“It doesn’t have to,” he murmured. He started to place a hand on mine.
I heard a sound in the distance, something between a wail and a howl. I pulled away from him, my hands tightening around my sword hilt.
“Just like us to discuss philosophy when there’s bloodthirsty monsters sneaking about,” Khine said.
I gave a nervous giggle. “Why else did you think I brought you along?”
“I had theories, some of which involved my shockingly good looks.”
“Oh, Khine.” It felt good to see him in a better mood. But when I turned to him, I saw a shadow cross his face. It wasn’t fear. I was still trying to put a name to it when Nor strode up to us.
“There’s things out there all right, but the fire’s keeping them away,” she informed me abruptly. “If you want to sleep now, Beloved Queen, I’ll keep watch.”
“You can’t expect me to sleep after saying that,” I sighed. “Sit with us, Nor.”
“I’ll stand, if that’s all right with you.”
I smiled. “I need to ask—did my father not know of this? Was he just as blind to his pride as the other warlords? I find that hard to believe. Oren-yaro suffered the worst from Rysaran’s folly. You’d think my father would’ve addressed this issue from the beginning.”
“I was just a young girl during the War of the Wolves,” Nor said with some uncertainty. “Whatever went through Warlord Yeshin’s mind was not something I was ever privy to.”
“You weren’t taught about these things in the army?”
She glanced at the woods. “Somewhat.”
“Ah. Somewhat. Now I’m making some progress. Do you see how tiresome it is having everyone keep things from you?” I gave Khine a sideways glance.
“It isn’t what you think, my queen,” Nor quickly said. “The things Kaggawa told you are new to me, too. But in Oren-yaro, we’ve always had these stories. You know about the anggali?”
“Children’s tales,” I said. Hearing the words made me feel foolish. Of course they were more than that. I had seen one with my own eyes, haven’t I? I turned to Khine to explain. “The anggali is a creature from Oren-yaro legend, one that turns into a bat or dog at night to feed on unborn children. In a pinch, it’ll go after anyone in the dark.” I shivered at my own words.
“We would sometimes trade stories about how to keep ourselves safe from such creatures,” Nor said. “They hate the sound of steel being sharpened, for instance, and the best weapon against them is a whip made from dried stingray tail. And now that I think about it, some of them work with what Kaggawa told you. They’re not mindless creatures…they say these things are open to bargaining. They hate the idea that they’re found out, you see, so if you give them a chance to return to society, they might just take you on it.”
“Like how?” I asked.
“Offering to help them take over another body, mainly. Would be a neat way to get rid of an enemy, don’t you think?”
“I don’t understand. How could these be the same things if, according to Dai’s story, they were made by the destruction of Rysaran’s dragon? We’ve always had these stories in Oren-yaro, haven’t we? And it’s so very far away.”
“I don’t know, Beloved Queen,” Nor said. “This has all been more than I’m willing to think about.”
“And yet we have to understand it somehow. The things Rayyel and I missed, chasing after our foolishness.” I pulled my sword close enough to rest it on my knee and stared into the blazing fire. Neither one of them said anything in response. I had, at the very least, honest enough companions.
~~~
The creatures did not attack during the night. We found gnaw marks on portions of the rope-fence, which told us they had ventured that far at least. But unlike Yuebek’s creations, who had mindlessly gone after us at their master’s bidding, these were intelligent and had considered our defences with caution. I wondered if it would fool them a second time, if they would even bother tracking us to our next camp. When I asked Lahei, all she said was, “There are other prey out there.”
I tried not to think about what she meant by that. Others meant outlying hamlets in the mountains, lone hunters, and the occasional child. But reality outdid whatever horrors my imagination could come up with. On the road, we encountered limbs ripped from a missing torso and a head that once belonged to a young, black-haired woman. “It gets worse every year,” Dai commented in the tired voice of a man who thought he had lived too long. I realized that they had been downplaying the urgency of the situation.
We buried the woman’s head and whatever else we could find of her on the side of the road. Lahei marked the grave with a rock, where she used charcoal to scribble a brief description of the woman. We returned to our horses in a more sombre mood.
Sometime during the afternoon, we crossed the border to Jin-Sayeng. It was unguarded. The border at the southern road had the remnants of a stone wall, once erected in a vain attempt to keep the Kags to the west. But that was a long time ago—Jin-Sayeng had been open to the Kags since Dragonlord Reshiro’s time. The northern road didn’t even bear such markers—we reached a portion of the forest, and Lahei turned to me said, “You’re back in Jin-Sayeng, as I promised.”
I felt my skin quiver, as if someone had poured cold water over me. But the feeling passed quickly enough. The road turned northward, away from home. I wondered how long before I could ever hold my son in my arms again.
We arrived in the village by nightfall. They had been waiting for our arrival—a crowd of people gathered around us as I dismounted from my horse and dropped to their knees. “Beloved Queen,” they uttered. “We are glad to see you safe from your journey. It is our honour to serve the crown.” I felt embarrassed at the thought that I had never ventured this far west before. My council had deemed it unnecessary and dangerous. But the villagers were acting as if I, in all my dishevelled glory, was gracing them with my presence. What would they think of their queen if they knew I had been dragged here against my will?
I caught Dai watching me. I couldn’t ask him what for—a village elder came up to take me by the arm and lead me to where the villagers had assembled a feast. My nose caught the whiff of roast pork—a whole entire pig, its skin crispy after hours of turning over hot coals, laid on a bed of rice in the middle of a long table, which was lined with banana leaves. There were also rows of sliced, salted egg, fried lake fish, sliced green mangoes, tomatoes, red onions, globs of pink fish paste, and eggplant mashed in vinegar. I soon found myself seated at the end of the table, with Dai to my right and Lahei beside him. The villagers came to join us.
The west, I quickly learned, was a world away from the east.
The concept of caste is something they never let you forget in the east. There are rules on how to mingle on an official basis, especially with someone of my rank—many of which have been borrowed from the Empire of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro back when the Zarojo and the Jinseins were on better terms. A meeting where an aron dar is seated for no reason beside an aren dar could be gossip fodder for years. I knew that the further away you travelled from the warlords’ cities, the less people adhered to these traditions, but seeing it unfold in front of my eyes was a pleasant surprise. Everyone seemed to know their place without the need for someone to remind them, and it felt good not to be seated away from my companions.
We shed our exhaustion from the day’s journey with the feast. The roast pork was seasoned with salt, lemongrass, and garlic. Eaten with a dab of rice and eggplant, and it all but melted in my mouth in a sea of fat and crackling. Good Jinsein food was simpler than Zarojo, but just as hearty, and I had missed not feeling bad about eating with my fingers. I thought I saw Agos wipe away a tear.
Afterwards, the villagers came with bowls of water for us to wash our hands with, and then the elder came to pass around a jug of strong coconut wine. I took a long drink straight from the bottle, wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, and thanked him. The men laughed.
I turned to Dai, who w
as still looking at me. “Pampered brat, you said,” I told him.
Dai smirked. “Anyone can drink, pampered or not.” He was using the softer voice, the business-like tone. He passed the coconut wine back to me. “I entertained your husband here years ago, you know.”
I paused, my hand on the handle. “Oh?”
“He left you and I was intrigued. I sent him an invitation—he accepted.” I took a drink and passed the wine back to him. “A true Ikessar, that one.”
“I could’ve told you that,” I said with a smirk.
Dai didn’t return the gesture. “This nation doesn’t need another few centuries of Ikessar rule.”
I watched the expression on his face before replying. “Perhaps.”
He wiped the rim of the bottle with his hand. “Do you know what their biggest problem is?”
“My vote is on the butterfly-keeping.”
Dai chuckled. “Among many things. The Ikessar clan has prided itself in valuing knowledge and education and scholarly pursuits. Progress can be found in an open mind, so an Ikessar or two have said. And yet…all these years, they remain a royal clan. Reshiro Ikessar fought for a merchant caste, for instance, in order to facilitate trade all the way to the east. But why not abolish the castes altogether?”
“You know the warlords would never agree to it.”
“And they were open to the idea of a merchant caste, you think? That people can keep their profits instead of passing it on to their lord?” Dai broke into a grin. “No, you see, the Ikessars talk well enough, but they’re just like everyone else. I proved that when your husband was here. I requested that he ride with me out here to show him exactly what is going on, as I did with you. He refused me outright.” His face tightened. “I need you to understand that you are not my prisoner.”
I smiled. “And yet I feel like one, despite your best attempts. Perhaps you should’ve tried harder.”
Chapter Six
Bargaining with Demons
Dai returned my smile with practiced ease. “Is this too much to take in, Beloved Queen?”
“Perhaps.”
“Quarrelsome warlords. Monsters in the Sougen. Mad dragons. The Zarojo.” He smiled. “Your father left you quite a mess, didn’t he? I could’ve told him it was a bad idea to entrust all of this in the hands of a young girl. I would’ve never done the same in his position, not to my daughters. He was an old man when he fathered you. Did he think he was going to live forever?”
Likely Yeshin did. I didn’t know what had gone through my father’s head in those last few years of his life. To ask me to wade through the recesses of his mind would be like asking me to dive into the blackest depths of the ocean. A part of me wondered if his wits had grown feeble as he neared the end. I had never questioned it. I was young and my father had ever been this strong, stalwart figure striding ahead of me. Never perfect—no, but for most of my life, I had stumbled after him like a week-old puppy, blind and eager and without question.
“Is it not yet clear to you?” Dai asked. “You’ve been forced into the jaws of something you were ill-equipped to deal with from the beginning. Who would you trust among your warlords? The very fact that you are here right now is proof enough that you have no one willing to give their lives for you. Your own people, your own family—has abandoned you. You cannot lead this nation in a war against the Zarojo, let alone fix the rest of this, all on your own. Did Yeshin think you could? Just because you came from his loins?”
I gave a thin smile. “It is ironic that I am hearing these things from a man who fought for the Ikessars.”
He snorted. “I did not agree with everything my family did, nor to the extent they supported Princess Ryia. The Ikessars’ methods bordered on hypocrisy: loudly denounce a warlord for his barbaric methods while asking us to dispose of his supporters in whatever way we saw fit. Poison, assassinations, blackmail—we did everything the Ikessars found too dirty and demeaning to do themselves.
“Years before Warlord Yeshin’s civil war, during the rise of the merchant caste, my grandfather supported the Ikessars because he thought that Dragonlord Reshiro agreed with the common people, that he considered our plight. Yet when my grandfather chose to marry a royal—not even an aren dar, but a minor noblewoman…married her for love, it was suddenly the worst thing in the world.”
“I have heard rumours of what Reshiro Ikessar did to the Kaggawa family in those years,” I said. “Nothing about that was right or fair. You have my apologies.”
“Water under the bridge,” Dai said. “You are here now.”
“I don’t know what you think that will do,” I replied. “You’ve so much as pointed out how powerless I am. Do you think having my son here changes anything?”
“A beginning. Without these ancient rules that have given the Anyus free reign of this land, I will be able to bring in the mages that will help the Sougen. We can stop this godsforsaken plague, or whatever this is, from spreading throughout Jin-Sayeng.”
“Have you ever tried—I don’t know—just talking to them?”
“Do you royals just talk?” Dai snorted. “I think you know the answer better than I do, Beloved Queen.”
If I had heard him speak like this in the years before, his head would be rolling in the dust by now. Instead, I remained silent while Yuebek’s insults rang inside my head. The land was more divided than I had feared. Was it a wonder why no law of worth ever came to pass, why progress was a dream foisted on the shoulders of the ruling clan? There once stood my father, clinging to the old ways even in death. And then you had my marriage to Rayyel, the counterweight of a land rearing to tear each others’ heads off…my husband Rayyel who was royal by name only and then not even, not really. And now this man, Dai Kaggawa, watching me as the night fell around us with, waiting for me to see this as an opportunity and then seize it for myself. Only he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know how tired I was of all of this. He didn’t know I was done.
I reached for the wine now. Before my fingers could wrap itself around the jug, I heard someone scream. Dai bolted up just as a woman came tearing around the corner. “My son!” she cried, flinging herself at him. “He’s missing!”
“Calm down, Mother,” Dai said, taking the woman aside. “I’m sure he just wandered off.” He gently set her aside and started for the edge of the village, where a group of men had begun to gather with torches. The grim expressions on their faces left little doubt as to what we were actually dealing with.
I pushed myself away from the table. The wine had left me unsteady, but it was nothing I couldn’t shake off with a walk. “My queen,” Nor said. “Perhaps we should refrain from helping. After all that we have seen so far…”
“Haven’t you heard what the man thinks of us royals?” I asked in a low voice.
“Commoner talk. You shouldn’t let it get to your head, Beloved Queen. I’m surprised Arro hasn’t warned you about people like these: the man just wants to climb higher up the ranks. His family has always been ambitious. It’s a well-known fact that his grandfather Goran Kaggawa only supported Dragonlord Reshiro to further his own interests as a merchant.”
“And yet you agree with him, don’t you? Rayyel and I have been so shortsighted that we’ve let our personal affairs get in the way of actually ruling.”
“My queen,” she murmured. “It happens all the time.” But she allowed me to walk past her. I took a torch and lit it from the common fire before joining Agos by the village gate. He was strapping on his sword belt.
He met me with an amused grin. “You really can’t sit these things out, can you?”
“I’m half-drunk and I want to stick my sword into as many of these creatures as possible if we’re going to get run down anyway,” I retorted. “Any sign of the child?”
“They said they last saw him walking off into the woods with his uncle.”
“So the child’s uncle is one of these things. Wonderful. What else walks among us, I wonder?” I gave a sideways glance at the
crowd in the distance, visible only by the light from their torches as they drifted into the woods. “Have you noticed Kaggawa’s tics?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? That one’s pretty hard to miss. His daughter pretends it doesn’t happen, which makes it more obvious. He slips in and out of voices, and his personality changes depending on what we’re talking about.”
Agos grunted.
I noticed a screeching in the distance, quick enough that for a moment, I almost thought I just imagined it. But then I saw Agos’ face. “You want to go to it, you said?” he asked. “Think I saw a path down there. I’ll follow your lead.”
It wasn’t out of courage that I agreed. Sometimes, the best remedy for fear was movement. I held the torch as far out from my body as I could as I strode down the path, my heart in my throat. Having something come at you in surprise was one thing—knowing you were likely to meet it in the darkness was another. If I had known a safe place to flee, I would’ve scampered to it without question.
The light, of course, wasn’t really helping. As comforting as it was to have the steady glow so close, I could barely see two steps ahead of me. The path opened up to a clearing. The moment we reached the edge, it began to rain.
“Shit,” I heard Agos say behind me.
“I didn’t even notice the clouds,” I grumbled. I stared at the torch, hoping the fire would keep, but I had forgotten how heavy Jinsein rains could get. Each torrent felt like I was being pelted by rocks. Before I could draw another breath, the torch was reduced to a smouldering stick and I was drenched from head to toe.
“We should head back,” Agos said with a measure of uncertainty.
I dropped the useless torch and walked to his voice. “What did the army tell you about the anggali?” I asked.
“To stay the hell away from them.”
I tried to laugh the growing fear away and began to scrape my blade on the rock at my foot, hard enough for it to emit a high-pitched scratch. Not even a moment passed before I heard the resounding screech in the distance.
The Ikessar Falcon Page 28