“Your ideas are interesting,” Perr said, “and not without potential. But any danger from the continent is years away, perhaps even decades. Daughter, the political landscape is too delicate. Your Mother and I deny your request for intervention.”
Kara sensed the futility from the moment she entered her father’s elaborate office, but she pivoted to her mother for one last shot.
“Please, Honorable Mother. You often said how Chi-Qua and I were a shining example of true friendship. When I was thirteen, you confessed to never having a close friend as a child. You said it was your greatest regret. Please, Honorable Mother.”
“Everyone has regrets.” She waved off Kara. “Childhood is over. You have begun your initial training at Nantou, and your career proper will launch within the year. The Baeks’ disgrace is no longer our concern.”
“This is your final word?”
The parents spoke in unison. “It is.”
“Fine.”
Of course, it was anything but. Kara had a final play, the worst option but also the only. She knew they’d never trust her again, but they’d have to concede. The real question was whether they’d bring Lang to account. Her plan worked if they valued secrecy over confrontation. Kara rose from her chair and started to walk away. She wanted them to believe they beat her, even if for a few seconds.
She swung about.
“There was another matter,” she said. “Are you familiar with a synthetic drug called mahali?”
Their confusion showed. “No,” Perr replied. “Should we?”
“Probably not. It doesn’t impact people like us. Usually. It started on the continent a few years back. Nobody knows how. Mostly, it circulated in the worst parts of the cities. Now, it’s making the rounds on Pinchon. A few neighborhoods in Zozo and Umkau. They say it’s becoming popular among long-haul shipping crews.”
“I see. And what is the effect of taking mahali?”
“It brings on temporary blindness and deafness. Cuts you off from the world for maybe an hour, but your subconscious takes over. The users say it leads you to other worlds. Incredible journeys. And it’s highly addictive. Some have died.”
Perr sighed. “I see nothing addictive about that experience. Why do you mention this, Daughter?”
“I thought maybe you would be interested because Lang is the island’s biggest dealer in mahali.”
Their faces drained of color even as their rage exploded. They fired back at Kara with a level of disgust and denial she predicted.
“How dare you make this accusation against your Honored Brother,” Li-Ann said. “And after you come in here begging for our help with Chi-Qua Baek.”
“Is this your revenge?” Perr asked. “Bring shame upon your eldest brother? What madness has consumed you, Daughter?”
“Not madness, Honorable Father. A contact list of suppliers and clients. Smuggling schedules. Rendezvous points. I found them on Lang’s memglass then I copied them.”
“You stole your brother’s property?” Perr asked the question as if he didn’t hear most of what Kara said. “What has Lang ever done to you?”
“I’d go down the list if I thought it mattered. I didn’t intend to find out your heir was bringing shame to Syung-Low.” She reached inside a pocket and revealed a memglass. “This is a copy. I have two others. Would you like to see?”
Li-Ann rose. “How disgusting a child have you become? Whatever is on the memglass is a fraud. Did you genuinely believe we would fall for your mindless scheme?”
“What I hoped, Honorable Mother, is you would accept my plea for intervention. Had you done so, I would have destroyed the evidence.”
“Blackmail?” She pivoted to her husband. “This child is trying to blackmail her parents.”
“Not blackmail,” Kara said. “Compromise. Announce Syung-Low to be the accusers of Baek then intervene to bring Chi-Qua into our household. No one ever has to know about this, even Lang.”
“Sit,” Perr told Li-Ann. “Daughter, if this evidence does support your accusation, what will you do with it should we fail to compromise?”
“Nothing. For a time. But you’ll come to your senses. If another family had this information – especially if they were on the executive board of Hotai Counsel – they’d ruin us overnight. Others inside Nantou would fall by association. We’d be run out of The Lagos.”
They didn’t fight back this time. She saw reality sinking in. Pinchon was collapsing beneath them. Centuries of honor and privilege for Syung-Low hung by the flimsiest string.
“My brother is an idiot,” she said. “Even if I never discovered the truth, it was bound to ruin us someday. For what it’s worth, I didn’t find Dae’s name on the memglass. Lang might be working alone. But he and Dae have always been a tandem. Here.”
She placed the memglass on the corner of her father’s desk. He leaned back, as if it were poison. She turned toward the door and did not slow down for her parting remark:
“Please let me know when you’re ready to intervene.”
She closed the double doors behind her and prepared to vomit. Even if she succeeded in securing intervention, her parents were not going to stand for this shocking level of impertinence. Consequences were inevitable. Of all the emotions roiling Kara, none approached exultation. That she stood up to them at last, proved herself at least as influential in the family dynamic as her brothers, meant nothing. Kara acknowledged a ready truth: She was a Syung-Low through and through. Nothing was beneath her now.
Maybe it was always there, lying dormant inside this treacherous child of privilege. Maybe this was the true reason behind refinery: The Gentry knew themselves to be selfish, double-dealing bastards, so they deemed the occasional blood-letting an act of atonement. Pour all their shame into a few others to cleanse themselves of their collective guilt.
Dinner was, to Kara’s surprise, uneventful. Her parents seemed to have developed amnesia and carried on with the usual discussions of business, politics, and the social calendar.
Days passed.
Weeks followed in silence.
No consequences. No disdainful stares. No suspicious tones.
The winter solstice arrived, its only difference from summer being a slight declination of the sun’s west-to-east trajectory. Kara wondered what seasons were like.
She was sunbathing on the balcony outside her private suite when she heard a familiar voice inside.
“Miss Syung?”
Her pulse sharpened. It can’t be.
She threw off her sunglasses and raced inside.
Chi-Qua Motebe wore a humble yellow dress with a purple quovis flower pinned above her heart. Her hair was thin, a pixie cut. Her lipstick matched the flower. In her left hand, a suitcase.
None of these things mattered to Kara. She focused on the eyes. Dark, like the depths of the ocean, and yet empty. Despondent. Resentful. No joy whatsoever.
The eyes of a prisoner.
Kara spent months preparing, but she didn’t know where to begin. Their reunion was not as she imagined.
Chi-Qua set down the suitcase and clasped her arms over her chest.
“Hello, Miss Syung,” she said, as a servant might. “If you will show me to my room, we will discuss protocol.”
“Pro …? Wait, what? Chi-Qua. It’s me. It’s us. I can’t believe after sixteen months, we’re finally together again. I …”
“But we’re not. Are we? I am to be your personal assistant.”
“Yes. I … technically. But you’ll never be my servant. Don’t you see? This is how the Baek household will be restored. Please, Chi-Qua. Come sit with me outside. We have so much time to make up.”
“Perhaps later, Miss Syung. This day … it’s been long. I assume I’ll find appropriate clothing for household staff in my room?”
What have I done?
She took a step back and reset. Chi-Qua was right. They’d have time for chatter. Kara’s mother and father would be insistent on proper staff attire. Be patient. You don�
��t know what she’s been through.
Kara led Chi-Qua down the hall to the suite’s second largest bedroom, which was also equipped with ample office equipment.
Inside, Kara gasped when she saw an assortment of dresses and pantsuits in the house colors of red and white laid out upon the bed. Mother’s work, for certain.
“I’ll try them on,” Chi-Qua said with feather-soft tone. “I’m sure something will fit. Then I’ll unpack, and we can discuss protocol.”
“Certainly.” Kara backed toward the door. “Chi-Qua?”
“Yes, Miss Syung.”
“I’ve missed you. It … it will be good again. I promise.”
Chi-Qua nodded without smiling and stood silent with the suitcase in hand as Kara exited.
She was caught in a swirl of emotions returning to the master bedroom. Kara didn’t see Lang coming from the other direction until he was upon her. He wrapped her in a triumphant hug and offered a beatific smile.
“So, you pulled it off. She’s back. Congratulations, little sister.”
“How did you know that …?”
“Father told me yesterday. Said he was going to go public as the Baeks’ accuser. He wanted this to be a surprise. Very noble act, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Lang. Sometimes, Father rises above the others.”
Lang cut a laugh in half. “That’s one way to see it. At any rate, I hope you two are very happy. As friends, of course. Enjoy your time together.” He leaned in close and whispered. “One day, I am going to have Chi-Qua killed, and you will know why.”
He pulled away, his smile long gone. Lang did not stick around for a reaction.
Kara stumbled into her room, laid down on her bed, and cried.
3
Fallen of the Gentry
Standard Year 5361
W HEN KARA SYUNG WAS eight years old, she accepted her place as the lesser child beneath her brothers Lang and Dae. They were, according to Hokki tradition, the heirs most suited to build upon the family legacy. The first born must train in the same skills as the patriarch to ensure continuity. The second born must do the same to preserve stability in the event of tragedy but may otherwise pursue an independent career. Any other children are subject to a future at their parents’ discretion. Now twenty, Kara lost all patience with this ancient nonsense practiced by a handful of elites.
“The Freelanders have good ideas,” she told Chi-Qua Baek, her personal assistant and best friend. “They call it the Count of One. Each Hokki chooses a path true to instinct and passion, not genetics or tradition. And I see the look on your face, Chi. Every time I mention the Freelanders, you act as if I’m forcing you to drink sour milk.”
They were picnicking by the cliffs of Bongwoo Curl on the island’s east coast. It was Kara’s idea; she thought Chi-Qua needed a break. From time to time, her friend’s melancholy surfaced in the form of morning depression.
“Their ideas don’t bother me,” Chi-Qua said. “But your obsession with them might compromise your place in the household. Your parents say Freelanders are heretics. If they cast you out, Kara, what happens to me and my family?”
“How often do I have to convince you, Chi? They won’t dare touch me. Plus, I’ll be moving up in the pecking order.”
“Ah. And you’ve told Lang and Dae about this big move?”
“What? Warn them in advance? No. I want to see the look on their faces when I spring out of the closet.”
“Will I be there, too?”
“You’d never forgive me if I left you at home.”
The road to this moment, where Kara and Chi-Qua bantered like old friends rather than employer and personal assistant, came fraught with many bumps and ruts. Chi-Qua spent the first several weeks of indentured servitude resenting Kara’s selfish maneuver to restore their so-called friendship. She despised wearing the Syung staff uniform, even if it represented her family’s best shot at restoration into the Gentry. She resisted Kara’s impromptu gestures of kindness as mere manipulation. The gift-giving hurt most. It was condescending, she told Kara three months into her job.
“You remind me who has and who hasn’t,” she said.
That moment, the first where Chi-Qua spoke with blunt force, threw Kara off-balance but became a crucial turning point. Kara had forgotten the level of shame imparted on Chi-Qua when the Baek family was sacrificed during refinery. Objects, no matter their beauty, would never restore her best friend’s faith in a corrupt social order. Bribery was not now – nor had it ever been – the solution.
Kara decided what Chi-Qua needed most was a faithful ear and a trusting heart. If they listened to each other and spoke of their deepest feelings without fear of confidence lost, they might restore what refinery stole.
It didn’t happen overnight. Even now, almost two years after Chi-Qua entered Kara’s service, walls rose between them on rare occasions to create unexpected tension. Some sort of domestic event – usually involving Kara’s mother or eldest brother Lang – reminded Chi-Qua who held the leverage in this relationship. Kara sheltered her best friend in the private suite while at home and made a point to travel with Chi-Qua at her side.
The picnics became a weekly feature of their relationship. Though Kara took them to a wide variety of beautiful spots along the coast, Bongwoo Curl was their favorite. The cliffs fronted a crescent-shaped bay where the water ran deep, and the waves crashed against vicious boulders. Along the face, thousands of seabirds nested in protected cavities. Flocks swirled the bay and dive-bombed into schools of bite-size fish. The red-crested sea swans showed no fear of humans, landing near picnickers and lingering for leftovers. Today, the Kye-Do rings neared their zenith as talk of Kara’s ambition continued.
“It’s one thing to speak of passion,” Chi-Qua said. “It’s another to run up headlong against your brothers. They’ve changed, Kara.”
“Yes. They expected to waltz into Nantou at Honorable Father’s side and have the underlings bow to their every need. The job’s harder than they thought. Sometimes, I hear arguments in Father’s study. I saw Dae in tears last week.”
“You smile like you enjoy their suffering, but you miss my point, Kara. Yes, the job has changed them, but not in your favor. They’re more emotional because they’re afraid. That means they’re desperate. I saw that combination in my Honorable Father every day after we left Haansu. Lang and Dae are walking on a string. If you come along and show any promise, they’ll feel threatened. If you exceed your station, they won’t care if you’re their sister.”
“What? You think they’d try to hurt me?”
“Possibly. Especially Lang. He scares me sometimes.”
Kara knew what she meant, and so much more. Lang smiled about as often as the moon Huryo turned full. Some might have mistaken it for quiet dignity, the eldest son projecting his father’s inner strength and certitude. But from time to time, Lang unraveled. A quiet evening of tea and dessert on the east balcony might be interrupted by a long, incoherent political diatribe. Lang might return to an old grievance from his childhood, like recounting the intimate details of how a twelve-year-old rival tried to sabotage Lang at school. He became theatrical during these moments, flailing wildly as if drunk, though he was in fact sober.
Days of stoicism followed these outbursts, none of which seemed to bother their parents. Kara mused at the thought of how dramatically Perr and Li-Ann Syung responded to their daughter’s emotional storms. The hypocrisy infuriated her, but it also proved a source of motivation.
She dared not speak to her parents about Lang’s uneven behavior, knowing how the confrontation might end. They grew hyper-protective of each son following Lang and Dae’s installation as junior officers to Nantou’s executive board. Perr and Li-Ann focused on vetting potential wives, looking for the most politically advantageous alliances. If anything was off about Lang, they refused to see it or assumed a healthy marriage would resolve it. In the meantime, they allowed the sons to indulge themselves with “kept” women in the city – a c
ommon practice.
Kara hid her suspicion about Lang – a secret she did not share with Chi-Qua. She believed Lang was using mahali, the illegal neurodrug he once distributed. Her research uncovered symptoms of addiction that matched Lang’s erratic behavior.
Two years earlier, she blackmailed her parents with evidence of Lang’s drug-dealing ways in order to bring Chi-Qua into their household. After she was successful, Lang struck back, promising to have Chi-Qua killed someday. For weeks, Kara struggled under the weight of his threat. She convinced herself he’d never follow through; he was misguided, but he wasn’t a killer. Nonetheless, her paranoia sent Kara peering into the shadows.
Mother put her fears at rest, calling Kara into private conference and beginning with a demand.
“Destroy your copy of the memglass,” she said. “The matter has been resolved. He has been extricated from that filthy business. He has asked for our forgiveness, which we have granted. Your evidence is obsolete.”
Lang did not, however, seek Kara’s forgiveness or offer an apology. For the most part, he stayed clear of his sister except during mandated gatherings. He spent more time in the city or traveling on business to the other islands of The Lagos.
Their lives took increasingly different tracks, but they shared commonalities Kara doubted they’d ever lose: Same boss, same dynasty. They were two of more than seventy thousand employees based in the Nantou Global complex. Though their responsibilities never overlapped, and their offices were far apart, the name Syung-Low shined the same bright light upon them both. It was a light of curiosity, envy, intimidation, reverence, and expectation.
Their privilege did not exclude them from being targets of opportunists with vaulting ambition. Other families actively sought what Syung-Low possessed for generations. In the post-Collectorate era, where new ideas and fragile alliances frayed at Pinchon’s social order, the pressure intensified upon those who rode the crest of the tallest waves.
“Never forget,” Kara’s Honored Gran used to say, “The Kohlna have the sharpest teeth.”
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