by Paul Krueger
It was remarkable, how thoroughly the palace had been repaired in the months since. The façade had been pocked with bullet holes when last Tala laid eyes on it. But now it looked as gleaming and immaculate as it always had in all the garbage Tomodanese propaganda newsreels that used to play before movies. The front gates had been huge chunks of twisted, misshapen metal by the time the 13-52-2 had crossed their threshold. But the massive steel doors that now slid open before her were fully formed, gleaming as if fresh from the foundry.
Tala saw she wasn’t the only member of the Sanbuna delegation staring up at the palace. All ten members had their necks craned to take in the sight of it. She wondered how many of them had fought to secure it the first time around, and how many were just swooping in to bask in the glory now that the hard work was done.
“Delegates,” General Erega said, “summon.”
The delegates muttered the names of their shades, and the creatures appeared in a cascade of light. It was a sign of respect among the people of Sanbu: the idea that you were going into this meeting with your soul literally laid bare for whatever came next. The general was one of the only few not to summon hers, but it was with good reason: Here on dry land, a dolphin-shade would’ve had more than a few difficulties.
Tala whispered Beaky’s name, but it only underscored the bottomless absence she felt.
“Is that the legendary Typhoon General herself that I spy?” someone called out in accented Tomodanese. Into the light spilling out from the palace strode the Dahali delegation. Most of them wore beige silk, which contrasted starkly with their brown skin. But the young woman at their head was wrapped in a flowing silk dress that was the exact bright golden-orange of a perfectly ripe mango. Her wrists clattered with shiny bangles and bracelets, while a brilliant gold chain across her cheek connected the elaborate ring in her nose to the collection of matching ones up and down the length of her ear. But most noteworthy of all was the knife at her hip: its platinum hilt sculpted in the image of a lithe naked man, with small sapphires for eyes.
Tala had heard of her: High Treasurer Bhavna Devarajah, merchant among merchants and one of the only people permitted by Dahali society to use personal pronouns. Unlike the merchants who’d preceded her, she’d made her fortune in international banking, and rumor had it she might even be the single richest person in the world. She’d been a major financial backer of both the Jasmine and the Peony revolutions, as well as her country’s own Lotus Revolution. General Erega had told Tala on the way over that the high treasurer likely wanted to finance as much of the reconstruction of Tomoda as she could, so she would have the Mountain Throne in her debt forever.
Now General Erega smiled. “High Treasurer Devarajah. It’s good to see you.”
Devarajah marched right up to the general, then took the general’s hand and pressed the back of it to her own forehead. Tala was surprised to see her do it; it was the pagmamano, a Sanbuna gesture of respect for one’s elders. It’d never occurred to her that an outsider might know of the custom, but she guessed a woman like Devarajah couldn’t have gotten to where she was without a good amount of savvy.
“How long have you been in Tomoda?” the general said conversationally.
“Longer than you,” Devarajah said simply. “I’m told you and your fleet only arrived yesterday, after encountering some unexpected resistance on the seas.”
General Erega’s eye glinted. “Nothing more than pirates,” she said carefully. “Ones without any affiliation, I’m sure.”
Tala didn’t know what exactly they were talking about, but she at least knew enough to know they were talking about something else.
“I was most surprised to learn that despite you being the Iron Prince’s public jailer, he arrived two days in advance of yourself,” Devarajah continued.
That, Tala understood perfectly.
General Erega looked neither abashed nor embarrassed. “It was a necessary precaution. His Brilliance isn’t well liked.”
An angry voice cut in, speaking fast and aggressive Shang. Into view swept the Shang delegation: by far the largest, with perhaps forty people in all. Half of them had summoned tiger-shades, like Tala had seen at the train station earlier that day. Their partners looked to be soldiers, from their dress and bearing. Another quarter looked more like politicians, and they marched in the company of all different sorts of monkey-shades. Still another quarter appeared to be clergy of some kind, marked by the snake-shades that slithered alongside them.
But at the head of the delegation was a white crane-shade with a long, elegant tail a peacock would’ve envied and a beak like a yellow sword. Its partner was a red-robed man: older, with a lined face, gray hair, and a double chin his high collar only served to emphasize, and which his short beard failed to effectively hide. Even if he hadn’t been wearing a gold crown adorned with rubies and white crane feathers, Tala knew him, too: the Crane Emperor of Shang.
At his approach, the general and the high treasurer bowed, while Tala and everyone else of lesser station took a knee.
The Crane Emperor continued to rant in Shang, seemingly heedless of the people kneeling around him. He looked worked up enough to go on all night if he weren’t stopped. So Tala was grateful when a familiar voice cut across him in Tomodanese:
“Apologies, most esteemed General and High Treasurer. His Most August Personage merely wishes to express his dismay that after such a strong and healthy alliance, you did not see fit to trust him with your plans for transporting the Iron Prince safely home where he belongs.”
On her knees, Tala risked a glance up. Sure enough, she saw a white rat-shade and a familiar pair of boots. But the true tipoff was the scent of pipe smoke that wafted down to her nostrils.
Over her head, the Crane Emperor spoke again, still in Shang.
“Will he insist on speaking in Shang all night, while the rest of us converse?” said Devarajah mildly.
“My venerated father knows of my strong grasp of the language,” said Xiulan. “As such, he has charged me with translating his words for him, so that I might, ah, lend them the poetic flair that would otherwise be lost were he to speak them himself.”
Tala grinned.
“Oh,” Xiulan added, as if only realizing herself that she was surrounded by kneeling people, “everyone may rise, of course.”
When Tala rose, she was greeted by the sight of two faces: one familiar, one not. One, of course, was Xiulan, who had exchanged her dusty white three-piece suit and overcoat for brand-new ones that looked dazzlingly pristine and freshly tailored. Her white trilby, however, was the same one Tala had seen before. Her rat-shade, Kou, stood at obedient attention next to her, pink nose twitching curiously at their surroundings.
Next to Kou stood a huge dog-shade, its tails wagging excitedly as it stared up at the palace. And next to that dog-shade was a woman that Tala figured to be the Jeongsonese woman Xiulan had asked after so urgently. Her dress was slim and black, while her face was made up in shades of red—blush on her cheeks, scarlet on her lips, fuchsia shadow around her eyes—and a bright-red ribbon had been woven into her short black hair.
Xiulan caught Tala’s eye and gave her the barest of smiles, though she was stuck translating as her father continued to grouse at both General Erega and Devarajah. But the Jeongsonese woman sidled up to her and said, “Xiulan told me about you.” She gave Tala a quick look up and down. “I guess you clean up nice.”
Tala wondered what Xiulan had said to prompt an observation like that. But she was too tired to take the compliment at anything but face value. “Thanks.”
The woman smirked. “Not as nice as me, though.”
The ambient discussion abruptly died around them. Everyone turned to see three people in simple blue robes standing in the doorway. In unison, they bowed low, from the waist. Their leader, a fat man with graying temples, smiled at all assembled and spoke to the Daha
li delegation in their lilting tongue. From the impressed looks shared among the delegates behind Devarajah, apparently he did a pretty good job of it.
He turned next to the Crane Emperor and spoke once more, this time in Shang. The emperor listened with a scowl on his face, and interrupted midway through. Tala had no idea what he was saying, either, but she saw Xiulan’s smile strain, while Lee just looked flat-out amused.
The man in the robe, however, merely bowed again and issued a polite response. It didn’t seem satisfactory to the Crane Emperor or his ruffle-feathered companion, but Tala could hardly ignore the way the Jeongsonese woman’s grin widened.
And then at last, the man turned to General Erega and said in perfect Sanbuna, “General Erega. I am First Sage Shuichi, of the order of the Copper Sages. We have of course corresponded. It is my greatest honor to meet you at last.”
At this, the man and both his cohorts bowed again.
“Tomoda will forever be in your debt for ensuring the safe return of His Brilliance, in defiance of those who would have preferred he not make it here alive,” First Sage Shuichi continued. “It’s because of you that I’m able to issue the Steel Lord’s official welcome. Given that Tomodanese is the sole language all four delegations share, I respectfully beg your permission to conduct the business of the evening in our own native tongue.”
General Erega replied with a single deliberate nod.
“Then if you would please follow me to the throne room…”
As the Copper Sages led the delegations through the maze of corridors in the Palace of Steel, Tala marveled yet again at how well the palace had been repaired since she’d last walked its halls. She imagined they’d had artificers and carpenters working around the clock to undo the devastation wrought upon its halls by Shang.
Next to her, Beaky trundled along, his head pumping like a piston with every step he took. She felt his desire to spread his wings and take to the air, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to let him loose in the halls. She wouldn’t have necessarily cared about upsetting Jimuro, and really he should’ve been used to the sight of Beaky by now, anyway. But such close proximity to General Erega made her all the more aware of how even the tiniest action she took now would reflect on her country.
To her left, she heard the Jeongsonese woman mutter something to Xiulan. It was in Shang, and therefore not for her ears, but something about the surprise on her face was just enough to stoke Tala’s curiosity. She hung back a step, then drifted toward them. “What’d you say just now?”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “Just an old Jeongsonese saying about how eavesdroppers can go fuck themselves.”
Tala scowled, but she supposed she deserved that. Life generally worked out better for her when she kept her nose where it belonged. She shrugged, then lengthened her stride to reclaim her original place in the procession. But before she got far enough, the woman sighed.
“I said, it looks just like the drawings.” She gestured to the halls around them. “At Kohoyama, he had books and books full of sketches. Lots of them were of this place.”
Tala frowned. Kohoyama? Sketchbooks? “Who?” she said.
“Who d’you figure?” she said. “Jimuro.”
“Lee,” Xiulan said gently, “he is now a ruling sovereign. That warrants him a certain measure of formality and respect.”
Lee grinned. “He can get those once I start giving them to you.”
But as the two slipped into their banter, Tala found herself taking on a new appreciation of the palace in which she found herself. This wasn’t just a seat of government and a symbol of Tomoda’s power; it was Jimuro’s childhood home.
Suddenly it was as though her memories of the Palace of Steel had a filter laid over them. The dead servants she’d cleared away, she now imagined alive and cleaning up toys left behind by a pint-sized Jimuro. She considered the burned-out mess of a library she’d found. How many hours might Jimuro have spent in there, to require those glasses of his?
She hadn’t even known that he liked to draw.
She eyed the blank walls. She doubted the prince’s art would’ve hung on them, but surely family portraits and priceless tapestries had. The Shang had burned all those, too, in a fit of long-simmering spite. But in their absence, would this place feel like home to Jimuro anymore? Would it feel that way without his family? She’d lost all hers in the worst way possible, but at least the bomb had destroyed their house with it. The palace, on the other hand, was an enduring monument to everything Jimuro had lost, and he had no choice but to live in it. It would be like sleeping in a pile of his family’s ashes.
She staggered a step. She hadn’t realized it, but the farther she’d walked down that mental path, the harder the throbbing in the back of her head had become. It felt as if it were crushing her entire brain to the front of her skull.
Next to her, Beaky croaked with concern. She waved him off, and gritted her teeth. She had to hold it together. Until she found the splintersoul and took back what was hers, this was going to be her life. She couldn’t give in to the pain after barely a day.
It took a seemingly endless array of twists and turns to reach the throne room. As Xiulan explained on the walk, that was actually by design, to intimidate those seeking an audience with the Steel Lord. Tala sniffed at that. The republic had no such palaces. Congress convened in what had once been the mansion of the daito of Lisan, while General Erega had converted her personal residence into a government building, to be inherited by the next head of the republic. And yet she found herself staring contemplatively at the high ceilings and long, wide floors, and wondered if its architecture wasn’t doing its job after all.
The throne room was perhaps the least changed from how she remembered it, if only because it was, in typical Tomodanese fashion, so sparse. The walls were gray-polished steel, adorned with fluttering banners of mountains and Tomodanese characters. The floor was a wide expanse of dark polished oak, with a streak of blue rug that led directly to the elevated throne. Along the left side of the rug stood a line of sapphire-robed Copper Sages, while along the right stood the sapphire-clad members of the Kobaruto.
And sitting upon the throne, in full military dress, was the man she now had to think of as Steel Lord Jimuro.
Though she’d thought of him as the enemy, it occurred to her just now that she’d never seen him in uniform. This one traced his body much the way his clothes from the Kinzokita safe house had: emphasizing the length of his limbs and the width of his shoulders. It was deep blue, with gold epaulets and a bright-blue sash running diagonally across his chest. The steel buttons on his coat gleamed even from this distance, as did the collection of medals pinned to his chest. He wore white gloves: one of which rested upon his leg, and the other of which toyed with the golden hilt of a sheathed sword standing next to him.
Murmurs arose from every delegation at the sight of him. Some seemed upset that he’d chosen to greet them in military regalia, sword in hand. Some seemed upset that he was there to greet them at all.
Tala, on the other hand, was silent. She was awed to see how strikingly at home he looked up there. She’d seen him at his lowest, at his least flattering, at his objectively terrible. But up there, sitting that throne, he looked undeniably regal.
Lee smirked. “I fucking knew he had a fancy chair.”
“It is my honor to present to you,” First Sage Shuichi said, “His Brilliance, the divine vessel of the spirits and beating heart of the Tomodanese people…Steel Lord Jimuro.”
When he rose, the entire room knelt. Tala hesitated half a heartbeat. But then she felt her legs bending as if her will weren’t her own. She wasn’t sure if it was the room, or the throne, or the regalia, but something about Jimuro now encouraged…if not deference, at least respect.
She knelt.
He stepped out from beneath the pavilion, so his face was in full view. Tala felt he
r pulse race as she saw, to her immense relief, that he was still whole. Still unharmed. Still Jimuro.
He took a moment to survey those assembled in his throne room. He did an admirable job of evoking regality, but she could see his eyes searching…until at last, they met hers.
The corners of his mouth turned up in the barest, smallest smile.
Slowly, her scowl softened, until she smiled back in turn.
For one heartbeat, two, three, Tala and Jimuro shared a private moment in a crowded room.
And then, on the fourth heartbeat, the moment passed, like a cloud over the moon. Jimuro disappeared. In his place, wearing his body and face, there was only the Steel Lord.
“Hello,” said the Steel Lord. “And thank you for coming.”
Including the shades present, there were more than a hundred souls in Jimuro’s throne room. And yet when he stared down at them, it was as if the collective gaze of the entire world stared back, fixed and unblinking. He felt like an ice sculpture, trying in vain not to melt under the sun.
But melting was no option at all. Not for him, not for his country, and not for his people. Steel did not melt.
Of course it does, he reminded himself. Don’t be stupid. And then, after a moment: But don’t melt, either.
His knees trembled within the folds of his pants. He hoped it wouldn’t be visible. At the very least, he was glad of the gloves on his hands to keep them dry. For what came next, the last thing he needed was to drop his sword.
Scanning the room, he saw familiar faces: Erega, of course, who looked quietly pleased to see him standing there. Shang Xiulan, who looked significantly less pleased, though nowhere near so much as her sour-faced father. Lee Yeon-Ji, who seemed vaguely amused by everything around her. Kohaku, whose canine eyes had brightened up at the sight of him.