“I admired what I thought was his utter devotion to the throne,” Rai said.
“Rai…”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Mere details…it only makes me wonder what more I missed. A king, he says. I never wanted to be king. The word Dragonlord makes me feel ill. Does it even seem like I’m a good fit?”
He left it at that.
Juresh agreed to take us all the way to Oren-yaro for a hefty price, one that depleted the last of the coin Warlord San had given us. The good thing about it was that we didn’t have to share quarters with his fish. We pulled away from the docks and drifted down the river by noon. With those currents, Juresh guessed we were two days away from Oren-yaro, if we went on a leisurely pace that allowed us to rest in inns along the way.
Or we could be there in a matter of hours if he paddled up the river all night long. But as much as it grated me to choose the slower route, I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. Merchants we were supposed to be, and so we acted like merchants in a way that would’ve made Khine proud.
Still, it was the longest two days of my life. I could have never imagined that I would ever find myself stuck between Rai’s usual silence and Agos’ brooding temper. Not that I have never journeyed with both before—we frequently travelled together in the past, from Sutan to Darusu and even once to the island of Meiokara. But back then, Agos had been preoccupied with his soldiers, while Rayyel was preoccupied…with being himself.
Things were different now. My intimacy with Agos had created a well from which I was helplessly trying to scrabble out of. He didn’t want Rai around, that much was clear. He was convinced we could save Thanh without him, that Rai’s presence was an affectation I needed to wean myself out of. More than that, however, he regarded Rai as a threat—as if by some stroke of fate I could somehow undo the past six years and I would find myself back in my husband’s arms.
To say that Rai disliked Agos would be a gross simplification. But I didn’t know how to delve deeper than that, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. What I saw back in Anzhao City, the last time we had talked there, was one crack too many. My husband claimed to have loved me. Did he love me still? Did I want him to? If we could somehow get past all of this—save Thanh, thwart the Zarojo invasion, reprimand Lord Ozo, and convince the council we yet belonged to the throne—could we still be together?
That left Khine. The wisest thing would be to bury all of that in the dust like I had intended to from the very beginning. Let those fifteen, twenty seconds I was in his arms be all there ever will be, memories enough to last a lifetime. It was already more than I deserved.
There was still no word on him, but I refused to believe he was dead. A man who lived as loudly as Khine Lamang did could not possibly just die in silence. For the two nights we spent on those riverside inns, I kept a lantern burning outside the window of my room. I reasoned that I didn’t want to sleep in darkness in case the assassins returned, but the truth was that I was keeping an eye out for him, half-longing to see him on a raft or a boat somewhere in the distance. Beyond foolish, my heart. The other half longed for me to learn from my mistakes and cover everything up in a layer of cold, hard steel.
And so the next two days went. The journey itself was pleasant—calm winds, a touch of rain in them. I had expected torrents, but the monsoon storms were late. “Better they don’t come at all,” Juresh added. “Just got my house fixed, too. Roof shingles are expensive.”
We saw Oren-yaro in the distance the morning of the third day.
Agos was already awake, though the sun was yet to rise. “I know you’ve been away longer than I have,” he said, standing at the edge of the boat with his arms crossed. The city was unfolding on the horizon in front of our very eyes. “And I see this all the time, back when I had to travel in the army. But still, the sight never ceases to amaze me. Home, it says. Home. You remember…” His face fell, as if whatever memory he wanted to share with me was suddenly too painful to recall. He shook his head. “It’ll pass, don’t worry. I haven’t turned into a sentimental old fool.”
I stared at his solemn face for a moment. “Khine told me you have a family here,” I said.
He frowned. “That worm. I told him to keep his mouth shut.”
“You didn’t think such information would be important to me?”
Agos scratched his head. “It’s not a thing you stop to think about, all right? You were gone from my life as far as I knew. Go. Never come back. So I went, damned fool that I was. Didn’t think it would affect me as much as it did, but there you are. I tried to forget you. Tried my best. Found someone in one of the riverside towns, north of Oren-yaro. But it doesn’t matter. Say the word and she’s nothing.”
His dismissal of her stung. I felt a wave of disgust over what I had done to this woman I had never met. “She’s your wife, Agos.”
“And I appreciate that. I tried my best, I said, but I was a damn rotten husband. I’d hear some news about you or Oka Shto and I’d find myself gambling or drinking the hours away. I couldn’t help it.” He looked down at my hands. “You were my life, you know. You and the whole damn Oren-yaro, the castle, the army, but mostly you. What the hell else did I know? I burnt the rice every time I tried to make it. Some cook’s son…pah! I wore her patience thin.”
Agos rubbed his jaw. He had been keeping it shaved clean since An Mozhi. “My wife’s a good woman,” he continued. “Deserves better than what she got, Akaterru knows. Better than me. I dragged them all the way to Oren-yaro when I found out you were missing. Didn’t even tell them why. Made up some bullshit excuse about some business with my mother, not that she’s ever met her, not that they know about each other. Found a job within the first week doing scribe work for one of your minor royals. She’ll be fine. Find someone who can give her more, I know she will. The boys…” He grimaced.
“I can’t ask a father to leave his sons,” I murmured. “Agos. I know exactly what that feels like. To be abandoned by the man you love…”
Agos shook his head. “But I don’t love her. Not the way I—"
“No,” I said, my voice rising. “Stop it. Right there. I can’t knowingly let you leave a woman the way Rayyel left me. If I had known what I was doing I would have never—”
“You’re a royal,” he snarled. “You people never think about what your actions mean to the rest of us.” He glanced away, his face red. “I mean, it’s either that or I leave you and Thanh with him,” Agos said, jerking his head back to where Rai was still sleeping on the other end of the boat.
“You don’t have to do this. This is not your duty anymore.”
“I know what you’re thinking. But if he’s not truly mine, it doesn’t change a damn thing—what I am, what I feel about you. I know,” he quickly added, before I could open my mouth, “that you don’t love me. I’ve had years to deal with that. If I’m just your dog, then I’ll happily be your dog so as long as you don’t send me away again. I can’t take that a second time, Tali. Burn me, drive a stake through my heart, just let me be with you.”
“This is ridiculous. You’re being an idiot.”
He flushed at the anger in my tone. “My boys…they’ll be all right, too. They take after their mother. So young, still. Five and three. Happy children, not a care in the world. They’ll forget about me soon enough.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Wolves of Oren-yaro
A curious thing happens when you return to your childhood home. No matter how long you’ve been away, the wave of nostalgia becomes inescapable. You get glimpses of a life you thought you had left behind. A long time ago becomes yesterday and you find yourself automatically searching for other familiar sights and voices, even those who had long since left the world. I remembered riding in a boat much like this with my father, the same, muggy sky hovering over us. He had pointed to Oka Shto on the mountain in the distance, his hand on my shoulder.
Almost out of reflex, I found myself reaching up to touch it. It was the same shoulder the dra
gon had bitten—I remember it that clearly. My father could be affectionate, given the chance, but there was always a layer over it—an almost orchestrated warmth that didn’t run any deeper than, “You are mine.” But you held on to what little you get when you don’t know any better. Knowledge of Yeshin’s betrayals did little to sway the fact that once in a while, I still missed him.
Even until now, I don’t like to admit this. I always knew what my father was. I must’ve been only five or six years old when I first heard the word murderer used for him. A quick word, uttered by one of the kitchen staff. She was hushed as soon as it left her lips. Two days later, she failed to show up for her shift, and it was assumed she had gone off with a lover on one of the riverboats. But even at that age, I knew what had really happened. There was a layer over my affections towards him, too. I loved and respected him, and I believed he could have led a better nation given half the chance, but a part of me still wanted a father I didn’t have to defend.
I set these thoughts aside. I was not as emotional as Rayyel liked to believe. Warlord Yeshin was sixteen years dead. Whatever had happened, whatever motions he had set into place, this world was my creation, too. If I was to escape the shadow my father’s actions had cast over my whole life, I needed to understand the part I had played in everything. My doing, my mistakes.
We reached Agrayo Bridge before dawn. As the boat crossed the shadow of the enormous stone structure—a project that had nearly bankrupted the Orenar clan, I was told—we jumped. I was not a very strong swimmer, Rai even less so, and so we drifted along the bank on wooden boards, all the way to a storm tunnel that fed right into River Agos.
The tunnel itself held nothing more than a trickle, a byproduct of the drier-than-usual season. We plunged right into the darkness. Agos knew the tunnels by heart—had to learn them, he explained, in case he ever needed to take me in and out of the city in a heartbeat. I wondered if Nor knew these things. I had always imagined that all my guards ever had to do was stand nearby and stab people who looked at me the wrong way.
Spoiled, Rai had said. Perhaps the reason it stung so much was because I was starting to suspect it was closer to the truth than I would have dared to confess. Not in the way I would’ve put it, of course. I was knee-deep in sewage and apart from the initial shock from the stench, which threatened to bring my last meal back up my throat, I was dealing with it remarkably well. But I knew so little about the people around me, and even less so of the machinations that had been put in place to preserve my existence and position in the world. Somehow, this needed to change.
We emerged from the tunnels into a narrow maze of alleys, populated by a single beggar who was now snoring up on a dirty gutter while cats slept beside him. I dropped a coin into the dirty tin cup in his hand. I noticed Rai staring at me.
“What?” I asked. “I’ve always been charitable. You should’ve known.”
“Perhaps.” Rai shrugged at his wet clothes. “We’ve never been in a situation where it’s come to light before.” He nodded at Agos. “It appears we’ve bypassed the guards. It seems almost foolishly easy.”
“Because it’s supposed to be the easy part,” Agos said with a frown. “I can’t say the same thing about the rest of it.”
“I still wish Khine was here,” I murmured. “I’m not confident about our chances of being able to pull this off smoothly. Ruses and tricks are not the Oren-yaro’s way.” I glanced at Rai.
“Neither are they the Ikessar’s, if you must know,” he replied.
“I know. I was just wondering…” I tugged at his shirt collar. “How well known are you at the temple?”
“I obviously haven’t gone to this one in years.” He coloured at the attention I was giving him. “What are you trying to get at?”
“I think if we shaved your beard and moustache, and passed you off for dead—”
He pulled away. “What?”
“Hold on,” Agos broke in. “We’re not actually going to kill him?”
“Of course not.”
“Rats.”
I smiled. “I’m wondering if there’s anyone in the temple who can recognize your err, corpse. Maybe not. We want to pretend you’re someone else. An aron dar Ikessar—you’ve got the look, they’re not going to question it. A poor young man who died from…”
“Some kind of rat-bourne disease?”
“What is it with the rats, Agos?”
“Saw too many down there. Can’t get them out of my mind now.” He gave a small shudder.
I held a finger up. “Actually, that’s brilliant. It’ll stop them from looking too closely at you. An infectious disease. Loose bowels. Didn’t even have time to clean you up. Where can we get powder, Agos?”
“I am not letting you shave me,” Rai bristled.
“Just like you to focus on the details. Come now, it’s not like you’re going to be doing much of anything else.”
“I don’t understand,” Rai said. “You want me to pretend I’m dead?”
“Yes, we want you to pretend you’re dead. You’ve got to pay closer attention, Rai.”
He pursed his lips together. “This is insanity.”
“What did you think we were going to do? You said yourself they weren’t going to hand Thanh over just because we asked. And Rai, let’s be honest. You can’t act. If we have you there walking around and talking, you’ll give us away before we can blink.”
“I have my doubts as to whether he’ll make a good corpse, either,” Agos said, balling his hands into fists. “Maybe we shouldn’t take our chances.”
“Stop scaring him, Agos.”
“He does not scare me,” Rai grumbled.
“He should,” Agos grinned.
I held up a hand. “Let’s start again. Clean clothes. Powder. A coffin. And some animal’s leavings, to pass for the smell.”
Rai looked horrified.
“Where by Akaterru’s shiny tits do you expect me to find a coffin?” Agos thundered.
I rolled my eyes. “Ask around. Read shop signs—there’s a healthy population of Kibouri worshippers in the city, someone has to know something. And in a worst case scenario, we’ll have to make do. A box, a cart, some rushes…”
I heard Rai give a deep sigh. “You are making me regret my decision to assist you.”
“I suppose the words it’ll be fun won’t mean a damn thing to you, will it?”
He looked startled, like I actually expected him to reply.
I patted his shoulder. “Let’s start with the clean clothes.”
~~~
Clean clothes and a wash at a laundry pump. A quick visit to the swordsmith to get our swords sharpened. Flour, not powder, to give Rayyel that unhealthy, death-like complexion. And then, because I couldn’t resist it, a quick visit to the tavern for gossip while Agos went off in search of the coffin. In our commoner’s clothes, nobody so much as batted an eye. I didn’t think it would be this easy. It was my city after all. They knew me here. I had tried to show myself to the people as often as I could, especially in the years after my coronation—a gesture of appeasement, really, to show them I had not abandoned them even after Rai abandoned me.
But perhaps I overestimated the power of people’s recollections. I ordered a draught of Oren-yaro beer straight from cellars chilled by the River Agos itself and barely caught news from the palace. When I finally did, it was only to confirm what I already knew. Lord Ozo—I refused to call him warlord—was at the palace. There were Zarojo in there with him. People didn’t know what this meant, other than that they were sick with concern over my well-being.
I sighed into my beer.
Rai opened his mouth to comment, but before he could get a word in edgewise, the door opened. Two Oren-yaro soldiers walked in. They were followed by two more men in civilian clothing. “A table for us,” one said. The Zirano accent was undeniable.
I held my breath.
The owner seated them at the far end of the tavern. The lilt in the man’s speech was enough to att
ract the other patrons’ attentions, too, and I could feel the tension rise as they regarded the Zarojo with clear looks of disdain.
“Governor Qun is drafting the report as we speak,” the man continued in Zirano, now to his companion. “Something about how the Jinsein folk see us.” He glanced around the room, as if aware of the irony.
The other man gave a small grin. “Is he going to lie through his teeth?”
“I’d say yes, probably.”
His companion giggled nervously. “I don’t blame him. The Esteemed Prince Yuebek doesn’t seem like the sort who takes no for an answer.”
They called for an order. I glanced at Rai, who was observing the conversation as closely as I was. Fluency in Zirano was something mostly royals indulged in—Agos knew the basics, picked up after years of having to sit with me during my lessons with Arro, but I doubted their guards understood them half as well. They chatted freely about their work—as government officials accompanying Qun, they seemed to regard it as their civic duty to ensure the entire trip goes as planned.
They were close enough that I could hear them without having to strain my ears too much, but the murmur of conversation from the other tables made it difficult to follow everything they said word-for-word. They lapsed into their personal lives—one had a child in some university in An Mozhi, another was trying to decide which of two women he wanted to marry. I didn’t realize I was tapping my plate impatiently until I caught Rai giving me yet another look.
“Don’t start anything rash,” he grumbled.
I bit back my retort. He wasn’t the object of my irritation, anyway. It was the very idea that I was in my own city, in disguise, while listening to two foreigners ramble on about affairs that were rightfully mine, that grated at me. What kind of queen was I supposed to be? I would steal my son away into the night—and then what? Agos wanted me to disappear. I had nothing else but that and the vague hope that something might yet surface to change things around.
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