The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

  “Once you and Min are married that will not be an issue,” the empress said, dismissively, the barest hint of a characteristic frown line appearing between her eyes. “And once the mourning period is finally over, we can order a real ceremony before the whole court. No one would question your claim after that.”

  “We need to find her,” Set continued stridently, ignoring his aunt’s words. “As long as Lu is free, as long as she is out there in the world, she will try to depose me.”

  “Let her try,” Min’s mother scoffed. “What is she now? Nothing. A criminal. She will be apprehended in time—you have enough men searching for her.”

  “You know how she is!” Set snapped. There was a wild, preoccupied gleam in his eyes. “She’s—unnatural. Crazy. And now she has nothing to lose! She would use her dying breath to take me down—”

  “Focus on rallying support from your court and presenting your decree tomorrow,” interrupted the empress coldly. “It’s certainly bold enough to command their attention for the time being—”

  “Easy enough for you to say!” her cousin barked. “But you can’t just wish Lu away like that.”

  The room was hot with tension; Min felt faint. Stop yelling, her heart pleaded. This is my wedding.

  “What is the decree?” she blurted aloud.

  Set seemed to notice her for the first time. His face rearranged itself with some effort and he smiled indulgently down at her. “The decree,” he told her, “will rid our land of the foreign scourge. The Ellandaise will have ten days to vacate their sector and our ports.”

  “All foreigners? The Westermen, too?” Min said in surprise.

  Set waved a hand. “Yes, though we plan to be more lenient with their kind, unless they deal in poppy tears or other degenerate cargo.”

  “The days of foreign influence in imperial lands is over,” said a voice from behind them. Min gave a start, but her cousin and mother parted slightly to allow Brother to join the circle. She hadn’t seen him enter.

  “Emperor Set’s reign will be remembered as a turning point in our history,” the monk continued.

  Something in his low, languid voice felt as though it were walking cold feet right up the notches of Min’s spine. “Your husband will be exalted as a great hero, half a god. He will accomplish feats the likes of which no one has seen before.” He smiled, showing a mouthful of small white teeth.

  He took her hand in one of his. Min looked down. Her skin was soft and pale. His was paler still, though rough and cold beneath her fingers.

  “Are you ready to serve your husband, Small Princess?” he asked.

  Their eyes met. Brother clutched her hand tighter, pulling her close to examine her eyes. “I think you are ready,” he mused, sounding slightly surprised. “Though perhaps you don’t know it yet.”

  There was nothing in her breeding that had prepared her to respond to this. Think, she scolded herself. Lu would’ve had an answer.

  “Don’t scare the girl,” her cousin interrupted, his impatience almost comforting. “Come on then, Brother. Let’s get this ceremony done with. It’s been a long day.”

  Min tried not to sigh in relief when the monk released her hand. Her mother guided her down to her knees across from her cousin. Set’s eyes were a plush, stormy gray. Troubled.

  How do I serve you if you can’t even see me? she wondered. How do I reach you?

  He smiled dutifully at her, then took her hands in his own as the monk began to recite their vows. His hands were warm and strong, steadying the tremble right out of her own. And when the ceremony was finished, he beamed at her.

  “We are now man and wife. Emperor and empress,” he told her. She smiled back at him, nodding perhaps a touch overeagerly. He looked so radiant, so tall.

  “I’m very ha—” Min began, but he had already turned away to speak with Brother. The words died on her lips.

  A warm pressure at her back distracted her. Min found her mother hovering over her, her face conflicted between pride and—what was that exactly? Fear? Nervousness?

  “You’ll be fine,” the empress said, but it sounded more like she was trying to assure herself. And why? Min felt a twinge of annoyance. Did her mother really trust her so little? She vowed she would show her—show them all. She would be the most constant, demure, supportive empress Set could ever wish for. They would see.

  “And now,” Brother’s voice rose behind them. “I’d like a moment alone with the newlyweds. To bless their union.”

  The empress’s jaw clenched just slightly. “I don’t believe that is customary,” she said.

  “Perhaps not,” Brother said affably. “But with a couple so young, it is sometimes easier to discuss … ah, intimate matters alone. Auspicious dates for conception—that sort of thing.”

  Min felt herself redden from the tips of her ears down to her collarbone.

  “Aunt Rinyi, it’s fine,” Set was telling her mother, guiding her toward the door. “I told you, Minyi won’t ever be out of my sight.”

  “You promised.” Her mother’s voice was a hushed, hurried whisper, even as she was hustled out the door. “Remember, Set, you promised me.”

  The doors shut, leaving Min alone with her cousin—no, her husband, and the monk. Brother looked keenly at her; Set was looking at him.

  “Why don’t you two have a seat,” the monk said, gesturing to the pillows upon which they had knelt for the ceremony. As they sat, he fetched one of the braziers near Min’s bed and drew it closer to them, using the coarse raw silk of his robes as a buffer between his palms and the hot handles. He pushed their wedding altar aside and replaced it with the brazier.

  “This will do,” the old man said to himself. Min noted his voice seemed more substantial than it had when her mother was still in the room. Less airy and dreamy, more … well, ordinary. Clipped and efficient. She watched as he began to stoke the embers in the brazier until they hissed and blazed red once more. Then from within one sleeve, he withdrew a pinch of green-gray powder and dashed it against the coals.

  A spry green flame the color of young wood sprang to life in the iron bowl.

  Min flicked her gaze nervously at Set, wishing he might give her some word of comfort, take her hand again, but he was still watching Brother. She followed his lead.

  “Do not be alarmed,” the monk told her. “I am using the flame to scry the promise of your union. This is a bit of my own make of magic—a sort of crossbreed between the old Hana water rites and some indigenous northern spells. Nothing to be frightened of.”

  Min’s heart fluttered. Scrying? As far as she knew, Hana monks did nothing of the sort.

  Brother smiled as though hearing her thoughts. “These days I know your monks do little besides burn incense and pray and sweep the Hall of the Ancestors, but there was a time, long ago, when their rites meant something more. Did more.” He turned his eyes back to the fire.

  “Is it working? Can you see anything?” her cousin asked. He leaned forward tensely. “Has the prophecy changed now that my bride is Minyi and not Lu?”

  “Patience,” the old man murmured, peering into the green flame. “How many times do I need to tell you? Patience. In all things.”

  Set’s mouth was pursed. “You told me it didn’t matter who I married—that as long as it was a Hu princess, the prophecy would hold. That under my reign the old ways and the new would merge to create the most powerful empire—”

  “Tell me,” the monk interrupted, focusing his gaze upon Min. “Are you on your monthly blood?”

  “I-I’m,” she stammered, looking at Set in horror, but he just nodded encouragingly. When had her life descended into a constant state of mortification? “Yes?”

  “It’s all right,” the monk told her with a gentle smile. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. Set is your husband, and I am a healer. You have nothing to hide from us.” Then his tone became practical again: “Is it your first time having your blood?”

  “N-no,” Min whispered. “Only my second, thoug
h.”

  “Ah,” the monk nodded, satisfied. “That would do it. Sometimes disturbances in your normal energy flow will cause interferences in what I can see.” He reflected. “However, they do present the opportunity for interesting solutions.” Then he asked, as though asking for a cup of tea, “Min, do you have any of your discarded bedding and wrappings here? Something stained with your monthly blood.”

  Min supposed that dying of embarrassment must be impossible, as she continued to live. “Y-yes? Yes, probably. Normally my nunas would take it away, but I’ve been locked up in here all day—”

  “Excellent. Would you bring me some?” the monk continued.

  As though in a strange dream, Min rose and walked to the far side of the room, where a bin held her discarded clothing. She fished out a single wrapping, stained unevenly with brown, dried blood, and brought it to the monk.

  Without ceremony, he tore off a small section of the stained cloth and threw it into the fire.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the fire began to eat at the frayed cloth, letting off the oddly damp smell of burned cotton. Min watched as its green tongues licked inward. The moment it touched the bloodstain, the flames hissed and spat, like an angry cat, flaring from green to an unnaturally deep blood red.

  The brazier popped, flinging bits of char and coal over the metal lip, singeing the carpets beneath. One of the embers began to catch, flaring to a bright orange. Min gave a cry of alarm, but Set stamped it out before the fire had a chance to grow. Her cousin grimaced with the effort, but his face changed to one of shock as he looked up.

  Min followed his gaze. There was a woman rising out of the brazier.

  No, not a woman—more like the shadow of a woman. A body of flame wreathed in smoke rather than flesh and bone. Before them, she became more tangible, more concrete, the flames taking on the subtlety of her sunken cheeks, thin lips, pointed chin. Then her eyes opened—black, so black amid all that red and gray. And Min knew her.

  The shamaness from her dreams. The girl who had shown her the death of the emperor. Min recoiled in wordless fright.

  But the shamaness was looking only at Brother—glaring at him with unearthly fury. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but all that emerged was a rattling hiss, like that of dried leaves skittering across a stone floor.

  Brother had risen to his feet in alarm with the rest of them, but now he sized up the fire-woman with calm fascination. Then he spoke a few words in a harsh language Min had never heard before. To her ears it sounded like blocks of wood being hit together. The fire-woman merely scowled, so he tried again. This time, she seemed to understand. The fire crackled and spat at them.

  An undignified cry burst out of Min. Instinctively, she covered her face with her hands.

  “It’s all right,” Brother reassured her, though he never took his eyes off the shamaness. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s just a sending. Not a real being. Think of it as a shadow that’s been left behind by its owner—the one who left it inside you.”

  “Inside me?” Min squeaked. Stupidly, she pressed her hands against her abdomen now, as though she could feel something growing in there.

  “Ssstupid little man!”

  Min nearly leaped from her skin. The fire-woman lurched forward toward Brother, but she had no feet—her body merely tapered off into flame—and she was confined to the brazier. Set gave a start, moving swiftly in front of Min, as though to protect her. She clutched gratefully at the silk of his robes.

  “You think you know anything?”

  “It’s only a sending, it can’t hurt you,” Brother repeated at Min, holding up a hand as though to keep the fire-woman at bay. “It came from within you. Min, you have been cursed by a witch. This thing before you now is only an echo of what she was. Think of it as you would an internal parasite. A worm.”

  “Charlatan!” the fire-woman roared. “I am a shade. I am revenge.” The fire crackling at her feet blazed malevolently again, surging up through her like wind in an atrium, whipping her hair of flames into a wild frenzy. Another shower of sparks fell around them. Min cowered, clutching tighter to Set’s robes.

  “What do you know of sendings? I left this piece of myself inside the girl when she was only just conceived! A middling bit of flesh and salt in her wicked mother’s womb! I took the poison, the curse of magic from my own child and sent it into her. As she grew, so did I, consuming all the seeds within her. I ate her children, all the life she had to give.”

  Min froze, her fingers loosening just slightly on her cousin’s robes. “My seeds … my children? Is she saying I won’t …” The thought was too horrible to put to words.

  “That is right, little princess,” the fire-woman purred. “What you would have made life, I turned to death. The only thing you’ll ever birth is me.”

  The fire-thing launched itself from the brazier with a crackling roar, swooping toward her. Min threw up her arms before her face. Set was gone—had jumped to the side. She was exposed, this kinetic wall of fire crashing toward her. But then, Brother was there. He hollered something in the same guttural tongue he had used to speak to the fire-thing earlier, and he flung something wet from a glass vial he had produced from his cloak.

  The fire-thing howled and leaped into the air, dangerously close to the painted ceilings of Min’s bedroom. Where the liquid touched it, though, Min saw dark pits in the flames, and rising from them, smoke.

  The fire-thing slunk back into the brazier, like a wounded animal, but it was too late. The embers there had cooled, and the thing rapidly shrank. It emitted a high, keening sound as it went, until all that remained was a narrow column of smoke. The room filled with a gamey damp odor, like wet fur. It stung Min’s eyes, and tears sprung up in its wake.

  They all stared in stunned silence at the smoldering brazier. Wordlessly, Min strode over to her bedside table and grabbed the gaiwan of cold tea that had been sitting there since the morning.

  “What are you …?” Set began, but fell silent when Min dashed the contents of the gaiwan into the brazier, damping out the remains of the fire.

  “Good girl,” Brother said pensively. Min tossed the porcelain gaiwan into the brazier as well with a shudder, backing away. “Brave girl,” he added.

  “What does it mean?” Min demanded into the silence. Her voice came out louder than she had intended, pitchy and high. “Is … what it said, is it true? I can’t give the emperor children?” Tears stung her eyes. She’d scarcely been married an hour and already everything was ruined. She was ruined.

  “My dear,” Brother said eagerly. “Think hard, now. Has anything … unnatural ever happened to you? Inexplicable things? Predictions that came true or strange dreams? Things bending to your will?”

  Her vision clouded and all at once Min saw her mother’s hands upon her father’s face, pouring the poison into his mouth, holding his mouth closed—

  No. She could not share that. It was too impossible, too absurd. They’d never believe it. And worse, if they did, that might mean it was true …

  “I broke a cup,” she blurted. “At the betrothal—at the dinner to welcome Set to the capital. I-I got angry, so angry, and the cup Snowdrop was holding broke …”

  When she said it aloud, it sounded crazy. But it was true, she realized. She couldn’t admit it at the time, but she’d broken the cup with her fury.

  She burst into tears.

  “Is there nothing we can do? Am I cursed for good?” she asked, sobbing.

  “Dear one, this is not a curse,” Brother told her. “This is a gift.” He leaned over and took her hand. His was firm and cold.

  “A gift?” she whispered.

  “For you, and for us all. Do you know why I came to serve Set? I had a vision, a promise from the gods. A prophecy that I would guide the Hana scion south to wed the Hu princess. That only then could we conquer Yunis, reuniting the old knowledge of magic with the new knowledge of firepower, to create a weapon unlike any the world has seen before. A weapon that wi
ll grant Set complete control of the empire—and secure its future forever. But in order to create that weapon, we must first take the North, and you will help us do so.”

  “North?” Min repeated. “Me? I am to go to the war front? But my mother will never allow it.”

  “I know girls your age tell their mothers everything, but you’re a married woman now, so can you keep this confidence for your husband? Even from her?”

  “Yes … I th-think so,” she said, because she knew it was what he wanted to hear.

  “Good,” said Brother. “Then we will all go north. Your cousin will become the greatest emperor of the greatest empire known to man. And you are the key—you, in the service of your husband. My dear, are you ready to serve him?”

  The monk’s words were so lofty as to be meaningless. A hundred questions and fears sprang to Min’s mouth, prickling and buzzing like insects. To ask them though would reveal her stupidity.

  “Yes,” she said instead. “I’m ready.”

  A lie. The accusation crackled within her like an ember flaring back to life. It sounded like someone else …

  Min flinched. When she looked up again, Set’s gaze was fixed upon her with a keen intensity she had never seen before—never warranted, she supposed. It burned with delight, with intrigue.

  A lie, a lie, a lie …

  “I’m ready,” she repeated, hoping desperately against hope that somehow she could make it true.

  But as soon as the doors to her apartments slid closed behind Brother and Set, the tears fell. They streaked hot down her face, falling from her chin to leave dark fingerprints on her white robes. Without the glowing attention of the two men, all she had left was herself, and her fears.

  She would never bear children. Never give Set sons—heirs. And they wanted her to go north, ride into war with them. The very notion filled her with a terrible, wordless terror, consuming as fire.

  She had scarcely left the capital in her life, save for summer visits to the palace by the lake, and that fateful trip up to the slipskin encampments when she’d been a little girl. But they’d traveled by carriage and palanquin then—luxurious gilded wheel houses with silk pillows and her nunas close by to fan her sweaty face and pour her cold drinks. She couldn’t begin to imagine what riding into war would look like, but she suspected there would be no silk pillows.