by Mimi Yu
And locked within that body, a secret. Her curse, her gift.
I’ve brought you here, she thought. It’s your turn. We had a deal, so where are you?
“You already have all you need, silly girl.” The shamaness’s voice was fainter than it had been before. She sounded almost tired. Min found it somehow frightening. “Don’t you see? I’m already here, already in you.”
Min frowned. But I don’t know what to do.
“You will.”
When? She demanded. You’re the one with the magic, you’re the one who does … everything.
“I am just an echo, girl,” said the voice with a sigh, thin as mountain air. “I am what she chose to leave in you. You control me, not the other way around. I suppose it’s easier for you to pretend otherwise … ”
Min turned at the sound of footsteps crunching over the stones and met the eerie piercing eyes of Brother. The old man’s face slid into an oily smile.
“You look well, Princess,” he told her. “Each step we draw farther north, you seem to grow stronger. Surer of yourself.”
She didn’t feel strong, just stiff from riding all night. She stepped back, a hand going to the bandage plastered to her throat like a choker.
The monk smiled, all understated sorrow and manners. “I do apologize again for that—you must know I would never have actually hurt you.”
But you did hurt me. You made me bleed. And Set … Set had told him to do it. But, no. Hadn’t she already decided not to think about that?
Brother stepped closer and she smelled the stink of his sweat. None of them had slept more than a few hours at a time since they left the capital, and there had been no opportunity for washing. “There was once a physical gate here—you can see the remains of it if you look closely at the ground,” he told her. “My research suggests the Yunians placed these gates at points in the earth where the barrier between our world and the next is thinner, more penetrable. Do you sense something?”
“No—I don’t think so,” Min admitted. She didn’t even know what she was meant to feel.
Set approached astride his stallion, followed at a distance by a small group of his men. “Well?” he called out.
Min’s body relaxed at the prospect of no longer being alone with Brother. But she recoiled as Set drew closer. His handsome face was strained and sweaty, and his eyes wilder than she had ever seen. She’d been wrong earlier; despite his outward restraint he looked even worse than he had the night before. Loose hairs fell from his normally immaculate plait. But something else was wrong, too, something deeper than all his frayed trappings. He was changed—changing—as sure as she was.
It’s Lu, Min realized at last. She’s not obsessed; he is. The thought made her stomach tighten with anger … and an odd twinge of jealousy. If only Lu wasn’t so difficult. Min was trying to help, but how could one help someone so set against helping herself?
“Patience,” Brother told Set, his eyes still trained eagerly on Min. “Give her time to gain a sense of this place. She is untrained, but I trust it will speak to her yet.” He licked his lips.
Min looked down, watching the water lap benignly at the shore. Once more, she saw Lu, diving into the unknown deep of that other silvery lake years ago. Swimming away from her.
She’d wanted to follow, Min remembered suddenly. How had she forgotten that? But she hadn’t followed; she’d been too afraid. Of the void under the mirrored surface of the water, of the punishment that would await when they returned.
And in that moment, she’d hated her sister for not being afraid, for believing there was something in that unknown beyond, something that she deserved to discover. Her sister …
Liar. She felt the presence then, the other, the something else—someone else—flare in her blood. And she knew.
Lu is not my sister, Min realized—admitted—at last. Not fully. Not truly.
The thought should have made her sad. Instead, she felt an odd sort of relief. It all made sense now. They no longer belonged to one another, and they never had. Lu owed her nothing, and she owed nothing in return. They were two tangled strings that had finally come unknotted. She was free—and she could be who she wanted, who she was meant to be all along. She would no longer be defined in relief with a sister. She would be defined only by herself.
Min shivered and closed her eyes. Forced herself to burrow down into the seat of her rage, where that seed was planted. To follow its ravenous growth, radiant and consuming as fire, all through her bones. To the tips of her fingers, the ends of her hair. The whole of her hummed with it. Energy seeking release. Absently, her hand went again to her chest, clutching the crystal pendant that rested there. It felt hot to the touch, warmer than flesh.
“It may help for you visualize the gate,” Brother was saying. “Just look, wait for it to come to you—don’t be afraid.”
“I am not afraid,” Min said sharply, dropping the crystal back down to her chest. Her eyes were open. There was no need to visualize the gate. She could see it now, shimmering at the water’s edge. A rupture in the air. A gesture at all the unknown energy—the opportunity—that lay beyond.
She raised her hands and pulled the energy toward her. It hit with the force of a boulder, a wall of blinding light made solid and also not—something beyond materiality. Pure sensation. Hot and cold all at once. Her blood was afire, her veins were starlight. She felt it enter her, an ocean surging through the flesh of her palms and flooding deep down into her core. It filled her to brimming and overflowed back out a hundredfold.
The stones beneath their feet blew like dead leaves. The air twisted around them in a suffocating tornado. Behind her, the horses reared. Someone screamed, and perhaps it was she, or perhaps it was all of them.
Through the pandemonium she heard Set’s voice, so clear it seemed to be right in her ear. “Gods, what has she done?”
She did not flinch. She did not lower her hands. As ever, the voice inside was both hers and not, but it belonged to her all the same.
What has she done?
What I was born to do.
CHAPTER 33
The Blue
Lu dismissed her Yunian handmaidens at the door of the apartments she’d been sharing with Nasan. The women left as commanded, but Lu couldn’t quite shake the feeling they’d have preferred to stay and watch over her. The Yunians had all been consummately polite—there was no question whether she was their guest or their prisoner—but she could sense that they did not quite trust her.
Fair enough, she thought, not without some bitterness. Between them, Nasan, and everyone from there to Yulan City, she was growing accustomed to the feeling. Seeing the damage her father and his father before him had wrought, she could hardly blame them. It was exhausting, though, this constant scrutiny.
She watched the handmaidens disappear down the corridor before closing the large wooden doors behind them. She sighed and stepped into a large common room, spacious and clean, its cream-colored marble floors and stone walls softened by a cozily lit fire pit at the center. Crowded around it were tuffets and heaps of shaggy carpets.
Beyond the fire pit stood a long stone table, laden with trays of rice and dumplings and cakes, unfamiliar fruits, and an array of colored liquids in crystal decanters. They never saw who brought the food or who took it away. It simply appeared around mealtimes, then vanished while they were asleep. Nasan found it spooky. Lu thought it not so different from the silent manner in which the servants would bring her dinner at home.
No wonder Nasan didn’t trust her. No wonder Nokhai didn’t trust her. She inhabited a different world than they did, one where plenty was so ubiquitous as to be invisible.
Or perhaps there was something ill in her. Something inherently untrustworthy. Nasan seemed to think so. Certainly, Prince Shen and Priestess Vrea had done nothing to assuage that feeling today.
As for Prince Jin, was he as stalwart an ally as he let on? Could he be as naïve and well intentioned as he seemed? Had the Triarch sche
med together to produce the outcome he’d offered her? Or did he have a deeper, private scheme at play?
Maybe he’s just sick of all the gray here.
Behind her, the doors opened with a groan.
“Princess! You shouldn’t have gone through all this trouble!” Nasan said, waving toward the food.
She made the same joke every day. Lu rolled her eyes. Then Nokhai slunk in behind his sister.
He looked even thinner up close, and his black eyes were sunken, rimmed, but alert as ever, roving around the room, as though seeking out missed dangers.
She wanted to run to him, she wanted to hold him, she wanted—but it didn’t matter what she wanted anymore. She’d already made her choice, even if it had felt like she didn’t have one.
“You look well,” she told him.
Nokhai’s mouth jerked up at the corner. “Do I?”
“He’s hard to kill.” Nasan took the room in a few bold strides and snagged a golden-skinned fruit from the table. “Runs in the family,” she added, flinging herself onto a pile of carpets by the fire and taking wet, noisy bites of fruit.
Nokhai followed her, sitting on an overstuffed cushion. Not wanting to be left out, Lu toed off her slippers and joined them, her bare feet clammy against the radiantly heated stone floors.
“So,” Nasan said as Lu sat. “I think that Prince Jin likes you.”
Lu flinched, hazarding a glance at Nok, but he was studying the carpet.
“You should have seen the way he looked at her when we first came upon you two on the beach,” Nasan told her brother. Lu flushed, wishing more than ever that she would shut up. “It was like he’d never seen a girl before.”
As Nasan spoke, she walked back and forth between the table and where they sat, ferrying trays of food and drink with her. Once, she laid a plate of savory pastries upon Nokhai’s lap, but he only stared at it.
It worried Lu—he ought to eat as much as he could, in his state—but she thought she understood how he felt. The aromatic foods stirred nothing in her, either. There was too much happening to focus on something as mundane as eating. She turned her palms toward the flames. The heat felt nice, at least. Nokhai didn’t move, but his eyes flicked up, tracking her movements.
“So, you’ve got what you wanted now, don’t you?” Nasan said. “Yunis in your pocket, an army at your back.”
“And a prince at your side.”
Lu’s head jerked up at Nokhai’s words. The silence that hung between them was metallic, ringing.
“Well, let’s have a toast to the future Emperor Lu,” Nasan said, stooping to fetch one of the decanters by her feet. She took a messy swig before thrusting it into Nok’s hands. He considered the amber-colored liquid before taking a cautious sip.
His face crumpled. “Oh gods. That tastes awful.”
Nasan just laughed and plucked the bottle from his hands. “You’d never guess, but these Yunians know how to make a hard brew.”
“To Emperor Lu!” she proclaimed, taking another brazen swallow. She handed the bottle to Lu with an exaggerated bow.
Lu raised it, essaying a wry smile. “And to both of you.” Then she drank.
Fire tore through her throat, pricking tears into the corners of her eyes. “Oh … my,” she choked out. They laughed.
“So,” Nasan said, reclaiming the decanter. “When does our army leave?”
Lu arched an eyebrow. “Our army?”
“Yes, our army. Our armies, if you prefer.”
Lu let it go. They had a good deal of negotiating and planning to do between them; the last thing they needed was to quibble over language. “The Triarch and I still need to sort out the details—”
“And when are we going to do that?” Nasan interrupted, thrusting the decanter back into her hands.
Lu took a perfunctory sip. It’s just language, she reminded herself, but she could not stop from repeating, “We?”
“Yes.” Nasan swiped the decanter back again and drained the last of it. “We. I’m not getting edged out just because you found yourself a bigger, shinier army to help you. Our deal still stands.”
“Of course it does,” Lu said with forced calm. “I keep my word.”
“That’s good to hear, Princess. That’s very good to hear. Because your people don’t exactly have a reputation for it.”
Before Lu could formulate a response, Nasan stood, fetching a stack of brass-plated cups into which she poured sloppy, generous slugs of garnet-colored wine.
The room felt overly hot, stifling. An effect of the alcohol. Agitated, Lu stood and unclasped her fur mantle, letting it fall. Then she shrugged off the floor-sweeping outer layer of her scarlet robes, leaving only loose-fitted trousers and a sleeveless tunic that belted tightly at the waist.
As she sat again, she caught Nokhai’s gaze skittering down her bare arms, before his eyes disappeared beneath the dark fringe of his lashes. Nasan watched him watching her; she raised an eyebrow, but for once made no comment.
“Are you sure you’re up for all this, Princess?” she asked Lu, shoving a cup of wine into her hands. “You’re putting a lot of lives on the line for a pretty crown and a fancy title.”
Annoyance flared in Lu’s chest. “Of course I’m ready. I was born for this. Duty demands it of me—it’s not just about a title. My cause is just. I will save lives that Set would just as soon—”
Nasan snorted. “Your cause? Please. And when has your empire ever done justice to anyone? Everything it—everything you—stand for is counter to it.”
Lu took a calming breath. “I am trying to rectify our past crimes. I will return your lands, and make certain nothing like what happened to you ever happens again.”
“Things like what happened to us happen all the time, every day. What makes you so special that you could turn it around?”
It felt as if the other girl were taking a prybar to the door Lu had tamped down over her impatience. She forced her voice steady. “If you have such little faith in my abilities, then why work with me at all?”
“Because you’re the only chance I’ve got. And I have an actual cause, Princess. I’m trying to save my people. Get back our land. We know what we’re fighting for. What we’re prepared to die for. I have to know that you understand the stakes as well.”
Lu stared, disbelieving. “This isn’t just about my life. Which—I don’t think you fully appreciate—is on the line as well. This is about the fate of the empire and everyone in it.”
“I’m not sure you even know what that means,” Nasan said flatly. “The lives of others? Your title, your station—your very existence—is built on the subjugation, on the suffering of others.”
“That—that’s not me,” Lu frowned. “That isn’t what I want.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re playing a game and asking your new friends to sacrifice their lives for it. It comes naturally to you, to demand everything of everyone else.”
Nasan took a swig of wine straight from the bottle, the cups she’d just poured apparently forgotten. Then she thrust it at Nok. He took it but did not drink, black eyes dithering between his sister’s face and Lu’s own.
“The way I see it,” Nasan continued, “you and your cousin are no different than you were when we were kids—just two royal brats running around where they don’t belong, fighting over who has the bigger stick. Not caring if everyone around you gets hurt, too.”
Seeing Lu’s reaction she smirked. “Oh, that’s right, I remember what you did when we were kids. I was little, but I was old enough. I remember how you got my brother in trouble.”
“Got him in—that was Set! I was trying to protect him!”
“He wouldn’t have needed protecting if he hadn’t gotten mixed up with you in the first place.”
Lu looked at her disbelievingly. “I hardly see how befriending someone is—”
“Oh, ‘befriending.’ Is that what you city dwellers call it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lu demanded.
“I don’t use anyone!”
Nasan scoffed. “You use everyone! Nok, the Yunians. You’re using me—and I’m using you right back, but I’m out of options. At least I have the honesty to admit what I’m doing. You, you just draw people into your schemes, blackmail my brother with promises of saving his apothecarist friend. You agreed to marry some poor infatuated boy of all things—”
“I’m doing what needs to be done!” Lu stood so fast her cushion tipped sideways, knocking over a bowl. It shattered across the stone floor, sending candied nuts and shards of crystal skittering.
Lu leaped to the side to avoid cutting her bare feet and swayed—the drink was stronger than she’d thought. Her head rang with it, but she straightened. “How dare you presume to know anything about my life—”
Nasan stood and moved in on her. “I presume nothing, Princess. You’re completely obvious—”
“Obvious?” Lu barked. “What happened to me being deceitful?”
“I never said you weren’t a liar—just a bad one.”
Lu shook her head. “If this is how you treat your allies, don’t expect to get very far.”
“Oh, should I do as you do and spread my legs for—”
“Excuse me?” Lu said, and surged toward her.
“You heard me,” Nasan spat, not backing away. “Prince Jin fell for it, so I guess whatever works, right? And I see the way you look at my brother. Tell me, do you expect to keep him as a consort once you marry, or—”
Lu slapped her. Not hard—openhanded. Nasan turned with it to lessen the blow. Then lunged forward, shoving at Lu’s shoulders, screaming incoherently in her face. Lu shoved back, refusing to give her any ground.
“Enough!” Nokhai yelled. He was between them, wedging them apart. “I’m right here. And I don’t appreciate being used as some kind of bargaining tool”—he caught the sneer on Nasan’s face—“by either of you.”
