“You’re an Ikessar dog, through and through,” Hira said.
He glowered at her.
“Oh, let’s not put on airs about it,” Hira snapped at him. “The idea of a woman on the Dragonthrone repulses you, but you’d still rather see an Ikessar rump on it than anyone else’s.”
“That’s not true,” Sume broke in. “I seem to recall that he didn’t mind the idea of Yeshin taking over and he was half-mad in those days.”
“I retracted that statement when I saw how unfit he was to rule,” Sagar replied. “I supported Ryabei from the very beginning. The man had sense, if not quite the blood. We would’ve figured out a way around that last part. Now he is gone and the choice came down to two barbarians or a woman. I’m fighting for an enlightened age, the way all of us once did. The Ikessars and the philosophies of Kibouri…”
“The Ikessars aren’t the saints you think they are, you know.”
Sagar huffed. “So you would rather see things fall apart?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, old fart. As far as I’m concerned, the Ikessars are the least of the three evils right now. Dragonlord Lushai? Dragonlord Yeshin? I can just hear our ancestors rolling in their graves. They’ll turn back two hundred years of progress if you let them.” Hira shook her head and turned to Sume. “Princess Roa was assassinated.”
Sume tried not to let her face show any emotion. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Princess Ran was captured,” Sagar added. “If they haven’t executed her yet, they will soon. I’m told it will be a very public one for all the land to remember.”
Sume swallowed. “And Ryia?”
Sagar glanced at Hira. She snorted. “You can trust her.”
“I don’t know about that. How loyal are you to Jin-Sayeng, Kaggawa?”
“Of course she is,” Hira said. “Princess Roa put her in a bad spot the last time, but it wasn’t her intention to hurt anyone. She didn’t instigate that attack and she was the one who didn’t give up on Rysaran. Even after everyone else had.”
Sagar sighed. “Very well.” He got up, striding past Kefier, and went outside. A moment later, he returned with two others. Sume recognized Mihad. The fourth figure flipped down her hood.
“Princess Ryia,” Sume said. She bowed.
“Sume alon gar Kaggawa,” Ryia murmured. “Thank you for welcoming me into your home. It’s beautiful.”
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” Sume replied, glancing at Kefier. He was shaking his head.
“We won’t be staying for very long, I’m afraid,” Ryia said. “We didn’t come here to hide. We need your assistance, Kaggawa. We don’t know anyone else with half as much connections as you do outside of Jin-Sayeng, and you speak the language of the Kags so well.”
“I can speak it, too,” Sagar snorted.
“Not without sounding like a bloated fart, you can’t,” Mihad broke in.
“We also heard you’re marrying a certain Count Tar’elian,” Ryia continued. “A position that comes with distinct advantages.”
Sume took a deep breath. “What you’re saying is that you need my help to find people to fund your war against Oren-yaro and Bara.”
“In part,” Ryia said. She folded her hands together. “They will undo everything your father worked so hard for, Kaggawa. The ancient ways are…bloodthirsty. There are many reasons why we stepped away from them.”
“There’s tea in the kitchen, Hira,” Sume said. “Help yourselves. I must speak with Commander Tar’elian for a moment.” She caught Kefier’s eyes. He crossed his arms and followed her outside.
“You know I don’t like the sound of this, right?” he said, as soon as they were safely out of earshot.
“I know.”
“Getting caught up in politics like that again—Jin-Sayeng politics, to make matters worse. We’ve just survived one war—I don’t see why you need to go help start another one.”
“I’m not starting one. Didn’t you hear? It’s already started.” She placed a hand on his arm. “I killed the prince. I caused this.”
“A mercy. He would’ve died, anyway. And how could you have caused it? It was his own foolishness that ruined him.”
“A foolishness that saved us all, in the end. Had he not weakened the creature first, would Sapphire have even been able to kill it?”
Kefier’s jaw tightened. “So you agree. It was all for the best.”
“But rationalizing it still doesn’t change what had happened, what I’ve done,” she whispered. “We have obligations to fulfill. Just as you continue to honour my brother’s memory in your efforts with the Boarshind, I feel compelled to do something to make it right. Even if I never really can.”
The echo, the acknowledgement, was not lost on him. He was silent for a moment, staring at her. She could see in his eyes that he still didn’t agree, but he understood. “You’ll be putting your life in danger.”
“It already is. Who I am, and the people I’m entangled with…” Sume smiled at him and reached up to caress his cheek. “I’ll stay away from anything involving a sword, if that pleases you.”
“You should. You’re terrible with it.” He took a deep breath. “If obligation is all it is, I can send men to help them. You don’t have to lift a finger.”
Sume placed her hands in his, wondering if she could ever put into words what it meant that he listened to her like this. “We can’t make up for our sins,” she said. “But we can’t live the rest of our lives pretending that we can’t try.” She laid her head on his chest. “Don’t think this means I’m letting you go. Not this time.”
Kefier pressed his thumb over her lips and paused long enough to tuck a strand of hair over her ear. “As if I’d let you,” he murmured, reaching down to kiss her.
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K.S. Villoso was born in a dank hospital on an afternoon in Albay, Philippines, and things have generally been okay since then. After spending most of her childhood in a slum area in Taguig (where she dodged death-defying traffic, ate questionable food, and fell into open-pit sewers more often than one ought to), she and her family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, where they spent the better part of two decades trying to chase the North American Dream. She is now living amidst the forest and mountains with her family, children, and dogs in Anmore, BC.
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Lullabye: A Short Story
Your hands left me that second day.
I cannot say for certainty when it happened. I cannot count. I don’t even really know what a day is. I know the pattern—I know your heartbeat, how it speeds up when you are frightened, how it flutters when you hear the man’s voice, long and low and rumbly. How it rolls down when you sleep, like the waves in the oceans I’ve never seen, lulling me to join you in dreams. And ah, such beautiful dreams we shared—in my mind’s eye, I can still see your raven hair, your dark skin, your sparkling eyes. I can smell the warmth in your neck as you hold me in your arms, dance with me in circles until we are both dizzy, and hear the laughter in your voice as you tell me how much you love me, ask me if I know exactly how much. As much as the world, you answer for me, as much as the moon and the clouds and the sky. The universe, you tell me, cannot possibly contain your love.
I know you. And so I know when your hands left me. I don’t know why they did. Was it because the man left? After you and him raised your voices at each other—him, muffled against this hollow chamber of mine, you, shrill and strong, like lightning. Something shattered inside of you that day. I cannot count, but I sensed your ache. I heard you weep and longed to kiss your tears away. But you wouldn’t let me. You were closed to your dreams that night: the darkness a locked door that kept me away. I tapped and called for you, but you couldn’t hear. Woul
dn’t.
And now, wide awake, your thoughts fluttering like a summer breeze, you ignore me. Leaning against you, searching for the warmth I had grown accustomed to in the short time I have come to know you, I feel only the cold caress of emptiness. Surely you could feel it; surely you knew I was still here. Yet your hands remained at your side. The voice that had once been so bright and full of cheer now sounds dreary, murky water instead of that rolling sea. You don’t even sing to me anymore.
Later, we went on a journey.
We used to go on long walks, ones that changed the rhythm of the ocean around me. Like a river, the water would glide smoothly, softly, as soft as your voice when you would speak, hand on the taut skin of your belly and my back. You would tell me stories of your childhood. How your mother called you Nuthatch, for the pretty blue birds that used to roost outside your bedroom window, and how you would wake up at the first light of dawn just to hear them sing. How your father made pottery to sell, and how you used to watch him in his workshop, sponge in one hand, his fingers drenched in soft black mud as he turned the wheel with his foot. He would set you aside with a bowl of water and a bag of fresh earth to keep you occupied. You had no patience for the pots, but you loved to make animals…horses, goats, birds. The villagers praised you for your deft fingers, the lifelike quality of your work.
They were less amused when you made them lifelike enough to move on their own.
“What has no life may never live,” your father told you. “Listen to me, Nuthatch.” When your eyes wander over to the dead rabbit on the side of the road, he slaps you, hard enough to divert your attention. And then he takes away the bowl and the bag of earth, forbids you to ever touch clay again.
Now you take me where I can hear seagulls, and where the ground moves like the water around me. I kick, hoping you can feel me inside, that you can feel the comfort I bring. But you feel as dead to me as you seem to so desperately want me to be to you. I do not know how you manage to put up such an impenetrable wall. You have always been so strong, so firm and unyielding in your beliefs. I admire you for it, I think.
“But you haven’t been home in so many years,” I hear a voice talking to you. “You owe Gaspar nothing.”
“I don’t have to justify my actions to you, Ikius. I hired you to take me home, not engage in arguments.”
“I’m not trying to be confrontational. Merely curious.”
You sniff. Even after all the years you have spent in the indulgence of Dageian society, you are not used to mindless chatter. They sound like needles in your brain. I sense your hands drifting towards me, but you eventually curl them into fists and let them hang at your side. I long to tell you how cold it feels.
“It isn’t truly your war,” Ikius continues, breaking the silence. “Your family is far enough from the border. And we didn’t want this. We’re your friends, Naijwa. You chartered my ship, but I would’ve done it for free if you’d just asked.”
“I’m not asking you to fight this battle for me.”
“And all I’m saying is you’re not alone. Raggnar—”
“Don’t even speak his name.” Your fists harden.
“You’re carrying his child.”
“I made a mistake.”
“Your mistake is thinking we don’t understand what you’re going through.”
“You don’t,” you say.
You hear her swallow, followed by dead silence. I can hear your heartbeat, and I wonder if you regret—even just a little—what you just said. Or maybe not. I have never known you to apologize or admit you were wrong. But Ikius…means well enough. I have heard her speak to you in the past; I have even felt her touch on my head and sensed her excitement, a bubbling sort that went beyond the surface. She told you she was sure I would be a beautiful child.
“I know that must be painful for you to live with,” Ikius finally replies. “But you don’t have to let that rage be all you are. You don’t have to let this consume you.”
You don’t answer. You don’t want to tell her it already has. Your hands drift further from me and onto the railing. I hear seagulls again, and then the wind. The cold almost becomes too much to bear, and I try to take comfort from the meaningless thumping of your heartbeat. A hollow comfort. Why won’t you hold me, Mother? What would you lose if you did?
The winds grow stronger, and the ship whines and creaks as it rides every wave, each one bigger than the last. Storm, you all say. I sense your fear, but you hold it down. You stay strong, even when everything becomes so loud and the ground seems to break from under your feet. My own fears fade. As the waves and thunder deafen the world, I turn to dreaming about your soothing voice, back when it existed.
Instead, I dream of your argument with the man.
“You don’t understand,” you tell him. “You’re a pampered noble. I shouldn’t have expected you to. Just stay out of my way, Raggnar.”
His voice comes like a steel blade. “You want to create a weapon to destroy the empire. Are you going to commit mass slaughter, just so you could kill some more? What is dead can never live again! If you weren’t the woman I love, I’d—”
“You’d what? Strike me where I stand?” You give a bitter laugh. “Do it, if you’ve the courage. But I know you don’t. You’ve always been weak.”
“Naijwa—”
“You’re a decorated mage of the empire. The military calls on you, considers you an officer. Why should you let a little thing like me sleeping with you stop you from protecting your people? It’s your duty!”
“I’m not going to stoop down to—”
“Unlike you, I’m not a coward,” you hiss. “I have to protect my own.”
“Your own? You dare say that, when…” His voice drops to a whisper. “Do you not care about me at all? Our child?”
“What is dead can never live again,” you repeat to him.
I awaken to darkness and hear nothing but silence outside in your world. You are walking what seems an endless road; some days I think it is all you do. When you finally find others, you speak to them in hushed tones. You tell them about the storm, the shipwreck, how you crawled out of it and alone survived. They do not respond kindly. Are you a witch? Even when they do not ask, we can hear it in their voices. Only a witch can do such a thing. You laugh in the face of their accusations. I turn my head, longing for the warm conversations you shared with the ones you have left behind. There, at least, you were settled. There, you were happy. Why don’t you go back to the comfort of the others? To Ikius, and Raggnar, and all those people who love you?
Here, they fear you. I hear doubt in the way they ask where you are going, hear them whisper to each other when your back is turned. We are amongst strangers and you don’t talk to me anymore. I wonder if there is a worse hell than this. I, who have not yet been born; I, who has yet to live, has had what little joy I’ve known snatched from me for reasons beyond my understanding.
So I sleep.
I don’t count the days or the weeks—time does not flow for me the same as it must for you. At some point, I see sunlight against my shut eyes. The brightness distracts me. I find myself turning towards it, wondering if the warmth is the same as the warmth I once felt back when you cared.
“You shouldn’t be travelling in your condition,” a man says.
“My condition is none of your business.”
“So it isn’t,” he laughs. His voice is rumbly, grainy. I can feel you turn away from the unpleasantness of it. “And yet here you are, looking for help.”
“I just need you to guide me back to my village,” you reply.
“If it’s your village, why don’t you know the way?”
“Are you going to take my money or not?”
“I could take it anyway,” the man grumbles. “I could kill you and take the money, and more besides.” There is something sinister as he says the last part, a note that makes me shiver in discomfort. What are we doing here? This isn’t how the other man made you feel.
Y
ou laugh. The sound startles me.
“If you mean to frighten me, you’re doing a poor job of it,” you say.
“Am I?” His voice is so close it is almost as if he is speaking right beside me. “You’re alone, helpless in the woods, and you dare give me that—that—”
“You can yell louder, if you want,” you say. “You’re alone, too.”
“And so?”
“You need all the help you can get. Because the things you think you can do to me…I can do much worse to you.”
He laughs again. But unlike your laughter, his is tinged with nervousness. He must have seen something that I can’t. I hear his footsteps as he walks away, and you follow him, hands conveniently at your side. It must be so much harder to walk like that. You are still trying so very hard to pretend I no longer exist.
“How long have you been away from Gaspar?” the man asks.
“Long enough,” you say.
“I’m just asking. The way you speak…there’s a foreign lilt to it. Dageian, I think. Am I wrong?”
“You can assume all you want.”
“Then I’ll assume I’m right. Say, you want me to take you to Hilal. Funny. I know a family in Hilal whose child was taken away. But that was a long time ago, back when I was a boy.” He pauses, clearing his throat. “I never met her myself, but my friends talked about her. This child, they say, could make things move. Dolls and figures that she made. They say that she even made a dead bird fly over the roofs one time. A nuthatch. It reached as far as the second house before tumbling over the eaves.”
“What has no life may never live,” you say. “What is dead can never live again.”
The man gives a grunt of confusion.
“They’re rules,” you say. “One of the many rules for mages. You cannot create something from nothing. There must always be…a source.”
“I don’t know that word. Mage.”
An Elegy of Heroes Page 139
