But a person can have only one soul, and you are mine. Without you near me …
I cannot put words to the pain. To the emptiness, to the longing. For every time I thought of my missing eye, I thought of you ten times. Your quiet snoring, the sound of you sucking your thumb and the small wet spot by your mouth. Whenever the guards decided on a campsite for the evening, I thought I heard you puffing.
“No, you fool Qorin,” I imagined you saying. “We cannot camp here. Our tent would be in direct sunlight. Do you intend to bake us?”
The guards never spoke. They never complained about the tent or the bedroll or being out in the wilderness or the rain. They never encouraged me to hunt. (Indeed, they carried my bow in its case the whole way to the border.)
Every day it was the same: Rise. Mount. Ride until they told me to stop. Sit in my tent at night, unable to rest. Rise. Mount. Ride.
It was a cruel mockery of the Qorin way of life. Without hunting, without the occasional feast, without kumaq, the monotony of it all set in.
And it never rained on the steppes. That was another thing. You will be happy to know it does not rain very much in Sur-Shar either, and whenever it does, everyone acts as if the Daughter’s own tears are falling from the sky.
Yes, it was only three months by the main roads from Xian-Lai to the southeastern border at Tatsuoka. This being so far south that it was wet and rainy and hot all the time, the Wall of Stone did not impede our progress. No. When we reached the border village, it looked like any other.
Except that half the people there had lighter hair and eyes, and darker skin. I do not know if the guards guided me to a town of mixed-bloods on purpose. I like to think they did, to offer me some small comfort during my final day in Hokkaro.
And it was there, at Tatsuoka, that my brother met me late at night. I still remember hooves beating against the ground at the unholy ring of First Bell. Some guard had seen something, I thought; a robber or a group of bandits. Nothing that concerned me. I continued lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, and did not give it a second thought.
But moments later, the door slid open. I shot awake and reached for the sword the guards had confiscated.
“State your name!” they shouted as I got to my feet.
“Oshiro Kenshiro, Lord of Xian-Lai!”
My brother? I sniffed the air. Yes, that was he. What was he doing in Tatsuoka? How had he gotten here so fast?
When they opened the door, I saw: My brother’s riding clothes were worn right through, baring his bruised thighs. Dirt painted him black and covered his hair in grit. He had to lean on one of the guards, for he could not stand on his own power.
And in spite of all that, in spite of the pain he must have been in, Kenshiro lit up when he saw me. “Shefali-lun,” he said. “Shefali-lun, thank Grandmother Sky, I am not too late.”
“The prisoner is under our protection, Your Worship,” said one of them. The leader, I think. He was short and thin, with a wispy mustache and beard. What he lacked in stature he made up for in posture and tone. He had the look of a wire about to snap. “We are under strict orders to keep her isolated.”
“I’ve been isolated,” I said.
Kenshiro nodded. “She will be out of your hair tomorrow, Captain Hu,” he said. He knew the guard by name. That was Kenshiro. “Please, I rode a horse to death—”
“You what?” I gasped. “Kenshiro!”
He winced. “Shefali-lun, I’m sorry; there was no other way to reach you in time. The birds came for her. She is in the stars now.”
“You let the birds have her?” I said. “Kenshiro, you did not use her meat, or her milk, or … you just left her there for the birds?”
My voice cracked. How could he do such a thing? How could he ride a horse to death, just to reach me faster? And how could he leave a corpse out there to rot? Yes, when it came to humans, that was what one did. But with horses, they are far too valuable to leave uncovered. If a horse dies in your care, you must make use of its body, or you are disrespecting everything it ever gave you.
Dogs are left out for the birds.
But never horses.
Without thinking, I’d switched to Qorin. Hu ordered us to switch back to Hokkaran, but I couldn’t find the words. My brother ran a horse to death. If this had happened out on the steppes, my mother would have had him flogged. How could he?
Kenshiro shrank four sizes. He pressed a forehead to his hand and stepped closer to me. He bowed low. “Shefali,” he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I thought…”
“You’ll find her, when you go back,” I said, “and you’ll make a grave marker for her, as she deserves.”
Silently he nodded. I wiped my tears on my sleeve. After all this time, three months under armed guard, I’d been so happy to see him, despite his foolish betrayal. The death of a horse turned the whole thing sour.
I turned from him.
He rose and touched my shoulder. I batted him away.
“Shefali,” he said, “Baozhai sent you a gift and a letter.”
That made no sense. Baozhai, nice as she was, wouldn’t command Kenshiro to ride so hard to send me a present. I looked over my shoulder. Kenshiro held a small parcel in one hand, and a letter in the other. Neither bore Baozhai’s too-delicate calligraphy.
Instead, it was the fine, confident hand you’d become so well known for. Kenshiro held it up only long enough for me to see it; then he quickly flipped both over and shoved them into my hands.
“Baby sister,” he said. “I’m sorry we have to part like this. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done, no matter the intention behind them. They say the more wives a man has, the more troubles—pity me, for I make such mistakes and I’ve only Baozhai to speak of. You’ll return, I know you shall. Until that day, we’ll all keep you in our thoughts. You were always meant for great things. Bring back that feather. Show them a half-blood is twice as good.”
He knew better than to hold me at that moment. Looking back on it, I wish I had reached for him.
But, no, my brother sniffed my cheeks, and I sniffed his, and as he left, he paused at the door. “Remember,” he said, “your wife is waiting.”
I stuffed the letter and the parcel into my bags. Hu wouldn’t let me read them now. When we crossed the border, I thought, then I would allow myself this last interaction with you.
It was a long few days, Shizuka. Longer than my time alone in the ger when I was ten. Longer than the three days I lay dying in bed, with you weeping at my side. In my deel pocket was a letter you’d written; perhaps the last words we’d share for years. I wanted to know what they might be, but at the same time—when I was done with the letter, would I ever hear your voice again?
The real you?
Yet I could not wait. The moment we passed the border, that letter started to burn against my chest.
So it was that I opened the parcel with shaking hands on horseback. I found a note hiding beneath the delicate red paper. Hokkaran, written phonetically in the Qorin alphabet.