CHAPTER TWELVE

FOLLY OF A FIFTH SON

You would think I should’ve known better. Should’ve been more careful, should’ve anticipated what a man like Prince Yuebek was capable of. But I had thought he was dead. I wanted him to be dead.

Before our desperate flight from Anzhao City, I had spent some time reading up as much as I could on Yuebek. It was difficult, given my limited knowledge of the Zirano script and the fact that I didn’t want my guards realizing how worried I was about the whole thing. It took a few weeks of harassing shady book dealers outside of Shang Azi and visiting public archives near the governor’s palace, but I was able to gather some knowledge of his past. Enough knowledge. Enough to worry me.

Yuebek grew up in the capital in Kyan Jang and was the only living son of Emperor Yunan’s Fourth Consort. He was the younger son until his ninth year, during which it was said he strangled his elder brother to death during a schoolyard fight before setting him on fire.

An inquest deemed it an accident. An unfortunate thing, but a thing boys sometimes did. It wasn’t as if Yuebek’s brother was a saint. The boy was cruel to him, a bully who would smear his face into the dust and call him names. There was also the possibility of sexual abuse. But the most important part of the whole incident, aside from Yuebek assuming the position of Fifth Son from there on out, was that Yuebek’s skill in the agan surfaced. He was sent to study with mages at a nondescript location before he turned ten.

His connection to the agan, it was said, came from his mother’s line, not the emperor’s. A connection to the agan was deemed a useful skill when put in service of the empire, but it frightened them to see it within the nobility. It implied a potential to tip a power struggle their way, and it was commonly suggested (though not within polite company) that such children ought to be silently whisked away to be raised by mages without knowledge of their status.

The imperial court, of course, kept silent about the whole affair, although questions were raised. How did Yuebek make it to his ninth year without anyone noticing anything about the boy? The Fourth Consort’s servants were taken, grilled—some, it’s said, under torture. The empress was livid; attempts were made on Yuebek’s life over the years. Somehow, he survived them all, and returned to Kyan Jang as a young man, fully intending to take his place in court.

There was a massive outcry. The empress and her sons wanted him gone, but the Esteemed Emperor refused to banish him without reason. And Yuebek was—for all his eccentricities—a devoted enough son. That was when they arranged for his marriage to Zhu Ong. It wasn’t exactly banishment, but it wasn’t an ideal marriage even to someone who didn’t know much about Zarojo bloodlines. The Ong family was at least five steps away from the imperial dynasty. Bottom-feeders, as far as everyone was concerned.

That the Fourth Consort even agreed was the greatest mystery. Sure, there was the gift army, Yuebek’s Boon, but in such a vast empire, they were drops of water in a rolling sea. Yet she made no comment and even praised the Esteemed Emperor’s foresight for such a marriage—at least, according to the texts I read. She had been more vocal in the past when her elder son was alive.

Sometime after Yuebek had first gone to live with the mages, the War of the Wolves happened.

I could deny my father’s involvement with Yuebek when I thought the man was nothing but ashes in the governor’s building in Anzhao. No one else had heard him say it, or read with their own eyes the letter penned by my father’s hand. The knowledge had gnawed my insides, but I was convinced I could make it mean nothing in time. That if I could unite my kingdom, that would also somehow undo my father’s treachery.

I suddenly remembered his ghost laughing over my marriage to Rayyel back in Yuebek’s dungeons. “You fell in love with the brat,” the hallucination had accused me.

Wasn’t I supposed to, Father?

A snake-man bore down, hot breath on my ear as it gave a smile reminiscent of Yuebek’s. I saw my father’s decision in its eyes, saw the power that tempted him to hand me over to a man like that. And I never proved him wrong, did I? I couldn’t prove that Yeshin’s daughter was enough. I roared as I parried the snake-man’s attack, my blade nicking an arm. With every passing moment, their limbs seemed more solid, actual muscle and bone in place of clay. Their attacks gained in speed. I realized that I was still alive because they weren’t trying to kill me—Yuebek was just trying to wear me down. He was laughing like a little boy who had just discovered a new plaything.

I missed a step. A fist smashed into my cheek. I dropped to the ground and tried to get up. Rai was charging Yuebek. Namra was—doing something, creating a spell, I didn’t know. Khine was nowhere in sight.

I threw an arm up and stabbed the nearest snake-man in the throat. It contorted immediately, black blood gushing out of the wound. I rolled to the side before I got drenched, grabbed the limp arm, and threw its body into the path of the next one. It didn’t recover. Yuebek was now preoccupied with defending himself against Rai.

I tore into the second snake-man with renewed vigour. With Yuebek distracted, its movements had become imprecise. I slid my sword into its belly and yanked it up, right through its rib cage. The bone parted. Torrents of black liquid oozed through the gap, running down the blade and onto my hands. I kicked the body away and turned, breathing through my mouth, my fingers tingling.

Shadows emerged from every corner of the hall. Hooded figures. Yuebek’s mages.

A strangled cry pierced the air. I craned my head in time to see Rai’s sword explode into pieces just as Yuebek stabbed him in the gut with a dagger. I realized the cry came from my own throat.

The chandelier near the antechamber suddenly crashed right on top of at least two mages. Someone hurled an oil lantern into it from the shadows. There was an explosion, and the curtains and tapestries caught on fire.

“To your left, Tali,” Khine called out. There was another lantern in his hand. He walked up to Yuebek before throwing the lantern straight at him. As Yuebek tried to dance away from the flames, Khine lifted Rai onto his shoulders. “I’ve got him!” he screamed. “Clear the way!”

Smoke was engulfing the room. I tore into a mage who tried to block my path, my blade sinking into his thigh and then his shoulder, as if he were nothing but a hunk of meat strung up in a butcher’s shop. The man stood no chance. I pushed the convulsing body to the side just as another dashed up to meet me. I dodged, slashed again, gutting him. His innards decorated the garden walkway, spilled across the flagstone like a sick dog’s breakfast.

Somehow, I made it to the far side of the courtyard. Two figures were tied to posts in the middle of the square, their bodies bleeding from a dozen lashes.

“My queen,” Agos gasped.

I hesitated. I had just seen him explode minutes ago. But there were probably more mages behind me and I didn’t have time to think things through. I struck his bonds with my sword. He fell forward into my arms. He was alive—warm, breathing, and reeking of sweat. He scrambled to gain his footing. “I saw him make dummies of us,” he managed to whisper. “That man—he should be buried alive. What’s happening back there?”

My relief at learning they weren’t dead after all was overtaken by the urgency of the situation. “No time to explain,” I said. I turned to set Nor free. She looked disoriented as I helped her to her feet.

“Beloved Queen—it is as you said,” Nor whispered. “That man believes he is doing this according to your father’s will. He says there are others back home who support this claim. Prince Thanh is in danger—we have to return to Oren-yaro at once.”

I had never wanted to agree with her as fervently as I did that moment. But my next thoughts were drowned out by the sight of Khine dragging Rai up the steps to the square. Blood dripped on the ground with his every step, so much of it that I was afraid he would slip. I didn’t know where it was all coming from. How could one man bleed so much?

Yuebek appeared behind them like a ghost, eyes glowing blue. I pushed Nor towards Agos and sprinted back to the archway, raising my sword as I ran. I could feel my heart pounding; I didn’t think I was going to reach them in time.

Flames exploded. Yuebek rolled to avoid them, and Namra began to cast another spell. I readied myself to strike at Yuebek. He lifted his hand, which was glowing blue. This time, I was prepared for it—I sidestepped just as his spell reached me. It slammed into a sapling several paces away.

Khine was on him before he could recover, having dropped Rai to clumsily swing at him with a sword. I took advantage of the distraction. My own blade caught Yuebek’s arm, just above his elbow. Yuebek grimaced like a man who had just been bitten by a fly. My attack didn’t seem to hurt him, even when I could see his skin swallowing the bit of sharp edge.

“Do me a favour,” I hissed. “Just die already.”

Yuebek grinned. “Not before our wedding night. Don’t you want to find out what you’re missing?”

He turned to meet Khine’s next attack. I tugged my sword loose from his flesh and launched myself at his exposed back with renewed vigour. Right before I reached him, the wound on his arm closed itself.

I struck him on the thigh, just as his spell sent Khine toppling back.

Yuebek glanced back at me. “Maybe you need more convincing.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve already made up my mind,” I said.

A blue glow began to seep from the cracks in his body.

“My queen,” I heard Namra call out. We were surrounded—mages who had survived the fire in the antechamber and priests clad in Shimesu’s robes had caught up to us. One of them had a blade at Namra’s throat. I recognized Belfang.

“You’re pathetic,” I said, directing my gaze at him.

“You’re fighting the wrong battle,” Belfang replied. There was an edge on his voice.

I rounded on him. “The villagers trusted you for a reason. You grew up in Phurywa—this is your home, the villagers are your family. Gods—do you understand what he’s done to them? To your elders?”

“He—” Belfang stammered. He loosened his grasp and pushed Namra away.

In the distance, I heard the gates creak open.

Yuebek walked past Khine. “What do you know about me, Queen Talyien?” he asked.

“I know I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth,” I replied. “I know I’d rather stab my eyeballs with bamboo skewers. Dull bamboo skewers dipped in vinegar—”

“You do have a gift for imagery.”

“—while mountain lions gnaw my feet to the bones.”

Yuebek smiled. “You can write poetry when we’re back in Oren-yaro. You won’t be doing much else when I’m Dragonlord. Your father didn’t promise you to me because I was Fifth Son. Truth be told, he thought the position was too low for someone who would be the first queen of Jin-Sayeng, which already tells you what he thought of the paltry offering the Ikessars gave him.”

He glanced at Rai’s unmoving form. I was too far away to see if he still breathed. “No, Beloved Queen—I was given the task because your father knew that bringing your nation back together required a lot more than just warlords nodding in agreement. You needed a leader who knew how to take care of the little things, who had not only noble blood but the power to make things happen—quite unlike that husband of yours. Someone with a wit as sharp as his and who would prove a better bearer of his legacy than his inept, wayward daughter.”

The hair on my arms rose. I could feel cold sweat dotting my forehead, trickling down my cheek. The way Yuebek spoke—I caught a note of my father’s own words, the way he liked to pattern his speech. He must’ve been studying my father’s writing for a long time. Knowing what he had done so far, I wasn’t surprised. But could a person learn so much just by reading? And how would he even get his hands on my father’s writing? The only copies of his journals that I knew of were in my father’s locked study in Oka Shto.

I remembered the ghosts I had seen in his dungeon, my father and my eldest brother both. For the past few months, I had convinced myself that they were illusions conjured by a fevered mind. Now I wasn’t so sure. I could feel myself sinking, dread and outrage combining with the ache of the thought that perhaps he was right. Perhaps my father did choose him after all. I wasn’t worthy. I never had been.

“You know you’re not capable,” Yuebek said, echoing my thoughts. “If you were, you wouldn’t even be here right now. You would’ve anticipated the moves his enemies made, made your own traps before they knew what was happening.” He pointed at Rai. “You would’ve had his head on a spike before those hands ever touched you. No—but I think your father expected that. He wasn’t going to leave his legacy in the care of a young, foolish girl. He had fought too hard for it.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered saying the exact same thing.

The truth straddles the line between lies and expectations. Arro told me that once. Arro had told me a lot of things over the years that I, wilful child that I was, had tried to shove away as quickly as they left his lips. What I had once thought were the inane ramblings of an old man suddenly seemed more precious; the world made more sense back when Arro was around. Did he know about all of this? Was he trying to shape me into a better ruler, knowing what would happen if he didn’t? Mistakes, for a woman in my position, were drops of blood in a sea of sharks.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Yuebek continued. “I can see it in your eyes, Beloved Queen. You knew enough about your father, at least. Who else did he trust in court? Why would he leave Jin-Sayeng in the hands of an Ikessar brat and his mother? He told me himself.”

“He told you,” I drawled.

“What can I say, my queen? The man had known of me since my return to the court of Kyan Jang—he had been observing my progress, watching the speed with which I rose in responsibilities in my father’s court. He saw what perhaps even my own father didn’t—a potential that would be wasted on whatever paltry position my brothers refused. It was then that Warlord Yeshin started corresponding with my mother. Later, I was forced to marry Zhu Ong while you were handed over to that bastard. What was that he called it? An unfortunate predicament. I read you his own thoughts on that matter, didn’t I?” He laughed. “He visited me in Zorheng before his death. He had heard good things about what I was doing there and wanted to see for himself. He was not disappointed.”

“My father never left Oren-yaro.”

“Are you sure?”

“He—” There was a summer I spent in Lord General Ozo’s keep near the rice fields two years before Yeshin died, but I had been led to understand that my father was in Oka Shto that whole time.

“Proof, you say. I have more than plenty. But for now…” Yuebek lifted his hands. I saw dark shapes moving by the gates, like a forest drawing closer by the minute. My eyes focused. I recognized the effigies from Rayyel’s stories, the shaped forms pumped full of the villagers’ blood and whatever foul substance the mages used to keep them moving. I could see it, too, running along veins that popped along the sides of their necks and down their bare shoulders, throbbing as it filled the vile, dead things with life.

“There are people here who mean something to you, terribly misguided as the sentiment may be,” Yuebek continued. “Perhaps their imminent death may make you a bit more cooperative.”

I felt the anger take life inside of me. Yuebek had missed something vital: studying my father, even a chance meeting with him if that were true, didn’t make you his child. Perhaps I couldn’t live up to my father’s expectations, but that didn’t change that he raised me never to accept defeat.

I went for the closest mage. He tried to shatter my sword, but I dropped it and stabbed him in the belly once with my spare dagger. I dragged him backwards as he struggled in my grasp. “Do you want another?” I whispered into his ear.

I felt him shake his head fervently.

“Cast me a spell.”

“This is futile, my darling,” Yuebek called out.

I grinned, turning the mage over to face the ones behind Nor. He flailed. Maybe he was trying to cast a spell, maybe he wasn’t; it wasn’t important. The mages turned to prepare themselves; Agos struck one in the back of the head with his fist, grabbed his sword, and stuck it into the others so quickly it didn’t even look like he broke a sweat.

The sound of bodies plopping on the ground broke the standstill. Nor claimed a sword for herself just as the effigies reached us. They began to fight their way through the figures, whose bodies were sufficiently hardened, unlike the snake-men’s.

I stabbed my mage a second time and kicked him away for good measure before rushing in to join the battle. The effigies weren’t fighting back at all, but the sheer number was making it impossible to cut through them. I saw Yuebek making a hasty retreat to the end of the courtyard; behind him, the temple’s roof was engulfed in flames. “You have to admit, at least, how wonderful this all is,” he called. “Imagine these in Oren-yaro, with my twenty thousand soldiers. Imagine!”

Yes, I could. I could imagine his madness back home and Jin-Sayeng burning to the ground like the temple. I could imagine the death and destruction that would come from someone who not only wanted to revive Yeshin’s legacy, but believed himself worthy of it. I kicked a figure away and fought to reach Rai’s side while blood—not my own—ran down my chin. He was pale, but not blue. I touched his neck and felt a pulse.

I regretted any past romantic notions of dying together in a battlefield. His eyes flickered, but they didn’t open. “Wake up, Rai,” I grumbled.

“Not sure if you want him to be awake for this,” I heard Khine say behind me. “Let the man have his sweet dreams.” He kicked an effigy away.

“Is it not enough, my lovely queen?” Yuebek cried. “Do you want more?”

“Not particularly,” I said. I didn’t think he could hear me.

His laughter sounded like the creaking of a horse-cart. I saw a blue flicker in the effigies’ eyes. They turned towards us, and I had the sudden, sinking feeling that they could see us.

“He’s drawing completely from the villagers now,” Namra gasped out.

The words had barely left her mouth when the effigies began to attack. They had no weapons, no clothes, even. But they rushed forward with outstretched hands, teeth snapping. One grabbed Khine by the arm and bit down, hard enough that I could see blood spurt from the wound. As Khine tried to dislodge it with his sword, another came to grab his leg. I reached out to help him, but I found myself preoccupied with two of my own.

I was able to hack off one’s arm with my sword. The limb flew back and didn’t reattach itself; the effigy lay on the ground, leaking curdled blood and fluids as it groaned helplessly into the wind. I turned my focus on the other one and saw hands grabbing Rai’s body, pulling him into the horde. I dropped my attacker as quickly as I could and rushed over to cut him loose. My sword was starting to feel dull—I was hacking at the flailing limbs like a woodcutter with an axe.

In that tangle of old blood and fake flesh, mixed with the scent of mud and rotting meat and my own desperate anger, I thought of my son, of his sweet laughter, of love that still existed in this world. And then the effigies fell.

I didn’t understand it at first. I kicked the last of the limp hands off my husband’s legs before I saw them all collapsed on the ground, like sacks of rice gathered at the end of harvest season. None were moving.

My first instinct was to turn to Yuebek. His expression had gone from delighted to furious.

“Khine, help me,” I said, grabbing Rai’s body from the ground. Khine sheathed his sword and rushed in, taking him from me without hesitation. I stepped away from them both and turned to fight our way out of there.

Yuebek’s mages were trying to step over the fallen effigies in a rush to shut the gate. It slammed shut just as I got there. I slammed my elbow into the closest mage and managed to stick my sword into a second before the first could recover. My companions arrived and I turned and slit the first mage’s throat, his warm blood covering my already sticky fingers with yet another layer of red. Agos grappled with his own mage before the man could cast a spell—he managed to pin him to the ground, where Nor disposed of him with a quick stab through the heart. We turned to the gate, which was glowing faintly blue along the corners, as if it had been sealed shut by a spell.

Agos tried to rattle it open, but it held firm. He stepped back and smashed against it with his shoulder. Nor followed suit.

Khine caught up to us, half carrying, half dragging the still-bleeding Rayyel. The sight of his drenched clothes made me nauseous.

I tried to keep calm as I surveyed our surroundings. I spotted two more mages in the distance, their hands as blue as the edges of the gates. They were keeping it shut.

“Nor!” I called. We were both the closest to them.

She came running to me.

“Keep smashing it!” I ordered Agos, who remained behind.

He turned to comply.

Nor and I tore through the garden, towards the mages who must’ve realized they couldn’t keep the gates closed and defend themselves at the same time. One couldn’t seem to make up his mind; Nor took care of him without even blinking. The other dropped the spell immediately and drew another one, throwing a ball of fire in my direction. I barely avoided burning my face off. As he stumbled over with another spell, I slashed him from shoulder to hip, sending him spinning straight into the bushes. He fell facedown and I stabbed him from behind, straight through where his heart would be from the other side.

I pushed the body off my sword just in time to see Agos break the gate open.

“You know this is nothing to me,” Yuebek called from across the courtyard. “Run! Run if you think that will do anything! Where would you go? Your husband is dying. Shall I kill your son, too? What you want and what I want are in the exact same place. Jin-Sayeng awaits us, my queen! Shall we set a date? Maybe I can have our wedding ready by the time you return!” He started laughing.

I gazed back at him as I let everyone else run ahead on the path. He stood like a beacon behind the flames and crumbling temple, a demon that ought to slink back to where it came from. I should have gone back there to finish him, or die trying. But all the strength had left my body; even if I did reach him, I wouldn’t know where to start.

“What are we going to do about the freak?” Agos asked.

“We’re pawns in his game,” I murmured. “We have to get to Jin-Sayeng before he tears everything apart.” With a last look at Yuebek’s crooked form, I pulled the gate shut behind me.