The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

  The shamaness laughed. A sad, little sound that dissolved like sugar into water. “You have to release me. And for all your talk of sons and happiness and a kind soul, you don’t want to let me go.”

  “Of course I do,” Min cried. “Why would I—”

  Liar.

  And this time it sounded like her voice, and hers alone. The shamaness was gone—and also not. She could not feel her any longer, but then, she could no more feel her own lungs, her own heart.

  What have I done? The question was contemplative this time. And she knew the answer.

  Not nearly enough.

  When Brother returned, Min was sitting up.

  “You haven’t drunk your medicine,” he said, gesturing to the cup she had set on the floor beside the bed.

  “No,” she agreed. “And I won’t. I’ve slept enough.”

  “I really think—”

  “Go tell the captain to get us moving again; we are wasting time.”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “And send Butterfly back in here,” she commanded. “I should like a change of clothes and my hair brushed.”

  “Y-yes, Princess,” Brother stammered. “Of course.”

  “And Brother?”

  “Yes?”

  “You will address me as ‘Empress’ from now on.”

  Something like fear rippled across his face as he bowed. “Yes, Empress.” When he stood again, it was gone.

  Min smiled toothily, and the fear returned.

  “Good,” she said.

  CHAPTER 37

  Crowned

  “There,” said the healer. Lu felt the woman’s energy, cool as water, withdraw from her body. “That’s as much as I can do for now.”

  As Prince Jin looked on anxiously, Lu rotated her shoulder. It ached down to the bone, but dully now. Whole once more. She ran a hand over her ribs, bruised but whole as well. “Thank you,” she said to the healer.

  The healer ignored her and instead spoke to Prince Jin. “The shoulder will take some time to finish mending. The bones were splintered, and my powers are weaker down here.”

  She hates me. Rushing into battle in their defense had clearly not won Lu any new love from the Yunians.

  “You did your best,” Jin told the healer.

  “Yes, well. Vrea could have done more, perhaps … I’m sorry.” The woman brushed tears from her eyes.

  Vrea. They would find a way to blame her for that death as well, and likely Prince Shen’s, too. Perhaps not unfairly.

  Lu flexed her good hand, felt the phantom brush of Nokhai’s fingers slipping through it.

  After it fell to earth from the Inbetween, the temple had reappeared protruding out of the mountain’s broad face. Right by the lake where Jin had welcomed her to Yunis just days ago—a lifetime ago, it seemed now. Jin had explained that because the temple had been first built on earth, then raised into the Inbetween, it was spared the violent reentry into the physical realm that the Heart had endured. Like welcomed like, he had said.

  Everything else had been built there. Gone were the houses, the loosely manicured gardens. Gone were the walls and the paving stones, the component parts of the Heart.

  And gone was Nokhai.

  Lu had told Nasan herself—she could give her that, at least. The Ashina girl fell upon her before she could finish her words. For once, Lu hadn’t fought back, just let the other girl’s fists rain down. That had been fine—almost a relief. Tangible. The pain small and sharp enough to keep her anchored in her body. But the other girl’s screams had cut deeper.

  He trusted you! I warned him, I told him—but he trusted you, and you threw him away like he was nothing!

  Her eye throbbed where Nasan had punched her. It would bruise, if it hadn’t already. Lu clapped a hand over her face, waiting for the pain to subside.

  “I could try to fix that swelling around the eye if it’s bothering her,” the healer said reluctantly.

  “No.” Lu lowered her hand and stood. “No. It feels fine.”

  Someone—she couldn’t remember who—had given her a shawl. She shivered and wrapped it tighter around her shoulders. It smelled like someone else, someone unfamiliar. Perhaps that person was dead now. She fought the urge to shrug the shawl off. She would need it come nightfall.

  Once Jin deemed it safe, they had all set out to wander the lakeshore. To look for survivors, they told themselves. But of course, there were none. Nasan, Jin, his shrunken army, and the few hundred Yunian civilians—were all that was left.

  And Lu. She’d forgotten to count herself.

  There weren’t even bodies to speak of. Instead, the shore was stained red for as far as she could see. Those who hadn’t made it to the temple in time had fallen, as though from the sky. The impact had reduced them to wide splotches of blood, like enormous poppies painted across the land. Here and there, she recognized things. The tattered tunic of a Hana soldier. A gleaming helmet, perversely untouched. Half a horse, gone boneless and soft as jelly.

  They had little hope of identifying anyone based on these grisly clues. At first, Lu tried to look for the gold of Set’s armor. Then she saw a gleaming white femur sticking straight up in a heap of gore, as if it were calling for help. She tried not to look too closely after that.

  Occasionally she would catch glimpses of Nasan farther down the shore, staring off into the water, or tending to someone. The Ashina girl never met her eyes. Sooner or later they would have to speak again, but for the time being Lu left her alone.

  It occurred to her to look for some hairpin or scrap of cloth she might recognize as belonging to her sister.

  No, she told herself. Min made it out—you saw Brother come back for her. They made it out. Min couldn’t be …

  Min. Had she truly wrought all this? Lu remembered the rage contorting her sister’s face, the black blood in the whites of her eyes, her awful grief over Set’s death.

  Who would rule with Set gone? The role would default to Min, but in name only. Her sister’s power could never truly be her own. It would be granted to whoever wheedled their way into marrying her next, and in the meantime taken up by the strongest, greediest voices in court. Perhaps that sinister monk Brother, perhaps their—no, Min’s mother. Not Lu’s.

  Tsai.

  Could there be any truth to Min’s revelation? Of all the people to birth a Hu princess of the empire, a shamaness. An unclean, unnatural wielder of magic. A hostage. A prisoner.

  And yet, some childlike part of her thrilled at the notion. Surged with hope. That’s why my—why the empress never loved me. My real mother would never have hated me so. My real mother would love me. Wouldn’t she?

  A star crammed inside a soap bubble.

  Omair had known her mother. Omair would know the truth. Omair, whom Nokhai had pledged to rescue.

  Whom Nokhai would never see again—

  Her hand clenched around open air, around nothing. No. She shut the thought out. If she gave in to it now, if she fell into that hole, she would never claw her way free.

  “Princess?”

  She started and turned toward the voice. Jin stood there, weary in the dying light.

  “Princess, it will be dark soon. We should gather everyone inside the temple for the night.”

  They’re your people. You tell them. But of course—

  “Our Pact,” she said. “Our marriage agreement—”

  “It still stands,” he said firmly. “That is—if you want it to. I no longer have much of an army to offer you, but what I have is still yours.”

  “No, of course. It’s only, the terrain has changed. Your need is greater now. And even with Set gone, there’s still my sister and mother and who knows who else to contend with. And I’m still here—far away from the throne, without an army. I don’t know that I have much to offer you.” She smiled ruefully. “Perhaps I never did. Only my claim. My dream. It seems childish now, after everything that’s been lost.”

  “All we need is you,” he said. “Your l
eadership, your heart.”

  “I trust your heart.” Nok’s words shivered through her. Her jaw clenched as she pushed them away.

  Jin placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. Her good shoulder; he was always mindful, deliberate. “You have all you need within you. I believe that. I believe in you.”

  His eyes were earnest. But what was left of her to believe in? She had lost her chance at the throne. She’d lost her father. Her sister.

  For weeks, she had thought of nothing but reaching Yunis, of reaping an army, storming back to Yulan City wreathed in righteous triumph. That dream had kept her feet moving forward, kept her heart pumping. And Nokhai, with his single-minded desire to free Omair, had been the sole witness to that. Together, their entwined missions had made the dream seem like a reality.

  Now her army was lost. And Nokhai was gone.

  “I should gather people up for the night,” Jin said. “Will you—”

  She waved him off. “Yes, I’ll come help you in a moment. I just need …”

  He nodded and began to walk off. Then he paused. “Nokhai must have believed in you, as I do. To have fought by your side to the very end.”

  Lu watched him go. Nokhai never believed in me. He fought for Omair.

  Omair, who would remain languishing in prison. Another promise broken.

  If only she could just reach the capital …

  But the fact remained that she had no army.

  Over Jin’s shoulder, Lu saw Nasan helping an elderly woman sit on a fallen log.

  Jin might not have an army anymore, but Nasan did. Not an army that was big or strong or well equipped. But a capable one. Despite their numbers, they’d managed to infiltrate a heavily guarded labor camp. And those camps …

  Lu walked toward her.

  The Ashina girl gave Lu’s swollen eye an appraising look. She had the grace not to look proud of it, but neither did she apologize.

  “What do you want, Princess?” she asked instead.

  “We need to get everyone inside before nightfall,” Lu told her. “Can you help?”

  Nasan’s mouth tightened. “Now? Sure. Tomorrow? I need to get back to my own people.”

  There it was. “We have a deal.”

  “We had a deal,” Nasan corrected cagily. “That deal was, I help you get to Yunis, you get a real army, which you then use to overthrow your horrible cousin and regain the power to grant my people back our land. But I don’t see an army anymore, do you?”

  “I’ve seen yours.”

  “Yes, and that’s the last you’ll see of them,” Nasan said warningly.

  “Set’s dead; we’re closer now than when we began,” Lu pointed out. “And besides, you swore on your honor.”

  “Well, the terms changed a little when your crazy sister put a split in the world and broke an entire plane of existence.”

  “I thought you wanted to protect and help your people,” Lu said with exaggerated surprise.

  “I certainly do,” Nasan replied flatly. “My people. These aren’t my people.”

  “Nokhai—” Too late, she realized she should not say his name so soon, but Nasan barely flinched. Lu surged on. “Nokhai told me that the Gifted never saw themselves as unified, as one. But the way you live with your people, you call them all your own, no matter the Kith from which they came.”

  “Of course.”

  “And so, if no god or tradition or name binds you, what does?”

  Your title, your station—your very existence—is built on the subjugation, on the suffering of others.

  Nasan frowned as though she saw where this was going. “We all suffered the same under your empire.”

  “Exactly. These Yunians are no different.”

  “It is different,” Nasan persisted. “These people … they can’t—they aren’t Gifted.”

  “Neither are you,” Lu said boldly. “Not anymore.”

  “We might’ve been. Nok was a Pactmaker. But he’s gone now, isn’t he?” the Ashina girl snapped. “You let him die.”

  I lost him, too. But Nasan would not understand that; she didn’t want to. Lu squared her shoulders. It was fine. She could let the other girl have that much. “We are not talking about what might have been. We are talking about what is.”

  Nasan’s black eyes narrowed. “You still don’t have an army. That’s what is.”

  “I still have my claim,” Lu said, threading steel through her voice. Don’t let her see you blink. “And I know you want that land. I can still give that to you once I’ve reclaimed my throne.”

  “That land is ours by right.”

  “And I’m sure whoever ends up pulling my sister’s strings would be happy to grant it back to you if you ask nicely.”

  The other girl’s mouth set in a tight line. “My people alone won’t be enough to win against the imperial army.”

  “No,” Lu agreed. “But your people are capable of infiltrating and liberating labor camps, are they not? You’ve done that before.”

  Nasan scowled. “What’s your point?”

  “How many people would you say each camp holds?”

  Understanding flickered to life behind Nasan’s eyes. “Those people aren’t warriors,” she protested. “Most of them are half-dead with starvation or disease. I don’t know what they tell you in Yulan City, but slaves aren’t exactly coddled.”

  “How many?” Lu repeated.

  “In each camp? On average, a few hundred, give or take.”

  “What about the largest? Camp nine, say?”

  “A thousand. Easy. But like I said, they’re no soldiers.”

  “Maybe not. But they’re angry, and they hate imperials. They might not win a war alone, but by sheer numbers, they could certainly cause damage. They could burn a city. Start enough trouble to let a smaller party—say, us, and no more than a dozen of your best people—infiltrate the palace.”

  “Of course, because the palace isn’t defended by highly trained armed guards and enormous walls.”

  Lu forced herself to smile. “The thing about being a princess is, you grow up in the palace. It’s your home. And you know all its secrets, all its weaknesses.”

  Nasan pursed her lips, but Lu could see the idea taking root in her mind. “You’re crazy,” she said, but that was fine. A person like Nasan, with the vision to break into an imperial labor camp—a prison of death from which there should be no feasible escape—that was a person to whom crazy wasn’t such a bad thing. Nasan wasn’t through arguing, though. “Who’s to say the prisoners won’t just kill you straight off, considering they hate imperials so much?”

  “What would they stand to gain from that? Kill me and there’s no overthrow, no change in the empire at all. Fight with me, and I will alter the whole face of the North.”

  “They may not hear that argument so well while they’re busy tearing you to pieces.”

  “I’ll have Prince Jin by my side, and you—the great liberator. They’ve surely heard rumors about you and your people by now. You can help them see reason.”

  “And how do you expect to keep a thousand sickly people alive all the way down to the capital? People have to eat, you know.”

  Lu hid a smile. They were arguing on her terms now. “The soldiers running the camps have food and medicine. Weapons, armor, horses.”

  Thoughts were racing behind Nasan’s clever eyes. Lu had her. “We’d have to strike fast, and hard,” Nasan murmured, almost to herself. “If even one imperial slips out, we’ll have the whole army coming for us before you could blink.”

  “So, we won’t let even one slip out.”

  “What you’d be asking of these prisoners—you’d be sending most of them to their deaths. Maybe all of them.”

  “Once we’ve taken the prison, they’ll be free to choose. They could follow me or go on their way.”

  “Some choice,” the other girl scoffed. “Die of freezing or starvation in the empty desert or become your foot soldier. Out of one prison, into another.”

 
; Your title, your station—your very existence—is built on the subjugation, on the suffering of others.

  Lu hesitated. I’d be giving them the opportunity to fight for themselves—for their freedom. But somehow the words would not leave her tongue.

  Nasan didn’t comment on her silence. Just licked her lips, then cast a look down the darkening shore. “It’ll be bloody,” she warned. “Bloody and ugly.”

  Nearby, two small children were splashing and giggling in the shallows of the lake, seemingly oblivious to the clouds of blood pinking the waters. Someone—a parent, maybe—shrieked at them to get out. Lu watched them run up the rocky shore, chagrined.

  “I’m up to my ears in bloody and ugly,” Lu said.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “So.” Lu gathered herself. “Does our deal stand?”

  Nasan scowled. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get these people back inside.”

  “Do we have a deal?” Lu repeated, louder.

  Nasan sighed. “Tomorrow,” she said at length, turning toward the temple. “Tomorrow we march back to fetch my army.”

  “And then?” Lu persisted at her retreating figure.

  Nasan didn’t stop. “Then we head to the camps.”

  They were ready to go before dawn, a few hundred hunched survivors with little more than the clothes on their backs, and what life still fluttered in their tired hearts. They had put the weakest—the elderly and small children, of which there were more than Lu would have liked—on horseback. The rest of them would walk.

  Lu stretched as she gazed out onto the lake for the last time, trying to ease the stiffness that persisted in her shoulder. She touched the hilt of her sword, secure once more at her waist.

  Goodbye. She sent the thought skipping across the water like a stone. She would not miss this place in all its bleak, morose beauty, but she felt the need to honor it all the same. And again, this time for the many souls—and one soul in particular—that now lingered lost beneath that mirrored surface:

  Goodbye, Nokhai.

  Prince Jin walked up and stood at her side.

  “Do you think,” she asked hesitantly, “they’ll wash up, eventually?” She did not have to say of whom she spoke.