“Did you come here just to cause trouble?” I asked, keeping my voice calm. “I was hoping for more. This is our first meeting, Mother.”
A shadow of revulsion crossed Ryia’s face. She sniffed as she slid her sword back into her belt. “I came here to try to salvage a land I sacrificed too much for. You children have no idea what you’re doing. I should’ve claimed the throne when I had the chance. Entrusting it to the shoulders of Yeshin’s whelp was a step too far. But she convinced me. She said—”
“She?”
“Kaggawa,” Ryia replied, in a voice that told me she didn’t mean the man waging war out west. Her eyes flickered. “Yesterday’s regrets. The Dragonthrone could have been mine. But saving thousands of lives was more important to me, and so I made the proposal to your father with every intention of ridding this land of its ills once and for all. I believed his sincerity when he accepted it. I thought he, too, was done with the fighting. Now I am hearing rumours that I have been tricked, that your father was as wily a wolf as ever and never meant to see you wed to my son.”
I was silent for a moment. “My father did what he thought was right, even if he was wrong,” I said at last. “Given the opportunity, you would have done the same thing.”
“Listen to yourself. You are defending a tyrant sixteen years dead.”
“I know what he did,” I snapped. “I know he deceived us all. But you said it yourself. He’s sixteen years dead. What he wanted then doesn’t make much of a damn difference now. I can respect my father and acknowledge his mistakes without following his footsteps.”
“You are a fool, Talyien Orenar, blinded by your love for a man who is now—if the gods are kind—rotting in the furthest reaches of hell.”
“They said the same thing about me with your son,” I said. “I have been criticized for how I choose to feel all my life, but I’ll say this much, Princess—you will not insult my father’s name in his own halls.”
“His halls?” Ryia asked, amused. “Aren’t they yours, now?”
I fell silent and watched her make her way to the Akaterru alcove along the western wall of the great hall, her earrings swaying with each step. One of the candles had gone out. She tilted the wick to the nearest lit one. The flame rose, making the powder on her face sparkle with the light. “Good intentions are like a single lit candle in a dark sea,” she said, inclining her head towards me. “It won’t do you much good for long.”
I stared at her in confusion.
“My sisters used to tell me that,” she said. “Back when I was young and soft-hearted and I didn’t know the cruelties of this world. I should’ve listened to them. Your father killed them at the onset of his war.”
“A war that happened well over thirty years ago,” I replied, stepping towards her. “Young men and women who survived it are now saddled with grandchildren. Beloved Princess, isn’t it time for us to move forward? Jin-Sayeng is on the verge of collapse. Foreign invasion, civil war… we have more pressing concerns than these tired old arguments.”
“Why,” she said, “should I listen to you?”
Her voice sent a chill down my spine.
“You wouldn’t exactly make the most trustworthy ally,” she continued. “You seem to have enough problems staying a trustworthy wife.”
“Princess—” Rai tried again.
She glanced at him sharply. “You’d correct me, boy? It was your accusation that brought light to this. And now you’re defending this woman?”
“She’s my wife,” Rai croaked. He sounded exhausted, despite only having managed to get those first few words in. I would’ve found it amusing under any other circumstances.
“Some wife,” Ryia said. “I expected better.”
“You expected Yeshin’s daughter,” I managed.
“As I said. I didn’t expect Yeshin’s daughter to be so dim-witted.” She gave a dismissive gesture and made a show of looking around the great hall. “Where is this man then, this lover of hers?”
Rai’s face flickered. “He’s dead.”
“Good,” Ryia said. “I can’t see why you didn’t execute him yourself. You knew for years,” she repeated, as if it was a source of irritation that her son would keep secrets from her. “You think me harsh, but look at what your fumbling foolishness has created. Some Dragonlord you’ll make—you’re as weak as my brother had been. Did you take care of the others?”
Rai stared at her blankly.
A line of irritation appeared on her forehead. “Rumours abound on her activities. I dismissed them as idle gossip until you proved otherwise. You wouldn’t lie, Rai—I know that much. And one truth will reveal the rest.” She turned to me. “Did you think you could run this nation to the ground and get away with it? All your father’s secrets, Talyien, and all of yours… I will find them soon enough.” There was a cold smile on her lips, and only then did I recall it was her men who killed Agos. For all I knew, she ordered it herself.
The chill worked its way into my heart.
I don’t remember how the conversation ended without one of us dead. Somehow, I managed to avoid attempting to take her head off, and Rai himself escorted me back to my chambers. He looked apologetic.
“She can’t be here,” I blurted out as he turned to leave.
He tightened his face. “I can’t exactly send her away.”
“Have you tried?”
He gave me a pained look.
I sighed and walked to the window. I pulled the shutters close. “The woman didn’t even ask about Thanh.”
“I don’t understand why this is important.”
I struggled to keep my voice even. “She didn’t ask about Thanh. She’s never once visited him, not when he was born—never. You’ve kept away all these years and I think I can understand why now, but—this isn’t a matter of pride for her. In all the times you’ve been to the Citadel since Thanh was born, has she ever once mentioned him?”
Rai swallowed, panicked eyes darting away from me. Which told me she had, but not in a way that I would appreciate hearing about. “You need to worry about the trial,” he said. “Let me handle my mother.”
“She has no intention of letting the trial determine anything. Didn’t you hear her out there? She regrets this arrangement. She will not want things back the way they were. She never wanted it in the first place!”
“Let me handle it,” he repeated.
“You stubborn, inept man—don’t you understand? We’re powerless here. Both of us. If we let them, they’ll have our heads decorating the courtyard by dawn!”
I didn’t know what I expected from raising my voice. It always irritated him when I did, and nothing had changed. He walked away, slamming the door behind him. I dropped to my mattress, hands balled in frustration. I wasn’t sure why I was angry. I didn’t want things to go back the way they were. I didn’t want this prison, this shadowed chamber with its empty walls and cold bed. There was a knot in my stomach threatening to split me open, and I was suddenly tempted to go stomping after Ryia and tell her she could have the throne. She could have all of it if she would just leave my family alone.
I took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling to calm myself. She would kill me after such an admission. The land that had supported her pact with Warlord Yeshin would not let her just take it all back; she’d still need my head to convince them of my guilt, for a start. I had no intention of letting her have it.
I didn’t know where my conviction was coming from. Death was a given in the life I led. I ordered it of others, decreed so easily that the loss of their lives was important for the greater good. And I always knew mine wasn’t an exception. Trial or not, I was guilty. I may have planted a false heir on the throne. In the nation’s eyes, I also committed infidelity. All that remained was whether they could prove either. If I was truly as loyal to my duties as I once thought I was, if I was a true Oren-yaro, I would tell them now, and let them do with me as they will.
But the despair that had taken me from the Zarojo Emp
ire and all the way back here seemed to have faded, replaced by something I didn’t understand. I felt like someone still swimming in the ocean, but instead of a black sky, I could now see stars. Not much, not even enough to light the horizon, and yet they gave me something to gaze at, something to remind me that brightness could exist elsewhere. Maybe not in the world I lived in, but somewhere far away…
I swallowed, remembering what had happened that morning in the rain. A second kiss, thoughtlessly given. I couldn’t even call it unexpected. I suddenly understood my restlessness. All your secrets…
I fell asleep—that sort of wretched sleep that brought very little rest and nothing but a blessed numbness for a few hours—only to wake up to the sound of frantic knocking. I rolled off the mattress and opened the door.
“Beloved Queen,” Namra said, taking my hand and pressing it against her forehead.
“If Princess Ryia finds out a Kibouri priestess is offering me respect, she’ll throw a fit.”
“She can do that if she wants. Will you come with me?”
“Where?”
“To your father’s study.”
I stared at her, at this woman who had been my husband’s companion longer than we had been married. Was she truly his, or was she his mother’s creature? “Ozo lets you walk around like that?” I asked, trying to keep my suspicions at bay.
“Warlord Ozo does not need to know everything that transpires behind these walls,” she said with a small smile. Few things seemed to bother her—a necessary trait to be able to withstand the company of my husband for long. My complete opposite in that. I might have been jealous of her when we first met, even though Namra was the sort of plain-faced, unassuming woman one normally wouldn’t be jealous of. It’s not supposed to be an insult. But she was no Chiha Baraji—her eyelashes didn’t flutter with her every breath, nor did she have a cleavage that could draw attention from across a crowded room. Neither did she have the kind of electric personality that I’d come to associate with women who attached themselves to men with the sort of perceived power my husband had. Still, by all rights, I shouldn’t trust her. And yet I did.
I grabbed a shawl to ward off the sudden draft and found myself following her up the stairwell, crossing over to the other wing. The only movement through the empty corridors came from the chilly breeze wafting through the half-open windows. I wondered how long I had been asleep. It must be late at night, now… the hallways were empty and our footsteps sounded like a crowd’s. “Ozo is in my father’s chambers,” I reminded her. “I’m surprised he hasn’t caught you yet.”
“He is not, Beloved Queen,” she replied. “He’s been staying in the guest quarters this whole time. I haven’t seen him on this entire floor since we arrived.”
It was an odd thing to learn. You would think Ozo wouldn’t have the same qualms about taking my father’s bedroom as I did. Sixteen years dead and Oka Shto remained ruled by a ghost. I shivered. “Why do you serve Rayyel?” I asked, in an effort to change the conversation.
She cocked her head at me. “Is that truly the question you are asking?”
“Maybe not,” I admitted.
“You want to know if I have a relationship with your husband.”
I shrugged. “He once said there was a woman, and I’m assuming that means there could have been more.”
“And as intelligent as you are, you took the bait?” She smiled. “Dragonlord Rayyel is not that kind of man.”
“I’m starting to fear you’re right.”
“His devotion to you is true, though I can admit his way of showing it is… unconventional. But I believe you, and you alone, have been on his mind all these years. There has been no one else.” She paused, reading the look on my face. “This isn’t what you wanted to hear, is it?”
I kept walking so I wouldn’t have to answer her. Unconventional, indeed. The bitterness was still there.
“My father served his mother,” she said, at length. “A long time ago, during your… during the war. My father died when I was young, and I do this to honour his name.”
“Ah,” I said. “I think I can understand that.”
“You, more than anyone I know.”
“I can see the shadow behind your smile, priestess. You wonder, like they all do, why I would want to honour a tyrant at all.”
She clasped her hands together. “I make no presumptions when it comes to you, Beloved Queen. But please, speak your mind, and I will listen.”
“Warlord Yeshin was created by a land at the cusp of war,” I said. “I’m not. My birth was supposed to bring peace. My father may have been cruel and ruthless in so many other circumstances, but this one thing, he did right.”
She nodded but, true to her word, didn’t say anything.
“I know, Namra. He made a grave error. He chose to trust a foreign prince over upholding his alliance with the Ikessars. But the intent is there. He did promise the land peace. I was supposed to bring it. Could I not continue to work towards that? Can I not try to undo his mistakes, and mine? I want to be a good queen, Namra. I want to do right by this land. It has already seen too much suffering. I just want to set this all aside and continue to fulfill my duties, even if I have to do it my way. I’m not him. I don’t have to try to be like him. I can carve my own path in this world without spitting on my father’s name. I can still honour him without being him.”
“Carving your own path and honouring your elders do not exactly go hand in hand,” Namra reminded me gently. “Their word is law, as far as the gods are concerned. This has been drilled into us since birth.”
“I know,” I said. “But I am a stubborn woman.”
“In that we can all agree, my queen.”
I fell silent as we found ourselves at the door leading to my father’s study. Namra placed her hand on the knob. The door opened, even without her turning it.
“Opening doors without taking precautions is ill-advised in Dageis, where I was educated,” Namra said. She ushered me in. It was suddenly very warm, almost hot. Strange, because I couldn’t see a fire anywhere. I shrugged out of my shawl with a soft sigh, draping it over a chair.
“What do you mean?” I asked, turning back to her.
“Dageis is a land of mages. Almost everything is laced with spells and counterspells; some could obliterate you if you walked into the wrong room. But this is Jin-Sayeng, where everything is so… archaic.”
She began talking about the intricacies of Dageian spells, but her voice faded in the background as I found myself staring at my father’s vast bookshelves. I allowed myself to breathe. The last time I was here was before his death. I caught a whiff of the scent that I used to associate with him—the smell of the oils used to preserve the covers of his books, moldy leather, and maybe a touch of him as he was. Perhaps sixteen years wasn’t that long ago after all.
I turned my attention to his desk. There were scattered papers, as well as a jar of ink with a pen inside. The ink had hardened around the pen. I suddenly remembered that he had been here the day he fell ill. I was sitting in the corner next to the window, trying to force myself through a book Arro wanted me to finish by the end of the moon. I remember turning to Yeshin to ask him a question—I couldn’t remember what—just as he collapsed, one hand on his chest. I still feel a twinge of shame over the fact that I didn’t rush to him immediately. That I watched him longer than I should’ve, afraid it was a test of some sort… that if I panicked, I would fail. I stood there, a girl of eleven, staring at my weakened, convulsing father on the floor, at the spit that dribbled down his chin. Staring at him die.
“Your father was a busy man,” Namra said.
“Until the very end.” I placed my fingers along the edge of the parchment. The ink had faded to a faint brown over the years, but I could still make out the straight block script my father liked to write in. He took pride in his clear handwriting, and always made note to mention how he didn’t scribble mindlessly like some officials he knew. Everything he did was precise
, calculated. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him engage in anything that could be considered recreation. He was always working on something—drafting up elaborate plans, conducting meetings. If he took walks, it was always for a patrol or an errand.”
“I always thought royals had plenty of hobbies, my queen. But after meeting Dragonlord Rayyel, I think I could believe that rest is a luxury for many of you.”
“You misunderstand me, priestess. My husband has his quirks, but I’ve seen him read for pleasure or engage in moments of silence with a cup of tea. No… my father never rested. In retrospect, that should have been the first clue that my betrothal wasn’t as it seemed. My father wasn’t the sort of man who would willingly lay down arms in front of his enemy—not unless it suited him.” I sighed. “What did you want to bring me here for?” I asked, to change the subject. Reflecting on my father while sitting in his very study brought back too many fraught memories.
Namra strode over to the bookcase, which took up the entirety of one wall. My father wasn’t the kind of reader Rayyel was, either—he consumed books only when he needed to, as opposed to letting them take over his life. But he had amassed quite a collection over the years. The man valued knowledge as much as his time. “Your father—I was told he was a traditionalist,” Namra said, “and that his war was partly fuelled by his desire to return Jin-Sayeng to its older ways, because he felt the Ikessars had become misguided.”
“He was as traditional as they came,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“Because of this.” She pressed her hand on the edge of the bookcase. It glowed before sliding open, revealing a narrow staircase. Something about it seemed to swallow the light—the shadows that crept along the sides felt alive.
My stomach curdled. “What is that?”
“The sort of spell I was telling you about,” Namra said. “Be straight with me, Queen Talyien. Did your father have a mage on staff?”
The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng Page 5
