The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

Lu lunged forward. “No! Don’t hurt her! She’s only a—”

  Lightning shot from Vrea’s palms. Min threw out her own hands in helpless defense—and caught the lightning in her grasp.

  Vrea’s face tightened. She thrust forward harder, but the lightning only built against Min’s palms, a spitting, crackling ball, burning so brightly Lu was forced to squint.

  “Impressive,” Vrea called, her voice melodic and lilting, though ragged at the edges. “What Yunian shamaness taught you our ways?”

  “Don’t talk to her, Min!” Set barked. He leaned forward in his saddle, greedy gray eyes flashing white from the glow of the lightning.

  “I heard your father killed all our shamanesses,” Vrea continued. “Those poor girls. Those hostages your kind promised to protect.”

  “She’s trying to distract you!” Set snarled.

  Min did not reply, but instead thrust forward hard with the whole of her little body, screaming with the effort. She sounded like a wild animal. The ball of lightning shot back at Vrea and shattered against the priestess’s hands in an explosion of white sparks. A boom like thunder threw them all to the ground.

  Lu staggered to her feet, ears ringing again. She picked up her fallen sword. The air was coarse with fine gray dust. She coughed, eyes stinging with grit and tears.

  Where Vrea had stood there was now a smoking, blasted-out crater. Deep, crooked cracks emanated from it. The priestess herself had landed some distance away, thrown by the impact, but as Lu watched she climbed to her feet with little more than a tremble in her arms. She dusted off her robes with a misplaced air of quiet dignity.

  Lu stepped forward to join Shen and Jin in flanking her, but Nok blocked her path.

  Wait, he said. Look!

  One of the cracks emanating from the blast site widened. As they watched, a slab of paving stone the size of a man’s torso broke free and tumbled down into the crevice—leaving in its place a patch of empty, endless sky.

  Lu’s breath caught in her throat. She could see the stone, still in free fall miles below, until at last it was swallowed by distance and the ether.

  “The separation between our realms has been corrupted,” Vrea told Min. “Yunis is crumbling. Falling back down to earth. We will fall with it, unless you think you can stop it.”

  Set laughed, steering his horse daintily back from the slow-spreading cracks in the ground. “You can drop the stern teacher act, Oracle. My little bride broke your gate, dismantled your pitiful spells of protection. You can’t overpower us. Whatever you’ve made she will unmake.”

  “Destruction is easy,” Vrea said, her voice sharp. “This child has strength enough for that. But I wonder, does she have the skill to mend? To create? If not, what is to prevent you from being killed along with the rest of us?”

  Fear swept across Set’s face, brief as the shadow of a bird overhead.

  “Don’t.” The voice was ragged. Min shoved her long hair back roughly, glowering at Vrea. “Don’t speak of me as though I weren’t here!”

  She lashed out a hand and struck Vrea full in the chest with a blast of white light. The priestess bowed around it, manipulating it with her hands, absorbing it into her body. She stumbled, her brow creased in effort. Prince Shen stepped forward as though to help her.

  “Get back!” she told him.

  “Don’t kill the Oracle!” Brother rode up to Min. His stallion stamped in wide, nervous circles and he flailed at the reins to still it. “We need her knowledge. She knows the secrets of this place—I need that knowledge!”

  “I am the knowledge,” snarled Min, raising her hand again. “And I don’t need anything.”

  “Min!” Lu screamed, and this time her sister heard, turning like a hound to a whistle.

  “Lu?”

  Nasan tried to grab her, but Lu ran forward. Min put up a hand.

  Lu willed herself not to flinch, not to think of the damage that hand had only just wrought. There was no lightning, no intent behind the gesture. A defensive reflex only. And this was her little sister, after all. Min wouldn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t.

  The two of them stared at one another, breathing hard. At their backs, the two sides faced off warily, neither moving. Vrea’s hands were up.

  “Lu.” Min’s voice went soft. “You cut your hair.”

  “You …” The words died on Lu’s lips as she searched Min’s face. It wasn’t just her sister’s skin. The tiny veins in her eyes had run up to the surface and burst, flooding the whites of them red, turning the irises into hazy gray islands in a sea of blood. And there was nothing in them, Lu realized with a jolt of terror. No familiarity, no fear.

  “Min, what happened?” Lu whispered. “What has he done to you?”

  Set laughed. A cruel, scraping sound. “I’ve done nothing. This is what she is. She said it herself: this is what she was born for.”

  Lu ignored him. “Min, this is madness. Come with me. Let Vrea—help Vrea—salvage whatever’s left here. We’re all in danger. Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, we can fix it, we can forgive—”

  “Enough,” Set interrupted coldly, sliding down from his horse and striding forward. “Min is my wife. She is the empress. You speak of forgiveness? Well, she’s not yours to forgive.”

  Lu met his gray gaze, then raised her own sword. “I’ll kill you,” she said, voice trembling. “Whatever you’ve done to her—I’ll kill you for it.”

  Brother stepped forward. “Emperor Set, please take care—”

  Set’s eyes never left Lu. “Min, my empress, burn alive the next person who dares interrupt me and your sister, would you?”

  Brother did not speak again.

  Set sneered at Lu. “Are you so stupid you don’t understand what this is, cousin? You lost. I won.”

  “Not yet you haven’t,” Lu said. She flexed her hand around the pommel of her sword, feeling that weight, as familiar as one of her limbs. “Not while I’m alive.”

  She didn’t hear Nokhai approach so much as she felt him. He stopped protectively beside her, his wolf’s body taut and bristling.

  Set’s lip raised in disgust. “What is that thing?”

  Don’t you remember me? Nokhai’s voice trembled in their ears. You tried to kill me when we were children. I looked a bit different back then, admittedly …

  The haughtiness slipped from Set’s face. “Ashina? That’s not possible. Your Pact was broken—we killed you all!”

  Not all.

  Set’s gray eyes narrowed. His sword flashed in the strange light as he raised it. “Then I’ll finish the job now.”

  “No,” Lu snapped. “Nokhai, get back.”

  Lu …

  She met his wolf eyes, golden and fierce, and yet still somehow familiar. “I have him,” she said, “go help the Triarch. Let me end this.”

  He fell back, but kept a close distance.

  “You and me, cousin,” Lu told Set. “Come. Let me teach you one last lesson.”

  Her words broke something in him; he came at her hard and furious and impossibly fast. She barely had time to parry. Their blades met, the cold bite sending tremors through her arms. She could still feel the Yunian liquor coursing in her blood, and her muscles were weak with disuse.

  It has been too long, she realized wildly.

  Warriors don’t make excuses, Yuri’s voice scoffed in her head. They find what scraps they can in a bad situation and build it into victory.

  They pulled apart with a chime of steel. Lu circled her cousin, searching for weaknesses. His face was livid. Dark shadows rimmed his eyes, and his handsome face was blotched with dirt and dust. He spat at her feet and—was that wine she smelled on his sour breath?

  He was as unprepared for this fight as she was, Lu realized. They were well matched in training and skill, but also exhaustion. The outcome would go to whoever could last longer.

  She lunged, keeping her eyes trained at his neck as though she meant to strike there. He moved to block her and at the last moment she bobbed
and swung low, toward his gut. He spun, and her blade swiped empty air—but just barely. Not giving him a moment’s reprieve, she closed the distance between them and thrust her sword at his chest—

  He moved, and her blade glanced off his breastplate. She heard the metallic shiver of chain mail beneath. She was suddenly keenly aware of her own bare arms, the thin silk tunic that was the only barrier between his sword and her flesh. Panic prickled down her spine as they pulled apart.

  “Surrender and I’ll let you live,” he panted.

  Lu laughed, sounding stronger than she felt. “You expect me to believe that?”

  Set feinted, bounced back on light feet as she parried. “Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought. It’s true you’re not much use to me alive anymore.”

  She lunged toward his back leg, forcing him to pivot.

  “I already have your empire,” he continued, jaw tight. “I have your crown. Your sister. But I bet I can find more to take from you. It might be fun to try.”

  As he spoke, his gaze flicked behind her. Before she could understand, he lunged for Nokhai.

  A wordless scream tore out of her. Set brought down his blade in an inelegant hack. It clashed against the stone floor; Nokhai had leaped out of the way. In a flash, the wolf rebounded and lunged. He caught her cousin’s forearm in his jaws, teeth screeching against Set’s armor.

  “Nokhai, get out of there!” she yelled.

  The wolf wouldn’t be able to pierce the armor, no more than she’d been able to. But perhaps piercing it wasn’t the answer …

  She ran at Set, swinging wildly at his chest. He whipped around and blocked her.

  “Leave Nokhai alone,” she seethed.

  “I’ll kill you both!” he shrieked, hacking at her.

  “Are you sure about that? You can’t even seem to manage one of us. Not back then—and not now.” Lu blocked his blade with a hard parry, sending him reeling past her.

  She spun to face him as he aimed a wild slash at her belly. She leaped back, using the agility that was her only advantage, all the while picking apart his armor with her eyes.

  The knees. The gaps at his knees.

  He raised his sword and came. “Why can’t you see you’ve lost?” He punctuated this last word with another slash of his blade.

  She blocked it and forced herself to grin, easy and cruel. “That’s not how it works, cousin. In order for me to lose, you have to win. And you’re never, ever going to win. It’s not in your nature.”

  He ran at her with a wild, animal cry of rage. She waited until the last possible moment, then slipped to the side. As he passed her, she swung hard and true—fitting her blade into the gap in his armor, just behind the knees.

  Her cousin screamed as he went down, blood soaking his golden breeches fast and red.

  “No!” The anguished cry came from far off—Lu didn’t take her eyes off Set, but some part of her registered it was Min’s voice.

  The scream died out and the only sound left was Set’s furious gasping—a terrible, primal hybrid of seething and weeping. His fingers clawed at the stone floor of the Heart.

  She walked over to him, the roar of blood growing in her ears. There was movement among the Hana now, but it felt impossibly far away.

  Lu put a foot to his shoulder and gave a hard push, rolling him over onto his back.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he gritted out, his face so contorted with rage and pain she scarcely recognized him. “Why are you like this—?”

  Lu bent over him. He fought as soon as she was in range, flailing his arms, getting in a solid punch that bloodied her lip. But she managed to yank off his helmet. Loosened his gorget. She replaced it with her foot, crushing his throat, pinning him to the ground. His eyes bulged, and his pale lips fluttered—a comical fish’s gape. Breathing hard, Lu stooped again to pull the ornate dagger hanging from his belt, considering its ruby-and-carnelian jeweled handle for a moment. She let off her foot and crouched beside him.

  Breath rushed back into Set’s body with a ghastly wheeze. “Why did the gods make you like this? Just to torment me?”

  Hot fury lanced her gut. “I wasn’t made to torment you,” she snarled. “I wasn’t made for you at all. I was made for me.”

  She plunged the dagger into the exposed base of his throat. Yanking it free took more effort; she felt the hard, grainy crunch of his trachea, the sucking clench of muscle as it withdrew. Blood shot like a fountain from the hole she’d made.

  Easy, she thought deliriously, watching the color drain from her cousin’s face, the life ebb from his eyes. His flailing faded into a full-body quake into a tremor into nothing. Too easy. She almost wanted to do it again, just to be sure. Just to be certain she’d truly—

  Lu, watch out! Nok’s voice rang in her head.

  The boulder caught her in the side. Heat exploded through her arm and ribs like rogue fireworks. Panicked flares of red and violet and silver lit the back of her eyelids.

  What …?

  Min hurtled toward her. Her sister’s hands were outstretched, clutching a second chunk of paving stone, this one larger, wrapped in a dense web of crackling light. She was sweating, her chest heaving with effort, as though the weight of it was too much for her.

  “Min?” Lu whispered. Why? The question screamed inside her. She couldn’t find the breath to ask it, though.

  Vrea leaped forward, lightning stretching from her hands toward Min. Min pivoted and released her stone toward Vrea. The shot went high; Vrea’s blast of energy shattered it in mid-flight, raining debris down upon them.

  With Vrea distracted, the Hana army charged. Vrea scarcely had time to redirect her focus from Min toward the advancing soldiers, shoving them back with small, directed blasts of energy.

  Nok’s wolf dove into the fray. It latched its jaws around the throat of the nearest horse and gave a terrible shake. Both beast and rider fell screaming, bowling over several of their nearest compatriots. One of the fallen men struggled to his hands and knees, but Nasan’s staff caught him across the jaw, snapping his head back with a sickening crack.

  Lu closed her eyes, struggling to breathe. Her body felt undone, taken apart and thrown back together in a heap. In the aftermath, pain began to seep in, flaring from her side, the ball of her shoulder. Around her the battle seethed. The clashing of steel, the braying of horses. Men wailing and dying.

  She tried to sit up, but her left arm was dead. She couldn’t feel her hand, her fingers. Just a screaming, mindless pain. Her sword was gone, lost to the fray.

  It doesn’t matter. I’ll never wield it properly again. The thought sent a shock of grief through her already splintered heart.

  “Lu.” Min’s voice was improbably quiet, close. Lu opened her eyes and found her sister standing over her, searching her broken body with startled eyes, as though she hadn’t been the one to break it.

  “Help me, Min,” Lu whispered. “You’re my sister—”

  “Sister?” The word seemed to catch her off guard. She cocked her head and looked into the distance, seemingly oblivious to the wild battle at her back. “Am I?”

  “What …?” Lu stammered. “What do you—”

  “Isn’t it strange,” Min said, “the way mother always hated you, and father always ignored me? I confess, it never occurred to me to think anything of it. It was simply the way it was. But it was strange, wasn’t it? We never did anything to deserve it, we were just … born. It was a mystery.”

  “Min—”

  “Our family was a mystery, and I solved it, Lu.” Min turned solemn gray eyes back on her. “We were born to the wrong mothers. Me, to the wife our father hated. And you, to the woman he wasn’t allowed to love.”

  Lu gaped at her. Had her sister lost her mind? “What woman?”

  Min shrugged, slippery and slight. “A shamaness. A Yunian shamaness—isn’t that strange? Her name was Tsai.”

  Tsai … where had she heard that name before? And then she remembered. Back in Omair’s quaint lit
tle home in Ansana, the old apothecarist had said it.

  Tsai. Slight, almost brittle to look at, but that exterior hid immense power. A star crammed inside a soap bubble.

  “It makes me feel better, in a way,” Min said. “It explains why we’re so different. When we were little, I cursed the heavens for making you so strong, so clever, so beautiful. They gave it all to you and left nothing for me, I thought.”

  “That’s not true, Min. You know it’s not—”

  “You’re right,” her sister said. Lu looked up at her in surprise. Min nodded once, as though making a decision. “You’re right. It turns out I do have something you don’t.”

  “Min, please—”

  “What I have,” her sister continued, “isn’t from the heavens, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lu slurred, trying to focus past the pain, past her confusion. “Set’s gone, you’re free now. Whatever it is, I can fix it.”

  “No!” Min shrieked, her hands going to her ears as though she meant to cover them against the sound of Lu’s voice. “I was going to fix it! I had a plan. I was going to make it all better! I was going to win, and I was going to give Set sons, and I was going to let you come home, but you ruined everything!”

  Lu licked her lips, tasted blood and dust. “Min. What did Set do to you?”

  “You don’t understand,” Min seethed. “He didn’t do anything! It was me, it was supposed to be me this time, but you took everything away!” Rage contorted her sister’s tired little face, turned it feral and unfamiliar. Wrong. This wasn’t her sister. Not the one she’d left behind.

  Min raised her hands.

  A fresh flush of tears stung Lu’s eyes. She struggled to keep them open. It would be better if she could stand. But no matter. She was a warrior. She would not flinch at death.

  Her sister—for that was what she was, even now, Lu thought, even if what she was saying was true, even with her hands raised like that—her sister’s face swam before her, dappled in sparks from the ball of energy building in her hands. It was as though Lu were seeing her from underwater.

  She had a sudden memory. The Eastern Palace, some summer, years ago. She had tried to coax Min into the lake, so cool and inviting. Lu had swum out until her feet couldn’t touch anymore, then turned back to wave at the shore. See? she had called. It’s safe. Just jump in. I’ll watch out for you. There had been longing on her sister’s face, but it had been overtaken with fear. She’d always been so afraid. And so Lu had continued on her own, until without meaning to, she had swum so far she couldn’t see Min at all anymore.