So it was, then, when you flushed the color of cherry blossoms.
So it was, then, when my heart hammered from being so near to you.
The two of us may well have been statues, for neither of us could move. My neck felt hot. My hackles rose, and suddenly my lips were so dry, I just had to lick them, and yours were red, red, red.
Fireworks shot off between my ears. Touching you made me wonder when you were going to leave me in a pile of cinders. I felt in my bones that I had to be nearer to you. That I had to consume you, and let you consume me.
When we parted, I went cold as a Qorin night. We spoke to hide the crackling of our emotions.
We did not speak of what had happened to your parents. I will not repeat the details here. In all the years since their passing, you’ve never mentioned them. You keep a shrine, of course, in your rooms. A piece of your mother’s war mask sits next to a scroll of your father’s poetry. Every morning you kneel, you light incense, you speak prayers in hushed tones. The shrine was there when I arrived that day, and I have no doubt you’ve taken it with you to your current holdings.
Wherever they may be.
No, we did not speak of your parents. You asked me what I’d done out on the steppes, and you chided me for my awful handwriting.
“Four years away from me, and this is what happens?” you said, holding one of my letters. “All my hard work undone.”
Though I laughed to boost your mood, I shifted in my seat. I knew what the letters said; I could recite them from memory. But reading them …
I opened my hand and closed it. Maybe I was just dumb.
You furrowed your brow. “Shefali?” you said. “Is something the matter?”
As if I had anything to worry about. As if your parents had not just died.
I shook my head, but you weren’t having it.
“Shefali,” you said, “I do not have to tell you to be honest with me. I cannot lie to you, and you must be the same. We are the same.”
You reached for a brush, inkblock, bowl, and paper. They were always within arm’s reach of you, as if you might wake in the night with a powerful urge to practice calligraphy.
“I want you to write my name,” you said. “And do not stress too much over it. I want to see something.”
Do not stress over it, you said. The finest calligrapher in Hokkaro wanted to inspect my handwriting, but it was nothing to stress over.
Breathe in. Raise brush. Make the stroke, then breathe out. Except that line didn’t look right. What did that symbol look like? I racked my mind for it. How many times had I seen your name?
I bit my lip. You were staring at me, at the paper.
By then I was trembling. I added another line. That wasn’t right either. With my free hand, I took hold of my braid.
What did your name look like?
You squeezed my shoulder.
“All right,” you said. You reached for a sheet of clean paper and set that out in front of me. “Now, in Qorin, I want you to write everything I say starting … now.”
I inked the brush and waited for you to begin. You stood, got on your tiptoes, and picked up my bow.
“My name is Barsalai Shefali Alsharyya. My favorite hobbies are hunting, shooting things full of arrows, and sitting quietly at dinner parties. My best friend is the illustrious O-Shizuka of Fujino, Imperial Niece, and the finest swordsman to walk the earth since Minami Shiori. Together we are going to slay a god. But first we are conducting a simple test. I like horses. Especially gray ones.”
By the time you finished, you grinned from ear to ear. I was fighting off a smile myself. The whole thing was so silly. There you were in a mourning dress, doing a terrible impression of me, and there I was, taking down everything you said.
Yet when I looked down at the parchment, there was every word. No false starts, no terrible handwriting.
You leaned over and studied it. You knew enough Qorin to make your conclusion. “I think,” you said, “that you cannot write in Hokkaran.”
You did not say this as an accusation. Somehow hearing someone else say it relieved me. I nodded.
“When I write to you, your friend Dorbentei reads it for you,” you said. “And you tell her what you wish to say.”
I made no motion to argue.
You studied me for a moment. I worried you’d say something dismissive.
“Do you think,” you said, “we could write Hokkaran words in the Qorin alphabet? Would that be easier?”
I tilted my head. But the Qorin alphabet was much simpler; it did not have as many letters. That was the whole reason I liked it.
Yet … the more I thought about it, it was possible, if we added one or two more letters.
“Yes,” I said.
“Very well, then,” you said. “I tire of Hokkaran characters, anyway. A change of pace will be welcome.”
I found myself grinning. I spent so long worried what you’d think when you pieced it together.
You smiled a soft, infant smile and sat down next to me.
Long hours gave way to night. It occurred to me I did not have anywhere to stay in the Imperial Palace. Before I brought it up, you called for your servants and commanded them to bring up an additional bed. Not to prepare another room, oh no. You wanted a bed brought into this one.
I pointed out the hallway. Was there not another room we could use—one with two beds?
For your answer, you waved me off. “We stay here,” you said firmly.
Though I thought it unjust—what you were doing to your service staff—I said nothing. There was a certain look about you. Had you left this room since the incident? You must have. This was you. This was O-Shizuka, Flower of the Empire. You wouldn’t lock yourself away to wilt.
Except …
That pile of papers on your desk tall as a helmet. The more I looked at your dress, the more wrinkles I saw. You slept in it. Your hair free of ornaments, your fingers stained with ink …
You hadn’t left your room, in all this time?
“Shizuka?”
Moments before this, you had sat on the painted bench near your bed. Now you bent in on yourself like a branch bearing too much weight.
“For tonight,” you said. “We stay here.”
A strange thing happens when one speaks aloud: words take on their own meaning. They move in through the listener’s ears and make themselves home, decorating their meaning with whatever memories they find lying around. And you did not want Shizuru and Itsuki to leave you just yet.
So as you broke down—as your shoulders shook with the force of your tears, as your breath came to you in shallow gulps and gasps—I held you.
“These are the finest rooms in the palace,” you choked out. I put a finger to your lips to try to stop you from forcing yourself to talk. You batted my hand away. You fought to sit upright, but you were too dizzy to keep up for long. “My uncle picked them out himself.”
Your tears soaked my deel. I ran my hands through your hair. I took a deep breath of your perfume, hoping I might siphon some of your sorrows away. But it did not help. Nothing helped.
Though you opened your trembling mouth, you could speak no more. So I rocked you back and forth for what seemed an hour. When the servants came with my bed, I pointed to an unoccupied corner of the room and dismissed them, rather than let them see you.
So I lay with you that night until you fell asleep. I did not bother changing out of my deel. When Grandmother Sky’s golden eye peeked in on us, you were turned toward me, your head nuzzled against my chest.
I woke before you. Hunters wake before dawn as a force of habit. As a lotus petal floating on placid water, so you floated on the bedsheets. Your dress spread out around you, your hair a black fan against white. No traces of worry, no traces of sorrow. Only peace remained on your features.
Looking at you in the morning light, Shizuka, watching you sleep—it is like cresting a hill and finding a valley sprawling before you, full of flowers, teeming with life and colors you cannot name.
I was awestruck.
And in the back of my mind, I wondered when your hairline got so bright, when your lips became bows, when the Daughter herself painted spring onto your cheeks.
I touched your cheek, and I immediately disturbed your sacred slumber. Your eyes fluttered open. Dawn cast them gold.
“Shefali?” you muttered.
I sat up quick as I could, hoping you were too sleepy to notice I was gawking. Why was I gawking? I knit my brows together; why? Why was I so fascinated by your face?
You lurched up and rubbed at your eyes. “What time is it?”
I held up two fists, one finger raised on the first and two on the second.
“The first hour of Second Bell?” you said. You pulled the covers over your head. “What are you doing awake?”
I shrugged. You could not see me, but I shrugged.
“You are a fool,” you said. “A fool who needs her rest. Go back to bed, Shefali. We will have to go to court today.”
The idea of spending even more time mired in etiquette and propriety was less appealing than riding for ten days straight with no saddle and no time for breaks—but you needed me. So I swallowed up my discomfort, my trepidation, and I thought of how miserable you’d be if you had to go alone.
A bit past Second Bell, servants woke us. They gathered around you like moths to a flame. A dozen hands undressed you, and redressed you. One girl carried the white dress away; another brought in a vibrant blue gown. Peacock feathers adorned the collar and sleeves. The back and train bore iridescent paint in gold and green and black. One of the girls held a tray of crushed gems properly treated; you dipped your fingers in sapphires.
I was fascinated by it. Every one of them had a different job, and they all set about doing them at the same time. Like worms making silk, like women weaving. Your face they painted pale white; on the back of your neck, two sharp blue points; on your forehead, gold leaf shaped into a peacock feather.
By the time they finished with you, the Shizuka I grew up with was gone. In her place was a young empress. In her place stood the Daughter made flesh. In her place, the image of spring; in her place, the Sky in all her splendor.
The servants surrounded you and bowed. You held one hand up and dismissed them.
“Now that my armor is ready,” you said, “I suppose we will have to face my uncle.” You fixed me with your amber eyes. “You will keep me company?”
I was in the same deel I wore yesterday—the one my grandmother made me, embroidered with colorful shapes. I hadn’t bathed in a week, at least. My hair was greasy, my braid a knotted mess. I smelled like horses and rotten milk.
But you wanted me to go with you to see the Emperor.
I flapped my deel’s collar.
You came closer. With your shining fingers, you reached for my braid. “You rode all the way from the steppes,” you said. “If anyone chides you, they will deal with me.” You smoothed my deel. “Besides,” you said, “this is a very fine coat.”
My cheeks flushed. I cleared my throat and nodded. It was then that I noticed you weren’t wearing your sword. I touched the wide belt around your waist, then touched my scabbard.
You covered my hand with your own. “If I wear my mother’s blade,” you said, “people will think it’s an invitation. And I don’t mean to get blood on this dress.”
Temurin accompanied us on the way to the throne room. So did half a dozen Imperial Guard, who did not speak to you. As mist in the morning, they appeared behind us. You paid them no mind, but I found myself glancing at them. Sharp, crescent blades crowned their pikes. When did those come into style? And why did they need to carry them inside the palace, when a sword would do? No blackbloods wandered the Imperial Halls; no demons.
“Barsalai,” said Temurin, eyes darting behind her. “These men have been standing outside Barsatoq’s door all night.”
I crooked a brow. “And you, too?”
Temurin frowned. “That’s not the point. They were waiting for her to leave. Six men to guard a single girl? Six men in full armor, with pikes indoors? I do not like it. This is not an honor guard.”
* * *
ONE OF THE guards spoke, rattling his pike as he did. “All conversations in the Imperial Palace must be conducted in Hokkaran, as the gods intended.”
He must not have known very much about us, if he thought that was intimidating.
“The gods are not stopping us,” you said briskly. “I see no reason for a tall boy in armor to stop us, either. You will cease interrupting my companions.”
You did not look at them as you spoke. Instead, you kept right on walking, your shoulders back and your head held high.
“O-Shizuka-shon, we are under strict orders—”
“Your orders do not concern me,” you said. “Your manners do.”
If the guard had anything more to say, he bit his tongue.
The path to the throne room was long and winding. I followed you, walking just behind you, and fought the urge to keep your dress from dragging along the ground. Surely something that cost so much should not be exposed to dirt. But you did not seem concerned about it, and neither did any of the guards.
The courtiers we saw on the way were another story. There were so many! For every twenty steps you took, another begged your attention. Young magistrates, old lords and ladies, generals, and diplomats. Anyone who laid eyes on you wanted to speak to you.
“O-Shizuka-shon!” they’d call. “You grace us with your presence! May we come to court with you?”
“You may not,” you would say, and you would keep going rather than entertain their arguments. What of the fine silks they could send to you? What of the dress they’d sent for, just for you? What of the jewels? What of the poetry?
They were nothing to you.
And so you kept walking, leaving only the scent of your perfume in your wake.
When we entered the throne room, a gong rang.
Before its brassy ring finished sounding, one of the servants announced you. “O-Shizuka-shon, daughter of O-Itsuki-lor and O-Shizuru-mor, enters! May flowers sprout in her steps!”
You flinched at the mention of your parents’ names. Then, in an instant, the look of despair was gone, and only your Imperial mask remained.
As well it should. A warrior might put on a mask of bronze to face demons and blackbloods, but to face these jackals in men’s clothing, one needed a different sort of protection.
No, come to think of it, I prefer jackals. At least they are honest about their hunger. The people milling about the throne room that day had the same desperation in their eyes for you, the same bright avarice. Yet they had the nerve to smile to you, to bow when your name was mentioned.
But for the moment, you ignored them and turned your attention to the young man by the gong. “Crier,” you said. “You did not announce my companion.”
I shifted. Did I really need to be announced? I did not think of myself as a noble. At least, not the learned Hokkaran noble. I passed no exams, I received only minimal tutoring. My father did nothing to teach me how to run my lands; indeed, being in Oshiro too long chafed. My name meant nothing to these people.
“The Qorin?” said the crier. He studied me and Temurin both, as if trying to decide which one of us was more likely to be a barbarian.
“Oshiro Shefali, daughter of Oshiro Yuichi and Burqila Alshara,” you said. Strange to hear my mother’s child name coming from anyone but your mother or my grandmother. Most of the time, she was “that woman,” or “that demon.”
The crier stiffened. He clenched his jaw. Seeing him, I felt my stomach twist. Either my mother killed part of his family, or he was racist—or perhaps both. I did not wish to deal with either.
You narrowed your eyes. Just behind you, some courtiers were coming; you did not have much time before you had to brush them off. “Is something the matter?” you said.
The crier could not lie to you. Lying to the Blood of Heaven was lying to the Gods themselves. But he could not i
nsult me either, since I technically had higher status than he did. And so, however bitter his qualms, he swallowed them.
“Oshiro Shefali-sun,” he said, “daughter of Oshiro Yuichi-tur. May her life be long and peaceful.”
It was then that the courtiers approached you: a middle-aged man with a topknot and his young wife, in black and yellow. Fuyutsuki Province, then. Were they the lord and lady? I did not know. Both of them wore a honeybee crest on their clothing. I racked my mind; had I seen it before? A dull ache dissuaded me from thinking too hard.
“O-Shizuka-shon,” said the man. “We are pleased to see you. It’s been so long since you attended court.”
Was it the crest that was bothering me? I felt a darkness in the room, a wrongness. Whenever I took a breath, the back of my tongue tasted terrible. I ended up holding my breath rather than deal with the nausea.
“We are sorry for the loss of your parents. They shall be missed,” said the woman. “O-Itsuki-lor’s work immortalizes him.”
Perhaps it was the environment? All the courtiers together, speaking their honeyed falsehoods? Why did I feel as if I’d caught scent of a tiger?
Again, you flinched. “Thank you, Fuyutsuki-tun,” you said. Wasn’t that the lowest form of address for a lord? “Have you met Barsalai-sur?” And a third-degree honorific for me. Shizuka, sometimes I wonder how you did not invite duels from everyone you met.
Fuyutsuki appraised me and my worn-out deel. His wife didn’t bother.
“Are you Yuichi-tul’s daughter?” he said. “I’ve heard stories about you.”
I said nothing, simply nodded. I did not like being in the spotlight.
“O-Shizuka-shon,” said Lady Fuyutsuki. “You know you are always welcome in our lands. My son, Keichi, is about your age. I’m certain you’d enjoy dueling him.”
“I would enjoy defeating him, if that is what you mean,” you said.
Lord Fuyutsuki laughed. It was a loud, pompous sort of laugh—one single “ha.” “Is there anyone you cannot defeat?”
Next to me, Temurin grumbled. “These Hokkarans and their simpering,” she said. “Barsalai, must we stay for this?”
“Barsatoq asked,” I said quietly.
Temurin crossed her arms. I did not blame her. In her position, I’d do everything I could to leave early. Expansive though the throne room may be, it still had a ceiling.
The Tiger's Daughter Page 13
