“Um …” said Purna, not wanting to dish on a friend’s sex life, or lack thereof … but what if it was in the service of getting him his dream job? He’d told her himself how he admired the cardinals’ fashion sense almost as much as their parties.
Hoartrap took off his monocle and Zosia lowered her pipe, both looking at her intently.
“Um what?” asked the Touch.
“Welllllllll, funny you should mention it …”
CHAPTER
35
Ji-hyeon had originally thought about going all out, making it a real production, but in the end it was a very understated, tasteful ceremony, with only the necessary officials and a few of their closest friends and family in attendance. The dress code was left to the discretion of the guests, save for the prohibition on wearing white. Othean had mourned enough for five hundred years, and this was a joyous occasion.
The festival boats launched from the new dock under construction on the northern end of the Winter Palace, drifting leisurely across Lake Othean. The waters were so clear they could see the mighty roots winding beneath them like the arms of a kraken, melding with the reflection of the skyscraping boughs overhead. The Gate-ash had taken on especial importance to the Dreaming Priests, who declared it the manifestation of the spirit world’s intervention on behalf of mortalkind in their moment of darkest peril. Reading the more sinister legends about rowans and then gazing at it with her devil-eye Ji-hyeon had been less than convinced. Not because of what it showed her, but because of what it didn’t—which was anything. From where its trunk disappeared into the lake to where its highest leaves brushed the clouds the entire Gate-ash was pure ebon nothingness, a black silhouette that seemed to tug on Ji-hyeon’s altered eye even as it made her sick to her stomach. In all her many exploits throughout strange worlds it was the first thing other than a Gate that her devil-eye couldn’t penetrate, at least not at first, but while she felt the familiar itching to keep gazing at the enigma, to come in for a closer look, she denied her eye and slipped her patch back into place. In time she would turn her attention to investigating it further—and no doubt the Court of the Dreaming Priests were already way ahead of her—but at present everyone seemed very confident that any forces that might lurk within the wood were bound tight.
For now, anyway, and it never hurt to treat the unknown with respect. To that end her modest fleet circled its castle-thick trunk three times before continuing on their way, winding another band of warding ribbons around its width on their final pass. It never hurt to take precautions, either.
Under cobalt heavens they passed over the sunken ruins of the inner wall and the Autumn Palace, where Yunjin claimed harpyfish now held court, and then out along the channel in the outer wall. The lake had used the breach in Othean’s defenses to escape its enclosure and form a new shore on the distant edges of the former pumpkin fields. It filled Ji-hyeon’s eyes to see the little white temple rising from the waters like a buoy in the flood; she remembered how it had reminded her of a lighthouse so many years ago. This was where it had all started—her troubles and her conquests, her heartbreaks and her heroics—and it seemed a fitting place to end that chapter of her life, and begin a new one. How lucky she was that her three closest friends were still with her as she did so.
She looked for them from her bench on the prow where she sat with Hyori and Yunjin, her two sisters debating whether it would be appropriate for Yunjin to chant one of her throat-songs after the ceremony. Choi was easy to spot, as she was standing with the rest of the Samjok-o Guard on the next boat over. Between her new suit of jade-tinged armor and the Imperial cavalry saber on her hip, Ji-hyeon’s old Honor Guard looked, well, immaculate, but even from this distance Ji-hyeon could tell her face was even sterner than usual. Maroto’s condition must have further declined. Ji-hyeon knew from Sullen’s frequent visits to his uncle’s sickbed that the man was not long for the world of mortals, and Choi had formed an attachment that was as obvious as it was unexpected.
Almost as unexpected as Maroto clinging to life as long as he had, really—by all accounts he had been poisoned and wounded even before falling the last hundred feet from the Gate-ash, and from that height the waters of the lake must have hit him as hard as steel. Sullen’s theory was that the only thing keeping the man alive was his need to get high with his absent friends one more time. If that was true he might perish at any moment, seeing as Zosia had just arrived at the Winter Palace with Purna, Hoartrap, Sullen’s mother, and, of course, Keun-ju. If they had been an hour later Ji-hyeon’s former Virtue Guard wouldn’t have been able to take part in the ceremony, and she craned her neck around to find him as they sailed toward the Temple he had so fervently tried to talk her out of visiting the fateful night of the Equinox Ceremony, when they were both so young …
She finally caught sight of him on the third and final ship, standing at the railing with Sullen. They were holding hands, and she felt her eyes dampen anew at how blissfully they were all enjoying their reunion. Under different circumstances the vision of the handsome men sharing a moment would have dampened something else, but this was a solemn ceremony and she turned her thoughts from such matters … after only a momentary indulgence.
“Your Elegance,” said Fennec, stepping up behind her on the deck strewn with gingko leaves and hibiscus blossoms. He still wore his Cobalt uniform despite how much gall it raised in certain sections of the Immaculate military. He’d offered to retire it for her, but she’d told him he could wear anything he damn well pleased, considering the debt all the Isles owed the Cobalt Companies for their defense of the realm … and given how relatively bloodless the coup had been, for that matter. “The Court of the Dreaming Priests have informed me that the condemned declines your benevolent invitation to make a final public address.”
“Told you,” said Yunjin.
“Good morning, General Fennec,” said Hyori, her own parade dress decked with blue swashes and ostentatious medals. Ji-hyeon’s formerly younger sister had taken something of a shine to the Usban fox, which Fennec bore with his usual charm (though he’d drunkenly joked to Ji-hyeon that if Kang-ho had borne a son, well then … at which point Ji-hyeon had tugged his ponytail—also a little drunkenly, perhaps).
“And a very good morning to you both, General Hyori, Sister Yunjin,” he replied, offering a smart salute to the women. “Is there anything you wish me to convey to the Court before we begin?”
“Maybe ask them again why they’re so opposed to holding elections if the heavens will ordain the proper ruler and her ministers anyway,” said Ji-hyeon.
“We have been through this and through this and through this—the time is not yet right,” said Yunjin, sticking up for her new coven the way she always did. Ji-hyeon had initially been pleased when her sister had revealed that their first father had been a member of the somewhat secret society, and that as a result the Bong family had major inroads with the power behind the Samjok-o Throne, but ever since they’d gotten back and Yunjin had joined the Court of the Dreaming Priests it was one damn thing after another with this girl.
“The time is always right to snap the shackles of the oppressor,” said Ji-hyeon, at which Hyori snorted and pointed at Ji-hyeon’s chunky bracelets.
“I would suggest starting with those, Your Elegance, but I fear you’d break your scrawny fingers in the bargain.”
“I’ll snap something, don’t you fret.”
“Sisters,” said Yunjin in the authoritative tone only eldest siblings can ever master. “We’re here.”
So they were. Taking a deep breath, Ji-hyeon rose to her sandaled feet from her thronelike bench, and all the guests on the trio of boats stood as well. They bobbed close together at three points of the compass, representing Othean’s three intact palaces: the royal craft in the north, the military craft in the east, and the boat that carried only the condemned and her keepers to the south. Their destination occupied the west.
A long gangplank extended from the southern boat, and th
en a second, and a third, creating a wide bridge from the prow of the small ship to where the lake lapped at the top stair of the Temple of Pentacles. They watched in silence as the deposed empress Ryuki was led out from the cabin, her unicorn devil at her side.
Ji-hyeon’s heart beat faster, a part of her hoping the condemned woman would try to fight after all, but then if she’d preferred death to this she could have accepted her conqueror’s other offer. Ji-hyeon had thought it more than fair, and more than she deserved, but the woman had still chosen to take her chances with the Gate rather than be exiled to Hwabun. Maybe she was counting on finding her way back for revenge, the way the Bong Sisters had. Or maybe she just knew her chances for survival were better in the First Dark than on the Isle she had ordered scraped of all life, its soil salted and its water poisoned, so that Ji-hyeon’s childhood home was no better than a barren spit of rock upon the edge of the Haunted Sea.
They walked down the bridge to the Temple of Pentacles, the lady and the monster. Ji-hyeon really hadn’t expected it to come to this, had assumed the former regent would loose her devil and escape long before the sentence could be carried out. Yet each morning the woman was still in her cell with the sardonically smiling fiend. Perhaps after everything that had happened to her family and her city Ryuki had lost the will to fight back … or perhaps the unicorn knew where they were destined, and so declined the freedom she offered it, as certain powerful devils were said to do.
Ji-hyeon felt an unexpected surge of sentimentality as the woman who had stolen her fathers stepped from the gangplank onto the top stair of the Temple of Pentacles. She drew her black sword and pointed it at the woman, just as she had when she’d made a silent promise to the empress at this very spot to one day avenge her people. Yet as much as she wanted Ryuki to turn and see her and remember it, too, the defeated tyrant denied her. She and her devil walked into the Gate without looking back.
Ji-hyeon would soon follow her. She must return to the outer realms for the many noncombatants of the Cobalt Company who had remained behind until the war for the Star was won. On that jubilant day the refugees would parade home through the Temple of Pentacles … but that day was not today. For now silence stretched out over Othean Lake, and taking a final lesson from her predecessor, the Empress Ji-hyeon Bong directed her people home without a backward glance.
CHAPTER
36
It was a big tree. They all just stared at it from the gangway for a while, trying to take in its enormity. Utterly failing. It made the Winter Palace look no bigger than a hunting cabin, Othean’s walls as low as picket fences. That devil-haunted priest had creeped Zosia out plenty with its talk of She Who Comes leaving a lingering manifestation when the Gate of Gates abruptly closed, and she felt her hackles climb looking at the godly rowan. Of course, both the priest and the devil inside him were obviously insane or worse, so who knew how literally you could take what they said … but wherever it had come from, and whatever it meant—what a fucking tree.
Disembarking from the leviathan at Othean Bay attracted quite a crowd. Zosia hated crowds, but then again when was the last time anyone had thrown confetti at her instead of something substantially harder? Eventually they got through the thick of it and saw that most of the revelers had come down not to welcome them in particular but to marvel at the obscene mockery of natural laws that they had sailed down inside.
Most, but not all. Keun-ju was whisked away by uniformed Immaculates before they were a dozen feet out from the mob, and Purna and Best had been all set to cause a scene when they were informed he was needed to take part in a state function, at which point they couldn’t wash their hands of him fast enough. They had their own urgent plans, after all: to reunite with any and all old friends they could find and get roaringly drunk to celebrate the end of the war, which Zosia and even Hoartrap agreed was a very good idea. It was right up there with bathing, after being cooped up inside their living vessel for way, way too long.
Yet the next person to greet them on the quay looked even more serious than the Immaculates who had shown up for Keun-ju. She was a young, frail-seeming woman with more stray metal in her face than a blacksmith’s apron, and Purna and Best raced to be the first one to accost her—Best with questions, and Purna with embraces. Zosia and Hoartrap hung back a respectful distance, since she looked to be laying bad news on them.
“My apprentice, Nemi,” said Hoartrap, blinking like an owl in the morning sunlight as Choplicker stretched and yawned between them.
“The other witch, right,” said Zosia, already feeling a headache coming on from the glare off all the terraces. “Purna wouldn’t shut up about her. By the six devils I bound, Hoartrap, how’s a nice girl like that fall in with a goblin like you?”
“Would you believe I grew her from an egg?” Hoartrap dramatically arched his eyebrows and fired up the lavender-and-crotch-rot-reeking pipe Zosia had refused to let him smoke in their confined quarters. He sounded dead serious, which was all part of his supposed humor that she’d had more than enough of over the course of their long journey. Between puffs he said, “It’s … actually … an interesting … story.”
“One for another boat ride,” said Zosia, seeing that the girl had turned back down the quay and Purna and Best were following her off. “Hey-o, where are you ladies headed?”
“Oh, um …” Purna suddenly found something between Choplicker’s ears very interesting.
“My brother is hurt, but he asked you both to stay away,” said Best, always reliable in a pinch to tell you the truth however much it stung. Especially then.
“Stuff that,” said Zosia, moving to follow them anyway. “If I lost a tooth every time Maroto told me to piss off and never come back I’d be better at sucking eggs than Hoartrap’s … well.”
She was only going to say mother, but trailed off as she noticed the squirrely-looking apprentice glaring at her. The girl said, “His injuries are grave, and his bedside has been overbusy enough with welcome visitors.”
“Look, you two, I’ll sort this out,” said Purna, slapping one hand on Zosia’s arm and the other on Hoartrap’s. She let them linger there for a moment, as if appreciating how few people had ever done such a thing and walked away. “Quick to fight and quick to forgive, that’s our boy. Five minutes alone with me and he’ll be begging to see the both of you.”
“That I don’t doubt!” said Hoartrap, but let them go without raising his own stink about being kept from Maroto’s bedside. Interesting.
Less interesting but more depressing: how had Zosia grown into the sort of baggage the younger crowd ditched along with Hoartrap? That was a wake-up call if ever there was one … but for now there was nothing to do but make the most of it.
“Well, you old nightmare, what do you say we eat ourselves sick, drink ourselves stupid, and smoke ourselves sane again? That order, and I’m buying.”
“Would that I could, but I seem to be indisposed by the Snort of the Creaming Beasts,” sighed Hoartrap, pointing his pipe at the flagpole at the end of the quay. An old woman was leaning against it, and Zosia squinted to see who she might be, but then a yellow-robed figure stepped out from behind the pole … and another, and another, until a row of five had emerged from a space that had looked too narrow to conceal even one. In addition to their Immaculate robes they wore golden masks and matching horsehair hats, and each carried a staff with a different animal carved into the head, of similar make to the owl-stick Hoartrap always used to carry. Patting Zosia’s shoulder before picking up the pace, he said, “Try to stay out of trouble, and remember that as advocate for the nation of monsters who eradicated half this city you’re actually more hated than ever before in your especially hated life. Toodles!”
“Toodles,” said Zosia, trying to imitate his lilt, but from Choplicker’s snort he didn’t think much of her impression.
“Hey,” said an Immaculate-dressed Imperial girl at the end of the quay as Zosia almost walked right past her, eager to get out of the sun. Choplic
ker had stopped for a pet, though, tail wagging like all get-out, and Zosia nearly tripped over her own borrowed boots. With that white hair she’d assumed the woman was a lot older.
“Oh, hey!” It had been a little while, sure, and her hair had been bleached by her ride through the Gates, right, but Zosia couldn’t believe how much better Indsorith looked than the last time she’d seen her … or that she was waiting here for her? “You … you’re waiting for me?”
“Cobalt Zosia, the Banshee with a Brain,” said Indsorith, crossing the arms of her Immaculate coat. “Now why do you think that never caught on?”
“Maybe if we pool our noble minds over a cheeky half or twelve we can get to the bottom of that mystery,” said Zosia. “What do you say, Your Majesty?”
A haughty shadow flashed across Indsorith’s face. It was cute. Probably a lot cuter than whatever crossed Zosia’s as the younger woman smirked and said, “It would be an honor, Your Majesty.”
It was just a pint.
Well, it was just a bowl of rice liquor, if you wanted to put a fine point on it, but that wasn’t the pertinent detail. What mattered was that it was—somehow, in spite of all the reasons it shouldn’t be—normal. They sat together at the lacquered bar, putting away obscene amounts of food and sipping at their drinks, and chitchatted as if they were a pair of old friends catching one another up on a few weeks of idle gossip.
It was nice. Not dramatic, in spite of the fate of the world nearly slipping into the First Dark and a wicked nemesis bested on a demonic battlefield. Not romantic, either, not really, though Indsorith was beginning to suspect Zosia’s flirting might be more than idle habit. It was just … nice. The woman insisted on ordering for her, which was so old-fashioned it went from being annoying clear back around to endearing, and Indsorith had to admit Zosia knew her way around an Immaculate menu. Those sticky fishcakes and octopus in red chili sauce were quite possibly the greatest invention of mortalkind.
A War in Crimson Embers Page 60