Bruises circled your throat where my hands had been. I touched one now.
You shook your head. “Don’t,” you said, “don’t dwell on that.”
“But—”
“Don’t!” you snapped. A sob left you. You caressed my cheek with your head still buried against my chest. Do not dwell on it. Do not dwell on nearly killing you.
Your eyes were red as the peonies you so treasured. “Listen to me,” you said, your fingers trailing over my lips. “Heart of my heart, listen well. Today will be the first and last time you hurt me.”
I brought my brows together. You sniffed once and drew away just enough for us to look at each other eye to eye. Or as close to that as we could get, considering the height difference.
You stood proud as ever, straight backed, with your head held high. Salt trails, bloodshot eyes—these were the remnants of your previous mood. But you’d cast it aside like sullied armor.
You’d become the Empress again.
“When we were three,” you said, “we met for the first time. I saw you and I felt something horrible in my bones, something awful and great. Even as a child, I knew that I could never be free of you. And, young as I was, I rankled at that idea. So, I lashed out. I tried to rid myself of you. I tried to kill you.”
You paused, your regal mask dropping for an instant. You looked at your feet.
“I do not think you remember this, and you are better for it.”
I did not want to tell you that I did remember. You had not yet finished speaking, and I knew interrupting you would stifle the courage you’d mustered.
“I have spent years atoning for that,” you said. “I hold you dear as air, dear as light, dear as flame and earth. All my life I’ve … I’ve endeavored to show you how I feel. And I may not be my father, I may not be a poet, I may not make the flowers weep—but my actions, I hope, have spoken as loud as thunder.”
You bit your lip.
“Yet when I look back on them, I see constant missteps,” you continued. “You would not bear tiger stripes on your shoulder if I hadn’t insisted on camping out. And—”
You drew a deep, sharp breath.
“And if the blackblood has driven you to such violent acts, it is only because I encouraged us to go into the temple. This yoke you wear, I have placed upon you.”
You could not have known. You could not have known we’d be bested, or that I would be infected. It was not your fault, Shizuka; you sought only to fulfill the destiny you so longed for. You would’ve gone with or without me.
If the price of keeping you safe is this walking damnation, then I do not mind. As long as you are safe, my Shizuka. As long as you are safe.
“Shizuka—”
“Beloved, I am not done,” you said. “This curse in your blood is not an enemy I can cut down—but it is something you can fight. And I will help you in whatever ways I can, insignificant though they may be. Whatever it takes to master this beast, Shefali. We will track down monks and sages. We will visit butchers together. I will hold you back and watch with you as the animals are slaughtered, that you might learn self-control. I will stand before you with an outstretched hand, my love, and if the time should ever come when you succumb—”
You swallowed.
“—then I shall be there to free you of your suffering,” you said, your voice cracking. Tears streamed anew down your face. “This I swear to you. No longer will we take comfort in hollow platitudes. It is time we took the field.”
You held yourself with renewed purpose. I stared at you, unable to think of words. How was I to thank you?
I drew you close and kissed you quick, and beneath our canvas tent we shed our clothing together for the first time in months.
THE EMPRESS
FIVE
The Empress of Hokkaro sends for a singing girl.
She’s done this before. Eight years is a long time to sleep in an empty bed. Yes, as much as she loves Shefali—and she loves her beyond measure—she has shared herself with others. Not often, and never the same girl twice. But it has happened nonetheless.
Here is how it went: The Empress would send one of her servants to the brothel, and they’d return with someone tall and dark and silent. O-Shizuka would ask her name. That was the extent of the conversation the two of them would have. In the morning, she’d pay her handsomely and send her on her way and that was that.
O-Shizuka’s heart is stitched together with the hope that she’ll see Shefali again. Sometimes she needed to add a bit more thread. That was all.
But this time is different. This time, she sends her servant out with specific instructions.
“Find the brothel with the stables out front,” she says. “The one run by a woman from Shiseiki Province. Enter it, and return with the madam, or do not return at all. No other will do. I don’t care how beautiful they are or what charms they possess—I seek only the madam.”
She knows the name of this particular pleasure house, of course. Everyone does. The Imperial Gardens. It is a gesture of Shizuka’s magnanimity that she allows it to exist when it so clearly insults her.
Her servant swallows. The madam is notorious throughout Hokkaro. If Shizuka represents divinity, then the madam represents the underworld. She is in every plume of Sister’s Gift; she is in every dark alley. She is an unexpected knife to the gut; she is your most precious secret spoken on the lips of a stranger.
Yes—Shizuka has dealt with her before. But never like this.
And then she waits.
And so the thoughts come.
She’s seen the place before. It’s not far from the palace. Oh, not too close, of course. But as close as they could conceivably get. Courtiers and warriors alike favor it; they say it’s the only brothel in Fujino where you and your horse can both get a good rubdown.
O-Shizuka chuckles, alone, at the joke. It distracts her from the fires of jealousy for a fleeting moment. Then the thoughts return.
Madam Ren held Shefali. Madam Ren comforted her. The queen of the Hokkaran underworld, the woman who rules all the things Shizuka cannot be seen to touch—she is the one who comforted Shefali in her darkest moment. The thought of it—a common singing girl laid hands on the love of O-Shizuka’s life! The thought of it—
Nearly infuriates her, but not quite.
She tries to get angry. She tries to fume and throw her silent fit over it, but so many years have passed since then, and O-Shizuka herself is no storied saint. Shefali kept emphasizing they never went to bed.
No, it’s not worth getting upset about. That’s what O-Shizuka tells herself as she waits. Somehow, it doesn’t get rid of the acrid taste in the back of her mouth.
But she waits, regardless, for her servant to return. It’s Seventh Bell when she does.
“Your Imperial Majesty, I’ve returned with the … ah … businesswoman you requested.”
That was a polite way of saying it. Sometimes, thought the Empress, she did not hate her servants.
“She may enter.”