The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng

by K. S. Villoso

  And so those who grow mad with power learn they can do these things because no matter how we say we abhor them, a part of us will allow them to happen if it means holding on to those little comforts that make our lives worth living. Monsters know what they are. I am not much different. My desire to tell the truth comes at a price: the disregard of the ones who suffered the most while I spend pages upon pages immortalizing creatures like Yuebek and Yeshin. Such is the way of the world.

  So let me tell you what I later learned about Ingging instead.

  She was born a servant in one of the Nee estates over in the foothills. As children, she and Liosa used to tear after each other through the rice terraces, knee-deep in mud. They loved to wake up early to get tofu with caramel from town, and visiting the temple during winter—less so to worship Akaterru than for the steamed purple rice cakes they sold on the temple steps. She was often scolded for encouraging Liosa’s foolhardiness; later, as they grew older, she tried to become a voice of reason, which Liosa often scoffed at.

  After Liosa left Oka Shto, Ingging married a potter from the city and bore him four children: Gurtal, Liaong, Landing, and Talyeng. The last one was a daughter, half my age and born the same day I was. She loved that it was a link she could share with her old friend, was convinced it meant the gods understood us in some way. That there was a pattern to our suffering, our fates written in the stars. I don’t know if I shared the sentiment, but I appreciated the thought all the same. She raised her children well, from what I could tell. They were polite even while hearing news of their mother’s death, though I was sure they wouldn’t be if they knew the details. On the way out of the small house she had managed to scrounge up from the meagre pay we gave the castle staff—her husband having died a long time ago—Talyeng accompanied me to the gate.

  “Did she suffer?” she asked. Her voice was still a child’s voice, high and chirpy.

  “No,” I lied. “It was as if she died in her sleep.”

  And then I prayed that she might never learn the truth.

  Not even my darkest nightmares could say what else Yuebek might have done after he killed Ingging. Rayyel was still on the floor, and I think his intention was to rip him apart, or worse. Whatever was done to Ingging could very well happen to him, too. I steeled myself. But a guard arrived, bearing news that an Ikessar emissary was at the gates. Ozo released me and turned to Yuebek. “He needs to be cleaned up fast,” Ozo said, pointing at Rai. “You can’t let the Ikessars see this. If they attack now, we’re done for.”

  Yuebek reeled back. He looked exhausted. “Very well,” he said. He glanced at me with eyes filled with hate. “You win this round, my queen. Take care of your dear husband for now. He won’t be for very long.”

  I wanted to rush to Rayyel’s side. I hesitated, and gestured at the Oren-yaro guards. They picked him up, dragging him from the great hall. I turned back to see Lo Bahn slinking in. Yuebek pushed him aside, yelling.

  Not wanting to see the rest of it, I followed the guards instead. They took Rayyel to the guest chambers. Yayei appeared at the door, white-faced, shaking. “Water and towels, Yayei,” I told her.

  “Beloved Queen…”

  “Yayei,” I said. “Please. You can’t think about it. We have to keep busy. Don’t let her death be in vain.”

  Her teeth rattled as she drew away.

  I pulled off Rayyel’s filthy robes and cringed as I saw how thin he was. I could count every rib on his body. I found a pair of scissors and began to trim his beard. The motions kept my thoughts at bay.

  His eyes finally focused on me. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Saving us,” I replied.

  “You were supposed to be gathering forces, not be back here.”

  “Don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, Rayyel, but your mother’s already done that,” I said.

  He pushed my hand away. “You could have waited. Let her thin out his soldiers first.”

  “In my city, using my people as fodder? I am nowhere near as heartless as you all think.” I snipped around his moustache, smoothing it with my fingers. “I don’t believe she has near the number of soldiers to hurt Yuebek, either. You know what he is.”

  “You do, too,” he said in a low voice. “Why are you making him believe you’re going to marry him?”

  “Because I intend to.”

  “Why, by all the gods—”

  “Rai,” I said. “Listen to me, for once.”

  He opened his mouth, but no words came out. If I had attempted to talk to him like this during the early days of our marriage, it would’ve been an argument long into the night. But something had changed between us. Without my feelings for him hanging in the balance, the rest of the fire had gone out.

  Yayei returned with the basin and towel, and clean clothes for him. She bowed and withdrew a second time.

  I returned to trimming Rai’s beard. “There is no point gathering an army. We cannot save Jin-Sayeng by defeating her enemies because her enemies were brought here for a reason. If you keep your mouth shut long enough, I’ll explain everything to you.”

  Rai swallowed. “I do listen.” Trembling, he reached up to place his hand on my arm. His fingers were cold. “I heard everything you said out there, too.”

  I didn’t reply. Once his beard looked presentable, I placed the scissors on the windowsill and turned to grab the basin and water. Wringing soapy water from the towel, I began to wash his face slowly, mechanically, while I whispered Yeshin’s plans into his ear. I told him everything, because Rayyel ran on reason, and the man who could keep his silence about his doubts about our son for five years could keep quiet a little longer. He listened without a flicker of emotion, ever the stone wall; it was the first time I found comfort in it.

  When I was done, he took a deep breath, his throat bobbing. “Since you’re still alive,” I said in a low voice, “then you can help us bring a sense of order to these things. Yuebek hasn’t broken you, has he?”

  Rai shook his head. “His methods of torture were… laughable. I counted the drops until I knew how many were in each bucket. I simply… anticipated it after that. Focused on the counting. I can now tell you how many approximate drops there are in a bucket that size.”

  I dipped the towel back into the basin and turned to his back. The once unblemished skin was now covered in dark, brittle scabs and scars. “I saw our son,” I said as I washed it.

  “Is he well?”

  “He’s in Kaggawa’s camp. Dai at least… cares for him. He is fed, guarded. Healthy. But…” I paused, remembering Thanh’s words back at the camp. “Rai, I think he’s poisoning our son’s mind.”

  Rai frowned. “Kaggawa intends to wield our own son like a dagger against our throats.”

  “Perhaps we have nothing to worry about until he’s finished with his war with the Anyus,” I said. “In any case, I feel at ease knowing there’s a whole army between him and Yuebek. Believe me, Rai, it is the only reason I can sleep these days.”

  “And the boy… have you spoken?” Somehow, mentioning Thanh seemed to invigorate him.

  I nodded. “He’s bored. Spends the whole day reading. When I saw him, he had that infernal book by Sagar.”

  “It is an excellent book.”

  “I beg to disagree, Rai.”

  His face twitched.

  I gave a soft smile. “Lamang is… keeping an eye on him.”

  “Lamang,” he repeated. His eyes brightened. “Inzali’s brother.”

  “Yes. He’s working in Kaggawa’s camp. And your sister. Karia.”

  “I see.”

  “You could say more than that, Rai. By the way, dear wife, did I forget to mention I had a sister? All these family reunions…”

  “They hid that from me, too,” he said. “Karia had been a maidservant in the Citadel when I was growing up. I knew her, but not who she was. When I learned of Anino, I asked her to keep an eye on him. I didn’t know who else to trust. Only then did I find out she was my f
ather’s daughter.”

  “Worms underneath the wound,” I reflected.

  “Knowing what we know now, it is difficult to disagree with your father about keeping you in the dark.”

  “Don’t say that, Rai.”

  “I don’t mean it that way. But you can see why he came to the conclusions he did. Cleansing fire might be the only hope this land has.”

  “And us, the logs to stoke it. Yes. That’s the sort of twisted thinking that got us to where we are now. I’ve just decided not to kill you—don’t let me hear this from you again or I might change my mind.” I sighed, finally pulling away from him. He looked clean now, which wasn’t saying much. You can’t wash away the shadow of starvation and torture overnight.

  Rai reached for a clean shirt. He couldn’t seem to bend his elbow, so I helped him put it on. He looked embarrassed to be so weak. “Speaking of Lamang,” he said as I tied his belt, and I thought for a moment he was going to ask about that and turned my head away. “Inzali managed to escape from Bara during my arrest. I believe she went to your bannermen.”

  “Which explains their discontent,” I said. “Well, time for her to undo what she did. We need to be united. We need the full force of the Oren-yaro to march with the Zarojo towards the Sougen. Which is going to be tricky with your mother roaring for blood out there. You understand why I need you now, Rai? Your powers of diplomacy…”

  “You finally admit I have them,” he said.

  I glanced at him.

  “A joke,” he explained.

  “Yes, I figured.”

  “You know, because—”

  “Yes, Rai. I got that.”

  He frowned. “But you didn’t laugh.”

  “Rai—”

  He cracked a smile.

  “You do enjoy getting a rise out of me, don’t you?” I asked.

  “More than you realize,” he confessed.

  We fell silent, listening to the crackling of the fireplace, to the wind roaring outside. After a moment, he took my hand. I squeezed back, knowing he understood the gravity of what was about to come, the burden we all needed to share.

  I cleared my throat. “I will formally accuse you. You’ll acknowledge everything, which means there’s not much else the council can do. I won’t lie. They may agree it is in the land’s best interests to execute you. And if Yuebek decides to hasten the process… I can’t stop him.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied, as simply as if I’d asked him to take a walk in the garden with me. “And then you’ll marry him, that thing out there? After what he’s just done?”

  I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the memories of the last hour, and took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said, holding back both tears and vomit. “Yes, I will.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE WEDDING

  The wedding of Talyien aren dar Orenar to Prince Yuebek Tsaito, the Emperor Yunan Tsaito’s Fifth Son, might have been the most sombre wedding Jin-Sayeng had ever seen. From the way the lords and ladies greeted us, eyes settling on anywhere but the two robed figures in their midst, to the way the musicians seemed to choose the slowest, saddest songs, it was indistinguishable from a funeral.

  Not that Yuebek himself noticed. He chalked it up to Jinsein tastes, criticizing the celebration—which we held in the city square, underneath the silhouette of the crumbling dragon-towers. An apt image. I tried to focus my attention on them each time Yuebek reached for my waist, laughing at the dancers. “When I’m Dragonlord, I’ll make sure you people learn what real culture looks like!” he jeered, breath stinking like the back of a slaughterhouse.

  The patron of the wedding was Akaterru, the River God. A petition had been made to have at least priestesses of Omionoru and Immiresh present, as if somehow the more deities they could offer prayers to, the less damned the wedding would be. Both parties refused. If Oren-yaro was going to make a fool of itself, it could do so alone.

  The ceremony went on for the better part of noon—long prayers uttered in the Oren-yaro tongue, so ancient I could barely understand the words. It was nearly a relief when the priests came to give their blessings and to wrap us together in beads, signifying the start of our union. Nearly. I tried not to smell Yuebek’s corpse-stench as they pushed us next to each other. The crowd watched in silence, unamused but unable to tear their eyes away from the spectacle. One of the priests held up his hand, anointing both of our foreheads with water.

  My groom reached forward to kiss me.

  I pulled away almost as soon as our lips touched, my eyes on the grey towers. If I don’t do this, the land will burn, I told myself. But it was a struggle not to recall that day with Khine in the Sougen—the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way his laughter seemed to burn inside his chest before it burst out.

  “You look hungry,” Khine had said that morning, noticing me staring at him. “Come and have breakfast, my dear.”

  “Will you let me cook for you next time?” I asked, coming up to him.

  The laughter, then. “Oh,” he said, pretending to grow serious. “You’re not joking.”

  “You do this for me so often and I want to return the favour.” I settled beside him as he handed me the bowl of rice and eggs. “I did try to cook once, if you recall. Back in your house in Shang Azi.”

  “Can’t say I’ll ever forget it. All that smoke…” He pretended to think. “You’re right, though. I do feed you too often. Maybe I should stop altogether.”

  “So that we starve to death?”

  “I don’t mind starving beside you.”

  “Your sisters are right. You are an idiot.”

  “Have you ever heard me contest it?”

  I laughed in return. He smiled, as if he could see something that he didn’t want to tell me—a secret he wanted to keep to himself. I stared back at him, wanting to know what it was, wanting to be lost in his eyes forever.

  The footsteps came, jolting me from the memory. People arrived to hang coins from the beads, held together with red thread. Lords and ladies from all across the foothills and the riverlands, and then Yuebek’s officers. Radi Ong was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Jiro Kaz. All the better, probably; I was sure he knew what had happened to his wife and that I was at fault. Another soul to hate me, to add to the crowd. The fact that I had set Prince Rayyel aside and was marrying this foreigner was enough to make the commoners hiss from the sidelines. When Yuebek led me down the street, which had been covered with green, gold-threaded hemp cloth for the occasion, I could hear them cursing my name in the alleys. “Bitch Queen! Traitor! A new man to fuck, when there’s war on our doorstep!” The guards came to chase the onlookers deeper into the shadows.

  I kept my chin up, my jaw steady. We returned to the square for the feast: roasted pork, grilled over hot flames, roasted duck, stewed squid swimming in black ink. Fresh river fish, stuffed with onions and tomatoes, fried noodles with tough native chicken and whole quail eggs, and java rice flavoured with lemongrass. Yuebek would occasionally pull me towards him to try to feed me with his hands. I had no appetite for anything, and deflecting Yuebek was like trying to entertain a child you didn’t want to be around. I could feel my bannermen’s eyes on me, could see the ladies turn to their husbands to whisper their observations into their men’s ears. With Lushai nothing but ashes back in Toriue Castle, the only two people there who really knew what was happening were Ozo and I. The secrecy my father had bound him to meant that after everything, and with Inzali Lamang’s unwanted help, Ozo’s influence was slipping.

  You could tell from the gifts that were brought midway through the meal. They weren’t presents so much as they were subtle insults. A wall-eyed stallion the Lady Daya proclaimed was the best of some nonexistent breed; a dozen emaciated fighting roosters; an entire trunk with copies of Sagar’s poetry, when it was well-known he was a controversial figure the Oren-yaro would’ve loved to burn alive. Little things that someone like Yuebek wouldn’t have picked up on, but we all knew what they were saying.


  If I wasn’t going to stop this madness, I was going to be mocked forever for it.

  After the last gifts were bundled away, Yuebek got up, holding a cup of wine towards me. “To my queen,” he said with flourish. “I bring you my own offering. I think you will be quite pleased with this one.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Rayyel was my first thought. Rayyel—whom I had not seen since that evening when he went out to confront the Ikessar emissary. They had left Oka Shto together. Later, Rai made his confessions from the Ikessar temple down at the city, and the head priestess herself arrived with documents dissolving our marriage. I was told that she had been waiting the last few months and didn’t need much more than Rai’s word. As he had admitted to abandoning his responsibilities, he wouldn’t need a trial, either—the priestess herself had taken him into custody. If the Ikessars wanted him, they would have to promise to try him themselves.

  Two of Yuebek’s servants arrived with a box, the perfect size to contain a head. Lo Bahn strode over to pick it up with a look of distaste. He limped to where we were seated and held it up with a flourish.

  The guests had grown silent. I stared at the box, frozen to my chair.

  “Open it,” Yuebek said, grinning.

  I didn’t move.

  The mirth disappeared from Yuebek’s face. “Open it!” he ordered, grabbing my wrist.

  I yanked my hand away from him. “I bestow the honour of unwrapping on you, dear husband,” I said in a flat tone.

  Yuebek frowned, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of bending to his demands. Resisting him was dangerous, but giving in was too suspicious, and with the game I was playing, I knew what line I needed to straddle.