The Tiger's Daughter

by K Arsenault Rivera

  “Leave me,” I said, pulling the pillows over my head.

  It placed its hand on the small of my back and I thrashed, I spun, I punched and clawed. I screamed. It melted away from every blow like a flickering shadow. Like Leng, like Shao, like the thing I was becoming.

  “Leave me! I do not want you!” I yelled, pressed up against the tarp, clutching my bedroll. “Haven’t you bothered me enough? Haven’t you … I do not want to be like you!”

  The Not-You sat laughing at my misery. How cruel it is, Shizuka, to see a face so like yours in such a state. How cruel to have the one person you love above all others laughing at your pain.

  Someone opened the tent flap. I braced myself for Otgar or Temurin or my mother. Instead, it was you. The real you, bandaged and swaying. At the sight of your radiance, the Not-You dissipated.

  I scrambled for you and embraced you.

  “Shefali,” you said, cupping my ear, “what is the matter, my love?”

  “Your wound…”

  You kissed me. A measure of my panic slipped away, as if you breathed it in. “It is a small thing,” you said, “soon healed. Wounds do not bother us. Remember the tiger?”

  I touched my own bandages. The skin beneath felt solid and whole. I frowned. With my knife, I cut through the gauze.

  Sure enough, the gaping gash I’d gotten earlier that day was already healed. Only a faint line remained, a bit lighter than the rest of my skin. I tore off the bandages and tossed them to the edge of the tent, far from you.

  You reached out to touch the skin, but I waved you away. No. Too risky. You could not touch me. Not yet. Not until I was sure that I wasn’t contagious. You drew away only slightly.

  “Shefali,” you said, “I heard you screaming.”

  “Nothing,” I said, wrapping my arms around my knees.

  “Nothing,” you repeated. You laid your head against my shoulder, the one that had not had a knife in it earlier. This I allowed, if only to feel your hair against my skin. “Awful lot of noise, for nothing.”

  I stared at a spot on the floor.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  You sighed. “My love,” you said, “I am yours, no matter the circumstances. You know this, yes?”

  I flinched. “Do you know?” I asked. “About today?”

  Your grip relaxed. Pensive was your gaze. You, too, had picked a spot on the floor to stare at. Perhaps the same spot.

  “I do,” you said. “And I am still here. We will find someone who can help you. You are Barsalai Shefali, you slew a tiger at eight, a demon at sixteen! This…” You gestured to the bandages soaked in black. “This is something to slay. We will face it. Together.”

  You shifted, so that you were in front of me, and you took my face in your hands. The tips of our noses touched. Your brown-gold eyes warmed my spirit.

  “And no matter what happens, Shefali, I know who you really are,” you said. You brushed your fingertips over my heart. “The person who killed those people was not you. I will have relief brought to the town. But you and I, we are going to Xian-Lai. We are going somewhere far away from prying eyes. Somewhere quiet, where the voices cannot rule you.”

  And then you chuckled.

  “After all,” you said, “I should be the only Empress on your mind.”

  We laced our fingers together. You cleared the hair from my face and kissed my forehead.

  “What if I never get better?”

  “You will,” you said.

  I do not know what imbues you with your confidence. I think I trust more in your decisiveness than in the sun rising every morning. I have never seen you falter, never seen you think anything over for more than a few seconds at a time.

  At times your confidence is a terrible thing. It’s what led us into Imakane bathhouse, what led us into the abandoned temple, what led us into that clearing in Fujino where the tiger found us. But it is also what makes your calligraphy so prized, why you are without equal as a swordsman. It is why I have always trusted you.

  Of course I would get better. You will not allow anything else to happen.

  And yet we sat in the tent near Imakane. There was blood beneath my dark fingernails and flecks of bone in my hair.

  “Together,” you said. You lay in my lap. The thought occurred to me—it would be so easy to snap your neck. You knew what I’d done, and you lay there anyway.

  But you fell asleep in my lap without a trace of fear.

  On that day, stories began to spread. The Demon of the Steppes. The Living Blackblood. The Manslayer. We would not hear the first of these until we were in Xian-Lai. We would not know how the villagers perceived me.

  For in their eyes, I was as terrible, as awesome, as frightful as the Mother in all her fury.

  And yellow-scarved bandits, for the first time since your mother’s death, kept watch all through the night, afraid that I would come for them.

  In the morning, when dawn’s fingers crept into the sky, Otgar came to the tent. Red pinpricks dotted her face, mostly below the eyes; her already full cheeks were puffier than usual.

  “Barsalai, Barsatoq,” she said. “Burqila wishes to speak with you.”

  I squeezed your hand. You shook the sleep out from your head and stood. When I thought you might fall—you’d lost a lot of blood the day before—I offered you my arm. Did you notice how I trembled?

  The ger was only a few steps away, but we might as well have been walking to Gurkhan Khalsar. White felt was not so far from white snow. Kharsas retreated to both when they needed time to think. If mountains were made of felt, they’d be gers, I think.

  When someone is summoned to Gurkhan Khalsar, it is a momentous thing. They must take the winding path around the mountain, not the one carved into it by Grandfather Earth. Half a day it takes to climb the mountain this way. Some fall. The path is narrow. The summons always comes in the middle of the night—stepping on the bones of your predecessors is a real danger. After all, no one can remove anything from the mountaintop. The whole of it is sacred, even the bodies of those who died climbing it.

  No bones barred the path to my mother’s ger. No real ones. But I swear to you, I saw them all the same. Faded deels and clumps of hair; off-white bones turned black with dirt and grime. I stared at my feet the entire time we walked, not out of nervousness, but out of fear. With each step, I hoped I would not hear crunching beneath my boot.

  Yet I knew the bones were not there. In my mind, I knew they were not there, that they could not be real—what were Qorin corpses doing so far north? They’d not been here yesterday. No, I was seeing things again.

  But Shizuka, it was so real to me. More than once, my boot met something hard, something that creaked when I put my weight on it. I jumped away, staring at the spot.

  “Shefali,” you’d whisper under your breath, “they are only shadows, my love. Walk in the light with me.”

  You took my hand.

  In full view of Temurin and Qadangan, in full view of my aunt and uncle, in full view of Otgar, you took my hand.

  I clung to it as we entered the ger.

  My mother sat on the eastern side, on her makeshift throne. She wore a fine green deel, embroidered with golden triangles that almost shone against her deep brown skin. Emeralds glinted in her hair, too, as beads on the ends of her many braids. She was stooped low with her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. When we entered, her mossy eyes flickered up.

  I do not think I’ve seen her more pained.

  Otgar stood at my mother’s right. And there is a certain way people stand when they are …

  I squeezed your hand.

  My mother began signing.

  “Barsalai Shefali Alsharyya,” she said, through Otgar. “Barsatoq Shizuka Shizuraaq. You stand before Burqila Alshara Nadyyasar, Grand Leader of the Qorin, Breaker of Walls. You stand in her ger awaiting judgment.”

  I stiffened. This was a trial?

  But, then, I deserved no less. If anyone else in the clan had done what I did, m
y mother would’ve put them down on the spot. This was her being gracious. This was her mercy. This was her sorrow.

  “Yesterday, Barsalai slew ten people,” my mother signed. “We know this, as we have counted the remains. Ten. Only one died to an arrow. Nine, then, Barsalai slew with her own two hands.”

  I hid the offending hands behind my back. My teeth felt awkward in my mouth now, as well—every time I moved my tongue, I risked cutting it open. My fingers, my teeth—alien parts that did not belong to me. Evidence of what I’d done.

  “They were bandits, Burqila,” you said. “They held an entire village prisoner. Barsalai did what I would’ve done, had I not been wounded.”

  My mother scowled. Her signing now was sharp and sudden.

  “You would’ve drowned them? With your bare hands?” Otgar said. She could not keep herself composed. Her voice cracked; her shoulders shook. Still my mother signed. “Barsatoq, I knew your mother well, and I delivered you myself. If you had not been wounded, we’d have ten corpses with neat, slit throats. Not bits of bone and organ scattered across a floor.”

  “She was angered, Burqila,” you protested. You knew better than to raise your voice—that would not help your case at all—but you spat flame nonetheless. “What would you have done if someone hurt my mother in front of you?”

  My mother half rose from her seat. She raised her hand, then set it back down. Fury on her face, she finally shaped her trembling signs.

  “It is not the same, Barsatoq. Do not presume. In Hokkaro, you may be an Empress, but this is my ger, and the whole of the world beneath Grandmother Sky is my empire,” Otgar translated. “I love you dearly as my own blood—but you will not speak to me in such a fashion.”

  You scrunched your face in response to this. There was more you wanted to say, but you would not. For now, you would not.

  A pause. My mother took an audibly deep breath. Then she continued.

  “Barsalai,” she said through Otgar. “I find myself conflicted. Killing bandits is not a problem. Foul people deserve what befalls them. But killing them as you did is not permissible; you’ve known this since your childhood. Yet … yet there are other things on your mind.

  “I do not know the extent of your illness. I do not know if it is permanent. I do not know if you will suddenly die tomorrow, or if you will once more tear people apart because you are angry.

  “You have done many things, my daughter, my blood. In your youth, you slew a tiger. You and your cousin sneaked out to fight a demon when you were only ten. So you sneaked out again, with Barsatoq, to do the same.

  “You at sixteen slew this demon, too. You have allowed the people of Shiseiki to reclaim their temple, and that is a good and noble thing.

  “But…”

  Otgar stopped. My mother, too, stopped, making a fist near her forehead. She screwed her eyes shut.

  “You are my daughter,” Otgar creaked. “From birth I have been with you. I have kept you warm, I have fed you, on the steppes where these things have weight. I taught you to fire a bow, I taught you to read and write. At every turn, you’ve repaid me. If I am remembered for nothing in this world other than giving birth to you, I think I should be pleased.

  “But there is a shade about you, Shefali. There is a cruel darkness that was not there yesterday. You are a Kharsa; you will not succumb. I know this to be true. In eight years’ time, you will break your demons and ride them into battle.

  “But until that day, I cannot…”

  Again, a pause. Otgar turned toward my mother. I think she might’ve whispered something. I did not hear her. Then once more they turned.

  “I cannot allow you to travel with our people,” Otgar said, choking on the words. “I cannot claim you as my own. You are not my daughter when you do these things—you are the tiger’s. And you will wear her name, not mine. Barsalyya Shefali Alshar you will be, until the day we are certain you can control your outbursts.”

  We Qorin were sired when Grandmother Sky lay with wolves. Long have they envied us, for Grandmother Sky favors us over them in all things. We ride strong horses while they lope through the night; we hunt with bow and sword where they must use their teeth. But at our cores, we are the same.

  Wolves do not travel alone, and neither do Qorin. You hear of lone Qorin in stories. A woman who murders her Kharsa might be cast out. A man who steals a mare from the Kharsaq’s family, too, would be cast out. Deserters, killers, horse-thieves, and traitors. These are the people left to wander clanless.

  And so my cousin’s voice was a bow, and my mother’s words the arrow. For the first time since my sickness, I ached, really ached; cold disbelief froze me in place. I tried to draw breath but could not.

  Exile. She was exiling me. I was not going to see my family again; I was going to wander the world with only you at my side. Never again would I enjoy kumaq; never again would I dance around the fire to a sanvaartain’s two-voiced songs.

  Not even to be able to hear my true name …

  “You cannot be serious,” you said. “Shefali is your only daughter! And you abandon her when she needs you most!” Your voice was shrill, sharp, as if speaking such things cut your throat from the inside.

  My mother rose. She met your eyes with unwavering determination. Her fingers moved in heady motions, like hammers striking nails.

  “I do not abandon her,” Otgar said. “I leave her with you. The two of you had plans to travel, did you not? Go. Travel. Return when you are yourself once more.”

  You stormed toward her. “How dare you,” you said. “My mother would be—”

  I squeezed your shoulder. That was not something you wanted to say. You did not want to start that fight, not with my mother, not with the woman who loved Shizuru as much as your father did. This was not a negotiation.

  It was a trial, and I was guilty.

  You turned toward me. I shook my head.

  Otgar handed me a package: rough-spun cloth tied with twine. “This is your mother’s parting gift,” she said. “May it keep you safe from harm, Cousin.”

  And that was that. It was final.

  Exile.

  I embraced my mother.

  She stroked my hair and pressed a kiss into it. It was a good embrace—warm, loving, and strong. Tears dropped onto my deel; I pretended they were not there. A Kharsa does not cry in public.

  But then, my mother never assumed that title.

  Otgar soon joined us, wrapping her arms as best she could around Alshara and me. “Be safe, Shefali,” she said. “We will be waiting for your return.”

  No, they won’t.

  I squeezed them tighter.

  They won’t mourn you, Steel-Eye.

  I bit into my tongue. No. I wanted to enjoy this moment while I could. I wanted to remember my mother’s smell, remember Otgar’s. For just two minutes, I wanted to forget what I’d learned.

  Don’t they smell alike?

  Bile rising in the back of my throat. Within this warm embrace, I began to shake.

  Otgar drew away first. She frowned. “Are you all right?”

  But as she spoke, her face changed. A second mouth opened up; a fat gray tongue the size of my arm rolled out of it. Slobber drenched her deel. Now her teeth came to a point as mine did.

  “Are you all right?” she said with her first mouth.

  “Thank the Sky you are leaving,” said the second.

  I freed myself of them, covered my ears with my hands.

  “Shefali?” you said, but I was already going. Eyes closed. Do not open them. Opening them meant seeing things I knew weren’t real.

  No.

  Better to pack up my tent, throw it onto my packhorse, and mount Alsha. Better to feel her heart thrumming between my legs, hear her nickering, better to strap myself into the saddle.

  But as I neared the tent, you took me by the wrists. “Shefali,” you said, “look at me.”

  But what if it wasn’t you? What if the Not-You learned how to speak in your tone, what if I was still
in my tent and this was all a nightmare?

  By all the gods in the world, Shizuka, there is nothing worse than doubting your own senses.

  “Look at me,” you said again.

  When my eyes remained fixed on the ground, you took my right hand, turned it upward. With your fingertip you traced the thick white scar on my palm. Nail dragged across skin. My palm tingled the longer you touched it.

  I took a deep breath and focused on that, instead of the voices.

  “Together,” you whispered. “Come what may, we will always be together.”

  The words are so bitter to me now, Shizuka, that I fear they will burn the paper I write on. The scent of dried pine is nowhere to be found here.

  Together.

  We left not long after that. I could not bring myself to return to the ger and face my family after being so overcome. My mother did not get to sniff my cheek for one last time. We bundled our tent, our meager belongings, and we rode away from my mother’s ger.

  It was only once we were gone that I opened the package. Pangs of sorrow twisted my stomach. There, neatly folded, was the tiger-skin deel I’d made for my mother when I was eight. A small piece of parchment lay atop the deel, bearing my mother’s neat Qorin handwriting.

  Tiger stripes, for the woman who earned them.

  I wore that deel all throughout our journey to Xian-Lai. In the cold of the winter, I wore it. When the last snows began to melt, I wore it. My mother wore it so long that it still smelled of her. In that way, I did not feel quite so abandoned. If I could smell her, then a piece of her soul traveled with me, after all.

  IF IT WERE MY WISH TO PICK THE WHITE ORCHID

  Has anyone ever told you that you are awful at camping?

  This is, I think, the first you’ve heard of it, and for that I apologize. You know my love for you is boundless; you know I would condemn the entire Heavenly Family if only you asked me. That is why I am telling you now, from several thousand li away, that you are terrible at camping.

  Well—all right. Terrible is an overstatement. I have to remind myself that you spent most of your life cooped up in the Jade Palace, or within the walls of Fujino. That’s no place to learn basic survival skills. My mother tried to teach you, and I think you might have tried to listen despite your arrogance (remember that I love you), but you were not yet up to Qorin standards when you left. Even when we were children it was like this. I would do all of the hunting, and the skinning, and set up the fire, and everything required for a comfortable existence. You set up the tent, you kept the fire going, and I think you’d learned to tell poisonous berries from safe ones. By the time we were adults you’d learned a little more: you could hunt small game, but not skin it; you could start a fire without any of your godly tricks, but only on a sunny day; you knew how to navigate, but only with a compass. By Fujino standards you were a hardened ranger.