The Wolf of Oren-yaro (Annals of the Bitch Queen Book 1)

by K. S. Villoso

  I heard the door creak open again and stiffened. The shadows jumped as light from a lamp flooded the room. I saw the wall move and realized it had merely been a divider.

  “It’s amazing how lazy some people are,” Khine murmured, walking towards me. He looked amused. “At least I didn’t have to hurt him. Last thing I wanted to do, but if he was persistent, I wouldn’t have a choice. How are you?”

  “I need to return to The Silver Goose,” I said. “Tell me how to get there.”

  His brow furrowed. “Why?” he asked.

  “My husband—” I took a deep breath. “It’s not what you think. It’s not what you all think. I don’t know if I can explain.”

  “Maybe you can try.”

  I looked at him, not knowing what to say. I wanted to tell him and get it over with: I am Queen of Jin-Sayeng, separated from my guards. There are people trying to kill me, and I fear the worst for my husband. Bring me to safety and I will reward you beyond your wildest dreams. But the words wouldn’t come. I was frightened out of my wits, and pretending to look calm was taking more effort than it should.

  I heard him grunt. “Maybe you can try over dinner,” he said. “I cooked. You took your sweet time sleeping.”

  The promise of food worked to get me out of the bed. I followed him down the ladder. “How did you get me up there?” I asked.

  “Not easily. Please ignore any strange bruises or bumps you may have.” He pulled a cushion for me to sit on and scuttled to the kitchen. He returned with two steaming bowls. They were filled to the brim with white rice, topped with scrambled eggs and thick, yellow curry sauce. It was sprinkled with chopped green onions.

  My first real meal in two days was heavenly. I couldn’t even tell if Khine was a decent cook or not—I was just that hungry. It was a good thing he had included the chopsticks when he gave me my bowl, or I would’ve just dug in with my fingers and made a fool out of myself. I found myself asking for seconds, which Khine readily obliged. I washed it all down with the promised milk tea, which had since grown cold. It tasted faintly of jasmine and toasted rice.

  “So,” Khine said, after I took my first big breath. “You promised to talk.”

  “I didn’t,” I pointed out. “You were hoping I would.”

  “I see. I suppose my cooking skills weren’t enough to sway you.”

  “It’ll take more than eggs and sauce to impress me.”

  “You do know how to wound a man’s heart,” he said, tapping his chest. He grew serious. “The Silver Goose again, you said. Are you sure? You must be sick of that place by now.”

  I nodded.

  He frowned. “I won’t leave you on your own. Not this time.”

  I gave a grim smile. “You don’t even know me.”

  “We’ve been over that.”

  “Right. Morals.” I clicked my tongue. “And for that, you would lie for my sake. Risk getting yourself into trouble. You and your family, from what I understand.”

  Khine smiled and got up without replying. I watched him return the bowls to the kitchen and wondered what sort of man my father would’ve decided he was. Lo Bahn had been easy enough. But someone who tricked people for a living and lied so well? How could a man like that be kind on purpose?

  The harder they try, the more they want from you. My father’s words came back to me, so vivid it felt like only yesterday that I sat cross-legged beside him, listening to him go through the day’s meeting with me. Khine stepped out of the kitchen smiling, and the memory faded. I found myself returning the smile, not entirely sure what it meant.

  Have I decided to trust him?

  Or was I going to knife him in the dark, first chance I get?

  It was only later, when we were back out in the street, that I remembered I no longer had my dagger with me.

  ~~~

  Before my father’s illness, it was a common sight to see representatives from various royal clans in the castle at Oka Shto. They pretended to want to strengthen ties with my father, but I think what they really wanted was to see what it was all about—a place built with every intention to displace Shirrokaru’s Dragon Palace as Heart of Jin-Sayeng, though of course this was never said aloud.

  I couldn’t blame them. My father’s ambitions had dragged the nation into the most terrible war it had seen in decades, and it was only right that they get a glimpse of the famous palace where Warlord Yeshin was said to have planned his most strategic attacks and executed his rivals’ supporters. I also enjoyed seeing them parade about with their extended families and numerous servants—men, women, and children, all bedecked in bright silks, expensive embroideries, and colourful paper parasols.

  I was especially fond of meeting the daughters. Growing up in Oka Shto, there were no other girls my age, and so I took what chances I could to have rare conversations with them. It was not always so easy. Many of the royal daughters did nothing but simper and praise me when I spoke, refusing to engage in anything beyond mere courtesies. Others were downright horrible—especially when they mistook me for a servant’s whelp, running through the halls in plain cotton robes. One had made a terrible scene when I refused to get her tea. And none, of course, wanted to be my friend. It was either courtesy or disrespect—never friendship.

  “They’re frightened of you,” my father once said, watching me bawl on my bed after being rejected yet again by a potential playmate. “Get up and wipe your tears.”

  I had obeyed, choking back another incoming sob. I could remember him looking at me, his hard eyes searching, calculating. Later on, people would say I looked like him, that I retained nothing of my young mother whose name Yeshin would not even utter. “They’re frightened of you,” he had repeated, his breath coming out in a sort of hiss, like he had forgotten he was talking to a child. “And so let them. Empty-brained fools, they think of nothing beyond painting their faces and picking what dress to wear for the day. They’ll bear children and be forgotten in the vestiges of time. You…”

  You. I did not have the capability to form the right words to say it then—and even if I did, I would never have, not to Yeshin’s face—but it shook me every time he said that, every time he said you and looked deep into me like he was molding me out of clay and breathing life into my lungs. As if, from the mere word alone, he was creating this image of him that would carry everything he ever was and everything he could never be.

  I feel like I have to say this every time I tell this story—every time people ask me what drove me back out on that street on a bad leg, mere days after being chased through it by an assassin hell-bent on spilling my blood. Most think I should have taken my chances with the city watch.

  My father would’ve scoffed at this logic. He believed that a person needed to make observations themselves before making a decision, and that relying on others because you could not be bothered was a form of cowardice. Lazy, was how he would actually put it, and how a man could seethe so much from a single word, I can’t tell you. But I can tell you that my memories of my father eclipsed whatever fear I felt over having to return to the place where I was attacked and where Arro was killed. And it masked the rising panic over what I dreaded to find: knowledge of Rayyel’s death.

  My silence unsettled Khine, but he tried his best to hide it. It was, thankfully, a clear night—the first one, I think, since I had first stepped on Anzhao City’s damned streets. We passed by a flock of people in deep prayer. Children led the group, carrying poles with giant paper lanterns shaped like boats and stars.

  “Festival for Saint Fei Rong,” Khine explained, pointing out the trail of orange-scented oil the group left behind on the street. “People dip their shoes in the holy oil before they begin the journey to pray to the deity Shimesu, the Rok Haize Goddess of Good, Stable Fortune, in various houses. It’s supposed to bless the neighbourhood. But you would know that, living here, wouldn’t you?”

  I almost didn’t catch that. He was sneaky, this one, despite his light words. “We didn’t live in Shang Azi,” I said.<
br />
  His eyes gleamed. “They don’t just do it in Shang Azi. This time of the year…”

  “Yes, well,” I grumbled. “I haven’t been here very long.” I was still looking at the prayer group, who were travelling up the hill now, away from the neighbourhood. I heard him chuckle.

  “They’re probably done with their rounds. The last stop is to light candles at the temple before going home to feast on boiled chicken and bland rice. We don’t have separate temples to our deities like you do in Jin-Sayeng. One’s enough. I’m sure the gods and goddesses know who we’re talking to—the prayers say their names often enough. We have one prayer where we say Shimesu forty-nine times.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Does that number signify anything?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “So why not fifty? Why stop at forty-nine?”

  He laughed. The sound of it eased my nerves against my will. I gave a grim smile in return, one which faded quickly when I recognized the street we had taken just two nights before. It seemed like a lifetime ago. I felt myself begin to sweat. The sound of music and laughter made me nauseous.

  Khine must have noticed my discomfort as we slowed down. “What happened here?” he asked.

  I shook my head, unable to find the words. I looked up at the sign, The Silver Goose, twinkling under the lantern-lights. I saw a man emerge from the door to speak with the customers on the patio and recognized the manager. He was laughing, chortling, almost. He was in on it, I thought. He had to be. If the attack had caught him off-guard, the restaurant should be closed. Or if he had to keep it open, the events should at least have numbed him to stillness.

  But there was no mark of that night on his face: none. “Tali—” Khine began, and I shushed him.

  He looked like he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended.

  “Into the alley,” I said in a low voice. I dropped my head, hoping the darkness was enough to mask my face. Or maybe he wouldn’t recognize me. The man never turned, though, and I was able to pass him. We reached the narrow alley to the left of the building. The other windows in that meeting room had opened to here.

  I looked up and heard Khine breath beside me. He was following my gaze. I let him, allowing, perhaps, that he might see something I wasn’t.

  I couldn’t peek into the room itself from that angle, and about half of the windows were curtained closed. I struggled to contain that wave of panic again. It couldn’t have all just happened in my head. I have been told that my imagination could get the best of me at times, but not like this, and certainly not after everything that had transpired.

  “Place like that, you think they could afford to maintain their windows,” Khine said.

  I froze. My eyes immediately noticed that the shutters of the furthest one were bent outward, like they had been broken and somebody had tried to fix it by simply pulling the frame back in. I rushed to the section of the alley where the window opened into and felt my heart in my throat.

  A pool of blood was congealed on the ground and in the gutter. It smelled like dead cats.

  Khine saw it, too. He went past me to approach it, both fascination and revulsion on his face. “Is that from a human?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, knowing it was. But whose? I didn’t want to think of Rayyel, hurt and bleeding in this alley. It had been different when he left me. His life had not been in danger, so I knew he could take care of himself then—whatever worry I had felt had been for our son, for how I would explain his father’s departure to him. But in a situation like this…the man had been taught to fight, perhaps not quite in the way I had been, but he had never been particularly good at it. He was no warrior. The assassin wasn’t trying to debate the finer points of an economic advantage, and he certainly wasn’t trying to slit Rai’s throat with a book.

  “Do you see a blood trail?” I asked.

  Khine swallowed, his expression torn between asking me what was happening and answering my question. “Whoever that was couldn’t have survived that,” he finally said, his face tightening. “That much blood—that person is as good as dead.”

  “Not a pig, you think?”

  “They wouldn’t slaughter their animals here,” Khine said. “City regulations. They’re bloodless by the time they leave the slaughterhouse.”

  “Human, then,” I said.

  “Seems like it.” He touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tali. Is this someone you knew?”

  “Take me to the docks,” I murmured.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  He scratched his cheek. “It’s a long walk.”

  I think I had known that. I wasn’t thinking very straight anymore. “It doesn’t matter. I need to get to a ship. The Singing Sainsa. She’s the ship I came in on, and I was hoping…”

  “The Singing Sainsa?” he repeated. His eyes were wide.

  I nodded.

  “It’s not going to be there.”

  I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “It sailed—oh, that same evening we were with that shopkeeper. My brother Cho works at the docks, and he told me about this ship that smashed into two bollards on its way out and that it was a Jin-Sayeng ship named Singing Sainsa. The officials were livid, but they couldn’t catch it in time.”

  That same evening. My hands felt cold.

  “I’m sure there are other ships bound for Jin-Sayeng,” Khine said. “We could ask around.”

  “There are no trade routes between Jin-Sayeng and the Zarojo Empire, and no passenger ships either. We’ve never been on good terms since those attacks during Dragonlord Reshiro’s time. You need a chartered ship, which isn’t cheap.”

  “Sometimes fishing boats will go all the way out here from Jin-Sayeng,” he said. “That’s how many Jinsein migrants get here. You’d have to be patient, but if you find one heading home…”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know how to explain that what I needed was assurance that my husband was alive and well. I swallowed. “Your brother saw this, he said?”

  “You can speak with him when he comes home.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long. Can you take me to him?”

  “Gods,” Khine breathed. “I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t keep track of all of Cho’s friends.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. Only then did I realize that I was shaking. “Let’s go back to the house first so you can rest. Talk to me. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “No,” I said. “But I wish I did.” Then I would know whose blood it was, and I could lift the burden threatening to suffocate me. I shook my head, pointing at the pool. “Could—could they still survive? Whoever this was?”

  “Not unless they had help immediately,” Khine said. “And the right sort. In the far east, there’s doctors who claim they can replace lost blood with tubes, but…the Texts of the Undying—the reference book the empire approved for use by all physicians—looks down on such practices.” He scratched his chin. “I’m sorry.”

  “So you keep saying. It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m filling your head with nonsense. Maybe they survived. Until you see a body, you can’t tell for sure.”

  “You are being truthful. That is more than what’s been given to me these last few days.”

  That took him aback, I think. But I didn’t dwell on it. I was so very tired, and I agreed to walk with him back to his house. A part of me didn’t like the idea of waiting, and I was almost tempted to stop and ask him to take me to Deputy Qun’s instead. He could offer answers, if I was careful.

  But the part of me that wilfully remained Yeshin’s daughter told me it was sheer idiocy, and Yeshin’s daughter did not get involved in sheer idiocies. To walk straight into a snake’s den was out of the question. Go back. Think on it. Breathe. Easier said than done. All I could think of on the entire trip back to Shang Azi was the congealed blood in that empty alley and how it gleamed like a marble floor under the moonlight.

  Chap
ter Ten

  The Lamang Siblings

  The betrayal of the Singing Sainsa’s crew struck a deeper chord in me than I thought it would.

  I thought our terms had been generous. For a month of their time, they were going to make more than their usual profit of carrying silk, hemp, and tuna from the Jin-Sayeng city of Sutan to Nalvor in the Kag. I had even made the courtesy of writing letters to the inconvenienced merchants that made up their usual clientele, praising them for their service to the Dragonthrone. Such approval from the queen would’ve been very good for the businesses of all involved.

  Arro had thought it was too much. “We’re paying, they accepted,” I remember him grumbling, giving me a critical eye that would’ve made me wilt if I hadn’t been so used to my father’s. As it stood, Arro’s expression was amusing—almost comical—in its concern. “Let them grumble, if they want…you do not have to make them like you. You have to be harder.”

  “As hard as they say I am?” I asked him.

  “As hard as they say you are,” he agreed, his eyes softening, speaking what he dared not say out loud: even though we know you are not.

  Had I been too kind to the crew? Did I smile too much at them, been too concerned with making sure they knew exactly how much we appreciated their service? Or were they frightened of what my guards said behind my back—the very guards who have also seemed to have abandoned me?

  I had not been on the Dragonthrone long enough to know the sort of queen I am. A hard thought to admit, coming from someone who had been born for that throne—who had been groomed for it. I had known no life beyond this and so I had never once considered that I would ever be betrayed by my own subjects. My father had only trained me in dealing with the other warlords, in detecting false courtesies and hidden ambitions; I did not know how to react to the betrayal of mere sailors and my own guards.

  What did they have to gain from it? Money? I could have paid them for information on anyone who tried to buy them off. Did they know that? I may have neglected it in my preoccupation with Rayyel. Among other things, my rule was marked by my husband’s absence. I had done everything I was supposed to do—learned everything Yeshin had asked of me, married the Ikessar boy, bore Jin-Sayeng an heir, kept the warlords at bay, listened to my advisers on every policy and action…and for what?