The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

  “Cataclysmic?” Nok repeated. “Like, an earthquake?”

  Vrea considered. “Perhaps. If an earthquake could happen not only to the ground, but to the water, the air, the very blood in your body.”

  “What … what would that look like?”

  “It is best if this does not happen.” She refocused upon him shrewdly. “When we leave this place, someone will need to lead the beast gods to a purpose. A home. Someone will need to be their steward. Someone with your particular gift, Nokhai. How convenient you should stumble across our threshold.”

  He ignored the pointed look she gave him. “When you say you’re leaving … what does that mean?” he asked. “Why don’t you just take the beast gods with you?”

  “Where we go, they cannot follow.”

  “What’s stopping them?”

  “If a cloud asked you to follow it up into the sky, could you do it?”

  Nok looked to see if she were joking. She was smiling again, but he’d already learned that meant little. “You could not, am I correct?”

  “Where is it exactly that you’re going?”

  She was silent for a long while, then said, “What do you suppose is beyond the sky, Pactmaker? This mantle of white and gray you see above us?”

  He shrugged. The question made him think about things he’d rather not. “My people said the heavens.”

  “And you? What do you say?”

  “More of the same, I guess,” he said. “A lot of nothing.”

  “Oh, but you can’t mean that. A boy with your gifts, your depth. Do try again.”

  “What does it matter what I think?” he demanded.

  “You asked where we are going. I believe it is customary to supply a question with an answer, no?”

  “Where I come from, answers generally don’t come in the form of new questions.”

  “You grow impatient. Very well. Where we go, we cannot fathom until we are there. Does a fish comprehend the land before it has been plucked from the sea? Or, better yet, does a tree comprehend a house before it is cut and hewn to form the walls? Who we are, here, now … we are like the tree. Unknowing, unformed, unused.”

  Nok’s head swam. “I think you’re better off the way you are now. Who wants to be cut up and turned into something else?”

  “Sometimes uncertainty is better than languishing in the familiar—my brother Jin was not wrong about that.”

  Nok shrugged. “Better safe and bored than dead, I’d say.”

  “Do not mistake cynicism for wisdom, child; it’s very tedious,” Vrea tutted. “Where we go is unknown. It is endless. The emptiness. That is what lies beyond the sky.”

  “Like I said: nothing.”

  “Emptiness is not nothing. It is a space waiting to be filled. It is all possibility. It could be anything, so it is everything.”

  Nok did not know what to make of that. He leaned heavily against the balcony.

  “I’ve exhausted you,” Vrea said.

  “No,” he replied. “My wound exhausted me. You just … confused me.”

  She laughed—a strange, almost perverse sound. “You’re funny. That’s interesting.”

  “Is it?” he said, gazing past the edge of the balcony for the first time. To his surprise, they were overlooking water. For a moment he thought it must be the lake where they had encountered the imperials, but, no, he realized. Small frothy waves curled up along the edge of the shore, ceaselessly dashing themselves apart against the sand. It was no lake at all, but a sea. Farther out, the mirrored surface reflected the gray, cloud-dense sky above.

  There was no smell, he realized. No brackish fishy tinge to the air the way there was along the harbor back home.

  Was Yulan City home, now? Home. Where was that?

  “I can’t stay,” he said. “I owe a debt to someone.”

  “Omair is welcome to join you.”

  He looked at her, surprised.

  “Princess Lu,” she explained. “She told my brother Jin of your quest. Your obligations to him. But after Omair has been freed by your princess and her new army, return here. Claim your rightful place.”

  “My rightful place?” He stifled the urge to scoff. “I wouldn’t know what that is. I-I’m no one. I’ve been no one—”

  “For far too long,” Vrea said firmly. “You are the only one of your kind, Nokhai. The only one who can restore the Pacts, bring order back to your gods. Bring life—real life—back to what remains of your people.”

  Something cold touched his hand; he looked down and saw the wolf nosing at him. He ran a tentative hand through the blue-silver hairs behind its ears, sunk his fingers into the plush ruff of its neck.

  “See how it longs for you?” Vrea murmured. “The bond you have with it is insistent—a force of nature.”

  “So why can’t I control the caul?”

  As though understanding his words, the wolf pulled back. Vrea held out her hand and maddeningly, the wolf slid toward her, slunk behind the sweep of her robes, peering out at Nok reproachfully.

  “Your people had ceremonies for binding people to their cauls, did they not?”

  “Yes,” Nok said. “People did them when they came of age. But I don’t know what they entailed, since I didn’t have the Gifting Dream back when I was supposed to. Nasan had the Dream early, but she was too young for the ceremony. And now everyone who knew what to do is dead.”

  “We could help you find an equivalent means for the bonding,” Vrea mused. “I am certain I could convene with the Ana and the Aba to work out a solution. If you stayed, we could do this for you.”

  Nok bit back a sigh of frustration. “The wolf seems to understand you. Can’t you—I don’t know, tell it to come to me?”

  “I can no more force its will than I could your own. And I would not, even given the opportunity. One’s caul is their own; that bond is sacred. It is a part of you, a part of your spirit. Your heart.”

  “So why won’t it listen to me?”

  That seemed to amuse the priestess. “Often we do not listen to ourselves. Forgive the expression, but it’s only human.”

  He watched the wolf. Again it seemed to dim—fading just slightly, retreating a step, and then another. Then it turned and slipped straight through the stone balustrade of the balcony, dissipating like fog in the morning.

  Nok stared at the space where it had been.

  “Can I think about it?” he said finally. “Your offer?”

  “Of course. In the meantime, you are our honored guest. We’ve given you and your friends an apartment right in the Heart—I think you will find them comfortable. Heal, relax. Think. It is a serious decision you make.” Then she smiled in her vague, neither-here-nor-there way. “Take all the time you need. Ours is running out, but what we have left we are happy to share with you.”

  When Nok pushed his way back into the hall he ran headlong into Nasan.

  “You’re in a hurry,” she said. “Do you even know where you’re going? Come on, I’ll take you back to our apartments.”

  He fell in step alongside her.

  “So, that Vrea’s a strange one,” Nasan said as they descended the stairs leading out of the throne room and into the Heart. Her tone was light, but he could hear the curiosity girding her voice. The asking without asking.

  “You were eavesdropping,” he said flatly. It wasn’t an accusation, but it wasn’t a question, either. “How much did you hear?”

  His sister shrugged, utterly unabashed. No less than he expected from her.

  “Everything, then. Well, go on,” he said. “I’m sure you have an opinion.”

  “No opinion.” She shook her head. “What’re you going to do?”

  He scrubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I have no idea, Nasan. My options are either to try and become this … this mythological hero of old, this savior like they want me to be, or to let down the entire pantheon of gods …,” he broke off. “This is madness.” He barked out a laugh. “Can you imagine what Father would
say if he were here? His failure—his mistake of a son. He’d never believe it.”

  Nasan stopped in the dead of the empty Heart, and spun to meet his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true,” he countered. “You know it’s true. He saw—he thought I was worthless.”

  “Ba, he …” Nasan sighed, for the first time seeming to struggle with her words. “I loved him—”

  “And he loved you.” The words wrenched out of him, harsher and more accusatory than he’d intended.

  “I loved him,” Nasan repeated firmly. “But he was wrong about you, Nok. What he did to you was wrong. How he saw you was wrong. I think if he were here now, he’d see that, and he’d be sorry. He’d be proud.”

  Was it true? Was that even what he wanted, after all this time? “It doesn’t matter,” Nok muttered. Tears stung his eyes. He blinked them away, forced them back down. “It’s too late. What good is it, finding out I have that … that power, when everyone who was worth saving is dead and gone?”

  “There are others, other Kith,” she reminded him. “Wandering the deserts, lost without their Gifts, lost without the Pact. And there are my kids—Ony and the others.”

  He looked sharply at her. If I said yes to Vrea, he thought. This would give Nasan everything she wanted. A second life for the Gifted. He felt a flush of shame at the thought. She’s my sister. Don’t be an idiot. She wants what’s best for you.

  Didn’t she?

  “Maybe,” he said aloud. “Maybe it would help them. But it would still be me. I could—I don’t know, I’d find a way to muck it up. I’m just … gods, Nasan. How am I supposed to carry the weight of all those people? I couldn’t even take care of you, back at the camps. All I had to do was keep you safe, and I failed!”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Nok. You know that, right? We were kids. You were just a kid.”

  “But I was older. I was supposed to protect you—”

  “And you did. For as long as you could. You did good, big brother.”

  “It wasn’t enough,” he said. Her screams echoed out from the past, from all those years ago … I won’t let them take me!

  “Listen,” said the Nasan that stood before him now. “If you need me to forgive you, I forgive you. You did your best. And you succeeded—I’m alive.”

  He looked up. In her face he saw both the mischievous little child she had been and the cagey, sardonic girl she had become, and the years lost between them. She reached forward and gave him an affectionate tap on the shoulder. It felt rather like a punch, but he understood she meant well.

  “I lived, Nok,” she told him. “It’s time you did, too.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The Key

  There was no sign of Lu along the gray lake. The water was placid, unremarkable. But when Min scuffed the toe of her boot against the shore, slivers of iridescent crystal surfaced amid the flat gray stones. She raised the pendant around her neck for comparison. It caught the pale overcast light, throwing rainbows across her chest, the silk of her skirts. The shards at her feet certainly could be the same material.

  She stooped to pick one up, choosing a large piece unlikely to break. “Butterfly,” she called.

  “Yes, Pr—Empress.” The nuna was instantly at her side, her pretty face nervous. Set had told Min she could select one nuna to join them on the ride north, and Butterfly was the clear choice—clever and resourceful.

  Truly she seemed the only choice after the incident with the windows—after the change, as Min had come to think of it. The other nunas had scarcely been able to meet her eyes afterward; Snowdrop quailed when they were even in the same room, as though Min might strike her.

  Stupid girl.

  Aloud, she told Butterfly, “Put this crystal in my saddlebag.”

  “Yes, Empress.” Butterfly took the crystal and all but fled. Even bold, witty Butterfly was afraid of her now.

  That might have upset Min once. Before. Or would it have? In a way, fear was preferable to the other girl’s usual patronizing affection—as though she thought Min couldn’t see through it.

  Min’s mother had taken to bed in shock and grief for days after the change. She’d been unable to rise even when Amma Ruxin came to alert her of Min’s departure north. That seemed a bit much, but it was just as well. Min wasn’t quite ready to face her; not yet.

  She will understand when I return. She’ll see. Set will be pleased and no longer so quick to anger. And then I will give him sons, and we’ll raise them to be just and honorable heirs. And Lu …

  She faltered, casting a glance down the shore. Set was there, dismounting his horse to speak with Brother. Her cousin—her husband. She watched him warily, trying to gauge his mood.

  The day before, a frantic messenger had told them imperial scouts had spotted Princess Lu in the hills around the lake—and lost her. Set had thrown a lit oil lamp at the man in fury. It missed, but it set a featherbed on fire where it landed. It had taken three servants to stomp out the flames.

  Afterward, Brother’s eyes had widened hearing the soldiers’ account of how the princess had been cornered at the edge of the lake along with an utterly massive wolf, only to disappear in a strange, sudden fog. Their own party—Set, Brother, Min, and an additional two hundred troops—had ridden through the night to reach the lake.

  They were all tired, but the journey seemed to be wearing on Set especially. He was calm now at least. But his anger could rise quickly, she knew. She remembered how he’d grabbed her, given her to Brother to slash with a knife like a pig—no. She didn’t want to think about that. She wouldn’t.

  The wind changed direction and motes of Set and Brother’s conversation floated down the shore toward her.

  “… Perhaps they allowed her in? Is that even possible?” Set was asking, accepting a rolled cigarette from one of his men. He lit it, waving smoke from his face. That was a new thing, Min noted—she’d never seen her cousin smoke in the capital, but now he inhaled cigarettes like a thirsty man downed water.

  Brother eyed the cigarette in her cousin’s hands now and pursed his lips, but he merely said, “The Inbetween is a place of mystery, and the mountains hold great power. Old power. Those who were born of it may exercise some control over its boundaries. In my research—”

  “If there’s a chance … if there was any way, I guarantee you she made it in. We need to find her,” Set said testily.

  “You have the sister,” reassured the monk. “Your claim is safe. Lu is a fugitive. She’s finished.”

  “You don’t know her!” Set snapped, tapping ash from his cigarette. “As long as there’s breath in her body, she’ll come for me. She’s obsessed.”

  “Your exhaustion is making you paranoid,” Brother chided. “And I don’t like all this smoking, Set. You must keep your energy focused on the goals ahead. If this expedition comes to naught, so be it. We can return to the capital, you can build up coalition support there. And I can continue to train Min. Learn to cultivate and harness her powers.”

  Set exhaled a flume of smoke. “What she did with the windows … she has power, that much is clear. But do you really think she’ll be able to learn to control something like that?” The uncertainty on his face was so muddled it took Min a moment to see it for what it was: fear. Revulsion. It felt like a slap, followed by an odd gnawing emptiness in her belly.

  “Patience. I told you, the girl must have time and instruction. She is your greatest asset whether you can see it or—”

  “Yes, yes,” her cousin said dismissively. “Do what you need with her. I’m going to send my men to search the perimeter of the lake for Lu.” He stamped his cigarette out beneath one dust-hoary boot, then stared down at the crushed husk of paper and char. The harsh light of the steppe threw into relief his sallow skin, the violet-gray exhaustion pooling beneath his eyes.

  “What of the wolf she was with?” he asked. “That couldn’t have been an ordinary animal. I thought we killed all of that slipskin Kith—whatever they were calle
d.”

  “The Ashina,” supplied Brother. “And yes, their Kith was destroyed. A few of their children made it into the labor camps, but none of them retained their cauls. I tried to find some way to rebind the Pact, discover where in their bodies that linkage was hidden, but to no—”

  “You appear to have missed something.”

  “It’s possible that this wolf the scouts saw was an escapee or a deserter. Or perhaps it was only a dog, and the men were confused.” The monk shrugged. “Of course, there is always the notion of an original slipskin. A Pactmaker, according to their myths.”

  “Yes,” Set said irritably. “Myths.”

  “Myths are what common men call history distorted by time.”

  “No matter.” Set shrugged, throwing his shoulders back and sniffing. “Whatever it was, I’ll find and kill it, too. Myth or not.” Then he put his foot into a stirrup and gracefully leaped back into his saddle.

  “It may be of use to me alive,” Brother said thoughtfully. “For my research.”

  But Set was already riding restlessly down the shore.

  Min looked out across the water, searching again in vain for some hidden sign that her sister had stood there.

  Lu, where are you? I’ve come to bring you home, she thought, but the words felt hollow somehow. Even if Min was able to convince her to surrender, then—what, exactly?

  As long as there’s breath in her body, she’ll come for me. The echo of Set’s words chilled her now.

  Her sister would never be content to spend out her days in court with no hope of ruling, Min realized. To Lu, that fate would be no different from death. Worse.

  But perhaps … Min frowned at the still water. Set might not allow Lu to return to court, but perhaps he would allow her to live the rest of her days in exile or sequestered somewhere well outside the capital.

  She could stay at the Eastern Palace, Min thought with renewed hope. She always loved it there, swimming in the lake …

  Min was the key, Brother had said. Set needed her. She could use that, surely, leverage herself to win clemency for her sister.

  But was she enough? What was she here, in this barren and desolate place, all on her own? Without a city. No mother, no shins, no ammas to train her, to shame her. Here, she was just a girl—flesh and blood and bone. A body.