The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng

by K. S. Villoso

  He turned to the mages. “Bring her back,” he said. “Now.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Parrtha replied, quivering.

  “You’d think so. What about you, priestess?” Ozo asked, turning back to Namra. “Don’t tell me that fancy mage education was for nothing.”

  “We don’t know what happened.” Namra’s voice was like steel, even through the fog. “She’s reacted like this before, when I tried to create a portal—”

  “I’m not interested in your excuses, mage! Have you forgotten whose coin was used to buy your way into Dageis? There’s a reason the Orenar coffers are near-bankrupt!”

  “My father never let me forget, Lord Ozo. But now is not the time.”

  “We’re already running out of time! We could’ve done without you indulging her ridiculous whims. I should’ve known that old woman would meddle somehow.”

  “One doesn’t simply tell the queen what to do, Ozo. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  Her voice faded, followed by the images.

  “What did they mean?” I gasped as the mirror became a cold sheet of grey with nary a reflection. “Namra… gods, not Namra.”

  “I am not familiar with this Namra,” Liosa said.

  I turned to Liosa, who had an amused expression on her face. “And you—you were there.”

  “You are talking in gibberish,” Liosa coolly replied. “I am here. Why would I be there?”

  “Didn’t you recognize yourself?”

  “She won’t understand a thing you say, Beloved Queen,” a voice called out.

  I froze.

  Arro appeared like a gust of wind. Or at least, Arro as he had been when I was younger—still black-haired, with a wispy tuft of moustache and a fuzz of a beard you could see through.

  “You nosy old man,” Liosa snorted. “You must take perverse pleasure in following me around.”

  Arro’s face turned red. “I must have told you a thousand times, my lady—if getting a rise out of me is what you want, you are wasting your time. As Warlord Yeshin’s wife, you need to become more responsible. You are mistress of this household. You…”

  “You see, Magister Arro thinks he is in charge of everyone,” Liosa huffed. “A pity he could not marry his way into Jinsein royalty. I suppose being a Xiaran mongrel comes with its downsides.”

  Arro didn’t even flinch from the insult. “I am perfectly happy with my wife, my lady. I at least know where my responsibilities lie. Do you know where yours is?”

  Liosa flushed. “I was just looking for her.”

  “I warned my lord that a scatterbrained young woman would make for a poor mother. But our disagreements aside, the child—your child—should be our highest priority.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll go look for her, you bastard,” she said, breaking from the stiff, formal speech. She turned and walked away from us, disappearing into another swirl of fog. The air felt colder, with what appeared to be small shards of ice floating with the dust motes.

  “Beloved Queen,” Arro said, breaking the silence. “Why are you here? Do you not have a nation to rule?” It was almost as if he had forgotten all about Liosa.

  “My mother…”

  He frowned. “Don’t fret about your mother. I know you must pine for the love you think she owes you, but she won’t take you where you need to go.”

  My mouth went dry. These words… I must’ve asked him the exact same thing as a child. I had no recollection of it, but I remembered the response. I remembered that look on his face, that mixture of pity and something else. Regret? Affection?

  He came up to touch me on the shoulder. “Leave the past to rot where it belongs,” he said. “It is time for you to make new ground. Be the queen you could be. Show them what you are worth.”

  I was mistaken. He had said these things the night after my coronation, in the aftermath of Rayyel’s departure. His expression was etched into the memory of my memories. I felt my heart clench.

  “Arro…” I began.

  I felt the ground begin to shake. I stepped away from my adviser’s mournful face as the fog receded in a swirl of blue light. My skin began to crawl again, and then I felt something grab my arm—something colder and firmer than a human hand—pulling me into the abyss. The last thing I saw was Arro looking back with eyes that reflected my own, and I suddenly realized how much I missed him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE KEY

  I heard the sound of hooves just as the scenery unfolded, the fog receding into wisps. The land was unfamiliar; mountains rose sharply ahead, reminiscent of the Sougen, but darker, more jagged.

  It felt like I was awake, so for a moment, I was convinced someone had strapped me to a saddle. But then I saw hands that weren’t mine tug at the reins, and I looked up to see two armoured figures up ahead. One had the height and bulk that could only be Ozo. Which meant the other was…

  The horse I was riding snorted and stopped. A man in the middle of the road screamed at them to stop in a foreign language. When they didn’t respond, he called for someone behind him. A robed woman approached us. She tested us with a language that sounded like Kag, and then she paused. “You can’t go any further,” she finally said in Jinan.

  “And why not?” Yeshin’s voice sounded younger. An old man already, but with none of the gravelly quality I associated with him. He glared at the woman with eyes of steel.

  She stood her ground. “The land here is dangerous,” she said.

  “So I’ve been told,” Yeshin replied. “We just came from Cairntown.”

  “You’re warriors from Jin-Sayeng. What are you doing all the way west?”

  “I’m the one asking questions,” Yeshin said.

  “You said why not,” the woman replied with a smile. “And I answered.”

  “Your answer is insufficient.” His voice had yet to rise, but already his eyes were blazing.

  Beside him, Ozo had drawn his sword. “Don’t play games with us, woman,” he said. “Cairntown is in ruins. Kaggawa told us we would find the answer out here.”

  “You Jinseins don’t believe in the agan,” the woman said. She held her hands. Blue light hovered over her palms. “I think this is all the answer you need.”

  A bead of sweat appeared on Yeshin’s forehead. “This is its doing,” he said under his breath.

  “My lord?” Ozo asked.

  “Rysaran’s dragon,” he said with a snarl. “It did this. It destroyed the keep in Oren-yaro and killed my sons before Rysaran Ikessar rode it to Shirrokaru. After it burned down half of his own city, it flew all the way back to the Empire of Dageis. Their mages destroyed it in the wilderness here.”

  “You have that last part right,” the woman broke in. “One of our mages was responsible. But it wasn’t a real dragon. It was a construct, a creature of the agan made to be a weapon. Its destruction tore a rip in the fabric that separates the world you know from the spirit world. A small rip, but it’s causing these disturbances—”

  “A city lies in ruins and you call it a disturbance?” Yeshin snarled. “Why did you destroy it here? Why not in your own lands?”

  “Thousands of lives would have been obliterated,” the mage replied. “She did what she had to.”

  “So you put ours in jeopardy instead,” Yeshin said.

  “Kaggawa says this rip will get bigger,” Ozo added. “That the stray magic has caused this land to become unstable. In time, it will spread to Jin-Sayeng. We have thousands of lives there, too.”

  The mage looked unfazed. “We’re working on it.”

  We heard a scream in the distance. The horse under me fidgeted, dancing where it stood. Involuntarily, I tugged at the reins again.

  A creature appeared from the woods, clad in tattered mages’ robes. It jerked forward. “Help me,” it gasped, its grey, clawed hand reaching for the woman. “Help—”

  Yeshin stabbed it with his sword. The creature was so weak that it simply fell to the ground, jaw unhinged. Without missing a beat, Ozo drew hi
s horse around and cleaved its head from its shoulders.

  “You’re working on it,” Yeshin repeated, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “This is how it was explained to me: Malevolent spirits have been using the rip to travel from their world to ours. They need hosts when they get here, or their consciousness will be swept away. When a host cedes to this corruption, they become a monster. How, exactly, are you working on it then?”

  “Go home,” the mage said. “We have it under control.”

  Yeshin burst into laughter.

  My father’s laugh was still ringing in my ears when I found myself sitting on a chair inside a tiny room lined with bookshelves from end to end. There was a single, circular window in the wall right above me, and a desk in front. My left arm was wrapped with a piece of bloody cloth—I could feel it sting with my movement.

  Ozo stood beside me, arms crossed.

  “The vision,” I began. “You bastard. Was that you?”

  “What vision?”

  “You killed Anya, you son of a bitch.”

  “You mean Yuebek’s worm. Just like you to get attached to every single filthy thing that crawls over to you.” He spat.

  “Where’s Namra? And Liosa? Did you hurt them?”

  “They’re unharmed.” There was an unamused expression on his face. “I ask you to do one thing…”

  “You failed to mention the path to Burbatan was strewn with my grandmother’s bandits,” I snapped. “She’s wonderful, by the way. How did you all keep her away from me all these years?”

  “You’ve met her. Wonderfully prickly old woman, isn’t she? What other choice did we have?”

  “These things would’ve all been very useful to know from the beginning, Ozo.”

  “No, they wouldn’t have,” Ozo said, crossing his arms. “They’re gnats. We’ve been swatting them off you for years. What would the knowledge have done for you? Knowing you, you would seek them out in an attempt to foster relations. Look at how this all unfolded. Not a damn thing would have changed if you’d have found out years ago, and there’s well over a hundred ways you could have screwed it up.”

  “Liosa—”

  Ozo shook his head. “I know what you’re going to say. I know it’s a tragedy. But we can’t live in the past.”

  “You all made me believe she died giving birth to me.”

  “The easiest lie. Your father forbade us to speak of her. Who were we to argue with him, girl? You know this better than anyone else.” He ran a hand over his grey beard. “He cared for her in his own way. Grieved for her. She might as well have been dead.”

  “Cared—” I began.

  He laughed. “Don’t think I didn’t tell him what it looked like. A man his age taking a girl like that to the marriage bed—the entire nation was gossiping as soon as he began courting! Guess how much he appreciated me voicing my opinions. And Liosa—she didn’t care, either. She wanted this, and that was that! Your father didn’t know what he was getting himself into. He didn’t even think he’d live past the war, let alone sire another child. But deep down inside, he was still a man, and Liosa knew what she was doing.” Ozo cast me a glance. “Those were not simple times.”

  “Neither are these,” I breathed.

  He growled under his breath. “Kaggawa… the betrothal was that Sume Kaggawa’s idea. She doted on the boy Rayyel, I was told, and yet still she found a way to convince Ryia to… sacrifice him to us. Did Yeshin not have any daughters? Could a marriage not be arranged between Rayyel and one of ours? A tempting notion. Liosa was right there—Yeshin all but told me he would’ve been a fool not to take advantage. If she bore a boy, he would’ve tried to make another.”

  “So he lied to Yuebek’s mother. He made it sound like Ryia’s offer came after.”

  “He lied to everyone.”

  “Why here?” I asked. “What is so important about this place?”

  Ozo turned towards the shelves. “I wanted to show you your father’s research. I wanted to impart the gravity of the situation to that impulsive head of yours.”

  My eyes glanced at the books. You could fill a whole library with them. “My father was a warlord, not an Ikessar.”

  Ozo smirked. “I didn’t know you were fond of those old labels.”

  “A gut response. You’re right. Maybe I don’t want to learn more about Yeshin. Maybe I’ve had enough of the past. The agan runes in Oka Shto. The cage used to transport Rysaran’s dragon, the beast that destroyed Old Oren-yaro, lies right underneath Oka Shto. Yeshin blaming the Ikessars for bringing it to Jin-Sayeng when he wanted it for himself, too. What’s a Dragonlord without a dragon, after all? Liars, all of you.” I walked over to a dusty bookcase and picked out a leather-bound tome at random.

  “Be careful,” Ozo warned.

  I coughed against the cloud of dust as I pulled the book free. It was a collection of loose parchments, with faded ink in my father’s handwriting. “This is about the agan,” I said, after a moment. “Where would he get this information?”

  “Thank your husband’s uncle.”

  “Rysaran?”

  “The prince’s personal study in the Dragon Palace is filled with all sorts of obscure information he gathered during his travels. Your father became interested in this sort of thing long before your brothers’ deaths. Prince Rysaran had asked us to investigate a caravan travelling through the border near Gaspar. There was a steel box, containing the dragon. You’re right—we seized it for ourselves. But we couldn’t have known what it was. The entire thing was covered in these strange runes that glowed when we touched them.

  “I was young, then. Not even a general yet—nothing but an assistant to my uncle, who was lord general in those days. But I remember warning your father not to meddle with such things. Your father threatened to cut my tongue out if I kept talking. You can see how we got on.” Ozo shook his head. “In those days, we suffered from famine, raids from Gasparians at the border, poor trade. Prince Rysaran was a monarch who only cared about his obsession—finding a dragon, convinced that this one thing could make all the difference for us. Warlord Yeshin thought that if we could take the dragon from him, then perhaps we could show the land exactly who should be in power. At least throw doubt on the Ikessars’ capabilities.”

  “So you found mages to undo the spells.”

  Ozo snorted. “Not easily. I scoured Gaspar, not realizing those mages were bound to their god-king and that the mere act of asking if you could borrow them was a crime punishable by death. I barely escaped with my life. The Empire of Dageis? After Gaspar, I wasn’t even going to try. And then I learned there were mages in Ziri-nar-Orxiaro. That’s how we stumbled upon Parrtha and four of his companions. They were exiled from their academy, banished for the gods know what. I didn’t want to know the details. We took them back to Oren-yaro, and they did it. They released the dragon from its cage. Except it wasn’t really a dragon. It was a creature of death and destruction and it killed everyone including your brothers.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “I wasn’t there,” Ozo said, shaking his head. “Or I’d be dead, too. I don’t know how your father survived. But he wasn’t the same for the longest time. Because the old keep was destroyed, he made his home here for a while. He started this research, gathering what he could. I believe Parrtha stole much of this from Rysaran’s study over the years.”

  “So, my father was an aficionado of the forbidden arts,” I said wryly. “I was starting to guess that.” I gave him a look. “But that’s not what we’re here for. What else is there, Ozo?”

  “Rysaran’s dragon was destroyed just before the war broke out,” Ozo continued. “Right in the mountains northwest of the Sougen.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Did Kaggawa tell you that? The man truly fancies himself the hero of the west.” He smiled wryly. “He was the one who tried to explain this to your father after the Shadows broke off from the Ikessars. Your father didn’t believe it at first. He was too intent on winning th
e war. And we were close to winning. The Ikessars and their allies were weak, and without the Shadows’ help, defeat was inevitable.

  “But in the spring of that year, he and I went to visit Ojika Anyu. On the way back, he decided we should head to Kago—straight to the source of those disturbances, in the mountains north of Cairntown. There, we met the Dageian mages busy at work—the ones sent to fix what the first contingent couldn’t. They explained they were trying to make repairs, even as they were clearly failing. The damage was allowing corrupted souls to walk among us, creating mad dragons and the gods know what else. In time, Jin-Sayeng will be overrun.”

  “My father always knew,” I said. “And he didn’t do a damn thing. Kaggawa was accusing us of putting our own interests first. He was right. All these arguments with the Ikessars, this pandering to the Zarojo…”

  “We were in the middle of a war,” Ozo snarled. “You’ve met Ryia. Does she look like the kind of woman who backs down just because you decide something else is more important? Don’t accuse your father of not doing anything about it. He did. He sent letters to Zarojo. Made contact to seek aid. One of the mages introduced him to the Fourth Consort. We needed the War of the Wolves to be over, fast. We were bleeding everywhere—coin, food, soldiers. The Ikessars had withdrawn into the mountains and turned to sneak attacks. Some of the other warlords, the ones who initially refused to become involved in the conflict, were starting to think about riding up against us just to put an end to everything.

  “So when the idea of a truce was brought up—the betrothal… your father seized the chance. It meant putting an end to the bloodshed, if temporarily. We needed the space. We needed to breathe, to plan our next step.”