleep than she had the night before, he must be too tired to butt heads with Fennec on such a gloomy morn. Snow began to waft down as they climbed steadily up through the camp, the Lark’s Tongue buried in cloud that hovered just over the plateau where Sullen, Zosia, and Hoartrap had captured the Myuran contingent that had sought to flank the Cobalt camp. The prospect of climbing that steep, frost-glazed escarpment filled Ji-hyeon with a knee-weakening melancholy.
“Now then, General…” Fennec spoke quietly, and lowered his voice even more, despite Keun-ju being several tent-lengths ahead of them. “My concern involves Kang-ho. I really wish you hadn’t shared that message regarding Empress Ryuki and her murdered son with your father before allowing him to return to the Thaoans, or had at least kept him in camp a little longer.”
“And I wish I was already sitting on the Crimson Throne,” said Ji-hyeon, “but we’re both too old to waste time on wishes, so say what you mean.”
“What I mean is that your father knows the Empress of the Immaculate Isles has put a price on your head, and said price is the very prize he’s coveted ever since we embarked on this quest of ours—control of Linkensterne. The quest that I presume you rejected to his face, yes?”
Ji-hyeon slowed their pace even more, a fresh wave of nausea cresting in her craw as she considered the implication. She had to hand it to Fennec; just when she thought there couldn’t possibly be anything more to worry about he turned up something new. “He’s my second father. You really think he’d try to collect a bounty on my head?”
“I think he’s a cautious man, and you’ve stuck him in a dangerous position,” said Fennec, and when she gave him a sharp look he easily deflected it with one of his gloved claws. “Not entirely on purpose, I know, but it is what it is. If he sides with you, he has nothing but what you give him—he’ll have lost his husband, his home, and any hope of claiming Linkensterne, ever. I think he could live with losing two of those, perhaps, but I’m not sure about all three… Not when he has an Imperial regiment ready to heed his advice, and a hostile, heedless daughter within easy reach, her beleaguered army no match for his Thaoan stooges. If—”
“Enough.” Ji-hyeon stopped entirely, closing her eyes and taking deep gulps of cold air. She really might vomit, now that she saw the sum of Fennec’s calculations. He was right. If her second father turned on her, he stood to gain everything she had cost him, and then some… in fact, it couldn’t have worked out better for Kang-ho if he had killed Empress Ryuki’s son himself, and framed Ji-hyeon for the crime. He wouldn’t just have governorship of Linkensterne, but would also be praised as the hero of the Immaculate Isles, a subject so faithful that he’d sacrifice his own daughter to avenge the murder of Prince Byeong-gu of Othean.
Could he do such a thing?
Could he afford not to? He’d been keen enough to go behind his own husband’s back when the stakes were a good bit lower, so what hope did a rebellious daughter have?
“I think our smartest option is to strike first,” Fennec murmured, a soft claw on her shoulder; every time she was reminded of how their trip through the Othean Gate had altered his hands she shuddered and resolved anew to never again risk that particular mode of transport. “We lure Kang-ho and maybe even Colonel Waits back to our camp with the promise of a parley, and—”
“Enough,” she said again, though enough in this case really meant too much. Much, much too much. She was on the brink of total collapse, her mind, heart, and guts all swirling around at a frightening pace, and she half shouted the order to her unhinged organs: “Enough!”
“I’ll leave you, then,” said Fennec, squeezing her arm, “and see you at the tent at noon, as ordered. I won’t speak of your second father again unless provoked.”
She nodded, keeping her eyes closed until she was sure he had gone. When she reopened them, she saw several curious soldiers watching her from the mouths of the surrounding tents. Most of them wore bruises or bandages to go with the cloaks of cobalt sackcloth she’d distributed to the new recruits after she’d broken the Siege of Myura. The youngest was a pug-faced girl who couldn’t be more than thirteen years old, her left eye nearly swollen shut. Ji-hyeon knew she should tear off her own cloak of warm blue fox fur and offer it to this girl-soldier in exchange for the thin, ratty one that circled her squat shoulders, knew that w
as what the legends would expect of such a hero of the people, but it was too damned cold for such acts of valor, and it wouldn’t benefit any of them if their general caught ill from the cold. Ji-hyeon saluted them instead, and found her uninjured right hand was shaking as she lifted it to these men and women who had risked their lives for her cause. She could barely meet their eyes as she hurried past them…
And caught herself in time, for a welcome change of pace. Unclasping the cobalt cloak, she shuffled back to the girl and handed it over, feeling less like a champion of the downtrodden and more like a thief guiltily returning something she’d stolen. Ji-hyeon felt everyone staring at her, and knew she should probably say something, but also knew if she tried she might burst into tears. The girl looked just as embarrassed as her general, and when she stiffly wrapped the fox fur around her shoulders on top of the threadbare cloak she already wore, Ji-hyeon gave her another salute. This time she was mostly shaking from the cold, at least, and she hustled after Keun-ju, toward yet another grim encounter that she was wholly responsible for.
“Everything all right?” Keun-ju asked quietly and, looking into his concerned eyes, and at the wide scabs forming at the edge of his beaded pink veil, she almost lost it. Her Virtue Guard shouldn’t even be out of bed, badly as he was injured, but he’d insisted on serving her in any fashion that he could, and in all the chaotic, sprawling camp he’d managed to find Sullen for her… the man she’d almost betrayed his memory to, if fate hadn’t reunited them in the nick of time. Keun-ju was too good for her. “I didn’t mean to pry, but I thought I heard Fennec say something about one of your fathers?”
“He’s worried about Kang-ho,” said Ji-hyeon, putting on a brave face for her lover and finding his good hand with hers as they resumed their march through the upper edge of camp. “He thinks the hard talking-to I gave him last night might not’ve been hard enough, and I’m thinking he’s right. I don’t give a damn what you say about letting bygones be long gone or whatever, after the way he tried to play Singh against you and Zosia back in the Raniputri Dominions my dearest daddy needs a serious ass-kicking. That fucking snake.”
Keun-ju’s fingers wriggled a bit in hers, and Ji-hyeon realized she’d been crushing them at the thought of her treacherous second father. What a silly little girl she’d been, letting the old man off the hook so easily even after he’d almost gotten Keun-ju killed! She should have turned the crook over to Zosia, if nothing else—it would have been exactly what he deserved, after all the lies and schemes.
“Did he say anything about how Hwabun fares?” Keun-ju asked as they left the last row of tents and started up the steep escarpment at the camp’s rear, the two bodyguards taking the lead. “About King Jun-hwan and your sisters? I didn’t know if after the empress ordered your arrest they were, you know, in any sort of trouble.”
Bless the sentimental boy’s ever-loving heart.
“She didn’t order my arrest,” Ji-hyeon panted as they slowly climbed the hill, frozen earth crunching underfoot. “She ordered my murder. And no. Not a word from Hwabun yet, but it’s only been a few hours since we heard about the empress’s bounty. I’ll send my family an owlbat. Soon. Need to ask if the Sunken Kingdom’s really back, anyway, and if so what exactly that means.”
They stomped onward, the snow coming down a lot faster than they were going up. As Ji-hyeon was trying to figure out what message she could possibly send her first father, what words could possibly soften the shame she would inevitably dump over his proud head, a rather nasty thought crossed her mind. She stopped hiking, still halfway up to the plateau.
“Spirits above and beneath, Keun-ju, you think she’ll hold them accountable for my crimes? My supposed crimes, I mean? If Empress Ryuki knows I’m leading the Cobalts, and she thinks I killed her son, what does that mean for Hwabun? For my first father, my sisters?”
“I… I don’t dare guess,” said Keun-ju, looking as pale and cold as the snow sticking to his tall, rectangular hat. He wasn’t meeting her eyes. “The truth is they are innocent, but the truth is not always enough, is it?”
“I’m not sure that it ever was, not even once,” said Ji-hyeon, chewing a piece of blue hair that slipped down her cheek as she looked out over the dismal camp and the fogbank beyond that still lingered over what Hoartrap insisted was the biggest Gate on the whole Star. What in all the foreign fucking devils of the Crimson Empire had she gotten herself into with this foolhardy adventure of hers? “Damn damn damn. Listen, can you head back to the tent and have an owlbat sent over to the Thaoans, to my second father? See if he’ll come back, say it’s for another parley. I… I think I need to ask him how to play this, both with my first father and the empress. I shouldn’t have sent him back to the Imperials so soon.”
“Certainly.” Keun-ju gulped. “First, though, there’s, well, can I tell you something? I should have, before, or rather, I never should have—”
“Can it wait?” Dear as her lover was, his constant need to share his feelings could be draining. “I’m a little busy right now, you know?”
“Of course, yes,” he said, sounding as relieved as a condemned traitor receiving a stay of execution, but paused, clearly warring with himself. “But I mean, we really, really need to talk. I tried to tell you, last night, but you were asleep before I could, and then this morning you were halfway out of the tent before—”
“We can talk soon, I promise.” Ji-hyeon felt like she might pop a tooth, hard as she was holding her smile. “Now give me a kiss and scoot that cute rump back to the tent.”
You would have thought she’d asked him to come over and smoke a rat turd with her, the way he dragged his feet, and he practically flinched when she flicked up his veil to lay one on him. How fucking peachy. With her second father possibly planning a move on her and their innocent family stuck between the vengeful Empress of the Immaculate Isles and the resurrected Sunken Kingdom, a moody lover was exactly what Ji-hyeon needed to help her relax. Watching him slip and slide back down the scarp, she consoled herself by observing that his rump was indeed as cute as ever, but then her bodyguards called down the all clear and she resumed her miserable slog up the Lark’s Tongue to where her next fun-filled encounter waited.
Ji-hyeon crested the escarpment and saw her two bodyguards talking with a small group of snow-blurred figures huddled partway across the narrow plateau. The group looked over at her, and just like that the warmth left her overheated legs and the cold air turned to scalding steam in her lungs. An ambush. Not twelve hours after she discovered there was an enormous bounty on her life and she had strolled right into it, wandering away from camp with only a pair of bodyguards whose faces were hidden beneath the bestial visors Fennec had commissioned for her personal retinue. What a brilliant tactician she was, sending Keun-ju away before she’d made sure the area was secure, and the ribbon on top was her decision to leave Fellwing dozing back in her tent rather than taking the weak devil out into the cold. She deserved exactly what she got.
Which might have been a tumble down the long, steep scarp as she fled back to camp if she hadn’t caught ahold of her imagination in time. This wasn’t an ambush; it was two of her most trusted bodyguards convening with the band of sentries she had ordered up to the plateau after yesterday’s near fiasco with the Myurans sneaking around behind her army. Deep breaths of bracing cold air made things come back into focus, even if doing so also brought back the sting in her crippled hand.
“He’s back in the trees there,” said Ankit, the bodyguard tugging up her frost-sticky visor to reveal a face only marginally less hard than that of the steel panther that protected it. “And so’s the sentries’ fire, so if you’d like some privacy Qabil and me can watch you from there.”
“Or you can warm yourself at the fire and the rest of us can hang back,” said Qabil, though he didn’t sound very hot on the notion himself.
“I don’t think warmth is much of an option this morn,” said Ji-hyeon, leading the trek to the smudge of orange she now made o
ut through the thickening snow. The plateau wasn’t much more than a bump on the Lark’s Tongue’s knee, with a dozen wind-twisted pines rising from the rocky earth just before the mountainside resumed its thankless climb. On one edge of the grove, the paltry fire’s smoke blurred into the clouds that had snagged on the low trees, and farther back Ji-hyeon saw two dark shapes, one sitting, one lying on a bed of branches.
“They were up here before the sentries, but one of ’em recognized the barbarian from camp and so they let him stay,” said Ankit. “Hasn’t come over to the fire, just sits there. They’re hoping you’ll have him come down, or at least encourage him to dispose of the corpse.”
“It’s creeping them out,” said Qabil.
“You two can wait by the fire,” Ji-hyeon told them, veering away from it before she brushed the edge of its warm perimeter. If she felt that welcome heat for even a moment she’d be unable to resist it and, after her thoughtlessness of the day before, a cold conversation seemed a light penance.
“Begging your pardon, general, but it’s too cold for you to be out here without a cape, at least,” Ankit called after, and when Ji-hyeon turned to give the woman her most annoyed scowl for stating the obvious she saw the guard had already unclasped her blue wool mantle and was holding it out to her general. “We’ve got blankets by the fire, so… please take it?”
Thanking her bodyguard and wrapping the ice-stiff cape around her, Ji-hyeon stepped under the leaky canopy of the pines, snow melting into her scalp, boots slipping on icy stones, and as she approached them the seated figure rose slowly to his feet. She didn’t look at his face, not yet, knowing how hurt he must be, how frustrated he had to be that she hadn’t come sooner. Yet another of her many failures—she couldn’t have saved the old man, of course, but she could have noticed his absence sooner. Should have noticed, damn her selfish heart. That she had come now, to personally pay her respects, was too little too late, yet still more than she could do for most of the soldiers who had laid down their lives for her but a morning before.
A Blade of Black Steel Page 4