by Devin Madson
I slowed my pacing and halted, heaving a sigh. “Then how do I make them respect me? How do I prove it if nothing I have done so far—not even the taking of Syan—has achieved it?”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. “You want my advice, but I’m afraid all I can do is lay before you two contradictory paths. The one I would have you follow as the commander of your Imperial Guard, with thought only to your safety. And the one I would have you follow were I not considering that and speaking only as Hade Ryoji.”
The gravity of his words, of his tone and his bearing and his expression, acted upon me like a weight and I sank to the ground, kneeling with my hands clenched upon my knees. “Tell me,” I said, breathless.
“All right, first, as the commander of your Imperial Guard, I advise you to swallow your pride. Ask them for advice you don’t need. Play the part they want you to play. And make peace with the fact that the men who control your army will always have more power over it than you do, but if you let them get on with it without interference, they will let you do what you wish with the rest of the empire.”
“Be a puppet ruling in name and not in actuality?”
“Exactly. It is safest not to fight powerful men. Most are like sleeping snakes. Content to lie still while the world is the way they wish it, but fast to strike should you seek to oust them from their warm rock.”
I nodded slowly, thinking of the generals who had granted me power and how fast they could take it away. “And the other piece of advice?”
Ryoji’s lips twitched into a rueful smile. “Overturn the rock. Get rid of them all. Replace them with people who are loyal to you, or even better, people who share the same vision for Kisia as you do. Rebuild the whole system of administration if you have to.” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be easy and it wouldn’t be quick. Change everything too fast and you’ll carry no one with you. Change too slow and you’ll give them time to fight back. It would take careful planning, patience, and determination, and you will put your life in constant danger to see it done.”
“Yet it is what you would ask of me. For yourself.”
“For Kisia and all Kisians.” He sat back. “You have allies in this already. General Yass and General Alon would be on your side. I do not pretend to know what the Levanti want or whether they will stay, but keeping them while you can is wise for your protection. And you may find a few surprising allies in places you don’t expect. Enemies of your enemies.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged again. “For the most part it’s hard to tell while the empire is so fractured, but of those close to hand I think Minister Oyamada is more valuable than he appears. But there will be plenty of time to discuss such things and observe those around you if you choose to walk that path. Think about it,” he said as he got to his feet. “Because once you start there’s no going back. It’s not a small task, but a lifetime commitment. I am not sure your mother could have done it, but you…”
The words hung there, as close to a declaration of faith as he would allow himself at so precarious a moment, a moment when he had shown exactly where his loyalties lay. With Kisia. With me.
“Get through tomorrow first,” he said when I didn’t answer. “Then we can talk again. What happens at Kogahaera could change much.”
“About tomorrow,” I said, gnawing my lower lip.
“What about it?” There the wary Ryoji I knew so well.
I met his gaze, something rueful in my own. “I have been informed by newly arrived Levanti that there are some Kisian soldiers to the north. I don’t know how many, but enough that the Levanti who found them called it an army.”
His eyes narrowed and I knew what he was thinking. I ought to have informed the council about them, but I hadn’t. Had never planned to. Not from the moment the words had left Rah’s lips. What trust I’d had with Minister Manshin had been strained to breaking point over my refusal to get rid of the Levanti.
“More soldiers?”
“Yes, some of the northern battalions cut off from the main force, perhaps, I don’t know.”
“It seems most likely. What are you thinking?”
Gnawing my lip again, having gone over and over the idea that had sprung into my head, hating that the best way to be sure of them was to leave me vulnerable. “I am thinking,” I said slowly, “that you have to go. Alone.” He parted his lips to retort, but I hurried on. “If they are northerners you are the best person to rally them. And you are the only person I trust now. Others can ensure my safety, but no others can ensure these men will fight for me.”
Ryoji frowned, thinking through my words for a long time. A thoughtfulness I ought to value, but which only made me fidget impatiently. “There is much in what you say, Majesty,” he said at last. “But there will be many questions over where I am if, as I recommend, this is to be kept between us.”
“That cannot be helped. We will think of some story or other to account for your sudden absence. A letter. From a dying… aunt. Something better than that,” I added when he laughed. “I am tired and have run out of good ideas.”
“It’ll have to be better than that, because you can be sure more than one of your generals is already suspicious that Rah e’Torin is away on a secret mission for you.”
“How I wish that was true. He isn’t even on a mission to aid the Levanti.”
His brows lifted, perhaps at the bitterness in my tone, perhaps at the still more knowledge I had kept from my council.
“I understand he is saving… a friend in trouble.”
“Interesting timing.” When I made no answer, he added, “I’ll think of a good lie. As long as you’re sure about this. Your reasoning is sound, but it goes against every instinct to leave you at such a time, even with men I trust.”
“My generals may disagree with me, but I think we are not yet so far beyond disagreement that they would consider killing me. Kisia is not secure enough and they are not united enough. And if we win tomorrow, perhaps they will not dislike me so much after all.”
“I dislike the idea of you riding into battle without me.”
“I did it at the battle of Risian. And at Mei’lian. Of course I would rather have you with me than not, but there will be plenty of soldiers to protect me, and I am quite capable of looking after myself.”
It was false assurance, I knew, but how could I admit I was more afraid of my own generals than I was of the coming battle?
I may not have said it, but he seemed to understand all the same. And in a gesture so much more that of the surrogate father he had been, he set his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I know you are, Miko, you are everything I trained you to be and everything that would have made your mother proud. Take care of yourself while I am gone. Be careful who you trust and who you put your faith in. Watch everyone.”
I nodded, having no voice with which to thank him. There was a sense of rightness about the moment, of comfort, but I was sure though we didn’t speak it we were both thinking the same thing. Wondering if Mama was still alive. If we would ever see her again. If she would truly be proud of me. Of us. And in the wake of such a moment I couldn’t but fear I would lose my way as she had done. That one day grief and anger would destroy me too.
23. CASSANDRA
As our body slipped toward sleep, my consciousness shifted away, flitting like a firefly through the night. It had been far smoother in Saki’s hands, the sense of flying with purpose, in one direction, not this wandering and loss.
The voice drew me first. Unus, his whisper a frantic, breathless thing. “He must be dead. There is still pressure, like… like a weight against my skull, but it’s only coming from one place now. I don’t know. I… don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Whatever it is, I’m here.”
No reply, just the touch of a forehead to my shoulder and he was gone, cold air opening up around me. Dawn brightened the sky out the window. Birds were waking with their morning songs, and servants were moving on
quiet steps through the house. Minister Manshin’s house.
I sat silent and stared as Kaysa stared, waiting, listening, needing to be sure we were alone. No other sounds, no shifting of fabric or weight, no footsteps or voices.
Kaysa?
Her fingers stopped tapping on the windowsill. “Cassandra,” she said, a whisper spoken to the cool glass. “What do you want?”
To stop Leo harming Empress Miko.
A little sneer turned her lips. “Saw that, did you?”
I did. And I don’t know what weird shit is going on with him, but—
“Weird shit? How can you say that when we’ve shared a body all these years listening to the call of the dead? He’s like me, Cassandra. Trapped. Forced into being something—someone he’s not because they are stronger than him. Unus is not the same person as the others. Here. It’s even in the book you ought to have read.”
She lifted us off the window seat and strode to where a short pile of books sat upon a table. I recognised the one we had taken from the Witchdoctor before she slid it from the bottom. Its spine cracked as she opened it and began rifling through the pages, all dry and smooth between her fingers, until she found the one she wanted. Running a fingertip along a line, she started to read.
While most souls split by this anomaly are one of a pair—each a half soul born into different bodies—there are very rare instances where one of those halves is further split. Split in half again is the most common of these, but higher degrees have existed. In one particular case, that of Memara 21, the already split soul was further divided into six, each therefore technically one-twelfth of a soul, as half already resided inside the Mystic. Adding to the rarity of this case, all seven (the Mystic and the six Memaras) were born of the same mother in the same birth, an anomaly I have only seen a handful of times.
She looked up. “Do you see what I mean? The six Memaras are the same person, but they are connected through Unus. Their Mystic. And the sheer… force of them has all but destroyed him. Only now that so many of them are dead is he beginning to have any control over himself.”
How many of his other halves are left?
“Two. Septum and Duos. God only knows why I’m telling you this.”
I could feel her fear like leaves trembling against my skin. In all the time we had lived side by side in the same body, I had never felt so present with her. My fault, I knew, for never letting her be anything but a beaten-down voice in the back of my head.
And if they were both dead?
“We don’t know. Without one of them he might die. It has to be Septum though, he’s the only one that has no weight. They’re all connected, you see. Unus can block the others out for a short time now they’re weaker, but he’s not strong enough to stop them seeing his thoughts. Speaking through his lips. Filling his mind with their… nonsense. Which is why I want to help him. Why I understand him.”
Guilt stabbed deep at how she had been forced to live, lacking all freedom. I tried to imagine it, imagine the fear I had felt whenever she forcefully took control of my body, except it had been for her whole life. I had always been stronger. She’d never really had a life at all.
For a time, neither of us said anything. I could not read her thoughts, had never been able to even when we shared a body, a mind. Perhaps because she had been forced to make herself small, or because my own troubles and thoughts had always been so loud.
“How are you?” she asked, eventually breaking a silence that had become almost companionable.
Frustrated. Useless. Trapped. Sorry.
“That is probably the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “And the empress?”
Tired. And swamped with guilt and grief. But she’s determined to help her daughter now, even though she was ready to die back at the Witchdoctor’s house until he saved her.
“He didn’t save her. You did.”
It was a statement of fact, not spoken to make me feel better, only to correct a mistake, but it struck me with more force than she had intended or could even guess. I had tried to save her, had gone into Hana’s head to shout at her, had shaken her and insisted she could not give in, but she had died anyway. Died with my hands upon her, leaving my soul to tumble into this new empty vessel. Only I’d brought her back. Somehow, I had brought her back.
Only to make no difference. We had achieved nothing. Had not even reached her daughter, let alone been able to help her. Able to change the world.
“You should go before he comes back,” Kaysa said. “Just in case it’s not Unus.”
I was reluctant to leave, more comfortable there with her than I could remember ever being, a warm sense of having come home after a long time away. But it was too dangerous to stay longer, so I shouted until the empress woke and I was once more gasping for a full breath that wouldn’t come, cold upon damp sheets.
“He really is a mess,” I said, sharing all I had discovered with the empress as we lay sluggish and dozy on the mat.
She definitely said there was a chance killing Duos could kill Unus too? That they might not survive without the other?
“Assuming Septum doesn’t have enough soul to maintain the link, I suppose so. Asking the Witchdoctor would be better than asking me though.”
He isn’t here.
“Neither is Duos.”
No, but if killing Duos could kill Unus, then killing Unus—
“Could kill Duos.”
We lay still, heart pounding. It could work. One more assassination and we could be rid of them all. Forever. No more rebirths. No more manipulations. Gone. The final completion of my contract with Secretary Aurus.
It won’t be easy.
“No, but it—”
—would change everything.
Hard to imagine going back to a life that wasn’t ruled by this man. This problem. That with one strike of a blade we could save Miko. Could save Kisians and Chiltaens from dying for one all-too-powerful man’s delusions of grandeur.
To see it through would be difficult. We’d done difficult jobs before, jobs with a narrow window of time to kill, or where there was likely to be a dozen others around at the same time. A man who could read your mind and knew you were coming was far worse, yet it was Kaysa I thought of. Kaysa, who had found a purpose in Unus, in at last being able to help someone, in healing some of her own hurts by fixing another troubled soul. God, how she would hate me for this.
There isn’t another way. We can’t do nothing.
“I know.”
Dawn light speared through the high window, turning everything it touched to pale gold. It was the hour of the dawn prayer, and panic jolted through me. Leo could be next door with Yakono. Could have heard all of our thoughts. All our plans.
Heart thudding, I strained to catch the sound of Leo’s voice through the wall. Nothing. To be sure, I rolled over and said, “Do you know why the devotees of the One True God pray to the rising sun?”
There was a pause and a shifting of weight. A clink of chain. And it was Yakono who replied. Just Yakono. “No. Is it not to thank God for providing the day?”
“No, it’s not actually part of the devotions to the One True God, but you see, when the missionaries first came to Chiltae it was part of our religion, to pray for the rising and the setting of the sun, so they just… let us keep doing it and said it was part of their religion too. To lessen resistance to adopting a new god.”
Allovian had whispered the truth the day he’d found me locked in one of the storerooms at the hospice. The other children had wanted to stop me making my prayers so God would strike me down as I deserved.
“A Blessed Guard told me all about it when I was young. I think of him whenever I make the morning prayer, more than God. Blasphemous, isn’t it?”
Yakono shuffled against the wall. “How… cynical.”
“Of me or of the missionaries who brought their God to us?”
“Both?”
I laughed and rested my head
against the wall. “What were you brought up to believe in?”
“The Ethical Precepts.”
“The… what? Are they a… group of gods, or…?”
“Oh no, not gods, we don’t believe in any great… unknowable being. Just in, well, a way to live that’s right. You don’t worship or pray to them, you just practise. There is a sort of confession, like what your priests do, where daily failures to live by the precepts are turned into moments of learning. We sit down together in the evening to share our failures from the day and what we did to make up for them, what we learned from them, and what we would do differently next time. It’s a very… comforting thing, really, knowing every day you will fail and that’s all right, because you can be better tomorrow.”
“To fail again?”
It was his turn to laugh. “Yes, but it’s never the same failure if you learn from your previous mistakes.”
“Let me get this right, your religion is that you live to fail every day?”
“And to learn from that failure. Yes.”
It sounded both terrifying and exciting, the idea of not bowing to a mystical entity, just trying to live a good life. But the amount of work, of self-awareness, of… openness and honesty and trust it would take was staggering.
“What are the precepts?”
“Be honest with yourself and others. Be generous with your time and heart. Show courage in the performance of the precepts. Lift others with kindness. Be trustworthy and repay all trust with loyalty. Help those in need. Selflessness is—”
“Wait, you live by all of those?”
“I try to.”
I let out a breath I’d been holding, making my chest ache. “I think maybe you are the best person I’ve ever met.”
