O-Shizuka offers her a small smile. “I do not know how you did it. I do not want to know. But it was admirable all the same,” she says. “You are a woman who deals in flesh and secrets, in more ways than one. Do not think the Phoenix Throne is blind to this.”
“Your Majesty,” says Ren, her voice suddenly unsure. “Are you asking me to cease business?”
“No,” says O-Shizuka. “In your hands is an Imperial Writ of Pardon. Whatever business you are conducting—whatever secrets you trade in, whatever lives you take in the night—is yours to deal with. You have done well to make it to Fujino, but if the time comes when you find you’ve made a false step, that pardon will free you from prosecution. You need only produce it.”
Ren stares back at her. “You do not want a cut?”
“I am not requiring one,” O-Shizuka says. “If you want to negotiate, that is a separate thing. But this is a gift, from me to you. From one woman to another.”
And the singing girl touches her forehead to the floor before rising again, clutching the red envelope in shaking hands. “Your Imperial Majesty,” she says, “I do not think I’ve ever received a more thoughtful gift.”
At this, O-Shizuka laughs. “You are an excellent liar! Was the return of your father’s war mask less thoughtful?” O-Shizuka says. She waves. “This is paper and ink. Only my position makes it powerful; only my position makes it thoughtful. Anyone could make you a forgery of it. But that war mask was the only one of its kind, and I can tell you Barsalai kept it with her when she left. Do not flatter me.”
The madam clears her throat, a vain attempt to hide a blushing smile. Did she not know that Shefali kept the mask? “Be that as it may,” she says, “this one is genuine.”
“It is,” agrees O-Shizuka. Strange. Something’s changed in the woman before her. She is still as warm and inviting as morning tea, but … it’s as if someone slipped poison into it. Not that Ren is hostile. No. But she is more dangerous now.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Ren says. “If you would like to arrange for either of my services again—”
O-Shizuka raises a hand. “I am interested only in your spies, and I am not interested in discussing them at present. I summoned you here to thank you. This I have done. You may now return to your home. In two days’ time, then you may return—when I have finished Barsalai’s letter. But not a moment before then.”
And Ren touches her forehead to the floor. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she says. “May the Eight return Barsalai to you in two days.”
When Ren leaves, she is grinning.
It must be the pardon. O-Shizuka wonders if she’s made a mistake, doing that. But Shefali spoke so highly of her, and Shefali has always been an excellent judge of character.
She returns to her reading.
LET ME REMEMBER ONLY THIS
The journey from southern Shiseiki to Xian-Lai takes the better part of five months, for Xian-Lai lies to the southeast of Fujino. Though our trip from the steppes to the North was largely uneventful once we reached the Empire. For obvious reasons, our trip to my brother’s new holdings was different in method.
We stopped at temples whenever we could, in search of answers about my condition. Not many temples, since the Troubles, boasted a full staff. Before things took this turn, there were eight priests in each village.
But as we rode past villages … now we struggled to find even one.
I can sympathize with them. Who can keep their faith when the gods withdraw signs of their favor? When the Daughter’s Everblossoms wilt beneath her watchful gaze; when daggers placed at the Son’s feet rust within days?
It used to be that a different member of the Family would visit every eight years. That is how Hokkarans predict a child’s fortunes. The year of one’s birth combined with the day and the week and the month formed a prophecy, or so we are told.
You, naturally, were born on the day, the week, the month dedicated to the Daughter. Even the minutes and hours lined up. I can’t tell you how often priests commented on this. How commoners commented on it. Everyone did, really, and more than one story about you being the Daughter reborn was making the rounds in teahouses.
And I was born one month after you were. And it so happened that my dates aligned, too, with those of the Grandmother, but no one ever praised me for it.
That was just fine. I praised her on my own. So it was with all Qorin. This notion of going to temple is distinctly Not Qorin. Who needs a temple, when the Sky herself stretches out above you, eternal? We do not burn prayer tags, Shizuka; we do not build shrines in her honor. Grandmother Sky is happy to listen to us when we pray to her, and Grandfather Sky is happy to drink any milk we pour onto him.
But it had been so long since one of the Heavenly Family visited during their year! Not even the most devout, who prayed every day for the slightest glimpse, had seen them.
Your uncle summoned the High Priests to convene in Fujino that summer—the summer of our seventeenth year. This made finding priests doubly difficult: those who remained faithful in the face of adversity were on the way to Fujino.
That said, we met a few along the way. You had no trouble flagging down religious caravans when you saw them, and less trouble gaining an audience when you did so. A quick word, a few strokes of ink, that was all it took to establish your identity. I found I got fewer stares if I wore the fox mask, which was all the better for me.
The trouble always began when I entered the caravan, sometimes before I took the mask off. Without fail, the priest seized up against the wall and recoiled from me. Daughter, Mother, Father, Son—it did not matter to whom they were dedicated.
“You wear the Traitor’s Crown!” they’d say.
“Do not stand near me!”
“You are unclean!”
Tiring. It was all so tiring. Every time they protested like this, the demons I carried protested right back. It is a trying thing to let a demon’s vile insults fall on deaf ears, but you and I spent a great deal of time practicing for it. Clearing one’s mind is an important part of dueling, and as the finest duelist in the Empire, you made it your duty to teach me.
So I did as you’d said. I imagined my mind as a pool of water, and my thoughts as ripples. I focused on the image—focused on calming the water—and in doing so tuned out the voices. It was not an easy thing to do. I failed more often than I succeeded.
But I was failing less as time went on.
Still, we found no aid.
In all the history of the Heavenly Empire, has there ever been a case like mine? The Traitor slew his nephew Ages ago; if someone lived with the blackblood, there would be a record. Certainly we have stories of other heroes. Brave men and women who slew demons with hardly a thought. Tumenbayar and Batumongke, your ancestor Minami Shiori, Brave Yasaru and Foolhardy Mitsuo.
Yet I can think of no hero whose jaw unhinges in the heat of battle. None who craved blood, or tasted fear. None who wandered the nights sleepless, tireless, unrelenting. None who are quite as strong as I am, or as fast.
I am an anomaly.