“I do not think so,” said Choi. “Ass is much sweeter than this.”
“Just you wait and see,” said Fennec, wagging a finger and refilling his bowl but not theirs. “You don’t have to like the taste, but see if you’re not feeling fearless before I’ve finished this bottle.”
“So you’re a thief, a confidence artist, a master of disguise, and a snake oil merchant?” Ji-hyeon sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Is there no end to your talents?”
“Friend of many, lord of few,” said Fennec, reclaiming a chair himself and dislodging a burp in the process. “And I’ve never been a thief, that was always your dad’s purview. Crafty Kang-ho, the lovable rogue.”
“Or not so lovable, as the case may be,” said Ji-hyeon, noticing a beat too late how melancholic Fennec looked. She decided to perk him up with his favorite tonic: an opportunity to run his mouth. “Here’s a question, Fennec—what did they call you?”
“I’ve been called many things by many folk!”
“No, I mean your title, your epithet—my dad was Crafty Kang-ho, Maroto was the Mighty or Devilskinner, Chevaleresse Singh has all the other honorifics that go with knighthood, and Hoartrap has almost as many nicknames as Zosia. So what did they call you, other than Fennec?”
“I was lucky when they could remember that,” said Fennec, knocking back his third bowl in one go and topping it right back up. Ever a comrade, Choi leaned against the table and poured herself another bowl, too, so he wouldn’t be drinking alone. “Fennec’s not even my name, you know? Somewhere along the line they must have forgotten I had a real one altogether. And why shouldn’t they? I never did anything with it.”
“Oh,” said Ji-hyeon, unprepared for this confession. Even when he’d been warning Ji-hyeon against trusting his former companions, Fennec’s tales of the old days never carried this glum tinge. “Well, that’s obviously not true, because you’re in most every song of Cold Cobalt and her Five Villains, aren’t you? Even if they call you by an alias, that counts for something!”
“I’m in the songs for the same reason I was one of the Villains.” Fennec sounded as sour as his beer. “Because I was Kang-ho’s boyfriend back when Zosia started the original gang, and she wasn’t such a shit as to kick me out after we split.”
That was unexpected. Choi’s eyes widened and glanced at Ji-hyeon for confirmation, but Ji-hyeon’s eyes must have been even bigger—Fennec and her dad? Remembering the fleeting crush she’d had on “Brother Mikal” when her sooo mature Spirit Guard had first come to Hwabun, Ji-hyeon felt a little queasy.
“So I tagged along all the way to the end, but did I deserve it? Hells no. Zosia had brains and brawn, and Maroto had the same in less equal distribution. Singh was the noble-hearted knight and Kang-ho was the thief, the knife-fighter, the escape artist. And Hoartrap was Hoartrap, who obviously contributes something more than just his effervescent personality.” Fennec puffed out his cheeks and blew. “And since you can’t have Five Villains without a fifth wheel, there was me.”
“You were a priest,” said Choi. “What was the word you used? A cleric.”
“You mean, like a real one?” Ji-hyeon felt kind of disappointed that these two had obviously talked about this when she wasn’t around, at least a little, but then felt embarrassed by her privilege—of course mere mortals interacted with one another, even when their brave general or noble princess wasn’t there to overhear. “Was your Brother Mikal act not totally phony?”
“Oh no, it was!” said Fennec, brightening a little. “This was long, long ago. I’d forgotten I told you, Choi, but it’s coming back now—too much of my own stout back in Katheli. And yes, hard as it is to believe, Ji-hyeon, your Spirit Guard was actually a keeper of the cloth, albeit of a different weft. Waft. Whatever. Back when I first met Kang-ho, I was a mendicant cleric of Korpiklani, Mistress of the Malt. For you heretics I should probably explain that Korpiklani is Fourth among the Ten True Gods of Trve, just as I was destined to be the Fourth Villain. Everything is destined and preordained and something more than dumb coincidence when you have faith, even if it’s in a drunken goddess. Maybe especially then.”
Ji-hyeon scrunched up her face, trying to picture Fennec’s meticulously shaved cheeks laden with a long beard like most of the followers of the Ten that she’d encountered. Catching her looking, he clambered up and refilled all their bowls, and maybe it was some minor miracle of Fennec’s abandoned god, but the sour ale was actually growing on her. He returned to his chair and his story.
“So yes, in the early days I offered spiritual advisement, after a fashion—one of Korpiklani’s many blessings was that I could consume any liquid you could think of, and it would turn to beer as soon as it passed my lips. Of limited use to others, but I found it highly efficacious. More importantly, the brews I cooked up could heal the sick and the wounded, so long as they weren’t too far gone…” Holding up his bowl to the candlelight for a moment, Fennec knocked it back and continued.
“Now, before you ask how such a thing is possible outside of a song, or how I lost Korpiklani’s favor, I’ll tell you that I don’t have any earthly idea, or I’d still be in her service, wouldn’t I? The important thing is that sometime after meeting Kang-ho and Zosia, I fell from the graces of my goddess, and not long after that the graces of my lover. Since I didn’t wish to also fall from the favor of my employer, I offered to do whatever Zosia suggested… and that’s how I ended up donning a dozen stupid costumes and infiltrating this cult or that encampment, the master of disguise, as you so succinctly put it. The most dangerous work of all, espionage, where the only reward you win is your life, if you’re lucky, and even that comes at the cost of universal distrust, even from the friends who put you up to it. And you know the secret to my success in this one field, the reason it always worked, despite my inability to put on an accent even as well as Maroto? It’s because I’m so bland and forgettable, most people don’t look at me once, let alone twice…”
After this Fennec fell silent, and Ji-hyeon went over to pour him another bowl only to find the bottle was empty. She felt sorry for Fennec, then doubted that pity as something he’d possibly been angling for, doubted the whole story… and then hated herself for doubting him at all, after all they’d been through. At the edge of her tipsy thoughts was something else, though, a silver lining she could almost put her finger on…
“I do not know if it results from your skill or your forsaken god, but this bitter beer has indeed fortified my heart,” said Choi, putting her empty bowl down and patting the forlorn man on the shoulder.
“That’s it,” said Ji-hyeon. “I knew I felt something, too, and that’s definitely it—I’m not worried about anything anymore. Not even going through the Gate sounds scary anymore.”
“It’s hardly a miracle,” said Fennec wryly. “I brewed this batch with fire poppy oil. You must not remember but I gave you some after you took a tumble fighting the Thaoans, right before you jumped to your feet and charged that devil queen. Has a way of taking the edge off, doesn’t it?”
“That it does…” said Ji-hyeon, thinking, thinking. “How much of it did you make? And how much does it take to feel the effects?”
“Not enough to go around, if I anticipate your meaning,” said Fennec. “Even when we captured that granary on the way out of the Dominions I barely brewed enough for a hogshead, and have put a dent in it all by myself.”
“A little can go a long way, if we make its effects known beforehand and give the genuine article to as many of our soldiers as we can before it runs out, and then give the rest ordinary ale,” said Ji-hyeon, remembering with painful embarrassment how once upon a time, before she sampled the real deal, her older sister had convinced her and Keun-ju to smoke dried gingko leaves, claiming it was saam. Both of them had reeled around, feeling positively wasted until Yunjin had confessed her prank through paroxysms of laughter.
“It is true that nothing makes a warrior feel so brave as being reminded that she is,” said Choi
thoughtfully. “A ruse, yes, but a necessary one to help them overcome their own cowardice.”
“That’s my poppy sour you’re giving away to the grunts,” said Fennec, but smiled. “Another inspired stratagem, General.”
“I learned from the best,” said Ji-hyeon. “Where would we be if a certain missionary hadn’t told a little girl she was brave enough to walk through a Gate, even without the benefit of drugs?”
Before he could reply they heard a commotion from outside, and one of the guards stationed at the entrance to her tent called, “The Thaoan emissary approaches, General.”
“Oh shit,” said Ji-hyeon, really, really, really wishing she didn’t have to deal with her second dad right now. He would never, ever approve of her plan to use the Gate to invade Diadem, and so to save him the worry she had planned on simply leaving him a letter on her abandoned command table. Even had there been time to do so she wouldn’t have saddled down her invading force with tents and other bulky equipment, nor was she planning on taking along any Imperial captives who didn’t willingly accept her offer of amnesty and join her cause. As soon as the Cobalts disappeared through the Gate, Colonel Waits and Colonel Wheatley would presumably hop the wall of the unguarded stockade and hail the waiting Thaoans, whereupon they would find her long gone… but now she apparently had to explain to her dad that she was leading her troops on what could only be a one-way trip through the Gate, to ultimate victory or absolute failure in the capital of the Empire. It would not be a fun conversation, but she couldn’t bear to just send him away now, not after his warning her of the false plot Zosia had tempted him with had proven, if only fleetingly, his loyalty to his daughter over his old accomplices.
“Send him in!” she called to the guards, and he must have already been pacing outside, for he burst into the tent as the words left her tart lips. Flustered as he’d looked the night of his arrival, when she’d told him of her grand plans and then the dire news of Empress Ryuki’s bounty, tonight he appeared positively unhinged. He’d been rending his hair out by the roots, to judge by the trickles of blood seeping down from his scalp, and his eyes were red from tears.
“Ji-hyeon!” Kang-ho came at her so fast Choi moved to intercept them, but Ji-hyeon saw her father’s hands were empty save for a sheet of parchment, and she ducked around her protective friend to embrace her second father. He clung to her like a lost child reunited with its sole living relation, and she squeezed him tight, trying to placate him with explanations.
“I’m sorry, Dad, but I didn’t have a choice. There’s another Imperial regiment coming down on us, from Meshugg, and if we didn’t snatch Waits when we did she—”
“Waits? Fuck Waits!” cried Kang-ho, releasing her and waving the document at her. “It’s your first father! Your sisters! The empress! The Isles! Hwabun!”
“Calm down,” ordered Ji-hyeon, but even with the special brew in her belly her pace began to quicken—the worst had come to pass, just as she’d feared, Empress Ryuki punishing her family since the wrathful ruler couldn’t reach Ji-hyeon herself. All her life she had been taught that the royal family of Othean were the most honorable mortals not just in the Star but in all of its recorded history, and this faith in their absolute honesty and love for their people was the only thing that had allowed Ji-hyeon to sleep at night. An empress so blessed by birth that no lie could even leave her lips would never take out her rage on an innocent party, Ji-hyeon had told herself over and over… naïve child that she was. Of course the empress had done something terrible to her family, thinking Ji-hyeon responsible for the death of her son, and of course it was all Ji-hyeon’s fault—if only she had stayed on the Isles and married Prince Byeong-gu none of this would have happened. She had to hear it, though, had to hear an account of her crimes from her father’s own lips, in all its gruesome detail. “What’s happened?”
“The Sunken Kingdom,” he gasped. “It’s risen! Neglected gods of our ancestors take pity, Jex Toth has returned!”
Outside confirmation of Hoartrap’s assertion was not very welcome in this instance; he had claimed to use his deviltry to confirm it with his own eyes, but she still wasn’t taking everything the Touch said as unimpeachable. Ji-hyeon shuddered as she remembered the play of lightning over the Haunted Sea as she and her family looked out from the Mistward Balcony.
“Who told you, Dad?” Ji-hyeon asked, trying to keep calm. Fennec had lit his own pipe on a candle and passed the smoldering briar to Kang-ho, but he shook his head, too desperate to speak to waste a breath on tubāq. This was so unlike the man who had raised her that Ji-hyeon feared for his sanity.
“The empress. We’ve been communicating, using this new Gate,” said Kang-ho. When the others looked at him in shock, he held up his palms. “Not my idea. It’s one of the purposes they served in the Age of Wonders, apparently, passing letters back and forth almost instantaneously with devilish messengers. And the empress reached out to me, not the other way around.”
“You’ve… you’ve been talking to her?” All of Ji-hyeon’s fears of a paternal betrayal returned, but Kang-ho waved them away as though they were pipe smoke he’d rudely blown in her face.
“Only because of her news, her terms,” said Kang-ho, closing his eyes and trying to slow his breathing with deliberate focus. After he’d taken a few breaths—and Ji-hyeon was made even more breathless—he said, “The Immaculate Isles are under siege. A monstrous navy has laid waste to the outlying islands and encroaches upon Othean. Hwabun…”
But Kang-ho could say no more, his eyes filling with tears and his lip trembling, Choi’s hand going to one of Ji-hyeon’s shoulders and Fennec’s to the other as she snatched the parchment from her second father’s shaking hand. It was easier to read than the letters he had sent her from the Thaoan camp, for the High Immaculate was clean, the calligraphy precise. News, as Kang-ho had said, but also terms, and quite possibly the only ones she would ever see from Othean.
“Ji-hyeon?” murmured Fennec as Kang-ho fell into an empty chair, sobbing with his head in his hands. And for the first time in her memory, Ji-hyeon let her second father see her tears as well, not even bowing her head to hide them. Her hand clenched into a fist around the parchment as Fennec quietly repeated her name.
“It’s as he said—the Isles are besieged,” said Ji-hyeon, hardly believing the steady voice she heard was her own when her whole body seemed to be crumbling from within, a steady drip of tears falling from her chin to where Fellwing clung like a brooch to the front of her coat, catching them in her beak. “The empress does not know how long Othean can stand without help. She’s called on the Black Pope and the Crimson Queen, the Tapais of Ugrakar and the seafaring Flintlanders, on the Raniputri Dominions and even Usba, but she fears none of them will send help in time to save the Isles. And so she… she begs me, despite the crimes I have committed against her family, to return home, to lead the Cobalts to the defense of Othean. If I do, all is forgiven… and if I do not, the Immaculate Isles will be overrun by an army of hellish creatures that has set forth from Jex Toth.”
“And…” Fennec cleared a thickness in his throat, his fingers pressing gingerly into her arm. “And… what of Hwabun?”
Kang-ho’s wail at the mention of their ancestral Isle should have been answer enough, but lest there be any doubt Ji-hyeon repeated what she had just read.
“The Isles nearest to the Haunted Sea were the first conquests of Jex Toth. Hwabun… Hwabun is no more.”
Fennec and Choi closed in around her, their arms warm, their breath warmer, but instead of finding comfort in their gesture she felt like boiling water trapped in a kettle, growing hotter and hotter, her teeth grinding so hard she felt the loose one pop free entirely, the lancing pain and taste of blood barely registering.
Little Hyori, trembling against Ji-hyeon’s side as Yunjin sang them ghost songs against the backdrop of the Haunted Sea.
Pak, their majordomo who aspired to be like a third father to the children, but had only ever managed to b
e a stuffy uncle.
Lady Sung, her first father’s valet, and Madame Kim-bo, the harbor mistress, and all the rest of the staff…
And towering over the rest, her first father, Jun-hwan, his beetled brows forever judging her, even in her memories.
Except he hadn’t always been like that. She now remembered when she was younger, and her other dad’s business ventures were still prosperous, how her first father’s smile was so infectious she couldn’t see it without grinning back at him. She remembered the ease with which he had led her on her first dance at the Festival of Servants on Othean, making his insecure daughter relax by cheekily critiquing everybody else’s steps as they crossed the crowded room. And going even further back, she remembered the way he had comforted her when she would run crying into the house with a skinned knee or elbow. No matter how fine his robes or how perfect his makeup, on those occasions he would rock his grass-stained girl in his arms and kiss her cheeks until her sobs became cackles of delight, and and and…
“Zosia,” Ji-hyeon finally managed through a mouthful of blood from where her tooth had split loose from her jaw. She broke out of the shell of Fennec and Choi’s arms and went to her second father’s side. “Stop her. Bring her back here. Don’t let her go, no matter what. Not until I figure this out.”
Choi and Fennec vanished from the tent, and kneeling beside her second father Ji-hyeon wept with him, mourning the people they loved most in the Star, people they had never meant to hurt, though hurt was surely the only possible result of their selfish plots. Fellwing crawled between them, up Ji-hyeon’s arm and down Kang-ho’s shoulder, back and forth between her old master and her new one. With each sweep between the two the little devil’s coat grew darker, richer, shinier, and her belly swelled bigger and bigger, until the last candle guttered out in the command tent of the Cobalt Company.
A Blade of Black Steel Page 47
