Guardian of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘It’s the cat poem,’ I said. ‘Do your duty, and come back for me. It’s about forbidden love, which is probably tragic in a society where reproductive responsibility is everything . . .’

  ‘Ninety seconds, Jian.’

  ‘Go. We’ll talk about it when you’ve landed,’ she said.

  I turned, took some deep breaths, and launched myself off the cliff. The updraft lifted me and the bio-sensors on my wings passed the exhilarating feeling through to me. I pulled higher with a few strong wing beats – I could feel every artificial feather – and I lost myself in the freedom as the jungle passed beneath me, then a wide white sandy beach, and the translucent, turquoise shallow water of the bay. I banked to turn back towards the cliff, a buttress of shining white against the green of the jungle full of spindly low-gravity trees, and surrounded by the glittering wingspans of other aliens who were sharing the experience of flight. I refused to let the inevitability of Aki’s situation get to me, but we both knew the truth. The Imperial Household wouldn’t let her go – or us be together – until she’d fulfilled her duty to them. There weren’t enough members of the royal family to go around, particularly when New Nippon was looking to expand onto two more planets with large amounts of water that would nurture their tuna farms. She had to marry within the royal clan, and she had to produce some kids for them before they would leave her alone.

  *

  Runa and Oliver dropped us at our apartment in Tokyo and Marque turned the lights on for us.

  ‘Thanks, guys,’ I said to them as Aki wandered into the bedroom to check the messages. ‘Stay for food?’

  ‘Since we’re on Earth we might go visit Nan,’ Oliver said. ‘I haven’t had any of her potatoes in a while, and I think David and Cat are visiting her. We’ll bring Endicott back to you when we’re done.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Tell Mum I’ll come visit after we’re settled back in, and Aki’s dealt with the Imperial Household. I’m sure there’s a million messages for her—’

  Aki made a loud sound in the other room that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a small scream, and we all went in. She was watching the holo messages, and her eyes were wide. She looked at me, then back at the screen.

  ‘I cannot believe they did this,’ she said, her voice weak. She fell to sit on the bed. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘What did they do?’ Oliver said, and moved so that he could see the messages more clearly. ‘Oh, that’s cute? Messages from schools . . . so many messages from junior and middle schools . . .’ He swiped his hand in the air to bring up more messages. There were thousands of them. ‘Uh . . .’

  ‘A petition,’ she said, and her emotions were shattered. ‘Millions of people signed it.’

  I read it out loud. ‘We, the people of New and Old Nippon know that Princess Akiko loves her nation and its rich history. The vital legacy of the Imperial family is at risk. We humbly request that Princess Akiko save the Imperial line . . . Oh, no way.’

  ‘This is emotional blackmail,’ Runa said. ‘You don’t have to do it, Aki.’

  Aki waved one hand at the screen and it scrolled over hundreds more messages from well-wishers. ‘A million of my own people are concerned that they’re going to lose their Imperial family. I cannot—’

  ‘The Chief Steward of the Imperial Household is downstairs, with a relative who doesn’t want to be named,’ Marque said.

  ‘Damn Haruka to hell.’ I sat next to Aki and put my arm around her shoulders. ‘We could pull a Haruka on the man himself, and disappear again.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ Runa said.

  ‘Bring them up, Marque.’ Aki stood and straightened her favourite leather jacket. ‘I can do this.’

  I turned to Oliver and Runa. ‘Go visit your grandmother, Oliver. Ask Marque when you can come back.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Aki,’ Runa said, and they disappeared.

  Four men rose on the elevator platform into our apartment. The Grand Steward and two Japanese Imperial Household Guards accompanied the Emperor himself. The Emperor had a strong family resemblance to Aki in height and solid body type. The guards stayed at the platform as the Emperor strode to us with a wide smile, pulled us up from our bows, and shook both our hands. ‘So good to have you back, Aunty. Miss Jian. May I talk to you? Only for five minutes, I won’t take much of your time.’

  Aki didn’t smile. She was fond of her nephew, but we both knew why he was at our home.

  ‘On the terrace,’ she said, and the full-height glass doors opened onto our private rooftop garden. We had the entire top floor of the large building, and the apartment occupied half. The other half of the roof was a Japanese garden that Aki had designed herself – it had a small stream running through it, over stones that she had painstakingly collected during our travels. She’d even named the koi carp that resided in the pond at the end.

  Aki led the Emperor and Household steward out to the garden, and we walked along the path that meandered through it. The view over the city was spectacular – Japan had limited the use of three-dimensional advertising, so signs were restricted to two dimensions, but with the advent of dragon technology they were sharper, clearer and not limited in size. The city glowed, with some brilliant moving billboards covering the entire sides of skyscrapers.

  A couple of buildings were lit up with images of Aki, with ‘Welcome Princess, saviour of the Imperial legacy’ written beneath them.

  ‘Have you seen the news, Princess? I’m surprised you didn’t return sooner,’ the Emperor said.

  ‘I’m horrified,’ she said.

  ‘I am so sorry that this happened,’ he said. He stopped and bowed to her. ‘It is unforgivable that the people are asking so much from you, when this is my duty.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ she said without stopping.

  He seemed flustered for a moment, then followed her. ‘And I am failing in this duty, so they have turned to you. No single person suggested it – it went viral on the social network, a royal-watcher designed the petition, and everybody signed it. Schools added to the petition, and then sent you their own messages.’

  ‘We tried, but we could not control it,’ the steward added.

  ‘Of course you couldn’t,’ she said without looking at them. She stopped and sat on a bench overlooking the pond, and I stood behind her with my hand on her shoulder. They stood in front of her, straight and determined.

  ‘The people adore you, Princess,’ the Emperor said. ‘They love you far more than Prince Haruka, and want you to be the mother of the next Emperor. But we support you in your decision not to suffer this temporary inconvenience. If you choose not to produce an heir for the good of the nation, we cannot force you.’

  The steward gave her a moment, then twisted the knife. ‘We think it would be best if you made a formal announcement to tell them that you are rejecting their very reasonable request, and putting your own happiness before the needs of our nation.’

  The Emperor bowed again. ‘I am sincerely sorry that we must ask this of you.’

  ‘Please go away,’ she said, as if from a million miles away. ‘I need to talk to my wife.’

  The steward filled with triumph that was completely unnoticeable from his demeanour.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘We will return tomorrow with a crew to make the announcement.’

  The Emperor was filled with sadness so deep and crushing that I wanted to weep for him. He bowed to Aki again, and they walked out without another word.

  ‘Temporary inconvenience,’ I said, loud enough for them to hear as they went down on the elevator platform.

  ‘I’m so fucking tired of running from them, Jian,’ she said.

  I sat next to her and held her hand. ‘It’s your choice. They’ll let you do what you like if you give them the goddamn kids. We’re effectively immortal, we could have the rest of our long lives together, without them chasing you.’

  She gazed into my eyes. ‘What’s the point of being immortal if I can’t be with the
one I love?’

  She put her head on my shoulder and I held her.

  *

  A black limousine picked me up from our apartment and took me to Senso-Ji Temple in Asakusa. The area had been cleared, the bazaar next to the temple empty, as I walked under the enormous main gate with its huge lantern. Aki and Kenjiro were standing beside a table with half-a-dozen Imperial Household stewards behind them. Grand Steward Tokugawa was in the middle, standing quietly in a perfectly tailored old-fashioned morning suit, the expression on his thin face cool and detached.

  Tokugawa gestured for me to sit at the table, which had a folder and a pen on it and nothing else. I ignored him and studied Aki. The Household had taken her a week before and she looked strained. She was miserable at being forced to do this, but determined to survive. Her fiancé Kenjiro stood next to her, broadcasting awkwardness. He was similar in build to her – much shorter than me, and slightly overweight with a squarish face. He was a distant cousin through the complicated Imperial bloodlines, and a complete sweetheart that both Aki and I considered a friend. He was deeply distressed to be doing this to both of us, and I didn’t have the emotional strength to tell him that I would survive – because I wouldn’t.

  Tokugawa opened the folder and held the pen out to me. I felt like this wasn’t real as I approached the table and saw that Aki had already signed the divorce papers and sealed them with her personal chop.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jian,’ she said as I took the pen from the steward.

  ‘Not your fault. We’ll make it,’ I said as I signed the paper. I smiled sadly at the irony. ‘I had so much therapy to overcome my issues with commitment – and here we are.’

  Tokugawa broadcast triumph as he snatched the pen from my hand and closed the folder with a snap. He turned to Aki. ‘We will now proceed with the blessing of the marriage.’

  Aki and Kenji went up to the wishing slots, where a couple of the resident monks were waiting for them with charms and coins. Aki tossed a coin into the slot, then clapped her hands to make the wish.

  She turned and spoke over her shoulder. ‘Come and make a wish, Jian.’

  I looked to the faces of the other people present; Tokugawa looked furious but didn’t stop me. Kenji nodded. ‘It’s all right. Go make a wish.’

  ‘You too, Kenji,’ Aki said.

  I went up to the slots. The monk smiled at me and handed me a coin. ‘We appreciate your sacrifice, Choumali-san. Hopefully one day you and the Princess will be together again.’

  ‘We will,’ I said as I took the coin. I tossed it into the slots and clapped my hands as well.

  Kenjiro touched my arm. ‘I’ll look after her, Jian, and hopefully you two will be able to visit—’

  ‘That will not be possible,’ Tokugawa said stiffly behind us. ‘There will be no more time alone unless it is the Duke and the Princess.’

  Aki lowered her head over the slots. ‘I’ll be buried alive.’

  ‘We’ll arrange something,’ Kenji whispered.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Tokugawa said. ‘This marriage is important for the nation. For both nations – old and new. When the children have reached adulthood we can discuss the future. In the meantime, this is a traditional marriage between a Princess and a Duke and nobody else. Consider yourselves lucky that we have permitted you to say goodbye.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I know it’s a long time, but Haruka refuses to do his duty and won’t have a child unless it’s with Masako. Your sacrifice – all three of you – is honoured; you do this for your country. You will be honoured throughout history, and your first-born son could very well be Emperor of all Japans if the current Emperor doesn’t recover from the loss of his wife.’

  Aki glowered at him.

  ‘We’re effectively immortal, Aki. Just take very special care of yourself and come back to me,’ I said.

  ‘Same to you, my love,’ she said with tears in her eyes. ‘Haruka owes me. I will miss you.’

  I took her hands but didn’t put on a more public display of affection in the temple grounds – particularly when she was going off to marry someone else. ‘I love you,’ I whispered.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll work something out,’ Kenji said.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Tokugawa said. ‘I have a car waiting for you, Princess Akiko and Duke Kenjiro; if you will come with me, we have a wedding to prepare for.’

  Aki gave me a last despairing glance as the bodyguards closed in around them and guided them to the car at the front of the temple.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ I shouted.

  She nodded to me and disappeared into the car.

  *

  I sat next to the koi pond on our rooftop terrace, not really feeling the warm breeze. Endicott, sensing my melancholy, had put her head in my lap and I stroked it absently. The hologram in front of me didn’t look like Aki at all; she stood unsmiling wearing an exquisite multilayered junihitoe kimono with a small crown adorning her wig. Kenji stood next to her holding a sceptre indicating his rank. Both their sets of robes were flawlessly arranged around them, and they looked more like a pair of dolls than real people. The image had been released six weeks ago, and there’d been nothing on the news since.

  ‘You should eat something, Jian,’ Marque said. ‘You’ve been sitting there doing nothing for hours.’

  ‘I don’t feel like doing anything,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘What if I told you that Akiko had a message for you?’

  I shot upright, startling Endicott. ‘What? Show me!’

  ‘Only if you eat something.’

  ‘You are not my mother!’

  Marque’s voice became sly. ‘Do you want me to arrange for your mother to come supervise you?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But not something that I ate with Aki. The memories hurt too much.’

  A small table appeared in front of me holding a bowl of something hot with a spoon. I tried it; it was a Western stew of meat and vegetables, warm and filling, and entirely unlike any of the food that Aki and I had shared. ‘Thank you. Now where’s my message? It’s been weeks! Is she okay?’

  Aki appeared in holographic form above the small lawn and I gasped. She was wearing a horribly old-fashioned women’s skirt suit in pale pink, and she’d grown her hair out, tied into a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked a million years old, and she’d lost weight.

  ‘I don’t have long,’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘Kenji is a saint smuggling this holo out for me. Okay: I’m all right, it’s tedious and repetitive and I never have any fucking privacy but I’m alive. This was way more important than they let on. The Emperor is severely depressed – suicidally depressed – from a combination of grief and the torturous bullshit they put us through in here. The stewards won’t let Marque change his brain chemistry to alleviate the depression, because he has to be birth-natural to be Emperor. Anti-depressants are the only thing keeping him alive. The stress of having a child right now would probably tip him over the edge.’

  I glanced up at a floating Marque sphere and it froze the recording.

  ‘If I could shrug I would,’ Marque said. ‘The internal workings of the Imperial Household are under privacy seal. She’ll be in trouble if you share this information, that’s why they won’t let her talk to you.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘Resume it. I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Jail would be a holiday compared to this – at least I’d have some privacy and be left alone occasionally!’ Aki raised her hands to rub her eyes, then lowered them and smiled sadly. ‘Can’t ruin the make-up.’ She took a deep breath. ‘What I’m doing here is more important than we realised. Haruka’s too proud to share the truth, even with Masako, but dragonscales can’t inherit at all. The Emperor must be fully-human, and as a dragonscales Haruka is ineligible to continue the line. If he moved into a fully-human body, it wouldn’t be birth-natural. Please don’t share this with anyone, he’s deeply humiliated by what he sees as his failure, and runs away to
avoid difficult questions.’ She choked with emotion. ‘I am the only one that is capable of having a suitable, fully human heir right now. I wish I could fast-forward through this on a warp ship or something, but I have to do it.’

  ‘They’re coming, Aki,’ Kenji said to one side.

  ‘I love you, darling Jian. Kenji got your message to me – Marque tells me that you’re just as depressed as the Emperor, that you’re sitting around at home being miserable. Go find something to do, please? To keep yourself busy? Accept the Empress’ offer and be her guard captain. Do it for me, because I worry about you, and if you did that at least I’d be able to see you on the news when they report on the things she does.’ She lowered her head. ‘We’re trying to get me pregnant, so that this is over with as quickly as possible—’

  She blinked out. Kenji appeared.

  ‘The stewards arrived and we had to stop. We’re alive. Please wait for her.’ He disappeared.

  ‘So Haruka’s lying to everybody – even Masako?’ I said. ‘His whole life is a lie?’

  ‘You’ve been living with dragons for more than fifty years, I thought you’d be accustomed to lies by now,’ Marque said.

  ‘Not from humans.’

  ‘He’s half-dragon. And it would ruin him if you were to share this information.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

  ‘You have visitors.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to anybody right now,’ I said, looking around for something to wipe my face with. ‘You shouldn’t have told them.’

  Oliver, Runa, David and Cat appeared in the living room, then came out to the terrace. Female cats didn’t have names, they were just labelled as possessions of their males, and she’d taken the human name of Cat as an alternative that still respected her heritage.

  ‘Hi, kids,’ I said. ‘Tea?’

  ‘It’s been six weeks, Mum,’ David said. ‘Marque told us what you’re doing. You need therapy. Or a distraction. Something.’

  ‘It’s breaking our hearts to see you like this, gentlewoman,’ Runa said.