The Tiger's Daughter

by K Arsenault Rivera

  “O-Shizuka-shon,” said the captain, “my orders are strict. You are not to pass.”

  “It is the right of a Hokkaran warrior to challenge any other warrior to a duel,” you said, “so that their swords may write their arguments. For one thousand years, this has been the way of things. I call you to duel in full view of your squadron.”

  The smile on your lips, Shizuka. You looked as if you and half a dozen of your handmaidens discovered him with his pants down on a cold day.

  “If,” you said, your voice dripping with condescension, “you need to name a champion to fight in your stead, you are free to do so. I am sure there is at least one among you brave enough to face me.”

  And indeed there were. Two or three of the guards called out—they’d be honored to duel you. But the guard captain’s face turned to stone. For a moment, he looked down at his feet; then back up to you. He spun his spear in his hands.

  “Very well,” he said. “I see I cannot refuse you.”

  “Wise man,” you said. “You cannot.”

  I crossed my arms and waited. The guards formed a loose circle around us. You kicked off your shoes. On your tiptoes you stood, a dancer waiting for the music to start. Beneath Grandmother Sky’s dull gray eye, you sank into your favorite stance.

  And you closed your eyes.

  The guard captain circled you. He held his spear out in front of him. Reach, then, was his primary concern. As a cat pawing at a rat’s den was he, cautiously feeling you out.

  Two minutes, five, ten. He wasn’t sure how to approach you, or if he even should. You were Imperial Blood, after all, and you stood with your eyes closed, waiting for his attack. What if you were trying to trick him?

  “Captain,” called one of the men, “did you not kill one of the enemy? Did you stare it to death?”

  I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh. Soon others joined in the jeering. I expected you to smile, but you did not; your face remained impassive as the sun.

  At last the captain saw waiting was doing him no good. With a great, reverberating cry, he thrust at you, the point of his spear leaping forward. A fearsome strike, truth be told. Were I a common Hokkaran soldier and he my commander, his fighting spirit would’ve emboldened me.

  But I was not a common Hokkaran soldier, and neither were you.

  And where his cry was a hammer on iron, yours was the roaring forge.

  Two strokes it took you. With the first, you chopped his spear in half. Between strokes you floated forward, your footsteps light as rain, quick as falling. Then, the second stroke: a cut across the bottom of his chin.

  The guard captain tore a piece of cloth from his coat and stanched his wound. He was a proud man, but he was not a dumb one. A duel cleanly fought and cleanly lost.

  He cleared his throat. “Beneath the eyes of gods and men,” he said, “I am defeated. Are you pleased with yourself, O-Shizuka-shon?”

  “I am,” you said. I took a rag from our bags and handed it to you, that you might clean your sword. “I came to help you, Captain.”

  His black eyes turned to coal. He looked to me, then back to you. “You brought a Qorin,” he said. “You should have brought an army, and you brought a single Qorin instead.”

  Only I caught the stiffening of your spine at his comment. That is all right. Such a thing was only meant for me to see. For my part, I stood tall as I could, one hand on my horse.

  Technically, you brought two Qorin with you.

  “Her name is Barsalai Shefali,” you said. “And she is an army, thank you.”

  I was not so sure I counted as an entire army. Four good archers, yes. But an entire army? You and your exaggerations.

  You sheathed your sword. “It is between bells, Captain,” you said. “We will retire for the evening. You shall provide us room and board.”

  “O-Shizuka-shon,” he said through gritted teeth. “We have barracks here.”

  “Then you shall provide us rooms in the barracks. Private rooms. In the morning we will speak at length, and by nightfall your problem will be solved.”

  As if you were Tumenbayar herself. As if you could guarantee such things. The captain’s doubt was plain to read. When he called for his men to lead us away, it was tinged with defeat, with bitterness.

  “By nightfall,” he echoed. “You will solve our problem by nightfall.”

  And yet you believed it. I knew you did with all your heart. As you lay in my arms that night, I could almost hear your thoughts. We will kill them, we will slay them, we will be the heroes we were meant to be.

  And I believed in you.

  * * *

  I WOKE BEFORE YOU. No hunting to be had here—the Wall once played host to a variety of game, but I saw none. Instead, I rode around the camp. Even the soil was dark here, Shizuka, even the grass gray and dying. The Wall stretched for miles in either direction; I rode two miles east and back. In that time, I cannot remember seeing anything green, save the occasional petal on the Wall.

  What I did see was decay.

  What I did see were once-proud trees now blanched and hollow. What I did see were hovels and mansions alike abandoned, with only dust to inhabit them.

  An old temple stood at the center of town. My curiosity drew me there. I am going to use that word, “curiosity,” though I am no longer sure it was something so simple.

  Inside the temple, a thick blanket of dust kept the relics warm. My footsteps summoned small, dusty tornadoes. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Something holy once shed its skin here. Remnants of divinity filled my lungs with every breath.

  So did the smell of rot.

  They say when your hairs stand on end, Grandmother Sky is calling you. She must’ve called very loudly then. I remember it—I tiptoed through the ruins, muttering prayers under my breath. I do not know what drove me on save …

  I shall call it curiosity again.

  When I saw him, I was standing near the upended offering bowl. Tattered prayer tags fluttered like dead moths in the wind. I heard him before I saw him, heard the soft whoosh of dust flying into the air.

  “Steel-Eye.”

  That name again. The name that was, and yet was not, mine. I reached for my bow. Leaning against a jade statue of the Daughter was a man in ancient armor. A thick, curved sword hung at his hip, the sort of thing far heavier than it had any right to be. Black and violet, he wore, and a sinister black war mask. Fire pits sat where his eyes should be. I could see no trace of skin. At his neck and wrists and beneath his ears, there was no flesh at all. Only shadow.

  “Steel-Eye,” it rasped. It had a voice. It had a name, too, that popped into my mind without my asking. Leng. “Home at last. How does it feel?”

  I fired. In a swirl of black vapor, it vanished. As I ran toward Alsha, I heard laughing.

  “I will see you again,” it said. The sound of his voice was a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. The last time I’d seen someone like that, we’d been attacked. Leng was a demon, not a blackblood.

  Was it not blackbloods you said we were going to kill?

  When I came back to camp, you were already awake. The captain was in our room. Excitement and fear at once dulled my senses and heightened them. I was aware, for example, that you wore the deel I made you instead of your robes. But I did not know what the captain was saying as I burst in, and I did not care to listen.

  “The temple,” I gasped.

  “You went to the temple?” said the captain. “You idiot! He lives there. Do you have some kind of death wish?”

  “Watch your tongue, Captain, or I will liberate you of it,” you said. Concern written on your expression, in characters only I could read. “Who lives in the temple?”

  “The Old Commander,” he said. “We do not know his name, or we would’ve bound him. Shadows in the shape of a man. He’s swallowed good soldiers whole. I have seen him only once with my own eyes, and once is enough.”

  You listened to this. Your amber eyes
met mine once more. I licked my lips.

  A child is playing near the fire. The flames are warm and the night is cold. It reaches for the flickering flames in an attempt to keep warm. For just the smallest moment, the sensation feels pleasant. Refreshing, even. But then the burning starts, and the child scrambles away.

  So it was for me. Afraid as I was, I could not deny the thrill of fighting such an enemy—I just wished I had you by my side to face him.

  You rose. “I am going to the temple,” you said. “You can come if you wish.”

  The captain shot to his feet. “As guard captain of the Wall of Flowers, I cannot allow you to do that,” he said. “Given the Emperor’s trouble, you are the only heir we have. If you go into that temple, you will die, O-Shizuka-shon, despite your great skill.”

  You laughed and shook your head. Laughed, Shizuka. I came in pale faced and slick with sweat—and here you were, laughing at the idea of your death. Had you ever seen a demon before making this plan?

  “I will not,” you said. “The gods will not allow me to be hurt today.”

  So you hadn’t seen one, then.

  Yet I would follow you still. Someone had to.

  The captain gawked. “O-Shizuka-shon, I am sorry,” he said, “but this I cannot allow. Your uncle would have me executed.”

  “‘Cannot allow,’” you repeated with scorn. “Very well. I am sorry, Captain, but I cannot allow you to bar my path.”

  You struck him in the head with your short sword’s hilt. He swayed, swayed, then fell over. I looked from him to you.

  “Do not look at me like that,” you said. “I am sorry. He is a good man, for all his stodginess. But we have important work to do, you and I.”

  Something shifted in my chest when you spoke. A weight, I think. To tell the truth, I did not feel myself that morning. I could not name the feeling exactly, but …

  A shamed noble wakes before First Bell. He bathes in ritual water, with the herbs of death to give it scent. He cloaks himself in white. He sits in an empty room. Before him: a blank sheet of paper, a brush, an inkblock, a bowl of water. Whatever he has done in his life, he must condense into three lines of poetry. Grass on his knees, a kiss from his wife, blade meeting flesh.

  After he leaves that room, he will commit public suicide.

  I felt like that man.

  Important work to be done.

  “Armor,” I said. If you were so insistent on facing Leng, then I would not let you do it in a deel.

  “I do not—,” you began to say, but you stopped when you saw the look I gave you.

  The quartermaster provided us with one suit of armor for you. He did not offer one for me, and I did not think to take one. I did not intend to be close enough for the demon’s blood to be a problem. I would pelt it with arrows. You’d give it the final killing stroke.

  That was the way of things. I did not need armor, and I did not much think of it.

  We went alone, the two of us, because you determined it would be more like a story that way.

  “Only the two of us are necessary,” you said. “We will bring back this demon’s head, and that will forever bind these men to our service. How could they be disloyal after that?”

  So we left. So we came to the empty temple. The sun hung just above its peaked roof. Our shadows were tall as trees when we dismounted.

  “Careful,” I whispered. “It disappears sometimes.”

  You walked with your sword drawn. I remember this; you never unsheathed first in duels. We made our way to the first cracked steps.

  “My love,” you said, as if you were a woman grown, and not sixteen years old, “we walk into the first chapter of our lives. Together.”

  You pressed your palm to mine. Our scars aligned. For a brief moment, I felt … light. Like the sun shining within me, as if I’d swallowed a star whole. The intensity of it staggered me.

  It staggered you, too. You gave me a slow, shocked nod.

  Together we walked into the temple.

  You remember the stillness of the place. Temples are never still, no matter how hard they try to be bastions of peace. Whether it be the monks and priestesses going about their duties, the worshippers going about theirs, or the birds outside, drinking from the water fountains, temples are not still.

  Yet here, books lay open on tables. Here, robes lay on the ground as if their owners had dissipated with the morning dew. Here, nothing lived, not even insects. Here, the sound of my heart was louder than war drums.

  Where I’d seen only the statue of the Daughter earlier, together we saw the entire Heavenly Family. Gathered around the shrine they were: the Father holding his books; the Mother, a sickle in one hand and a baby basket in the other; the Son, clutching his own severed head; the Grandfather with his clock; the Grandmother, cloaked in clouds; the Sister, with her scrolls of regrets. All of them were missing limbs—more than the usual severed head and leg in the Son’s case.

  But only the Daughter was untouched. Only the Daughter stood tall and proud and joyful, with flowers in her hair and a wreath in her hand. Only her smile had not been ruined with a chisel. The dust feared her; she shone softly green in partial light.

  You bowed to her as you walked past.

  Looking back on it, I think that is what angered Leng. For it appeared in the darkness behind you, with that heavy sword hung high, poised to chop down on you like firewood. Crimson flames consumed the pits where its eyes should be.

  I expected it to shout. Warriors throughout Hokkaro shout to show their spirit; Qorin do it to frighten people. But Leng made no sound as it brought its sword down.

  “Shizuka!” I shouted.

  With your sword, you parried its attack. You shouted so loud, I think you must have been trying to make up for its silence.

  A sharp thrust countered its next stroke. How perfect your form was! Your old tutor would’ve died of joy had he seen it. It pierced Leng’s lightly armored underarm.

  And the demon laughed. “Virgin Empress,” it said. “How honored I am to make your acquaintance.”

  I drew, fired, drew, fired. Arrows shot right through him and clattered against the stone ground.

  Just what did we plan on doing if our weapons didn’t work?

  “We’ve been watching you grow,” it said. It reached for you with its off hand. Talons on its gauntlet gleamed. “How beautiful you are now. And more beautiful, you will be, when grown.”

  “Silence!” you said.

  Another cut from you, this time aiming for its arm. Again, your sword went through it. Again, it laughed. Again, I loosed and loosed and loosed. Fear dampened the base of my neck. Nothing was hurting it. Nothing was hurting it and it just kept making that sound like rattling bones and what if this was it, what if you were wrong, what if we were going to die here—?

  Cold metal around my throat. My feet lifting off the ground. The smell of day-old corpses left out in the sun. I gasped for breath but felt none coming; I kicked and kicked but didn’t connect.

  But I could see you, Shizuka. I could see the rage on your face, see your sword hand shake like a teacup in a storm.

  “Steel-Eye, the adults are talking. Cease your interruptions.”

  And then …

  Oh, you remember the sight better than I do.

  It impaled me. I don’t remember how it happened or where the blade pierced me, but I do remember my vision going white.

  Then it dropped me.

  I wish I could say I stood fast. I did not. I fell flat on the ground. Dust choked me. Blood gushed from me so quickly, I felt as if I’d jumped into ice water.

  But I saw the flash of gold light, and I heard your voice.

  “You come into the home of the gods and you presume to hurt my beloved?” you roared. “Leng! I name you! May your shadows be made flesh!”

  How did you know that name? I’d never told you. To this day, Shizuka, I do not know how you did it—but I am grateful you did.

  And it was then that Leng made a sound—a s
oft gasp. I forced myself to my knees. The room was spinning, but I did this anyway. I could see him: his skin like spoiled milk, see his plain black eyes.

  “So you have learned that trick!” it shouted. “It will not save you, Empress!”

  You came at it. Steel met steel. I struggled to my feet and reached for my blood-soaked bow. I could get a shot off, I think.

  Draw, loose. Watch it soar.

  Just as Leng raised its sword again, my arrow landed in his neck, near his shoulder. The swing was ruined.

  I staggered forward. This was not so difficult. I could hardly feel anything anymore. Any second now, the world would cease to exist, but while it existed we were together, and while we were together we would fight.

  Draw, loose. Another solid hit, this time piercing its hip. It screamed; you sliced off its hand. Gouts of black blood spattered across your armor. I thanked the gods we stopped and got it for you.

  But Leng caught sight of me again, and the fury of a hundred lifetimes burned in its eyes. In its marrow-sucking voice, he snarled: “Steel-Eye, must you continue pestering me?”

  In one hand it held that massive sword. And perhaps the loss of blood did not affect it as it affected me, because it charged toward me with all the ferocity of an animal. A wounded animal.

  A tiger.

  It started its slash, but never finished.

  A thin gold line separated its head from its body.

  Behind him, you stood with sword in hand; demon blood staining the Daybreak blade.

  And for that small fraction of a second, you were so proud of yourself.

  But then the demon’s head came off, and it fell forward onto me. And it bled and bled and bled.

  I screamed. I screamed and I tried to push it off me but it was so heavy, and then you came, and you screamed, and you pushed it off.

  “Don’t look down,” you pleaded. “Promise me you won’t look down.”

  But I didn’t need to.

  Because my wound burned like a hot brand rammed into my gut.

  “Shizuka,” I said. “Shizuka, the blood—”

  You touched my cheek. I do not know if you could think of anything else to do; your other hand hovered over the wound. Over your shoulder, I saw the statue of the Daughter shining bright as emeralds.