The Tiger's Daughter (Their Bright Ascendency #1)
K. Arsenault Rivera
To those who need to know they’re not alone
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I used to dream about what I’d put on a page like this. Turns out when you sit down to actually write one, the words are more slippery than you’d expect. It’s hard to adequately thank all the people who’ve shepherded this book along, who’ve helped turn this dream I was too shy to admit in public into a reality—but I’ll try.
Sara Megibow, my agent, is an absolute ball of sunshine who is as unstoppable as she is approachable. Had she not fallen in love with this book, it would probably be sitting on my hard drive to this day. Well. Not the same hard drive. I have a tendency to spill mac and cheese on my laptops, and that was two laptops ago.
If you aren’t familiar with Miriam Weinberg, then you’ve got some reading to do. Not only is she my editor, she’s worked with other authors I’m honored to share shelf space with. I’m grateful for her insightful comments as much as I am that she joins me in flailing about Utena.
To Michelle Evans, who stayed up all night with me more than once talking about headcanons, who sprayed me with proverbial water whenever I thought about cutting too many scenes, thank you.
To #CovenSquad—Renee Beauvoir, Marissa Fucci, and Rena Finkel—thank you. When I decided to go hang out with strangers at the Alice in Wonderland Statue, I could never have known I’d get lifelong friends out of it. You’ve been with me through thick, thin, and vaguely pagan nondenominational rituals. So despite our differing opinions on leopard print, Jackson Pollock, and Supernatural, I can say I’m proud to know every one of you, and I love you from the bottom of my heart.
To Didi Feuer and Gavi Feuer, thank you for indulging my love of card games. I’m telling you, no one does a better impression of Thom Yorke than Didi, and no one can better debate the intricacies of Game of Thrones than Gavi.
To my gaming group—Sergej Babushka, Tyler Everett, Louis Galasso, Matt LaForet, Jace Parker, and Kaleb Shulla—thank you for giving me a place to create ridiculous characters with overly long backstories. More importantly, thank you for giving them a place to grow. We’ve told a whole world’s worth of stories together, stories I’ll always hold near and dear. Like the time Lennart bisected that druid.
To Leah Williams, thank you for your early confidence and support. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got cooking up in the future, so you’re going to have to send me a copy of your next project, all right?
To Morgane Audoin, Lauren Craig, and Madeline Vara, whom I met through my love of fictional noncanon lesbians in video games—here are some canon lesbians you’ve been waiting for. You know, I used to be afraid of planes, but I think flying to Toronto to meet with you helped change that. Thank you for all the fond maple-syrup memories, and I’m sorry, Lauren, that I almost killed your cat.
To my parents, who fostered my love of reading and writing when it was not financially easy to do so.
To Stephanie Brown, lover of art and beautiful things, I hope this book qualifies as both.
And, lastly, to the person who told me they were happy I was writing again, to the person who tells me they hate my puns even as they laugh, to the person who cooks with me despite the fire hazard, and the person who loves me despite my unfortunate allergy to dogs—I love you, Charlie, and thank you for being my home.
THE EMPRESS
ONE
Empress Yui wrestles with her broken zither. She’d rather deal with the tiger again. Or the demons. Or her uncle. Anything short of going north, anything short of war. But a snapped string? One cannot reason with a snapped string, nor can one chop it in half and be rid of the problem.
When she stops to think on it—chopping things in half is part of why she’s alone with the stupid instrument to begin with. Did she not say she’d stop dueling? What was she thinking, accepting Rayama-tun’s challenge? He is only a boy.
And now he will be the boy who dueled One-Stroke Shizuka, the boy whose sword she cut in half before he managed to draw it. That story will haunt him for the rest of his life.
The Phoenix Empress, Daughter of Heaven, the Light of Hokkaro, Celestial Flame—no, she is alone, let her wear her own name—O-Shizuka pinches her scarred nose. When was the last day she behaved the way an Empress should?
Shizuka—can she truly be Shizuka, for an hour?—twists the silk between her first two fingers and threads it through the offending peg. Honestly. The nerve! Sitting in her rooms, taking up her valuable space. Taunting her. She can hear her father’s voice now: Shizuka, it will only be an hour, won’t you play me something?
But O-Itsuki, Imperial Poet, brother to the Emperor, heard music wherever he heard words. Scholars say that the Hokkaran language itself was not really born until O-Itsuki began to write in it. What use did he have for his daughter’s haphazard playing?
Shizuka, your mother is so tired and upset; surely your music will lift her spirits and calm her!
But it was never the music that cheered her mother. It was merely seeing Shizuka play. The sight of her daughter doing something other than swinging a sword. O-Shizuru did little else with her time, given her position as Imperial Executioner. Wherever she went, the Crows followed in her footsteps. Already thirty-six by the time she gave birth to her only child, O-Shizuru wore her world-weariness like a crown.
And who could blame her, with the things she had done?
Ah—but Shizuka hadn’t understood, back then, why her mother was always so exhausted. Why she bickered with the Emperor whenever she saw him. Why it was so important to her that her daughter was more than a duelist, more than a fighter, more like her father, and less like …
The Empress frowns. She runs the string along the length of the zither, toward the other peg. Thanks to her modest height, it takes a bit of doing. She manages. She always does.
Perhaps she will be a musician yet. She will play the music Handa wrote for View from Rolling Hills, she thinks.
The melody is simple enough that she’s memorized it already, soothing enough that she can lose herself in its gentle rise and fall.
Funny how you can hate a poem until the day you relate to it. Then it becomes your favorite.
She strikes the first notes—and that is when the footfalls meet her ears.
Footfalls meet her ears, and her frown only grows deeper.
No visitors, she said. No treating with courtiers, no inane trade meetings, no audiences with the public, nothing. Just her and the zither for an hour. One hour! Was that so difficult to understand?