by Paul Krueger
Tala froze.
“No,” Mang rumbled on. “That’s just what you’re going to tell yourself every time you drag us both into another fight. But you just like fighting, because you’re terrified there won’t be anything left over once you let it go. You’ll fight the steelhounds whenever you can, but if it comes down to it, you’ll fight alongside them, as long as it means you get to fight. And don’t bother lying to me, Lala. I live in your head.”
Tala reeled as if he’d just slapped her. Honestly, a slap from him might’ve hurt less. “That’s not true,” she said. “You just know that’s what I’m afraid of, and you’re saying it to hurt me.”
“Fine,” said Dimangan. “Then walk away from this fight with me, right now. Leave that monster inside to die. You’ve saved his life, he’s saved yours. You don’t owe him any more. So walk away from him. We’re partners, right?”
“Of course!” Tala said indignantly.
Mang sat back defiantly on his haunches. “Then do what I want, for once.”
Tala’s eyes met her brother’s, the one part of him she hadn’t managed to ruin. He wasn’t wrong: She’d let Jimuro out of his cell, but then he’d shot the spider-shade. She’d gotten him off the boat, and he’d cured her poison. By any metric, the two of them were square. It would be a trek to get to the nearest Sanbu-controlled zone, but she didn’t have to fear for her safety with both Beaky and Mang at her back. She could survive. It was what she did best.
“I can’t,” she said eventually.
He shook his head. “You can do anything if you love someone enough.”
But though her bare feet tensed against the grass beneath them, they didn’t move.
Mang’s eyes narrowed. “Put me back,” he said at last. “And don’t call on me. Whatever you have left to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Mang—”
His eyes narrowed further. “There’s no point in a conversation when only one side’s listening.”
And then he turned his back on her, leaving her to stare at the blue pactmark stretched across his scalp.
Bitterly, she reached a hand toward him. She wanted to lay it on his back, to tell him she was ready to listen, that she couldn’t do this without him.
But then she swallowed it and willed him to return instead.
The blue light faded, and her focus sharpened as the pain receded. She stared at the huge, deep footprints he’d pressed into the grass before they, too, began to fade as the wind shook the blades loose.
She cast her eyes skyward, to the shadow swirling overhead with the sun on his back. “What do you think?” she said.
She got back a combination of wariness and weariness. Tala translated it to mean: Just try not to die.
She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, then willed Beaky to return, too.
When she slid the door to the cabin open, Prince Jimuro had changed into a slim-cut suit: black pants, a bright-blue jacket, and a blood-colored tie. But the most striking difference in his appearance was that he’d shaved off his thin beard. With it, he’d shaved a good five years off his age. She’d known the two of them were of an age, but now that he had a clean face she could actually believe it.
She frowned at his garish attire. “You look like a blueberry.”
“Just because I’m incognito doesn’t mean I can’t be myself.” Prince Jimuro sniffed.
She stared at him. “That’s literally what it means.”
He appeared unbothered by the remark. “Blue is the color of the Tomodanese sea and the Tomodanese sky, and it is the color of the Tomodanese. Therefore, it’s my color, as well.”
“…You do know we have blue skies and seas, too, right? Everyone does.”
“In any case,” the Iron Prince continued loudly, “your outfit’s over there.” He indicated a gray suit lying draped across the pallet she’d slept on. She frowned at it. It didn’t seem right to her, marching back into battle without some proper Sanbuna green on her back.
When she noticed the prince studying her, she stalked past him and toward her new outfit. “Is everything all right, Sergeant?” he called after her.
“It’s fine,” she replied, limping for the pallet. Her usual strength wasn’t back, but she could pretend. “Go outside and give me three minutes. Then we hit the road.”
Xiulan had read once that all the world’s known disciplines of magic were fruits hanging from different branches of the human soul. In Shang and Sanbu, the solemn and sacred art of shadepacting had emerged. Scholars disagreed as to which of the two nations had been its true creator (though among reputable scholars, Xiulan noted, the consensus was solidly in Shang’s favor). On the island of Tomoda, the people had worshipped metal, and in doing so learned to attune their souls to it so they could bend it to their will. It differed from shadepacting, and yet like that art involved channeling one’s soul into an external vessel. But to the west, in the vast and wealthy land of Dahal, the people had turned their focus inward.
In the hours and days of her childhood Xiulan had spent in the royal libraries, she’d read accounts of the Dahali enhancing themselves to briefly run faster, lift more, and even sharpen their senses to levels a dog might envy. But most notorious was their ability to project their own soul energy into others. Per Xiulan’s reading, it was an ability only taught to the women of Dahal, in the interests of limiting such a potent ability’s prevalence. But potent it was, indeed. An injured friend could count on a Dahali hexbolt to make them whole again. An enemy, on the other hand, could count on one to disrupt all their body’s basic functions from the inside out, rendering them unconscious in the most painful way possible.
So that was how her afternoon was going.
She lay on a bed in a large cell with a wooden floor and bright lights hanging overhead. The window along the wall let in sunlight, but revealed far too long a drop to be a viable escape route. The heavy sliding door was made of pure steel, clearly meant to be opened with steelpacting. But in the absence of Tomodanese occupants, the room had been transformed into a prison cell.
The bed was soft and comfortable but did little to combat the lingering ill effects of being on the wrong end of a hexbolt. She wasn’t in pain anymore, but fatigue had replaced her pain. Her entire body had seized up before she’d lost consciousness, and now all her muscles felt spent. Even her tongue in her mouth felt heavy and clumsy, resting limply against the inside of her cheek.
The room itself was in a mansion that had once belonged to the Kurihara Clan. Now, though, Kurihara Daisuke was in prison awaiting trial for his myriad war crimes, and his home had been temporarily deeded to the occupying Dahali forces. The Kurihara Clan, as Xiulan understood, had been one of the more powerful and wealthy families in Tomodanese society. Though their status was on the wane, even this prison cell in their home was fairly luxurious.
But as the great detective Bai Junjie had once observed during his captivity at the hands of his Tomodanese archenemy, Professor Sakini: A gilded cage was a cage still.
“Funny, how life seems to keep bringing me back here,” Lee said from the floor, where she sat. The low stance of Tomodanese furniture meant they weren’t half as far apart as they’d have been on raised, Shang-style beds.
“I’m thrilled to hear you can find some levity in our predicament,” Xiulan snapped.
“That’s what you pay me for, right? To find stuff?”
Xiulan sat up and rounded on her, though her body’s general fatigue made her whole upper torso feel like a weight, awkwardly balanced on her hips. “How can you be so blasé about everything that’s happened?” They were all of a day into her grand mission to win the unattainable Snow-Feather Throne, and everything had already fallen apart. What had she done to arouse Dahal’s ire so? Why were they so insistent on standing in her way? And how could she think her way out of this cell?
Lee, who had her hands cupped behind her head, just barely turned to meet her gaze. “Because you’re worried, I’m not, and we’re both still here anyway.”
Xiulan glared at her, any number of stinging rejoinders heavy on her tongue. But before she could say any of them, she was interrupted by the creak of the door sliding open at the far end of the room.
Chetan Parkash strode into the room. In his wake trotted a small dog with a golden-and-brown coat, pointed, catlike ears, and a tightly curled tail that wagged excitedly. At the sight of it, Xiulan noticed Lee perk up, but she had other things to concern herself with at the moment.
“This is an outrage, Commander Parkash!” she said at once, getting to her feet. “We are agents of the Snow-Feather Throne in good standing, and once I’ve returned to Shang I intend to speak at length with the royal family about the treatment I’ve received at the hands of our Dahali allies!”
She’d hoped he would be at least a little cowed by her threats, but he took them unflinchingly. “There’s no need to continue the charade, Your Majesty,” said Chetan Parkash. “This one has already confirmed your identity with Second Princess Ruomei, who posted the bounty for your arrest and safe return.”
At the sound of that name, Xiulan’s building bluster left her entirely: not leaking out so much as escaping her en masse and leaving something hollow and deflated behind.
Ruomei.
Again.
But how? Xiulan wondered. Her mind whirred. How could Ruomei have possibly known where she was? If she herself was fixated on General Erega’s announced plan for moving the Iron Prince, how could she have also planned so effectively to check Xiulan’s progress? Or had she not known what Xiulan was up to, and just placed the bounty in case?
She slumped back onto the bed. It never failed. Stupid White Rat, she chided herself, thinking you could fly like the hawk. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
“For what it’s worth,” Parkash said, “Chetan Parkash wouldn’t normally imagine interfering with a Li-Quan investigation, no matter its subject. This one’s time fighting in the Garden Coalition has left him with a profound and sincere respect for the people of Shang.”
“But a greater respect for half a million jian, I bet,” Lee said from the floor.
Parkash’s beetle-black eyes glinted apologetically. “A hundred thousand.”
Xiulan wished she could sink even lower into the bed. She was a princess of Shang. She should’ve commanded a far more generous price.
“What if we give you half a million to let us go?” Lee volunteered.
At that, Xiulan sat up slightly. “Do you have in your possession such levels of currency, Inspector Lee?”
“Not unless you give me a raise,” Lee said cheerfully. “But you’ve got it, don’t you?”
Xiulan frowned, but turned back to Chetan Parkash nonetheless. “I suppose my associate raises a point. You’re a businessman, aren’t you, Commander Parkash?”
“The Dahali have a mother language, pleasant to the tongue and ear alike,” said Parkash. “But our father language is commerce. Which is why Chetan Parkash won’t entertain any offer you tender, unfortunately. This one’s choices are between a guaranteed reward from an empowered princess, or a promised one from a princess who will tell Chetan Parkash whatever she thinks will get her out of her cell.”
It had been a long shot, but his words still made her feel stupid for having offered at all. She’d gotten as far as she had in life by believing in herself. By believing that no matter what adversary she faced, she would always be better. It didn’t matter how much smarter she was, or how much better letting her go free would be for Dahal in the long run. If given a choice between Ruomei or herself, people would always listen to Ruomei. Xiulan had the facts on her side, but people liked Ruomei. There was nothing quite so frustrating as being reminded of which of those carried more weight.
“So you didn’t come to bargain,” Xiulan said, barely able to keep the bitterness from her voice. “To what pleasure do I owe this visit, then?”
“To see that you are well accommodated before the handoff,” Parkash said. He reached into his pocket and produced a small object: her pipe. “And to provide the comfort of the familiar, Your Majesty.”
He approached to give the pipe to her, and Lee stirred at last, like a guard dog. Parkash stopped, eyeing her warily. But the dog at his side trotted right past, rushing up to Lee and shoving its nose right into her own. Lee sighed, then scooted aside and scratched behind the dog’s ears as it continued to explore the interesting subject of her face.
Parkash stepped past her and offered the pipe to Xiulan. With her hair covering half her face, she had to sit up to actually look at it, and by extension him. She knew the gift was kindly meant, but it was hard not to feel she was being patronized. She took the pipe anyway, slipping it between her teeth. “My lighter?” she said.
Parkash shook his head and instead pulled out a box of matches. Xiulan scowled, but nodded. He struck one for her, lit the bowl, then handed her the entire box.
“Food will be brought to you shortly,” he said. “Until a Shang delegation arrives to collect you and pay this one’s fee, every measure will be taken to ensure your comfort.”
“What about mine?” Lee said, and Xiulan winced at what was surely coming next.
Parkash didn’t disappoint her. “Chetan Parkash was given no instructions regarding you. It’s only thanks to Her Majesty’s presence that you’re still alive. It’s this one’s understanding that Shang society would not miss the loss of a Jeongsonese drifter.”
Color rose in Xiulan’s entire face. “That woman is an agent of the Li-Quan,” she said, anger sharpening each syllable. “She should be treated with every ounce of respect with which you treat me.”
Parkash shrugged. “As you say, Your Majesty.” And then he and the dog turned and left, while Xiulan seethed behind him.
The door slid shut again, and Xiulan leapt to her feet. “That complete and utter bitch,” she muttered, taking an angry drag from her pipe. She began to pace back and forth.
“Guess this isn’t going to improve things between you two,” Lee said.
The sound of her laughter normally charmed Xiulan, but now it set her teeth on edge. She rounded on Lee. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
But Lee just laughed again, now with disbelief. “Hell of a tone there, Princess,” she said. “What got into—?”
Rage overcame Xiulan before Lee could say any more. Her grip tightened, and she hurled her pipe with all the strength she could muster, right at Lee’s grinning face.
It flew clumsily as a baby bird, tumbling end over end and clattering uselessly to the floor a few feet short of Lee.
In a flash Lee was on her feet, the gap between them reduced to nothing. Xiulan’s throwing hand was still outstretched, and with one easy movement Lee twisted it behind her back, causing Xiulan’s whole side to erupt in pain. “Lee, I—ah!”
Lee pressed a little, and a fresh wave of pain made Xiulan collapse onto her knees. As she struggled, she was suddenly aware of a pair of lips hovering beside her ear.
“Try it again,” Lee said, “and you’ll have to learn how to light that pipe of yours with one hand. Good?”
Xiulan struggled for just a second more, then deflated again and gave a dull nod of defeat. At last, the pain abated as Lee let her go. By the time Xiulan managed to pick herself up from the floor, her partner had already lain back down.
Xiulan collected her pipe from the floor, slipped it back into her pocket, then carefully sat down next to her reclining partner. “How did you do that to me?”
“Wasn’t a big girl,” Lee said, not opening her eyes. “Coming up, that made people think I was someone to be fucked with. Only reason I’m still alive is because I got good at proving them wrong.”
Xiulan took this in quietly. She stared
at her own shaking hands. Now that the moment had passed, she couldn’t believe she’d just lost her control so thoroughly. Looking back on her attempt to hurt Lee, it almost felt like an out-of-body experience.
Except it hadn’t been. It had all been her, and that made her sick to her stomach.
She turned her gaze away from her partner. “I apologize, Lee,” she said. “You deserve better than the partner I was to you just now. You deserve a better princess.”
There was a heartbreaking nonchalance to Lee’s tone as she replied, “No skin off my nose. ’Snot like there’s ever been a point in my life when I could count on people like you.”
Xiulan blinked. “That’s not fair,” she said quietly.
“I noticed,” Lee said.
Xiulan continued to stare at her hands. Their shaking abated, but she still felt her heart thundering against her ribs.
“It doesn’t matter how hard I work,” she said eventually. “Or how careful I am. How meticulously I plan. No matter what, my endeavors are always doomed to failure. Do you know, Lee, how frustrating it is to work diligently for something—to do everything right—and have it denied you all the same? Do you—”
“Yes,” Lee said flatly.
Xiulan’s mouth snapped shut—first from outrage that someone would dare talk over her, then from guilt as she realized how stupid she sounded right now.
Lee sighed. “But let’s pretend I don’t. What were you going to say?”
Xiulan clenched and unclenched her fists. “My sisters and brothers had a nickname for me,” she said.
“Yeah, Lady of Moonlight,” Lee said. “You told me.”
“No,” said Xiulan. “That’s the title my father gave me. It was supposed to be a tribute to keep Lord Yao happy, so he wouldn’t defect to Tomoda or something. My siblings called me something else: White Rat.”
“White Rat, eh?” Lee said, as if she were tasting it.
Xiulan nodded. “I thought it was nice, at first. Rats are smart and cute. I liked to believe I displayed similar characteristics. But one day, my brother Qingkai told me why I’d really earned the soubriquet. He said that white rats were the easiest for hawks to see, and catch, and eat. He told me that white rats were rats that were born unlucky. That’s who you have as a partner, Inspector Lee: a white rat. My sisters and brothers have spent the entirety of their lives muttering that name and laughing at me. So when you laughed…when I heard you laugh at me…” She trailed off, too embarrassed to finish.