Nanami was startled by the question, so she took her time replying, making a show of examining the room. “It is lovely,” she said at last. “It reminds me of home.”
That was clearly the right answer, and Aarti beamed. She then led Nanami to the low table and set down a zabuton for each of them. She offered a huge array of snacks to Nanami – fermented soybeans, seasoned nori, sweet rice cakes, sesame cookies – and solicited Nanami’s opinion of each item. Indeed, Aarti seemed almost frantic to please her. At last another disciple interrupted to announce a petitioner, and Nanami was relieved.
Aarti led Nanami back into the sand garden, directing her to line up with the other disciples while Aarti listened to the petitioner. Nanami moved to obey and narrowly stopped herself from doing a double take. Dressed in flowing formal robes of violet and lavender, hair braided with silver, and flask in hand was Xiao. Despite his attire, he looked a mess – he had spilled something on his skirts and from the smell, Nanami thought it was soju. His eyes were bloodshot as they swept past her. Nanami would have thought he hadn’t even seen her if he hadn’t touched the small dark ring on his left pinky before speaking.
“I wish to speak to Salaana,” he insisted, with the belligerence of a man who’d had too much to drink. Nanami studied him closely, trying to decide if it was acting or not, while Aarti bowed deeply in apology.
“Her divinity is gone at present, but I will listen to your petition.”
“And who are you?” he demanded.
“I am the Third Disciple of the Goddess of Justice. While she and the head disciples are absent, I act in her name.”
Xiao sniffed, repeating “Third?” in an all too audible mutter. More loudly, he said, “Well, then, you need to punish the dream vendor in the Godsmarket. She is selling my worshippers’ dreams without my permission.”
“In the Godsmarket? And what did the Sun Guard say about it?”
“The Sun Guard! Fools. They acted like I couldn’t even recognize my own dreams. They gave them back to that unscrupulous merchant this morning.”
Aarti’s lips thinned. “I’m afraid that the Godsmarket is the Sun Guard’s jurisdiction. If they found no wrongdoing, there’s nothing more to be said about it.”
“You tell Salaana I’ll remember this,” he sneered before the disciples managed to hustle him from the premises.
Nanami was likewise dismissed shortly after. The forty-eighth disciple, Eun-ji, showed Nanami her living quarters and then gave her a fuller tour of the palace. Nanami had little interest in the ornate gardens though. It was only when they came to the Godsmarket that she perked up. It was easy to find the dream vendor, as she was dressed in the robes of the Night God and had the symbol for dream etched on her silver stall. Eun-ji was willing enough to let Nanami stop and look at the candles and explained the red and white ones were Salaana’s.
“Bringing extra dreams here for sale may be one of your duties in the future,” she said.
“What makes a dream extra?” Nanami asked.
Eun-ji nodded approvingly at the question. “Mortal dreams are repetitive. We only need one dream per mortal to enact justice. Sometimes they even dream of justice that has already been delivered. All of these we sell.”
“I suppose dreams of justice help spread the teachings of her divinity.”
“Yes – and they are also very popular because they are exciting and satisfying. Immortals are willing to pay well for such dreams.”
“Oh? What is the cost of a dream?”
“For our Lady’s, a drop of blood.”
Nanami just stopped herself from showing her revulsion. “Blood? I am surprised that many would pay that.”
Eun-ji smiled and bought a dream shaped like a snake from the vendor, which she gave to Nanami.
“Perhaps after you feel it, you will understand.”
Nanami nodded, hoping her expression was thoughtful.
That night, when most of the palace slept, Nanami slipped out of the building that housed Salaana’s lower disciples and aspirants. She made her way to the Godsmarket. Several Sun Guards were patrolling, but their patterns were regular and after an hour of observation, Nanami crept through the market confidently until she found the dream vendor’s stall. Nanami spat into her hand and made two lock picks from the fluid. Five minutes later, she filled a small satchel with the black and violet candles that must be Xiao’s.
Jin’s residence was the closest to the Godsmarket. Nanami was overconfident as she made her way there, and almost walked into a Sun Guard patrol. But the guards clearly didn't expect any chicanery and didn’t even notice her duck under a bush. Nanami held her breath as they passed her, though she doubted they would have heard her anyway.
Nanami paused before scaling Jin’s wall. She had deliberately paid little attention to it during her tour, but up close it was hard to ignore the fanciful paintings that covered the walls. The soft glow of torches revealed a peacock spreading his glorious tail of turquoise and gold and strutting for a peahen who surveyed him critically from a peony bush. Nanami smiled, thinking the peacock was not unlike a certain someone.
Reluctant to step on either bird, she finally found a section of wall that was only ferns. Taking it at a run, she reached the roof and pulled herself over the red terracotta tiles. She perched briefly at that top, refreshing her memory of the residence.
She quickly and quietly made her way to the main hall where Xiao would be sleeping, giving the disciples’ huts a wide berth.
Xiao was indeed asleep, limbs askew, in Jin’s bed. Nanami found that his ease there bothered her less than she would have expected. Feeling mischievous, she plucked a branch of azalea blooms from the vase on Jin’s low table and used the flowers to tickle Xiao’s cheek. He twitched slightly but continued to sleep. Nanami frowned and leaned forward to sniff his breath – had he passed out from drink?
But when she was bent over him, his hands suddenly seized her waist and flipped her under him. He smirked.
“Oh, dear, what would Salaana say if she knew her aspirant stole into her sister’s residence to see said sister’s betrothed?”
Nanami stuck her tongue out at him.
“Did you find something?” he asked.
“If you get off me, I’ll show you.”
So he let her up, and she removed the candles from her satchel.
Xiao’s eyes widened with shock. “You stole my dreams?”
“Didn’t you want them? I thought that was why you came to petition Salaana.”
Xiao picked up a candle and examined it. “I came to see you and make sure all was going well. It didn’t occur to me that you’d recover these.” He met her eyes. “Thank you.”
Nanami nodded, unable to reply. Xiao set the candle down and swept his arm over the lot of them, and the wax became smoke and faded away.
“So how did the vendor get these, anyway?”
Xiao grimaced. “My parents.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Understanding how he felt, Nanami didn’t push further. Instead she retrieved the white and red candle from her pocket. “One of Salaana’s dreams,” she told Xiao.
Xiao stiffened. “You stole from the Goddess of Justice? Nanami–”
“No,” she reassured him. “I came by this honestly. A present from the forty-eighth disciple. Apparently they are very popular. And immortals pay blood for them.”
Xiao winced. “Yes, I know. Guleum is one of the buyers.” He turned it over in his hands. “Shall we feel the dream then?”
Nanami nodded.
The lit candle released a thick smoke smelling of cardamom and ginger which soon enveloped her, filling her ears with the rustling of cloth and obscuring her vision.
Nanami blinked. She was in a sunny market square, somewhere in Bando, she suspected. Vendors were hawking their goods, mostly bolts of cloth and embroidered pouches. A man was making his way from booth to booth, collecting money from each. He turned to Nanami and smiled, b
aring fanged teeth and slit eyes. A thin serpentine tongue darted out of his mouth and retreated. He turned away from her and Nanami leapt into the air. With a sharp cry and whirl, Nanami descended toward him and sent him flying backward. She landed lightly on the ground and punched the air several times before his gang showed up, tongues flickering. Nanami quickly beat them into submission, leaving them in a pile. The townspeople began to cheer and clap, and Nanami bowed humbly.
“It was nothing, nothing,” she murmured.
Just then, the ground around her began to ripple, and the square fell silent. Nanami turned to follow the ripples, her fists ready and her heart in her mouth.
A massive emerald snake burst from the ground, sending dirt flying everywhere. It wrapped its coils around Nanami, threatening to suffocate her. Nanami began to grow, until the snake was but the size of her arm. She seized the monstrosity behind the head and cracked its spine. She dropped the snake to the ground, and she was suddenly normal size again. A beautiful girl threw her arms around her neck and gushed her gratitude.
And then Nanami was back in Jin’s suite, laying on her back and slightly breathless. She could hear Xiao’s pants beside her.
After a few minutes, she managed, “It was so vivid – so intense – more real than life, if that makes sense.”
Xiao laughed. “That was your first mortal dream, huh? Yeah, that’s why some people become addicted to them.”
“Is Guleum?”
“Maybe.”
Nanami patted his back awkwardly. He must feel particularly sensitive about addictions, and he was clearly worried about Guleum.
Xiao glanced at her hand and smiled. He then launched into a summary of his meeting with Gang.
Nanami observed, “These children of Aka really like blood, don’t they? Aka has a particular affinity for it – do you know what they can do with it?”
“Probably a compulsory summons. Clean my blood at a distance – not sure why they’d want to.”
“I wonder... if they could clean your blood, could they also poison it?”
Xiao stiffened. “Now that’s a scary thought.” He rubbed his face. “Well, he has my blood now. We’ll have to wait and see.”
OVER the next week, Xiao was not able to see Nanami frequently, but the court embraced his drunken antics with open arms. Of course, he wasn’t really drunk, and pride in his deception helped him maintain the pretense of drinking. He told himself that everyone had been worried about nothing. He was in control of his urges. But his enjoyment in his success was tempered by worry. He worried about Jin and Nanami (he was not in the least worried about Bai) and about confronting his parents.
He also found himself trying to understand what Nanami meant to him. The fact that she had taken his worshippers’ dreams from the market – well, it hardly dealt with the root of the problem, but it had meant a lot to him. He was grateful. He liked spending time with her, and he had already realized that it felt effortless compared to being with Jin. But – he was to wed Jin in less than a year.
Xiao finally went to see Aka, his nominal charge, with young Guleum. They entered the emperor’s room at the top of the Sun Pagoda, and Xiao found Aka looked exactly as they’d left him, though someone had lit a great many red candles around him.
“My mother lit those,” Guleum said. “None of my siblings could be bothered. I don’t understand why she did either – she’d be better off if he died.”
Xiao’s jaw might have hit the floor, but he caught it. “Why do you say that?”
“He doesn’t love her. Spends all his time with other women, while she suffers alone.”
Xiao blinked in surprise. “The Sun Emperor has always had concubines and mistresses, with all of his wives.”
Guleum eyes flashed angrily. “I know. And then he simply disposes of them when he wants a new one. My mother didn’t want to marry him, you know – but how does one refuse the ruler of the world?”
Xiao had to admit he was surprised by this conversation. He hadn’t realized that Guleum thought about anything serious. “I’m not sure anyone does,” he admitted softly. “It is a shame, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Guleum fiercely, angrily.
Xiao hadn’t realized how thoroughly Guleum resented Aka. “But now your mother has a chance to be free.”
Guleum smiled. “Yes, I – well, I should not mind if he never wakes up.” But there was a pride in the words, a gloating that struck Xiao as strange, unless Guleum was in fact the curser.
Xiao, searching for a way to solicit Guleum’s confidences, asked, “I wonder why he collapsed. Do you think it was poison?”
Guleum hesitated. “If it were poison, I’d suspect Gang. My mother told me he has a plant that can make a god sick or comatose or dead, depending how you use it.”
Xiao filed that away and pressed on. “But you don’t think it was poison? Do you think Salaana or Karana did this?”
“If Salaana had anything to do with it, it’s justice,” said Guleum firmly, and Xiao found himself thinking that the boy had felt too many of Salaana’s dreams. “I hope she wins the fight with Gang. She’d make a fair ruler.”
“What about you or Karana?”
“I wouldn’t want it, even if I stood a chance against the rest of them. As for Karana... He’s Salaana’s dog. He’ll support her bid.”
Xiao had not seen Salaana nor Karana all week. Perhaps they were seeking support outside the court?
“Anyway, there’s dear old dad. Did you want to do anything else?”
“Um, no, doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do for him, does it?”
“No. There’s nothing anyone can do for him.”
And Guleum seemed alarmingly satisfied by that.
A FEW days later, the sky was a deep midnight above them, speckled with white stars. The theatre gardens, where they lounged, were well-lit by red lanterns strung between tall poles. The acrid scent of wine (which Xiao had imbibed just a little of appearing to drink a great deal) and spicy perfumes (that were almost as intoxicating) combined to assault Xiao’s nose. He had needed a little wine to brace his nerves tonight, for Salaana had at last returned to the Sun Court. The wine might have been a mistake, for it had been shockingly difficult to dump the next cup down his sleeve instead of in his mouth. It had tasted so familiar, and the other partygoers were all indulging themselves on Salaana’s generosity. She was hosting a light show in celebration. Nanami was not present, of course, being a mere aspirant.
Salaana sat on a dais around which the crowd was spread in a half-circle. She looked beautiful and intimidating in simple red robes with white accents. Her rust-colored hair was piled high with a silver headdress that must weigh a ton. Although servants wove among her guests, offering small glasses of potent wine, candied petals, and pillow-soft rice cakes, Salaana sat silently, observing them all. Xiao was tempted to give her some tips on hosting a party, but he had a strong attachment to his tongue, so he resisted the urge. He had been to her light shows a handful of times, and though he found Salaana as scary as a beast escaped from the Underworld, he was looking forward to the spectacle. As was the rest of the large crowd, so he supposed that she didn’t need his hosting advice after all.
Just then the torches in the garden went out, and the crowd silent. Xiao looked to the dais and saw thin lines of red light assembling high above it – he could just make out Salaana’s concise movements below, directing the light. A few lonely, melancholy notes plucked from a guzheng mimicked the light. As the light suddenly changed from an abstract swirl to a woman’s form, the notes became a song, and the crowd sighed its pleasure. Like a play, the story of two women falling in love, but kept apart by circumstance, unfolded in the night sky.
Xiao leaned close to Guleum and murmured, “Oddly romantic for Salaana, isn’t it?”
Guleum’s eyes were wide. “It’s her story. Mother told me that Salaana asked for permission to marry, but the emperor refused. He said the purpose o
f marriage is to have children, and they can’t have any.”
“So this is an opportunity to follow her heart.”
“Yeah, I guess. You see that woman there?” He indicated a petite woman about forty feet away, then snapped his eyes back to the sky. “That's Ichimi. She came back with Salaana, and all the Light Hands have been bowing and scraping to her.”
Although the show was impressive, Xiao found himself frequently regarding its living subject. Like her name, something about Ichimi struck Xiao as familiar, but if he had met her before, he could not remember where.
I want to talk to her, he decided suddenly. Ichimi, with her delicate prettiness, and clear awe at her lover’s talents, seemed far more approachable than Salaana.
An opportunity did not present itself that night, but the next morning Xiao woke with a sense of purpose.
“Luye! Yeppeun!” he called into the garden. The two women arrived together, their expressions sullen and their arms crossed.
“You hollered, divinity?” asked Luye, her voice so dry that Xiao was tempted to empty a cup over her head to rehydrate it.
Instead he gave her his best, two-dimpled smile. “Wonderful ladies, I would like to meet Lady Ichimi this morning. Do you know where I might find her?”
The two women exchanged looks. Luye smirked. Yeppeun turned back to him, and in a much sweeter tone said, “Lady Ichimi is at the practice grounds of the Sun Guard. If you wish to spar with her, I’m sure she will welcome it.”
“Ah, hoping I’ll break my ass in the sand, are you, Yeppeun?”
“I’ll settle for your head,” the woman said with a sniff.
Xiao laughed, and started removing his robes to don trousers. The two disciples exclaimed angrily, then scurried from the room.
“I don’t mind if you want to watch!” Xiao called after them.
Less than a half hour later, Xiao entered the Sun Guard training grounds.
He walked leisurely through the grounds. There were several dozen soldiers drilling, the rhythmic tap of their staves and their synchronized “huhs” almost musical. He paused for a while to watch the Sun Guard archers at target practice. They used longbows, taller than the archers themselves, and their arrows thudded menacingly into the bullseyes of the painted targets, over a hundred yards away.
Vows of Gold and Laughter (The Immortal Beings Book 1) Page 19
