If only they knew, Shizuka. If only they knew what we’d just done. Even my father would be smiling then, I was sure of it.
We were married. Lady and wife. The Emperor could not harm me.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” said Uemura. “I have brought the prisoner to you for judgment.”
“Prisoner,” said the Emperor. “Three days ago, we bore witness to your crimes with our own eyes. We saw you burst out of your skin and shift into one of the Traitor’s spawn. We saw you shrug off a spear to the arm, and saw the black blood that spurted forth from your wound. We saw you tear a man’s head off with only your hands.”
Burst out of my skin? I swallowed. What did I look like, Shizuka, in that moment? Was it so different?
“You are a murderer,” said your uncle. “Stories have reached our ears of a massacre in Imakane, and we now believe you to be the killer. The blood of countless men stains your hands. And that is to say nothing of your present state. How are we to know if you are as human as you appear, when the former General Nozawa, who was so dear to us, was a demon?”
A pause.
He was going to announce my execution. I felt it in my bones. Any moment now, you’d have to announce what we had done, and hope the court accepted it. If they did not, then the both of us might face punishment.
I had to trust you.
“We cannot be sure of you, Prisoner. Despite your esteemed father, we cannot be sure of you. While you may not outwardly bear the signs of corruption, your blood runs black as ink, and we have seen the damage you can do in a rage.
“It is for these reasons we have decided you must be put to—”
“You shall decide no such thing!”
You shouted this, standing in front of me. As one, the eyes of the crowd settled on you. I could not help but smile. I watched you, standing before me in your bright red robe, golden phoenix ornaments in your hair.
I watched you rail against Heaven itself.
“You, who have sat upon your pretty throne and spent Imperial money on younger and younger wives! Uncle, what have you done to fight off the Northern Darkness?” you roared. “When have you left your palaces? When have you walked among the people and seen how they suffer? You command me to write notices for them, ignorant of the fact that most of them cannot read. You! You think yourself just enough to judge?”
As an older brother gapes when struck by his younger brother, so did the entirety of the court gape at you.
“I say to you,” you said, turning toward the others. “I say to all of you that Barsalyya Shefali Alshar has done more to serve the people of Hokkaro than the Son of Heaven himself. Never have I met anyone so skilled yet so humble; never have I met anyone more worthy of my trust. Barsalyya Shefali personally rid Shiseiki of demons and bandits both.”
As you spoke, you gesticulated, your sleeves swirling about you like wings. You paced the reception hall, catching everyone’s eyes at least once, burning in voice and passion.
“Uncle, if you are so holy, if you are so righteous, why did you not notice Nozawa was a demon?” you said. Now you came to stand in front of him. Now you stared him down with your slashing eyes. “From the moment I saw him, at the age of ten, I told you there was something the matter with him. What did you do? You sent him on valuable missions. You elevated him, held him as a glowing jewel in your breast. He wore the gold thread. You encouraged him to duel for my hand today. How dare you? That jewel you wore so proudly was a serpent’s scale, his venom running through your blood. You, who cannot produce an heir, would’ve condemned your brother’s daughter to an infernal marriage. And you seek to have Barsalyya Shefali executed for succeeding where you failed?”
I felt as if the heavens themselves struck me on the spot. As if I were watching the birth of a star.
“I will not stand for it,” you said. “I, O-Shizuka, daughter of O-Itsuki and O-Shizuru, descendant of Minami Shiori, trueborn blood of Yamai and the eight hundred Emperors, forbid you from killing her. If you insist, then you must kill me as well. That is the only solution. I will not let you kill her.”
Silence. A heavy sort of silence, not the kind one finds in an empty room. This is the sort of silence you find only when large groups come together and all wait for something to happen. Silence, thickened with anticipation.
At last, the Emperor spoke.
“Were you not our brother’s daughter,” he said, “know that you would’ve been executed for your willful words. How dare you, child? How dare you insult us so brazenly? How dare you say to the Son of Heaven that he cannot do something? We say the prisoner is to be executed, and we further declare that the prisoner will be drowned, for your insolence.”
And you met his eyes the whole time he spoke, unbowed and unswayed.
“I dare because it is in my blood,” you said, “and because I know something you do not. You cannot kill Barsalyya Shefali, for you cannot have any member of the Imperial Family executed, unless they have conspired against the throne—and she has not. That is the first of our laws, and we hold it before us now.”
Thrumming. Buzzing in the air, whispering waves, hooves against ground. I half stood just to get a better look at the Emperor’s glowering face. I thought steam was going to shoot from his ears, he was so red.
“Shizuka,” he said, “you are an arrogant brat, but you have never been an idiot. We have not adopted the prisoner. How could she be a member of our family?”
And at this, you grinned. “Because, Uncle,” you said, “Barsalyya Shefali is our wife.”
Gasps rang out through the reception hall. Cries of “What?” and “How?” I figured it was a good time to stand, considering we’d already flouted protocol and etiquette.
In full view of the court, you took my hand. “We married her not an hour ago, in the Bronze Palace’s shrine, in accordance to the right of their province,” you said. “You may ask the priest. We are married.”
I spared a glance for my father, who was so white, you might mistake him for paper, his eyes bulging out of his head. Kenshiro and Baozhai wore broad grins.
The rest of the crowd had not yet made up their minds.
But your uncle? He was furious. A ripe strawberry could not hope to be redder. He shambled to his feet and pointed at you. “What is the meaning of this?” he roared. “Women do not marry other women, and the Imperial Family does not marry horsewives.”
“We could make the meaning plainer only by public indecency, Uncle,” you said. “And she is not a horsewife; she is, if anything, a peacock’s wife.”
Someone in the court dared to laugh. A brave individual, it has to be said. I fought off a smile myself. Peacock Princess, indeed.
On the one hand, the relief of not having to hide anymore washed over me like the first rain of the season. On the other, we were playing a dangerous game. Technically, we had not yet consummated the marriage. If your uncle realized, he could declare the marriage void, and kill me anyway.
But would he, in front of so many people?
Would he, when no one was shouting in outrage?
Would he do such a thing to you, knowing you’d one day wrest power from him, one day you’d have absolute command?
Two hundred eyes bearing down on me. I couldn’t see half of them, but I felt the weight of their judgments. A one-eyed Qorin girl, one who tore off a man’s head three days ago. That’s what they saw. By that measure, I was not worthy of you.
“O-Shizuka-shon,” said Uemura. “Is it possible you’ve been corrupted? The prisoner is a blackblood, we don’t know what powers they might have.”
How dare he? After he’d subjected me to his doctors, after he’d let me go, knowing what I was? Tones of panic in his voice; regret and shame in his scent. Perhaps he was trying to make up for letting us speak to the priest.
I grew tired of being silent.
“My name is Barsalyya,” I said. “I killed a tiger for that name. I have killed three demons since. How many have you killed?”
He cle
nched his jaw, and suddenly his young face was fraught with wrinkles. “Uemura-zun, that is preposterous, and you know it,” you added. “You ask if we are corrupted? Very well.”
With that, you tore off your bandages and held them high as you could. The sight of your wounded face dropped me into cold water. The cut was so deep, Shizuka, and you held your hair up so your mangled ear was visible.
You dropped the bandages and touched your fingertips to your face. They came away coated in dark red. Then you leaned over. Using your blood as ink, you wrote on the floor in your blessed hand.
“Is that plain enough for you to read?” Shizuka said. It wasn’t plain enough for me; I was grateful you continued. “For anyone who cannot see it: I am human as I have ever been, sound of mind and body. I’ve known I was going to marry Barsalyya Shefali since we were children.”
“Yuichi!” cried the Emperor.
My father snapped to attention, bowing before hurrying to the Emperor’s side. I thought I saw him trembling.
“Yuichi, tell your mongrel daughter what she has done is illegal.”
My father has always had a fondness for Hokkaran law. He has scrolls and scrolls of old court procedures in his personal library. And, though I can blame him for being absent, for never caring for me the way he cared for my brother, I can never say he was unfair. Other lords often wrote to him for advice.
Legal knowledge—as well as a great deal of brownnosing—was what endeared my father to the Emperor. And now he was being called on to use it against me.
My father did not answer immediately. This alone made your uncle fume. My father stood there, staring at the two of us. At our linked hands, my missing eye, your scarred face.
It is strange, seeing your own features in someone else. I’ve never thought that I looked much like him. But in that moment, my father wrinkled his nose, and Needlenose Shefali stared back at me.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” he said, “it is not illegal.”
“What?” said your uncle.
“By the letter of the law, it is not. The Heavenly Mandates make no specifications about who may enter a marriage, only that they must occur before any woman gives birth,” he said. “The Mandates tell us how a marriage is to be performed; they do not define it.”
I thought he smiled at me. It may have been a trick of the light, but I choose to believe it was real.
“If a priest has performed the proper rites, then, yes, Majesty, they are married,” he said.
A thorny ball in my throat. Was he going to bring up consummation?
The moment passed. He did not. I stared at the man in front of me, who owed me nothing, who had testified in our behalf.
My father.
The Emperor gnashed his teeth. For a long while, he said nothing and sulked on his throne. One of his wives, the eldest one, whispered something in his ear. But his lovely dark Surian wife clapped.
“Congratulations!” she said in accented Hokkaran. “In Sur-Shar, this would be a marriage most blessed! No silly old law in the way. Loudly, I would sing for your wedding march!”
Despite your wound, your smiling face was bright as dawn. “Thank you, Aunt,” you said.
“Do not thank her,” snapped the Emperor. “You think you are clever, Shizuka. You have lived a spoiled life. You are so accustomed to getting your way, you would flout tradition and integrity both. Lying with a savage. Your parents, if they lived, would be ashamed of you.”
At this your face changed. You sneered, baring your teeth in the process. The angry red slash across your nose was like a tiger’s stripe. “My parents,” you said, “would be happy we married for love, the way they did. You’d do well to remember that Burqila Alshara was my mother’s dearest friend. Did you not know your own sister-in-law, Uncle?”
He huffed. “We did,” he said. “And we know how concerned she’d be for your safety. Very well. If you want to sully your bed with a savage, you may. But it must face the consequences of its actions. A man is dead, torn apart; ink flows where blood should be. Do not think to proceed free from judgment because it is now an Imperial.”
Oh.
So long as it was not death. I could do anything, so long as it was not death. My thoughts turned to my horse. What would I do if they killed Alsha? That, too, was unthinkable for me. I’ve been riding her since my mother strapped me into the saddle when I was three. She was my horse, my Earth-Mare, given to me by the Grandfather himself.
So long as it was not death. So long as they did not kill my horse, or kill me, I told myself, I could face anything with my head held high. I was your wife. Somehow we were married and you had not lost your throne.
What was the worst your fool uncle could do?
“For the crime of killing Nozawa Kagemori, for perpetrating the massacre at Imakane Village, for the corruption of its blood and the danger it represents, we sentence the prisoner to exile. It is to leave our kingdom at once.”
Laughter. I whirled, snarling, trying to see who would dare laugh at me in such a moment. Only the demons. All the humans in the room covered their mouths in shock.
And there was you. Your jaw hung open, your eyes slick with unshed tears.
“You … you can’t,” you said to your uncle, your fire leaving you.
“We can,” he said. “Because she is of our blood, we must provide a condition for her return. But we may exile her, and we have decided that is the most just course of action.”
Exile.
True exile.
Already I could not speak to my own clan, already I was doomed to wander as a lone Qorin if I returned to the steppes. But if I could not stay in Hokkaro with you, what did I have?
I’d taken a spear to the chest. I clung to you with shaking hands. I had to leave immediately, he said, I could not spend the night with you, I could not worship you as you’d dreamed.
Shaking.
A life without you, without being able to hold you in my arms. A life waking to the rising sun; a pale imitation of you. An empty bed, a hollow in my chest. Silence where your laughter should be; cold where you once kept me warm.
Life without you.
It was happening so fast, Shizuka, I could not wrap my mind around it, I could not process it all. I’d had you. For one glorious hour, you were my wife, and everyone knew, and nothing could hurt us, but …
I wish he would’ve just killed me instead.
“Uncle,” you said, “she was protecting me. The man she killed was a demon—”
“We have heard you say this,” the Emperor said, “and it does not change our mind. The prisoner is exiled, until the day it returns with a phoenix feather. That is our condition. Men, take it away.”
Guards took me by the shoulders. Two, three, four, all pulling me back.
You reached for me. Your small hands took fistfuls of my robes. Tears streaked down your face, contorted in agony. “Shefali!”
“Shizuka!”
Fight? Should I fight against them? I could kill them, all of them, I could scoop you up in my arms and we could run away together and …
And you’d give up everything you ever knew. Your throne, Hokkaro, the lavish life you’ve grown so accustomed to.
Oh, Shizuka, my light, my sun, my wife! How it pained me in that moment, as we pulled farther and farther away. You kept reaching for me. You screamed at the top of your lungs for the guards to stop, but they would not listen, they did not care.
“Shefali!” you shouted. “Shefali, we have to be together again!”
“I’ll find the feather!” I promised. What other choice did I have? Oh, no one had seen a live phoenix in a hundred years, but I’d find one. If it meant getting back to you, I’d track down the gods themselves. “Wait for me, Shizuka, and we’ll be two pine needles! I love you—!”
Just as the doors shut, I saw you fall.
“Until the stars go out,” you said, “I’ll love you!”
That was the last I saw of you.
* * *
THE RE
ST OF it floats in a haze. Guards took me to my rooms and allowed me to gather my things. I took one of your robes and claimed it was mine just so I’d have something of yours to keep. They took me to the stables, set me on my horse, and began the ride.
Three months I rode with them. For three months, I said not a word. Everything I did had to be supervised. Making water? One of them stood next to me and watched. When they ate, they insisted I did, too; when I refused, they forced open my mouth and made me swallow. My nighttime rides became a thing of memory. One of them was always awake, always watching.
I wept, Shizuka. I wept for you every night. So what if I’d lost an eye? An eye is not an essential thing. I was born with two; I can live with one.
But a person can have only one soul, and you are mine. Without you near me …
I cannot put words to the pain. To the emptiness, to the longing. For every time I thought of my missing eye, I thought of you ten times. Your quiet snoring, the sound of you sucking your thumb and the small wet spot by your mouth. Whenever the guards decided on a campsite for the evening, I thought I heard you puffing.
“No, you fool Qorin,” I imagined you saying. “We cannot camp here. Our tent would be in direct sunlight. Do you intend to bake us?”
The guards never spoke. They never complained about the tent or the bedroll or being out in the wilderness or the rain. They never encouraged me to hunt. (Indeed, they carried my bow in its case the whole way to the border.)
Every day it was the same: Rise. Mount. Ride until they told me to stop. Sit in my tent at night, unable to rest. Rise. Mount. Ride.
It was a cruel mockery of the Qorin way of life. Without hunting, without the occasional feast, without kumaq, the monotony of it all set in.
And it never rained on the steppes. That was another thing. You will be happy to know it does not rain very much in Sur-Shar either, and whenever it does, everyone acts as if the Daughter’s own tears are falling from the sky.
Yes, it was only three months by the main roads from Xian-Lai to the southeastern border at Tatsuoka. This being so far south that it was wet and rainy and hot all the time, the Wall of Stone did not impede our progress. No. When we reached the border village, it looked like any other.
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