The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

  The column of Violet trembled and flickered, almost like laughter. Our little wolf is brave.

  And it has a smart mouth, the Black mused.

  “Are you one or two?” he asked.

  The twin tendrils of flame rippled in unison. Humans, the voice of the Violet scoffed, but there was a softness in its voice. A fondness.

  One, two. There is no difference. We are.

  In unison, the Black and the Violet shot toward the ceiling, straight and thin as ribbons, then began lacing and twisting about one another. It was beautiful, fearsome, their motions as violent and feral as they were graceful. They danced, wilder and harder, until Nok could see no difference between them, only a void as cold and absolute as a desert night. All at once, they split apart, became one Black and one Violet again.

  He understood then. “You’re—you’re the gods Vrea speaks to. The Ana and the Aba.”

  We are known as such, to some, the flames conceded.

  “I thought you were meant to be like parents,” he said. “I thought you’d be … human.”

  We are not of your realm. We are hard for people to understand. And people fear what they do not understand, said the Violet.

  They understand a mother and a father, continued the Black. They can love a mother and a father. But they cannot love what they fear—not truly. They can obey it, they can even admire and revere it. But fear sucks away the air that the flame of love needs to flourish. In the end, fear becomes revulsion, rejection. Always.

  As they spoke, their twin flames intensified. Inconceivably, the air grew hotter, and Nok flinched. He was going to burn, his hair would catch, the fibers of his clothes—the fire. Fire.

  “The First Flame,” he blurted. “Did it come from you?”

  Long ago, the Violet murmured, and their heat abated, as though they were distracted by the memory. A gift to the Hana. Though they have forgotten what it meant. Their bond to us. Their Pact. Long ago for them, for you. For people.

  Though not so long for us, continued the Black. We have not forgotten. We, who have created so much …

  “Fire doesn’t create,” Nok said, remembering the soldiers that rode down his parents’ tent, that of the elders’, razing the whole camp as their scarlet tiger banners snapped in the dry wind. The goats had panicked, stampeded in the fray, some of them lying crushed, unable to move as they burned, too. He remembered the screaming. The stench of seared flesh in the air.

  “Fire doesn’t create,” he repeated, louder now. “It doesn’t give. It only destroys.”

  The flames crackled at that, like laughter. Spoken like a true child of your gods, said the Violet.

  “What about my—what about them?”

  Your gods—the ones that gifted you—they were born of the earth.

  “The Hu were Gifted—born of the beast gods, too,” Nok pointed out. “They had their tigers. Before they went south to conquer the Hana.”

  They had their tigers, agreed the Violet. And then they adopted the fire of the Hana. The First, it is called, but it was not. Humans always want to be the beginning of all things, but they never are.

  Distantly, there came a rumble. It was soft, like far-off thunder, but Nok recognized it all the same: another attack.

  Yes. It is time for you to take what is yours, said the Violet. Your kind—your gods, they cannot stay here in the Inbetween. They are of the earth.

  Nok winced, trying to think, trying to take all of it in. If beasts came from the earth, then what of fire? He thought of kindling, of coal, of burned hair, of seared flesh. But that was just fuel.

  A story from his childhood came to him then—a wayward girl who found a cave so deep she wandered into the center of the world. A core of molten oceans, of bright ever-burning trees …

  “What of you?” he demanded. “Are you from this place, this Inbetween?”

  Again, the flames crackled. No one is from the Inbetween, said the Black. That is why it is in between. It is neither here nor there. It is a no-place. And when it falls, we will go …

  “Go where?”

  Where forgotten things go.

  In the silence, he heard another distant rumble—farther away now. A summer storm receding.

  They come.

  “They? Is it Set?” he asked.

  The one you call Set, confirmed the Black. And the one who seeks the knowledge of the beginning of all things, and the one who is their weapon. The Girl. She is the deadliest of all, though they do not know it yet. She does not know it yet.

  “The girl?” he repeated. “What girl?”

  An inversion, hissed the Violet. With a sweet face and gray eyes. The one born of vengeance. She is a sword wrought in the flames of hatred. Forced. She is disharmony. She is their counterfeit key. It was she who unlocked the gate.

  Confusion gave way to frustration. “Please, Nasan and the others—I have to go.”

  Go, echoed the Violet. It is too late for us, but it is not too late for you. For your gods. You have languished long here already—nearly too long. Perhaps you were here even before you arrived. But now you must take your patron and return to where you belong.

  “My patron?”

  The paintbrush strokes of the Black and the Violet parted like curtains, sweeping light as a kiss across his face. Nok flinched against the flaring heat of them, burning so hot and fleet and clean it felt almost like cold, like freezing. He closed his eyes.

  And when he opened them again, the flames were gone. In their place stood the wolf. His wolf.

  Nokhai, the wolf murmured. Its voice was warm and languid, seeming to emanate from the walls of the sanctum cavern like steam. But he felt it come from within as well, rumbling through the thin, quivering flue of his own throat.

  “We have to go,” he said.

  We? the wolf repeated, and now its voice quivered apart like music, harmony—each note sung by a different voice. All at once, he heard Nasan’s hoarse lilt, his father’s stern, stolid rumbling. There were others, too—Elder Pamuk’s imperious croak. The jeers of Karakk and the other Kith boys. And lingering after all the rest, his mother’s low, sweet cadence, familiar as a childhood lullaby. Painful as a kick to the chest.

  “I need you,” he whispered, and his own voice sounded tinny and small. “I need you to tell me what to do. I need …” The words died on his lips. Why won’t you come to me?

  I’m here, the wolf said, and again Nok heard the tumbling chorus of his half memories, his ghosts, the many in that one voice.

  I’m here. Are you?

  He understood then. Suddenly—and also not. He’d known all along, hadn’t he? This was all that remained, all they had left him. For years, he’d ignored it in favor of his disbelief, his resentment, his fury. He’d let all that coil around it like a knot of scar tissue, calcify into a shell. Kept the whole thing like a stone in his gut, named it grief. But he saw the truth at the core of it now, clean and swift. It felt like emerging from a long dream in which he’d been someone else.

  This was all there was. And what had wrought it was hateful and cruel and wrong—a wrong that would never be reversed—but it, the thing itself, was blameless. It was simply all that remained. He was all that remained.

  He, and the wolf.

  He swiped an arm across his face, found it wet with tears. When had he begun crying?

  “Come to me,” he said, and though his voice quavered, it held, the words a rope of steel buried in the heart of all that dust and grave dirt. “Come to me, now.”

  And the wolf came.

  This time when it swept over him, warm as summer wind in the steppe, he felt something catch. Knit in place.

  It hurt—a harsh clicking pain, deep in his bones, a sharp itch in the marrow. He closed his eyes and accepted it. The pain passed, and then came something new. It spread through his veins, swift and effervescent, gleeful in its quickness, its rightness. He felt buoyant, as though he’d spent his whole life with a boulder lashed to his back, and someone had just cut the ropes
. His face twitched and all at once he barked out a laugh—

  Joy.

  He’d forgotten joy.

  He opened his eyes again and found himself alone in the cavern. All that remained of the Black and Violet flames was an ambient warmth, a hint of sulfur in the dead air.

  No wolf, either. But he could sense it all the same, the way when he went still and quiet, he could feel his own heartbeat.

  He stretched his arms in wonder. The pain and exhaustion weighing down his muscles had disappeared. He walked forward and discovered a new power left in their absence, a singing in his blood, a new strength. The dark of the cavern had receded, too. He blinked. Finding no source of light, he realized that his vision had altered.

  The wolf, he thought. He now saw with the wolf’s eyes as well as his own.

  Walking faster, he reached the end of the cavern and, estimating the place where he’d entered, he pressed his hands to the wall. The stone was still warm to the touch, and he ran his palms over the coarse bite of stone.

  “Nok?”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Where is there to go?”

  Voices. Human voices, now. He could hear Nasan, and—

  “Nokhai!”

  Lu.

  “Nok?” They were calling louder now.

  He pressed again at the wall and this time the stone parted soft as water, and he was stumbling, falling—

  “Nokhai!”

  Strong arms engulfed him, pulling him upright. He could smell the oil combed through her hair, the perfume they’d dabbed along her collarbone—a combination of sandalwood and something sweet and floral. Citrus blossom, maybe. He opened his eyes.

  Lu was holding him, staring down in concern. She looked, he thought, like fire. Vast and all-consuming and furious. Bigger than fire. She looked like the sun. Beautiful—how could he not have noticed before? But of course, he had.

  “Where were you?” she demanded, shaking him a little, because for her, even love would always be a bit bound up with anger.

  It made him laugh. It made him want to kiss her. And he would, he resolved. When this was all over, he would kiss her again and again …

  Nasan cursed. “Is his fever back?”

  Lu squinted into the dark behind him. “Nokhai, did you just come out of that wall?”

  “Don’t be stupid!” snapped Nasan. He recognized the particular impatience in her voice, though—his sister was afraid. “It’s just a trick of the eye. It’s too damn dark in here to see anything. I mean, where would he have gone?” she said, rapping the stone wall with the butt of her fist. “The room ends right there, see?”

  Lu shivered—the barest tremor around him. “I don’t think it does,” she said softly.

  Nok sat up. “We have to go. They’ve broken through the gate.”

  “How do you know?” Nasan demanded.

  “The Ana and the Aba—I had a vision,” he blurted. “It’s … just, trust me. We have to go help the Triarch.”

  “Not you,” Nasan said. “You’re in no condition to fight. You can barely stand.”

  His lips parted to object, but he hesitated. It was an out. No more killing, no more bloodshed, no more terror. He wasn’t made for it. Unlike his sister or Lu, he wasn’t a born warrior. He didn’t even have a weapon.

  Only, that wasn’t true anymore.

  Nok surged to his feet. “I can stand. And I can fight. I—I have my caul now.” They stared at him as though still unconvinced he wasn’t in the grips of some feverous hallucination.

  “You said you can’t control when it comes and goes,” Lu said carefully. He looked at her, at that stern, stately face. In the flinty copper of her eyes he saw the soldier whose head she’d stung an arrow through to save him, the pale, blood-drained slip of a boy she’d killed in the wood. But he saw exhaustion there, too, and a profound animal fear kept just at bay. Maybe no one was a born warrior.

  “It’s different now,” he told her. “Look …”

  He closed his eyes, and though he had no way of knowing whether it would work, he knew all the same. Perhaps the whole thing had been one fever dream, perhaps there was no Black and Violet, no fire born from the core of the world, but this much he knew was real. This much was his.

  This time, there was no sensation of wind sweeping over him. Instead, the warmth surged from his chest, through the marrow of his bones. He could feel it down to the soles of his feet, in his scalp, in his teeth.

  When he opened his eyes again, the room looked bright as day. The others were staring down at him. Nasan in wonder and Lu with something like relief, and something else like pride. The wolf stretched, and Nok felt power course down his spine.

  His sister shook her head to dispel the shock on her face, as though embarrassed by how pure it was. Then she grinned. “Well. Let’s go kill some imperials.”

  “Is it Set?” Lu demanded. “Did Set break the gate?”

  Set is there, Nok told them. But he’s not alone—he’s not the one who broke the gate.

  Lu frowned, the thoughts racing behind her eyes. “Who, then? His monk? Brother?”

  No. A girl, Nok said, remembering suddenly. The Ana and the Aba, they said it was a girl. That she was their key, their weapon. Maybe a Hana nun?

  Lu was shaking her head. “Set didn’t bring a girl with him to the capital. And the Hana nuns—they just do rites. Ceremony. There hasn’t been anyone with knowledge of magic since they executed the Yunian shamanesses. Are you sure you remember correctly?”

  They said it was a girl, Nok repeated stubbornly. And then he remembered the rest. They said she had gray eyes …

  “Your mother has gray eyes,” Nasan interrupted, looking at Lu.

  “Yes,” Lu agreed doubtfully. Then she froze, and Nok saw understanding on her face—then a cavalcade of urgency, of fury, of fear. “My mother,” she whispered. “And my sister.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The Fall

  Chaos greeted them as they ran out onto the temple steps. Lu could see the battle had reached the far end of the Heart: a horde of blue-clad mounted Hana troops clashing against no more than a dozen Yunians.

  There was no sign of Set. Or Min. Her sister couldn’t be in that terrible crush of men and horses, could she?

  Overhead, the sky still bled, the blue now nearly overtaking the gray. The light was different, too. At first Lu thought it was just her eyes adjusting from the dark of the temple, but no, the whole Heart was changing. Even the trees looked strange, their dull gray-green leaves turned garishly verdant. The long foggy morning of the Inbetween was ending, and the sun had come out harsh and overly bright.

  Lu unsheathed her sword, wished for an elk and armor. She looked to her right and saw Nasan heft her staff in both hands. To her left, Nok’s wolf bristled, drawing its lips around massive white teeth. They weren’t much, but they would have to be enough.

  “Let’s go,” she told them. They ran fleetly down the temple steps.

  The noise was horrific, engulfing them as they approached. The copper tang of blood filled the air along with the cloying stench of burned flesh. Where was that coming from?

  The Hana troops were bottlenecked at the entrance of the Heart, and for a moment Lu couldn’t understand why they weren’t advancing. Then she saw Vrea in front of them, pale and still. Shen and Jin rode up to flank her, Jin’s paltry army following suit, swords in hand. Vrea’s hands were empty, but raised.

  Lu was close enough to make out individual faces when one Hana rider made a break toward the Yunians.

  All at once the air crackled and flared between Vrea’s outstretched hands and the soldiers. A lance of light—no, lightning—shot from her palms.

  It struck the horse full in the chest, and Lu saw its skeleton, radiating white-hot from the inside out. The shock traveled up into its rider. Man and beast flew back with the force of it, like they were nothing more than dolls.

  The horse landed hard and stayed down, a heap of blackened flesh, but the soldier screamed
. His helmet fell, and Lu saw the charred dome of his head, then the white of his skull as his burned scalp sloughed away.

  “What was that?” Nasan demanded.

  Lu shook her head numbly. She understood now where the smell of burned flesh had come from.

  The horses were stamping and rearing, but Lu could see the soldiers trying to drive them back into formation. There was no panic in the ranks. Military discipline was one thing. These men did not have the air of soldiers riding to their deaths; they believed they could win against this unnatural terror.

  They knew something she did not.

  “Princess Lu!”

  She tore her eyes from the Hana. The Yunian princes had noticed their presence.

  Jin started toward her. “Princess, you shouldn’t—”

  “Get back to the temple!” Shen shouted.

  “I can’t do that,” she called.

  What are the Hana waiting for? Nok’s voice sounded in her head. They’re just standing there.

  “Would you want to be next to get roasted like a goat?” Nasan retorted, but her voice shook.

  “No, it’s not that,” Lu said. “Nok’s right. They should either charge or retreat and regroup. They’re …”

  The Hana parted ranks. Lu recognized the horse before she saw the rider: a white stallion, armored in finely crafted plates of blue and silver. Upon its back sat her cousin, lean and tall and proud. His sword was drawn. Close beside him rode Brother, small and out of place.

  Then came a third horse, also white. And its rider—

  “Min!” Lu yelled, but her voice was lost to the fray. Her sister reined up, then dismounted clumsily, staggering forward on bowed legs.

  Her sister, and yet, not.

  Min’s normally sweet, round face was gaunt, webs of delicate veins stark beneath thin, gray skin. Her long black hair had fallen from its upsweep, hanging in dusty hanks like moss off a tree. She was hunched, as though someone had kicked her in the belly, but she lurched inexorably toward Vrea.

  “Min, what are you doing?” Lu shouted. “Get back!”

  The priestess considered Min as she approached, like a cat sizing up a wounded mouse. She raised her hands.