by M K Hutchins
More than anything, I wanted to tell Lady Sulat. She’d know what to do.
Maybe I should pray to the monarchs who rested in the Royal Shrine. Ancestors watched their descendants, but Kings and Queens, the Fathers and Mothers of our nation, watched over all Rowak.
Kings and Queens, please take care of us, I pleaded. But they felt so distant. I was just a yellow-ranked girl they’d never met.
I again directed my prayers at Nana. She’d hear me, no matter how many walls stood between us. If you could send Osem back, I could tell her. Somehow. Once that’s done, I think... I think I can go quietly tomorrow. But I can’t leave with something undone here.
Softer than falling plum blossoms, I felt a voice in my marrow: Isn’t something always undone on Earth?
I bit my lip, the reservoir of emotion piling up. If I had more time, I’d want to check on Dami. My parents. Skip rocks with Bane again—Bane who had kind eyes, even if he didn’t have a library or a greenhouse. I wanted to serve as a chef for Lady Sulat and learn how to exorcise a ghost. I wanted to do a hundred things. I wanted to make a thousand hotpots and knead ten thousand noodles. I can’t think about that. I prayed. It hurts too much.
Thinking about it ending hurts. Your hopes for the future—those are bright and lovely, little blossom.
I closed my eyes and imagined petals on the wind like Nana and I used to chase. One day, I wanted to be that old woman, with a grandchild at my side. I wanted to hold a small, warm hand in my wrinkled one.
I curled my legs to my chest and pressed my forehead into my knees. I shouldn’t have prayed. I’d been so calm. So peaceful. I didn’t know how to get that back.
Wanting to live wouldn’t change tomorrow. I’d only succeeded in making my last day miserable.
I hoped against reason that someone would come. That Osem would want a final good-bye.
No one came.
No one except Sorrel. I heard him long before he entered, chatting softly with the guards. Laughing a bit. Letting my last meal get cold. Did he have to go to such lengths to spite me? I stood behind a chair, giving myself some scant defense. Somehow, I had to make him listen.
He slid the door shut behind himself and gently set my bowl on the table. I’d expected him to slam it down or throw it at me. Sprigs of spicy cress topped a pile of buckwheat noodles. He’d brought a vinegar dipping sauce, too. Odd—why not the sweet beet stems he’d promised?
He stepped close to me and whispered, “Dami —”
“Thank you for the noodles,” I interrupted loudly. “They look delicious.”
I pantomimed a spear, then gestured out from my ear. Every muscle in my body felt taunt and my stomach churned. Sorrel wasn’t the ally I needed.
Oddly, he didn’t snap at me. He nodded patiently, understanding, as if he hadn’t made me bleed just hours earlier. His eyes looked puffy—but not with liquor. Had he been crying?
“I’ll wait until you’re done to take back the dishes,” Sorrel said.
He sat, shifting his weight impatiently in the chair. Why wasn’t he gloating about my death? I pulled a long noodle from the bowl and tediously shaped it into the character for king.
Sorrel held up a hand and shook his head. He arranged the noodle into wait. “You should eat. It will grow cold if you savor it.”
Why wait? I supposed I didn’t need the whole meal to spell messages. I ate. The noodles had a lovely, toasted flavor, perfectly contrasted by the bright, acidic sauce. I hadn’t expected the small kindness of well-cooked food from him.
I’d eaten half—all I planned on eating—when Sorrel stood and pressed his ear to the door. He cracked it, then closed it.
“It’s safe to whisper,” he said at my side.
“He’s perceptive of ear. Didn’t I make that clear?”
“He’s gone. Dami... I thought you wanted to destroy my country, that you’d destroyed my wife, that...” He dropped his hands to his side, defeated. “I hated you more than I knew I could hate anyone. It didn’t help that you’re Plum’s sister. But... but I misdirected all my loathing.”
I blinked. That was the last thing I’d expected him to say.
“I have Violet’s things now.” His voice cracked on her name. “The investigators returned them after the military left.”
My heart slowed and my skin frosted. “Excuse me? The military left?”
“Oh. I suppose you haven’t heard.” Sorrel sat in the chair closest to mine. “Shoreed’s besieging Napil. Lieutenant-General Behon sent most of Askan-Wod’s soldiers as reinforcements.”
With Lady Sulat incapacitated, Lieutenant-General Behon commanded the local army. Fulsaan mentioned him sending suspicious messenger birds. And he’d been interrogating Violet when she died, taking the secret of who she served with her.
Sending reinforcements to the obsidian mines sounded reasonable, but I felt nauseous.
“I’ve been reading through Violet’s things.” Guilt laced Sorrel’s words and crumpled his posture. “She’d started a letter asking about a recipe, but it was odd. Wrong. Her poison box had a sheet of paper with a list of culinary substitutions that made no sense, either. I used the substitution list like a cipher. I guess the military didn’t know enough about cooking to put it together. I think she worked for Shoreed.”
His voice wavered with shame. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
Those brilliant hematite eyes filled with admiration and apology. How long had I waited for him to look at me like that? How many times had I imagined my marrow melting at the welcomed sight?
Oddly, I felt nothing. No, not nothing—a blankness, a sour hollowness. My gaze drifted to his anxiously clasped hands. It didn’t matter how he looked at me, because I’d never be able to forget what he’d done—first with liquor to aid him, then out of simple hate.
If we’d met like we were supposed to, as chefs, would we have been happy? I wasn’t sure anymore. Bane was right—I wasn’t just my birthgift. I was a person. A library of recipes and a greenhouse garden alone wouldn’t make me happy. Once, I’d found happiness in chatting with Nana every morning while I prepared a simple breakfast. Or in working alongside my father to make healing food from humble ingredients for the people of Clamsriver. Here, at the palace, I’d found it in scrubbing crocks with a friend. In saving a defenseless infant. And in a lazy afternoon of skipping rocks and listening to the stories of a remarkable young veteran.
I didn’t acknowledge Sorrel’s apology, because I found I didn’t need or want it. “What did the letter say?”
“Here.”
The paper he handed me had all the ingredients crossed-out and replaced with new words. “These edits, those are what the substitution list called for?”
“Yes.”
I read it, then read it again.
Father, I’ve removed the spiced blueberry from the stock. The obsidian knife is waiting for the pickled parsnips, and we’ve nearly removed the purple nasturtiums from the stock. I know you can return the birdie to the stock with the oysters, but I worry over the technique. You are a better chef than me—the very blood and marrow of knowledge. Love, Violet.
“She didn’t have a chance to send it before the soldiers took her,” Sorrel said, voice soft.
I nodded. “Spiced blueberry—perceptive-of-eye. That’s Lady Sulat.”
“And pickled parsnips are strong-of-arm... but I’m not sure who that matches,” Sorrel said.
My stomach sank. It was all too clear. “Parsnips. Plural. It means soldiers. They’ve all gone to Napil—the place of obsidian. Just as Lieutenant-General Behon directed. The purple nasturtiums are easy, too. Those of purple rank. Captain Gano arranged their kidnapping. I guess that makes the stock Askan-Wod or the palace.”
Sorrel’s eyes widened.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you with the noodles. Most of the remaining Palace Guards appear loyal to Captain Gano.”
“Oh.”
I tapped the paper. “Blood and marrow of knowledge. Do you think that�
��s important?”
“Bloodmarrows?” Sorrel suggested.
I frowned. Bloodmarrows were supposed to be Vengeful Ghosts who worked for Shoreed—Osem had dismissed them as nothing but superstition. I’d seen Violet during the day and the night. She was no ghost. But she was dangerous, secretive, and working in league with Shoreed. The name fit her well.
Had she and her father taken the name from the stories, or were they responsible for the stories? Violet connected bloodmarrow to chef. The thought of a group of chefs using their skills to hurt others turned my stomach. “Maybe she’s just making a play on words. Making fun of the whole idea of Bloodmarrows.”
“It doesn’t sound like that at all.”
I hated that he was right. I hated this war. I hated that people could take food that looked nourishing and comforting and turn it into a weapon. “Do you have any ideas about this last part? Birds and oysters? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Oysters are the national dish of Shoreed. That one, I understood.”
I blinked at him, surprised. “How do you know that?”
“Violet’s father traveled after he retired—he brought my father several manuscript boxes from Shoreed before the war broke out. I always hated substituting clams.” He said substituting like a bad word. Sorrel sighed. “You seemed to know what was happening earlier. I hoped with this, you could tell me what to do. I don’t want my nation to fall to Shoreed.”
“I don’t either,” I murmured. “But I don’t know what to make of the bird.”
“It’s so generic. Why not a duck or grouse or goose? And why such a childish spelling?”
Birdie. I gasped. “It’s Red Lord Ospren.”
“What?”
“He’s the Birdie.”
Sorrel chewed his lip. “That... makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t!” I said, forgetting to keep my voice low. “He’s in exile on the southern border!”
“Dami, if the Palace Guards are loyal to Captain Gano, why should we expect the guards around Ospren’s cabin to be different? Violet’s father was close to Lord Ospren... what if seeing him settled in exile really meant helping him sneak into Shoreed’s capital?”
After my time in the palace, it sounded all-too-plausible.
Sorrel nodded. “Shoreed has military strength. Red Lord Ospren still has a few allies in the palace. Why wouldn’t Shoreed form an alliance with Red Lord Ospren to conquer Rowak together?”
“If Shoreed puts Ospren on the throne, it’ll be a vassal throne.” We’d lose our independence as surely as if we’d surrendered. My pulse pounded. These weren’t the answers I wanted. “Why wouldn’t Lord Ospren announce it? Tell everyone? Wouldn’t that have caused confusion, made this war a lot shorter?”
“Lord Ospren wasn’t exactly popular as the Purple Heir. Keeping himself hidden allows his supporters to move without suspicion.”
Supporters like Captain Gano and his Palace Guards. Fir. Violet and her father. And almost certainly that agile-of-face Lieutenant-General Behon. I swallowed the sticky lump in my throat. “I need you to bring Osem here. I have to talk with her.”
She could bring all this information to the safehouse. If Lady Sulat still slept, at least Osem could tell Moss. Alder might be a horrible king, but I didn’t want to see Rowak lose its sovereignty.
Sorrel flicked his eyes downward. “Osem’s missing.”
“Missing? I saw her yesterday!”
“She never came back from her audience with you.”
I swore under my breath. I’d been so careful not to say anything incriminating! The guards must have noticed our halted speech. And now she was, what? Hidden away in some cell? Already dead? There suddenly wasn’t enough air in the room. My lungs burned.
“Do you know where Moss is?”
“Who?”
I ground my teeth. “Bane, then.”
“Bane...?”
“He’s the military messenger with one arm.”
Sorrel’s eyes lit with recognition. “I passed him on the way here. He’s playing springball with Nisaat.”
“I need you tell him what we’ve figured out about this coup.” I prayed Bane knew where the safehouse was. Or Moss. They could form a plan together.
“I intended on taking you with me.”
“My guards, remember?” I paused, dread creeping up my breastbone. Even if the perceptive-of-ear guard had left, shouldn’t the remaining guard wonder what was taking so long? He’d probably have ropes and gags waiting for Sorrel as soon as he stepped outside.
But Sorrel smiled. He opened the door. Both my guards lay slumped on the floor, a jug toppled on its side between them. Sweet plum wine dribbled from its lip, staining the carpet red.
“W-what did you do to them?”
“I did have Violet’s poisons. I lightly dosed that with bittersleep. It slowed their muscles until they dozed off. They’ll wake up stiff tomorrow, nothing more. I offered it as a friendly drink.” He yawned. “Unfortunately, they made me share a few sips, too.”
I stared at him. “How could you taint a drink like that? If any other guards had walked by—”
“There aren’t many guards inside the King’s Quarters, not without a king to protect. All the guards are on the lower floor, watching the entrances.”
“How am I supposed to leave, then?”
“Do they know your face?” Sorrel asked. “I’ll pretend you’re from the kitchens. It was true, once.”
I bit my lip. “Leave me here; I have a better plan. And tell Bane I’ll know where King Alder is by nightfall. Have him meet me outside the kitchens with Moss and any soldiers they trust. Make sure they don’t let Captain Gano or Lieutenant-General Behon know.”
“But how will you escape? You know where King Alder is?”
I glanced at the window. Daylight was fading fast. “Too long to explain. Just get Bane!”
Nana was right. I’d told someone what I knew, but my anxiety hadn’t departed. There was too much left undone. There would always be something left undone.
Sorrel disappeared down the hallway, heading out to find Bane. I pulled my unconscious guards inside my room, then peered out the window. Color seeped from the sky. If Sorrel was right about the guards at ground level, I’d be safer making my way to Fulsaan’s room than waiting here and hoping no one noticed the absence of guards or the wine stain.
With no torchlight and sporadic windows, the hallways all looked different. I scrambled up a flight of steps. Had it been this first hall? No. I paused at the next. It looked familiar, though I couldn’t see very far down it.
I’d taken a handful steps down it when a man spoke, somewhere nearby. “I told you no one’s on this side of the building.”
“I heard footsteps. I know I did.”
Warm torchlight rounded the corner and with it, five Palace Guards.
“Who are you?” the first demanded, spear lowered.
I ran. Down the pitch-black corridor, one hand on the wall. Maybe I could bar myself inside Fulsaan’s room. Or hide on the roof. Once he came, I’d be safe.
Orange light licked around me. The torch—and guards—were closing. There it was. Fulsaan’s door. Carved, heavy redwood.
A hand clapped down on my shoulder, yanking me to a halt. I twisted, but the guard expertly whipped both hands behind my back.
“You’re under arrest for trespassing.”
Something groaned behind the door and I smelled rot. Night had fallen—Old King Fulsaan had been ripped from wherever the kidnappers took him, back to the place he died.
But he couldn’t open that door. I swallowed hard. “I’m not trespassing. I’m investigating King Former Fulsaan’s room.”
“Spying,” one of them muttered.
“Don’t you hear it?” I asked.
The guards paused. The whimpering unmistakably came from behind Fulsaan’s door.
“Open it,” my guard ordered. “No one should be up here.”
The other guards obeyed. Darkness swall
owed the room, except where moonlight gleamed in arcs off rolls of fat.
The guard’s fingernails dug into my shoulder, as if that could ground him to reality and make the ghost disappear. “Retreat! We’ll come back with more men and better lights!”
He pulled me with them. I dropped my weight, stumbling to stay, but the man had to be strong-of-arm. He didn’t let go or slow down.
“Help!” I shouted.
Fulsaan whined, a high note that reverberated through the wood. He squeezed through the open door and reached for me with a spindly hand.
The guard holding me shoved me toward the ghost. I hit my shoulder against the wall but kept my feet. My lungs filled with the smell of over-boiled cabbage and sickly-sweet decay.
Down the hall, boots retreated.
I yanked my neckline over my mouth. “They’ll be back. We need to go, now.”
Ghost-Fulsaan laid on the floor and whined. Pinprick wounds riddled his layers of fat—like he said would happen if he wasn’t here at sunrise or sunset. They oozed clotted slime.
“You know where the cart is, don’t you? With your son and grandson?”
He flopped his head in a weak imitation of a nod.
“There are people who want to help us. They’ll meet us outside the kitchens.”
He closed his eyes.
“The lives of your descendants and the sovereignty of your nation is at stake!”
He groaned and rolled over. This was like trying to wake up Dami in the morning, except more than Mother’s back would suffer if I failed.
I dropped my tone, soft. Maybe I could goad him into helping. “You don’t belong in the Ancestor’s realm.”
Ghost-Fulsaan stared at me with hurt welling in its beady eyes.
“Ancestors watch over their descendants. They weave souls for new babies. You’re still here—you have a great chance to help your descendants—and you’d rather roll in your own filth.”
Ghost-Fulsaan whimpered.
“I know it’s hard. But right now, that doesn’t matter. Your descendants and your nation need their father.”
His tiny mouth quivered, as if wishing to offer a counter argument.
