by Paul Krueger
A chill ran through her. “You mean command knew about this man?”
The general shook her head. “We only guessed. They were all random massacres, mostly of Sanbuna or Shang troops caught unawares. Taken separately, they meant nothing. After all, it was a war. But eventually, we had a pattern that suggested we were dealing with something new…minus the proof, until now.” She sighed, then rose. “I’ll have security around the consulate doubled, then.”
“Wait, sir,” Tala said, getting to her feet. “Are you heading for the Palace of Steel right now?”
General Erega raised an amused eyebrow. “A rather direct question to pose your commanding officer and the head of your republic, don’t you think?”
The rebuke was gentle, and not even unkindly meant. But still a thought snarled to life in Tala’s mind: I could rip your shade from your soul, you hag. How’s that for direct?
The general’s expression frosted over. “Is something the matter, Lieutenant?”
The question spiked Tala back into the moment. Hastily, she composed herself as she stamped out those thoughts. “No, sir,” she said, straightening up. “But respectfully, I’d like to attend as part of the delegation. The Thirteen-Fifty-Two-Two and the crew of the Marlin gave everything for this mission. Seeing it through to the end is the least I can do to honor their memories.”
“You don’t have to prove anything anymore, Tala,” said General Erega. “You’ve been through enough. You should be resting. Eating me out of house and home. Switching to something harder than coffee,” she added, nodding to the mugs on the table.
Let’s see you try to stop me with your soul in tatters, Tala thought with sudden savagery, as her fingers flexed at her sides. But this time, she caught herself before the general noticed something was off about her. “The offer’s appreciated, sir, but I have to do this. Sir.”
General Erega sized her up a long moment. Then she said, “You’re not going dressed like that, soldier. I’ll have a uniform sent down. You and Lieutenant Barriga have about the same measurements. That’ll do for tonight, I think.”
The general was almost out the door when it finally sank in for Tala. “ ‘Lieutenant,’ sir?”
“I wondered how many more times I’d have to call you that before you noticed.” The general chuckled. “After everything you’ve been through, you didn’t really think I’d let you retire on an enlisted soldier’s pension, did you? Finish your food. We hit the road in twenty minutes.” The door shut behind her.
Tala only had three to herself before a woman, presumably Lieutenant Barriga, showed up carrying a neatly folded uniform. But she spent those three minutes staring at her hands and wondering what she’d almost done with them.
Her reception at the Shang consulate was chilly at best.
The hotel lobby was awash in pale-golden light, the kind that was supposed to make plain stuff look sumptuous. Instead it lent a strange hue to all the red rugs and wall hangings that had been put in place, and it stained all the white crane insignias a dingy piss yellow. In every direction, phones rang and consulate staffers rushed back and forth with armfuls of papers and documents. But when Lee strode in, they all turned to stare at her as if they were sharks who’d just smelled her like a drop of blood in water.
Wonder who’s less welcome here, she thought as she surveyed the frowning people around her. These two Kobaruto, or me?
Then she heard someone nearby mutter the word “Dogfucker.”
Definitely me.
“Who’s in charge?” she said to the nearest office drone.
“Get out of this building before you stain the floor,” the woman spat in reply. She didn’t even seem that curious about how a Jeongsonese person might have come to be all the way here in Hagane.
Her tone made Lee realize how much she’d been enjoying her little vacation from being surrounded by Shang. “Nothing I’d love more,” Lee said, then held up Prince Jimuro’s letter. She flashed its mountain seal. “But I’m not going anywhere until I deliver this, so if you’re gonna make me wait, I hope you’re all right never getting back your deposit on this place.”
At the sight of the letter, the drone’s eyebrows leapt straight up her forehead. “Give it here,” she said, holding out a hand and snapping her fingers.
“Snap those again, and I’ll bite one off,” Lee said. “I’m supposed to deliver this personally to whoever’s running things, and you look like you couldn’t even run a ship into the ground. Now get me someone important, because I’m bored with you.”
The woman sputtered in outrage, but abruptly turned on her heel and stormed off.
“That doesn’t sound like it went well,” one of the Kobaruto said mildly in Tomodanese.
“Oh, it went great,” Lee replied, beaming. “You just missed all the cultural nuance.”
When the drone returned, she had a pair of soldiers with her. “You come alone,” she said.
Lee snorted. “Only if my other option is you.” When the woman squinted at her, confused, Lee sighed. “Take my word for it: In Jeongsonese, that would’ve been hilarious.” She nodded to the two Kobaruto. “Go on. Tell His Brilliance it’s done.”
The Kobaruto exchanged a look, shrugged, then left. The Shang gave them a wide berth as they swept out of the foyer.
Lee turned back to her new escorts. “Fair warning,” she said. “If this is the part where you try to kill me, I won’t go down easy, and someone pretty important will be pissed.”
The dogs take me, Lee thought as the drone rolled her eyes and headed for the elevator. Since when was I the one who never shut up?
The elevator ride ended on the twelfth floor. The whole way up, Lee kept her eyes trained on the two soldiers with them. With luck, she’d be able to summon Bootstrap before either one could draw on her, and the shade’s bulk would pin them to the wall long enough for Lee to make good her escape. Of course, that would present the thorny issue of actually making good her escape, but one thing at a time…
…except not even that, because the soldiers stayed right where they were. If anything, it seemed like they were the ones watching her.
She deflated a little inside. While she was relieved things weren’t about to get messy, she was becoming reacquainted with the feeling of being watched everywhere she went. The Tomodanese hadn’t cared, nor the crew of the Wave Falcon after a drink or two. But here, in the center of the Shang family’s nonsense, she would have to reacclimate to the old way of doing things.
The elevator doors opened, and the four of them filed out. The drone turned to Lee once again and said with a long-suffering sigh: “This way.”
The consulate, Lee knew, had been established in what had once been the finest hotel in Hagane. While General Erega and High Treasurer Bhavna Devarajah had each taken office facilities, the Crane Emperor had insisted on something more lavish for his headquarters. Lee smirked at the thought of the old bastard waddling into this place; after all, the Tomodanese idea of “lavish” was very different from the Shang’s.
And sure enough, Lee saw a wide, sparse hallway, an inviting stretch of wood and metal that had been despoiled with red silks and gaudy, glittering furniture that stood too tall for the room around it. Not that she particularly cared about how the Crane Emperor came out of this, but she still felt vague embarrassment at the sight of it all. Lee knew she could be crass, but at least she wasn’t inelegant.
She swallowed. She guessed that in a moment, she’d be able to complain about his taste in décor personally.
Two more guards were posted outside the room at the end of the hallway. “Just in here,” the drone said. She looked deeply reluctant to humor this any further, but apparently she was even more reluctant to disobey orders. The guards, at least, showed more discipline: Their gaze barely flickered as she approached. Without breaking their forward stare, one of them reached out with their arm a
nd effortlessly slid the door aside.
The drone put a firm hand on her shoulder, and it took all Lee’s self-control not to break her fingers for it.
“Listen carefully,” she said, as her glasses slid steadily down her nose. “You will announce yourself and your business, then bow from the waist. You will take two steps into the room, then bow from the waist again. You will take ten steps farther, with your head down to avoid direct eye contact. Upon taking the tenth step, you will slowly drop to your knees, press your forehead to the floor, and with both hands humbly offer up your message. Do I make myself clear?”
Every instinct in Lee whispered a different comeback in her ear. But it had occurred to her that while Xiulan’s name would have kept her out of trouble with most people, the man who’d ranked her his twenty-eighth-favorite child probably wasn’t one of them. So instead she just said, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and then brushed past her and into the doorway. But then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added: “You’re welcome.”
The woman sputtered. “Don’t you mean thank you?”
Lee glanced back over her shoulder at the woman’s jacket pocket, which she had consciously decided not to relieve of its wallet. “No,” she said, then stepped all the way past the threshold.
The door slid shut behind her.
She’d been let into what she imagined to be the penthouse suite. Lee was surprised to see that compared with the gaudy redecoration outside, the inside showed much more restraint. The tall Shang furniture still threw the room off-balance, but it was much less egregious to her eyes. Just beyond the narrow entryway (on which a narrower red silk carpet had been spread), she caught a glimpse of two chairs and the very corner of a desk. And though she couldn’t quite see the Crane Emperor himself, she saw his shadow playing across the desk’s wooden finish.
She felt a flutter in her stomach, just beneath her white pactmark. She did her best to ignore it, then sucked in a deep breath.
“Lee Yeon-Ji,” she called into the room. “A deputized agent of the Li-Quan, bearing a personal message from the hand of the Steel Lord.”
Within the room, he stilled. She had his attention.
Carefully, she took two steps forward, and got halfway to bowing before she stopped herself. Why bother with it when he couldn’t even see her from here? So instead of bowing, she just walked the next few steps, keeping her head down. When she counted out to ten steps, she lowered herself to her knees and bent as low as she could go, offering up the letter with both hands. The dogs take her, they were shaking. What kind of thief was she, with fingers fluttering like a moth’s wings?
Still, she supposed if there was any one person to bring it out in her, it would be the Crane fucking Emperor.
She heard the creak of his chair as the old man stood up. But when he came around the desk, she didn’t hear any of the telltale signs of his approach. No rustle of dragging robes. No heavy, slow footsteps.
And then her nose filled with the scent of pipe smoke.
A small, familiar hand slipped beneath Lee’s chin and gently pulled her head up to take in the full sight of Shang Xiulan, from her black boots to her brown eye. Her long coat hung on the wall, her suit jacket was draped over her chair, and her waistcoat hung open over her plain white shirt. Her sleeves were rolled up, and a lopsided smile peeked down at Lee from beneath the princess’s long black half bang. Just beneath her hairline, Lee glimpsed the edge of a plum-colored bruise that she knew was far larger than it looked.
Her mouth went sandpaper-dry. “Xiu…Xiulan…”
Her partner smirked wider. “You neglected to perform the first bow.”
And then she pulled Lee’s mouth up to her own and kissed her.
At the first taste of tobacco, Lee melted. The letter fell from her fingertips as her hands wrapped themselves around Xiulan’s waist. Gently, she guided the princess down to the floor with her. As Xiulan shrugged out of her waistcoat, the top two buttons of her shirt fell open with a bare touch from Lee’s practiced fingers. Lee got an inviting glimpse of the way it draped over the princess’s collarbone just before Xiulan buried her face in the base of Lee’s neck.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she sighed, gently kissing the skin between Lee’s neck and shoulder.
Lee swallowed. She easily undid another shirt button, revealing the white bra beneath Xiulan’s shirt, and the beautiful pale breasts just beneath it. Lady of Moonlight, she thought.
“White all the way down, eh?” she rasped. Her heart thundered, suddenly tight in her chest.
Xiulan kissed her again, slightly higher. “I thought I would never see you again.”
Another button fell open. Tingles raced beneath Lee’s skin as her fingers brushed against Xiulan’s silk-soft midriff. She wanted to say something back, but her tongue felt paralyzed, which boded ill for the next few minutes if she didn’t get her shit together.
The princess moaned in reply, and kissed Lee just below her ear, and pressed her body tight to Lee’s. “I never want to lose you again.”
Lee’s fingers fell to the shirt’s final button.
Xiulan leaned up and whispered right into her ear: “I love you, Lee Yeon-Ji.”
Lee’s fingers slipped off the button, and it remained fastened where it was.
Her entire body screamed for her to keep going. She hadn’t gotten laid since Lefty. But Shang Xiulan was so much more than a lay, and so much more than Lefty. And with her so close, Lee could practically smell Xiulan’s desire in the air around her like it was a perfume she wore.
But when Lee opened her mouth to answer, she felt that bubble rise from her chest to her throat and choke away any words that might have been there.
Reluctantly, her fingers dropped away from Xiulan’s shirt. She sighed, then placed a hand on each of Xiulan’s shoulders and gently pushed the princess away.
Hurt stung in Xiulan’s eye, small but deepening with each passing moment. “Lee…?”
Lee swallowed, and a taste coated her tongue, bitter and filmy as motor oil. “Listen,” she said. “This’ll be a long walk to ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
As Lee’s confession washed over Xiulan, a ringing rose in her ears. She heard what Lee was saying, understood what Lee was saying, but somehow it didn’t quite land with full impact, each word only a gentle tap on the head with a mallet. Yet even with that light touch, every tap she endured drove her an inch deeper into the ground.
She’d only just begun to acclimate to her new office when the call had come through: a Jeongsonese woman was in the lobby, bearing a message from the Mountain Throne. Xiulan’s heart had leapt out of her chest. On the whole island of Tomoda, there was only one person to whom that description could have applied.
Hurriedly, she’d set the scene appropriately: shedding her layers, but leaving a few because a gift was always more satisfying when it was presented with wrapping. She’d rolled up her sleeves, thrown on a bit of jazz, even lit her pipe again so the air would be filled with curls of smoke by the time Lee entered. So often, Lee was the cool one, the one in control. Just once, Xiulan wanted to feel like she’d impressed the thief. If her badge was a lie, she needed to feel like she’d earned something.
At first, it had gone so well. She’d been quietly proud of herself as she worked her way through her concussed state to play the picture of high-class nonchalance. When that character she’d been playing melted away, and Lee was left holding the truest, most distilled version of Shang Xiulan once more, she’d felt her entire body come alive at Lee’s touch. With every button the thief had undone, her body had ached for another to follow it.
And then, she’d gambled on I love you…and lost.
She’d thought the worst of her concussion had passed, but now the pressure between her temples built. The ringing in her ears crescendoed. The hard lines that defined objects and spaces around her blurred and bl
ed.
And Lee kept talking.
“I’m not trying to make excuses, you see?” she said. “I’m just trying to explain here. I’ve got this rule I keep to, the only code I follow: Leave them before they leave me. It’s how I’ve kept myself alive. Back there on the train, I thought that was what I was doing. I saw you opening yourself to me, and I knew you were going to want me to do the same, and I knew I wanted to do that for you, and I thought I knew what you’d do once you saw what I’m really made of. So when shit went sideways, I went for the door.”
She looked to Xiulan expectantly for a reaction, but Xiulan was too paralyzed by the sheer number she wanted to give that she was unable to yield even one. That was for the best; she could feel her face molding into the kind of removed, stoic mask that would have served her well in the royal court if she’d ever deigned to play its twisted games.
“But right away, I knew that was the wrong thing,” the thief continued eventually. “Tried telling myself you would’ve taken off, too, but fuck, you’re not me. You would’ve fought every Steel Cicada and that purple-coated psychopath to get to me. I had every chance to go back and save you like you would’ve for me, and I didn’t, and I’m…sorry.” The word sounded as if it had escaped her mouth only with great difficulty. “Not used to saying that, but I mean it here. I’m sorry for everything, Xiulan. And if you’ll still take a thief’s word, it won’t ever happen again.”
Xiulan fell back from her knees into a sitting position. Her skin had been tingling moments ago, but now it was all just numb. Everything was numb.
Stupid White Rat, she hissed to herself. Thought she could have it all, but the sweet smell was only just bait for Heaven’s trap. Stupid, stupid White Rat.
“Xiulan?”
With painful slowness, she regarded Lee Yeon-Ji. Heaven take me, she thought. Even when she’s breaking my heart, she’s breathtaking.
But while her appealing angularity had not changed, her signature fierceness—the quality to which Xiulan was drawn like a proverbial moth to an equally proverbial flame—was dimmed. The woman before her was a full head taller than she, but everything about her made her look so diminished: the limpness with which she held herself. The dull sheen of her black hair. The fear that shone in her beautiful eyes.
