I frowned. I didn’t really want to shoot that bird—someone hungrier than we were might need it in the future. Nevertheless, I swallowed my protests and nodded.
“Sitting here with me on this blanket,” you said, “you could draw your bow, fire an arrow, and rob this forest of a singer.”
It would not be an easy thing to do. Qorin bows are made to be fired from compact spaces; sitting was not the issue. Drawing it without startling the creature would be the problem.
And yet I knew I could do it. As that same bird was born knowing a hundred songs, I was born knowing a hundred ways to fire a bow.
“Does it not occur to you how strange that is?”
Strange was a walking fish. Strange was water spreading out across the horizon no matter where you looked. Being able to hunt was not strange. It was a skill I needed if I was going to feed myself out on the steppes.
“You are eight.”
I gave you a level look.
“You are eight and you can strike a target as small as my fist from this far away,” you said. “Shefali, there are grown men who cannot do that.”
“Then they would starve,” I said.
You sighed and shook your head. “Earlier,” you said, “when you spoke to your horse—did you not feel strange? Did you not feel like someone else’s inkbrush?”
I stared at the backs of my hands. Warm, brown skin, pockmarked here and there with unhealing white. If I made a fist, I could see my pulse throbbing. I counted the beats, waited for you to continue. If someone was using me as their brush, what were they writing?
You swallowed. Near to us was a shrub full of blossoms I could not name. They were all bright violet—so bright, I did not like to look at them. You reached out toward one of them. It struck me that your hand shook, that there was this fear in your eyes you cut down like an enemy on the field.
When your fingertips met the petals, they turned from violet to gold.
A soft sound escaped me, and I covered my mouth in surprise.
“Shefali,” you said, and you took my hand in yours. I could not help but stare at you—your pleading mouth, your wide eyes. “As candles are not stars, we are not like the others. You must promise me, no matter what, that we will always find our way back to each other.”
Your words hammered against the bell of my soul.
“I promise,” I said. “Together.”
“Swear it,” you said. The fire of youthful conviction filled you. “Swear it to me.”
Without hesitation, I stood up and walked to the great white tree on which the songbird sat.
When you walked to me, it was without fear, without a trace of nervousness.
I drew an arrow from the quiver hanging at my hip. I held out my hand, the flat of the arrowhead resting on my palm. Then, together, we cut our palms against it.
Sharp pain jolted through us.
And yet neither of us flinched.
When I drew my hand back, the arrowhead was dark with blood. It stuck to my palm, and it was only with some effort that I removed it. Then I nocked the arrow. Sweat and grime from my grip pressed into the weeping wound we’d just made.
When I drew back the bowstring, when the pressure against my palm set my whole arm alight, when the pain screamed inside me—when all these things happened, I pointed my bow at the sun.
“I swear by sky and blood,” I said. “I swear by my mother’s ger, and my grandmother’s spirit. I swear by the blood of Grandmother Sky, who birthed the Qorin and taught us to saddle lightning. Together. I swear this.”
Only then did I loose.
Like the songbird, the arrow soared overhead, straight on toward the sun. I turned before it reached the peak of its arch. Once Grandmother Sky tastes your blood, you may not hide from your oath. Where can you go to hide from her bright gold eye, or the dull silver one? All things return to the sky in time.
As we walked back to the blanket we called our camp, I wondered if we would return to the sky.
Only the stars and the clouds deserved to be in your company. Only the sky could be home to you. Only the sky was a splendid enough throne for you.
* * *
WE STAYED IN that clearing that night. I urged you to let us ride back, or at least to ride toward somewhere a little better populated. But you insisted in your bullheaded way that we could stay wherever we pleased. After all, hadn’t you just told me that we were not normal?
I did not like that. It was the sort of thing said by a girl who has never had to keep watch for wolves in the dark of the night.
And so, as you crept into my tent to sleep, I set about bundling together our belongings and hanging them from a tree. Once this was done, I sat before the fire and resigned myself to a sleepless night.
It rained not long after you went to bed. My fire, reduced to smoldering cinders, did not give me much light. I slipped my arms inside my lined coat and huddled closer to the embers.
Yes, I remember the orange of the cinders, the low rumbles of the night creatures. I remember rain on leaves and their fresh green smell. I remember closing my eyes and listening to the hundred thousand sounds of life. I tilted my head back and let the rain fall into my mouth.
When it rained in the steppes, we’d put out every bowl we could to catch it. A hundred li away, my mother and cousins were running out into the darkness. They’d turn and dance and sing praises to the sky. In Xian-Lai—so far away, I could not imagine its distance—my father and brother slept in their warm beds. Kenshiro might be awake. Knowing him, he’d be sitting up in bed, looking out the window. In his hand I pictured a brush; on his mind, poetry. He kept writing to me of Lord Lai’s youngest daughter. Kenshiro said she was more beautiful than the wind through a silver horse’s mane, which might be the wrongest thing I’ve ever heard. How could he look on you and say such a thing about any other woman?
But love makes fools, as they say—and in my brother’s case, it drove him to write terrible courtship poetry.
Thick drops of rain fall like beats. One, two, three, four, five …
And then there was you, asleep in my tent, not even a length away from me, yet given over to the world of dreams. I wondered what you dreamed of. I wondered if you were safe.
* * *
BY THE TIME dawn came upon me, my eyes were heavy with sand. I rose and moved toward the tent.
It was then that I saw the tiger.
You must understand I did not hear it, did not see it before this moment. A creature three, four times my size moved with the silence of death itself.
Your ancestor Minami Shiori hunted tigers for sport. Looking at the beast now, I did not know how she did it. Every sinew in its body, every muscle, tensed for attack. Great green eyes froze me in place. So astounded was I that I did not notice the beast was hurt.
Yes, yes, as it turned toward me, I saw dried blood on its paws like rust. On its side, a yawning mouth of a wound; on its side, claw marks. Red was its muzzle, red its teeth.
I did not know if tigers traveled in packs. I’d only heard of them in stories. There was only ever one tiger in the stories. Perhaps they were not like lone wolves, or lone Qorin.
But this one?
This one was. I knew that look in its eyes.
I licked my lips. The tiger crouched down. I’d seen cats do the same sort of thing, when they were about to pounce on mice.
I did what any Qorin would do: I mounted my horse and drew my bow, in a smooth ripple of movement. My palm still ached from the wound, but I did not have time to dwell on it.
“Shizuka!” I shouted. Hopefully, the sound of me raising my voice was enough to rouse you. If not, perhaps hooves pounding against the undergrowth would.
The tiger leaped forward, landing not far from me and my horse. In the moment before I kicked into a gallop, I found myself in awe.
On the steppes we have only these animals: stoats, sheep, dogs, wolves, birds, and horses. For most of my life, I was surrounded by these creatures. I knew the best place to aim
for when hunting a stoat. I knew how to skin a wolf. I could talk to horses, if I wanted.
But never in my life had I seen anything so graceful as that tiger. The Sun herself sang its praises, spinning gold from the orange of its fur, turning the black to brushstrokes. As it stalked us, I saw its thick muscles sliding beneath its skin, like eels beneath a river.
We were wolves once, we Qorin—but there was nothing wolfish about that creature. When I looked into its great eyes, I did not see anything human. I didn’t see anything I recognized. How could something so large move with such fluidity? With those bright stripes, how could it hide in the forest? What did it eat?
It did not belong here, I decided. That was why it was so lean, that was why it was covered in battle wounds. Whoever the game master of this forest was had captured it and placed it here—but this was never its choice.
I frowned.
I knew, a bit, what it was like to be dropped into a forest you hate.
And so something about its terrible beauty was familiar to me, like a favorite song forgotten.
But it was trying to kill me. I could not admire it for long.
I loosed an arrow at it as my horse pulled ahead. With a satisfying thunk, the arrow pierced the beast’s pelt. A solid blow to its chest. A gout of blood watered the roots. The tiger roared, clawed at the ground.
And then it began running.
Riding through the forest is a difficult thing to do given the best conditions. Qorin horses are trained for speed and endurance, not sure-footedness. A good Hokkaran gelding would be ideal here. But I did not have a good Hokkaran gelding; I had a Qorin mare with a blackened steel coat and fire in her heart. As we barreled through the trees, I ducked low-hanging branches, whispered to her, told her we were going to make it out of this. I had to trust her. How else could I fire at the tiger? I could not guide us through the forest and aim. It was one or the other.
I thought of you scrambling awake in the tent. I thought of you watching the tiger follow me into the vast green growth.
Inside me was the thrumming power of a hundred horsemen; the light of a hundred dawns; the fire of a hundred clans meeting together. In the moment I realized this, a strange calm came over me. My horse could handle the woods, as long as I handled the tiger.
Another arrow, another, another. Each found its mark. First one of its paws, then its haunches, then its flank. Whatever agony the beast was in, it did not stop chasing me. My horse may be the fastest of the Burqila line, but it cannot outrun something that has lived and breathed this forest as I have lived and breathed sand and grass and snow.
The tiger jumped up onto a tree.
I nocked an arrow.
Could I hit a target small as my palm while it was moving?
Could I hit it while I was moving?
Could I hit it while seated?
I loosed.
The arrow whistled through the air. There! It hit the tiger in the eye. The beast recoiled.
But it did not stop.
My heart hammered in my chest. It was going to jump. It was going to jump from the tree and it was going to land on my horse and me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I held her mane in my hand and flattened myself against her warm back. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was coming. Would my mother be proud of me?
Wood creaking. The tiger, in the air. Claws tearing through my deel, tearing through my skin, baring my bone to the world. Red. Red. Red. Rank breath thick with the smell of corpses. Hot blood washing over my arm. A roar …
“Shefali!”
I forced my eyes open.
You stood before us.
But how? Unless … Yes, this was the camp. My horse, wily as ever, had led us in a circle.
There you were with your blunted training sword, there you were standing tall and proud in the face of this horrible creature. I opened my mouth to shout at you, to tell you to run.
You charged ahead.
The beast, woozy from lack of blood, clawed at you. As fire crackling, you moved away.
I could not let you do this alone, no matter how much pain I was in. Drawing my bow was so agonizing, I thought I might pass out, but I could not allow myself to, not when you were in danger. My hands shook.
This would not hit. This was not going to hit. There was no way.
I loosed.
Another arrow landed in the beast’s neck, near its shoulder.
You let out a roar to rival the tiger’s. Then you plunged your sword into its stomach.
I was dizzy, swaying, straining to open my eyes as my body fought to shut them. Coldness cut through me like winter’s harsh knife. Pain grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled, pulled, until my boot slid out of the stirrups and—
The last thing I saw before I fell off my horse: you under the morning sun, covered in the tiger’s blood, your dull blade alight with dawn’s fire.
When I awoke, you sat next to my bed. Worry lines dug their way onto your heart-shaped young face. Either your attendants had not seen you, or you did not let them touch you; the many knots and ornaments in your hair hung in disarray. Still you wore the red and gold dress.
“Shefali!” you said as you touched my shoulder. If I wore the ragged remnants of sleep, that touch and its resulting pain tore them off me. I screamed. You drew back and bit your lip. “I did not mean to hurt you,” you said. “It’s the tiger’s fault for wounding you there.”
I frowned.
You glanced away, hiding your hands within your wet sleeves.
These were your rooms in Fujino. In each corner, a different treasure, given to you by a courtier to try to curry favor. A golden statue of the Mother. An intricate porcelain doll, dressed in identical clothing to yours. A calligraphy set. Fine parchments. Gold-leaf ink. A bamboo screen, painted with O-Shizuru’s story.
“My mother will be here soon,” you said. “Be ready. She’s not pleased with either of us, though I imagine she will take it easier on you.”
I tilted my head, gestured around the room with my good hand. You understood me without my having to speak.
“After the incident,” you said, “I rode out to find the nearest guards. When I explained what happened, they followed me to camp. I carried you back and graciously allowed them to carry the tiger. My parents have no idea what to do with it. I have informed them that it is your decision to make, by any rules that matter.”
Your mother was not going to listen to that, and you knew it. But your father would. No doubt he found the whole situation poetic. A boon for us, then, if your father put ink to parchment in our behalf.
I pointed to my shoulder.
“Torn,” you said. “We brought in a healer. Not a very good one.”
You shifted in your seat. Picked at your nails. At court, the latest fashion was to dust one’s fingertips in crushed gems mixed with oils and lotions. Between when I passed out and that moment, you’d dipped yours in crushed garnets.
“She said that healing you was beyond her power,” you said. “It’s my opinion that if you call yourself a thing, and you cannot do that thing, then you are nothing at all. But that is my opinion. And as always, my parents do not want to listen to me. So the healer was compensated for her utter lack of work.”
With some effort—and some help from you—I sat up. Breath came in rattles.
When I was six, one of the Burqila clan riders came back from a hunt with his left arm in his right hand. His entire left arm. His left shoulder was a bloody stump; he and his horse were cloaked in rusty brown. Everyone ran to him. The women carried him off his horse and took him to the oracle’s tent. Two sheep were brought in, too, and I remember hearing the shrill cries they made. When my mother sent me to get the oracle’s blessings on her choice of camp a few days later, I saw the man. Sweat beaded on his brow like dew; fever painted his brown face red.
But his arm was attached again.
I reached for my own arm. It was still there. Why, then, was I beyond healing
?
I thought of our promise again.
I grunted.
“I agree,” you said. “On the bright side, we do not have to attend court until you are healed.”
Small victories. Standing on my feet beneath a jade ceiling listening to Hokkarans prattle—was there any worse fate? At least they would not stare at me.
“Shizuka, you say that as if it’s a fitting reward for your foolish decisions.”
Ah. O-Shizuru opened the door. You sat a bit straighter, though I’m not certain you meant to.
“You will accompany me to court tomorrow. Your uncle has been asking about you, at any rate. Before the night is through, you shall write one of your father’s poems for him on fine white paper.”
You tugged at your sleeves rather than roll your eyes. If you rolled your eyes, you were lost.
Your mother was a force to be reckoned with when she was in the most pleasant of moods. Now worry and anger clouded her features. My mother may have conquered half of Hokkaro with nothing but horsemen and Dragon’s Fire, but bandits had whole rituals dedicated to keeping your mother at bay. Right then, I would’ve liked a ritual or two.
Your mother fixed me with a harsh, unyielding glare. Her brown eyes became slabs of earth, her mouth a canyon. “Shara,” said O-Shizuru, the only person who could call my mother that and live, “is never going to believe me.”
I drew back. The clouds broke; she cracked a smile.
“Two eight-year-olds attacked by a tiger, and neither of them dead,” she said. “If I told her that story, she’d give me a look, her look. And yet. Here we are.”
What was I to say to that? Not a word of it was wrong. Just—when she put it that way, we did sound foolish.
Your mother cleared her throat. “How is your shoulder?”
I held up my hand and closed it tight into a fist.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “it’s going to hurt for some time. The healer couldn’t do much; the doctors say it’ll be at least a few months before you can shoot a bow with that arm again.”
Wrong. I’d be shooting a bow again within a few weeks at most. My young brain could not imagine a life where I went any longer than that without firing it.
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