The Poison Prince

by S. C. Emmett

  “Takshin…”

  “There is little I would not do simply for your asking.” He could have closed his eyes, the sweetness of hearing her pronounce his name in such a fashion almost too piercing to be borne. “You must know as much by now. Agree, Yala. It is best.”

  Why would she not simply agree? And yet he did not mind, for it was part and parcel of her, the hesitation.

  “Is it?” Her shoulders softened. She leaned toward him like a hau tree’s roots craving wetter soil, like a crushflower’s head following the sun. “I do not know what is best, or what is right. I am weary, Takshin, and I long for rest.” Her voice broke, soft Zhaon much less accented now, but with the shade of Khir riding sharphoof behind the words.

  “This is right.” He let the words carry his own certainty. “I am ugly, and abrupt, and I have little grace. But I will protect you. I am far from the worst fate for a Khir woman so far from home.”

  “You are not ugly,” she said, with a firmness that almost convinced him she believed it. “And in any case, I am as far from beauty as possible, especially now.”

  He could have told her otherwise, but that was a task for a poet or a courtier, and he disdained both roles. “Ah, laying a silk thread for compliments, are you?” Still…he could learn to, if it would ease her. “Very well, I shall give you one or two. Daily. Especially after you marry me.”

  A thin, pale smile touched her lips, and Anh’s return led to her seeking to reclaim her hand. Takshin, however, did not let go. “Answer me,” he said, softly so the kaburei halted in confusion near the doorway would not hear. “Tell me yes, Takshin.”

  “Yes.” A flush rose to her cheeks, and the smile faded. Well, she was naturally somber. Soon enough she might forget as much, if he could settle her in an estate with a fine library, somewhere they would be undisturbed by fellow princes and their machinations. “Takshin—” There was more she wished to add, but he did not let her.

  Not when he had what he willed. After all, she might reconsider— though a woman who visited her princess’s shade daily was not one to slip the chain of a dying Emperor’s wish.

  Takyeo had been kind to her. Takshin was not made for kindness, but he thought he might well learn, with such a tutor.

  “Very well.” Now he set her free, and reached for the inkstone and the stand of clean brushes. “Fetch an ink-dish, and water,” he told the kaburei. “A few characters, Yala, and I shall leave you to rest.”

  “Must I…” She stared at her hands, perhaps ashamed of the welts, bruises, and scrapes no noblewoman should ever have to suffer. “Must it be now?”

  “Yes.” Victory would make him indulgent, but just now he had to insist. “Now, Yala. And then I will keep you safe, as Takyeo would wish.”

  It was not a lie, he told himself. Takyeo would wish Yala cared for as soon and well as possible; he simply had been too occupied with other matters to say as much openly. Now it was too late, and if Takshin did not take this chance one of Kurin’s games— or Sensheo’s clumsy maneuverings— might place her at risk.

  He did not relax until, with a firm wrist and probably aching fingers, Yala brushed five careful, exquisite little characters in the Khir fashion upon the endorsement.

  Once blotted, the paper returned to his pocket, and he could afford to retreat. But only to the doorway, where he watched the kaburei fuss, with many a careful, solicitous tongue-click, over his future wife.

  NONE of YOUR ANTICS

  The Kaeje rustled with hurried footstep, whispered news, and lively speculation, but the First Queen’s chambers were deathly still. The eunuchs had come and been sent away; next would come the howling upon the steps.

  “My son.” Gamwone opened her arms. She had attended to her hair; it rose lacquered upon her head in its usual fashion. Her dress was undyed mourning silk but her two hairpins glittered with falling gold beads in flagrant defiance of custom and propriety. “My brave, beautiful son.”

  “So now I am beautiful, hm?” Kurin gave a weary smile, but did not move to embrace her. Gamwone threw her arms around him instead and received a perfunctory pat upon her back before he held her at arm’s length. “Not a disobedient little boy?”

  “Oh, you have always been my favorite.” A trembling smile, and she patted at his arms, his cheeks, his chest. He allowed it, though he frowned. “And now my boy will be Emperor. My lovely, canny boy.”

  “Yes, Mother. Come to tea.” If she would simply behave, he could be done with this in short order and move to more pressing matters.

  He did not think it likely, but a good son gave his mother every chance.

  “Tea?” Her soft, plump hands fluttered delicately. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly. There is so much to do— the coronation, the procession, so many details.”

  “That is Zan Fein and Mrong Banh’s province, Mother, not yours.” It would be singularly unwise to grant her any public task at all. “Come, and sit with me. We must speak.”

  “Oh, certainly, certainly…will my uncle be here?” She sobered, and the shadow of imperiousness crossed her still-beautiful face. Her slippers shushed as he herded her toward the sitting-room. “He should come to pay his respects.”

  “Lord Yulehi is otherwise engaged upon an errand or two, Mother.” He indicated the door and let her precede him, closing the partition with a decisive click. “You need not lift a finger. There is, in fact, nothing for you to do, except one simple thing.”

  Now she turned to face him, tucking her hands in her sleeves, a tremulous, disbelieving, somewhat predatory smile bunching her cheeks and showing her fine teeth. “Oh? And what is that, my love?”

  Kurin wished this task already accomplished. It was by far the most distasteful of the day’s duties. “Be silent, and cease your intriguing. I am not Father or Takyeo, Mother, and I will not have you disturbing my affairs with—”

  “Oh, so this is how it is?” Gamwone stiffened, and the gold beads swung upon her hairpins. The double-hung walls closed around Kurin, and he could hardly breathe. Even the table had rounded corners, and no doubt she would wish them padded with cotton. “I place you upon the Throne of Five Winds, and you think you may order me about?”

  “You did not place me anywhere, Mother.” His quiet should have warned her that his temper was thinning, but he attempted to explain anyway. Not that he held any great hope she would comprehend. She seemed singularly unfit— but that was a woman’s nature, and he must be filial. “I was born for this, and have achieved it. And I am telling you, there will be none of your antics from now until you join Father.”

  “You dare—”

  “Mother.” He stepped close; his fingers sank into her soft, plump upper arm, and he squeezed. Sabwone would have recognized the look upon Garan Kurin’s face, and Gamnae too; either of them would have retreated to avoid what came next. So would Jin, and to a lesser extent, Sensheo.

  Without Takshin or Lord Yulehi, though, Sensheo had nothing— and so did Kai, who could suspect all he liked as long as he performed his function. There was no profit in the Head General seeking to unseat Kurin, even less for Makar, and Takshin, by far the most unpredictable, was safely out of succession and had, besides, something he wanted very badly from Kurin’s own hand.

  All in all, it was neatly accomplished, and now his other plans could begin to arrange themselves. He merely wished this over before the wailing began.

  “I have overlooked your behavior for long enough,” he continued, giving her a small, rattling shake to make certain he had her full attention. Her skirt swung to match her beads, and she gasped. “I am a dutiful son, but I am also Emperor, and you will behave as befits your station. Is this in any way unclear?”

  The trouble was, Father had let Mother do largely as she pleased. Perhaps he had even loved her in his own distant, warlord fashion. Still, Kurin did not intend to let her ruin what he had wrought, in any small fashion.

  His short rest was over; he had returned to the battlefield. The small lump in his sleeve, unnoticed by
servants come to dress their master, was at once a comfort and a dragging weight.

  “You,” Gamwone hissed. Her pupils swelled, much as Takyeo’s had under the influence of strong analgesic. “You are just like him. All my struggling, all my suffering, and you do not care.”

  “I care, Mother.” Could she not grasp as much? “You will have everything you have ever wanted, as long as you leave intrigue and statecraft to me.” Women might run a house, but a kingdom was a different matter entirely. “I am a loving son.”

  The hangings upon the walls watched with bright, cushioned indifference. Garan Gamwone drew herself to her round, full, inconsiderable height, though her arm was still trapped in his grasp. “I birthed you,” she began, dangerously quiet. If he let her continue she would not cease until she had battered someone into quiescence, even herself. Or Gamnae, who had endured enough today.

  Kurin stepped forward, his hand sliding to her wrist, and turned her. It was simple for a prince used to the drillyard to overpower a lone, soft woman. Before she quite realized it, her arm was twisted behind her back in a hold Zakkar Kai would have recognized— and Jin as well, whom he had patiently taught to deploy it. It was the manner in which a wrestler or a soldier held a civilian who was not to be harmed but also not allowed any intransigence. “Come,” the new Emperor said, and tightened the hold when she inhaled to begin crying aloud. “You will have a cup of tea, Mother. Strong enough to suit even you. It will be slightly medicinal, and you will behave, or I will make you.”

  “How dare you—” she began, but the fight left her like air escaping a festival bladder, and she sagged in his grip as he propelled her through the partition and down the hall, not caring if servant or guard saw.

  Garan Kurin had also taken, from the table littered with medicines and other paraphernalia in Takyeo’s room, two vials of nightflower and omyei. One rested within his sleeve now, for he had suspected it would be necessary.

  “You have no allies, Mother. Only me.” What a wonder, that she had not realized as much. “You should consider that, and do all you can to keep me content.”

  Yes, things were about to change immensely within the great palace of Zhaon. Kurin could hardly wait.

  Outside the First Queen’s part of the Kaeje, upon wide white steps, women’s voices rose in the ancient song of grief.

  THE MOON WISHES IT

  The morning was clear and fine, albeit with a promise of awful, dust-choked heat later. The night’s rain, falling upon thirsty, groaning black earth, had tamped the worst of the dust, but enough remained to coat the throat and irritate the eyes. Anh said it would only grow worse.

  The dry time was upon Zhaon. Late last night, from one watch to the next near dawn, a thudding had worked its way through the entire complex like a dull heartbeat. It was the Golden, beating their spears against stone, and now a new Emperor was enthroned. That morning, the Jonwa had received flame from the heart of Zhaon. Lamps were relit, other fires kindled, and the Palace kitchens were humming again.

  Yala folded her hands. They were freshly oiled, nia and attar rubbed into the aching spaces between her fingers, and her broken nails had been likewise lovingly attended to by Anh as Yala soaked in a warm bath, disliking more heat but almost groaning with relief at the easing of her muscles. “I cannot say otherwise,” she said, desperately. “The Crown Pri— the Emperor wrote it, and I cannot refuse his dying wish. Please understand. I am sorry, Kai.”

  “Takyeo arranged it, did he?” Zhaon’s Head General wore pale mourning, and there was a fire in his deep-set eyes few had seen before. A dragon watched over his shoulder, but its roar seemed less a battle cry than an anguished snarl. At least he was not shouting, but his slight stagger when she had finally managed to speak the news pierced her from heart to liver, and everywhere else. “I cannot blame him; I told him nothing. Perhaps I should have.”

  “I…” Yala could not say it. Or could she? “We could, perhaps…” It stuck in her throat. Was she seriously contemplating betraying her honor, and for the Zhaon who had all but ground Khir under a mailed heel? “I would go with you,” she said, finally, through the obstruction. “Wherever you willed, Zakkar Kai. My…feelings…have not changed.”

  The surprise was not in hearing the words leave her mouth. It lay, instead, in the fact that she meant them, and had dared to say as much clearly.

  She was an honorless woman after all.

  “And do you feel nothing for Takshin, then? It is a pity, he seems…” Kai’s hands were fists in his own lap, but no solicitous care had been taken with his rein-blisters or small scrapes. Calluses scratched as he spread his fingers, rubbing them against mourning-cloth.

  The color of death was everywhere, this summer.

  “No,” he finished. “Forgive me, Yala. I spoke from bitterness, and I would not subject you to it.”

  “Should I have said I preferred you? I was…” She could not blame her own weariness. She was a coward, in truth as well as deed, for the time to speak was before she signed the endorsement.

  How could she have denied Garan Takyeo’s solicitousness, though? Her princess’s husband, while he lay dying wracked with a gut-wound, had still thought to arrange matters as well as possible for a simple lady-in-waiting. It was utterly impossible to refuse.

  Then again, it was only permission, not the actual marriage herself, was it not? That was a craven thought, and likewise was the idea, occurring to her this morning as she stared at her chamber ceiling before Anh stole in, alerted by the change in her mistress’s breathing from sleep to waking, that perhaps Garan Takshin would not leave her alone in Zhaon-An while he was off fighting Zhaon’s wars as Zakkar Kai would obviously be called to do.

  “No.” Kai continued gazing at his hands, much as Yala had while trying desperately to think of another solution, much as she had while attempting to find the words to place these tidings in. “Takyeo was wiser than us all. Takshin has had little enough his entire life. You will provide him some rest, and that is much to be wished for.”

  Now her chest cracked. He said it so lightly, as if it did not matter. Perhaps he had merely been amusing himself, before.

  “Oh.” It was all she could think of to say. It was beneath her to suspect indifference on his part. Was her honor truly so frail? Had she acceded to Daoyan, she might be honorless in a different way, now. Taken from Zhaon and placed upon his saddle— and oh, how, under Heaven, was she to give this news to him?

  Perhaps she would be spared that; hopefully he had already left Zhaon-An. If he had not…

  The iron control of years spent under the watchful gaze of Hai Komori’s aunties stiffened her spine, pushed her shoulders back, and denied the burning in her eyes, the spear in her chest.

  The wound upon her back, cleaned and bandaged by Anh’s careful fingers, hurt far less than the rest of her. She would never play kaibok again without thinking of the solid impact, the pain all through her, the blood as she fell from the saddle into waiting soldiers’ hands. Gasping out her message, over and over again, and Kai’s face rising from the fog of agony, set and pale.

  They sat in silence, lady and general. Yala’s nose was full, and she lifted her hand to wipe at her cheek.

  Zakkar Kai’s callused fingers arrived first. He brushed away the tears, and she could not help herself. She caught his hand, cradled it in both of hers, and squeezed as hard as she could.

  “Yala.” A small, broken word. It was not right; Zakkar Kai, the beloved of the God of War, should not sound so throat-held. So lost. “I will only say this once.”

  Oh, Kai. She nodded, and waited for fresh pain. He was well within his rights to curse her, to call her faithless, even to strike her, and Yala would bear it.

  There was nothing else to do.

  “Should you ever…” Kai let out a long, shuddering breath. When he continued, it was softly but with great force, each word edged no less sharply than the blade upon his back. “Should aught happen to Takshin, or should he treat you ill, all you mu
st do is send me word. Tell me, the Moon wishes it, and I shall come for you no matter what. I will leave any battle, any station, I will ride as you did, and I will do whatever is required.” His chin dipped as he peered at her, and she found she had not the courage to watch his face.

  Yala nodded, staring at her lap. The tears were rising again, and she doubted she could stanch their flood.

  “Tell me you understand,” he said, low and urgent. “Please.”

  She nodded again. “I…I understand.”

  “Good.” He drew his hand free, not ungently. “And now I must leave you, my lady, or I will be tempted to do what I should not.”

  “Kai.” Wrung out of her, his name fell between them, a wounded bird. She could not even bear to look upon him, now.

  “Yala.” He rose. “Above all, do not risk yourself like that, ever again.”

  On that point, you and Takshin are more alike than you know. “I cannot promise,” she whispered. Any prospect of ease or rest, of tranquility or the lack of danger, had fled with the smoke of Mahara’s pyre. The successive shocks piled upon her until she could not move, could not breathe.

  “I cannot make you.” He turned, and strode for the door. “But Takshin might.”

  Then he was gone, and Komor Yala, alone in the empty Jonwa receiving room, buried her face in her hands and, finally, wept without restraint.

  Even that brought no relief.

  A MESSAGE

  Garan Tamuron and his eldest son were laid upon pyres side by side, and the new Emperor honored both father and eldest brother by carrying the spitting everflame torch himself, step by slow step, to the oil-drenched wood as the Great Bell tolled. Some might have expected the second, smaller pyre to refuse the kiss of cleansing flame carried in such a hand, but it caught with no difficulty and the more superstitious among the Court were relieved.