He seemed to decide I wasn’t merely testing him. At the very least, it looked like he didn’t want to be embarrassed—amazing, given everything that had transpired so far. He got up, giving his guests a small grin before he walked towards Lo Bahn. He pulled the silk covering away. The rotting corpse-stench was now unmistakable. Yuebek picked up the box and turned it upside down, allowing the head to roll down the street.
I heard Ozo cry out.
I was trying not to stare at the head directly. Now I glanced across the table and saw that it belonged to a bald man with a long beard, no one I knew. But Ozo did. “You killed the emissary!” he roared.
Yuebek laughed. “I did! I changed my mind. These people have insulted my queen—someone has to pay.”
“The Ikessars—”
“Let them come,” Yuebek said. “I have the queen’s love. What more do I need?”
“You—” Ozo’s face was red. “He was staying at their temple. Those are sacred grounds!”
“Not sacred to me.” Yuebek shrugged.
“You raided the Kibouri temple,” Ozo stated. He glanced at his men. “When?”
“About an hour ago,” Lo Bahn broke in. “Around the time your priests blessed Prince Yuebek and Queen Talyien’s union. Damn priestesses put up quite a fight, I can tell you!” He bowed towards me awkwardly. “There’s another present, of course, one I’m sure the queen will appreciate more. It’s what the prince sent us out there for in the first place.”
He clapped his hands.
Two guards arrived, escorting Rayyel. He was groomed, clean, unchained.
Alive.
I felt like weeping. We traded glances for a moment before I turned to Yuebek, who laughed at my expression. “I knew it!” he said. “I knew you would appreciate it! Deep inside, you still care about the idiot, don’t you? Well, I can forgive it. I can forgive your woman’s sensibilities. He’s free now. Free to walk away from here if he wants to. Why does it matter to me? You’re mine.”
“You fool,” Ozo whispered in Jinan. “This careless display has hastened our deaths. This…”
“The lone wolf still has to carry his tail,” I replied, quoting an Oren-yaro saying as I looked back at the man I would never call my husband again. Rai stood there in silence, his posture straight, unyielding. The farce couldn’t have asked for better players.
The silence was broken by the sound of Yuebek clapping his hands. “Such a dark mood!” he proclaimed. He took his sword and swung towards Rayyel. I bolted up in spite of myself, but before I could act, the tip of Yuebek’s sword stopped inches away from Rai’s neck.
“Dancing,” Yuebek said, his eyes lighting up.
“You want to dance with Rai?” I managed, my knees growing weak. “Be my guest.”
He turned to me with a grin. “Your humour is lovely, dearest wife. No. You and him. A parting gift to your waiting lords and ladies! This whole thing, after all, is history, is it not?”
I heard Ozo turn his head and cough in discomfort.
Without a word, I walked towards where Rayyel stood. I knew only one dance; he must have been thinking of the same one, because he held both hands out, marking the beginning of it.
Someone startled the musicians into playing.
I approached Rayyel, taking his hands in mine, cold fingers touching. We drifted together, and then let go, twirling where we stood. It felt like yesterday that we were practicing the steps—I could still hear Arro tapping the windowsill to the beat with his fan, clicking his tongue every time I made a mistake.
“You’re as wooden as a fence post,” Arro said. “This is going to be your wedding dance, Princess, not a sparring competition. Try to pay attention.”
“He’s not much better,” I fumed, pointing at Rayyel.
“Never mind him, Princess. All eyes will be on you.”
“It’s not fair!”
“Of course it’s not fair. You’ll be the one in a pretty dress.”
“Then let him wear it!”
Arro chuckled. Rai, of course, looked far from amused. “If the princess will not take her duties seriously—”
“Choke on your tongue, Rayyel,” I snapped. “Before I make you swallow it.”
“Magister Arro,” he said, turning away from me. “Since the princess cannot be bothered to learn a skill every other daughter of Jin-Sayeng is expected to know, might I suggest a replacement? No one will know the difference.”
“Oh, they will,” Arro grumbled, scratching his cheek.
“Because they’re expecting a wolf pup in a dress,” Rai sighed. “You’re right.”
Arro held his tongue.
“I hate you,” I told the boy I loved. I guess he believed me. A mistake, one of many.
How the last ten years had turned us into different people, I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that the Rayyel in front of me was not the stiff-necked prince he once was. I was no longer that arrogant little girl. We danced with our eyes on each other, remembering every step as if the years hadn’t gone by in a flash. Never as husband and wife had we been in such harmony—for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the marriage I always wanted. Maybe he did, too. It felt bittersweet. Like saying thank you and goodbye, all in one breath.
It ended, the music fading with the past. With a measure of reluctance, he let my hands go. “The queen is generous,” he said simply, before turning to Yuebek with a bow. “As is her new lord. I am grateful for my life, though it was not necessary. My death, for my sins, would be well-deserved.”
He bowed a second time before walking away from the square. My hands were cold as I watched him walk past the guards and disappear into the next street. I was still expecting Yuebek to change his mind and cut Rai down from behind. Even when I could no longer see him, I found it hard to feel relieved.
It was in the middle of it all that Warlord Nijo—Lushai’s son, whose sister, I noticed, was absent despite being invited—finally got up. He was a rotund man, tall, with a beard that looked more like patchy moss on his face. He had worn a conflicted scowl since the start of the ceremony, one that deepened with every hour. “Is no one going to say anything?” he asked.
“Return to your seat, boy,” Ozo snapped.
Nijo turned to him. “Your stint as a warlord has ended, Ozo,” he snarled in return. “What makes you think you still have the right to continue to drag us by the nose? My father may have yielded to you for some reason, but I am not him. Unfortunately for us, he’s no longer around. Is murder no longer a crime in this godsforsaken land?” He turned to me.
“Warlord Lushai attacked first,” I said, walking back to my spot at the table to take a sip from my wine. “It was not murder. I have a witness.”
“Where is this witness?” Nijo thundered.
“I’ll vouch for it myself,” Ozo replied. “Lushai was brash and had no love for the queen. Or do I have to remind everyone about your own family’s ambitions? The secrets you’ve hidden? Perhaps you want us to dig through your family history a little further—we’ve plenty enough reason to now. This doesn’t bode well for your rule, Warlord.”
Nijo finally sat down, grumbling under his breath. But another lord got up. I recognized Ipeng.
“I am not trying to be confrontational,” Ipeng said, his voice shaking—with anger or age, I couldn’t tell. “The gods know I am not that sort of man. But Warlord Nijo brings up a good point. Just because Ozo sanctioned this marriage…”
“I did not sanction it, Lord Ipeng,” Ozo said. “Warlord Yeshin did.”
Ipeng nodded. “And I understand his memory is important, but my lords and ladies—Warlord Yeshin is sixteen years dead. Queen Talyien may still rule the land, but that means her relations are our concerns, as well.”
“You own me, you mean,” I said simply. “You think I should have asked for your permissions first, as if all of you were my grandmother.”
Ipeng refused to take the bait.
“Did that attack on Burbatan rattle your skull?” Ozo asked.
<
br /> “You control well over half our army, Lord General,” Ipeng said. “But not all of it.”
“You’d threaten war in your own region,” Ozo remarked. “How many men do you have, Lord Ipeng? Last I remember, the Nee bandits all but obliterated your soldiers. Without me, you would have lost Burbatan, your whole family included.”
“Enough,” I broke in. “Your old men’s prattling is turning this into the worst wedding of the century.”
“Isn’t it, already?” Ipeng asked. His eyebrows knotted. “Tell me, Beloved Queen, why it was so necessary to turn to foreigners for help? We’ve been at the empire’s teat for far too long in our history, and we were doing well at keeping away from them the last century or so. Should not Jin-Sayeng’s troubles remain her own?”
“Because we’ve done such a remarkable job ourselves this whole time,” I replied, dryly.
Yuebek got up, draining an entire cup of rice wine in one go. “I’ve heard all the Jin jabbering I’ve wanted to for the whole day,” he said, shooting his translator a dirty glance. He was holding his sword loosely in one hand. “It’s clear you don’t like me. Which is wonderful, because I don’t like any of you!” He laughed at his own joke, jumping at the lord closest to him, which made the man nearly drop his own cup in shock. Yuebek placed his foot on the table and ran his naked blade along the panicked man’s shoulder.
“I’ve heard you Jinseins prefer to negotiate with blades rather than talk,” Yuebek continued. “A most marvellous arrangement, really! I wish we still did such things back in the Empire. I’d have been emperor in a year!” He pulled his sword away and without warning, flung it towards Ipeng from across the table. The sword struck Ipeng’s head with such force that it flew off, landing with a spray of blood next to the roasted duck.
The guests backed away from their seats. Some drew their swords.
Yuebek smiled, and his own blade carefully flew back into his hand. Ipeng’s headless body toppled over.
“Sorcery!” Nijo gasped.
“What if it is?” Yuebek asked brightly. “Isn’t it time you monkeys embraced what you’ve denied all these years?”
Nijo pointed at him. “My father may have entertained you, but this is the last straw. I’ll have none of it.” He gazed back at the others. “You wolves of Oren-yaro—you would let this man continue to insult us? Where’s your Jinsein pride?” He turned to me, eyes blazing. “You. I suppose there’s no point asking where yours is, you whore.”
Yuebek’s guards raised their halberds. I gestured for them to stop before they could strike him. They stood aside as I left my table.
“Dear wife,” Yuebek intoned. “Let me gift you with another head.” Only Yuebek could make such words sound almost sincere. He looked like a hound slavering for the hunt.
“Marrying the queen doesn’t make you Dragonlord,” Nijo hissed.
“You weren’t invited here to stir trouble, Warlord Nijo,” I broke in.
“Tell that to your new husband. First, the Ikessar emissary, and now your own bannermen!”
“Lord Ipeng overstepped his bounds,” I said easily. “As have you. An insult to the Dragonlord is punishable by death. Have your brains all been so addled the past few months that you’ve forgotten you still had one?”
Nijo’s mouth opened and closed, like a fish yanked from the water. “That’s—”
“I’ll be gracious,” I said, holding my hand out. Ozo appeared with a bow, pressing my father’s sword into my palm. I stared at it for a moment, feeling the urge to reject it like I did back in Burbatan. Instead, I allowed my fingers to wrap itself around the hilt. “We’ll settle it with combat.”
Nijo laughed. “You! I’d kill you!”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
He started to shake his head, before drawing his sword. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Beloved Queen.”
I bent down to rip the lower part of my wedding gown, leaving my legs free, and attacked.
Nijo’s confidence was a fool’s confidence. I knew the way he fought, from way back when we were young. No strength, no finesse. His footwork was shoddy, and he struck like someone who had never been in a real fight before, who didn’t know the panic of having your life flash before your very eyes. It wasn’t unlikely. Many warlords’ sons and daughters were kept cloistered behind a teeming mass of guards and servants. Even Ozo didn’t seem worried.
A deafening silence fell on the crowd. All eyes turned to me—all wondering, I suppose, if I had gone as mad as this man I’d married. As mad as my father. A wedding and a show, with the Ikessars breathing down our necks? She must’ve. I could hear the scritching in my head as I imagined the scribes writing it all down, interpreting events to their hearts’ content. Ruined by scandal, both hers and his, Queen Talyien finally discarded her husband for a more powerful man…
And then: two possibilities. Jin-Sayeng is saved, or Jin-Sayeng burns.
I didn’t know which of the two I was driving towards as I battered at Nijo’s sword, a touch faster than he could ever be. It was nothing but sparring practice. I didn’t even know if I intended to kill him or not. I held no love for the man. Growing up, he treated me with the sort of politeness that barely masked his contempt. But I didn’t really want him dead. I didn’t even want his father dead.
Still, I knew already that what I wanted mattered less now than it ever did. The world might never forget this moment. They would record only the sorts of things that people want to hear, and then they would embellish it, twist it into something foul and unrecognizable. They would state the obvious: that I did this to preserve my honour and my new husband’s, that I wanted to prove I wasn’t a whore queen, bending over for a madman just for power.
As if I hadn’t gone far beyond caring about such things. It was better that they know nothing else. My memories of the Sougen could stay there. I couldn’t expect more, I couldn’t hope for more, and so why should it bother me what they thought about what I needed to do? I heard Yuebek laughing just as I struck Nijo across the chest, so deep it all but ensured his defeat. I could take his head with a second blow.
Instead, I held back, pulling away from him.
“We are fighting amongst ourselves at the cusp of war,” I said. “That is all this Jinsein pride has ever done for us. That is all it’s ever done. I have a proposition. Whoever thinks they know how to turn this around may take the title of Warlord of Oren-yaro from me. You have my blessings. I can’t guarantee the rest of the nation will agree, but that’s nothing we all don’t deal with. It’s not going to get better from here on out, either.”
A grumble of discontent rose among the crowd. Nobody wanted to take me up on the offer, that much was clear. Easy enough to say what another was doing wrong; harder to know exactly how to make it right. I noticed my left arm was drenched in blood—Nijo wasn’t completely incompetent.
I turned back to Yuebek, who was clapping his hands in glee. Just as he opened his mouth, an arrow lodged itself through his neck.
Yuebek coughed, blood spraying. For a moment, I felt a rush of relief, followed by horror. And then Yuebek’s eyes turned towards me. His blood-streaked mouth turned up at the corners as he craned his head to the side and pulled the arrow out. He slowly walked back towards our table. As if nothing was amiss, he unstoppered a jug of wine, poured himself another cup, and drank. Wine and black liquid oozed from both sides of his neck.
Another arrow came flying. It shattered before it could touch him.
Chaos erupted around us.
I found myself back-to-back with Nijo as a swarm of soldiers in plain black armour streamed through the square. They moved effortlessly, rushing straight for the bannermen, most of whom didn’t have the foresight to bring their swords. A dozen bodies were on the ground before I could blink.
“Watch your side!” Nijo barked as two soldiers rushed us.
Horror turned to fear. We were both injured, and I didn’t think the soldiers meant to capture me alive. I attacked blindly, the blo
od from my arm pooling around my fingers. One soldier sidestepped and lifted his arm to strike.
The tip of a halberd appeared in his belly. Blood spurted from his gut as Ozo kicked him aside, making a sweep that all but shattered the second attacker’s knees. “Behind me,” Ozo snarled. I didn’t even stop to think, just dragged Nijo by the collar to where Oren-yaro soldiers were making a formation behind Ozo, giving us a clear path away from the bloodbath.
In the midst of all of that, I heard a roar that sounded like waves striking a cliff during a storm. Any doubts I ever had of my father’s claims about Yuebek’s power were immediately laid to rest. He had taken one of his own soldiers aside, his lips around the man’s mouth. Blood gushed out of the man’s nostrils and eye sockets as Yuebek drained him of—something. Agan, I guessed, from the bright glow of Yuebek’s eyes. He eventually dropped the soldier like a discarded husk—the man was dead, hard black veins protruding from his neck.
Only then did Yuebek turn to the attacking soldiers around him and obliterate them with a sweep of his hands. Blood and bone and entrails splattered on the ground, covering the gold-threaded cloth and flower petals. The latter were jasmine, but for some reason, the air seemed to hold the thicker fragrance of frangipani—funeral flowers, the smell of death.
I didn’t see the rest of the carnage. Ozo insisted I return to the castle immediately, and I didn’t have the desire to stay, anyway—not after what I had just witnessed. Only after we returned to the great hall did Nijo break his silence. “Your new husband—” he began, turning to me.
I wondered what it was in my eyes that made him stop mid-sentence. “I can see,” I said in a low voice. “I am not an idiot, Warlord Nijo.”
He gave a hissing breath. “I can’t decide what you are either, for what it’s worth.”
“I’m still your queen. I know that much.”
Nijo walked down to the end of the hall, hands on his head. “Queen,” he repeated, staring at the throne. He shook his head at the word.
The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng Page 54
