by Devin Madson
His hard lips turned into a sneer and he removed the gag, leaving spit dripping down my chin. ‘And what do you think of that, my lady?’ he asked.
‘You can’t do it.’
‘Think I haven’t the nerve? You think I can’t kill an emperor?’
‘No,’ I said, meeting that angry gaze. ‘I’m sure you have the nerve. But you can’t do it. Forty-eight assassination attempts and you think he won’t see you coming?’
‘No. I once told you I wasn’t a fool.’ Shin smiled, the strange expression trembling oddly on his lips. ‘I think that is the point. He will see me coming. He will see Tili, too, a woman who used to be in his service, who serves you so faithfully. Tell me he would refuse to speak to us.’
Tili. She might be afraid, might fight against it, but somehow I knew she would go. Kin would be on his guard, of course he would, but if he yet desired something more from me, he would listen. And that would give Shin all the chance he needed. I had seen him move, seen him kill.
‘Why?’ I asked, looking up into the scarred face I had come to trust.
‘Because I picked my side a long time ago. Kin has no honour.’
‘Then serve me.’
Shin pressed his palms to my cheeks. ‘You had me when you ripped that man’s throat out.’
‘I would rip your throat out now if you let me go.’
‘Regent wanted to kill The Usurper.’
I could hardly believe I was having this conversation, in the dark like a nightmare, the Pikes standing around like statues. ‘Because I was a fool!’ I cried. ‘Because I thought blood meant more than peace, more than the lives of people who would die for our selfish claim. If any of you give a damn about Kisia, don’t fight for Katashi. No man who thinks more about himself than his people will ever bring them peace.’
‘And what if we don’t want peace?’ The voice rang from the darkness, owning no face.
‘Then you’re nothing but vicious thugs!’
‘We’re loyal to our captain.’
There were mutterings of agreement around me and I felt like I was drowning. I wanted to scream at them, but screaming would achieve nothing. No one was coming to save me.
Letting my face go, Shin stood. ‘Take her down to Emperor Katashi,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the other girl with me.’
Shin turned away, and two shadowy figures stepped forward. ‘Shin, don’t do it, don’t do it, please!’ I cried. ‘I’ll stay with Katashi. I’ll do whatever he wants me to do, just don’t hurt Kin! Don’t kill him.’
Tili was a dark figure crouched upon the stones, and Shin pulled her up by her elbow like a doll.
‘Shin! I order you to stop. I order you not to do this! Katashi wants him alive.’
Still he said nothing.
‘Shin!
‘What are you waiting for?’ he growled at the Pikes. ‘Get her out of here.’
‘If any of you touch me I will scream. I will bite you. I will curse you and your families and gouge out your eyes and rip off your fingers.’
Shin turned back toward me, a menacing figure in the night. The very way he held himself spoke of his ability to kill.
He strode past me and knelt on the stones, his arm sliding around my neck. It was strong and hairless, his whole body stinking of dirt and sweat. Shin tightened his hold. Darkness swarmed in, rising like a black tide. I lifted my head, trying to stay afloat, but his muscle bulged at my throat. The water kept rising, rising until there was no light, no thought, nothing but the darkness as I sank beneath the waves.
Chapter 17
Kimiko’s eyes followed Darius everywhere.
She knelt at the table, still, poised, her small fingers flitting gracefully from sticks to knife to bowl. And while she ate, her eyes never once left Darius’s face. Even when he looked up and caught her gaze, there was no embarrassment. She just kept watching him. It was Darius who turned his head, Darius whose face was pale, his eyes dark-ringed from lack of sleep.
And those blue eyes kept watching, their intensity troubling.
Once my nausea had passed, Darius had insisted we eat together every evening, like the strange mismatched family we were.
‘You need to eat,’ Darius said and I looked down at the bowl of rice growing cold before me. There was beef and mushrooms and white radish, green pears and chestnuts. Kimiko had fetched supplies from the town and prepared the meal, but I was not hungry.
‘Do I have to force it down your throat?’ Darius asked, setting down his knife.
‘What?’
‘Eat the food, Endymion.’
I took a pear and bit a big chunk, disliking his scowl.
And all the while, Kimiko watched.
Only when we went into the back field did her eyes not follow. Every day for a week Darius and I sat amid the blackened stumps while he tested my progress. On the first day he asked me how many souls inhabited Kisia and I told him: ‘One million, three hundred and twenty thousand, six hundred and forty-two.’
‘Don’t care about them.’
‘But I do.’
‘Tell yourself that you don’t. Turn your Empathy in and try again.’
‘One million, three hundred and twenty thousand, six hundred and forty-three.’
Darius’s brows had shot up. ‘A birth? How amazing. There is hope for the empire yet, but it isn’t you. You’re not trying hard enough.’
Turning the Empathy in on myself had made me sick, but on the second day I could not tell him.
‘Good,’ Darius had said. ‘Can you still feel me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do I need to give you more reasons to hate me?’
I shook my head. ‘You couldn’t.’
‘Don’t put me on a pedestal,’ he warned. ‘I don’t sit well there.’
‘You hated what you were and did something about it,’ I said. ‘That alone is worthy of respect.’
Darius rolled over, and through the waving grass that pair of amethysts glittered. ‘Don’t wrong me, Endymion,’ he said. ‘The weight of contrition grew too heavy for me to bear, but I could never hate the power. I loved it. I still do.’
And I had killed one hundred and four men on the road to Rina. ‘So do I.’
‘I know. That’s why you need to keep trying. Turn it in on yourself until constraint becomes all you know.’
On the third day, Darius brought an old Errant board with him to teach me how to concentrate on the mask and something else at the same time. He kept bringing it, each day relaxing more and more until on the seventh day he took off his sandals and lay back, flexing his toes amid the cool grass. He looked like a tiger testing his claws.
Not thinking, I reached out my Empathy.
A fierce slap knocked me back and for a stunned moment the sky spun.
‘That isn’t control.’
Darius hadn’t moved. He was still lying on the grass, his arms crossed behind his head. He hadn’t touched me.
‘Turn it in, Endymion.’
‘Why aren’t you worried?’
He turned his head, regarding me with those cold eyes. ‘Worried about what?’
‘Malice. You know he’s coming. Do you think he’s going to be pleased that you’ve taken off with one of his Vices?’
‘He doesn’t care about his Vices.’
‘Maybe not, but he cares about you. You should have seen his face when I told him you weren’t coming to Rina. He’s going to be angry. He–’
‘You think I don’t know?’ he snapped, sitting up. ‘You think I’m an idiot? The first time I tried to leave him he stuck a knife in me.’
‘I know.’
He snorted. ‘Of course you know. If you let yourself go you could be more me than I am.’ He looked down at his han
ds, each now gripping a handful of grass, and tightening his hold he ripped them up. ‘Malice doesn’t like to share.’ The blades of grass fell, dancing away from his opened palms. ‘Everything comes to an end. Better sooner than later.’
Was there bitterness in his voice? I had grown so used to seeing it a different way, to tasting its sour tang on the air, that the inflection was hard to recognise. He was smiling, too, but no change had come to his eyes. I felt like a blindfolded man with his hands tied and I gritted my teeth, fighting against the urge to open up and see, to taste and feel and know, catching the whispers on the breeze as they drifted from uncontrolled minds.
I lay back and stared at the sky, shading my eyes from the bright afternoon sun. Wind rustled the grass, bringing with it a hint of paddy stench.
Silence sat between us for a time, broken only by the sounds of summer.
And then the smell of smoke.
I sat up, my first thought to look toward the house, but the rundown manor beyond the gardens looked the same as ever. Columns of black smoke were rising from the south, tilting in the wind.
‘It seems the war is coming to us,’ Darius said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand. He always did before we finished for the day — testing me. I set my teeth and touched him, concentrating to keep the Empathy in. He led the connection, pushing it through with a thought and I tried not to follow, not to see the images of Kimiko, the warmth, the scent of her hair, the rise of her breasts, the–
My Sight spread, flowing out over Kisia with a single breath, and Darius snatched his hand away. His expression turned strange, an instant of tortured ambivalence before it was all gone, the world turning grey and lifeless.
‘He’s coming,’ he said, with something like a smile.
‘Malice?’
‘Who else.’
‘Is he close?’ I didn’t need to ask how he knew. ‘Do we run?’
‘There is no we.’ Darius straightened his robe, picking grass from his sash. ‘You have to go. You have to get Kimiko out of here.’
‘What? You’re staying? Why?’
‘Because it’s me he’s coming to see, don’t you think?’
For a time he stood staring out at the smoky skyline where spreading plumes were fast obscuring Kisia from view. Then, slowly, deliberately, Darius slid first one foot and then the other into his sandals, and bent to where the Errant board sat amid the wavering grass. Gripping one of my pieces, he turned it, its painted crown tipped to the sky.
‘My game, I think,’ he said, and turned away toward the house.
Leaving the board, I ran to catch up. ‘Darius, you can’t be serious,’ I said. ‘She won’t come with me. Kimiko hates me.’
‘I’ll talk to her.’
Darius passed through the moon gate and into the garden where the high afternoon sun was causing wild flowers to droop their heads over the crazed path. The smell of smoke followed us.
‘Go straight to the stables,’ Darius said, brushing through the flowers, red and pink and white. ‘Get your horse and wait outside the gate for her.’
‘You could just order her to leave. You’re her master. She has to obey.’
‘No.’ The word snapped between his teeth with the speed of a striking snake. ‘No.’
‘No? Then why not set her free?’
Darius turned on me, his nose crinkled in a sneer. ‘Do you know what my name was, Endymion?’ he asked. ‘The name I took on after my maturation?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘My name was Mastery.’ Pressing his fine fingers to his chest, he bowed. ‘I assure you I earned it.’
‘Then why don’t you command her?’
‘Because if I do, I will lose. Don’t you understand? That is the man I was and if I go back now I’ll never want to change. I’ve missed it. You have no idea how much I have missed it, or how painful it is to see that mark every day and know I cannot use it.’
I stared at his twisted features, strange in the bright sunlight. ‘So it’s a test. You keep her marked to test yourself.’
His lips turned, more leer than smile. ‘You make it sound so selfish,’ he said with a laugh that seemed to mock himself. ‘Gods know I wish she would abandon me if I freed her, but she wouldn’t. Kimiko is a stubborn little whirlwind.’
‘Then how will you get her to come with me?’
‘Not by ordering her,’ he said, and continued along the path, the bulk of the once glorious house rising out of twisted nests of bracken. ‘All you need to do is get her away from here. Don’t tell me where you’ll go, I don’t want Malice to be able to lift the knowledge out of my head.’
‘What will you do when he comes?’
From behind I saw Darius’s shoulders lift into a careless shrug. ‘I shall wait and see. But don’t fear for me, little fish, he won’t kill me.’
‘It is not your death I fear.’
Still walking, he glanced over his shoulder. That first night I had seen Darius and Kimiko locked together in the lantern light and the house had protected them from me, but I knew it could not keep Malice out; could not protect Darius from the monster he knew lived beneath his skin.
Mastery.
‘Darius?’
‘Yes?’ He stopped and turned, immaculate brows raised in question. For me he had stayed when he might have run. For me he had given up so much time.
Not caring for the dirt or the thorny stems trailing across the path, I knelt in front of him and grasped his hand. Planting a kiss upon that translucent skin, I said: ‘I would do anything for you, brother. Let me stay. Let me help you.’
For a moment he said nothing, just let his hand remain in mine. Then he pulled it gently away. ‘That is the fastest road you can take to destruction,’ he said. ‘Don’t. If you master what I’ve taught you then perhaps we won’t meet again. If not… well…’ He turned away, leaving me kneeling on the stones. ‘Goodbye, Endymion.’
* * *
Kimiko came, proud, composed, silent. Her small jaw was set squarely and she strode past me, taking her horse’s reins without thanks. She required no assistance, just climbed into the saddle and turned her horse, leaving me to follow. I stared after her. I had been sure she would not come and wanted to ask what Darius had said, but she was already a distant figure beyond the welcome garden.
‘We had better go,’ I said, patting Kaze’s neck. He snorted and walked on, kicking flurries of wisteria petals and taking the channel in his stride.
Kimiko waited at the hilltop. She did not speak as I approached, made no acknowledgement of my presence at all, just gnawed on her lip and stared down at Esvar below us. It hung with haze, but I could still see people moving about the town, carrying goods or stopping to greet chance-met friends. It bore every sign of life, yet I could not feel it. There were no numbers, no whispers.
Still gnawing on her lip, Kimiko looked back toward the house, its derelict façade peering mournfully over the old wall. She looked at me then, and clenching her jaw, set her horse walking.
Instead of taking the track, she turned south off the carriageway, brushing through a tight knot of trees. I followed, wondering if we would travel the whole afternoon in silence.
Kaze tossed his head as leaves flicked him in the nose, his silent complaints vociferous. ‘Calm, my friend,’ I said, trying to hold the branches aside. ‘We’ll be out soon.’
From the tangle of close trees we passed into a bamboo thicket, its emerald poles reaching for the sky. Still travelling south, Kimiko urged her horse into a trot, and it wended its way between the stalks, prancing playfully. Kaze followed, his ears flicking his enjoyment of the dance. With every breath the smell of smoke grew stronger.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, brushing papery leaves from my hair.
‘Away.’
Kimiko didn’t answer.
The setting sun flickered through the bamboo and I closed my eyes, leaving Kaze to follow without guidance.
By the time we reached the edge of the thicket the sun was low on the horizon. Kimiko’s shortcut had brought us to a plateau where wavering heat rose from the black stones. Below us, a spur jutted from the mountainside, jagged rocks dropped away on either side. And there a dark host swelled in the bowl of The Valley. Crimson banners snapped – on both sides of the spur. One side crimson with the southern dragon picked out in gold thread, while only a few miles away, over the rocky pass, black pikes swam in crimson water.
‘An Imperial battalion,’ Kimiko said, pulling a leaf from her curls. ‘Is Kin down there?’
‘Maybe.’
Kimiko shot me a look of disdain. ‘That’s all you have to say? I’ve heard you reciting numbers in your sleep. How many men does he have?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Shivatsa you don’t know. How about Katashi?’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘Darius told me you followed him here,’ she said, turning back to the horizon. ‘He said you followed him here like a dog sniffing the ground all the way from Rina. You can’t tell me Darius smells worse than the Great Fish.’
‘I am not a dog,’ I snapped.
‘You’re not very helpful either. I’ll go find out for myself.’
She clicked her tongue and her horse began to walk, but I gripped her reins. Kimiko’s eyes flashed. ‘Let go,’ she growled.
‘Darius charged me to look after you,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t mean letting you walk into an army camp. We need to get away from here. We need to go south.’
‘And where will we go?’ she asked, pulling the reins out of my hand. ‘To Mei’lian? To The Plains? Chiltae? I hope you are well endowed with money, Endymion, because I am not. Or do you propose we steal our food and sleep on the ground? Or even better, I could sell myself for a meal. We can’t sell the horses because then we would be stranded. Sad that the free use of my body is worth less than an animal.’
