by Zoe Marriott
What? What was I going to say? How would that conversation unfold – how could it end in anything but heartbreak and disaster? I had woven myself into a tangle that my fingers did not have the ability to unpick. Yang Jie wanted to know me, the real me – and that was impossibly dangerous. Too frightening even to contemplate. Because even if, through some wild fortune, Yang Jie accepted me, understood what I had done…
How could the two of us ever hope to be together?
This world would not accept either of us. It would tear us apart from each other, and then from ourselves. We would both be destroyed.
And so each night, I didn’t go to the dice game. I didn’t go to the evening meal, or turn up to keep a friend company at their sentry fire … or help Yang Jie with the horses.
With shocking abruptness, and entirely through my own actions, I was alone.
When, early one morning, the battalion passed through the forested foothills of the Blue Heron Mountains, where the leaves were just starting to take on rich tinges of gold, and tiny white-and-grey snub-nosed monkeys cavorted high among shreds of mist in the bright treetops, Yang Jie was the one I longed to turn to in wonder. The one with whom I wished to share a look and a smile, so that the memory of this would be impressed on my mind for ever. It would be more beautiful reflected in his eyes.
But Yang Jie was nearly half a mile back with the other troops, still helping our overloaded wagons to rumble and splash their way across the wide, icy froth of the Gold Dust River. I hadn’t seen him, hadn’t even glimpsed the back of his head in passing, in nearly a week.
So the one beside me that morning was General Wu.
His eyes met mine, gleaming with pleasure, and the dimple flashed in his bearded cheek. It was an uncomplicated moment of kinship – shared appreciation of our beautiful country.
I couldn’t smile back. My mask did, but it was a pale effort. I reined Yulong in, turned my face down as if to check the ground, and pretended I didn’t see the smile die on Wu Jiang’s face.
He wasn’t the one I wanted. He wasn’t my friend. And he couldn’t ever be.
The weight of my self-imposed exile from family and friends, the burden of my new identity – for I could no longer bear to call it a “deception”, even in my own head – bore down on me then as never before. I began to suffer with the worst bouts of homesickness I had experienced for weeks. Great waves of churning, all-encompassing need to return to where I was known and loved left me queasy and almost shaking in their wake.
I wanted my own things around me, my loom, my books, my bed. I wanted the smell of my mother’s rose-water perfume, so familiar that I hadn’t even noticed it until its ever-present comfort wasn’t there any more. I wanted the walls I had grown up within, the sounds of the servants’ footsteps and the click of distant screens rolling open and shut, my siblings’ voices raised in the distance with laughter, my father’s gentle rumbling voice, too.
But I discovered a curious thing. When I imagined myself back there among my family, I did not see myself as I had been. The vision was of me now.
Hair free of ornaments, face bare of cosmetics, dressed not in layers of flowing silk but in my boots and army uniform. I did not see myself sitting quietly with my mother as she sewed, gently brushing my sister’s hair, or secretly training with my father – even though those were all things that I had loved, that I still missed.
I saw myself striding through the halls without care for dainty, ladylike steps, laughing without reserve, riding home at the end of a day’s hunting, flushed and overloud and cocky about my kill, as I had seen the sons of other families act.
I saw Zhi. A boy whose skills at combat and horsemanship were proudly acknowledged by my father. A boy whose banner-breaking was a source of public celebration and joy, not a guilty secret. A boy whose mother, having provided her husband with a healthy heir on the first try, had never looked upon him with puzzlement, confusion, or guilty disappointment. A boy whose mother had never sought to end her own life right in front of him.
I was sick for something – a place in the world, a role within my family – that was not mine to inhabit. That, apart from this moment, could never be mine. Not to keep.
My original goal had been to serve the empire in my father’s place without being discovered, and then return neatly to the life and the person I had been before, just as if none of this had ever happened. It was what I must do. And I would do it, because there was nothing else, no other option, no second choice to be made.
I dreamed of Zhi, loved and accepted just as he was.
But it was only a dream.
Sixteen
fter eighteen days of hard travel, one of our rear scouts returned from his duties with the news that he had spotted fires – a lot of fires – burning in the same foothills of the Blue Heron Mountains, which we had left behind us three days ago.
With a curse, Wu Jiang snatched up his spyglass and went to look for himself. On a tall ridge that sat just above the treeline, I crouched down beside him. Captain Sigong and one of the Young General’s bodyguard-outriders, who he had on this occasion failed to scrape off, were on my other side.
Wu Jiang cursed again, even more fiercely, after a long look through the glass. When he passed it to me, I saw why. The scout had been right. Those were no ghostly blue forest spirits, nor the torches of some trader’s caravan in the distance. Campfires. Over a hundred at my count, on the other side of the Gold Dust River. It was a sizable force. Maybe larger than our own.
I passed the leather-wrapped glass to Sigong. He pursed his lips thoughtfully in the twilight as he squinted through it. “Reinforcements from the emperor?”
I sensed more than saw the general shake his head. “My letter can only just have reached her, even on the empire’s fastest horse. It’s the rebels. We’re going to have to divert through the Stone Forest.”
Sigong made an unhappy grumbling noise. “The men won’t like that. Most of them are convinced it’s haunted or cursed, or both.”
“They’ll like facing down a thousand or more of the Leopard’s worst considerably less,” the general retorted dryly. “It’ll buy us at least an extra day’s lead. Give the order, Captain.”
Directly after dawn the following day, we diverted from our original route and, with fifty men following on foot to obscure as many traces of our passing as they could, headed into the strange landscape known as the Stone Forest – or, to the more superstitious, the Graveyard of the Lost.
The shifting stone shards underfoot made the passing of so many men and horses sound like fine plates shattering – or bones crunching – with every step. The wagons rocked and lurched over the ground, their contents at times threatening to spill over the sides. At several points, everyone on horseback was forced to dismount and lead their horses, as the way was too treacherous. But apart from the noise of our progress, the gulley was almost eerily silent.
A wide, deep gorge that descended sharply from the level of the grassland that preceded it, the Stone Forest appeared alien and discordant to the eye. The “forest” itself was composed of jagged spires of grey stone – hundreds upon hundreds of them – that arrowed up from the uneven shale floor to points at least fifty or more feet overhead. But it was impossible to say how high they went for certain. The tops of the spires were wreathed in thick mist that closed out the sky, making for a muffling, claustrophobic roof.
The walls of the gulley and the spires had strange bulges, hollows, twists. As we passed them, the formations often seemed to shift, suggesting faces – one moment laughing, the next sneering – or mythical creatures, savage and poised to leap. As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, every now and again great carrion birds would drift silently overhead, dark wings casting shadows through the clouds of mist.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Sigong making a sign that I had often watched our cook at home perform – warding off bad spirits with a triple-flicking of the fingers – and found I didn’t blame him in the least.
/> There were myths about this place: that the stone spires were the grave markers of women who had died unmourned, discarded by their husbands, abandoned by their children. It was said their spirits still dwelled restlessly within the rocks, and at night they would be drawn to the living warmth of travellers, and might seek to lie down with them in their bedrolls to console the endless chill of death…
Even Wu Jiang seemed a little quieter than was usual. He didn’t give himself away with any of the twitching or muttering or anxious looks of the other men, but his horse – a golden palomino today, with tail and mane like spun silver – betrayed its rider’s tension. It snorted, jumped at shadows, shook its head restlessly … even reared once. The sudden sharp whinny brought my head around in time to get a perfect view as the violent movement of the stallion nearly unhorsed the general.
He clung on grimly, wrestling the animal back on to its front hooves with a display of horsemanship that brought on a helpless surge of admiration in my breast. Ancestors, he’s strong…
Yulong flicked one glossy ear and stood as still as the stone spires next to him until the palomino had been brought under its rider’s control. I had drawn him to a halt and backed him quickly into a narrow space between two spires when I saw what was happening – I wanted us well out of range of the other stallion’s lashing front hooves. Sigong had halted behind us, too, but seeing after a moment that all was well with his commander, nodded to me and signalled to the column of men behind him to carry on, giving Wu Jiang a little space and time to fully calm his mount. And himself.
The men adjusted their course and streamed around us quickly, leaving us alone for a moment.
Taking advantage of the privacy, Wu Jiang threw back his head for a deep gulp of the dank air. Sweat shone on his face, emphasising its strong, masculine lines and making his bronzed skin gleam. I averted my eyes, and saw that the two bodyguard-outriders were making their way back towards us – too late to be of any use. Again. The Young General waved them off brusquely. Then, as if reading my mind, he turned dark, piercing eyes on me.
“Your horsemanship is impressive.” He was faintly winded – and faintly annoyed, if I was any judge.
“Mine?” I cleared my throat when my voice squeaked on the word. I wasn’t flustered, oh no – it was … it was that stupid tincture. That was it. “Ah – no, sir, it is Yulong’s training which is truly excellent. He is my father’s favourite mount.” Warmed by a sudden happy memory, I smiled, and didn’t prevent it from showing on my mask. “My mother always says Father must have been a stallion himself in a former life, he understands them so well.”
“‘The best trained mount can only be as good as his rider,’” Wu Jiang quoted good-naturedly. “Which means my current difficulties are a reflection on me, not poor Eagle, here.” He leaned down to pat his horse’s neck, and my smile broadened.
Then some instinct prickled the back of my neck. I turned my head to see Yang Jie, framed between two rock spires a little way ahead of us. His face, as he took in this tableau – my smile, the Young General’s smile – was stricken.
I felt my own expression turn instantly to one of helpless guilt. I opened my mouth, though I don’t know if I would have had the courage to call out. But before I could make a sound, all the emotion drained from Yang Jie’s eyes, leaving him white and expressionless. He turned away, stooping to pick up a fallen pack – probably why he had returned – and departed at a run. He didn’t look back.
I became conscious, after what felt like a small eternity, that the Young General was looking at me, still waiting for an answer.
“Surely not, sir,” I said dully.
General Wu frowned at me. Then he snorted through his nostrils, rather like a horse himself, and shook his head.
That night, as we huddled down in various miserable poses along the damp gulley wall, none of us as close to our campfires as we really wished to be, I was man enough to admit to myself that I was grateful for the reassuring bulk of the Young General looming between me and the sinister shadows of the Stone Forest. If any cold, desolate spirits were looking for the consolation of human warmth in the dark, he’d be a more tempting target than I.
I expected to stay awake late into that night, worrying and missing Yang Jie and feeling sorry for myself. But riding on such treacherous terrain all day long seemed to have left me more tired than was usual. I could feel my eyes drooping even as I shifted on to my side, searching for a more comfortable position on the uneven ground.
General Wu’s horse, hobbled near by, stomped his hoof – once, twice. Yulong, who stood nose to nose with him, whickered softly as if in reassurance. The other horse quieted.
When I woke, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. With the mist blocking any sight of stars – or the dawn, if it was coming – all I could see was that it was still as dark as ink in the gulley. But I knew instantly what had woken me. The wind had risen. It was whistling – no, singing, singing around the tops of the stone spires. Playing over the unusual formations in the rock. The resulting noise was like nothing I’d ever heard before, seeming both low and high at once, almost like … like a chorus of voices. Human voices.
It was beautiful. It was chilling. The humming notes blended together into a peculiar, haunting music that made the Stone Forest itself vibrate. The more I listened, the more the wind rose, the colder I felt. All around me, small campfires, which had been burning merrily away in the darkness, were beginning to dim and sink down. The increasing wind should have whipped them up. Instead it seemed to suck the air away from them – and from me – as the darkness grew deeper.
Nonsense, I told myself fiercely. It’s just the wind, just these odd rocks. That’s all. Don’t let your imagination run away with you.
But the men were stirring restlessly in their sleep. One of General Wu’s bodyguards thrashed in his bedroll, and as he turned over I saw his face in the light of our dying fire. It was twisted, still sleeping, into a rictus of horror or despair. Near by, someone let out a wavering moan, nearly drowned by the eerie moaning of the wind.
The walls of the gulley were shaking now. I could hear … I could hear the voices in the wind. I could hear them. They cried out for help, for release – tormented by the most terrible grief and pain – and their music rumbled through the ground and through my bones, louder and louder. The campfires were nearly out now. I lay frozen, gripped by fear, the same fear that had held me still on a night long ago when I heard assassins creep into my father’s house, the same fear which had paralysed me for that vital moment when I saw Lu standing over General Wu with blood on his hand. Only this time I couldn’t break free. I couldn’t move.
One voice rose above the others. A voice as familiar to me as my own. More familiar. One I had listened to before I even had a voice: my mother’s.
She was screaming.
Screaming … for me.
The edges of reality cracked. The cold and the dark were eating through me, damaging me, like a hard frost turns soft fruit black. This was going to drive me out of my mind, I realized dimly. This would kill me. Every man in the gulley would be dead before morning.
Yang Jie is in this gulley.
With a kind of wrenching, ripping effort that made me cry out in pain – I broke free.
I was crouching in the tangle of my damp bedroll, staring into our substantial campfire, which had died down a little, but was by no means near to going out. The other campfires flickered and danced: pockets of light in the darkness around me. The men lay still and peaceful in their places. There was no singing. No wind. No ghosts.
On the other side of the campfire, someone let out a choked gasp. Furs and blankets flew back as they clawed their way out of their bed and on to their knees, panting harshly. It was General Wu.
His face, even bathed in the rosy glow from the fire, was set and white. I opened my mouth – but the look in his eyes, half savage, half lost, stilled my tongue. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to ask what had woken him. I knew
.
I knew.
Instead, after a moment, he was the one to speak. His voice was almost a growl. “Who? Who did you hear?”
I swallowed. “My mother.”
He closed his eyes, nodded wearily. “Me, too.”
Swiftly, he turned away and lay down again, pulling one of the heavy, fur-lined blankets up over his shoulder so that his profile was hidden.
Little by little, my marrow aching like that of an old man, I shuffled back into my own bedroll. The mist that had hung above the Stone Forest all day and all night was beginning to break up, and stars were winking gently overhead. I lay stiff and unmoving among my blankets for some time, listening to the unrestful quiet of the dark, before I remembered something. Something I should have remembered before.
Wu Jiang’s mother had been murdered when he was a little boy.
The Young General had just heard his dead mother’s voice for the first time in over a decade, and she … she had been screaming in agony. I felt a warm tear track down my cheek and scrubbed it away impatiently. He wouldn’t thank me for my pity.
It was a long time before I was able to sleep again that night.
Seventeen
ven by Wu Jiang’s standards, he pushed us hard the next day. Before mid-afternoon we had reached the steep and treacherous rock slope that led upwards out of the gulley into the warm, green-gold light of the bamboo forest beyond.
It took a good three hours to push and drag all the men, horses and wagons up that horrid slope, but the relief of being out of the Stone Forest, away from the waiting silence and the steadily thickening cover of mist, was euphoric enough to make everyone count the sweat, sore muscles and bruises well worth it. All around me, I saw the men turn their faces up to the sun, breathe in the earthy forest smell, and smile.