The Tiger's Daughter

by K Arsenault Rivera

  But I remember distinctly the way she spoke about her position. Imperial Executioner. Whenever the subject came up, she would scoff. Once, I awoke in the middle of the night, after dreaming a dragon ate my leg, and I saw your mother sitting with a cup in one hand and a bottle in the other. Her gray-streaked hair was all a mess.

  “I’m no executioner,” she said. “Yoshimoto calls me that only so he can feel better about himself. I am either his butcher or his last resort.” And here I remember she took a sip of her rice wine, which was always at her side. “Bandits or blackbloods. That’s all I ever fight. He never sends me after nobles, never has me act as anyone’s second. Between the two, Shefali-lun—between things that were once people I liked, and people who turn to robbery to fill their bellies, I’d rather have…”

  I never got to hear her answer. Your father emerged not long after that, and with gentle words convinced her that it was time for bed.

  I have thought on that moment many times since then. Which is worse—to confront the dead you once knew, or to confront strangers you sympathize with? Whose blood is heavier?

  I will tell you:

  The worst thing in life is to face your family after you have shamed them. For the moment I spotted my mother’s white felt ger, I knew that if I told her of my condition, I might as well be killing her.

  I wished it’d been bandits instead. If bandits approached camp, I’d know precisely what to do: draw my bow and fire until no one remained. If guards caught me, then I would’ve raced them back to the barracks. They would have had no hope of catching me on my good Qorin mare.

  But she was my mother. My mother, who hated boats as much as I did, and warned me as a child never to take one. My mother, who abhorred leaving the steppes for any reason, except to see your mother. From what I knew, she had not been to the Wall of Flowers since she traveled with O-Shizuru and the Sixteen Swords. What was initially a mission to clear out invading blackbloods became a lasting warning against confronting them.

  Oh, our mothers slew one of the Traitor’s Generals—for this, the entire Empire sang your mother’s praises—but every one of the other Swords died in the effort. Fourteen of the most renowned warriors in Hokkaro, from all walks of life. General Kikomura fought alongside a cobbler from southern Fuyutsuki Province. The youngest daughter of silk merchants, a man with grandchildren about to marry. All that mattered was their swordplay—and look where that got them. Whatever triumph our mothers felt was tempered by the loss of their companions.

  No, my mother had not returned to Shiseiki since she spent eight days in a cave being tortured. Yet here she was; here was her ger with its banner flapping in the wind.

  She did not know what had happened to me. I could not tell her. I could not. My affliction, so feared by my people, had not killed me. Instead, I felt myself becoming something else.

  Should I run? I sat frozen in the saddle. Should I run from my own mother, rather than tell her what had happened? Should I rouse you from your slumber, and ask you what to do? What if our riders spotted me first—what then? What was I going to do, what was I going to say? As far as she knew, I’d run off on some bullheaded adventure. She could not know. She could not imagine the thoughts drifting through her daughter’s mind, could not know how afraid I was to leave the room when I knew others would be near.

  But I could no longer listen to the voices calling me a coward.

  Before all this happened, I faced a tiger, and felt no fear. Before all this, I faced a demon. I was Tiger-Striped Shefali, not Shefali the Fearful. And if I could endure the pain of a slow death, I could endure the shame of returning to my mother’s ger.

  And so I rode toward the bright white gers. And so I dismounted. Temurin, standing outside my mother’s ger, had to look twice to confirm it was me.

  “Barsalai!” she called, and she reached for me, she tried to take me by the shoulder and embrace me. “Burqila has traveled long to find you.”

  I recoiled from her touch, not out of malice, but concern. Some small part of me worried even that contact would infect others.

  Temurin stared at her four-fingered hand. A deep frown engraved itself onto her brown skin, her wrinkles only adding to it. Our most loyal guard was earning a crown of gray hairs for her service. I had not noticed them before I left; when did they appear?

  “Barsalai, you do not want my greeting?”

  I licked my lips. No, I did want her greeting. I wanted everyone’s. But if she sniffed my cheek, she might smell the rot that hung around me like a cloud. I could not risk making her sick.

  “Mother,” I said.

  “You are acting strangely,” Temurin said, crossing her arms. “You will not let me smell you—how am I to know you are truly Barsalai? You might be a demon wearing her form.”

  I opened my hand, closed it. My fingers twitched. My nostrils flared. Why was I standing around, listening to this, when I could barrel through?

  No. Those were not my thoughts.

  Instead, I leaned forward and sniffed both Temurin’s cheeks. She smelled of old leather and horses. Yes, that was Temurin as I remembered her. She took me by the shoulders, and I forced myself to relax. I cannot deny the fear that grasped me as she pressed her nose to my cheek. What if, what if? What if this simple act killed her?

  When she pulled away, she wrinkled her nose. “You smell different,” she said, “like too-sweet flowers.”

  I flinched.

  “Mother,” I said again, my voice more sharp this time.

  She narrowed her grassy eyes at me. “All right,” she said. “Barsatoq must be turning you into something more Hokkaran, I suppose. Go in. Burqila is sleeping. If it is you, she will not mind being awoken.”

  I opened the red door.

  Four bedrolls laid out around the fire pit. No warm orange light filled the inside; the pit had long since turned to ash. Only the roof of the ger allowed any sort of brightness. At the center of the roof was a small opening to see the stars through. On full moon nights, this illuminated a ger nicely.

  That night was not a full moon night.

  And yet I saw perfectly in the dark. I stepped among the sleeping bodies of my family with ease. Scattered pots and pans, bows tucked under pillows, empty waterskins and bowls—I avoided all of them. I do not want to say that the room was not dark in my vision, for it was. But it was not … not so deep, I suppose. Ink in water.

  I found my mother sleeping on the western side of the ger. I shook her awake. She shot up and immediately reached for the knife she kept beneath her pillow. She got as far as grabbing me by the hair and pressing it to my throat before she realized whom she was about to kill.

  Her lips parted. A sound escaped them akin to a mouse’s squeak. She dropped the knife and touched my face, cleared my hair away.

  “Mother,” I whispered.

  She drew me close and sniffed my cheeks. She squeezed me so tight, my back cracked; she rocked with me back and forth.

  My mother swore an oath of silence at sixteen. I was sixteen then as she embraced me, as the soft sounds of tears filled the tent like clashing swords.

  I was sixteen when I heard my mother speak for the first time.

  I thought I imagined it. Honestly, I did. The voices must be taunting me. It was not my mother. It could not be my mother.

  Except this voice was not like the others. It was warm and sweet and rich, like spiced tea thick with honey.

  “You’re safe,” she whispered.

  My jaw dropped. I did not know what to say; I was not safe, but my mother was so worried, she had actually spoken and …

  No. I would not tell her tonight. Instead, I let her hold me. I let her count my fingers and toes, as she had when I was a child, and check me for new scars. The wound Leng gave me had already healed by then; she saw no trace of it. Even the cuts the surgeons gave me had healed. To my mother’s trained eyes, there was nothing wrong with me.

  After a few minutes of this, she grabbed a pot and banged her knife against it
until the entire ger sprang awake. The entire ger cursed, too, but I do not blame them. It was long past Last Bell; no one in their right mind is awake at such an hour. Otgar, her mother, her father, and another one of my aunts angrily rubbed their eyes.

  “Burqila,” Otgar murmured, “I swear by Grandmother Sky, you must be deaf as well as mute—”

  She stopped upon seeing me. A grin spread across her wide, flat face. She pulled me into a hug so fast and so tight, I slammed right into her, but she was the one who staggered backwards.

  “Cousin Needlenose!” she said, quickly sniffing my cheeks. “Did you get heavier, lugging all Barsatoq’s things around?”

  And it made me chuckle. After all these months, that is what Otgar said to me.

  “Your laugh tells me it is true!” she said, slinging an arm around me.

  My aunts and uncles gathered around and welcomed me home, despite the hour. We lit a fire. We drank kumaq together, and no one questioned where I’d been. No one questioned what I’d been up to.

  No one questioned why I did not sleep.

  In the morning, I excused myself from the revelries. I needed to return to you, and I wanted to do so before too many people were out. Otgar demanded to come along. After all, the last time I left camp alone, I ran off to the north to fight demons.

  A man leaves home to fight for the Emperor. When he leaves, he is a young man, perhaps twenty-two. His wife is pregnant. He swears to her he will return before their son is named. For ten years, he serves. Only when he loses an arm does the Emperor discharge him. The man returns home, traveling through the Empire on his own. He dreams of what kind of boy his son has grown to be. He decides to spend his meager earnings on books and ink for his son. When he reaches his old house, he does not recognize the weathered woman on the porch as his wife, does not realize the young girl selling flowers at market is his daughter. His home is the same—but nothing else is.

  So it was with me. Every time I saw myself I was surprised. No, that could not be my reflection. It had not changed. My features were as dark as ever, my nose just as thin, my lips just as full, my hair the same shade of flaxen blond. My eyes had not changed color—still tea-leaf green. How was that possible when my mind was so different? How was it possible, after what I had suffered?

  I kept my thoughts to myself. Otgar did not know, and I was not going to tell her.

  Lucky for me, she had other concerns.

  “You’ve got some explaining to do, Needlenose,” she said when we were out of earshot.

  I stiffened. My cousin spoke in her usual jovial manner. On the surface, nothing was amiss. She had no reason to suspect me.

  But that does not stop the demons whispering in my ears that she knows. That she is going to tell my mother. That she and my mother …

  I swallowed. No. Demons lie.

  “That’s right,” Otgar said. “You should be afraid. Did you think you could bed the heir to this gods-forsaken Empire in my ger and get away with it? My ger, that I made with my own two hands?”

  Oh.

  I coughed. My cheeks felt hot. I was so wrapped up in my own troubles, I’d not considered that.

  I opened my mouth to say something apologetic. She slapped me hard on the shoulder. It did not hurt as much as she expected it to.

  “You’ve always hunted dangerous game,” Otgar said. “Always picked the most difficult path. But this time you’ve really outdone yourself. Are you aware what will happen if others find out?”

  As if I had not had nightmares about your people finding out. But wait a moment.

  “You are not angry?”

  She scoffed, staring at me as if I’d asked a question with an obvious answer. After a few seconds of this, her disbelief only grew. “Barsalai,” she said. “You truly did not notice?”

  I frowned and shook my head. I did not know what game my cousin played at, but I did not much like it.

  “Barsalai, your mother loved Naisuran.”

  “Obvious,” I said. My mother only ever smiled in your mother’s presence. Of course she loved her. They’d been through unimaginable pain together; their friendship was forged from heavenly steel.

  Otgar palmed her face. She tugged at her gelding’s reins and brought him to a stop.

  I am sure you know by now that Qorin do not stop riding until they’ve reached their destination, or their camp for the night. It is very bad luck. So Otgar spat on the ground before she continued speaking.

  “Barsalai,” she said. “Crawl out of your lovesick cave for one moment and listen to what I am saying. Your mother loved Naisuran. Loved her.”

  “Obvious,” I repeated. Anyone could see what good friends they were. The two of them used to exchange war stories though my mother never spoke. Shizuru never learned a word of Qorin, but she still knew what Alshara wrote or signed just from reading her body.

  Otgar tugged at her hair. “Barsalai,” she said, her voice curt. “Your mother wanted to bed Naisuran.”

  What?

  No.

  No, no, no. That could not … no. My mother had two children. My mother had never in my sixteen years brought a lover into the ger. Certainly she and my father did not speak, ever, but that did not mean they were unfaithful. I’d never seen my father with a lover either. No, I did not see him as often, but … it just could not be. Not my mother. Not Burqila Alshara.

  “Why do you think,” Otgar said, “I had to go fetch her after Naisuran died? Because she wanted to go on a trading trip?”

  No, she was just mourning her only friend—it was not that out of the ordinary!

  I must’ve been gaping. I cannot imagine the look on my face. You will have to imagine it. I’m certain you know it better than I do.

  Otgar pinched her temples. She took a deep breath. “Your mother keeps a clipping of Naisuran’s hair with her to this day,” Otgar said. “She wears it beneath her deel, where no one will see. It is the only such favor she received.”

  As she spoke, her voice rose higher and higher.

  “No matter what Burqila did, she could not win Naisuran over. Her many fearsome deeds, her prowess with a sword, her skill as a Kharsa, her beauty—none of these caught Naisuran’s attention. A poet did. A poet, Shefali! A man who never saw a day of battle in his life, over Alshara!”

  Alshara.

  Otgar used my mother’s birth name.

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. This was not how one spoke about an aunt. The demon’s words echoed between my ears: Your mother lies with your cousin, Steel-Eye.

  Otgar’s eyes went wide. She covered her mouth, as if to try to hold in the words she’d already spoken. “It … It is a very sad story,” she mumbled. But she did not meet my eyes. “I only meant to say that you must be careful, Shefali. If her people find out, they will not be so accepting. Remember how her uncle hates us. He could have you executed.”

  I grunted. Though birds soared overhead, though the wind rustled tree branches, I heard only screaming. Laughing.

  “You should trust us more, Steel-Eye!” they said.

  I screwed my eyes shut. My cousin meant well, she did. I am certain she set out to do nothing more than berate me, possibly congratulate me. But she did not know what was going on in my mind at the time. She could not have known what a storm would envelop me.

  My mother loved your mother.

  My mother wanted to bed your mother.

  What did she think, then, of the two of us?

  And why did Otgar use my mother’s birth name?

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. When we reached the barracks, the guards questioned me. Who was this other … woman? A pause there. They meant to say “barbarian,” of course, but they did not know if Otgar spoke Hokkaran.

  “Dorbentei Otgar Bayasaaq is my name,” she said, sounding for all the world as if she were born and raised in Fujino. “I am Barsalai Shefali’s cousin.”

  “True cousin?” said the guard.

  “No,” said Otgar. “False cousin. I was creat
ed from a vat of clay by my mother, who happened to be Burqila’s sister.”

  The guards blinked.

  “Yes!” snapped Otgar. “I am her true cousin!”

  It was only after some muttering that they let us in. I had Otgar wait outside while I spoke to you. I found you pacing our rooms, racked with worry. You, too, held me tight; you covered my face in burning kisses; you smelled me; you whispered into my ear that you missed me. In your embrace, I felt human again. Something about your voice drowned out the chorus of insults.

  “Fool Qorin,” you said. “Leaving in the middle of the night. I thought…”

  I squeezed your arm. I was here. That was the important thing.

  “Did you get any rest?” you said.

  Pain in my chest. You fell asleep so quickly, and so deeply, that you had not noticed I left most nights.

  I did not want to lie to you. If I did, the demons would approve. Nothing they approved of was good. Beyond that, it is hard to look at you and lie. It is as if the truth shines from your eyes.

  But all this was becoming so heavy. My mother and her feelings, whatever they were. Otgar’s strange outburst.

  The demon blood coursing through my veins.

  I could not do this alone.

  “No,” I said. “I do not sleep anymore.”

  Your amber eyes widened; you paused. You looked as if someone had struck you. I regretted speaking—I hated seeing you like this, knowing that my state of existence brought you pain.

  “Shefali,” you said. You cupped my face. “My love. We will find some way to heal you, and we will leave this place soon. You and I will find some place all our own. We will find somewhere quiet, somewhere you can ride your horse, and I will be safe from the court’s prying eyes. And we will find a way to heal you. This I swear.”

  The only way to cure me is to kill me, I think, but I did not say that to you then. For you were so full of hope. Gods, Shizuka, it is so hard to look at you sometimes. I feel as if my whole being bends to your will; as if I have no choice but to follow wherever you may lead. What a terrible thing, to love someone so completely! What awful joy!