CHAPTER ONE

An Mozhi of the Cliffs

The woman who sat with my husband’s hand in hers that early morning before we left for An Mozhi was not the same one who ventured to Anzhao City all those months ago.

That one had her life all figured out, her father’s daughter without question. She had suffered an insult and was acting as best as she knew how. She belonged in the history books, the pillar on which Jin-Sayeng’s peace depended. There must still be a tapestry of her somewhere in Oka Shto, overlooking a crowd of bent warlords in the shadows, a ray of sunlight over her. In the tapestry, she is wearing a wolf headdress instead of a crown, a blatant attempt by the artist to hint at Oren-yaro superiority.

That woman would’ve known what to do. She would’ve ordered her ailing husband home—dragged on a litter if she had to, to hell with the consequences. She wouldn’t be sitting there in confusion, her fear overriding all sense. To trust an agent of the Shadows, among all things…

Frayed minds lead to frayed decisions, or so my father liked to say. Mei’s death was the last straw. If we hadn’t gone to the temple at all, I would’ve fought like a mad dragon for my desire to bring things back to the way they were. I could even still hold on to my denial of my own father’s involvement in the events. Whispered to me in the dark, it could’ve been a lie. Said out loud in front of my husband, with such conviction and display of power…

Even the words my husband had lost all meaning. I stared at Rayyel’s unmoving form, the after-effect of an herbal infusion Khine had forced into him during his procedure. He would sleep for another day or two, I was told. I went over his features as I must’ve done more than a hundred times in the past, trying to place him against the man in my memories. He had aged in the last six years. There were lines where there weren’t before and splotches of white hair along his temples. He had just turned thirty, too. The Ikessars greyed prematurely—another mark of the line he carried as surely as if he wasn’t a bastard. His elders ought to be proud.

I took a deep breath. I had defied counsel to go to Rayyel and bring him home, and here I was on the verge of abandoning him, half-dead, to strangers. As faithful a servant as Namra had been, as reliable as Inzali had proven herself to be, I was his wife. That meant something once by itself, didn’t it? Once, it meant the whole world.

I squeezed his hand. He didn’t squeeze back. I fought back a grin. No difference, then; if he had been awake, he would have reacted exactly the same way.

Agos appeared at the doorway. He paused as he looked at me, head slightly bent. I studied his face at that angle, contrasting it with Rayyel’s. I was trying to find my son in either of them.

“You saw Lord Ozo before you left to find me,” I said in a low voice. “Did you see anything that will verify Yuebek’s claims?”

“Nothing that will ease your mind,” Agos replied. He shuffled his feet. “I’m not exactly his confidant.”

“How did he react when you said you were going after me?”

“Like he couldn’t give a damn,” Agos said. “He expected me to abandon my quest just because he didn’t agree. Showed the old wolf, didn’t I?”

“He would have known you would follow me.”

Agos rubbed his nose.

“Which means he was sure you wouldn’t have found a way. Did he know an embargo was coming?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Finding a ship wasn’t easy.”

“How did you get here?”

He glanced away, mumbling something under his breath.

“Was it Kaggawa?” I prodded.

“Yes,” he grumbled. “I met an agent of theirs at the shipyards in Fuyyu. I rode with them to An Mozhi and took another boat from there to Anzhao.”

I sighed. “I knew it. You just didn’t want to admit it in front of Nor, did you?”

“You know me better than anyone.”

“No, I don’t. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You never would have hidden something like this from me when we were young.”

“We’re not children anymore,” he said with a rueful glance at the floor. “General Ozo thought we were. Maybe he was waiting for you to admit you’ve made a mistake before he came to save you.”

“Or Yuebek was telling the truth, and Ozo is working with him to trap me into this marriage.” I nearly spat the last word out.

Agos’s face was twisted in confusion. “You know I don’t give a rat’s ass about your politics,” he said. “All I want is to see you home safe. You don’t have to worry one way or another who put me up to it. I’m here because I want to be. Because I belong—” And here he stood up, chest puffed for a moment before his eyes darted away. “—with you,” he finished with a mumble.

“And I’m thankful for that, Agos. More than you realize.” I wasn’t sure why I felt like I needed to reply. The Talyien of seven months ago wouldn’t have. She would’ve taken him for granted. She already had taken him for granted, more than once. “But you know,” I added, “that you’re not my Captain of the Guard anymore.”

“A title doesn’t change what I was taught all my life,” he said, pointing at me. “You’re my responsibility. My princess, my queen.” He looked embarrassed at his own admonition before glancing at Rai. “I could tell them this is all useless,” he continued. “Like they could force you to marry anything, especially whatever the hell that thing was. They can’t even force you to keep a dog you don’t like. It’s like whoever made all the effort to plan this out didn’t know you very well. Call me shortsighted, but you’d think they would at least have considered that, especially if this all started with your father. He knew you best.”

“I don’t know,” I murmured. “I mean, I married that one, didn’t I?”

Agos’s face broke into a grin. “Yes, well, you wanted that. Don’t think I don’t remember you simpering after him like some lovesick fool.”

“Simpering fool,” I repeated. “I don’t disagree. All the years I wasted in anger…”

The smile left his face. “We do stupid things for love.”

I swallowed and turned away. Khine had said the same thing once. I had never examined my relationship with Rai under that light before, never stopped to think about how pride and duty had muddled something that ought to be so straightforward and clear. Well—the dance had come full circle, and I was here now. And love? Did I ever really know what love meant in the first place? Did I love Rayyel only because I thought my father ordered me to or because I wanted to, desperately, because to love meant to feel something and I was tired of being alone? It didn’t used to matter—there was no room for such uncertainties in my life. Back then it was all I knew, and I had held on to it like the very air from my lungs. But now that air was gone, and I found myself…still breathing.

I placed his hand back on the sleeping mat and pulled the blanket up to his chin. And then, conscious of the fact that Agos was watching my every move, I bent down to kiss him on the forehead.

“You’ve decided, then,” Agos said with a deep breath, chasing away the disconcerting silence.

I frowned. “Whatever Lahei wants from me will be a blade meant for my own heart. To have the queen in their clutches…who knows what they will do with such power? It would be foolishness to accept. More than foolishness.”

Agos sighed. “But going home—”

“I’m not finished,” I continued, turning to him. “It would be suicide. All the lords of Oren-yaro would laugh themselves into a stupor if I fell for such an obvious thing. But then after what happened out there, with Khine’s mother…I realized that it doesn’t matter. I need to get back home to protect my son from whatever hell Yuebek has planned. I don’t care what happens to me. Khine’s mother—if a woman who thought she had nothing else to offer could still save her own child, why not me?”

Tears welled up in my eyes. Angrily, I wiped at them and continued. “It will bring me closer to my son. The bastards know it. They are all but telling me: Drink the poison, Beloved Queen. Yeshin’s daughter would throw the cup at their faces. And if I knew what that still meant—if I wasn’t scrambling for a scrap of hope and had strength enough to carry my name…”

“You’re not Warlord Tal,” Agos murmured. “None of us are.”

I clenched my jaw, pretending that hearing those words from someone else didn’t hurt. For all my life, I had tried to make myself a personification of that name in an attempt to make my father proud. I used to think I was doing a remarkable job of it.

“Who else cares for my son for who he is, and not what he embodies? I learned that yesterday. So I will drink their poison willingly, damn them all to hell. If I have nothing else, my son has even less.” I took a deep breath. “One good thing, at least. I highly doubt Rai will want to continue with this ridiculous notion on the boy’s parentage. Even supposing that the idea of working with one of Yuebek’s mages isn’t as despicable as it sounds—preventing Zarojo rule is more important than clan politics. There’s nothing quite like a common enemy to unite two parties.”

“If you say so,” Agos breathed.

“You don’t believe me?”

“The bastard is more stubborn than you are. A feat in itself, don’t get me wrong.”

“When we get home, I intend to launch an investigation. Rai may be stubborn, but he’s also a sensible man. In the face of Zarojo invasion, our united effort may make all the difference.”

“There you go with the speeches again.” He snorted. “If the Oren-yaro is found to be behind all of this, nothing will ever convince the rest of them you weren’t in on it, too. The entire nation will be killing each other for a chance to cut your throat.”

“Akaterru,” I murmured. “There is that, isn’t it? All the more reason that we can’t be at odds now, not with this looming over us.”

“Tell him that,” Agos said, nodding towards the still figure. He didn’t look all that convinced.

Lahei steered the boat past the rocks just as the first rays of dawn spilled over the horizon. She had one man with her and claimed the others were with the ship. Lo Bahn, Khine, Cho, Nor, and Agos made up the rest of the group; Inzali stayed behind to assist Namra with Rai, along with Lo Bahn’s steward and children. It felt strange to have both my fate and my husband’s in the hands of strangers—the very notion made me bristle. But as much as this new reality went against every fibre of my being, the thought of Mei Lamang gave me courage. If she could do what she did, this was nothing. I think without that to hold on to, I would’ve fallen apart.

I glanced at Khine, who was staring long and hard at the water as if the answer to his own questions could be plumbed from its depths. I had heard the villagers say they had seen his mother’s body by the mouth of the river, that it would take at least a day to recover most of it. I hoped none had tried to tell him this, things a son ought not hear. When my father died, he had a proper funeral pyre and a public mourning…my father, who had murdered thousands, dressed like a king and honoured like a hero. Mei had never hurt anyone in her life as far as I could tell.

The winds were in our favour, at least, and called for fair sailing. Staring at the wide expanse of ocean to our left, salt breeze on my hair and face, I allowed myself the luxury of anticipating my homecoming for the first time in months. If I had known what lay on this side of the sea, I would’ve never left at all.

We reached An Mozhi that afternoon. I was told that the sight of it unfolding from the sea was an experience in itself. From the road, you would’ve been fooled into thinking it was a small town built haphazardly above a handful of rocks that rose like sturdy spires. But from this side, with full view of the beaches and the stepped cliffs, the ocean yawned to reveal a city that engulfed the horizon. An Mozhi was not so much built on top of the cliffs as it spilled around them; there was a bustling harbour along the shore, with more ships than I have ever seen in one place at one time. This sprawled past the shoreline, spreading into low stone buildings and houses as far as the beach would allow. Wooden steps and bridges appeared where the cliffs began, the layered rocks stacked like coins on a taxmaster’s desk.

The city continued from the top of the cliffs. There were buildings built right at the edges, accessible only by wooden decks nailed to the side of the cliff. What seemed to be a horrifying and ill-advised feat of engineering appeared to be perfectly normal to these people. As the boat drew closer, I spotted children hanging off the ledges and laughing as they leaped along, like little monkeys, as if unaware that one wrong step or handhold could cause them to smash against the boulders and down into the gaping maw of the sea below. Or maybe they knew, and didn’t care. The foolhardiness took me aback. None of the royal children I grew up with would dare such things—even I, the epitome of recklessness as a young girl, would’ve balked at the idea.

I turned my attention towards the impressive sight of the airship towers, built right at the top of the tallest cliffs and attached to the rest of the city by bridges. They reminded me of the dragon-towers back home, except these ones were wide enough to dock four or five airships at once. Steam rose from the vessels as they drifted to the docks. None were leaving—Khine had told me once that they ran on a schedule, and never at night. We were probably seeing the last trips for the day.

“Can you pick her out from the herd?” Lahei called out from the end of the boat. There was a note of pride in her voice.

I made my way towards her. “Your ship?” I asked.

Lahei whistled. “Over at the harbour. Come on—there are plenty of things the Zarojo may have done right, but one thing they don’t quite understand: shipbuilding.”

I didn’t want to offend her, so I made the pretence of squinting. I was born inland and lacked the real sense to tell one ship apart from the other, but I caught sight of a merchant’s ship that lacked the elegant flourishes of the Zarojo vessels. Instead, it favoured straight lines and dark, heavy wood from the bow all the way to its masts. It gave the impression of a ship that could last for months out at sea, one that could break through ice or weather a storm without problem. I made a small sound of surprise at how majestic it looked.

Lahei must have expected me to react with such amazement, because her normally placid face broke into a grin. “A beauty, isn’t she?” We drifted close enough that I could reach out and touch the side of Aina’s Breath if I wanted to. Lahei gave another whistle for her people waiting for us there.

No one responded. Lahei cursed, the grin quickly replaced by a frown. Without even waiting for the boat to come to a full stop, she grabbed a post from the closest dock and heaved herself over. After a moment’s hesitation, I jumped in after her. The boat creaked past us. I followed Lahei to the platform leading up to Aina’s Breath. It was blocked by two guards.

“What’s happening here?” Lahei said, shoving her way past a crowd of sailors disembarking from one of the ships. “Where’re my men?” Her Zirano sounded almost as natural as a Jin-Sayeng royal’s, which meant she had been studying it since childhood, as we had.

“Your ship?” one guard asked, pointing at Aina’s Breath with a spear. “Word got out that you were sailing for Jin-Sayeng. Governor ordered it seized.”

“Why would anyone think that?”

“You’re Jinsein, aren’t you?”

“You fools,” Lahei said. “We’re Kag.”

“You look Jinsein to me.”

“We’re Kag,” she repeated, voice rising. I’d missed it before, but in this light, the angle of her nose and her hard jaw, along with the pale tinge of her freckle-dotted skin, made her claim true enough: her mother was a foreigner. “We’re merchants. We were loading up the ship and travelling back to Ni’in.”

“Take it up with the harbour master,” the guard suggested.

Lahei bristled, but she gestured before walking away.

“The empire has no trade agreement with any of the Kag nations,” the guard added to our retreating backs. “You’re not protected.”

“Idiots,” she said under her breath, as soon as we were out of earshot. “We had all the papers in order.”

Inwardly, I wondered if it was Yuebek. The bastard wasn’t a representative of the empire, no matter his claim. A Fifth Son didn’t have that much power. If he had Governor Qun and his predecessor Zheshan under his influence, then it wasn’t a far cry that he might also have the governor of An Mozhi, a man by the name of Hizao, in his pockets.

“This embargo,” Lahei continued, breaking my thoughts. “It was meant to keep you on this side of the sea.”

Not a question. I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know?”

She stared back. “My queen, you need to be truthful with us.”

“I’m cooperating with you, aren’t I? What more do you need?”

“We’ve done as much investigation around you and your activities in the empire as possible. You’ve been rubbing elbows with the officials, earning the ire of people like Governor Ino Qun. We even heard of an attack in Governor Zheshan’s palace—a friend of Prince Rayyel, it seems. An attack you were apparently involved in. What happened there?”

I tugged my ear, choosing not to answer.

She frowned. “You think being silent will prevent us from learning everything eventually. You remain so naive, Beloved Queen. Did any of it have to do with Governor Zheshan’s attempt to present his daughter to Prince Rayyel as a potential wife? I believe he had advised him to set you aside and split the nation in half.”

I pretended to laugh. “I must seem so scatterbrained.”

She pursed her lips. “You lacked the proper advisers, my queen.”

“You’re supposed to say no. No, my queen. Gods, you people have a way of making a woman feel good about herself.”

She smiled. “If it’s any consolation…”

“I hear that so often these days…”

“It’s not as if we’ve ever had a proper leader. From the very beginning, our nation has been tormented with turmoil from within—warlords up at each other’s throats, and the only time they ever agree to anything is when they want to point out what someone else is doing wrong. A change needs to happen if we are to progress from here, one that goes beyond choosing who gets to be blamed the next time around. A proper upheaval.”

We fell silent for a bit while I tried to absorb what she was saying. I recalled what Khine told me once, about how much I had not considered the snakes around me. I was well aware of them now, but the knowledge that you have enemies does very little in teaching you how to defeat them. If my father’s army would choose Yuebek over me, how was I supposed to gather another in order to protect Jin-Sayeng? Do I offer myself to the highest bidder? What was the price for a woman a touch past her prime, with neither the backing nor the respect of her own people?

“The damn throne’s not even that comfortable,” I said, at length. “Ever wonder why I stayed in Oka Shto? Sitting on that thing, surrounded by glaring Ikessar supporters…”

Lahei gave me the sort of smile that could’ve been sympathetic if I wasn’t aware what we were both doing. Another snake, this one, and here I was dancing with her. Only a bit more, I told myself. Go through with this and you’ll see Thanh again. But the uncertainty made me want to claw my own face off.

We reached the harbour master’s office. Someone called out to us in Jinan, and I stood to the side as a young man approached. He was stocky but not overly tall, with a sparse, curly beard that went underneath his round cheeks and a moustache that seemed to be nothing more than wisps of cat’s hair. “You were gone too long, Lahei,” he grumbled. He turned to me. “My queen. I was there when you were crowned, and watched the uproar when Prince Rayyel was nowhere to be found. Royals and their pride, pah! But you contained yourself remarkably well. Forgive me if I don’t bow. I don’t want to draw attention to us.”

I nodded, keeping note of the thick loathing in his voice when he mentioned royals. I watched as Lahei took him aside. “What’s the situation, Torre?”

“Bastards said we meant to violate the embargo, even after I showed them our papers and tried to explain that jumping from Ni’in to some other port in Jin-Sayeng wasn’t explicitly forbidden. Their embargo only indicates direct travel—they don’t fucking own the whole world, now, do they? I told them I’d report this to the governor’s office and they all but laughed in my face.”

“I’m sure we can fix this,” Lahei said. “Did you secure a meeting?”

“We’ve got an appointment three weeks from now. They assured me at the office that it looks like a misunderstanding, and that clearing it up won’t be a problem.”

“Except,” I broke in, “three weeks is far, far too long to stay in one place.” I wondered if Yuebek wasn’t on his way as we spoke. I knew he intended to travel to Jin-Sayeng anyway, but I’d feel safer once we were in the open sea.

“Where are the others?” Lahei asked.

“In an inn. They’re not letting us back into the ship until we have this all straightened out.”

“The ship that brought me to Anzhao smashed through the dock to get out,” I said. “We could sneak in and make a grand escape.”

Lahei looked like I had just suggested we kill her firstborn. “I am not,” she said, “going to smash the ship into anything. Do you want to sink halfway across the ocean?”

“I don’t know. She looks like she can take it.”

“Let’s file that under desperate measures,” Torre said with a grin.

Lahei didn’t look amused.

“Ask your friend to figure a way out of this,” Agos said, drawing me aside.

“You mean Khine?” I asked.

“That’s what he’s good for, isn’t he? Making plans? I thought that’s why you keep him around.”

I frowned, wondering what he was accusing me of. “This isn’t the time,” I said. “The man’s mother just died. I’m not going to be bothering him with anything, Agos.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s just a peasant. You’re—”

“Enough.” I walked past him to rejoin Torre and his crew. My stomach turned when I saw Lahei watching me. She must’ve seen the interaction, must’ve heard what I told Agos. Did she see what I feared she’d seen? It had barely been a day; the elders’ deaths were still fresh on my mind, too. But a part of me was aware that this was not the way to becoming the kind of queen that could turn the tides of war. I had not worn my crown in months, but I needed to pretend it was on my head once more. I had no way of knowing what these people truly wanted from me, and only my name and my position as queen protected everything I loved.

From the furthest crevices of my mind, I heard my father laughing.