by W. J. May
"That road up ahead, we call it the Great Road, it connects all of the original cities to Rayfort, to the king. It was built over the span of one hundred years. For a century, the punishment for disobeying the law was ten years labor on that road. Many were lucky if they survived, and many more considered themselves unlucky for the same fate. But before you test their craftsmanship, which I assure you is quite awe-inspiring, we must stop."
Rhen tugged on Ember's reins, shushing her sighs with long brushstrokes up and down her neck.
"There is something I have not told you," he said quietly, still looking at Ember. Jinji scrunched her eyebrows, waiting. What could he have possibly left unsaid? She knew more history of the kingdom after a few days with him than she had learned in a lifetime.
"I am not who you think I am."
Her fists clenched, her body suddenly tight. A warm pain started in her heart, surprising her with its sting.
He looked up, green eyes piercing hers, deepening the pain. His lips were drawn in a tight line, struggling with what to say.
He couldn't be...he wouldn't just go...
"My name is not Rhen..."
Jinji held her breath.
"It's Whylrhen. And I was not asked to search the forest by the king, I was actually strictly forbidden from leaving Roninhythe."
He looked away, looked back, shrugged.
Jinji tilted her head, waiting for the words he still held back, the ones he was trying to force out. A chill started in her fingers, traveling up her arms, bringing goose bumps to her skin as she looked out to the city. So unnatural, so unfamiliar—what would she do without a guide? Without a friend?
"You see, well...the king is really my father...that is to say, I'm his son." He bit his lip. "I guess that's the same thing really. But what I'm trying to say is, well—"
"You're a prince?" Jinji finished the sentence for him, her voice higher than normal, alarmed.
He nodded, deflated, letting the air out of his body in one big sigh.
Silence hung between them.
Heavy.
Cold.
Jinji looked behind her, searching for the trees, finding none. No familiarity. No comfort. Her breath shortened.
"Are you leaving me?" She asked, forcing the words out, the fear out, as her throat tightened with panic. What would she do? Alone?
"No," he said quickly, putting his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it once. "Of course not, no, Jin, I would never do that to you—not after—you're just a kid. I'm telling you because you deserve to know."
He reached past her into the saddlebag behind her thigh and pulled out a bright red cloth.
Just like the fire spirits, she thought.
"Will you?" He asked, handing it to her.
Jinji reached out, grasping the material. It was soft, thin. She rolled it between her fingers, amazed. Her own clothes, Janu's skins that she still wore, felt coarse in comparison.
Holding it aloft, Jinji realized it was a shirt. Golden threads, the color of the sun on a clear day, were woven through the sleeves. Glittering stones caught her attention and she brought the spot close, gasping at how crystal clear the rocks were.
"Here," he said, tugging on the material, pulling it over his bare chest and handing her the shirt he had just removed. "You might want that."
Jinji looked at the dull brown cloth in her hands, damp with sweat, and wrinkled her nose.
"Why?" She questioned, looking up.
He raised his brows, grinning. A golden speck glistened in his grassy eye, calculating, reflecting some idea sparking in his head.
He shrugged, and it disappeared, decision made. "Never mind," he said, his voice too light, his lips too upturned. He grabbed the shirt, but Jinji held on.
"No, I will wear it," she said, now nervous. He was far too pleased with himself—far too silent.
Shaking his head, Rhen pulled hard, and the shirt slipped from her grasp. In one swift move, he ripped it down the middle, dropping the remains at his feet.
"You know," he said, "in the kingdom you must bow before royalty, on penalty of death. Did the emissary forget to mention that?"
He looked back, smirking.
Jinji slapped the only part of him within reach, his head.
"Hey," he said as he rubbed the spot with his hand, "that actually is punishable by death." He continued massaging his scalp. "For a little thing, you have a good arm. You'll be a good swordsman. I can teach you, you know. I always wanted," he coughed, clearing his throat and looking back to the city. Softer this time, he finished, "I always wanted a little brother to teach..." Rhen looked over his shoulder again, devilish grin back. "But I suppose you'll do, little Jin."
"I'm not so little," Jinji retorted, still unused to being referred to as a boy. Especially by a man who was no more than a few years older than she. "Perhaps you are too large."
Rhen barked out a laugh, loud and sudden, almost echoing on the wind. "No such thing, Jin, no such thing. Just ask the whores."
"Whores?" Jinji didn’t recognize the word.
Rhen shook his head, walking forward toward the road in the distance. "You have so much to learn but..." He tugged on the leather straps, prodding Ember along. "I think I'll enjoy teaching you. Tonight, after the docks, we'll go to the Staggering Vixen, I know a girl named Martha who would love to meet you."
He turned, winked.
A blush rose on Jinji's cheeks as realization hit. Her father had mentioned these women, one of many reasons he forbade her from visiting the stone cities.
"The docks?" She asked, changing the subject, trying to erase it from her thoughts. The Staggering Vixen? She was certain that was not a place she wanted to visit.
Ever.
Jinji looked at the looming city again, swallowing a gulp. It was large, probably full of more people than she could imagine. Maybe she would find a new guide...one not so focused on her education...a woman, maybe.
"We need a ship," Rhen said, interrupting her thoughts.
"Why?"
"How else will we travel to the Golden Isles?"
"Across the sea?" She asked, turning her gaze sharply on him. The wide waters, the great blue expanse, she had only seen it once while traveling with Janu. They had snuck away from the village, exploring, and after two days of walking, they had reached the edge of the forest, the edge of the world. Jinji could still feel the breeze brush her cheeks, could still feel the warmth of Janu's hand as the two of them stood, toes inches over the rock, looking down, down, down toward crashing waves.
Her fingers tightened on the saddle, rubbing harshly against the leather.
"We need to figure out what those Ourthuri were doing here, and there's no better way than stopping in to say hello to their king."
A new guide, Jinji sighed, rubbing her eyes.
She needed to find a new guide.
"I'm going to show you the world, Jin. It's a lot bigger than you realize."
That's what I'm afraid of, Jinji thought and tried to relax in her seat. But the city still loomed ahead, growing larger and larger with each step they took, and it was growing harder to understand if leaving the forest would be any help at all.
Would the shadow still find her behind those tall stonewalls? Would it continue to haunt her? Or would she be discarded, left to live alone, always questioning why and how? Was she traveling toward answers or away from them?
Clicking noises drew Jinji from her thoughts. They had reached the road.
Ahead, she saw travelers scurrying to the side, hastily shifting their horses and possessions to make way. As they walked by, Rhen nodded from side to side, but the people were not looking. Their eyes were downcast. Their entire bodies seemed to bend toward the ground. Only the children dared look up, and it was not at Rhen.
No, it was at her. She felt eyes scan her body, pop open, shocked.
"Is that a...?" One boy asked loudly, only to be quieted by his mother, pulled behind her skirts. But still, he peeked around her large belly, eye
s locked on the Arpapajo riding the horse.
Jinji looked ahead, tunneling her vision on the city, trying to ignore the gasps chasing down her ears.
The gates were not far off, wooden slabs breaking up the walls of stone, but they were bolted with metal—nature maybe, but trapped and bound. The doors were open, perhaps welcoming to Rhen, but not to her. To her, they looked like a trap, waiting for the right moment to swallow her whole.
Jinji held her breath as they approached. Behind the walls, more stone, more people, more noise, more movement. More of everything except the one thing she wanted—trees.
"Your Highness," four men said in unison, kneeling down on one leg, nodding in respect to Rhen. He continued walking, waving, but not pausing for anything more.
Jinji gawked at their metal-coated bodies, chinked and chained together, covered by a slight cloth in bright blue over their chest. On the cloth, some sort of beast that she did not recognize in darker blue.
They did not stand again until Ember had passed fully through the gate, and then as one they moved, alert once more.
But Jinji's attention was already elsewhere, on the rows and rows of homes filling her entire line of vision. They were wooden and something else, something that looked like mud, but she knew couldn’t be. They slanted on top of each other, leaning, pulling, held up by a mystery Jinji could not understand. Each one had holes, some sort of material she could see through. Movement flashed, some eyes popped through, meeting her curious stare with one of their own, making her feel not quite so alone in her awe.
The road still held under their feet, hard, but to the side she noticed the mud had returned, catching on people's clothes, the bottoms of their homes, dirtying everything close to it. The people wore clothes that were so different from Rhen's, more like hers, dull and drab to match the dirt.
And it was loud. People screaming to no one, pointing to slabs of food laid out on tables, holding out strips of clothes or items Jinji did not recognize. Girls talking, giggling as their eyes scanned the streets. Children screeching, jumping, running in front of horses in some sort of game. Men boasting, pushing carts, cursing at the crowd.
But like a cloud, silence followed the two of them. Conversations paused, everyone stopped to lower their heads, all the while peeking up under hooded brows to watch Jinji on the horse.
Behind them, noise grew, louder than before, the word Arpapajo crashing like a wave into Jinji's ears. Rhen looked back once, his expression concerned, but that was it. His head scanned slowly from side to side, watching everything.
Keeping her eyes ahead, she finally saw the stone castle, the one Rhen had mentioned, stretching into the sky, almost blocking the sun from her eyes. It was impossible. Yet there it was.
And then it was gone from her sight as Rhen turned them down a narrow road, somewhat vacated.
"Are you alright?" He asked, turning to pet Ember and run a hand through his hair, pushing the reddish locks from his brow.
She nodded, not sure how to express the mix of fear and excitement brewing in her chest. Everything was new, everything was an adventure, everything was terrifying. Taking her hands from the saddle, she flexed her fingers, forcing her blood to pump again.
"You'll get used to it, the staring I mean. Everywhere I go, people look and then just when I get close enough to say hello, they turn, eyes to the ground as is proper. Since I was a boy that's how it's been with the common folk and even some of the nobility." He patted her knee. "You'll get used to it."
But would she?
"I'm sorry I took the shirt," he said, wincing slightly, "I thought it might be funny to see your expression. I wasn't really thinking." He shook his head, blowing out air.
Jinji looked at her dark skin, more out of place in all this gray than it ever had been in the forest contrasted against golden bark.
"I stand out either way," she told him. Her chest felt heavy, as though a fist had closed around her heart. Even in the middle of more people than she had ever seen, Jinji was alone. She swallowed the grief down, forcing her shoulder back, steady. "Besides," she continued, meeting his stare like she would any other stare she came across, "I don't intend to forget who I am."
Rhen paused, considering her.
"Then you're a better man than I am, Jin," he responded, so softly that she almost didn’t hear it.
Then he slapped Ember's behind, earning a nip on his shoulder and a very annoyed sounding neigh. But Rhen just grinned, scratching his horse's ears and pulling them all down the street.
A flash of blue caught her eye, far down where the narrow lane opened up again. The noise grew as they approached. The sun returned, as did the crowd. But Jinji's eyes were still glued to the blue, to the water, chopping and crashing against gigantic wooden structures that somehow floated atop it. Men swinging from ropes. Giant white cloths that looked like clouds against the sky. Squiggling fish caught in nets bigger than her entire village.
"These are the docks." Rhen shrugged, as though this were somehow normal.
"And those are...boats?" She asked, searching for the word.
"Not boats, Jin." Rhen patted her shoulder. "Ships. Big, beautiful ships."
"And this is how we get to the isles?" She asked, wary.
Rhen just nodded as a mirthful smirk sprouted on his lips, birthed from a memory Jinji didn't have access to.
He led them forward through the crowds that parted as they neared, to the beginning of a long wooden row standing over the water, lined with ropes and ships. Tying Ember's reins to an open post, he scanned the area.
"This should do." He nodded. "You can walk around if you'd like, but I wouldn't go very far from Ember. She'll keep you safe, just in case any unfriendly people come near. I should be back shortly."
He waited until Jinji gave her consent before disappearing into the crowd. Once he was gone, she slid from the horse, stepping over the creaking wood, until her eyes dropped over the edge and down into the churning water.
Breathing deeply, she sat, letting her feet dangle over the side as her body began to relax. She imagined she were home, toes dipped into the cool water of their little stream, not feet above the deepest waters she had ever been so close to.
Keeping her eyes downcast, Jinji watched the blues intermix—bright and greenish swirls faded into cloudy gray, warmed into sun-kissed turquoise. All were flecked with bubbling white as they splashed over and under each other, fighting for the top spot. Farther down, the ground faded in and out of view as the waters changed, muddied each other, and then cleared.
Blue strands popped into her vision as the spirits awakened in her eyes, spiraling in and out, braiding and weaving, splashing into the yellow strands of air and then sinking to the green strands of plants below the waters.
Balance.
Nature.
Cupping her hands, Jinji pictured the jinjiajanu between the elemental strands, the pure white mother spirit that tied everything together. And then she imagined a rock resting on her fingers, painted with the faces of her family members.
Closing her eyes, she spun the weave, praying to the spirits to listen to her plea for a moment to mourn, a moment to remember.
When she opened them, the image was there, dancing an inch over her fingers, solid. Four faces—her father, her mother, Leoa, and Janu—all smiling, as though saying hello. She would not forget their faces, ever. And to make sure, she had called this illusion every day since she had left the village. Each time, her throat caught and her eyes burned, but she didn’t look away.
"Ka'shasten," she whispered, my family.
Jinji's heart slowed, her mind began to clear, and for a brief moment, she felt at peace.
And then a shadow passed overhead, skipping over the image, distorting it.
Jinji released the illusion, gasping, and looked up.
A bird.
Just a bird.
And yet, she looked out over the water, following the shadow as it floated over the waves, reminding her of the dream—
her nightmare.
A shadow was never just a shadow. Not for her.
"Rhen?" She called, jumping to her feet.
But as she spun around, it was not Rhen standing close by. On the other side of Ember, a few feet from where she stood, two men were in close conversation. Their clothes hung loose on their bodies, dirty and ragged looking. Their skin a deep tan, not born that way but turned that way from hours of exposure in the sun.
They hadn't seen her, were not paying attention.
Jinji leaned in closer, following a hunch that told her this was not a coincidence.
"Dead?" One man asked, shock coloring his words.
"Ay, dead," the other confirmed.
"But how?"
"Another mystery." The second man shrugged. "They found the two of them below deck, one stabbed and the other with a cut throat. No one knows how it happened, or why."
Cut throat?
Maniuk flashed before her eyes, the image of his hand stilled and a blade at his throat. A shadow was never just a shadow, she repeated. This time it was a sign.
"But Georgey? Kill himself? I've never seen a man more at peace on the water, like a fish he was. Always climbing the ropes, securing the sails, never a complaint. He used to say it was as close as a man could get to flying, standing all the way up on the lookout while the wind whipped his face raw."
The other one shook his head. "I guess there was more going on than we knew."
"Ay, something unnatural, something godly, like we're being punished. You heard about the little boy and his sister found just outside the wall not two days ago? I heard rumors her throat was slit too, though the Lord of Roninhythe says the children fell to their deaths."
"Fell to their deaths?" He guffawed, "if they fell, then I'm a Son of Whyl."
The other man laughed. "If you're a Son of Whyl, then I'm the conqueror himself."
"You smell enough like the grave."
They both fell into a loud round of laughter, giving Jinji enough time to crouch down and hide behind Ember's wide body before they noticed her eavesdropping.
"Jin!"
Rhen's voice startled her, coming from the same direction she had just turned from. She straightened her legs, watching as the two men jumped apart, bowing their heads low as he neared. Rhen paid them no attention, walking straight to Ember as they scurried out of the way.