By Qorin standards, you’d passed the standard weeklong test of not dying in the wilderness. My mother, exasperated at how long it had taken you to reach that level, probably would have left you to your own devices for an entire month if we’d stayed with her. Little did she know you’d cheated the first time, anyway.
Whenever we passed a tree, if it was the sort that bore edible fruit, you’d run your hands over its branches. Without fail, at least one fruit would grow right there before our eyes. You’d pluck it and toss it into my saddlebags (always mine), smirking at your little display of divinity. Sometimes you didn’t wait for us to see a tree—if you were in the mood for a particular herb, you’d grab your brush and paint the character for it on the ground. Over the course of an hour the named herb sprouted from the ground ready for harvesting. In this way you helped provide—your calligraphy was valuable, yes, but so were the spices you conjured up from nothing.
Not that many people wanted to trade with us.
“We wish we could,” said one farmer. “But the Yellow Scarves are passing through, looking for a Hokkaran noble and a Qorin girl.”
All through the side roads, we heard this. It gave us reason enough not to try the main roads; what if a patrol stopped us? If common farmers knew we were wanted, then I shuddered to think of guards. The good ones would avoid us. Corrupt ones might well try to take us in for the bounty.
Two weeks in—two weeks of sleeping in a tent, two weeks bathing in streams when we found them, two weeks of stringy rabbit and hard rice—you were fading.
I remember the morning I returned with one lonely hare hanging from my belt. I sat down by the fire to skin it. You practiced sword forms near the tent. When you saw me cut into the rabbit, you could not hide the disappointment on your face.
I stifled a flare of anger. Venison. You wanted venison. Had I seen a single deer roaming the tall emerald forests, we’d have venison. I spent all night and the better part of the morning stalking through the woods.
This rabbit was all I had to show for it.
“Shizuka,” I said.
You turned mid-stroke to face me and the fire. You did not stop your forms; of course you did not.
“Shefali?”
“My catch displeases you,” I said, biting into a rough spot on the rabbit’s neck. I hated my new teeth—I had scratches all over my tongue—but they did have uses. Hard to cut this angle without ruining the meat. Far easier to bite it.
And I got a taste of the raw meat that way, as well.
My comment made you stop. Your lips parted; you tucked in your chin. Your brows inched closer together. “I never said that.”
“No,” I said. I turned the rabbit upside down and began peeling off its skin. When you get the right slices in, skin sloughs off easy. It’s almost soothing. “You did not say it.”
In response, you sheathed your sword. You stood right in front of me with your hands on your hips. I glanced up at you and twisted off the rabbit’s head.
“If I did not say it,” you said, “why are you so certain? I’ve had rabbit every meal for two weeks. Why should today’s serving of rabbit upset me more than the others?”
My mind was flint; your words were steel.
I strung up the rabbit from the spit, wiped my hands on my deel, and turned to you. “Because you are spoiled.”
To say that you gaped at me would be putting it mildly. Your lips formed an O, your ear met your shoulder. But your hands did not leave your hips, and the shock on your face soon gave way to anger.
“Spoiled?” you repeated. “Shefali, we have eaten rabbit every day—”
“You’ve eaten it every day,” I said.
“No,” you said, pointing a finger at me. “Do not make this—Of course you have not eaten it, you are not well! I am the one who has to put up with it.”
There is a certain kind of thrill that comes to you in the heat of battle. Blood pounds in your ears like war drums, and you can almost taste your own heartbeat. Steel meets steel, makes your bones sing. Colors split into shades you cannot name. Everything comes into focus; every beat of a moth’s wings is a lifetime.
So it was arguing with you. I hated upsetting you, but there was a part of me that … it was like burning a wound.
“Would you prefer having blackblood?” I said.
You scowled. “You know I would not,” you said. “I cannot imagine how you suffer, my love, and I have done all I can to help you bear the weight. But is it so wrong of me to want something different to eat every now and again?”
I waved my hand toward the trees around us. “Go,” I said. And it was like nocking an arrow, like drawing back the string. “Find a deer.”
Everyone laughed.
No, no. The demons laughed.
You flinched. Fury crossed you like a bird’s shadow; you turned away from me for a moment.
Victory washed over me. I could almost feel everyone patting me on the back. I’d won; you had nothing to say. I’d won and—
“This is not like you,” you said. When you faced me again, two wet spots were on your lapel, and your amber eyes glistened. “Shefali, this is not like you.”
Oh.
All of a sudden, my chest hurt.
I hung my head. “I … I did not…”
You sat on my lap. Rabbit’s blood smeared onto your fine robes. In your hands, you took my head, and you held me close to your chest.
“I do not want to lose you,” you said. “Sometimes it’s as if you aren’t there at all. As if someone else is looking out from your eyes.”
Sky’s thunder, I didn’t mean to—
No. That was the worst part. I did mean to hurt you; that was why I said those things, why I acted the way I had.
“I’m here,” I said into your chest. “Me. Shefali.”
You held fast to me. And you said nothing, but I felt your tears falling on my head.
I will not lie and say things got better after that. I will not lie to you, who lived it, and say I changed my ways in that moment. For the rest of the day, we sat far away from each other. You spared me the occasional pained glance—no more.
I tried to think of something to say. If I just found the right combination of words—wouldn’t that fix everything? I wondered what your father did in situations like this. As a poet, he’d know the words needed. He’d know how to write them, which characters to use, how to hold his brush.
I was no poet. I could not read the characters of your name. You told me once, what they meant—how your mother chose your name but your father chose the characters. When we stayed in the palace, you held my hand as I went through the strokes.
“The first character,” you said, “my father did not have much choice in. All Minami women share it. This means ‘quiet.’”
You lifted the brush, and my hand, and continued.
“But this one,” you continued, “is the character for ‘excellence.’ My father thought it fitting that I was born with a reputation for it.”
We wrote your name again and again, yet I still could not recognize it if I tried. How was I going to put together the words I needed?
I watched you. I could not read Hokkaran, but I could read the slump of your shoulders, the creases of your lips. At the end of the day when you went to bed, you did not wait to see if I was coming with you.
So no. I did not voice how afraid I was of losing you. I would rather lose my right arm, Shizuka; I would rather lose my tongue. In that moment, I thought I’d rather lose an eye than lose you.
I spoke none of this.
But I did try to find you different food.
So it was I saddled Alsha and rode out down the side road after you’d gone to bed. There was a village not far from where we camped. When I arrived, it was just after Last Bell. Only drunkards, vagabonds, singing girls, sellswords, and minstrels stayed out at this hour. I was not overly concerned. If someone foolish attempted to rob me, they’d find no cash seals or heavy coins—only a knife and unresolved anger
.
Yet even these ne’er-do-wells spared an envious glance for me as I rode through town at night. Qorin horses are a fair sight larger than most Hokkaran steeds. Coupled with a likewise tall, dark-skinned rider, and I cannot say I blame them. You have always called me handsome, after all.
A throaty voice called to me. “Graymare-sur!”
I saw no other grays, save for a dappled silver gelding at rest in the stables. The woman was calling me, then. I admit I spared a small smile—calling an unknown Qorin by describing their horse is, perhaps, the most diplomatic thing a Hokkaran can do. “Horselover,” “brute,” “no-home,” these things I am deaf to. These notes blur together.
But Graymare, and Graymare-sur at that—these were new.
A woman stood on the veranda of one of the larger buildings. By its open door and the thick scent of smoke coming from it, it must be the village winehouse. She was not the only one standing outside: two other girls in bright robes flirted with men in armor a few steps away. But this girl was the only one looking at me.
I will describe her for you, since you have pictured her often, I am certain. Jealousy is as cutting as any knife—you might as well know what she looked like, I think, if you are going to hate her from a distance.
Like you, she was not tall—though I think she is a bit taller than you are. Where your hair is ink, hers was like charred wood: more dark brown than black. Round was her face, small and dainty her lips. She wore a two-layer green robe, with the first layer leaving her shoulders bare. There was only one ornament in her hair, a modest enameled orchid. Twenty-four, perhaps—not much older.
But she had a warm face, a welcoming face, like an old friend you’ve only just now met.
She waved toward me with the fan in her hand. “Graymare-sur, do you seek company tonight?”
Blood rushed to my cheeks. My first instinct was to say yes, to comment on the delicate silver stroke of her collarbone, to invite her somewhere private and—
I will not anger you, Shizuka. You know in those days the basest thoughts sprang to mind first. Rest assured, I thought of you asleep and banished the more lascivious thoughts.
Well.
No.
I cannot say that I banished them. I am honest with you in all things, and though it pains me, I must be honest when it comes to this woman. The way she smiled at me lit me up. Her skin was so smooth that I wondered how it would feel against mine. What were her hands like? For she would not have your duelist’s calluses.
It had been some time since I was treated so kindly by a Hokkaran. And I did have questions. Where to find food, for instance. I did not have any money, no, but perhaps a singing girl might know where to go when times are tough and stomachs are turning.
So I rode up to the winehouse. In one motion I dismounted.
“Stay put,” I said to Alsha in the tongue of swaying grass.
You’re the one doing the wandering, she said back to me.
That horse. At times I think the other Qorin are lucky that they cannot hear their horses truly speak to them. I’ve never met a horse who wasn’t fond of sarcasm. They’re worse than scholars.
I shook my head at Alsha. “Don’t make me tie you,” I said.
You wouldn’t dare, she said. And she was right, of course. With one word I told Alsha to stay put. I did not tie her to a post, as you might think I would. If anyone tried to steal her, I felt great pity for them, for soon they’d be lying on the street with several crushed bones.
The woman looked at my horse. As a child hearing tales of phoenixes and dragons gapes in excitement, so did she gape at Alsha. “Forgive me!” she said when I walked to her. “She’s the most beautiful mare I’ve ever seen, even among those my Qorin mentors had.”
Finally, someone who wasn’t hateful. Though it did set me wondering what a singing girl could learn from Qorin women. Hunting? Riding? She didn’t look like she did much of either.
It might please you to know that in smiling, I bared my pointed teeth, and the other girls on the veranda skittered inside.
But the one I was speaking to stayed. She opened her fan. I smelled jasmine.
“May I touch her?” she asked.
I shook my head. She was satisfied with this, and gave a small nod.
“Ah, understandable!” she said. “One cannot write the Son of Heaven’s name, one cannot touch that horse. All things divine are beyond mortal reach.”
Your voice is a lantern: bright and commanding. Hers is a campfire, warm and inviting, clinging to your clothes long after she has left.
I said nothing to this, for I could think of nothing to say. My experience dealing with attractive women, at that point, began and ended with you.
“You’re a quiet one,” she teased. With the tip of her fan, she touched my shoulder. “But I can make you sing, if you’re willing. Why don’t you come for a walk with me?”
She was not afraid to touch me. She’d seen my teeth, and they did not faze her—still she looked at me with eyes like ripe figs.
I do not know what came over me. But I can tell you it was warm as the first breeze of summer.
When I offered an earnest, if close-lipped, smile, she took my arm. She wore wooden sandals shorter than yours, and so her steps were a bit longer. I slowed my pace a great deal to keep up with her. One never thinks of how long one’s legs are until walking with someone shorter.
I thought of how to approach this. Should I ask right out if she knew where I might find some food for free? Should I listen to whatever she was going to say? For on her lips were unborn conversations.
One thing was for certain. I had to make it clear my intentions were not romantic. I had a goddess descendant waiting for me in a tent at camp, and I had to return to her soon. As pretty as this girl was, I could not allow myself to listen to my urges.
But those urges were doing their best to get my attention. She had a way of moving, you see. Deliberate and confident, as if she knew I could not keep my eyes off her. The more I watched her swaying hips, the more I imagined—
No. No, I could not. So what if Kharsas often took more than one lover? I was content with you.
As I opened my mouth to tell her I did not want those services, she opened hers and spoke.
“Do not be afraid,” she said, “but I know who you are.”
We’d come to a stop behind what I assumed to be an inn. Besides the two small horses in the stable, we had no company. I think that is what she was looking for. Yet still I searched, still I tried to see if she’d set me up for an ambush. I reached for a bow that was not there, fumbled for my knife. What if they were coming for me, the Yellow—?
“Shh, shh, shh, do not fear,” she said. “It’s only you and me. I’ve told no one. I swear to you eight times, I mean you no harm.”
Was she serious? Her brow, her gaze, even her posture—all colored with sincerity. She held her hands up as she spoke. They were larger than yours, but softer, too, and—
I didn’t have time.
One more glance around.
I took a breath. “You know?”
“Ah, you speak!” she said. She touched my chin. She wore a nervous smile and I wondered how often a singing girl smiles in such a way. “I was worried your condition affected your speaking. My brother, he told me you spoke at Imakane—”
“Brother?” I said.
She nodded. “My brother, Kato, he worked at the bathhouse,” she said. Now the words came tumbling out of her, and she could not stop herself from speaking. “When the Yellow Scarves attacked, he started praying to the Mother for a quick death. He told me some of the things he saw and…”
She took my hands in hers. She did not hesitate at all—she took my hands, with their talons, and cupped them between her palms. Then she touched her forehead to our joined palms.
“Thank you,” she said. “Eight times, I thank you. If you had not been there, Kato would’ve been tortured like the rest.”
Her voice cracked. Now tears poured from h
er sweet plum eyes, ruining the makeup she’d taken so long to apply. I stood there, unsure of what to do. Surely she could not be serious. Moved to tears, grateful for what I’d done? Touching me, knowing what color my blood ran?
I did not know this woman two hours ago.
Why was she so moved?
“The Yellow Scarves have been rampaging through Shiseiki for years now,” she said. “They come, two dozen, three dozen at a time, into the winehouse. They drink more than any ox I’ve ever met, talk more than any hen, and stink worse than pigs. Do they pay? Of course not. On a good day, they don’t kill anyone. That is payment, to them.”
And it occurred to me then what her line of work was. It occurred to me who would have the most coin in a town like this. Even before she continued, my heart ached for her.
“Then they bluster into our rooms, throw coin at us…”
She shook her head.
“No one stands up to them. The guards are too afraid. Foolish youths run off to join them every day; how else is anyone supposed to make a living, when the Yellow Scarves take it all?”
She squeezed my hands tight. There was such pain on her face, Shizuka. How long had the commoners been dealing with this? How long had she been dealing with it?
“Only you,” she said. “They call you the Demon of the Steppes, but you’re holy as a shrine maiden to me. You saved my brother. You made the Yellow Scarves fear again.”
I thought I must be dreaming, or else the demons must’ve figured out a way to make me live through illusions. A Hokkaran girl, a pretty Hokkaran singing girl, was thanking me for the monstrous display that made my own mother exile me. I was holy to her.
The Tiger's Daughter Page 27
