“Of course you can’t. That’s common sense,” Xiao said, surprised by how thick his tongue was. Words were heavy and cumbersome. As improbable as it seemed, in just three weeks, Nanami had become someone who mattered to him. Somehow her strange combination of raw need, complicated honor, and calm competence was a balm to his soul. She had more to offer him than his usual lovers who took all he could give with little in return, and yet, unlike Jin, she wanted to lean on him.
Nanami turned her face to his hand that rested on her shoulder and pressed her cheek against his knuckles.
Xiao moved to the bed and pulled her into his lap.
She opened her eyes in surprise. She bit that plump lower lip. They stared at each other for a few moments, Nanami tense in his arms. He waited for her to sort through her feelings.
More quickly than he expected, the tension ran out of her and she leaned against him, her eyes closing.
She breathed deeply, as if smelling him and said, “Tell me what you’ve learned since we last spoke. I need a distraction.”
“Well – Ichimi said–”
“Wait. Did you say Ichimi?”
“Yes, your sister–” Xiao suddenly caught himself. Nanami’s voice was too calm. He swallowed. “You don’t know.”
NANAMI heard her blood rushing in her ears. Her voice sounded oddly distant as she asked, “Know what?”
“Ichimi is Salaana’s lover. That was why Salaana was gone from the court – she was fetching Ichimi. Ichimi saw and identified you.”
Nanami suspected the betrayal as soon as he said Ichimi’s name. But in a fog of – anger? shock? hurt? – she found herself replying, “Are you sure?”
Nanami wasn’t certain what Xiao saw in her face, but it must have been frightening given the way he blanched. “She told me herself. I was speaking to her just before...”
Nanami nodded slowly. She was aware that her face was wooden, but she couldn’t seem to make it relax.
“Are you okay?” Xiao asked.
She shook her head. “I just thought... I know my father disowned me, but I would’ve thought...”
Suddenly his arms were tight around her, her face pressed against his chest. It felt so good to be held, to not be alone.
But would this have happened if you had kept to yourself? came a little voice. But even if it didn’t happen, she told it, the potential would still be there. I would still be abandoned by my family.
And I would still be a thief... a thief...
XIAO didn’t notice Nanami fall asleep, but he noticed the fever.
Surprised, he checked the burn where her hand had been. Was it infected? Did infections happen that fast?
He was no healer, but it looked more like a scar than anything else. And the fever seemed too hot and sudden. He laid her out on Jin’s bed and watched her eyelids twitch.
“A true dream,” he realized. He had heard of them, but never seen an immortal having one before. Xiao was too young to have them himself, but Nanami was over twenty thousand years old, so he supposed it was reasonable that she would.
True dreams came when an immortal could not reconcile their past with who they were now. After all, over thousands of years, people changed a great deal.
Xiao took her remaining hand in his and was startled to realize he was sweating. He was scared, he realized. Why now? Did she feel guilty about her thievery after all? Some part of her must feel she deserved to face Salaana’s justice. What if she couldn’t face whatever it was that she’d done? Would she die right here in front of him? Should he fetch help?
He squeezed her hand tighter. No, he knew there was nothing to do to aid a true dreamer. Nanami was strong and adaptable. He had to believe she could face whatever it was that she’d done.
6,000 years ago
IT was late afternoon when Nanami reached the massive banyan tree that He Who Walks in Shadow had chosen for their reunion. She settled in a partially enclosed nook among its roots, and dropped two heavy, bulging sacks on either side of her. She then pulled out a little polished tiger’s eye stone. Smaller than her thumb, it was delightfully smooth, and she rolled it in her palm, enjoying the feel of it. It had sat on the bedside table of the head monk and had been harder to steal than the gold that He Who Walks in Shadow had wanted.
Nanami closed her eyes, remembering how dry her mouth had been as she crept into the bedroom as the monk slept. How she had seized the stone like a viper striking a mouse. The flush of triumph and success when she walked back out of the room without the monk waking.
“Did you get it?” came her master’s gravelly voice.
Nanami opened her eyes and found him standing in front of her, his stance taut as if he might explode into motion any moment.
Nanami tucked the tigerseye back into its pouch. She grinned and held up a bulging bag with each hand. “Did you doubt me?”
“You know I don’t trust anyone but myself.” He Who Walks in Shadow dropped down next to her under the massive banyan tree. Her master was a little shorter than she was and equally slim and wiry. His youthful face was plain and pockmarked, which was odd for an immortal, but his dark eyes were intense and shrewd. They’d worked together for almost seven thousand years – he was her family now, if anyone was, and Nanami immediately passed him the bags, knowing he wouldn’t be content until he had examined the goods himself.
“So what’s so special about this gold anyway?”
“Does the apprentice need to know all that the master does?” he asked, as he removed a piece and examined it closely. He smiled at last. “You really got it. You are worthy of being my student.”
Nanami rolled her eyes. Her master was an excessively vain man, but that was part of the reason he was comfortable. He was too self-absorbed to trouble her own heart.
“So are you going to give me some of that back? Or do I have to steal it?” she joked.
To her surprise, his smile faded and he glared at her. “We aren’t going to spend this gold. Its value lies elsewhere.” He seemed to realize he had upset her and moderated his expression. “I’m sorry, do you need some money to go play? Here.” He handed her a string of silver and copper coins.
“Thanks,” Nanami muttered, and teleported to the largest market in Jeevanti.
She took a deep breath of the hot, spice-filled air. Laughter and shouts buoyed her up from all sides, and Nanami let other marketgoers jostle her as she stood still, enjoying the energy of the crowd. She did catch one little boy’s hand as it wrapped around her string of coins at her waist. “Sorry, can’t let you have those,” she told him.
The boy darted away, and Nanami tucked the string out of sight. Then, just because she could, she pulled the gold coin she had hidden in her sleeve out and flipped it once. He Who Walks in Shadow might be her master, but she was not a dog. He had to give her a reason if he wanted her to obey. Now, what was worth gold?
As she strolled through the market, vendors kept pressing samples on her – rose water sweets, spicy roasted chickpeas. Nanami kept trying to pay, but they kept insisting it was free. When she admired a very beautiful and elaborate sari, the merchant gifted it to her. Nanami was unnerved. She was dressed plainly; there was no reason for these people to be currying favor with her. She pulled out the gold coin once more.
About the size of her eye, it was rich in color, a true yellow gold. One side bore a chrysanthemum, the other the character for yellow. Nanami didn’t feel any magic about it, but she was sure that there was some. She rubbed the character with her thumb.
Yellow. Noran? The lost Color?
Anything made by a Color would have immense power. Most legends had an artifact of the Colors at their core.
Nanami didn’t know much about Noran, given she had died long before Nanami was born, but she knew the God of War had inherited his ability to manipulate other’s thoughts from his mother.
So this coin makes people want to please me? To give me what I want?
Nanami thought back to the monastery where the gold coins had been. The monastery had been for women only and though it only served minor deities, someone had placed a powerful teleportation ban on it, one that not even Nanami could bypass. That was why He Who Walks in Shadow had asked her to commit the theft, because she could enter as a petitioner while he could not.
The gold had been in a forgotten storeroom, locked in a box. The monks would not miss the gold, not even knowing they had it.
And Nanami suddenly felt she ought to have left it that way – this wasn’t a power that should see the light of day. With it, her master...
Nanami teleported back to the banyan tree, but there were just roots at its base.
Think, Nanami. Where would he have gone? What would he want that he couldn’t have stolen?
IT took her a year, but when she found He Who Walks in Shadow, he had established a whorehouse of sorts. It was disgustingly trite, and the way the whores bent themselves to his every whim horrified Nanami.
She had tried arguing and pleading, but both failed to stir his conscience. So Nanami did what she did best. She stole the gold back.
But He Who Walks in Shadow sought revenge.
NANAMI was bathing in the stream near her home when she heard wood shatter. She pulled the water around her and stepped from the stream fully clothed. She stood on the bank, listening, and over the whisper of the water came voices.
“The house is empty, but it’s full of stolen goods. This must be the right place.”
“Fifteen through twenty – fan out in the woods and look for her. Neha and I will wait here, in case she returns, and sort through the goods.”
Nanami had not spent the last seven thousand years sneaking around for nothing – she now climbed the closest tree and ran along the treetops as quiet as a squirrel. She saw one woman in a red and white sari pass beneath her, never thinking to look up. She stopped when she had a clear view of her home, standing on a branch and hugging the trunk of its tree.
Two more women in white and red saris stood in her courtyard, going through her things as if they belonged to them, like -
Like thieves.
Nanami’s hands dug into the bark of the trunk she was gripping, hurting her fingers. Her first impulse was to confront the women, but she saw the glaives on their backs and thought better of it. Still, she lingered, not quite ready to abandon her home of the last few millennia.
“What will we do with all this?”
“Most of these were reported stolen to her divinity over the years – we cross check the prayers, and what we can return to its rightful owners we will. The rest will be donated to justice temples.”
How convenient, thought Nanami. Given that most of the owners are long dead mortals, they'll have a nice haul. But they aren’t stealing, just enacting justice.
“This belongs to the Sea Dragon,” said one. Nanami’s heart sank – she was holding Nanami’s green enamel water lily hair stick. It was stolen – Nanami had taken it from her mother when she visited Nanami’s grandfather in the Crescent Moon. And she couldn’t bear to lose it.
Disregarding her own safety, Nanami leapt down into the yard and snatched the hair stick right out of the disciples’ hands. Nanami wasn’t so foolish to gloat and teleported away even as a glaive swung toward her.
NANAMI found it easy to stay one step ahead of the Light Hands that hunted her. In truth, she could have avoided them all together, but curiosity got the better of her. Would they really return what she had stolen to the “rightful” owners?
And so she went temple to temple, locating objects that had come from her collection and following the mortal monks as they went on pilgrimages to return the goods. What shocked Nanami was that the monks would return something if the disciples were even able to locate a descendant of the original owner – once a whole millennium distant.
And most of the recipients were impoverished. Often, there would be a local legend about how the family had been ruined because of the theft of their greatest treasure. Nanami had never really considered who she was stealing from or how the theft would affect them – certainly He Who Walks in Shadow had not.
As Nanami watched an old grandmother sobbing on her knees in gratitude as two monks returned the jewelry that had been her dowry – and resulted in a divorce when it went missing – Nanami felt ashamed of herself.
She was wicked, just as her father had said when he had thrown her out. She had hurt people. She deserved punishment.
But wasn’t losing what she had taken enough? Did she really have to lose her hand too?
Couldn’t she redeem herself another way?
Present Day
XIAO was in the middle of pressing a damp towel to Nanami’s forehead, having cared for her continuously the past two days, when her eyes suddenly flew open.
“What – what happened?” she asked, her voice raspy.
Xiao poured water in a small pink porcelain cup and helped her drink it before answering.
“You had a true dream.”
She drank the water. “A true dream – yes, I suppose it must have been.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m getting old.”
How can I help her relax? Xiao leaned close and examined her hair. “I don’t see any grays.”
She scoffed, then giggled.
“Are you okay?” he asked, reading the shadows of her eyes intently.
“Mmm.” Her eyes darted from his, breaking his concentration.
Xiao hesitated before asking his real question. “What did you dream of?”
Nanami arched her brows before saying, “The theft that changed my life. It caused a break between my master and me, and he exposed my house to Salaana. I never lived anywhere longer than a few years after that, and I stopped stealing for myself.”
She cradled her stump and sighed. “I thought I had let go of the guilt long ago, but I guess I hadn’t.”
Xiao tried to think of something to say, but she suddenly stood. “I need to relieve myself.”
Xiao half stood, thinking she might need support, but she left the room on her own. After a moment, Xiao smoothed the red silk cover of Jin’s bed and sat back down on it. He’d have to ask Yeppeun and Luye to wash it later – it smelled a bit after days of enveloping a feverish Nanami.
When Nanami walked back in the room, she declared, “If Ichimi is actively supporting the Goddess of Justice, so is the Sea Dragon.”
Xiao was more interested in making sure that Nanami was truly well than discussing her family, but he said, “Oh yeah?”
“That’s the way my family is. Tight. Loyal. And the Dragon is utterly in control.”
“Mmm.” She seemed okay. He wasn’t sure what he expected – for her to continue to cry and mope? That didn’t seem like her. “Don’t you think things might have changed since you were there last?” he asked, just to keep her talking.
Nanami’s lips twisted as she plopped next to him on the bed. “Your parents are equals. My father chose my mother partially because he was so much more powerful than she is, and she was raised to be demure, submissive. She has never challenged his authority. Of thirteen children, only I ever went against his dictates.”
“But Ichimi might have been sent from the Sea Court, too.”
“I think, if she had, she wouldn’t have been so intolerant of me.”
Xiao put his arm around her, and she leaned against him slightly. “Tell me what Ichimi said.”
Xiao laughed. “I know that for you this just happened, but I’ve been taking care of a sick person for two days. Let me see...” He recounted his conversation with Ichimi as best as he could remember.
“She’s probably right – we should be looking at Gang. After all, it wouldn’t be easy for Salaana, Karana, or Guleum to find Jin. But Gang could track her effortlessly.”
“How so?” Xiao realized that he was stroking her arm idly, but he couldn’t seem to stop.
“He’s almost definitely her
father.”
“That’s right – so of course he could find her.” Xiao considered, then shook his head. “He was genuinely distraught by the idea of her being hurt – and he vowed to protect her.”
Nanami tapped her lip. “The first time my mother caught me stealing, she locked me in my room. For my own protection, she said.”
Xiao’s gut clenched – that was uncomfortably familiar. His arm tightened around Nanami, and the warmth of her against his chest helped him stay calm. In fact, his voice sounded detached as he said, “I could believe Gang wants to lock her up, to keep her out of the conflict, but that man attacked her.”
“He left pretty easily though – and I doubt he was running from Bai. He wouldn’t have recognized him. So – maybe just cutting Jin was his aim. Maybe – maybe the shuriken was painted with something.”
And Xiao had thought he was paranoid. “What could affect an immortal in such a tiny amount?”
Nanami rubbed her lip. “My father told me that the God of War has a poison like that.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard such a rumor in recent days. But if he had such a thing, why not knock me out when I was uncooperative?”
“I think you underestimate your parents’ reaction.”
Xiao snorted. “My parents are selling my worshippers’ dreams without my consent. They don’t care about me.”
Nanami’s lips twisted, and was that pity in her eyes? “Well, they care about those dreams, don’t they? Without the God of Pleasure, those dreams would be lost.”
Xiao grimaced. She might be right, but that didn’t make him feel better. He would definitely need to confront them soon – how to do that? Storm into the hall? Maybe he should bring Jin with him...
“What are you thinking?”
Xiao glanced at Nanami and found her utterly focused on him. “I’m thinking I want to confront my parents, but...”
“But?”
“I don’t stand a chance against them.”
Vows of Gold and Laughter (The Immortal Beings Book 1) Page 23
