“That was a tournament,” Yoshimoto intoned. “One your mother did not wish for you to attend—”
“Uncle, do not speak to me of my mother’s wishes,” you snapped. Sky save you, you were snapping at the Emperor. Did it at all matter to you that he ruled Hokkaro? “If my mother were here, I would not be asking your permission for a duel, I would be watching his body be dragged from the throne room. I demand a duel.”
The silence in the room was like glass shattering.
I longed to touch you, to give you some sort of reassurance. But you stood in front of me, and all eyes were on us. I could not touch you without further sullying your reputation.
Instead, I whispered your name so low, only you could hear it.
And I swear, I saw the taut muscles of your hand relax.
“Uncle,” you repeated, your voice calmer, “if I am old enough to receive marriage proposals, I am old enough to duel.”
Yoshimoto said nothing. The Emperor is supposed to be serenity made flesh, but in your uncle’s doughy brow, I read nothing but anger. The Empress leaned over and whispered in his ear. He said something sharp and cutting to her I could not hear. She spoke again, more timidly this time.
Finally he sighed. “Very well,” he said. “If you so insist, Shizuka, then we shall grant your request. You may duel to first blood in the courtyard.”
So the courtiers filed one by one out of the throne room. Still you stood before Kagemori; still you held the blade to his throat.
He bared his blackened teeth. “There was no need to bring the Emperor into our little lovers’ quarrel,” he said.
Lovers’ quarrel. He spoke in such a way to a thirteen-year-old girl! I growled at him.
His eyes flickered over to me and he scoffed. “I did not know your dog spoke Hokkaran,” he said to you.
“Get to the courtyard,” you roared, “before I behead you where you stand.”
Another soft laugh. As he stepped away, he hummed to himself. “If you insist,” he said. “It will not change fate’s path. You will be mine one day, Shizuka-shan.”
Only you, I, Temurin, and your guards remained in the throne room. Even the Emperor had departed on his palanquin.
You bit your lip. “I will kill him,” you said. “Not today. But one day, when I am older, I will kill him.”
I squeezed your shoulder.
Next to us, Temurin shifted from foot to foot. “Barsalai, I may not speak Ricetongue, but I know a challenge when I see it. Does Barsatoq need our assistance? Say the word, and I will gladly use him to test my arrows.”
You gave Temurin the respect of looking at her when she spoke, though you did not share a language. I was going to ask if you wanted us to help you in the duel (though I had no idea how that would work) when you spoke to her.
“Guard,” you said, “I do not know your name. Barsalai will tell me soon, I am sure. I thank you for the use of your sword.”
“Temurin,” I said, pointing to her. Then I tapped on the sword with my fingers.
“She can keep it, if she likes. I have more, and she does not seem to have any,” Temurin said.
You held out the scimitar to Temurin, pommel toward her. She slipped it back into its sheath.
“You. Tall boy,” you said, pointing to the guard who’d chided us before. “Go to the courtyard ahead of us. Let it be known that my mother’s sword is to be prepared for me.”
This order chafed him, but it did not stop him from taking off at a run.
Then you began walking.
*
THE HALLS RANG with the clacking of your wooden sandals, but not your voice. So many twists and turns. So many identical portraits of this emperor, or that emperor. How was one fat Hokkaran different from any other fat Hokkaran? Couldn’t they dress differently, at least? But no. Each one wore the same Dragonscale crown. Each one sat on the matching Dragonscale throne. Each one was fat, each one was pale, each one had the same forced serenity painted onto his face.
How, I ask you, did you tell your ancestors apart?
To this day, I cannot navigate the palace without you. I do not know how anyone can live in such a place, with walls and ceilings and hallways of identical men staring at you. Cages are for animals, not people.
So it was to my great relief when we entered the courtyard—the opposite of the labyrinth you’d just led me through. Here was a forest in miniature. Here peonies in all the colors and patterns known to man blossomed on tree branches; here rows and rows of chrysanthemums swayed in the soft morning wind. A single tall, white tree grew in the center, almost as tall as the palace itself. Around it, a small pool of water glittered in the sunlight. At the northern end of the yard was a raised dais upon which your uncle and aunt sat. Everyone else picked a bench and staked their claim.
I took a deep breath of the fragrant air and greeted Grandmother Sky for the first time all day. But then I saw Kagemori waiting just in front of the great white tree, and my prayers died unspoken.
But you continued walking. And you stood three paces away from him, cloaked in your pride, armored in dignity.
A servant scurried by me—a young boy so nervous, he bumped into my knee on his way to the inner ring. In his hands he held a black lacquer box almost as big as he was. He finally sank to his knees next to you and opened the box.
Your mother’s sword rested inside. The Daybreak blade, its sheath lined with solid gold and carved from finest ivory. An intricate sun on the cross guard, a crescent moon for a pommel. It was a thing of impractical beauty. How the Queen of Crows used it with any regularity baffled me. There was not so much as a single chip on the sheath.
You reached for it, and you took it in your hands, and I swear to you, I saw the cross guard flash. You stepped out of your wooden sandals and pushed them aside with one delicate toe, standing barefoot on the grass. Kagemori may’ve been taller, but you looked down your nose at him all the same.
The crier, too, was present, and it was he who sounded the gong. “O-Shizuka-shon, daughter of O-Itsuki-lor, challenges Kagemori-zul to a duel,” he announced. “They meet with the blessings of the Son of Heaven. Let the first shedding of blood hail the victor.”
Silence. Kagemori sank into a fighting stance and drew his sword—plain, unadorned, and antique in style.
You did not draw yours.
Indeed, even as he circled you, you did not draw your sword, nor did you change your posture.
Next to me, Temurin crossed her arms. “Rice-eaters and their rituals,” she muttered.
I shushed her.
For you were a coiled spring. Any second now, he’d make the mistake of setting you off.
“Do you fear me, Shizuka-shan?” he asked. “Why do you not bare steel?”
“I do not need to, for the likes of you,” you said. “And you will not goad me into attacking.”