Daughters of Ruin

by K. D. Castner

  They were almost alone in the corner together. Endrit had even said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He was comfortable around her (Suki could tell (more comfortable than around the others)), which meant they had something special.

  Even when he danced with Rhea, Suki could tell he was uncomfortable with her clumsiness (they danced to Tasanese music (the best kind) and it was too subtle and elegant for Rhea).

  In all the twisted scheming and court intrigue that swirled around Suki’s head, Endrit was calm and honest and simple (which might have sounded like an insult, but it was love, love so deep (like a well) that it stayed still in all the turmoil of their lives).

  Cadis would have described it in words, that it was like a water well in a brush fire. But Suki felt it as an unspoken musical sensation (like the ethereal connection she had with Helio when they rode). The word for it in Tasanese translated in the common tongue as “co-spirits” (meaning they shared a soul and could look at each other and know what the other was thinking (and be comfortable around each other even if one of you is a servant and the other a hostage queen)).

  Tola had told her about being a “co-spirit” (she had it with a prince from an outer province (who got killed at the Battle of Crimson Fog (or maybe committed suicide when he heard about Tola (or maybe when your co-spirit dies, you just fall over dead too)))). Tola (dead).

  Suki remembered a glorious sunny morning (years ago) in the Summer Palace, when Tola taught her trampoline somersaults (servants threw her into the air with a silk sheet). Nearby, another dozen servants threw Tola (who was trained by the Tasanese Royal Acrobats and had long legs that made her seem like a bird in flight). Tola would shout instructions (up and down (her memory was of bouncing up and down (seeing her sister’s smile on every up (and feeling an invisible string connecting her to it (the smile), like her whole heart was tethered to Tola (and thinking that must have been how co-spirits felt all the time))))).

  But Tola was dead and the string in Suki had been dragging on the ground (until she found Endrit).

  And even if the emperor (her father) of Tasan would never allow his heir to marry a servant, Suki didn’t care, because she would wear the key to the walled palace one day, and she would bring Endrit, and she would demand to see every guard who was there on the eve of Crimson Fog, and she would summon them before her, and they would be so afraid, they would tell her exactly what happened (Did Tola really betray the peace? (why?))(And if she did, how did the Meridan dragoons ever stop her?) (And (maybe she didn’t want to know this part) what did they do to her?) (Why did they only return her sword (broken) and a lock of hair?) (Could she be . . . (no) alive? Could she be somewhere nearby (in Meridan Keep?)?) No. That was madness. Whatever happened, Suki would hear it from those guards when she was finally empress.

  And then she would drag them behind horses through the badlands, until there was nothing left tugging on their ropes but a few red stains.

  Suki circled back around and hopped up onto Helio’s saddle, standing on her tiptoes to see above the hedge. They were still fighting (Cadis and Iren), and still in the trench (Endrit and Rhea) touching arms.

  Rhea (smiling like a court fool) seemed to feel the heat of Suki’s glare. Out of nowhere, she glanced at the hedge. Suki dropped down into the saddle (she probably didn’t see (who cared if she did? (Suki cared, obviously, because spying made her seem childish))).

  Rhea’s opinion of her didn’t matter (unless she told Endrit about it (which she probably would)).

  Suki spurred Helio into a canter and then a gallop. The people on her side of the arena took notice and sat (they were standing before, to watch Cadis and Iren on the far side). There was a general murmur of confusion. Was the next exhibition starting before the other ended? (Who cared if it did?) Suki wasn’t a puppet. She was a queen. She would ride whenever she wanted (and Rhea could deliver a dozen threats from her daddy—hang them all).

  Suki slipped into the stirrups and raised her back for a full-tilted gallop, once, twice around the equestrian yard. The center was filled with hedged gates. Scattered across the course were bundles of bamboo stalks—a dozen tied together and pounded into the dirt to be as tall and as thick as a soldier in battle.

  The arena erupted into applause. The sparring must have finished.

  (Hup, hup! C’mon, Helio!)

  Helio tore across the arena. Suki hopped out of the stirrups, into a tight crouch on the saddle. Before the audience could completely settle, Suki hit the starting gate—a massive three-tier jump. Helio launched into the air. Suki sprang off the saddle into a backflip. Together they careened over the gate. Suki vaulted through the backflip, extending her legs to point directly at the sky, and then swung around, spread, and hit the saddle just as Helio hit the ground. The crowd roared and turned fully toward the equestrian course.

  (Declan didn’t even get his bow, poor old man.)

  Suki and Helio clipped around a flag at full speed. Suki leaned all the way to the left, to snatch a Tasanese long sword out of the ground. She came up and leaned to the right to grab another. Both swords had the long, thin, straight blade, double sharp, with pointed ends. The ornamented handles resembled the knotted branches of a bituin tree and were laced with tightly woven ribbons (bloodred (Tasan)) that fluttered behind her like tail feathers of a firebird.

  From a seated position, Suki could point the blades down and carve into the dirt. She wondered if Rhea and Endrit had gone down into the undervault together, or if they were watching from some corner. She couldn’t spare a glance (one false step, a loose stirrup, a missed swing, and she’d break every bone in her body (and embarrass herself)).

  Helio threaded between a formation of bamboo stalks. Suki cut them down at angles that would have been ear to shoulder—through the neck. The severed heads of the bamboo bundles slid, then fell from their bodies.

  She had embarrassed herself the previous night (after everyone had gone to bed). She had waited by the night kitchen (for Endrit) even though she had no reason to believe he would come. They hadn’t said anything (but just in case, a fateful meeting, a chance connection). That was all she imagined. Maybe he would pass by and see her by the torchlight, and (it didn’t matter) Rhea walked by instead, coming from the magister’s tower (startled both of them).

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Don’t be impertinent, Susu.”

  “Don’t ever call me Susu.”

  (She sighed like it was such a strain on her patience.)

  “I was just speaking to my—the king” (her daddy), “and Endrit can come to the ball.”

  “Good. The rebellion scare is stupid.”

  “Caution isn’t stupid when lives are in danger.” (Thanks, Mother.)

  “Yes, everybody is out to get you, Rhea.”

  “Not me, him. Or have you forgotten?”

  (She meant Tola. The one who broke the oath of peace and tried to assassinate Declan.)

  “He cares about you like a daughter, you know,” said Rhea, full of condescension and false sympathy. Suki almost lunged for the witch’s throat.

  I have a father. (Suki didn’t say that (but thought it).) Though, in truth, she didn’t remember him very well. The emperor would never send envoys to her (or any correspondence), because it would be like begging and admitting defeat over and over again.

  “He just doesn’t want you to end up like her,” said Rhea.

  “Just shut up.”

  Suki had run back to her room like a child.

  Embarrassed that she couldn’t hold them in (the tears) in front of Rhea.

  Embarrassed that she had been found waiting for him (Endrit) when he didn’t even know she was there.

  Embarrassed when she should have been enraged. She knew Rhea was sheltered, but she had to have recognized a death threat when she delivered it (did it matter if she didn’t?). What in the world were they doing here, if they weren’t a bunch of girls held hostage under constant
threat? And how could Rhea pretend otherwise? Was she willfully this deluded?

  (Suki had said as much over breakfast that morning, before Rhea joined them (Iren, as usual, listened, ate her berries, offered nothing (and sweet Cadis, always appeasing, always trying to prove her loyalty, refused to believe that Rhea would ever threaten Suki’s life, “it was late and you were on edge, I’m sure. It was just a misunderstanding and . . . Let’s just focus on today.”)).)

  Suki jumped another gate and lopped the heads off another set of bundles. Charging faster, riding around the arena. At times her off hand dragged the sword in the ground, cutting up a trail of dirt.

  Suki seethed at the insults (and the threats (and the embarrassment)).

  She missed everything she remembered about home (which was little), the PilanPilan orchestra, the red tapestried city, the painted walls. She didn’t remember many people, though, and feared more than anything that they didn’t remember her.

  When she finished with a final acrobatic handstand into a sidesaddle (and a two-handed cut on a full phalanx of bamboo stalks), she didn’t even acknowledge the king’s balcony as the crowd cheered (and she didn’t bother to stop as the cheering faded uncomfortably (when they realized she had carved the name “Tola” into the arena floor)).

  From her mount, Suki threw her long swords like javelins (each lanced into the ground on either side of her sister’s infamous name (Rhea could shove her threats)).

  She trotted to the horse gate (Good boy, Helio), slid off the saddle, and marched out, glancing back only once over her shoulder (looking for Endrit), which she shouldn’t have done, because it would have looked much more regal if she had been flawless and focused (and not distracted by anything (and didn’t care about anybody)).

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Iren

  The last condescended from Academy spires

  Pretended at life with a cold, dead heart

  Face like a crypt, from a family of liars

  Quietly, quietly played . . . her . . . part.

  —Children’s nursery rhyme

  Cadis always stared at the point she would attack.

  An archer’s habit.

  A bad one in melee.

  Too earnest.

  She brought her cutlass down at Iren’s head.

  Iren stepped left and struck the side of Cadis’s heavy blade with her light daggers.

  Cadis hid her stumble with a quick-footed turn back to guard.

  Iren didn’t bother to lunge.

  The daggers were short and thin.

  Good for tight quarters, like the stairs of a mountain pass.

  In the open Iren was disadvantaged.

  On paper anyway.

  To the amateur eye.

  Iren waited.

  Cadis would press the fight.

  She was trying too hard to give them a show.

  Her swings were bombastic.

  Giant broad strokes.

  She wanted the peons in the mezzanine to feel it.

  But they both knew combat was a game of inches.

  A killing blow was most often subtle, unromantic, even banal.

  Iren crossed the daggers and blocked another overhead swing.

  Her wrists took the impact.

  She sprang back, and the falchion continued down to the ground.

  From the leaning position, Cadis would try to fake one way and go another.

  It worked on Endrit far too many times.

  He was too concerned with their well-being.

  If you were watching her hips or feet or shoulders, she’d have you swiping at air.

  But Iren watched the belly button.

  Cadis feinted left. Shimmied right with her shoulders. Then struck left.

  Her waist never faltered.

  In a real fight, Iren would have stepped in and stabbed her dagger up through Cadis’s chin, through her mouth, into her mind.

  But then in a real fight Cadis wouldn’t have been so sloppy.

  She wanted something.

  Respect.

  Or if not respect, at least forgiveness for humiliating Rhea in front of them.

  Wanting something like that, in a full-contact fight speed match, was a weakness too obvious for Iren.

  Cadis thrust forward.

  Iren stepped in and punched Cadis in the face.

  The dagger hilt weighted her fist.

  It crunched Cadis’s nose.

  Blood spray.

  A roar from the crowd louder than any all day.

  Cadis’s head snapped back.

  Iren hammered the hilts of her daggers down onto Cadis’s shoulder.

  She screamed and dropped guard.

  Iren swung again and smashed her in the eye socket.

  Cadis stumbled.

  Iren pounced forward.

  Iren swept the hilts down and scooped under the back of Cadis’s knees.

  Cadis fell back and hit the dirt.

  The crowd stood and leaned over the railing.

  Even Declan.

  They wanted more blood.

  They wanted her broken for all the crimes of Findain.

  For their lost king.

  Iren kicked her in the ribs so hard the peons in the mezzanine heard a crack.

  A cheaty thing to do.

  They would have expected it out of the Fin.

  Cadis was hurt, but didn’t stay down.

  She somersaulted backward and got to her feet.

  Her eye was swelling. Nearly shut.

  Her teeth were bloody.

  Some in the crowd cheered.

  A good show.

  The Fin had grit.

  They had to give her that.

  Cadis wobbled, but held her cutlass in front.

  Iren let them drink in the sight of Findain bleeding.

  She closed one eye against the sun.

  Then Iren threw a knife.

  A little boy screamed.

  Right before all of Meridan, at the Revels of the Pax Regina, the princess of Corent took a kill shot at the archana of Findain.

  Gasps and whispers.

  It was not a declaration of war.

  It was an assassination.

  Cadis flinched and lifted the flat face of her cutlass just in time.

  An audible sigh of relief.

  Iren had gone too far.

  A dead queen would mean war.

  Iren made an effort to grunt.

  A frustrated sound for people to hear.

  She was down to one dagger.

  Cadis’s nose was broken.

  The blood loss had her dizzy.

  Her swollen eye blinded her on the left side.

  Iren shifted the dagger to her right hand, where Cadis couldn’t see it.

  A little boy in the fourth row shouted, “You can do it, Caddy!”

  His mother quickly pulled him away from the railing.

  It was forbidden to be so casual with a queen.

  Cadis caught her breath and swung again.

  The crowd erupted, this time in admiration.

  She was brave.

  And she could take punishment.

  Iren ducked the blade.

  Cadis wheeled around with a kick.

  Iren took the boot on the chin.

  She heard a pop as she fell.

  The pain was more of a numbing sensation all along her neck and cheek.

  Iren rolled over.

  The sky was cerulean blue.

  The color of Corent.

  The sun was summer white.

  Here in Meridan, it felt impossibly far away.

  The shadow of Cadis blotted out the sky.

  Iren tried to lash out with her dagger, but her arm was pinned under a knee.

  She dropped her weapon.

  Before Cadis could strike, Iren put up two fingers in surrender.

  The roar was deafening.

  Iren closed her eyes.

  She thought of her room in the high spire of Corent.

  She missed her mother.r />
  When they arrived back at the great hall at the center of all their private chambers, Cadis and Iren released the maids.

  Cadis collapsed onto a couch by the wall. Iren poured water from a carafe on the center table into two glass cups.

  “Here,” she said, and handed one to Cadis.

  Cadis looked out from under the wet towel she held over her swollen eye. She took the glass. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Cadis laughed, then winced.

  It must have been funny to say, “You’re welcome,” in that moment.

  “You’ve been practicing,” said Cadis.

  Iren shrugged.

  Cadis lay back on the couch and covered her face. “You’re dodging me.”

  “All day.”

  “Was that a joke? From silent Iren?”

  “I thought we were being funny.”

  “Truly, when did you become so—”

  “Good?”

  “Vicious.”

  Iren drank her water.

  “In the ring, I mean,” said Cadis.

  “I’ve been practicing,” said Iren.

  It would be sufficient excuse for the others—the king, the magister, the Meridan nobles. To them she was just lucky. A few landed strikes, some dishonorable play, no real evidence of greatness.

  But Cadis had seen it up close. The speed of her punch, the control. When they grappled, only Cadis could know the taut-cord strength of Iren’s lean frame. Only Cadis could know that Iren was nothing like she seemed.

  “Fine,” said Cadis. “Keep your secrets.”

  That was a hurtful thing to say, thought Iren. She put her glass on the table and walked toward her room. She would need her needlework for the next exhibition.

  “Hey,” said Cadis. “Hey, Iren.”

  When Iren turned, Cadis was sitting up. Her face was a mess, but she’d heal.

  “Thank you,” said Cadis. “I know what you did.”

  The mob of Meridan had better gristle to chew.

  Iren nodded. She smiled for a short second.

  It was nice to share some secrets.

  The afternoon Revels took place on the palace green and had a convivial tone. Streamers hung from the trees. Cooks worked at fire pits. Flower dancers twirled to the tinkling of lutes. Only the court, the homo nobilis, and the patrician families were invited.