The Throne of the Five Winds
Page 1
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Lilith Saintcrow
Excerpt from Hostage of Empire: Book 2 copyright © 2019 by Lilith Saintcrow
Excerpt from The Rage of Dragons copyright © 2017 by Evan Winter
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover illustration by Miranda Meeks
Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Map copyright © 2019 by Charis Loke
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Emmett, S. C., author.
Title: The throne of the five winds / S.C. Emmett.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2019. | Series: Hostage of empire ; book 1
Identifiers: LCCN 2019000764 | ISBN 9780316436946 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 9780316558280 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.A3984 T48 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000764
ISBNs: 978-0-316-43694-6 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-55828-0 (ebook)
E3-20190912-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Epigraph
Translator’s Note
Little Light
Concern a Pearl
This Is My Pride
A Weighty Obligation
Remember Your Loyalty
A Single Blade
Unwelcome Reminder
Even a Kind One
Bears Watching
Braided Reeds
To Want to Live
A Pleasant Occasion
Above Pettiness
The Trouble to Learn
A Coward After All
A Sign of Delicacy
Even Familiar Cloth
Lost in Footwork
Much Else to Anticipate
Are Both Uses Possible
Both Due Respect
Stitchery
A Careful Study
Perhaps Regret
Let Me Win
They Weigh upon Me
Who Is Common
Wary and Prepared
This Is Not Well
A Blade of Higher Quality
A Delicate Balance
Attempt to Render More
Last Fading Flower
Serve a Paragon
Predictable Storm
Red Time
Insufferable Today
A Woman’s Battle
Brushstrokes
Etiquette of Visiting
Generous
Delicate Condition
Feasible
Of Service
Small Pain
Letters
Life’s Study
Second Father
Enticing Invitation
An Attentive Son
Tongues
Do Not Be Obtuse
Slow-Rising Bird
End Is Always Assured
Sudden Hurry
A Tranquil Heart
Such Ideas
Sign as It Pleases
An Unwitting Jug
To Promote Friendship
A Mighty Ally
I Suggest Before Lunch
First Session, Ladies’ Court
A Natural Betrothal
Find Other Amusement
Warrior Wife
Good Faith
Spur to a Tired Horse
A Prize Mare
Do as You Will
An Exciting Morning
Two Small Pearls
Less Decorative
Girl-Ring, Sinuous Snake
Bait, Sweetened
To Strike a Prince
Leave It to Me
A Matter for Hope
Filthy Little Corner
Trapped at a Feast
Speaks a Strategist
Pool of Deep Ink
Be Brief
Loose Ends
Much Disturbance
A Festival Dress
You Wish to Be Complimented
A Powerful Spark
Well in Hand
Metal of Necessity
Until They Have the Means
Character and Cleverness
The Honor of Understanding
Rare Birds
A Disagreeable Chore
Follow Your Example
Time for Action
It Only Takes One
To Sharpen Its Flavor
Practically Kisses
The Wrong Note to Strike
A Distorted Mirror
Horsekillers
An Offer, Interrupted
The Opposite of Luck
Sister’s Prayer
Simple Mourning
In Different Coin
A Prince of Shan
Lost Filly
Burdened with Your Life
So Much Consideration
Received the News
Acknowledgments
Discover More
Extras
Meet the Author
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Tot locis, tot incendis rerum natura terras cremat.
—Pliny the Elder
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
Like many languages, Zhaon, Khir, Shansian, Anwai-la, and Tabrakkin have many terms and forms of address with no direct equivalent in English. Every effort has been made to indicate, by note or context, when one is being used. Any errors are, of course, the fault of the translator.
LITTLE LIGHT
Above the Great Keep of Khir and the smoky bowl of its accreted city, tombs rose upon mountainside terraces. Only the royal and Second Families had the right to cut their names into stone here, and this small stone pailai1 was one of the very oldest. Hard, small pinpoints about to become white or pink blossoms starred the branches of ancient, twisted yeoyans;2 a young woman in blue, her black hair dressed simply but carefully with a single white-shell comb, stood before the newest marker. Incense smoked as she folded her hands for decorous prayer, a well-bred daughter performing a rare unchaperoned du
ty.
Below, the melt had begun and thin droplets scattered from tiled roofs both scarlet and slate, from almost-budding branches. Here snow still lingered in corners and upon sheltered stones; winter-blasted grass slept underneath. No drip disturbed the silence of the ancestors.
A booted foot scraped stone. The girl’s head, bowed, did not move. There was only one person who would approach while she propitiated her ancestors, and she greeted him politely. “Your Highness.” But she did not raise her head.
“None of that, Yala.” The young man, his topknot caged and pierced with gold, wore ceremonial armor before the dead. His narrow-nosed face had paled, perhaps from the cold, and his gaze—grey as a winter sky, grey as any noble blood-pure Khir’s—lingered upon her nape. As usual, he dispensed with pleasantries. “You do not have to go.”
Of course he would think so. Her chin dropped a little farther. “If I do not, who will?” Other noble daughters, their fathers not so known for rectitude as the lord of Komori, were escaping the honor in droves.
“Others.” A contemptuous little word. “Servants. There is no shortage.”
Yala’s cloud-grey eyes opened. She said nothing, watching the gravestone as if she expected a shade to rise. Her offerings were made at her mother’s tomb already, but here was where she lingered. A simple stone marked the latest addition to the shades of her House—fine carving, but not ostentatious. The newly rich might display like fan-tailed baryo,3 but not those who had ridden to war with the Three Kings of the First Dynasty. Or so her father thought, though he did not say it.
A single tone, or glance, was enough to teach a lesson.
Ashani Daoyan, Crown Prince of Khir newly legitimized and battlefield-blooded, made a restless movement. Lean but broad-shouldered, with a slight roundness to his cheeks bespeaking his Narikh motherblood, he wore the imperial colors easily; a bastard son, like an unmarried aunt, learned to dress as the weather dictated. Leather creaked slightly, and his breath plumed in the chill. “If your brother were alive—”
“—I would be married to one of his friends, and perhaps widowed as well.” Now Komor Yala, the only surviving child of General Hai Komori Dasho, moved too, a slight swaying as if she wished to turn and halted just in time. “Please, Daoyan.” The habit of long friendship made it not only possible but necessary to address him so informally. “Not before my Elder Brother.”
“Yala…” Perhaps Dao’s half-armor, black chased with yellow, was not adequate for this particular encounter. The boy she had known, full of sparkstick4 pride and fierce silence when that pride was balked, had ridden to war; this young man returned in his place.
Did he regret being dragged from the field to preserve a dynasty while so many others stood and died honorably? She could not ask, merely suspect, so Yala shook her head. Her own words were white clouds, chosen carefully and given to the frigid morning. “Who will care for my princess, if I do not?”
“You cannot waste your life that way.” A slight sound—gauntlets creaking. Daoyan still clenched his fists. She should warn him against so open a display of emotion, but perhaps in a man it did not matter so much.
“And yet.” There is no other option, her tone replied, plainly. Not one I am willing to entertain. “I will take great care with your royal sister, Your Highness.”
Of course he could not leave the battlefield thus, a draw achieved but no victory in sight. “I will offer for you.”
“You already would have, if you thought your honored father would allow it.” She bowed, a graceful supple bending with her skirts brushing fresh-swept stone. “Please, Daoyan.” Her palms met, and her head dropped even farther when she straightened, the attitude of a filial daughter from a scroll’s illustrations.
Even a prince dared not interrupt prayers begun before a relative’s tomb. Daoyan turned, finally, boots ringing through thin snow to pavers she had not attended to with her small broom, and left the pailai with long, swinging strides.
Yala slipped her hands deeper inside her sleeves and regarded the memorial stone. Bai, of course, would have sniffed at the prospect of his little sister marrying a man with an honorless mother, no matter if he had proven himself in war and the Great Rider had legitimized him. Bai would also have forbidden her to accompany Mahara. He was not the clan-head, but since he came of age their father had let him take heavier duties and listened to his counsel. Bai’s refusal would have carried weight, and Yala could have bowed her head to accept it instead of insisting upon her duty as a noble daughter must before a distinguished parent.
Perhaps that would have been best. Was the cringing, creeping relief she would have felt cowardice? The other noble families were scurrying to keep their daughters from Mahara’s retinue, marriages contracted or health problems discovered with unseemly haste. The Great Rider, weakened as he was by the defeat at Three Rivers and the slow strangling of Khir’s southron trade, could not force noble daughters to accompany his own, he could only… request.
Other clans and families could treat it as a request, but Komori held to the ancient codes. It was a high honor to attend the princess of Khir, and Yala had done so since childhood. To cease in adversity was unworthy of a Komor daughter.
Burning incense sent lazy curls of scented smoke heavenward. If her brother was watching, he would have been fuming like the sticks themselves. A slow smolder and a hidden fire, that was Hai Komori Baiyan. She could only hope she was the same, and the conquering Zhaon would not smother her and her princess.
First things first. You are to pay your respects here, and then to comfort your father.
As if there could be any comfort to a Khir nobleman whose only son was dead. Hai Komori Dasho would be gladdened to be rid of a daughter and the need to find a dowry, that much was certain. Even if he was not, he would act as if he were, because that was the correct way to regard this situation.
The Komori, especially the clan heads, were known for their probity.
Her fingertips worried at her knuckles, and she sighed. “Oh, damoi,5 my much-blessed Bai,” she whispered. It was not quite meet to pronounce the name of the dead, but she could be forgiven a single use of such a precious item. “How I wish you were here.”
She bent before her brother’s grave one last time, and her fingers found a sharp-edged, triangular pebble among the flat pavers, blasted grass, and iron-cold dirt. They could not plow quite yet, but the monjok6 and yeoyan blossoms were out. Spring would come early this year, but she would not see the swallows returning. The care of the pailai would fall to more distant kin from a junior branch of the clan.
Yala tucked the pebble in a sleeve-pocket, carefully. She could wrap it with red silken thread, decorate a hairstick with falling beads, and wear a part of both Bai and her homeland daily. A small piece of grit in the conqueror’s court, hopefully accreting nacre instead of dishonor.
There were none left to care for her father in his aging. Perhaps he would marry again. If Bai were still alive…
“Stop,” she murmured, and since there were none to see her, Yala’s face could contort under a lash of pain, a horse shying at the whip. “He is not.”
Khir had ridden to face Zhaon’s great general at Three Rivers, and the eldest son of a proud Second Family would not be left behind. The battle had made Daoyan a hero and Bai a corpse, but it was useless to Khir. The conquerors had dictated their terms; war took its measure, reaping a rich harvest, and Zhaon was the scythe.
Khir would rise again, certainly, but not soon enough to save a pair of women. Even a cursory study of history showed that a farm could change hands, and he who reaped yesterday might be fertilizer for the next scythe-swinger. There was little comfort in the observation, even if it was meant to ease the pain of the defeated.
For the last time, Yala bowed before her brother’s stone. If she walked slowly upon her return, the evidence of tears would be erased by the time she reached the foot of the pailai’s smooth-worn stairs and the single maidservant waiting, holding her mistress’s hor
se and bundled against the cold as Yala disdained to be.
A noblewoman suffered ice without a murmur. Inside, and out.
Hai Komori’s blackened bulk rested within the walls of the Old City. It frowned in the old style, stone walls and sharply pitched slate-tiled roof; its great hall was high and gloomy. The longtable, crowded with retainers at dinners twice every tenday, was a blackened piece of old wood; it stood empty now, with the lord’s low chair upon the dais watching its oiled, gleaming surface. Mirrorlight drifted, brought through holes in the roof and bounced between polished discs, crisscrossing the high space.
Dusty cloth rustled overhead, standards and pennons taken in battle. There were many, and their sibilance was the song of a Second Family. The men rode to war, the women to hunt, and between them the whole world was ordered. Or so the classics, both the canonical Hundreds and supplements, said. Strong hunters made strong sons, and Yala had sometimes wondered why her mother, who could whisper a hawk out of the sky, had not given her father more than two. Bai the eldest was ash upon the wind and a name upon a tablet; the second son had not even reached his naming-day.
And Komor Madwha, a daughter of the Jehng family and high in the regard of the Great Rider and her husband as well, died shortly after her only daughter’s birth.
Komori Dasho was here instead of in his study. Straight-backed, only a few thin threads of frost woven into his topknot, a vigorous man almost into the status of elder sat upon the dais steps, gazing at the table and the great hearth. When a side door opened and blue silk made its subtle sweet sound, he closed his eyes.
Yala, as ever, bowed properly to her father though he was not looking. “Your daughter greets you, pai.”
He acknowledged with a nod. She waited, her hands folded in her sleeves again, faintly uneasy. Her father was a tall man, his shoulders still hard from daily practice with saber and spear; his face was pure Khir. Piercing grey eyes, straight black hair topknotted as a Second Dynasty lord’s, a narrow high prow of a nose, a thin mouth, and bladed cheekbones harsh as the sword-mountains themselves. Age settled more firmly upon him with each passing winter, drawing skin tighter and bone-angles sharper. His house robe was spare and dark, subtly patterned but free of excessive ornamentation.
He was, in short, the very picture of a Khir noble—except he was not, as usual, straight as an iron reed upon his low backless chair with the standard of their house—the setting sun and the komor flower7—hung behind it.