Guards? I was a monster to them. A thing to be avoided.
So I split my time between you and my horse, the two most important women in the world. Alsha did not try any of her smart tricks. No, she cantered about as if I were a child. That was fine with me. I did not want to go too fast. I did not much want to do anything.
It was on one such nighttime ride that I saw campfires in the distance. I was out farther than the patrols went.
I found myself riding closer. If they were bandits, I could end them. I might welcome the distraction it’d bring to the demons haunting me. If they were not bandits, I could leave and bring back word of what I’d seen.
But the closer I came, the clearer it was: three bright white gers guarded by one dozen braided warriors.
My mother had finally found us.
OUR SLEEVES, WET WITH TEARS
I did not spend much time around your mother, and for this I will always feel some regret. O-Shizuru exists in stories as a dark woman, hands forever coated with blood, trailed always by crows. I know these stories cannot hope to capture her essence, just as the stories of my mother fail to capture hers.
But I remember distinctly the way she spoke about her position. Imperial Executioner. Whenever the subject came up, she would scoff. Once, I awoke in the middle of the night, after dreaming a dragon ate my leg, and I saw your mother sitting with a cup in one hand and a bottle in the other. Her gray-streaked hair was all a mess.
“I’m no executioner,” she said. “Yoshimoto calls me that only so he can feel better about himself. I am either his butcher or his last resort.” And here I remember she took a sip of her rice wine, which was always at her side. “Bandits or blackbloods. That’s all I ever fight. He never sends me after nobles, never has me act as anyone’s second. Between the two, Shefali-lun—between things that were once people I liked, and people who turn to robbery to fill their bellies, I’d rather have…”
I never got to hear her answer. Your father emerged not long after that, and with gentle words convinced her that it was time for bed.
I have thought on that moment many times since then. Which is worse—to confront the dead you once knew, or to confront strangers you sympathize with? Whose blood is heavier?
I will tell you:
The worst thing in life is to face your family after you have shamed them. For the moment I spotted my mother’s white felt ger, I knew that if I told her of my condition, I might as well be killing her.
I wished it’d been bandits instead. If bandits approached camp, I’d know precisely what to do: draw my bow and fire until no one remained. If guards caught me, then I would’ve raced them back to the barracks. They would have had no hope of catching me on my good Qorin mare.
But she was my mother. My mother, who hated boats as much as I did, and warned me as a child never to take one. My mother, who abhorred leaving the steppes for any reason, except to see your mother. From what I knew, she had not been to the Wall of Flowers since she traveled with O-Shizuru and the Sixteen Swords. What was initially a mission to clear out invading blackbloods became a lasting warning against confronting them.
Oh, our mothers slew one of the Traitor’s Generals—for this, the entire Empire sang your mother’s praises—but every one of the other Swords died in the effort. Fourteen of the most renowned warriors in Hokkaro, from all walks of life. General Kikomura fought alongside a cobbler from southern Fuyutsuki Province. The youngest daughter of silk merchants, a man with grandchildren about to marry. All that mattered was their swordplay—and look where that got them. Whatever triumph our mothers felt was tempered by the loss of their companions.
No, my mother had not returned to Shiseiki since she spent eight days in a cave being tortured. Yet here she was; here was her ger with its banner flapping in the wind.
She did not know what had happened to me. I could not tell her. I could not. My affliction, so feared by my people, had not killed me. Instead, I felt myself becoming something else.
Should I run? I sat frozen in the saddle. Should I run from my own mother, rather than tell her what had happened? Should I rouse you from your slumber, and ask you what to do? What if our riders spotted me first—what then? What was I going to do, what was I going to say? As far as she knew, I’d run off on some bullheaded adventure. She could not know. She could not imagine the thoughts drifting through her daughter’s mind, could not know how afraid I was to leave the room when I knew others would be near.
But I could no longer listen to the voices calling me a coward.
Before all this happened, I faced a tiger, and felt no fear. Before all this, I faced a demon. I was Tiger-Striped Shefali, not Shefali the Fearful. And if I could endure the pain of a slow death, I could endure the shame of returning to my mother’s ger.
And so I rode toward the bright white gers. And so I dismounted. Temurin, standing outside my mother’s ger, had to look twice to confirm it was me.
“Barsalai!” she called, and she reached for me, she tried to take me by the shoulder and embrace me. “Burqila has traveled long to find you.”
I recoiled from her touch, not out of malice, but concern. Some small part of me worried even that contact would infect others.
Temurin stared at her four-fingered hand. A deep frown engraved itself onto her brown skin, her wrinkles only adding to it. Our most loyal guard was earning a crown of gray hairs for her service. I had not noticed them before I left; when did they appear?
“Barsalai, you do not want my greeting?”
I licked my lips. No, I did want her greeting. I wanted everyone’s. But if she sniffed my cheek, she might smell the rot that hung around me like a cloud. I could not risk making her sick.
“Mother,” I said.
“You are acting strangely,” Temurin said, crossing her arms. “You will not let me smell you—how am I to know you are truly Barsalai? You might be a demon wearing her form.”
I opened my hand, closed it. My fingers twitched. My nostrils flared. Why was I standing around, listening to this, when I could barrel through?
No. Those were not my thoughts.
Instead, I leaned forward and sniffed both Temurin’s cheeks. She smelled of old leather and horses. Yes, that was Temurin as I remembered her. She took me by the shoulders, and I forced myself to relax. I cannot deny the fear that grasped me as she pressed her nose to my cheek. What if, what if? What if this simple act killed her?
When she pulled away, she wrinkled her nose. “You smell different,” she said, “like too-sweet flowers.”
I flinched.
“Mother,” I said again, my voice more sharp this time.
She narrowed her grassy eyes at me. “All right,” she said. “Barsatoq must be turning you into something more Hokkaran, I suppose. Go in. Burqila is sleeping. If it is you, she will not mind being awoken.”