by Devin Madson
I risked a sidelong look at Minister Manshin, catching a frown that made deep ridges of his brow.
“Are we ready?” I said.
Manshin heaved a sigh. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“If you cannot agree with this plan on its military merits, at least be grateful for the opportunity to save your daughter.” I touched the pouch in my sash where I had stowed Sichi’s letter. “If we sit here and let the Chiltaens win, she will either die or be taken prisoner. You cannot want that.”
“It matters little as she’s no longer a daughter of mine.”
I turned at the bite in his words, so angry and dismissive. “Because she was forced or manipulated into this position? It is hardly fair to disown her for that.”
“If I am not to tell you how to lead this army, I would ask you not to tell me how to feel about my daughter marrying a barbarian.”
Rather than face censure for his lack of respect, he turned to address the army at our backs, calling to the generals, who called to their commanders and their captains until the preparations were a storm with us its eye. There was no turning back now.
“For Kogahaera!” I cried as the shifting mass of my army reached a restless peak. “For Kisia! Let’s make them regret the day they stepped across our border!”
I kicked my heels to my horse’s sides, and on a tide of thundering hooves and shouts, we surged toward the Chiltaen army hastily regrouping to meet us. The wild exhilaration of riding at the head of an army toward an unknown fate filled me with the sense I was flying. Or falling. The destination a painful inevitability I could not draw back from, could only face with all I had.
It was the battle of Risian over again, the distance everything and nothing in a blink as we crashed into their front lines. A handful of Ryoji’s guards charged in beside me, one tumbling at the piercing tip of a Chiltaen spear. Hooves and metal and mud and short cut-off screams and we were through their first line of soldiers, our horses knocking them down and trampling them into the ground.
There was no time to think, only to react, to lay about me with my sword and be grateful for the guards ever at my side. A blade sliced at my leg and an arrow ripped by, the guard on my right plunging the tip of a spear into a Chiltaen’s neck. Their armour was the green and blue of an army half merchant owned, half commanded by the Nine, both splattered with mud and blood.
We had not planned to punch all the way through their lines on the first charge, yet Chiltaens fled my horse’s hooves and I was soon well into their army, ranks closing behind me. My handful of guards clustered close, pressed on all sides by Chiltaen soldiers drawn to my banner. I could retreat to the safety of my army or press on to the Kisian banners ahead.
It was the decision of a moment, no time to fear, only to ride, forging a path onward through enemies as I would have to do off the battlefield every day if I wanted to succeed. With gritted teeth, I appreciated the living metaphor as I urged my horse on. Through slashing blades and screaming men. Through crowding bodies and blood. Panic and hate.
One of my guards fell, but I could not stop. Kisian banners were close. Hot blood the same crimson colour sprayed as I slashed at the enemies closing in, nothing skilled in my desperation. The tip of a spear grazed my horse’s neck and plunged on into one of my guard’s legs. He cried out, jabbing at the soldier even as someone else tore through him in a spray of blood. The Chiltaen dropped, and there in a cluster of Kisian soldiers was Edo. Edo I had never thought to see again, standing in full armour like the soldier he’d never wanted to be.
“We’ve cleared a path for you, Your Majesty,” he said, and it was a stranger who spoke, a stranger with the face of a friend I’d known all my life.
There was no time to speak to him, not even to thank him, only to push on with my guards and feel foolish that I’d needed rescuing.
With Edo’s soldiers all around, it was easy to ride the rest of the way, though I rode through ranks of unknown Kisians loyal to the Bahains, unsure of their hate. The broken walls of the governor’s manor drew close, and with my remaining guards, I rode in through the shattered remains of its gates.
Within the walls, Levanti and Kisians fought side by side amid the wreckage, scattered stones and splinters of wood, bodies and limbs and blood strewn across the ground. I turned a circle with my horse, looking at the ruins of the manor and the fallen tower, and at the knots of injured people gathered in the safest corners of the yard.
“Your Majesty.” Edo had followed me and I turned, fearing to look at him and yet wanting to with the same fervour. I had wanted so much to see him again, to know he was safe, but under better circumstances.
“Lord Edo. I—”
“We are grateful for your arrival, but these are my soldiers. Do you agree to leave this battle to me, or will we have to put you under guard?”
The authority with which he spoke sent a delighted shiver through me even as I bristled. Where had this Edo been all my life?
“I have no intention of overthrowing your command, Lord Edo,” I said. “But I feel that you and I need to talk.”
“We do, but Empress Sichi needs to speak to you first. Will you go to her?”
“Of course. Where is she?”
Edo gestured toward the southern tower, a great gaping hole in its side. Dismounting, I left my horse and my injured guards behind, and walked with him over the rubble. He said nothing as we hurried along, Edo at a pace that had me jogging to keep up. Had Sichi taken refuge in the tower? Was she all right? I had so many questions I could not ask for lack of time and breath and courage.
The entryway to the tower was dim and dusty, and I paused on the threshold while my eyes adjusted to the low light. Footsteps were tramping heavily on the stairs, and two Levanti appeared, a body held between them. Another Levanti, her face covered in blood, her body limp.
The two Levanti nodded to Edo as they passed in a respectful way, and he nodded back, his gaze catching to the woman they carried until they disappeared through the door. More questions were added to my mental list, questions I couldn’t ask as Edo hurried for the stairs.
After the first few flights, the tower seemed to be nothing but steps, even the raging sounds of battle fading away beneath the ragged drawing of my breath. I wanted to rest, but Edo did not stop, and I hurried after him, my legs on fire.
At last he slowed, glancing back, a grimace all the gratitude I got for having followed as we emerged into the dusty remains of a sitting room. Sichi knelt at the table like one inviting me to join her for tea, but the strangeness of it was nothing to the unexpected surge of emotion at seeing her again. We had been different people the last time we met.
“I often think of that morning in the bathhouse,” I said, my first words breathless and unplanned. “Did you know then? About the Levanti and the Chiltaens? Is that why you asked what I knew?”
Sichi didn’t flinch at the attack, merely gestured to the opposite side of the table and said, “I knew some. Nothing of the Chiltaen plans, but I was aware of my uncle’s alliance with Gideon and his intention to overthrow Emperor Kin.”
“You could have told me.”
“And risked my own execution and the destruction of my family for treason? Or to endure many more years pretending I would be allowed to marry Tanaka? You should know better, Koko. When a woman is given the opportunity for power and freedom, she would be unwise to let it go by, no matter the cost.”
“I was fighting for Kisia.”
“So was I. It was just a different Kisia.”
Edo shifted by the stairs. “I must get back,” he said. A bow, a murmuring of “Majesty,” and his footsteps were fading away on the stairs, leaving Sichi and me facing one another under the watchful eye of a young Levanti woman. She hadn’t moved since I’d arrived, her statuesque presence in the corner of the room intimidating. Like Tor, she had the long hair of one who hadn’t been initiated into their warrior herd, and I wondered if, like Tor, she could understand every word I said.
�
��You don’t have to worry about Nuru unless you plan to hurt me,” Sichi said.
“I would only do so if you plan to hurt me.”
Sichi smiled. “Then I think you can safely join us. There is something I want to ask you.”
Her plea for help had brought me here, yet I moved warily toward the table. It was more difficult to kneel gracefully in armour stiffened with dried mud and blood, and across from her I felt like an animal rather than an empress. She had all her old grace and poise, but she was not the same Sichi. She had hardened.
“What is it you wish to ask?” I said, settling my hands in my lap.
“Whether I ought to take my own life.”
I’d not known what to expect, but the question, so blunt as it was, shocked a small gasp from me. Unfazed, Sichi said, “My father is your minister of the left, I understand. What you may not understand is that he’s not a forgiving man. My grandfather was one of the traitor generals who chose to fight for your father—”
I flinched at the open admission of my true father’s existence, despite our privacy.
“—He made what my father always called reckless decisions, designed to embarrass our family name. He often said the only reason I was kept at court, why he was always under such scrutiny, was because my grandfather had left people unable to trust the name of Manshin. You may imagine how amused I was to learn he had done the very same thing in choosing to support you against Grace Bachita. I wonder if he realised, in that moment, he had become the very thing he had been fighting against.”
I could have answered, could have told her I feared her father’s disintegrating loyalty, but it was a weakness I wouldn’t give anyone to use against me. So I merely lifted my brows and waited for her to go on.
“Personally, I doubt it,” she said with a shrug. “But whatever he can reason through accepting in himself, he will not extend me the same courtesy.”
It matters little as she’s no longer a daughter of mine.
“Your silence is all the confirmation I need. He will shame me. He will force me into another marriage. He will not allow me any autonomy.”
The first emotion pierced the ice of her demeanour—sharp, raw panic. It was there and gone in a fleeting twist of her mouth. Outside, the distant sound of the world changing on a tide of blood went on.
I reached across the table, only to pull my hand back and return it to my lap. “He may be my minister, but I am the empress and I promise you amnesty. There will be no repercussions from your choices, and you may remain with me or make your home wherever you choose.”
“By myself? Or with Nuru perhaps? With my own position and money and no need of a husband to wipe clean my sins with marriage.” Her look was pitying. “Men do not let women attain such dreams of freedom. Especially not my father.”
“But I am the empress, not your father,” I said, knowing too well how close I stood upon the brink of an untruth. Taking his daughter’s side would only push him further away, but more than any other choice I’d made, the one before me was the difference between the easy path and the right path. I could give Minister Manshin his daughter, could win back some of his loyalty, or I could fight for her as I had always wanted someone to fight for me.
It was the easiest decision I had ever made.
“I give you my word,” I said. “Your father may fight me over it, but I will take you under my protection, not his. Please, don’t let him, or any other man, win. We could achieve so much together.”
I hated to pressure her, to tell her how to feel and what to do, but I could not bear the thought she would give up her life for nothing. I told myself Kisia needed her. But in truth, I needed her. I needed not to be alone anymore.
Although the Levanti behind her made no move, she seemed wholly connected to Sichi in the silence that followed, each aware of nothing but the other’s existence. Without looking at one another, they nevertheless seemed to come to an unspoken agreement. Sichi nodded. Not a happy movement, not even a determined one, more the offhand sort of nod one would carelessly give a servant bringing tea. She was with me. For now. It was the best I could ask for.
While we had been sitting in the still, quiet tower room, the battle had continued outside, changing in tone as it ebbed and flowed around us. Now the sounds of panicked shouting caught my attention and I jumped up, hurrying to the small window. The courtyard was a mess of Levanti, Kisians, and Chiltaens, inside as well as outside the walls, but where my army had been the aggressor crushing the Chiltaens into the compound, there was now another bulk of Chiltaens behind us.
I stared, my heart seeming not even to beat for the time it took me to realise what had happened. They must have known we were coming, have split their force and left half to lie in wait.
The rear of my army was turning to face them as the first half of the Chiltaens had turned to face us, the lines all chaos, and my heart sped, kicking up thunder like the charging Chiltaens. My head swam, and the floor seemed to shift and toss.
“Shit,” Sichi said, appearing beside me, and it was a moment before I realised I was laughing. Whether at the sound of so coarse a word on her lips or at the vast understatement it was, I wasn’t sure.
I had no words of my own, but before I even thought to run, I was on the stairs, clattering down wood and stone and out into the weak daylight. Sounds crashed over me. Everywhere the press and movement of soldiers. Wounded propped the crumbling walls and the dead lay staring, trampled into the mud, the glory of battle nowhere to be seen.
Edo was there, shouting to his soldiers.
“Back on the walls!” he called as I joined him. “Quickly! Take out the front lines!”
His archers ran for the stairs, needing no second order. Some Levanti followed, one of them relaying orders. I stood, unsure what to do or say while everything moved around me. I had left my generals behind, and now I was trapped far from where I needed to be. Would they worry I was dead? Or think me hiding?
“Run and tell Oshar their horses would do better up front,” Edo went on, a glance all he’d thrown me as he went on shouting, every bit the commander. “The rest of you, push forward. Let’s get rid of the Chiltaens in here so Empress Miko’s men can focus on the Chiltaens out there. Form up your lines. Stay together.”
Shouts of “Yes, Your Grace” jumped around, and his soldiers hurried off.
He grimaced, nothing left of the pretty Edo I had admired as one admires a portrait. Here stood a man forced to become something he had never wanted to be, only to find he was good at it. A twist of envy choked all thought of compliment. My soldiers were loyal to their generals, not to me, and Minister Manshin or General Moto had commanded every battle we had fought. My presence had always been as nothing but a figurehead. Edo had become so much more in so short a time.
“I need to get back to my men,” I said, able to think of nothing else to say.
“The remaining Chiltaens on this side have clumped up around the gate,” he returned. “Getting through is not going to be easy. You’re safe here.”
“I don’t want to be safe, I want to be leading my soldiers. Emperor Kin would not have hidden.”
“Emperor Kin would probably have left us to our fate.” They were bitter words, built on his father’s anger at being left to defend Syan alone. “You don’t have to be the same ruler to be a good one.”
Not only did he have more respect from his soldiers, he was being wiser too. Stupid to be angry at him, but knowing Minister Manshin didn’t need me out there was not helping. If we made it through this, it would be off the back of his skill as a commander, not mine.
Edo watched me warily. He looked like a man who had other places he needed to be, and I had never felt more like a burden while needing nothing.
I could run into the battle with his soldiers, but I would just be a target, and if I died, who would take over? Manshin? Leaving Sichi doubly alone and in danger and the empire in the hands of someone who would kill every Levanti if he could. I’d ignored all my adviso
rs’ continued insistence to be safe since escaping Mei’lian, but standing there on the brink of drawing my sword, I considered what would be lost if I died. Tanaka and I had dreamed of a different empire. A fairer empire. An empire no longer built on the hate of our ancestors. If I let it fall into the hands of my army, there was no saying what would emerge the other side.
I needed to survive.
Edo made to turn away about his tasks as shouts began cascading from atop the wall. An archer pointed toward the approaching army, and unable to tell whether the news was good or bad, I sprinted for the stairs. Edo followed, bounding behind me. Atop the nearest section of wall, I pushed to the front and, hands on the parapet, stared out at the battlefield.
Where the Chiltaens had charged in to pin my army as we had pinned theirs, a Levanti army now stood. Three long lines of riders charged toward the recently arrived Chiltaens, and my heart soared. I knew not whether it was Ezma or Rah who led them, but it didn’t matter. They had remained our allies and they had come.
“Yes!” I cried, lifting my fists into the air.
“Friends of yours?” Edo said, a little breathless beside me. Wary whispers spread through his archers. Farther along the wall, even Edo’s Levanti weren’t cheering.
“My Levanti allies,” I said. “Is that so surprising when you have your own?”
His smile was strained. “At least we might get out of this alive.”
Shouting an order to his men on the walls, Edo strode back down the stairs, surcoat billowing. I followed, hating the feeling I was a dog at his heels. “Push through!” he shouted to the soldiers near the gate. “Let’s get out there!”
He didn’t look back as he ran, throwing orders left and right while I remained, just me and my small knot of guards with nothing to do but watch on as other people fought my battle. I let him go and held my ground, reminding myself of all I needed to stand for, all I needed to survive for.
I helped where I could, aiding the wounded and hunting supplies, and for the first time I didn’t escape from my guards but kept them with me, watching for danger. Edo’s soldiers were respectful but wary, and though it broke my heart, I hadn’t time to trouble myself with its implications, only to help.