The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

  “What are you doing?” the Ashina boy hissed urgently in her ear. “Keep going!”

  “Take the dagger from my hip,” she ordered. They would both be killed, but she could grant him the chance to go down fighting. He tensed at her back for a moment, as though he were considering fleeing, but then his hand slid down her waist and she felt the dagger slip from its sleeve.

  “Stop!” her voice boomed out.

  Caught off guard, their pursuers reined up hard: two figures wearing hoods, so she could not make out their faces. One of them jerked a crossbow up and leveled it at her. She hardly noticed; she was staring at their mounts. Not horses. Two shaggy brown war elk.

  Hu soldiers.

  Trust no one, not even your own men.

  “Is this how you cowards would dispatch of your future empress?” Lu demanded, forcing the quaver from her voice. “With a crossbow bolt to the back? If you wish to kill me, show me your faces and come fight me as men.”

  “I told you not to shoot,” hissed the soldier without the crossbow. “Idiot! It’s supposed to look like an accident, remember?”

  His voice was that of a boy’s, cracking like a hinge in want of greasing. They were both boys, she realized with a start—young and slight upon their massive elk.

  The one with the crossbow hesitated, his weapon dipping. He quickly drew it back up. “They can messy her up afterward—maybe a boulder fell on her, who’s to say?” There was the lilt of a smile in his excited voice.

  “We shouldn’t do anything without the others.”

  “Well, where are the others?” the one with the crossbow demanded, glancing behind them.

  “They split off at the ridge,” responded the other, sounding very much as though he regretted the fact. “I don’t know what happened, but half the dogs broke off … I can’t hear them anymore. Wait, I know! I’ll blow my horn.”

  “Do that,” said the one with the crossbow, sounding a little nervous now, the thrill of the moment worn thin. He turned back toward Lu. “You need to come with us, Princess. Dismount your elk and drop your weapons to the ground.”

  He saw the Ashina boy at her back for the first time. His weapon dipped. “Who the—”

  It was enough; Lu seized Yaksun’s reins and the bull elk charged. She raised her sword.

  There was a twang as the boy with the crossbow fired. Panic shattered his concentration and the bolt flew low, whizzing past her thigh and planting itself deep in Yaksun’s flank. The elk screamed, rearing into the air.

  The Ashina boy’s hands slipped from about her waist. Lu reached out instinctively to grab him, and then they were both falling. She caught a glimpse of tangled black tree branches overhead, the sun peeking bright white from between them. Motes of pollen and dust drifted in the light, lazy and scintillating.

  They landed hard, in a tangle. The ground punched the breath from both their bodies. Everything was upside down, and the air rung with a cold, dead, gray sound, as if she were trapped in some great metal drum. In this strange new world, Yaksun thundered away from her through the trees.

  Lu sat up and a hound lunged at her—only to fall limp, impaled on the end of the sword she had thrust forth in sheer instinct.

  She pulled the blade free, wiping the dog’s blood upon the grass. The smell of it drove the others back in a frenzy.

  There was a twang and a flitting sound; another crossbow bolt flew at her, but this time she merely tilted her head away to avoid the clumsy shot. She felt calm, her heartbeat steady and even. The world seemed to slow, as though each moment were awaiting her permission before it passed.

  Lu stood and advanced, the edges of her world pulled tight around the boy rider upon his elk, and the weapon in his grip. Three steps; the Hu boy was loading a new bolt and cranking, cranking …

  The crossbow was on the ground and he was screaming. There was blood upon her blade and blood spraying from the end of his arm where his hand had been, drenching his tunic, his saddle, his elk. The animal caught the scent, reared, and the boy fell, clawing at the air as though to call back the fleeing beast. He was screaming still, high-pitched and unrestrained, but he went quiet when she put her blade through his chest.

  The other boy reined up and charged his elk at her, his sword raised. She leaped to the side easily and met his blade with a crashing blow of her own. His sword flew from inexperienced hands and speared itself somewhere deep in the brush.

  He reined up and came back at her, pulling his bow from his back and nocking an arrow.

  He should have run.

  She could see his fear—in his halting approach, the way he clenched his knees tighter around his mount. He was not without skill, and he was brave—she would give him that much.

  It would not save him.

  She thrust her sword back into its scabbard and grabbed the throwing ax from her hip. The boy scarcely had time to register the movement before she had drawn back her arm and flung the ax in a horizontal arc across his path.

  The elk realized its doom first and shrieked—an awful sound that shattered the air around them. A sheet of blood like red silk poured from the slash her ax had opened. The rider tumbled from the creature’s back, tried to roll. Too slow. The elk’s front knees crumpled, and it went down with all the weight in the world, crushing the boy beneath it.

  He threw his arms out instinctively, pointlessly, and as he did so, his hood fell back. Lu saw his face for the first time: wide-set, honest eyes that were now filled with fear. A brown birthmark on his chin.

  Her mind froze as Wonin of Family Cui let out an awful cry that rose over the crunching of his bones, his bravery finally broken.

  The wood fell eerily still, as though the whole of the world were sucking in a breath. The quiet was punctuated by the violence of Wonin’s terrible sobbing.

  Lu stared at his face, trying to understand the horror before her. Wonin’s legs were surely broken beyond repair, but he might still live if—no. She felt the flame of hope in her heart die as a bubble of shockingly red blood emerged from between his lips.

  Unthinking, she stepped toward him. He had been writhing without aim, but at her approach, he thrust out a grasping hand. She raised her bow, fitting it with an arrow in a single motion, quick and soft as a gasp.

  Blood burbled up between Wonin’s graying lips as he mouthed wordlessly at her.

  But then she heard it. “Please …,” the boy whispered.

  She lowered her bow just a hair’s breadth, uncertain.

  “Do it.”

  Lu whipped toward the sound, her bow instantly raised. She had nearly forgotten the Ashina boy. He was on his feet. “What did you say?”

  He snarled and leaped back. “Don’t point that thing at me!”

  She frowned, but quickly lowered her bow. “What did you say to me?”

  “The boy—he’s going to die,” Nokhai said, softer now. “He’s already dead; he just doesn’t know it yet. He’s got a gut wound, and internal bleeding, too, most like. He could be dying for hours. I’ve seen—it’s ugly, that kind of dying.”

  She looked back at Wonin. He had ceased writhing and stared at them with the frantic stare of a wounded animal.

  “Do it,” the Ashina boy repeated grimly. “Straight between the eyes; he won’t feel a thing.”

  Lu raised her bow instinctively, then lowered it. When she looked in Wonin’s face, all she could see was Hyacinth. She couldn’t possibly have something to do with this, could she? She had wanted to make that visit home … No. Lu couldn’t even allow herself to think it. Not her best friend. The one closer to her than her own sister, her own skin.

  “I-I cannot,” she said aloud.

  “You can,” the Ashina boy assured her. “I saw you shoot just now.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “I … I can’t kill this boy. Not like this.”

  “Why not?” He seemed annoyed. “You killed the other one without hesitation.”

  “That was different. I was—it was his life or mine. This o
ne is … I know him. I know his family …”

  The baying of hounds cut through her words. From the sound of it they were close, just over the ridge. They had the high ground; they would be riding downhill, toward where she stood.

  She looked up at Nokhai. His face reflected the same terse realization.

  “Kill the boy,” he whispered, and she was surprised to see something like regret in his eyes. “Do it now. If he’s still alive when they reach him, he will give away your position. Our position.”

  Lu raised her bow again. But whereas before the weapon had been a natural extension of her body, now her hands shook so badly she could scarcely keep the arrow nocked. Hot tears seared at the corners of her vision. She drew back, but her arms fell, and the arrow speared the ground.

  She raised the bow again, the fletchings of her arrow bristling against her cheek. She took a deep breath and felt her heart slow, as clearly as she felt the dappled sunlight on her face, or the firm earth beneath her feet. The blood moved in her, steady and calm and sure.

  Wonin’s eyes widened, his indistinct gaze struggling to focus on her. He grasped at the air, still fighting what was already inevitable, what was as good as done.

  There was the gasp of her bow. The fletchings of the arrow sprouted like a dark flower from between Wonin’s eyes. He stared skyward, unmoving. He looked oddly at peace.

  CHAPTER 14

  Prey

  Death for the boy was instant, or so Nok hoped. He would never know. He and the princess were already gone—scrambling up the westward ridge on hands and feet, away from the baying of the dogs.

  It was a shame, a boy that young dying alone in the forest. But he would’ve done no better by them had the situation been reversed.

  The hounds were louder now. The princess had strapped her bow to her back in order to run unimpeded—a wise move, but one that left them unprotected. The uphill slope was hampering their speed, too; amid the dogs’ incessant barking Nok could now hear hooves drumming the earth.

  He could save them, he realized. If only—if only he could caul. Would the wolf come to him again?

  He sucked in as deep a breath as he could muster and imagined the beast in his mind’s eye: long legs, great shaggy head, fine white teeth long as a man’s finger, the deep swell of its chest, robust like the hull of a ship.

  Come to me. Come to me now.

  It fell upon him suddenly, like a warm wind. He stumbled at the sensation, then pitched forward violently. But before he could hit the ground a pair of lean muscular legs reached forth and cushioned the fall. His hands crumpled inward before his eyes and unfurled again as enormous paws. All at once he was enshrouded in coarse blue-gray fur, each of his senses heightened—especially smell. It was as though humans experienced smell only in the pale, washed-out grays of ink and water, and the wolf smelled in shrieking, vivid color. There was no time to be bowled over by it, though.

  Too slow, he called to the princess. All that came from the wolf’s mouth was a twisted snarl. He cursed himself internally. Stupid! Wolves can’t talk!

  But the girl turned to him, eyes widening, and he realized she had heard him, after all. He tried calling to her again: Get on!

  To her credit, she didn’t stop to question the unlikeliness of his voice in her head. With a running leap, she was on his back, clinging on by two fistfuls of fur.

  Here goes nothing, Nok thought as the wolf surged forward through the brush.

  Her thighs cinched instinctively around his middle and she bent over him until her chest was nearly flat against his back. She was a talented rider—while his gait surely differed from that of a war elk, it took her only a heartbeat to conform to his rhythm.

  The shouts of dogs and men—true men this time, no callow boys—came after them, followed by a brief burst of crossbow bolts and arrows. These were the soldiers they had lost up at the ridge, and their aim was true—Nok and Lu were spared only by the distance between them, which seemed to shrink with each bound he took.

  “I’m going to shoot back,” the girl announced, and reached for the bow on her back.

  Not worth it! he shouted to her. They’re gaining.

  “The more I kill, the fewer are left to gain.”

  Won’t make a difference. Too many, he insisted, his own voice taking on the heavy panting of the running wolf.

  “All the more reason to—” Her voice broke off in a scream of pain and she jerked hard against him, nearly falling.

  Are you hit? Fear lanced through him when she did not answer immediately. But he felt her fists clench tightly through his fur and knew she lived.

  “I’m fine,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “An arrow—didn’t stick, just a scrape.”

  Ssss. Another crossbow bolt sailed overhead and landed with a thunk in the dry ground by Nok’s thundering feet. Sss. Another bolt—this one taking a chunk out of the wolf’s ear. The animal registered the pain with scarcely more mind than it would pay a horsefly, but Nok saw that the men were closing in.

  “It’s no good!” the princess shouted. “They’re nearly on us!”

  They were so close Nok could hear the shouting of individual men.

  “Stop. Let me get off,” the princess said in his ear, her voice thick with pain.

  What?

  “Once they have me they won’t follow you. No sense in us both dying.”

  Don’t be an idiot!

  She cradled her head with both arms as she threw herself from his back, hitting the dirt hard and rolling before rising to her feet.

  Nok slammed the wolf’s paws down hard, the great beast’s claws spearing the earth. He pivoted in time to see the princess rise from her crouch and nock an arrow into place. Her arm shook oddly as she drew back—the wolf smelled the wound before he saw it, her red blood hidden amid the torn scarlet silk of her tunic. The arrow had grazed her … but it had taken a chunk of her flesh with it. Nok could see red muscle clench and strain as she lifted her arm and took aim.

  But it was too little, too late. A shower of black arrows had been launched by the men pursuing her, and he watched with the wolf’s keen eyes as they fell upon her from the sky like diving birds.

  The air moved.

  Nok did not understand at first, thinking perhaps it was some effect of the sun, or perhaps the way the wolf perceived the wind. But then the air vibrated, like the surface of a lake that had just been hit with a boulder. The arrows that should have pierced the princess through half a hundred times were swept away by the air. One moment they were there, and the next …

  The soldiers were shouting in confusion … and then they were gone, swallowed by a gray haze pouring down from the ridge overhead. It was as though all the fog from the mountaintops had come to flood the forest.

  “What is this? What’s happened?” The princess still had her bow nocked, but she was whirling around, uncertain of the direction in which she should loose it. Their eyes met, hers demanding an explanation, but Nok just shook his head.

  His head … He looked down and saw he had regained his human form. The wolf had fled once more. Nok stood nervously and went to stand beside her. He was defenseless in his boy’s body, and she had a weapon at least.

  Without warning, the ground surged and rippled beneath their feet. Nok went tumbling and found himself caught in her arms. The two of them hurtled and pitched forward as the ground gave another mighty tremor.

  An earthquake? But he had never felt an earthquake like this before.

  All at once the air and earth about them went still, and a bright pinprick of light appeared deep in the forest ahead of them. As though there were a narrow tunnel that went straight through all the trees and bramble from the forest’s edge to the clearing where they stood.

  The pinprick of light became a shaft, and then a tunnel wide enough to fit a mule.

  “Do you see—”

  They were moving, pulled toward the light, as though the earth beneath them was nothing more than a rug being yanked across the floor
by some churlish giant.

  Nok threw his hands up over his eyes, expecting to crash through thornbushes and broken underbrush, but the feeling never hit. He opened his eyes and squinted at the shock of sunlight, oddly bright, no longer inhibited by a canopy of trees.

  Through his slitted eyes he saw mugwort swaying lazily beneath the open summer sky.

  A familiar brown face peered anxiously over him, blocking out the sun.

  “We have much to talk about,” Omair said.

  CHAPTER 15

  Histories

  “Who … who are you?” Lu’s voice creaked in a most unregal fashion, blinking up at the man’s face. She tried to rise but found she was pinned to the earth by the weight of the Ashina boy, who had come to a rest across her knees.

  He seemed as stunned as she, but the sound of her voice returned his bearings to him with a start. He jerked away from her as though he’d been burned where they touched, scrabbling away on elbows and heels.

  Lu frowned. She’d been trying to protect him.

  She made to push herself up, then let out a cry as she put her left hand to the earth. The crossbow wound. Her arm gushed hot blood at the sudden pressure. Shock and momentum had kept the pain at bay, but now it seared through her. Her arm felt on the verge of splitting in half.

  “You’re hurt.”

  The stranger lowered down to his knees with some effort. Then, with contradictory grace, he parted the silken tatters that had once been her sleeve to better view the wound.

  “This will need to be sewn closed; it is very deep. For now I must staunch the bleeding.” He pulled a scarf from around his neck and wound it around her arm. Lu stifled a scream of agony as he pulled the cloth tight.

  Desperate for something else to focus on, she cast her gaze toward where the Ashina boy was cautiously standing, testing his limbs and joints.