“I consider him a good friend, Cho.”
“Then you’ll believe me when I say that he’ll die for you.”
Don’t think. Don’t feel. What lay inside my heart had no bearing over what needed to be done. I could listen to these words, but I wasn’t allowed to take comfort in them. The world I lived in, with all its rules and blades flashing in the dark, left little room for anything else. My every breath had been determined before I even first drew it.
“Hey, queen,” Cho continued. “Still awake?”
I wiped my hand over my eyes. It was so dark that I didn’t think he would notice. “Yes,” I said. “Cho, I…I don’t know why you’re telling me these things. What do you expect me to do with this knowledge?”
“You’re a queen,” he replied. “People will die for you all the time. At least that’s what they say people do for queens. Just look at your guards. You’re used to that kind of attention, aren’t you? I think you almost take it for granted. But my brother…he isn’t one of yours. What is he to you anyway? He’s just another man, just another body you can throw between yourself and the enemy. It pisses me off every time I think about it, but I’m starting to think that maybe you just can’t help yourself. You’re born this way, and unlucky bastards like us just get trampled by people like you along the way.”
“I’m…”
“Don’t even bother. I don’t want to hear your excuses. Just listen. I’d really love to come back home with him alive. Every day I lose hope that we’ll ever see Anzhao again. But do you think Khine will just drop it all and leave? Not a chance in hell. He’s convinced you need him. Until I’m sure she’s in safe hands, Cho, he tells me, the fucking ass. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think you’re going to die here and our heads will be right in that grave with you.”
I felt a chill run through me at his words. He paused from his speech to throw a fresh branch into the campfire. The leaves caught on fire almost at once.
“What would you have me do?” I repeated.
“You really are some queen,” Cho snorted. “Asking me, of all people. I think it’s obvious. Order Khine to go home. I’m…” He swallowed, his voice rising higher. “I’m begging you. Don’t use how he feels about you to your advantage. He’s all sorts of fucked up but he’s still my brother and I don’t want him to die, and I don’t want to die with him. Maybe there’s nothing you can do about all of this, but this is your life, not ours. And I know you don’t love him, so please…”
Cho was suddenly in front of me, on his knees, his head bent so low it was touching the ground.
“Send us home,” he whispered.
~~~
A restless night gave way to a morning of cold air and mist, cloaked by a light drizzle of rain. But the sun still managed to peek through as dawn broke, crested with black clouds that promised a storm later that day. I wondered whether dragons liked rain or not and hoped that they would stay in their dens today. The firebreathers, at least, should find them uncomfortable. I had no desire to meet one again anytime soon.
The mist was so thick that I couldn’t see the smoke from the other campfire. I doubted that they had even been there at all. We broke camp and made our way to high ground, just off the stream. Here, I could see the sharp, jagged outlines of the northeastern ridge. The caverns lay somewhere in that area, and I thought I could make out the crevices if I squinted hard enough.
I ran my hands over my face before placing the horse’s reins into Cho’s hands. “You should head back now,” I said. “With any luck, the dragons will be hiding. Ask them back at the tower to send more men if they can spare them. They may not be able to.”
“What the hell are you yapping about, queen?”
“Tali,” I snapped. “If you’re going to be rude, you might as well call me by my name. I’m saying that you should head back now while you’ve got the chance. We won’t be able to ride double for too long anyway, and I’m starting to get fond of that horse. I don’t want to see either of you ripped apart by a dragon.”
Cho frowned. “If I let you go alone, Khine will never let me hear the end of it.”
“Then don’t tell him,” I said. “If I die, I’m sure Kaggawa will release him, and you can both make your way back to the empire.”
“If you die—” He laughed. “You’ve seen how he was with our mother. You can’t die.”
“If Khine’s mental state is what we’re worried about, then neither can you. You see my dilemma here. Don’t worry…I have no intention of dying at all if I can help it. But in the off chance it happens…well. Not your life, like you said. It’ll be easy enough to forget me. He’s already lost a mother. I won’t take his brother from him, too.” I nuzzled the horse for a moment before walking away.
“Mad bitch,” Cho said under his breath. “You’re as stubborn as he is.”
I kept walking. He didn’t follow me.
I was glad for it. I didn’t like the silence that came with being alone, but I think I needed I needed to figure it out, all these things I was running away from, the things I was running toward, of what my heart was afraid was waiting for me back home. The machinations my father had set in place before his death had overturned everything I knew about my life. My marriage was a sham. My son was of the enemy’s blood to both our clans, and seemingly unwanted by both.
And I was Talyien of Oren-yaro, but I didn’t really know what that meant anymore. Here I was, alone in dragon territory with no men to my name, no horse, and not even a spear, chasing after a lord who was probably both a traitor and a corpse. I imagined that if I died out here, the history books would find some glorious reason for my actions—she needed to bring peace to the land, she needed to stop the dragons, she needed to show the Anyus her worth as the true Dragonlord, make honest men and loyal servants out of them before negotiating peace with Kaggawa and the rice merchants. Good enough stories. Most aren’t so lucky to get them. Most, like Mei, die heroes and are forgotten almost immediately.
But deep inside, I didn’t know anymore. I knew my reasons for venturing out here, but I didn’t know why I kept going. Are queens allowed to be confused? What about my father’s daughter? I knew that my spirit was broken, but every step I took seemed to yield another, and then another, and then another, like the movement itself was enough of a guiding light for the next. I think even if I had willed every part of me to stop, I wouldn’t have.
The storm never came. The clouds drifted into the distance, further out into the valley, and sunlight broke through with such frenzy that you could almost hear the plants shudder with joy. I pushed away the dread and foreboding long enough to find water. I didn’t want to waste time to fish, but I found thorny bushes full of red, ripe berries that were safe to eat. They were sour and had too many seeds, but they kept me going all the way to the caverns.
The land here became solid rock underneath, sharp and slippery. The only path that seemed safe were the furrows where water traversed when it rained. There, moss grew in grey and brown patches that allowed my feet a better grip. I still had to use my hands to grab roots and rocks to make my way up, but it wasn’t an impossible task, and it kept my mind occupied. The mist was starting to blow in again when I reached another section of flat land. There were cliffs all around me now and I made sure to walk as slowly as I could so I wouldn’t slip off to the sides. I was almost glad for the cold, because it tempered my exhaustion. If it had been too hot and muggy, I wouldn’t have gone very far.
I saw my first dragon of the day while I was catching my breath on a ledge. I watched it soar through the sky, its feet kicking through the clouds with every stroke of its gigantic wings. Something about the ease with which it moved filled me with envy. I wanted to be that dragon. I wanted to fly without a care in the world and not be my own awkward self, fumbling through life and my responsibilities and the expectations handed down to me by people who never once asked if I could live up to them. But those thoughts drifted, taking me back to the moments I shared
with Khine, and I recoiled from the memories like they were on fire. I turned my eyes back to the cliff and spotted the trail of smoke from one of the ledges.
I continued the rest of the climb with renewed vigour. It didn’t take long for me to reach the ledge. As soon as I pulled myself up, a figure lunged at me with a makeshift spear. I sidestepped the attack easily.
“Funny way to greet your queen,” I said, gazing at Eikaro.
His tired eyes brightened. “Beloved Queen, you came after me.” He tried to sketch a bow, but the rip in his pants showed a long gash running along his leg that prevented him from doing it at all. I grabbed his arm before he could exert himself any further and helped him return to his campfire.
“Are you alone?” Eikaro asked. His voice was strained.
“Huan and Captain Seo came with me, along with other men, but we were…separated.”
“Is my wife safe?”
“I believe so. We tried to chase after you as soon as the dragon left.” I looked around the ledge. There was a small crack in the cliff behind us, big enough for a body to squeeze through. “What happened? How did you get here?”
“Damned bastard tried to rip me in half but I managed to get it to land here. Got away and hid there until it left me alone.” He pointed at the crack. “I tried to get out yesterday, but the leg wouldn’t let me. I made a fire to keep warm but I didn’t really think anyone would send help. I thought for sure you’d give me up for dead.”
“Have you got water? Food?”
“I sucked moisture out of the moss, but otherwise…”
I helped him sit down so I could take a good look at his leg. It was no longer bleeding, but the edges were swollen. I sniffed it and it smelled clean enough. I wondered if he had perhaps broken a bone somewhere. Khine would know what to do. Khine…
“Is everything all right, Beloved Queen?”
“I’ll get you food,” I said distractedly. I put his leg down. “There were berries down in the bushes below.”
“I haven’t seen the dragon the whole day,” Eikaro called out. “Please be careful, my queen.”
The berries here were wilted from the shade, but I gathered as much as I could, stuffing them into my pockets and sleeves before returning to the ledge. I spread them on the ground and picked at a few myself. Eikaro watched me with a sprinkling of unease.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, wiping berry juice from my lips.
“You’re very different from how you were back in Oka Shto,” he said at last.
“I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not.”
He scratched his cheek. “You’ve risked your life for me. And still risking it, with every moment you spend here.”
“You didn’t expect I spent all my spare time chopping heads off, did you?”
His face remained sombre; he had never been as quick to jump on my jokes as his brother. “I feel compelled to tell you the truth about all of this, but I’m not sure where to start.”
“Huan has already given me a good idea,” I said. “The dragons. The souls. The mages.”
He nodded.
“Dai’s information was correct, then? They’re Zarojo?”
“Yes, my queen.”
“How did you find them?”
He picked at the berries. “Beloved Queen…”
“There is no sense trying to hide anything from me now, Lord Eikaro. I’ll find out sooner or later.”
“They arrived sometime ago, before we started building the dragon-tower. Three mages. They said they were sent by an official from the Empire of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro to assist our unique situation.”
“They went straight to you,” I repeated. “Not Dai?”
He looked shocked I would even suggest such a thing. “Dai Kaggawa is a rice merchant, Beloved Queen. We are lords of this land.”
“Royals,” I said. “Well-known to reject, sometimes outright kill, practitioners of the agan. Known mages have been held in the dungeons at Shirrokaru for decades. We cannot even talk about it in the east without igniting tempers. There must be a reason why they sought you in particular. They knew you weren’t going to execute them.”
“I don’t know if I can explain with words,” Eikaro said. “But perhaps I can show you.”
He lifted his hands. I watched in disbelief as the fire grew larger. It flickered before forming into a tendril that reached out towards us, clambering straight into his hands. There, it turned into a ball. He stared at me before tossing it up the air, where it exploded into nothingness.
“You’re a mage,” I breathed.
Chapter Twelve
The Belly of the Beast
“Not exactly,” Eikaro said, giving me the pained expression of a man who had explained the technicalities one time too many. “Mages are what you would call someone who has undergone formal studies. And I…never have. I was born with a connection to the agan, something we discovered when I was a boy.”
“How did you hide it?” I asked. “I was told untrained children were dangerous. Yet in all the time I knew you, I never even suspected.”
“Why should you? We sent children like me away, give us to the service of a deity with cloistered priests and priestesses, or kill us in secret.” He smiled. “My father found witches in Fuyyu willing to teach me to control it. This is the west, Beloved Queen. Talk of the agan may be looked down in the east, but things are different here in the years since Dragonlord Reshiro opened trade with the Kag. Witches in Fuyyu are fairly common. They make potions or work as healers, and some can even scry for the future or get you to speak to someone who isn’t there. But they are not as skilled as you think, not like the mages you find in Dageis or even Gaspar. The one my father hired couldn’t teach me to do much beyond passing off as normal and simple tricks like the one I just showed you.”
“Warlord Ojika made a wise decision,” I said. “You would’ve been executed on the spot if you ever showed signs in front of the warlords.”
“A wise decision? Perhaps. He wanted to kill me himself,” Eikaro said with a wry smile. “Believe me, my queen, my father was not happy to sire a son with a defect. I slept three rooms away from my brother as a boy because he was afraid of me killing his heir in the dead of the night.”
“This is why you’re surprised we came.”
He gave a curt nod. “If my father had been around to stop Huan, he would have. My life is not as valuable as his.”
“You’re both his sons.”
“I am the broken spare,” Eikaro said. “I don’t disagree with it, either. Think how the warlords would react if they find out someone like me inherited these lands from my father. They would seize it from under our noses and put our entire family to the sword.” He paused. “Please don’t tell me you’re alone because Huan was hurt.”
“He was well and whole the last time I saw him.”
“Why were you separated?”
“Dragon attack,” I mumbled. “About four of them.”
Eikaro gave a soft cry. “A warlord’s heir and a queen in exchange for my life! Beloved Queen, I don’t think I can live with the shame if either of you die because of me. And my child…my child will carry that taint…”
“Stop,” I said. “We worked really hard to find you. If you devalue your own life, then you devalue our efforts.”
“My queen…”
“Tell me about these mages. They knew you had the connection, so your father couldn’t turn them away.”
“Beloved Queen, you guessed correctly. My father did not enjoy entertaining them, but he was made to understand he had no choice, else word of me will get out.”
“Which official sent them?”
“A certain Governor Ong from Zorheng City.”
“Ah,” I said. “The bastards.”
“My queen?”
“You allowed my enemies into your midst.”
He blinked. “I don’t understand, my queen. They didn’t say anything about you. They were very helpful, explaining
to us exactly why the dragons are as strange as they are and why we haven’t had any luck taming them the past few years. They even walked the walls with us, showing us where to strengthen our defences.”
“The dragon-tower was their idea, I suppose.”
Eikaro nodded.
“Where are they now?”
“They left a few months ago for a personal errand. They assured us they would be back in time once we had captured that first dragon—a small hatchling, they instructed. We were to keep it in the third level of the tower, which they had laced with spells.”
I wondered how deep the bastards had infiltrated my nation. How did they know of Eikaro’s condition when none of us did? Arro would’ve brought up any suspicions. A thought occurred to me. “Did Warlord Yeshin ever visit the Sougen while you were a child?”
“Yes, my queen.”
“He spoke to you.”
Eikaro looked away.
“Lord Eikaro…”
“My queen,” he said in a low voice. “I will not speak ill of your father.”
I touched his arm. “I have heard everything there is to say about my father, Lord Eikaro. That he was a traitor to the crown and a murderer, that he would stop at nothing to fulfill his ambitions—even if it meant throwing his own people at the enemy. That he ripped my mother away from her own mother’s arms and raped her repeatedly until I was conceived.”
I was surprised that I could say these things as calmly as I did. Hearing them said by others always made me angry. I saw Eikaro’s jaw quiver. “I do not need your sympathy, Lord Eikaro,” I continued. “I need your honesty. Please.”
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