The Ikessar Falcon

by Villoso, K. S.

  A darkness set in, one that had nothing to do whatsoever with the shadows that seemed to breathe around us. I felt my hand grip the handle of my sword tight. Was this what the warlords wanted—is this why they drive me to the edge? Had they been waiting for me to follow my father’s footsteps, to bring out that streak of madness before turning against me? Would that they were all in front of me now. Then I could cut them down, or die trying.

  I didn’t even know I was crying until I felt Khine’s hand on top of mine. As he peeled my fingers from the sword, I saw the gleam of tears on my palm.

  “I told you,” I murmured. “You’re in love with an illusion. The Queen Talyien you know…”

  “But I don’t really know her,” Khine said. “Only Tali. Only the woman I met in Shang Azi, trying to survive. Only you.” His fingers reached up to caress my cheek and wipe the tears from my eyes.

  I regained my composure, the years of training attempting to override the flood of emotions within me. “We should keep going,” I said, pushing his hand away. “Those bastards are still after us.”

  “Tali, wait.”

  “No, Khine.”

  “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  I clenched my fists together. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.”

  He turned to speak, anyway. “I want to talk about Agos.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  He took a deep breath. “I know it’s not.”

  “Then leave it be.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Tali,” he finally said in a low voice. “Are you aware that Agos has a family?”

  I felt my senses swirl.

  Khine took my silence as an answer. “He has a wife and two sons in Oren-yaro.”

  I felt my heart tighten, as if an unseen hand had reached out to crush it. “No,” I murmured, not because I didn’t believe the truth of it. Oh, I knew, I knew…I just didn’t understand how I found myself standing on this side of the fence this time. Why didn’t Agos tell me? Did you really expect him to?

  “He knows it is dishonourable, but he would leave them for you. He said he promised to take you away from all of this, that he would build a life together with you and your son. Knowing you, you, not Queen Talyien…the last thing you’d want is to hurt someone like this. I thought you’d want to know what he is giving up…what you are to him, that this isn’t just some game.” He lifted his fingers. “Tali, if all you want is someone to take you away, you know that I can…”

  “Are you just saying these things to make me question my decisions? It’s too late for me to take it back. And it doesn’t change anything. There is no room in my life for you, Khine. I thought I’ve made that clear.”

  His face hardened. “Do you still not understand a damn thing?”

  “No, Khine. No, I don’t. I especially don’t understand you, of all people. Back in the Sougen, you said you didn’t want to complicate things. And you know what? You were right. You are foolish and staying with me will only get you killed and I don’t want you to die, I don’t want to see you get hurt. When you were out there with that dragon I felt like…”

  I swallowed as the words began to crawl over each other. “There is no room in my life for you, but you don’t want to listen. And now…” I laughed. “Now you’re telling me you’d take me away, like I could even consider that. Leave now, and let the whole land burn to the ground? I wasn’t born with the privilege to walk away from this, even if I wanted to. No,” I repeated. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you’re still here. I’ve done everything I could to make you leave and you’re still here.”

  He stared at me calmly. Inside, I felt myself struggling with the waves, beating my head against the barriers my father had built up. Everything I ever was, everything I thought I had to be, shattered upon this man whose own mother had thrown herself off a bridge to save him, a man who would do the same for me without a second thought.

  “Love,” he murmured, mirroring my thoughts, “doesn’t have to be returned. Nothing you do will drive me away from your side. Nothing, Tali. These silences the past few days, what you do with Agos, even if you decided to sleep with your entire guard—”

  I slapped him. My fingers stung from the blow. He didn’t understand, either.

  “I cannot love you,” I whispered.

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “I can’t.”

  But the gods knew I already did.

  And there, because he was also the sort of man who was convinced he could read me like a book, he bent down and pressed his lips over mine.

  Time crawled to a standstill. I had every intention of pushing him away, but I didn’t. I knew what desire felt like, but I didn’t realize it was possible to go beyond that, that the mere act could carry a force that threatened to unhinge my thoughts. I could taste the salt of my own tears in his mouth as he pulled me into his arms and dared to deepen the kiss. For a moment, maybe more, I was lost in the feel of him, his cracked lips, his stubbled chin, his every breath a reminder of how he had plagued my thoughts the moment I met him. I never wanted to be found again.

  But then, as quickly as it happened, he stopped. Khine took an indrawn breath and slowly removed his hands from me, like it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

  I stepped away from him. “Khine, we—”

  I heard something creak.

  My reflexes moved before I could gather my thoughts. There was a staircase right beside us, wooden floors above. The assassin must’ve heard us talking and thought he had the advantage. I raced up the steps, drawing my dagger as I went. I caught him crouching on the floor. He turned to me in surprise.

  I stabbed him right in the throat.

  ~~~

  My senses returned amidst my pounding heartbeat. I noticed my fingers were coated with the assassin’s blood and bent down to wipe it on my trousers. I turned back to the body to drag it where the light shone.

  His pockets were empty. I wrenched his head-scarf loose just as Khine arrived. “He look Zarojo or Jinsein to you?” I asked as he came up to me.

  “I don’t know,” Khine replied.

  “Doesn’t matter, I guess,” I murmured. I looked down at my fingers again. Surprisingly enough, they weren’t shaking this time around. I wondered if my nerves had somehow fixed itself. Or was everything so frayed that I was now on the verge of snapping, and nothing worked the way it was supposed to anymore?

  The room was covered in shadow for a moment. Only a moment, but it told me someone had crossed the window while we were speaking. “They’re getting careless,” I said. “They’re on the rooftop.”

  “I wonder if they know their friend is dead,” Khine said.

  I pushed the body into a shadowy corner. “They will soon enough. They know where we are, in any case. There’s no sense trying to meet them on the roof. Your sword arm isn’t of much use and I don’t think I can fight them all at once.”

  He looked embarrassed at my assessment, but didn’t deny it. “I saw the doors to the auditorium. There must be gates leading out. But the roof is open.”

  “Worth a try, anyway.”

  We went back down the stairs. The doors were at the far end of the hall. The hinges were so rusted that Khine had to brace himself to push one open. I stepped through the archway into an amphitheatre. Sunlight streamed from the sky, revealing rotting, broken benches lined row by row. Even the stage was rotting, with enough holes on the floorboards to look like the bottom of a wasp’s nest. The building must’ve been built along time ago, back when our relations with the Zarojo was at its peak. The Zarojo influence was plain on the architecture of the rooftops. There was even a statue of Saint Fei Rong on the gates inside an alcove on one of the stone posts. It was so old that moss had grown around it, rendering the statue’s features unrecognizable.

  My suspicions returned to Yuebek. Yes, he sent Qun, but who knew what lay wi
thin the recesses of that twisted mind of his? The mages in the Sougen had been his doing, and sending assassins after me again wasn’t unlikely. Surely the man didn’t have an endless bag of tricks. I wouldn’t put it past him to start repeating them.

  There was one person who never seemed to run out of tricks, though. As I stepped further into the grounds, I realized Khine wasn’t with me. I turned, too late, to him closing the door between us. It slammed shut just as I returned to the doorway.

  “This isn’t funny, Khine,” I hissed as I tried to force the door open. He had locked it from the other side.

  “I’m sorry, Tali,” he said. “I’ll try to draw their attention. You get out through the main gates while they’re distracted.”

  “Don’t do this to me, you bastard. Not now. I promised myself I wouldn’t let you do this again.”

  “I’ve got no intention of dying.”

  “What makes you think they intend to let you live? Don’t be an idiot, Khine. Khine!”

  Silence. He was gone.

  I cursed him even as I dashed out to follow what he had said. He may be a soft-headed fool, but I wasn’t going to waste the advantage he had offered me. The gates were rusted shut, but the wrought iron provided so many footholds that it wasn’t a problem for me to climb up and heave myself back on the street.

  I had been hoping for people on the other side. But I found myself on a wide, empty street of cobblestone, with arches and streetlamps every few paces. I realized that I must be in one of the old neighbourhoods once occupied by wealthy Zarojo merchants and their families. There had been so many that were displaced during Reshiro Ikessar’s time—most had to pack up and return to the Empire of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro, even the ones with Jinsein wives and children. Some had lived in Jin-Sayeng their whole lives.

  The price of war, I found myself thinking as I strode up to the carved doors to what appeared to be a restaurant of some sorts. It looked like a quiet establishment, but there were flickering lights, and if I could find the right sort of excuse I might be able to find someone to help me get Khine. I tugged at the smooth handles, and I walked past a fish tank and into a dimly lit room, decorated with embroidered wall tapestries and a red velvet rug. There, my eyes fell on a figure sitting alone at the closest table.

  My mind went blank as I found myself face-to-face with my husband Rayyel.

  Chapter Ten

  The Jin-Sayeng Dragonlords

  We stared at each other for a heartbeat.

  I opened my mouth. Rai reached across the table to grab my wrist. I tried to draw my sword, and he twisted my arm.

  “You son of a—”

  “Not here,” he whispered. He calmly flicked his eyes behind him. I saw off-duty guards chatting around a table, tearing through enough food to last a week in some households. It appeared to be a celebration of some sort—I caught sight of a roasted suckling pig, sitting on banana leaves with golden skin. I could smell the meat from where I was standing.

  I tore my hand from his grasp.

  “Upstairs,” he said.

  I started to laugh. “If you think I’m going to fall for that again…”

  “It wasn’t me that first time, if you recall.”

  “Is everything all right?” the server said, approaching us with a smile. “Will she be joining you?”

  “She most sincerely won’t be,” I hissed.

  “We need to talk in my room,” Rai said in a low voice. I always hated how he made me sound hysterical. He nodded at the server. “Could you just bring the food up?”

  “Of course.” She smiled sweetly, unaware of what was going on beyond the appearance of two lovers having a spat. Her presence saved me from embarrassing myself. Rai crossed his arms and shuffled forward, and the servant gave me such sheepish smile that I was stunned into silence. She gestured down the hall with a bow, and I found myself turning to follow Rayyel.

  He led me up a short flight of stairs and down to a long hall lined with doors. Rai made a small noise to himself when he touched the handle to the wrong room, and started to apologize while he fumbled with the key. He apologized a second time as the door opened and he directed me inside. “The state of disarray…” he began.

  “You should start by explaining what you did,” I asked with all the anger I could squeeze into a small voice. “The letters to the warlords.”

  He blinked, closing the door gently behind him. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do I have to spell everything out for you, you irritating bastard? I thought we had an agreement. But as soon as we were separated, you went behind my back!”

  “Ah,” Rai said. “That.” He rubbed his beard.

  “That?” I exclaimed. I finally wrenched my sword loose from my belt. One step and I had the blade against his throat.

  His face remained impassive. “I thought you would’ve learned to control that anger over these years.”

  I tightened my grip around the sword. After a moment, I drew back slightly, only enough that he could still breathe without nicking himself. “Talk fast.”

  “I wrote that letter from An Mozhi while I was still recovering. It had to be done. Governor Qun was heading this way. I didn’t know how else to stop him. I had to render you powerless—I was hoping it would dissuade him. Dissuade Yuebek.”

  Qun himself had alluded to it. I stared at him for a heartbeat.

  He managed a long, ragged breath. “Will you sheathe your sword now, my lady?”

  I sighed and removed the sword away from him. “I did meet the bastard,” I said. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it. Did you come up with all of it yourself?” It was hard to believe, even after he had explained everything. Such forward thinking wasn’t Rayyel’s way.

  “It was Inzali’s idea,” he replied. He seemed embarrassed to admit it. “I thought it was too drastic at first, but Namra assured me it was sound. In any case, we were running out of time. We had to make a decision.”

  “I thought she and the others were taking you east,” I murmured as I tried to piece the last few weeks’ events together.

  He pursed his lips. “They were. I awoke two days after we parted and insisted we follow you. We didn’t have a ship and it was slow going on the road. You were gone by the time we arrived.”

  “With that snake Qun right behind us.” I sheathed the sword so I could sit down. “Namra and the others—where are they now?”

  “They left me to head straight for Shirrokaru to ask the Ikessar council for help while I took care of the letters from here.”

  “If only that bastard Kaggawa hadn’t insisted on taking me all the way out west, perhaps I would’ve had time to…” I stared at my hands. “No,” I murmured. “None of that matters. I came here for help. There were assassins. Khine’s in trouble. Rayyel—you didn’t send them, did you?”

  “I have never, in my life, wished you dead,” Rai whispered.

  My insides knotted. Not for what he said, but at the memory of what had happened mere moments—it must’ve only been moments—ago in the theatre. This was my husband, the one standing right next to me. Why were my thoughts full of another man? “Khine’s in trouble,” I numbly repeated.

  Rai continued speaking, breaking my thoughts. “I wrestled with an assassin myself just yesterday. I believe it has been biding its time, waiting for me to be alone. Somebody wants, at the very least, the both of us out of the picture.” He regarded me with a curious expression. “Lamang drew them away from you, you said?”

  “There were three, I think. I killed one. He’s trapped with them in the abandoned theatre down the street.”

  “We must assist him. He saved my life back in Phurywa. One good turn deserves another.”

  I found myself nodding, unable to form a proper response. I watched him walk the length of the room to retrieve his sword from under the bed. His movements had the same mechanical precision as always. For a moment, you would have been able to fool me into thinking we were back to the way things used to be: a couple o
n their way to a meeting, to delegations and politics and a marriage as empty as my bed the last six years.

  ~~~

  We encountered Agos on the street. His eyes lit up at the sight of us before his face twisted into a snarl. Without a word of warning, he roared and grabbed Rai by the neck. I jabbed him in the gut with the hilt of my sword.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said. “Khine needs our help.”

  Rai grabbed Agos’ hands, attempting to dislodge him.

  “I’m supposed to just take this?” Agos asked. “This man has been a thorn at your side for the longest time. Let me get rid of him for you.”

  “I order you to let him go. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  Agos obeyed, though not eagerly. Rai stood still, hands at his side. “If I may continue walking without being accosted…” he began. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was being polite. I knew now, of course, that it was far from the truth.

  Agos spat to the side. “Don’t act all high and mighty in front of me. You aren’t Dragonlord.”

  “At the moment, neither is she.”

  “No thanks to you, you bloated piece of shit.” He turned towards me. “Really, Tali, you don’t think—”

  “Not now.” I strode forward, my head aching. I had owned more reasonable dogs. We reached the theatre, and I turned my thoughts away from them to stare up at the rooftop from the street, waiting for a sound, or a glimpse of shadow, anything that told me there were still people up there.

  Agos huffed. “Lamang wouldn’t have engaged them. He’s too smart for that. I’ll take a look around. Stay here—” His eyes fell on Rayyel. “And guard yourself. If he tries to do anything, stab him first and ask questions later.”