“Or he might not, and die anyway,” I said. “He’s untrained, not like Namra, and that dragon’s body is too injured from the battle at Yu-yan. In any case, I will not ask that from him. He has a daughter. They just got him back. This is our problem to solve. We’re supposed to be the Dragonlords.”
He looked startled. “We.”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“But all these years, you’ve never—”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve had a change of heart. Truth be told, I think you would’ve made a fine ruler, if only you… you know, stayed.”
He flushed.
“As it is, it’s not like I’ve set a high bar myself,” I grunted.
“You signed a policy on river waste that I thought was commendable.”
“Arro did that.”
“And the fishing schedule—”
“Arro.”
“How about—”
“Pay attention, Rai. Arro did everything for me.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “Gods, if only he was here.”
“I’ll do it,” Rai managed, after a brief silence. “Your father would have planned that out from the beginning. For me to make this sacrifice.”
“Maybe. Perhaps he was hoping I would follow his footsteps and be just as deceitful as he was. That I would keep you around, just so I could fool you, too.” I took a deep breath. “But I don’t think so.”
“Don’t try to humour me.”
“I’m not. If things went exactly as he wanted them, you’d be dead by now.”
His face flickered. “I see.”
“That’s why he wrote that letter. I know him. I know what it sounds like when he is asking me to do something important to him. He doesn’t need to remind me of my duties, but he knew how to twist his words to make me obey.”
“You don’t need to obey him anymore. You’re too injured.”
“That’s exactly why it has to be me. Between the two of us, you’re the one better equipped to get Thanh out of here. I’d just slow us down, and I’ll bleed enough to send every dragon from here to Gaspar into a feeding frenzy.”
Rai chewed over this, his jaw hard. Logic. It was ever his forte.
“Talyien,” he finally said. “I understand what you’re saying. But I feel as if it would be cowardly of me to agree to it.”
“Cowardly?” I asked. “When was that ever a problem for an Ikessar?”
“Dishonourable, then. Unbecoming of a prince, of someone who was supposed to have ruled beside you.” He swallowed. “Unfair. You alone cannot carry the burden of this land.”
“You’re starting to understand.” I beckoned to him, pulling the blanket away to show him my leg. He cringed at the sight of the mangled flesh. “How far do you think I can walk on that? We barely escaped back there, and my body was whole, then. And anyway…” I stared at the fire, listening to it crackle, wondering if it was normal not to really feel the heat emanating from it. Everything felt so cold. “Anyway, I think I’m dying already.”
“You’re not,” he said, incredulously.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood. Namra’s procedure didn’t work very well.” I placed my hand on the dirt, lifting up a handful. It was wet, a slurry of black and red. Even such a simple movement made me dizzy.
“If I ride back and find Lamang, he’ll know what to do,” Rai stammered. “He’s saved me once. He’ll save you.”
I smiled. “Remember, Rai. He sold us to Yuebek. He’ll be long gone.”
“If I ride fast—”
“Rai,” I said. “What are you doing?”
His nostrils flared. “I can’t just let you… die. I can’t. How am I supposed to listen to you talk like this?”
“And you call me emotional?”
“This is different!” he snapped. “You have a son. He needs his mother. He—”
I placed my hand on his wrist.
“You ask me for the most ridiculous things, do you know?” He ran his hands through his hair.
“Thanh will be fine. He’s old enough. He’s smart, he’s brave, and he’s been loved all his life. Some of us have done all right with less. He survived you being away all these years, didn’t he? Survived you wanting him dead, even.”
“That’s nowhere near—”
“And now you’re here for him. My dear,” I whispered, “he has everything he needs.”
He shook his head, trembling. “Tali—please. What do I know about raising children? He doesn’t even know me.”
“That’s not really my fault, now,” I chided lightly.
“This is not the time for jokes.”
“He’s angry with you. But anger can go away. I’ve proven that much. Rai…” I touched his face. “We can still salvage the one good thing that came from all of this. Maybe there is no escape. Maybe the land will burn anyway. Promise me one thing: No matter what happens, Thanh lives.”
I dropped my hand to hold his. He looked down, his face twisted in a way I had never seen it before. His eyes were wet. I felt slightly vindicated. He wasn’t a stone wall after all.
“I’m just sorry Chiha went ahead,” I said. “You could have married her.”
“By the gods, Tali, this isn’t the time.”
“I’m joking.”
“You’re dying. You shouldn’t be.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t want us catching up. I regret not getting the chance to do it in life.” My lips twitched as I laced my blood-soaked fingers through his own, clean ones. “You should do right by Anino, at least. The boy has been through enough already. What I’m trying to say is that it’s all in the past. I’ve forgiven you, Rai. Maybe you need me to spell it out first.” I took a deep, ragged breath. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How the things we used to hold on to fervently could one day be swept away, just like that. It was nothing, after all. There are more important things. This—here now, what’s about to happen—it’ll pass, too. Even the worst pain is only temporary. I’ve learned that much.”
“Stubborn fool,” he grumbled.
“Like you?” I gave a soft smile. “My father wanted this. He wanted it to be me from the very beginning, to ensure he won’t be a footnote in history. To ensure he would remake it instead. His legacy is Jin-Sayeng’s salvation. In the end, we all lose, and Yeshin… Yeshin wins, after all.” I swallowed, thinking of the sword in the bottom of that lake.
“You are the bravest woman I know.”
“High praise, coming from you.” I shook my head. “But no. I’m not. If I was brave… there are a thousand things I would have done differently if I wasn’t so afraid. I’m just… very tired of running. There’s only a little bit of fight left in me, Rai, and I don’t even know if it’s enough. But it’s all we’ve got. Let’s not waste it.”
He took my hand, heedless of the blood, and pressed it against his lips.
I closed my eyes.
Namra went to find a dragon to trap while I tried to keep the worst of the exhaustion, the pain, away. Through the haze, I saw Thanh settle beside his father, who had been staring at the wall in silence. I didn’t hear what he said at first, but Rai’s face flickered. Carefully, he lifted his hand and placed it on Thanh’s cheek. Thanh hesitated before turning to wrap his arms around Rai’s neck.
“We are still family, Father,” my boy whispered. Damning words in so many cases. Redemption, in others. Seeing them together after all these years put me at ease. It was as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
Later, Rai tried to feed me a broth made of dried mushrooms and meat. I dribbled soup everywhere and swallowing hurt, so I stopped after a few spoonfuls. I told him about Sayu then, and the journals I left with her, as well as the ones I kept locked in the hidden throne room in Oka Shto. Our lives, penned forever in ink. I warned Rai they wouldn’t be very flattering; he didn’t seem to mind. He even pulled out a blank parchment from his pack, which I suppose shouldn’t have surprised me. I was too weak to do anything but narrate the ending—fr
om after the battle of Yu-yan to these last few hours in the wilderness. For the next few days, I drifted between talk and sleep, my mind floating between memories. Rai wrote in silence.
We don’t always get to choose, but we can do so much with so little.
Sayu told me I needed to write all of this down to tell the land the truth. What did I want them to know, they who will distort my name in time: the Butcher’s Daughter, the Foreigner’s Whore, Bitch Queen? Perhaps not much more than that I was human. I hold the power to lie and paint myself a hero, like others before me, but I would rather not. Life is oddly simple, for all that we try to take more than we deserve, and even a queen cannot change the rules. That I made it this far, all things considered, might hold meaning for another one day.
Or maybe it won’t. Likely this will all be lost—as impermanent as the hand that penned the ink, even if we want to believe something in this world has to outlast us. But I didn’t write this to justify my actions. There is only so much our minds can grasp. We must step forward or we sink like rocks. Pretending our struggles amount to something brings its share of comfort. All stories begin somewhere. All stories end. And Tali, you’ve reached the end. May what’s left absolve the sins that brought you this far. Be content—even as you are, you are luckier than most.
So I spend my last energy on these words, and I look at the man I spent so many years loving and hating with the same breath. I call my son, and hold him tight enough so he would forever remember that I didn’t really want to let go. Namra arrives to tell us the dragon is here and that it is time. It is time.
What lies beyond is no longer my story to tell.
INTERLUDE
THE SEND AND THE TOUCH
Namra arrives to tell us the dragon is here.
I push myself up, my legs shaking, while Rai offers his arm so I can lean on him. Blood pools under my feet with every step, and I wonder if I have any left to spare. At the door, I turn around to look at Thanh one last time. “Stay here,” I say. “Stay where it’s safe.” There are other things I want to tell him, but this will have to suffice.
“Yes, Mother.” He stands tall as he speaks, looking me in the eye. I have never told him he looks like my father. The ears, the lips, even the shape of his eyes, if not the colour. He probably doesn’t need to know. The sooner this is all over, the better for him. I do allow myself a moment to wonder what sort of man he will grow up to be. A good one, I tell myself. I can at least believe such a thing is still possible in this world.
We walk around the base of the tower, which is half covered in mossy rocks. If the tower where Yuebek’s switch happened is old, this one is even older—the architecture is ancient, the sort I must’ve seen in the older cities. I can’t really remember. It is hard to remember much when your senses have thickened to a point where you feel like you’re swimming in black water. Like the other tower, this one is pointed at the top like a needle. The platform where dragons land is absent.
I’m not sure why we even call it a dragon-tower. An affectation, living here. Our lives used to revolve around dragons. And now the land’s continued existence suddenly depends on them again. It is apt, in a way, the sort of thing you can write poetry about. I guess it is too late for me to learn.
We are, I notice, at the bottom of a canyon, as Namra must’ve mentioned earlier. Or was it yesterday? Three days ago? Everything is a haze. I hear a rumble, halfway between a roar and a chirp.
Namra has trapped the dragon further down the canyon, in a narrow crevice on which she has managed to cause a landslide of rocks. It is the pale female dragon, the mate of the male Yuebek is riding. She looks disoriented, and her leg is slightly bent from injury. It amuses me that mine looks worse.
“This one isn’t mad,” I say.
Namra nods. “They’re not all mad. It is rare to find one like this.”
“Yet its mate was. The one Yuebek has.”
“It makes it easier for us, I suppose. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing one of those things inside your body.”
“This is wrong. What we’re about to do is wrong.”
“It is not too late to turn back,” Rai breaks in.
I admonish him with a shake of my head. “This must be done. But it doesn’t mean I need to be heartless about it.” I reach out to touch the dragon’s nose. It croons, blinking at me. Has it seen people before? It is strange to see a dragon so unaggressive. But then again, we used to live beside these things. Surely not all were vicious.
“She’s beautiful,” Namra says. “How she’s survived all these years around the others who are more or less… monsters… is a marvel.”
Another apt metaphor. “A sign of hope, at least,” I say. I pause for a moment, bracing myself at a spark of blackness in my vision. And then I touch the dragon again, scratching her cheek. “Lend me your strength, my friend.”
“Are you ready, my queen?” Namra asks as she finishes strapping the scroll to the dragon’s leg.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“Remember: The scroll needs to touch the tower when Yuebek is near,” Namra says. “It will activate with his presence and use him as a source of power as it closes the rift.”
I nod. Every movement feels like my last. I want it to end.
“My queen,” Rai says. “It’s been an honour.”
“Don’t cry, Rai,” I tell him. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Namra begins her spell. The dragon and I stare into each other’s eyes. The pain finally drifts away.
The dragon doesn’t want to leave. She lets me stay. The others walk with two souls inside of them; why not her?
I start to ask her what happens to my body if there is no soul inside of it. Won’t it die? But it’s dying already. Another moment, and suddenly I do not care. Namra is breaking the rock that has our wing trapped with a spell, her face sweating from the effort. She is tired. We are all tired.
The dragon tells me she wants to be with her mate.
The rock breaks. It is all we need. We roar and take to the sky.
She tells me, as we drift above the clouds, that her mate will not come to her. It has a new friend, one that refuses to listen to him as the other has. A corrupt soul, even more corrupted than before, blackness seeping from within.
An irony. That the other thing trapped inside Yuebek’s body is more harmless than his own, true self.
Her mate, she tells me, is still inside. She knows it.
We spin around the hill. Our leg hurts, but not as much as mine did earlier when… when…
I do not recall anymore. Why did I think I had another injury? I throw a lick of flame on an oncoming breeze, watching with satisfaction as it curls around our mouth. The fire feels good along our throat and inside our lungs. Even the smoke that climbs out of our nostrils is comforting, like a warm blanket on a cold night. I still remember blankets. The dragon does not, but the image makes her smile.
We see another shape in the distance.
Danger, she tells me. It is not her mate. But I recognize the shape of the other dragon. I tell her it is a friend. She doesn’t believe me. We fly towards him anyway, wings beating against the air.
“Beloved Queen,” Eikaro calls, his eyes wide open. “What have you done?”
“What must be done,” I tell him back, relishing at how effortless it seems to talk without really talking. Do we remember a time when it feels so difficult to get words out? She wonders if being human is really as complicated as I make it sound. Yes, I tell her. Yes. But it shouldn’t be. We should have done this a long time ago.
“I saw him flying above the eastern wind,” Eikaro says. “I was following him. I don’t know what went wrong. Wasn’t he supposed to cast a spell? Why is he trying to kill you all?”
I feed him everything from the last few hours. Eikaro, I think, is more human than we are. There is no dragon soul within him. He swears.
“I have the spell with me,” I explain, showing our leg. “I just need
to lead him to the right spot. Namra told me where.”
“A boundary, cast between those two dragon-towers?”
“You’ve been paying attention to your tutors. Well done, my lord!”
We hear a call from the distance and see a dark shadow drifting between the mountain peaks below us.
“He is looking for you,” Eikaro says.
“Then I suppose I should go to him, shouldn’t I?”
“My queen…”
We forge ahead. I can feel my dragon’s excitement at the sight of her mate. Steady, I tell her. Steady. But she worries for him, and I cannot fault her for that. We think of love as this thing we need to do without, as if the ability to live without it is strength, something to aspire to. To not need anyone, to not care for others, to have a heart like an empty vessel filled with nothing except one’s faith in one’s self… seems like the loneliest thing in the world. I find nothing admirable about it.
The black-and-red dragon spots us before we reach the mountain. It lunges, faster and bigger, frightening my dragon. She calls for her mate, reaching for him. The other thing inside him, she tells me, the one before Yuebek, lets him take over sometimes.
Now it is as if he has disappeared. She can sense him, but it is all Yuebek on the surface. All madness. All—
“You relentless bitch!” Yuebek calls, realizing what I am.
I don’t answer. I have no desire to trade words with him anymore. We stop mid-air, turn our wings. Our tail whips the air.
Yuebek’s teeth snap towards us, missing our shoulder by a whisker. We kick away, spinning towards the dragon-towers in the distance. They don’t seem that far apart. Do I remember spending a whole night running from one to the other? My son was with me, I think. My son. I cannot remember what he looks like. I only remember that I love him.
My dragon tells me her sons are all grown, and her daughters, too. The last clutch flew off months ago. She was hoping to have more, soon. There are some growing in her belly.
I tell her how sorry I am.
The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng Page 65
