Because there was no attacker.
Because dark things ride the winds at night, while we huddled near our fires and pretended we were safe.
Silence hung between us.
You reached for my hand. Yes, that was lightning, striking me dumb and deaf and blind. I was frozen in place by the slightest touch.
“Shefali,” you said, “you and I will stop this, one day. We will go North, where the blackbloods go, and whatever it is we are meant to do, we will do. Together, Shefali, like two pine needles.”
Your face smeared in half a dozen shades. Your hair not quite brushed.
Your eyes.
From our childhood, you’d been saying this. As we grew older, you said it with more and more conviction, as if you spoke of moving to Sur-Shar. Difficult, yes, but doable.
But you did not speak of moving across the Sands. You spoke of finding your way North, where the Traitor dwelled, and if I knew you at all, you meant to challenge him. As if he could not simply squish you between his forefingers like overripe fruit.
But may the Sky slay me where I sit now if I did not believe it more and more each time.
I swallowed and squeezed your hand. Then I reached for the cloth you’d thrown away. I dipped it in a bowl of water on the desk and I wrung it dry.
I reached for your face.
You did not stop me. Instead, you closed your eyes and let me wash away your mask. When I was done, only Shizuka remained. Only the finest sword in the Empire; only the finest calligrapher.
Only the most …
I shook my head rather than fully voice that thought. You were my best friend. I could not allow myself to think such things about you. I could not allow my heart to hammer as it did; I could not allow myself to dream about touching you.
When you began speaking, I wanted to heave a sigh of relief. Something to listen to other than my own thoughts.
“My mother let me into a tournament, you know,” you said. “The Challenge of the Sixteen Swords.”
Held every eight years to commemorate the first Challenge of Sixteen. Being allowed to enter at all was a great honor. Each province was allowed only two participants. To think that Imperial Fujino sent a small girl as one of their champions!
I laughed. Oh, how I pitied anyone who crossed swords with you.
“For years I begged her, but all she ever did was speak to me of danger. My father pointed out the Challenge is to first blood, and healers would be nearby. He pleaded and pleaded. Finally my mother relented.”
As I wiped the last of your lipstick away, you smiled like a knife.
“And, of course, of the Sixteen finest blades in Hokkaro, mine is the finest.”
Ah, Shizuka, how I wish I could’ve seen it! How I wish I could’ve seen you strike down fifteen duelists—fifteen adults who prided themselves on their swordplay. Sometimes I imagine it. I’ve tracked down a few descriptions of that tournament, and had Otgar read them to me. You must tell me one day if you really lopped off Isshi Keichi’s nose with just the point of your sword!
“Was she proud?” I asked.
Your amber eyes darted toward the shrine. Your mother’s war mask stared back at you.
“She was,” you said. “She called me a pompous show-off. But she was proud, I think. Before…” You licked your lips. “Before she left, she promised we’d begin lessons together.”
Gods, but that hurt to hear. Again, I squeezed your hand.
And it was then I noticed you had a scar on your palm from that day in the woods, when we were eight. I touched it with my fingertips.
“Together,” I said.
“Together,” you said.
And you leaned your head against my shoulder, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. You slipped your arm around my waist. The smell of peonies met my nose. My lips went dry, and for a moment, I wondered what might be the right thing to do.
I pulled you closer, leaned my head against yours.
We held hands. Scars brushed together.
I decided that I did not care whether or not it was right, so long as I was doing it.
HOW WILL I TELL HER?
I could write to you forever about those heady days spent in Fujino. I could write of how silly I looked when you let me try on your dresses—how the billowing sleeves came just past my elbow, how none of your belts fit around my waist. I let you try on my deel. It was massive on you, pooling on the floor around your feet. You left the collar mostly undone.
I saw your collarbones, accents to the slender curve of your neck. I tried not to stare at them.
I was fascinated by you. By your motions, by your expressions, the smallest details of your life. In the mornings, you rose at Third Bell. After rising from the bed, you moved to your writing desk. In careful strokes, you wrote a line from one of your father’s poems—first in Hokkaran, then in Qorin letters. We’d read it together, so that you understood the pronunciation and I understood how to read it.
We took tea together. On the second day, I realized you were not let out of your rooms unless you were going to court. You did not say it aloud. I suspect you did not want to admit defeat.
And so you spoke of anything and everything except your parents.
“My uncle despises me,” you said one night.
I drummed my fingertips against the desk.
“He has not said this, but I know it to be true,” you continued. “He picked these rooms for me. He summons me to court, but only after peasants have worn him thin.
“To him,” you said, “I am nothing but a passing amusement. Someone to write his edicts, I suppose. But I have seen the jealousy festering behind his eyes. I am never invited to dinner, never allowed to greet our people.”
As you spoke, you wrote. Another set of notices, from what little I could read. You took no joy in this. You stabbed your brush into the water.
“He hopes people do not think of me,” you said. Brush met paper. You took a deep breath. A single, short, stroke.
“Three wives,” you said. “Three wives, no children; no bastards running amok. Peasants call him the Limp Emperor.”
It came together in my mind. Without any children, you were the only Hokkaran heir.
You were crown princess now.
Rocks against your window. You ignored them. The dark clouds on the horizon were somewhat harder to ignore. To the north of Hokkaro—toward the Ruined Lands—inky clouds marred Grandmother Sky’s skin. It was just the way of things.
“I shall be a woman soon, of proper age, and then no one will cage me,” you said.
Again, you spoke with certainty. But as your lips shaped the words, my heart forged them.
Cages were not meant for people.
*
TWO WEEKS AFTER I barreled into the palace in the dark of night, my mother followed in my footsteps. It was past Last Bell when we woke to clattering weapons outside the door. Qorin shouting reached my ears.