CHAPTER TWO

THE MASSACRE AT DAR ASO

Dar Aso was the immigrants’ district in Anzhao City, bordering Shang Azi. The majority of the population consisted of Jinseins—many second or third generation. I had since come to learn that Khine was comfortable around my people, and that he spent most of his spare time in Dar Aso among Jinsein friends. He spoke Jinan easily enough, with a slight accent that stood out—he emphasized every word carefully, instead of allowing the syllables to become a rolling mess the way others tended to do. Our conversations—back when we had more of them—were split between Zirano and Jinan, lapsing towards whatever felt more comfortable at the time.

I am still not sure why Khine was drawn to a place like Dar Aso. It was just as dirty as Shang Azi, with the noticeable presence of the city watch. In exchange, there was the absence of big houses like Lo Bahn’s—everything was small, narrow, cramped, hovels on top of hovels. That told you that the people in Dar Aso were barely getting by and that nobody had the money to bribe the watch to look the other way. The price to pay for Zarojo citizenship. I had to wonder, though, what was so awful about living in Jin-Sayeng that people were willing to brave the sea and live out in dirt and grime here instead. You’d think the ruler of Jin-Sayeng would know.

The one shining glory of the neighbourhood, as it turned out, was the hawker’s hub. It was a small, covered marketplace—about half the size of the one in Shang Azi—with a dozen restaurants and a common dining area that could probably sit a hundred people at a time. The building itself was an assault to the senses—drapes with all sorts of patterns hanging above each food stall, the sound of people chatting, pots clinging, and oil sizzling, and the smell of smoke and every type of roasted meat there was.

It seemed that the man we were looking for, a Gasparian, liked to have lunch here. We had found out about him after backtracking through Rayyel’s contacts. Khine had explained nonchalantly, and mostly to Agos it seemed, that he ran a store by the Eanhe, the river that served as the border between Dar Aso and Shang Azi. It apparently had a reputation, but he didn’t say exactly why.

It was only after Agos had left our table to see if he could catch a glimpse of our target that Khine finally managed a soft sigh, one that he seemed to have been holding on to since Lo Bahn’s.

“Come, now,” I said with a half-cocked grin. “The food’s not that bad.” I picked up a piece of the steamed chicken in front of me with my chopsticks, the bright, golden skin jiggling, and swirled it around the ginger-and-scallion-infused oil before popping it into my mouth.

Khine rubbed his chin, which had the shadow of a week-old growth of hair—too sparse to be called a proper beard. A far cry from the groomed courtiers that used to surround me, but he was typical of the sort of man I kept company with now.

I frowned at his silence. “Khine,” I said, my chopsticks hovering over the bowl of soup: a conflagration of bobbing fish heads and strips of carrots, oyster mushrooms, jicama, mustard greens, and tomato. It smelled of coconut cream, curry, and enough pepper and spices to knock a bull out. “It’s all right to talk about it, you know. We’ve been so busy the last few weeks—between me following my husband’s tail and you with Lo Bahn’s affairs. I believe the last time I’ve had the chance to talk to you alone was on the way to the docks to see Rayyel. Are you not in the least bit…” I struggled for the right word, even as I scolded myself for it. My father’s daughter had no business trying to explain herself to a commoner. She’d just pick herself up, shake it off, and move on.

He played with his rice with a chopstick before he finally set the bowl down. “I’m not sure what there is to talk about. It’s none of my business.” His voice remained cold. It was painful to hear.

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” I said, trying to lighten my tone.

“Mmm,” he said. “I’m trying to learn restraint.” He turned towards the other tables, pretending to look for Agos.

“Khine…” I began.

“Yes, Queen Talyien?”

“What’s going on here?”

“We are waiting for Agos to find Eridu. Now, I know for a fact that he prefers fried pork, so you may find him at Uncle Josi’s Pork Skin stall, but on occasion…”

“Khine.”

“Yes, Queen Talyien?”

“You’re avoiding the conversation.”

“Which conversation?”

I gestured around us. “This. About Rai, and Agos.”

“Like I said,” he murmured. “It’s not my business.”

I felt a well of dejection open up inside of me. I considered begging him to speak his mind, an idea that resulted in mocking laughter in my head—laughter that sounded so suspiciously like my father that I found myself looking around to see if he was behind one of the tables. Ignoring my rising panic, I regarded him with what I hoped was a neutral expression. “It is, actually. As queen, I need to know how much you know.”

“If that was an issue before, you would’ve brought it up on that day. Or killed me within the hour.”

“If you are judging me for…what transpired…” I began.

“Not judging, Beloved Queen,” Khine said, using the Jinan words. He stopped there, hesitating. He scratched his cheek and took a deep breath. “I’ve let my mouth run ahead of me in the past. I’ll hold my silence.”

“You are judging me. You might as well say something instead of letting it eat away at you.” He was staring at the edge of his plate a little too much. The buzz of conversation around us seemed to fade away.

Khine sighed. “It’s nothing. A nagging thought, but you know I have many.” His voice rose. “But have you ever considered the people who get caught up in all of this? How they feel?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

“You were born a princess, into a world of politics and appearances and deceit. And I have seen you try to live up to your name more than most. Queen Talyien aren dar Orenar is a strong, capable woman who needs no one, a true daughter of Warlord Yeshin—”

“Keep digging at it,” I drawled.

He smiled thinly. “But I think perhaps that you are taking for granted how people react to the things you do. Being someone in your position means every single decision, every single error, is amplified.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m aware.”

“I disagree,” he said. “I don’t think you are. Naivety is…dangerous for someone like you. Dangerous for others. Han Lo Bahn, for example. Has it occurred to you that the man has been trying to bed you for weeks?”

“I know that part,” I said, a little embarrassed that he would bring it up. “Gods, Khine. I’m not some half-wit maiden, and he’s not exactly subtle with the hints. Do you know I caught him picking flowers a few weeks ago? Lo Bahn, with flowers. Put that image in your head for a moment. I had a hard time keeping a straight face during our conversation.”

His face barely flickered. “But you see? He wants you, but he knows he will never get anywhere, and so his patience becomes more brittle as the days go on. You can’t offer him anything more than empty promises—he doesn’t know how hopeless your situation is. Who knows what he will do the longer you string him along? Your indecision can harm others, people who might not even know you exist.”

“You haven’t told him?”

“Of course not. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll know soon enough.”

“If he’s planning anything…”

Khine gave a pained smile. “I wouldn’t know about it. He knows what you are to me.”

I felt a moment of distraction as I tried to piece together what he just said. “What am I to you, Khine Lamang?”

“A responsibility.”

I bristled. “That’s—”

He avoided looking straight at me. “Maybe I’m using the wrong word.”

“You are forever responsible for a life you save. You told me this once. And I told you that I will not hold you accountable.”

“It’s not you I worry about,” he said. “It’s everyone else. I saved your life—you, a person whose very existence makes others suffer.”

He was an honest man outside of his cons. It would have hurt, except I agreed. “I don’t think about those things, Khine,” I muttered, my irritation fading. “I know I’m supposed to. The gods know I was trained to. But politics disappear when I think of my son, and he is all I can think of these days. I’ve been gone for months. I missed his nameday. Do you know how fast children grow? Thanh will be taller now. Thinner, I know that much. He was never a good eater and the servants wouldn’t have tried hard enough to feed him without me there. I’ll never get these days back, and the longer I’m gone, the more time I lose. I have to fix this—whatever I did with our lives. I have to stop Rayyel. And I don’t care what it takes, if I have to deal with men like Lo Bahn or risk myself or bleed—I’ll do it if it means protecting my son from harm. Is that naivety? Probably. Did I claim to know all the answers when all I really wanted was to keep the people who mattered safe?”

We fell into an uncomfortable silence.

“I wonder where our friend has gotten to,” Khine murmured. “It’s well past lunchtime.”

“Maybe the rich food got to him.”

“Making the queen of Jin-Sayeng wait while he’s bent over an outhouse pit. That’s quite an image.”

I had to smile at his attempt to lighten the situation. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to raise certain images in front of a meal?”

“No. Raised by rats, remember?” He looked at me now. Goosebumps prickled my skin.

“Agos is…” I started.

We heard the sound of dishes clattering to the floor. I looked up and saw a man in full city watch regalia standing on top of a table, a half-strung bow in his hands. He was scanning the dining hall for someone. More guardsmen were filing into the hawker’s hub, causing the staff from the food stalls to stop in the middle of their duties.

The guard turned to me.

I realized something in a heartbeat: I was not just enjoying an afternoon meal with a friend. My reflexes handled the rest. I grabbed Khine by the wrist and dropped to the ground just as an arrow flew past us. It buried itself into a post behind the table.

“Shit,” Khine said.

People were fleeing for the exits. I looked around for the archer, but he had disappeared. Did I just imagine that I was his target? I briefly wondered about Agos, but I didn’t have time to mull over whether he was safe or not. I caught Khine’s eyes before dashing towards the crowd. After a moment, I heard him huffing behind me.

We burst through the doors. In the distance, I heard someone screaming, a sound that felt like it had been ripped from deep inside someone’s body. I also thought I could smell blood. “We have to get out of here,” I heard Khine whisper.

“Agos is still back there.”

“Nothing we can do about that now.”

I stepped to the side of the street just as another wave of people broke through. There was the terrified wail of a mother who had lost her child in the stampede.

“Monsters, all of them!” the woman cried. “They’re killing everyone!”

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I steeled myself, expecting a fight, but when I turned around, it was only Agos. “Oh, Blessed Akaterru,” I gasped. “I was starting to think the worst.”

Agos turned to the thin dark-skinned man beside him. “Eridu,” he said. “I had just found him when the soldiers arrived. They started killing the shopkeepers.”

“This city’s gone mad,” Eridu grumbled. His Zirano had a heavy accent.

“And going madder still,” Khine broke in. “It’s best we get to a safe spot.”

“You,” Agos said, pointing at Khine. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

A thin line appeared over Khine’s brow. “Why would you think that?”

“Three months without incident, and then I leave you with the queen for half an hour and this happens. Some hell of a coincidence.” He turned to me. “Leave him here. Or I can gut him now, if you wish.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Agos,” I said. “We’re staying with Lo Bahn, and Khine’s working for him. Don’t you think it’s in his best interests to assist us?”

“Who knows what his best interests are?” Agos snarled. “The man’s been sniffing around you for the past three months. I told you to keep away, Lamang. I told you—”

Khine didn’t reply. He wasn’t even looking at Agos. “What do you mean you told him to keep away?” I asked.

Agos’s face tightened. The boy I had grown up with had changed into this bearded stranger. He used to be so easygoing, with a golden laughter that never failed to set my heart at ease. I had once asked him to jump into a pit full of dragon bones. He complied, soot on his face, and dared me to do the same.

Now…

I swallowed. Not a day went by that I didn’t blame myself for what Agos had become. Perhaps he had been eager enough to participate, but then again, he was sworn to me. Everyone knew he would die for me without a moment’s notice. Was refusing Warlord Yeshin’s daughter even an option? I didn’t understand then how power worked, how easy it was to blur those lines when you run along the edge like that. Arro did, which may have been why he was so against Lord General Ozo’s promotion of Agos as my guard captain in the first place.

Now I understood a little better. One night’s mistake had cost him his reputation and a good career. He would probably be a minor general by now, under direct command of Lord General Ozo himself, or at least well on his way to climbing the ranks of the Oren-yaro army. He wasn’t even an official member of the Queen’s Guard anymore. And I had little clue about what he had been doing the last six years—he remained tight-lipped about his activities.

All I knew was that this sullen, tightly wound man was not the boy I once knew, the one who did whatever silly thing I asked, who listened to me talk about Rayyel for hours on end. I wondered if he would ever return to the way he was. I missed my friend, not this constant reminder of my poor choices. If only wishing could turn back time…

Agos turned away. He had known me long enough to recognize when I was baiting him into an argument, and it was clear he wasn’t going to have any of it. Khine cleared his throat to break the silence and led us down the alley. The chaos behind us was getting louder. Before we left the shadow of the building behind us, I noticed that the sewage water in the gutters was streaked with red.

“What do they have to gain from all of this?” I said out loud, trying not to think about where the blood was coming from.

The man called Eridu cleared his throat. “I have only a guess,” he said. “It is a purge.”

“A what?” I asked. His use of the word was surprising. I had only ever read it from a book before. “What would they be trying to purge?”

“Acting Governor Qun is most insistent that there is a plot that resulted in Governor Zheshan’s disappearance,” Eridu replied. “It is no secret that Qun holds no fond feelings for us folk in Dar Aso. Perhaps he is trying to spread fear among the people, hoping it will get someone to talk.”

I gave Khine a look before taking a deep breath. “Nobody knows what happened to Gon Zheshan.” It was a well-practiced lie, one I had been saying for weeks. “There’s more to this than that.” I tried to drown out my fears with a nervous laugh; Khine turned sharply at the sound, his eyes searching. I closed my mouth, wondering what he saw. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

We reached a quiet corner a good distance from the butchery behind us. I could see a line of soldiers still marching towards the hawker’s hub, heavy boots pounding on the muddy cobblestone. People gathered outside their houses to stare at them, whispering amongst themselves. Even from afar, the terror was plain on their faces.

“Should we speak at a better time?” Eridu asked.

I tore my attention back to him, taking a deep breath and reaching inside to become queen of Jin-Sayeng once more. “No.” I drew him aside, pushing him to the back of a stone fence, well away from prying eyes. “You’ve eluded me long enough. You will talk. Now.”

There had been a faint smile on Eridu’s lips this whole time—a gesture of appeasement, as if he had somehow convinced himself in the minutes since he had met me that I was not the woman they said I was.

Most days, I wasn’t. I loathed the reputation that came with being my father’s daughter. To hear people talk, you would think that the streets of Oren-yaro often ran red with blood the way the neighbourhood of Dar Aso’s did now. But it was convenient sometimes, especially after Agos had already gotten started on him. He grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him onto a nearby bench. I stuck a dagger into the wood, a hair’s breadth from his leg, and brandished another. “Agos must’ve told you what we came for,” I said, running my finger along the blade.

Eridu swallowed, his throat bobbing as he did. “You want to know about your husband, Lord Rayyel, and his whereabouts. You think the information I gave him will help you.”

I gave my best impression of a wolfish smile. “You’re a smart man. I like dealing with smart men.”

“He wanted to know about mages. I’d traded with some of them before, goods from Gaspar. They’re very interested in them.”

“Goods?” I asked, glancing at Khine, who had given me his name in the first place.

“He’s a smuggler,” Khine explained. “Artifacts from temples. The mandraagar, the Gasparian holy mages, have a bounty on his head.”

Eridu gasped. “I’m only doing it to feed my family.”

“He’s got no kids and five whores,” Khine added.

I clicked my tongue. “Lying already. Smart men know when to tell the truth. What did I do with the last man who lied to me, Agos?”

“Cut his tongue out,” Agos said, eyes gleaming. “With a saw.”

“And then I fed it to my dogs,” I said.

“You don’t—” Eridu started. But he was starting to sweat.

“I don’t have dogs here, is that what you were about to say?” I smiled. “I can make do. I saw a stray pup on the way here. Maybe he’ll appreciate a new plaything.”

“Mangy thing like that, he’ll just swallow it whole,” Khine commented wryly.

“A man came to my store and wanted to know how to contact some of my clients,” Eridu quickly said. His hand flinched, as if he wanted to wipe some of his sweat away but didn’t dare to in front of me. “I told him to go away. My clients don’t trust me just so I could rat them out to anyone who came jingling a bag of coin in his hand.”

“Rayyel wouldn’t do that,” I said. “Jingling a bag of coin—honestly. You really don’t get this whole not-lying part, do you?” I threw the other dagger at him. It buried itself on the bench between his legs, which was a better shot than I had anticipated.

Eridu shook his head, rivulets of sweat running down his face like tears. “I’m telling the truth. I don’t know if it was this Lord Rayyel who came to see me. Someone did. I sent him away. Later, my store was raided—ransacked. My clients’ records were missing.”

“You kept records of clients who wanted to be kept anonymous?” Khine asked. He looked amused.

I wasn’t. I drew my sword now, watching with some satisfaction as the merchant wilted from the blade. “Now you’re implying that Rayyel robbed you. I dislike your tone. I’m trying to decide whether I dislike it more than your pathetic limbs. Maybe I’ll hack one off before we start on your tongue with that saw.”

“The truth,” Eridu gasped. “You wanted the truth. That’s the truth. Why ask and then accuse me of lying?”

“Because you’re scrambling. I’m losing my patience, merchant.”

He coughed. “All right—I…”

“Ah! All right?”

“It wasn’t a man. It was a woman. Jinsein, like you. Dressed like a priestess.”

“Sounds like my husband’s friend,” I said. “You’re doing great. I’m less annoyed now. Go on.”

“She wanted to know where I sent most of my shipments to. I didn’t remember, so I made her go through the records herself.” He shook his head. “Not that it made a difference. She didn’t get the chance. When we returned to office, we found it had been ransacked. She had to leave empty-handed.”

I swore.

Khine placed a hand on my arm before glancing at the man. “I have a hard time believing she left without anything. Don’t tell me this woman wasn’t persuasive at all.” Eridu glanced away.

“Come on. She’s Jinsein,” Khine continued. “She would’ve pressed further. For your own sake, you must’ve tried to salvage what you could for your business. Scribbled something down off the top of your head, maybe. That’s what I would do. She would have asked for…I know. The courier service you used. They’ll have the exact addresses of where your clients wanted the goods delivered. You sent her that way, didn’t you?”

“Fuck you, Lamang.”

“Which one was it?”

Eridu swallowed. Khine’s grin grew wider. “You know she’s not going to want to leave you alone unless you give us something. Her husband’s on his way to—”

“Lamang,” Agos warned.

“—kill her son with the help of those mages. Do you really want to stand between that?”

Eridu shook his head.

“So talk!” I rarely heard Khine raise his voice. In that instant, I caught a flash of the rage he liked to say he kept in check.

“Hatzhi and Sons. They’ve got an office by the Eanhe.”

“Good man. Start running,” I suggested.

Eridu carefully extracted his legs around my daggers. Without another word, he fled down the street. He didn’t get very far before Agos bore down on him and cut him from the back. “Stop!” I screamed, but it was too late. The man tumbled forward, his back spread out like an untied robe. Agos walked up to him.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, grabbing his arm.

Agos’s mouth was a thin line. “Lamang gave him too much information.”

Khine’s face had gone sheet-white. “I was only feeding him enough to get him to speak,” he murmured. On the ground, Eridu groaned. Khine dropped to his knees beside the merchant, his fingers curled over the wound. I think he was trying to figure out how to help, but he didn’t know where to start—there was blood everywhere.

“He’s already dead,” Agos commented. “Let me finish the job. Unless you want to leave him here to bleed out.”

“I’ll do it,” Khine whispered. He held out his hand. “Get me a dagger.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I can do it faster.”

“Killing is killing,” Agos spat.

“To a fucking butcher, maybe,” Khine said. His voice was cold rage, now.

“He would have told someone else about her husband and the boy,” Agos replied. “It wouldn’t take much to put two and two together.”

“The dagger,” Khine repeated.

I pulled out a dagger from the bench and pressed it into his palm. He wrapped his fingers around the hilt, holding it more firmly than I thought he would. Khine bent over the groaning man, placing his hands on both sides of Eridu’s cheeks. “An-albaht guide you on the road,” he said before stabbing the side of the man’s neck. He hit the artery on the first try; blood squirted down his arms, splattering on the ground. Eridu’s body fell limp.

“They’ll think he’s just another victim of this,” Agos said. “But we have to get out of here before we’re seen.”

“I didn’t know participating in a massacre was part of the plan,” Khine growled.

“If you’re going to insist on tagging along with us, then you better learn to keep your mouth shut,” Agos barked.

“Enough, Agos,” I broke in. “We have other things to worry about.”

Agos sheathed his sword. “Perhaps we should return to Han Lo Bahn’s while everything settles down. We can go to the courier later.”

Khine was still looking at Eridu’s prone form. “You knew him,” I said.

His face flickered. “He was a patient of mine a few times when I was still a student with Tashi Reng Hzi. A rash he picked up from the whorehouse, and then a broken hip bone when he tried to chase a woman down the street.”

“Good riddance,” Agos sniffed.

Khine looked up, staring back at Agos long enough that I thought he would hit him. Instead, he pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and draped it over the dead man’s head. “Gods, Tali,” he murmured, his voice dropping down to its familiar softness. “Rivers of blood, everywhere you walk. Now do you understand?”

He said nothing more, but the accusation was enough to make my ears ring.