Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

by Julie C. Dao

  Wren stared. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “I cannot cut your hair, Your Highness. Jade.”

  “I’m not asking you to shave it,” Jade said impatiently. “Just make it short, right below my chin, so it’s easier for travel. It’s too cumbersome for a maidservant on the road.”

  Wren frowned, but she pulled out her dagger reluctantly and moved to kneel behind Jade. She lifted a hank of hair. “This is your last chance to change your mind.”

  “I’m not changing my mind.”

  “But are you sure that—”

  “Cut the hair already, Wren!”

  “Just remember, you ordered me to do this. Don’t execute me later for destroying the Imperial hair,” Wren grumbled, and she began slicing away. Within five minutes, she had shorn off the majority of Jade’s hair in a blunt, uneven line.

  Jade swung her newly light head, pleased. “Yes, this will do nicely,” she said, then cackled at the sight of Wren sitting on the grass, looking askance at the chunks of thick black hair in her lap. “Come on, we should go to bed too. It will take three weeks to reach Red Lotus Lake, and we’ll leave tomorrow at sunrise.”

  Koichi took Shiro home and returned to the clearing by sunrise. “He wanted to say goodbye, but didn’t want to delay our departure,” he explained, showing them a generous bundle of food and extra bedding his father had insisted he bring back with him.

  “Will he be all right by himself?” Jade asked, worried.

  “He’ll be fine. If Imperial soldiers come, he’ll tell them I’m visiting my uncle Hideki in Kamatsu.” He grinned at Wren. “Good morning, wife!”

  Wren rolled her eyes. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

  “You’ll have to play your part better, dear, or people will think our matchmaker made a mistake,” Koichi joked. “Or that you’re uncomfortable being married to a dwarf.”

  “What do you take me for?” she sputtered. “I’m uncomfortable with marriage, no matter the size of my husband.” She made a face when she realized he was teasing her.

  “I heard your father’s family was unkind to him because of his height,” Jade told Koichi.

  “They weren’t the only ones. Other people have always had a problem with our height, but Father taught me to be proud of who I am.” Koichi gestured to his special saddle, which had been designed for his shorter limbs. “We’ve devised many ways to live comfortably, since it can be difficult. Windows are too high, stairs are hard, and I think one day I may have joint pain like Father. But I’m a hardy sort. You won’t regret bringing me along,” he added, grinning.

  “I know I won’t,” Jade said.

  They left the clearing, having been unable to find the dragon to say goodbye, but Jade told herself one day soon she would return and see it—and perhaps her mother—once more.

  They took the northeast road through the Great Forest, the most direct route to the Kingdom of the Sacred Grasslands, for three weeks. With plenty of food, warm clothing, and good company, it often felt more like a journey for pleasure than a mission. But always, Jade remembered the huntsman was searching for her, and plain clothes and shorn hair would not keep him from his ultimate goal: cutting out her heart for Xifeng. She spent more nights awake than Wren and Koichi knew, thinking about her father, helpless and alone, and Amah. Often she had to get up and pace to calm her anger toward Xifeng when it threatened to boil over.

  The three of them traveled well together for the most part, with occasional teasing from Koichi and sarcastic remarks from Wren. Koichi had a way of assembling his belongings in a flawlessly neat arrangement that irked Wren to no end. Everything had to be lined up straight and in order of use, and his good shoes—when removed for sleep—had to point exactly west, a fact that both amused and frustrated her. He continued to call her wife and dear, so as revenge one morning, she scattered his possessions in an untidy heap and flipped his shoes upside down. When he woke, it was the closest to a fit of temper that Jade thought she would ever see in a man of his cheerful disposition.

  “Touch my things again and you’ll find insects in your bedding,” he told Wren crossly, having lately discovered her weakness in turn: anything that was small and crawled, which had terrified her ever since a bug crept into her ear when she was a child.

  “But why must your shoes always point toward the sunset?” Wren pleaded, unable to bear the mystery of it any longer.

  “It’s not the sunset,” Koichi snapped. “They point toward Kamatsu. My father and I do it to honor our homeland.” After that, Wren never touched his things again.

  They passed numerous trading posts and caravans full of foreign goods as they traveled. Koichi longed to stop, but Jade urged them on, unwilling to talk to more strangers than necessary. Soon, however, she began to realize that avoiding other people would be impossible.

  The snow disappeared and the path became flattened grass as they continued south, passing many others: mothers and children wearing rags with rough cloth tied to their feet for shoes, farmers leading thin, hollow-eyed oxen, and exhausted men carrying crude tools for digging wells. Jade noticed one woman carrying a basket of rice as carefully as she would a baby, perhaps for her hungry family; every single grain counted. No one bothered Jade’s party, but many of the children stared curiously at Koichi.

  The day they emerged at last from the Great Forest, the sun shone bright and the air felt mild enough to shuck their cloaks. A vast sea of yellow-green fields stretched out before them, and the smell of sun-warmed grass made Jade long to roll like a child in the fragrant meadows.

  “I have relatives here, but we haven’t spoken in years,” Wren said when they stopped to eat one day. “My grandparents left on bad terms. They were betraying our kingdom, some relatives said, even though working for the Emperor would pay better than anything here. And they wanted a better life for their grandchildren, so we could be scholars and diplomats’ wives. They wanted much more for us.”

  “Why did you choose to remain servants, then?” Koichi asked. Jade saw that though it was a naïve question from a sheltered upbringing, it was also genuine.

  Wren scowled. “Nobody chooses to be a servant. We are servants because we have no choice. Opportunity goes to people of greater social status, like you or your father. Do you think it’s easy to become an ambassador? They want people with family connections.”

  Koichi’s cheeks turned pink. “I’m sorry. I never thought about that.”

  “And it’s hard to better yourself when so many are prejudiced against Grassland farm folk. Great Forest people look down on us and think we’ve come there to steal their positions.” Wren eyed Koichi. “How did your father get his job, anyway?”

  “Through hard work and dedication,” Koichi said loftily. After a pause, he added in a quiet voice, “And his family in Kamatsu was noble and in good favor with the king.”

  “Well, that explains your goose-feather bedding and aversion to squirrel meat,” Jade said, trying to lighten the mood, and they laughed. She pulled out the map, deciding it was time to change the subject. “We’ll pass through a town tomorrow, and the lake won’t be much farther.”

  “Maybe we could get a hot meal in town,” Koichi said hopefully.

  “Let’s wait and see. A town means more people watching us.”

  They traveled uneventfully the next day. It was a beautiful kingdom, but they saw from the weary faces of passersby that it was a hard life—an existence of tilling land, raising animals, and selling what little they could at market. From a distance, the farms appeared peaceful and picturesque, but they saw the truth when they drew nearer: the bamboo walls were flimsy, the straw was rotten, and the animals in the pens were so thin, their ribs stuck out from their coats.

  A woman collecting threadbare garments from a clothesline did not return Jade’s polite nod, but glared at her suspicious
ly. She bent to touch a small statue beside the door, which had been carved roughly with the features of the Dragon Lord of the Sacred Grasslands. She muttered a few words, as though warding off evil, then went inside and slammed the door.

  “She’s not being rude. People here have learned not to trust strangers,” Wren said quietly.

  Within minutes, they saw why.

  They heard shouting and wailing from a particularly shabby house, the door of which was thrown open. Two masked soldiers marched out, dragging a man with them.

  Jade’s mouth went dry when she saw that the soldiers wore Xifeng’s seal on their armor. She touched Wren’s rigid knee behind her and glanced at Koichi, who gave her a silent nod of agreement. He understood without her having to speak: if they raced past, they would call attention to themselves; if they moved past slowly, they might move on unimpeded.

  “Please don’t take him,” a woman begged, running after the soldiers. She tore a pendant from her neck. It was similar to the jade one Lady Tran wore for luck, except it was made of cheap greenish stone. “Let me pay you with this instead, please.”

  The soldier shook her hand off. “You knew the law,” he said in a flat, emotionless voice. “We warned you that if you didn’t pay your taxes, you would pay in some other way.”

  “Take the pendant, take our house,” the woman’s husband pleaded. “Take anything but our son. How will we till our farm without him? We won’t be able to eat.”

  Jade couldn’t help peeking from the corner of her eye. The man who had been dragged out was no more than a tall boy of fifteen or so. He murmured something to his mother, trying to comfort her, but her sobs grew louder.

  A crowd of onlookers gathered around their property, clogging the small road.

  “You let that boy go,” one of the men told the soldiers. He was a large, broad-shouldered farmer, his skin leathery from the sun. “You already take our homes, our profits, and the clothes off our backs, but you don’t take our boys.”

  His words roused the people behind him.

  “Good Grasslands boys belong at home with their families!” shouted another man. “The Great Forest has taken enough from us. We give you a cut of the paltry crops we raise. Why must we pay taxes on what we already give?”

  “You let that boy go!”

  “Shut up, all of you,” a thin, red-faced man cried. “Do you want to swing by the neck from the city gates? Let the soldiers take him and be done with it.”

  “Yes, it’s all very well for you,” snapped the woman beside him. Her tunic had a strip of dull white cotton sewn onto each sleeve, indicating mourning. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a son, and can’t be bothered with worrying about other people’s children.”

  “Do you see what’s happened to us?” asked a wide-eyed mother, clutching her child. “How will anything be accomplished if we fight among ourselves?”

  The leathery-skinned farmer who had spoken first stepped forward, so that his nose was only inches away from one of the soldiers’ faces. “Take me instead of the boy. I’ll wager I’m sturdy and strong enough to perform whatever labor you want him for.”

  “No, I’ll go,” an elderly man argued. “I’ve lived my life, and you have children to feed.”

  “None of us will go!” shouted a bent, white-haired woman. “To think I would live to see a foreign harlot of an Empress trying to control our king and rule over our people without knowing the first thing about us!”

  At once, several young men and women surrounded her, protecting her from the soldiers. Several others shouted out, volunteering themselves in place of the boy. Two women wrapped their arms around the distraught mother, holding her as her knees buckled, while her husband sank to the ground, his voice breaking as he called his son’s name.

  Tears ran down Jade’s cheeks at the fervor with which the neighbors tried to defend the family. Their loyalty and generosity in the face of such cruelty tore at her heart. They were all struggling, all scraping together a meager living, and it would have been easy to turn away from another’s distress—yet they ferociously stood their ground against the Imperial soldiers. She burned with fury and hollow devastation at the lengths to which her people suffered.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do to help?” she asked, clenching her fists.

  “You could turn yourself in to Xifeng’s soldiers,” Wren said sourly. “The boy and his family could run while they cut out your heart.”

  Jade wiped her face. “This can’t be allowed to happen.”

  “It has been happening,” Wren snapped. “You haven’t lived at the palace long. You haven’t heard the talk about people being used for slave labor or as target practice for soldiers. For almost twenty years, Xifeng has painted her empire with the blood of its people. Don’t think you’ve seen anything yet.” She spat over the side of the pony with a furious, frustrated jerk of her neck.

  As their horses cut through the crowd, two farmers began shouting at each other and punches were thrown as a violent skirmish broke out. Some of the men rushed at the soldiers and were quickly defused. Xifeng’s men moved unnaturally fast, and Jade—abandoning all pretense of disinterest as she turned back to watch—could not see them move for the life of her, though several of the people who attacked them collapsed to the ground in agony.

  “I wish I could give them something,” Koichi said helplessly. Like Jade, he gazed back as the soldiers dragged the boy onto one of their horses.

  But Wren faced forward, her expression like stone. “Like what? Are you going to feed them all? Knock on each door and offer them a few berries and roots? There is no immediate help you or anyone else can give.”

  Koichi spun to her, his mouth twisted with fury, but Jade knew the young woman’s anger was not directed at them. She reached out and touched his arm lightly. “Wren’s right. We have to move on and remember our objective. If we succeed in our quest, we could help them all.”

  They rode in silence for the rest of the day.

  They reached the town at sunset. Because of its proximity to the Jeweled Coast along Feng Lu’s northernmost border, it was larger and wealthier, full of merchants and sailors from across the sea. Buildings sprang up on either side of a wide, bustling road lined with stands and carts. The smell of spiced meat lingered in the air as people haggled over goods, the vendors shouting louder above the din than everyone else.

  “We won’t stand out as much as I thought here,” Jade told her companions, relieved. “There are too many people and there’s too much going on.”

  A few women stared openly at Koichi as they passed by. “Still, we should be cautious, as you advised,” he replied. “We know soldiers are near. We don’t need to stop at a teahouse.”

  “What about buying sweets at that stand, then?” Wren suggested. She jingled a handful of coins they had gotten from selling two of the silk handkerchiefs. “I can get some for us.”

  “That sounds nice,” Koichi said mildly. When she slid off the pony, he and Jade pulled over to the side of a building. “Do you think she’s trying to make up for being so rude to us?”

  “She didn’t mean to be,” Jade said, smiling. “And she wasn’t angry with us.”

  He sobered. “I know. Seeing what happened is enough to try anyone’s patience.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about how they all stood up to the soldiers, knowing the consequences. How they protected that family and offered themselves in place of the boy.” Jade closed her eyes. “It breaks my heart to think how much better those people deserve than Xifeng.”

  “My father told me there were rumors that the king of the Sacred Grasslands planned to revolt against Xifeng and free his kingdom from the empire,” Koichi said in a low voice.

  “I don’t advocate violence, but I’m beginning to see why desperate measures are sometimes necessary,” Jade said, sighing. “I used to think the crown was all about g
reed. But if someone who cared about the people took power . . . could it be a way to help them on a larger scale?”

  “I believe that, too.”

  “Amah always told me I was too idealistic.”

  “I like idealistic. It means your heart’s in the right place.” He looked straight at her. “No matter what happens, we’re all going to be together in this. You know that, don’t you?”

  There was such kindness in his eyes that Jade reached for his hand without thinking. Her face burned when she realized what she had done, but when she tried to pull away, he held on tight.

  “We’re together not just in this quest, but in whatever comes afterward, too. Whatever it takes to make a better world.”

  “Xifeng will hunt me to the ends of the earth,” Jade said softly, “and anyone with me will be in danger, too. Do you understand it’s very likely she’ll find us?”

  “We’ll just have to give her hell until then, won’t we?”

  They watched Wren wait behind a well-dressed, dark-skinned man as he paid for his sweets: lumps of soft, powdery dough, colored pink and green and filled with a sweet rice paste. He gave them to his three small daughters, who squealed and ate them rapturously.

  Koichi released Jade’s hand. His gaze was not on the sweets stand now, but at the building beside them. She followed his gaze, not understanding, until a breeze ruffled half a dozen hand-inked signs nailed outside the door. A sharp pain formed beneath her breastbone as she recognized her own image, crudely drawn onto the center of each sign above the words:

  Their Imperial Majesties seek a young woman wanted for murder.

  Her Highness Princess Jade of the Great Forest

  is believed to be extremely dangerous and accompanied by another young female

  who has joined her in taking the lives of multiple women in the palace, one of whom was elderly.

  If you see these criminals, seek out one of Their Majesties’ Imperial Guards immediately.