You, naturally, were born on the day, the week, the month dedicated to the Daughter. Even the minutes and hours lined up. I can’t tell you how often priests commented on this. How commoners commented on it. Everyone did, really, and more than one story about you being the Daughter reborn was making the rounds in teahouses.
And I was born one month after you were. And it so happened that my dates aligned, too, with those of the Grandmother, but no one ever praised me for it.
That was just fine. I praised her on my own. So it was with all Qorin. This notion of going to temple is distinctly Not Qorin. Who needs a temple, when the Sky herself stretches out above you, eternal? We do not burn prayer tags, Shizuka; we do not build shrines in her honor. Grandmother Sky is happy to listen to us when we pray to her, and Grandfather Sky is happy to drink any milk we pour onto him.
But it had been so long since one of the Heavenly Family visited during their year! Not even the most devout, who prayed every day for the slightest glimpse, had seen them.
Your uncle summoned the High Priests to convene in Fujino that summer—the summer of our seventeenth year. This made finding priests doubly difficult: those who remained faithful in the face of adversity were on the way to Fujino.
That said, we met a few along the way. You had no trouble flagging down religious caravans when you saw them, and less trouble gaining an audience when you did so. A quick word, a few strokes of ink, that was all it took to establish your identity. I found I got fewer stares if I wore the fox mask, which was all the better for me.
The trouble always began when I entered the caravan, sometimes before I took the mask off. Without fail, the priest seized up against the wall and recoiled from me. Daughter, Mother, Father, Son—it did not matter to whom they were dedicated.
“You wear the Traitor’s Crown!” they’d say.
“Do not stand near me!”
“You are unclean!”
Tiring. It was all so tiring. Every time they protested like this, the demons I carried protested right back. It is a trying thing to let a demon’s vile insults fall on deaf ears, but you and I spent a great deal of time practicing for it. Clearing one’s mind is an important part of dueling, and as the finest duelist in the Empire, you made it your duty to teach me.
So I did as you’d said. I imagined my mind as a pool of water, and my thoughts as ripples. I focused on the image—focused on calming the water—and in doing so tuned out the voices. It was not an easy thing to do. I failed more often than I succeeded.
But I was failing less as time went on.
Still, we found no aid.
In all the history of the Heavenly Empire, has there ever been a case like mine? The Traitor slew his nephew Ages ago; if someone lived with the blackblood, there would be a record. Certainly we have stories of other heroes. Brave men and women who slew demons with hardly a thought. Tumenbayar and Batumongke, your ancestor Minami Shiori, Brave Yasaru and Foolhardy Mitsuo.
Yet I can think of no hero whose jaw unhinges in the heat of battle. None who craved blood, or tasted fear. None who wandered the nights sleepless, tireless, unrelenting. None who are quite as strong as I am, or as fast.
I am an anomaly.
But that is all right. I would not wish my condition upon anyone else, anywhere in time. Let me deal with it. I have already for so many years.
Regardless of the answers we didn’t find, we were still on the run. Your family did not know where you were, and we could not return to the clan. That left us with one option.
We sent word ahead to my brother.
During a stay at an inn in Kaikumura, we wrote him a long letter. Not half so long as this one, no. Not even a quarter as long. But it was long enough. We told him we were coming to stay with him, if he would have us; we told him our mother had banished us; we promised to explain once we arrived in Xian-Lai. And, to ensure it was he who read it and replied and not my father, I wrote it entirely in Qorin.
A return letter found us somewhere in the Southern Provinces, where they still spoke Xian and had Xian names and wore different clothing. I have never been skilled when it comes to history, Shizuka. I cannot remember which village it was, and at times I can’t remember all the provinces. The only reason I knew of Xian-Lai so well was because my brother was there.
Though, thinking about it, this did mean I’d have to become more familiar with Xian customs. His wife was Xianese. It was only now that this occurred to me, now that we were going through land more foreign to me than the Northern Provinces.
But regardless of my confusion, the letter found us. I tore it open as soon as we received it. You leaned over my shoulder, as if by staring at the letters, you’d somehow be able to understand them. Did you expect it to be written phonetically, the way we write things? The way I’ve written this?
No, it was in Qorin, and reading it made me feel warm. I could almost remember what Kenshiro’s voice sounded like. Almost.
To the Tiger-Striped Princess:
It pains me, Little Sister, to hear that you’ve had trouble with our mother. My home is ever open to you, and I am sure Baozhai will be more than happy to meet Shizuka-shan. I suppose I should write “O-Shizuka-shon,” but it doesn’t feel right to refer to her in such a way. Did you know, Shefali-lun, I changed the future Empress’s bedclothes?
Do not tell her I said that.
At any rate, I eagerly await your arrival. Our father has gone to Fujino for the Grand Audience the Son of Heaven has called for. I escaped only by virtue of being a newly married man. You could not have picked a better time to visit; our garden is in full bloom. We will prepare a feast for you. A small one, I remember how you dislike crowds.
But you do like horses, and archery, and wrestling. I will see to it that we have a little tournament of our own. No more than twenty entrants, I promise. But it will be nice to watch a few Hokkaran and Xianese lords lose a race, don’t you think?
Sister, it’s been so long since we’ve last met that you might just be taller than I am. It sounds like life has been unkind to you of late, and I know you may think of me as a distant sort of relation—more a cousin than a sibling. But it is important to me that you keep this in your heart: No matter what the world may think of half-breeds like us, we will always have each other.
But I will always have the last sweet, and you cannot stop me from taking it.
With love,
Halaagmod Kenshiro Alsharyya
I read that letter about as many times as I used to read yours, back when that was our only method of communication. You asked me to read it out loud—it made me so excited, after all—and sure enough, you protested Kenshiro’s teasing.
“He is only five years older!” you said, pacing around the room with your arms crossed. “How dare he. How dare he. There’s no way he can remember!”
I kept chuckling, for my brother has always had an excellent memory.
“He touched the Imperial Cheeks,” I said.
You stopped midstep, your amber eyes going small and fiery. “Don’t you join him!” you protested. “I’ll hear none of that ‘Imperial Cheeks’ nonsense from you.”
At this point, I could no longer contain my laughter. I doubled over in bed, wiping the tears away. You were just so upset about it, Shizuka! As if no one in the world ever changed your underclothes except for your mother. Do you realize there are probably dozens of serving women who did the same?
And yet you’d given me an opportunity I could not ignore.
“I’ve examined them,” I said. “Thoroughly.”
You threw a pillow at me, but it was worth it.
That was the tone for most of our traveling, Shizuka, was it not? In public, we were the Imperial Niece and her dear friend, that Qorin girl. In private, we were equals; in private, we could be ourselves. We spent our nights tangled up in each other’s limbs.
And, yes, there was quite a bit of learning to do. Not just the things you taught me about stilling my mind (though we spent hours every morning
meditating to that end) but also about my own body. About my limits, and what I could do.
As you promised, we visited butchers. They were always so surprised to see you. Did you want their finest cuts, did you want the tenderest steak you’d ever tasted? Might you bless their slaughterhouse with the Blood of Heaven? It was a little exciting, I admit, to see a butcher try to wipe himself clean in the presence of royalty. You’d offer a smile and a written blessing if the butcher would let us assist in the slaughterhouse.
And without fail, they’d protest.
“I will not have the Peacock Princess standing by as pigs are gutted, no, I won’t! Not in my slaughterhouse!”
“How am I to bless it if I never step foot in it?” you’d say.
So it started. After a bit of back and forth, you’d earn our passage. Sometimes it came down to pointing out that as the Imperial Niece, you technically owned the entire Empire. Sometimes you just had to write a silly note for the butcher’s daughter or wife. Sometimes you wrote up cash seals right then and there. Conditions varied.
But our work never did.
We’d go in with the butcher. He’d start his work. You stood next to me, observed as he slit the pig’s throat or the cow’s or twisted the chicken’s head off.
Some days were more difficult than others. Some days I let out the most guttural growl, my jaw hanging open, my sharp teeth bared. You’d touch the back of my neck. In a firm voice, you’d whisper to me: “Shefali, stay here. Stay in your own mind.”
If it was a good day, we would assist the butcher. The first time we did this, I was shocked to see you join me. Her Imperial Highness, the Crown Princess of Hokkaro, tying back her sleeves and her hair in a common slaughterhouse.
“What needs to be done?” you’d ask. If you bothered asking. For the most part, you watched the butcher do it once. That was all you needed. With brush, knife, and sword, you have always been an artist—your cuts were clean as your mother’s, and the butcher was always impressed.
Mine, on the other hand …
I’ve been a hunter all my life. Skinning an animal and preparing it for consumption were not new to me. Yet, somehow, the paring knife felt clumsy now. Would it not be easier to use my talons, or my teeth? I’d get a better feel of the meat that way. Maybe taste it a bit and—
This was why we went to these butchers to start with.
So I struggled at first, and on occasion you caught me sinking my nails into pork or duck. But you always reached out for me. You always touched the base of my neck.
“You can do this, Shefali,” you’d say. “It is only blood and flesh.”
And so it was.
The longer we traveled, the more things you’d try to help me with. If a peddler traveled with charms supposedly from Sur-Shar, you’d buy every single one. We stopped at every holy site we could along the way. Springs, forests, even a pit supposedly inhabited by an ornery rock god. We did not see the rock god, but you did nearly fall in, looking for him. I caught your sleeve and pulled you back up again.
But that was what it was like, traveling to Xian-Lai with you. Long days and long nights. Afternoons spent in local markets, me wearing my fox mask and you with a rice farmer’s hat you insisted flattered you. It did not flatter you, of course, but it made you happy, and that was the same thing. In the evenings, we’d set up camp, and I’d try to cook whatever I’d hunted that morning with varying levels of success. I don’t know how Uncle Ganzorig makes his stews so appetizing, but I can be sure it does not run in my blood.
As we ate, I’d ask you about Xian-Lai, though you’d never been. About what the Xianese nobility are like, and how they might view someone like me.
“You are only half Hokkaran,” you said with a smirk. “So I imagine they’ll like you much more than they like me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You do not represent two hundred years of oppression,” you said. “They were independent, before my ancestor Emperor Yoshinaga sent General Iseri to conquer them. Ages of their own traditions and customs—and we forced them to embrace ours. Yoshinaga wasted ink telling our people we were superior to the Xianese. In reality, he only wanted control of their ports. And, perhaps, oranges. My family has a regrettable love of citrus fruit.”
“Citrus?”
“You will see,” you said, smiling. “If I don’t eat them all first.”
As we came closer to my brother’s holdings, I found myself sitting up at night in bed.
Moving clears my mind; it always has, and I find still it a useful habit. But in those days, I was so focused on what my brother would think of my condition that I was paralyzed.
Staying in one place leads to a stagnant soul and mind. You see only one patch of the sky, one patch of stars, and never witness Grandmother Sky’s true glory. Demons, too, find you more easily when you stay in one place.
I think the last is somewhat unique to me. Ghosts are an exception. Ghosts will haunt you to the ends of the Earth if you’ve upset them, even if it has been actual decades since you did so, and you’ve tried to repent, but …
Continuing.
In our room not far from Xian-Lai’s capital, the Not-You found me again. It formed from the shadows in the far corner, like smoke solidifying into a human form. Our previous encounter left it with thick bruises around its neck. A festering pit gaped back at me where its left eye once was. It did not stand, did not beckon me. It merely sat in the corner and stared at me.
Seeing it tore at old wounds. I hissed, bared my teeth, my nostrils flaring.
“Leave,” I said.
Bones rattling in a cup—that was the sound it made. “You cannot be rid of me, my love,” it said. “I am not a stain on your prized deel.”
I thought of waking you, for you slept curled at my side with your thumb between your lips. Who was I, though, to ruin such perfect slumber? No. I would be all right. This thing was not real. One hand on the bare skin of your heavenly hip would be enough to ground me.
“Why are you here?”
Now it craned its awful neck at me. A thick black tongue darted out from rotted lips. “To warn you,” it said. “Your brother will lie to you, Steel-Eye.”
At this, my fury threatened to bubble over. I squeezed your skin; you groaned in your sleep. Sad as it sounds, I clung to that noise. I forced myself to remember the consequences of losing control.
“You’re the liar,” I said.
Its head lolled to the side, ear to shoulder. The matted clumps of black that served as its hair swayed just enough for me to catch sight of its right ear.
Your uncle is in possession of a dog, a monstrous red thing half his size at the shoulder. I want to say it is more fur than dog, but I’ve been tackled by it once before and can attest to the creature’s strength. Regardless, there is so much fluff, it is difficult to make out the thing’s features. All except for its ears. To prevent infection, its ears are cropped to resemble a horse’s.
So it was with the Not-You’s ear, or what was left of it. A twisted nub of flesh poked out from the side of its head; about the top third of a normal ear. Seeing it sent a chill straight to my gut. I covered my mouth.
Why, I wondered, did this disfigurement upset me more than the rest?
That is the trouble with telling you the story this way. You know why it upset me. Yet I must continue to tell the tale, for I have gone too far now to abandon it.
The Not-You fixed me with a piercing look. “Am I?” it said. “Steel-Eye, I alone have never lied to you, and I never will. How could I lie to my own precious blood?”
“You sicken me,” I said. I kept one hand on your hip; the other moved to my stomach. This lurching … I wanted to throw up, but I hadn’t eaten anything in a week.
“An upset stomach is a small price to pay for the power I’ve given you,” it said. “And you will continue to grow stronger. How beautiful you will be, when you finally meet Him.”
Not worth getting angered over. Not worth striking it. Not worth giving i
n to that rage. But gods, how I wanted to hurt it.
“I will leave you, Steel-Eye,” it said, “for you will not hear reason. But when the conquering one comes, when you most need him, remember what I said. He will lie.”
As it spoke, it began to lose substance. Again it was smoke, though this time it dissipated in the wind. The word “lie” hung in the air like a ringing gong.
I slipped beneath the sheets and let my fingers climb the ladder of your spine. When I reached the top, I kissed the nape of your neck.
Only then did you turn toward me. Your eyes fluttered open, weary with sleep; but your hands cupped my face. “My love?” you said. “Is everything all right?”
Tomorrow we’d see my brother. Tomorrow I would know what his wife was like, what his new holdings were like. Tomorrow I’d have to tell him what happened in Shiseiki. The Not-You spoke of lies and dark futures.
But in that moment, it was just you and I in an inn room, away from the prying eyes we’d soon have to avoid. You and I, alone and naked, huddled together beneath the sheets. When our skin meets, when our hearts beat so close together, when we are so tangled up in each other that we cannot tell ourselves apart: this is the most sacred time.
Yes, Shizuka, as I stroked your face and wiped drool from the corner of your mouth, it was a holy thing.
“Yes,” I said.
And I pressed my lips to yours, speaking silent prayers. I held you until you fell asleep, and then I kept vigil for you. Against what? I did not know. But I was not going to let anything ruin your hallowed slumber.
In the morning we readied to travel. Half a day, it took us, but it felt like more in that heat. Oshiro in the summer was, at best, a little warm. The steppes were hotter. But the Southern Provinces? Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. My deel was damp in an hour. There was a thickness to the air here, like breathing underwater.
Maybe it was all the vegetation. Xian-Lai was green as far as the eye could see. And not a Hokkaran green either, bright and bracing. This was a dark color, near black in places. Where Fujino boasted tall trees and mountains, here the trees weren’t much taller than a man might be, and everything was … wet.
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