And to think, I never got to show it to you.
Well. As far as hills go, and green, Oshiro is a far sight better than Fujino. Oshiro exists on the gentlest slope in the Empire. What few trees mark the landscape are bright white, or warm brown. The people are the same. In Fujino, it’s my appearance that makes people stare: my hay-colored hair, my bowed legs, my skin so dark and cheeks so wide. In Oshiro, I see those features staring back at me on Hokkaran faces—a guard with flecks of green in his eyes, babies born with blue marks on their bottoms and cheeks meant for nibbling. Oshiro is not home, no, for it will always remind me of my father—but I love it when it reminds me of my mother.
And there is the Wall. You cannot discuss Oshiro without discussing the wreckage. The Wall of Stone was built three hundred years ago, at the height of Qorin culture, when Brave Arslandaar led us as Kharsaq. One of your ancestors decided the only way to keep us from raiding Oshiro and the border villages was to build a wall.
But, you see, he did not build the Wall simply to keep us out. He thought that such a feat of engineering would amaze us. He thought we would gaze upon it and weep; he thought we would cast aside our weapons and our horses, and join the superior Hokkaran Empire.
But what he did not know was this: Qorin engineers exist. Qorin stonemasons, Qorin builders. Wherever we go, we welcome additions to the clan, should they prove stout enough to survive the winter. Those newcomers might not be Qorin—but their children are. And so the trade is passed down the family line.
This comes in handy when we encounter other travelers—we can offer services instead of just goods. More than once, we’ve stopped near a Surian town and helped construct a house or two; more than once, we’ve offered medical assistance to the desert nomads; more than once, we’ve been contacted by Xianese scholars for our thoughts on astronomic conundrums.
That is why the remains of the Wall make me smile. The wreckage reminds me of what a woman can do when she becomes an arrow in flight—reminds me that we are so much more than what the Hokkarans think us to be. And if you stand in the right spot—the white palace at your back and the hole in the Wall right in front of you—then you are almost eternal.
Almost.
Do you remember, Shizuka, the feast that awaited us beyond that wall? Your parents huddled beneath a white felt roof, surrounded by carpets and tapestries. Shizuru pinched her nose with one hand. With the other, she held a skin full of kumaq. My uncles challenged her to drink all of it in one go. She did, of course. Your mother was never one to refuse a drink, or a dare.
If she stepped out of the ger to vomit, hours later, no one pointed it out. No one would dare.
Your father drank more than she did, of course. Two and a half skins of kumaq for him, and he did not have to hold his nose. But he did not draw attention to it. Only the red on his cheeks gave him away; the Imperial Poet could never allow himself to slur his words. Not that he did much speaking. Your father knew more Qorin than his wife did, but I can’t remember hearing him speak it. Our language reminded him of the war, I think; of the early days of his brother’s reign. But he would never say such a thing out loud. It had been many, many years since O-Itsuki spoke of the Qorin war.
All the highest-ranking members of the Burqila clan attended. That night I saw generals dance around the fire. I saw men and women the Hokkarans paint as bloodthirsty barbarians tell bawdy jokes. I ate, and ate, and ate, and I did it with my fingers instead of fumbling with chopsticks, and there was no rice to fall between my fingers, no fishbones to stab me in the tongue. There was soup, and pickled sheep’s head, and my cousins sat around the fire throwing anklebones.
You watched me.
In between hugs from my clanmates, I caught sight of you. Flickering flames painted your amber eyes orange.
And as Otgar whispered in my ear, as my mother kept a keen eye on her drunk siblings, I watched you.
Among the dark-skinned, light-haired Qorin, you sat—pale and inky-haired. I remember you—or do I remember only the disguise all that kumaq draped around you? For I thought to myself that you were so pale and so still, you must be a masked actress. At any moment, your face would fall clean off to reveal your true nature, if only I kept watching. But you stared into the flames and squeezed your hands until your knuckles went white, and if the director called for you to shed your mask, you did not hear him.
A man on the Wall of Stone spots riders coming. Wasting no time, he hefts his hammer and strikes his great iron bell. He did not think to cover his ears, and so for hours afterwards, they ring. At night when he lies down to sleep, he hears it, feels it in his bones. He cannot escape the sound.
So it was that when I looked at you, my chest rang with your discomfort.
I reached out and touched your shoulder.
You sniffed. “It is strange,” you said, “to feel the way you do in Fujino.”
At least here no one looked at you as if you were going to murder them on a moment’s notice. The first time someone gave me that look in Fujino, I was ten.
But I knew what it was like, and I did my best to comfort you.
“Otgar is my best friend,” I said. You stiffened. “Besides you,” I added. This was why I did not like talking. I meant to imply that you two should talk. If I liked both of you, then you were bound to like each other.
At the mention of her name, Otgar slid over to us. “Besides Barsatoq?” she said. “You wound me, Needlenose. Too much time in one place. Your mind is getting stagnant.”
I chuckled, but you did not think it was funny. “Shefali’s been staying with my family,” you said. “We’ve the finest tutors in all Hokkaro.”
I was afraid Otgar would roll her eyes at this. Instead, she laughed in a good-natured way. “Yes, Barsatoq, of that I am sure!” she said. “But we are Qorin: traveling is in our blood. You learn nothing staying in one place. Only by struggling against the earth do you learn anything of worth.”
“Is that how you learned your languages?” you said.
“It is,” Otgar said. “Burqila traveled the spice road to Sur-Shar. On the way, we met a Surian merchant, with no stores save those he meant to sell. Burqila allowed him to come with us on the condition she received a portion of the money from whatever he sold. Except he spoke no Qorin.”
“So you learned Surian,” you said. “To translate for him.”
“No, my mother slept with him,” said Otgar. “And he left some of his books behind when he left, so I cracked them open. I had to learn, you see, so I could translate for Burqila.” Otgar corrected, waving her finger. “The Kharsa is always the highest priority.”