CHAPTER

38

Exhausted though he was after all the fun they’d had breaking in Keun-ju’s new lust-harness, Sullen couldn’t sleep. He should’ve just gotten up ages ago instead of fighting it, hoping he’d drift off through force of will, but that just proved no matter how much you learned in this life there were some mistakes you were just going to keep making. Softly and quietly as he could manage, he moved Ji-hyeon’s arm off his chest and eased out of the wide stone bed. Sleeping arrangements were another thing the Immaculates knew how to do better than anyone outside of Flintland—usually Sullen never slept so good as on the slab mattress, but not tonight. Stepping over the clothes scattered hither and yon in the enormous room, he went to the screen wall where the moonlight shone through and softly slid it open, stepping out onto the balcony.

He didn’t think he could ever get used to this sight, the mountains of moonlit roofs stretching out to the sea. Ji-hyeon told him the Spring Palace was even nicer, but how did you even reckon a thing like that? At a certain point things were as fine as a baby’s baby hairs, and you couldn’t get finer than that.

There was a time not so long ago that being out under the naked night sky like this didn’t feel so nice, and he’d be checking the edge of every cloud to see if the Faceless Mistress was creeping on him. Now that the song was good and sung he figured he wouldn’t mind running into her again, so’s he could knock her mighty knuckles with his own and tell her that was some good looking out. He still peered over his shoulder on sleepless nights like this, mind, but that was only so he could take in the silhouette of the majestic rowan spreading out high above the city.

It wasn’t the same as coming back to a low fire and finding Fa waiting up for him, but it was as close as he’d ever come again in this life, and he was glad for it. Sometimes he wondered if the reason he was being so slow about climbing up and retrieving the black spear Uncle Maroto had left lodged in one of those branches was so that he’d always feel the old man watching over him, no matter where he was in Othean. Well, that, and it would be one dangerous ruddy clamber, and with his luck he reckoned he’d be scouting a lot of cloud-kissed branches before he hit on the right one.

Or maybe Fa would save him the hassle, give a whistle to let him know which bough to scurry up the first try. You never could tell with that old wolf—times you assumed he’d go easy on you turned out to be harder than a diamond nipple, and times you figured he’d make it tough he just offered one of those rare blissed-out smiles and passed you the beedi. Sullen sighed up at the rowan, appreciating how the pale bark shimmered in the moonlight as if it were carved from a glacier, and even from this distance he could dimly make out ephemeral devils dancing down the paths of its stately branches, if he squinted just right. He remembered how as a pup his mom and his grandfather were always arguing over whether his snow lion eyes were a blessing or a curse, whether he was marked by the gods or marked by the devils, but here in the Isles folk didn’t seem to think there was any difference—spirits were spirits, and far removed from mortal notions of good and evil, right and wrong. Sullen liked that interpretation, even if he was sure his born-again mother wouldn’t.

Feeling the mild ocean breeze ruffle his hair, Sullen wondered how hot it was on the Frozen Savannahs right now, if Ma had been right and they were really melting or if it had just been one of those warm spells everyone always took too seriously. He wondered …

The bedroom screen slid open again and Keun-ju stepped out, the breeze Sullen had found so balmy making the Immaculate shiver in his robe. Of course, that could just be a pretext to have Sullen put his arm around him, but either way the solution was agreeable.

“Is your stomach bothering you again?” whispered Keun-ju as he cuddled against Sullen.

“Nah, it’s actually been better—how’s the arm?”

“Amputated.”

Sullen shook his head. “Does that ever get old?”

“Not really,” said Keun-ju, wiggling his shoulder nub into Sullen’s armpit. When the bigger man didn’t take the rough-housing bait Keun-ju asked, “Is it anything you want to talk about?”

“Nah, I mean, it’s just …”

“Family drama?”

“Family drama.” Sullen smiled, squeezing his partner. “I guess it’s like, I lost Fa, and I handled that. I did. But then I lost Uncle Maroto just as soon as we finally fixed things between us, and that’s bad, worse than Fa, even, but I’m handling it, too—but her just cutting out like that? Without even coming to see me once? How am I supposed to make that right?”

“You’re not,” said Keun-ju firmly. “You’ve done all you can for that woman. She is a crazy person.”

“Well, yeah, but blood is blood,” said Sullen, the same excuse she had always made for him and Fa when the other clanfolk were riled up over something they’d said or done … or not said or not done.

“Sullen, did you ever think maybe she didn’t come to see you because she didn’t know how to make things right, except by leaving?” Keun-ju rested his head against Sullen’s shoulder. “Your mother is very proud, and very opinionated, and very, very crazy. If she thought there was more to be said—or more likely, more blood to be shed—would she have left? In a hundred years?”

“Nooooo,” sighed Sullen. “I know you’re right. Her ways are her ways, and if she’s finally acknowledged that they’ll never be mine we can all sleep better.”

A snore from the Empress of the Immaculate Isles made them both smile. In the morning they would tackle all the challenges that came from being the bodyguards of a bloody-handed reaver who had usurped the very throne of Little Heaven, according to the rogue Isles who refused to acknowledge their new sovereign. For a few more hours, at least, though, they could luxuriate in having fulfilled the destiny they had chosen for themselves, and with no veil to slow him down, Sullen kissed Keun-ju on the balcony of the Winter Palace.

Then they went back inside, to the bed they shared with Empress Ji-hyeon Bong.

Horned Wolves did not ride, except when absolutely necessary. Such as when the interior of a vardo is cramped with folk and echoing with chatter for hour after hour, day after day. Purna was a respectable huntress, but loud, and her friends were louder. The pair of Outlanders were both very old, and so it was to be expected that they should be outspoken—Best’s father, after all, had only grown more irascible with age. These heavily perfumed greypelts also had songs of great and wild hunts, such as Best would have scoffed at had she not lived through such mad days herself, but neither the Duchess Din nor the Count Hassan constrained themselves to tales of glory and battle. If anything, they viewed these things as ancillary to all the feasts they had eaten, the new games of chance they had invented, and the bawdy songs they had learned. It was the songs in particular that had eventually driven Best to ride atop the vardo beside Nemi that last afternoon, and she was pleased to find it not unlike flying above the endless fields of saw grass.

“There it is,” said Nemi, slowing Myrkur as they came to the familiar greasy smudge on the earth where nothing would ever grow … a circle not unlike the one Best had stepped inside, back in an empty church in the Haunted Forest. “I could carry you farther—we’re taking Purna’s friends all the way down to the Serpent’s Circle, so adding another few days won’t make much difference.”

“This is where we met, this is where we part,” said Best. “I will walk the rest of the way alone.”

“Well, shall I let Purna know so you can say your goodbyes?” asked Nemi of the Bitter Sighs, a far more sentimental sorceress than Best had presumed.

“Farewells are for the dead, and we may yet meet again in this world,” said Best, taking her old pack and her new spear and dropping from the wagon. The impact sent a jolt of pain through her still-mending arm, and the pain made her smile—it reminded her she had warred against the very gods and lived to sing the song. Then, for the first time since meeting these strange companions of hers, she reached out and stroked the horned wolf. She found herself barely able to stop, once her fingers were running through Myrkur’s pelt, the feeling of a live one so much different … “But I know you put stock in such words, and so I once more say good hunting to you, Nemi of the Bitter Sighs, and to this one as well.”

“Good hunting, Best of the Horned Wolf Clan,” said the witch, adjusting her pince-nez on her nose. “And if in my sojourns I travel through Flintland perhaps we shall indeed meet again.”

“You will not find me there,” said Best, shouldering her pack. “I go only to warn my clan they have been deceived by the Burnished Chain, and to meet any in the Honor Circle who would stop me from leaving once I have had my say.”

“Well!” said Nemi, no doubt as impressed by Best’s candor as Father Turisa, the Poison Oracle, and the council of elders would be. “Where will you go after that?”

“Where else?” said Best, casting her gaze back the way they had come. “Like my father before me, I shall go to dwell with my child until the last of my days.”