CHAPTER NINE

THE BINDING DARKNESS

I didn’t get much sleep that night. I did a good enough job of pretending that all of this newfound knowledge didn’t make my skin crawl, but it made it difficult to close my eyes and not imagine a horde of creatures sneaking into camp and slaying everyone in sight. So I stayed up next to the fire, feeding it periodically to stop it from dying.

Khine joined me sometime before dawn. Without a word, he took my left arm and carefully flexed it. His eyes never left me—he was watching my face for a reaction. I flinched when he lifted my arm. He slowly placed it back down. “Just a pulled muscle,” he murmured. “Didn’t think you’d broken anything, but I didn’t want to take chances. Do you hurt anywhere else? You were limping earlier.”

“Just sore,” I told him. “A couple of cuts, but nothing that won’t heal.”

“I don’t really have anything for those,” Khine said. He looked apologetic.

“If we can find some guava leaves, I can chew them up and spit on them. Old Jinsein remedy.”

He shook his head grimly. I burst out laughing. “You have to start talking again,” I said. “You shut yourself in your cabin for days. I know it was a big ship, but I shouldn’t have asked Lahei to give you your own room—I didn’t realize you’d gone and taken an Ikessar vow of silence.”

“I needed time alone. I’ve been arguing with Cho.”

“That out of the ordinary?”

“No,” he admitted, and a shadow of a smile crossed his face—the first I had seen in weeks. He took a deep breath. “How does it feel? Being so close to home?”

“Confusing,” I said. “I don’t quite believe it, to be honest. As if I’ll wake up any moment and I’ll find myself back in Yuebek’s dungeon. You do what you can to keep yourself sane, and back there, I must’ve made this journey a hundred times over in my mind. Even my dreams made it for me.” I paused for a moment, taking in the faint outline of the mountains in the distance. “We’re still very far, you know. Weeks away. To get to Oren-yaro, you have to follow the southern coastal cities until you hit the River Agos—”

Khine jerked his head back. “He was named after a river?”

“Let’s not hold it against his mother. You take the road north, and you follow it all the way to where the terraced hills meet the river. And that’s home.” I breathed in the cool night air. “It’s so far away, but the sky’s right, at least. The stars don’t look so strange anymore.”

“I didn’t know that’s how it seemed to you. You took everything in stride back in the empire.”

I had to laugh at that. “Was that what it looked like? It just seemed like everything went downhill since the first day. If I had known what was waiting there for me, I would have…I don’t know. I’d have been restless if I’d stayed, I suppose.” I turned my eyes back to the fire, where I nudged the unburnt side of a log with my foot. The flames crackled around it.

Khine made a soft sound in the back of his throat. “You do understand who you are, don’t you? What you mean to people?”

I glanced back to meet his eyes. “My father never let me forget my responsibilities, not for a moment.”

“There’s that,” he said with a small nod. “But there is also what people think you are and how the world bends itself around it. You turn your head and people follow your gaze. Who is she looking at? Why is she looking at them? And if you explain it, they will tear the words apart looking for a hidden meaning, and if you don’t, they will dig into the silence for something that may not be there.”

“It’s silly.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But that is the tune the whole world dances to. Some are born with the power to turn the tide even before they realize what they are doing. Others…aren’t. Some of us have to fight to make a difference from the moment we are born. We try to crest along calm waters because we are helpless against the tide, and even then, a single wave might be enough to sweep us away.”

“Khine, if I could have stopped your mother’s death…” I started to touch his face.

He wrapped his hand around my wrist to pull my fingers away. “I know that, Tali. It is the memory of my own helplessness that grates at me. This was a long time coming. A death years in the making, and I did nothing to stop it. My mother meant the world to me—why didn’t I stop it?”

“I don’t see what you could have done differently.”

“None of these things would have happened if I had been able to bring my mother to Anzhao as I once dreamed. All I needed to do was get her out of there.”

“If she had not done what she did, you would be dead by Yuebek’s hand. And I’d be his prisoner again, or worse.”

He pressed his lips together. “It’s hard to consider it from that angle. Do not all lives have the same weight? It is one of the first things Tashi Reng Hzi taught me. One life cannot replace another. The loss…remains the same.”

“I’m not a doctor, Khine. I’m a politician. I weigh things differently. Without you, Rai and I might both be dead, or in the hands of enemies who would use us—enemies who have slaughtered innocents without a second thought. Not that things have gotten better since.” I lowered my voice. “Things are worse than I feared.”

“Dai spoke to you alone back at the docks. What did he say?”

“He wants to extract Thanh from Oka Shto. But more than that…he wants his younger daughter betrothed to Prince Thanh.”

Khine gave an amused snort. “Ambitious.”

“Isn’t it?”

“He’s of common blood. Your people are royals. Don’t you have forty or fifty rules governing every decision you make? What makes him think the rest of your nation will agree to it?”

“I told him as much. He thinks he has it under control, that I still have the power to make such an announcement despite everything. I cannot even trust the Oren-yaro. How many of the army are my men, and not my father’s?” I kicked a branch into the fire. “He wants me to make this announcement and declare my husband a traitor, in turn. That anyone who supports him is a traitor and I should likewise declare Rayyel’s accusations void in the face of his own infidelities.”

Khine’s face grew pale. “He’s courting war. How does he plan to protect Thanh from the onslaught in the meantime?”

“Right now, Thanh stands as the only proof over my…my actions. His premature death will only cause more chaos, so I don’t think they will kill him—not yet. Dai believes he can keep him safe.”

“How do you do this?” he breathed. “Put up a brave face while you speak of your own child’s fate?”

“A brave face is all it is,” I murmured. “Inside, I feel like…like I’m falling and nothing will catch me. Like I’m already broken, but I can’t even say a word about how much it hurts. I want it to stop, but it won’t. It hasn’t for months.”

“Most would’ve given up by now.”

“I am Yeshin’s only daughter,” I said. “I have never been allowed to be like most.” I turned away from his gaze. “Right now, Dai is my only hope of ever seeing my son alive, but what he wants…it is almost too much. Of course it will result in war. My warlords will question why I would choose the support of peasants instead of my own. How am I supposed to explain to them that my father was likely a traitor, too? It doesn’t matter who I side with—it will all end in bloodshed. You say I have the power to turn the tide, but where is it, Khine? I want it in my hands. I want it so I can take my son away from all of this.”

He looked down apologetically. After a moment, he placed his hand over mine.

A sound in the distance interrupted us, something between a wail and a howl. I pulled away from him, my hands tightening around my sword hilt.

“Just like us to discuss philosophy when there’s bloodthirsty monsters sneaking about,” Khine said.

I forced myself to grin. “Why else did you think I brought you along?”

“I had theories, some of which involved my shockingly good looks.”

“Spirits help you if you actually think that.” I was about to remark at how much it meant to see him in a good mood, but when I turned to him, a shadow crossed his face. It wasn’t fear. I was still trying to put a name to it when Nor strode up to us.

“There’s things out there all right, but the fire’s keeping them away,” she informed me abruptly. “If you want to sleep now, Beloved Queen, I’ll keep watch.”

“You can’t expect me to sleep after saying that,” I sighed. “Sit with us, Nor.”

“I’ll stand, if that’s all right with you.”

“I need to ask—did my father not know of this? Dai said he tried to talk to him, too. Was he just as blind to his pride as the other warlords? I find that hard to believe. Oren-yaro suffered the worst from Rysaran’s folly.”

“I was just a young girl during the War of the Wolves,” Nor said with some uncertainty. “Whatever went through Warlord Yeshin’s mind was not something I was ever privy to.”

“You weren’t taught about these things in the army?”

She glanced at the woods. “Somewhat.”

“Ah. Somewhat. Now I’m making some progress. Do you see how tiresome it is having everyone keep things from you?” I gave Khine a sideways glance.

“It isn’t what you think, my queen,” Nor quickly said. “The things Kaggawa told you are new to me, too. But in Oren-yaro, we’ve always had these stories. You know about the anggali?”

“Children’s tales,” I said. Hearing the words made me feel foolish. Of course they were more than that. I had seen one with my own eyes, hadn’t I? I turned to Khine to explain. “The anggali is a creature from Oren-yaro legend, one that turns into a bat or dog at night to feed on unborn children. But if it’s hungry enough, it’ll go after anyone in the dark.” I shivered at my own words.

“We would sometimes trade stories about how to keep ourselves safe from such creatures,” Nor said. “They hate the sound of steel being sharpened, for instance, and the best weapon against them is a whip made from dried stingray tail. They’re not mindless creatures…they say these things are open to bargaining. They hate the idea that they’re found out, you see, so if you give them a chance to return to society, they might just take you up on it.”

“Like how?” I asked.

“Offering to help them take over another body, for instance.”

“Dai said these things were made with the destruction of Rysaran’s dragon. And yet we’ve always had these stories in Oren-yaro.”

“I don’t know, Beloved Queen,” Nor said.

“I would assume sources of the agan—natural or otherwise—have been tainted before,” Khine said. “Small rips here and there, as in the empire.”

“But nothing so big as this,” I said. “Nothing that would spread like a disease among dragons and people alike. The things Rayyel and I missed, chasing after our foolishness.” I pulled my sword close enough to rest it on my knee and stared into the blazing fire. Neither one of them said anything in response. I had, at the very least, honest enough companions.

The creatures did not attack during the night. We found gnaw marks on portions of the rope-fence, which told us they had ventured that far at least. But unlike Yuebek’s creations, who had mindlessly gone after us at their master’s bidding, these seemed intelligent enough to have considered our defenses with caution. I wondered if it would fool them a second time, if they would track us to our next camp. When I asked Lahei, all she said was, “There are other prey out there.”

I tried not to think about what she meant by that. Others meant outlying hamlets in the mountains, lone hunters, and the occasional child. But reality outdid whatever horrors my imagination could come up with. On the road, we encountered limbs ripped from a missing torso and a head that once belonged to a young, black-haired woman. “It gets worse every year,” Dai commented in the tired voice of a man who thought he had lived too long. I realized that they had been downplaying the urgency of the situation.

We buried the woman’s head and whatever else we could find of her on the side of the road. Lahei marked the grave with a rock, where she used charcoal to scribble a brief description of the woman. We returned to our horses in a more sombre mood.

Sometime during the afternoon, we crossed the border to Jin-Sayeng. It was unguarded. The border at the southern road had the remnants of a stone wall, once erected in a vain attempt to keep the Kags to the west. But that was a long time ago—Jin-Sayeng had been open to the Kags since Dragonlord Reshiro’s time. The northern road didn’t even bear such markers—we reached a portion of the forest, and Lahei turned to me and said, “You’re back in Jin-Sayeng, as I promised.”

I felt my skin quiver, as if someone had poured cold water over me. But the feeling passed quickly enough. The road turned northward, away from home. I wondered how long before I could ever hold my son in my arms again.

We arrived in the next village by nightfall. They had been waiting for our arrival—a crowd of people gathered around us and dropped to their knees as I dismounted from my horse. “Beloved Queen,” they uttered. “We are glad to see you safe from your journey. It is our honour to serve the crown.” I felt embarrassed at the thought that I had never ventured this far west before. My council had deemed it unnecessary and dangerous. But the villagers were acting as if I, in all my dishevelled glory, was gracing them with my presence. What would they think of their queen if they knew I had been dragged here against my will?

I caught Dai watching me. I couldn’t ask him what for—a village elder came up to take me by the arm and lead me to where the villagers had assembled a feast. My nose caught the whiff of roast pork—a whole entire pig, its skin crispy after hours of turning over hot coals, lay on a bed of rice in the middle of a long table, which was lined with banana leaves. There were also rows of sliced, salted egg, fried lake fish, sliced green mangoes, tomatoes, red onions, globs of pink fish paste, and eggplant mashed in vinegar. I soon found myself seated at the end of the table, with Dai to my right and Lahei beside him. The villagers came to join us.

The west, I quickly learned, was a world away from the east.

The concept of caste is something they never let you forget in the east. There are rules on how to mingle on an official basis, especially with someone of my rank—many of which had been borrowed from the Empire of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro back when the Zarojo and the Jinseins were on better terms. A meeting where an aron dar is seated for no reason beside an aren dar could be gossip fodder for years. I knew that the further away you travelled from the warlords’ cities, the less people adhered to these traditions, but seeing it unfold in front of my eyes was a surprise. Everyone seemed to know their place without the need for someone to remind them, and it felt good not to be seated away from my companions.

We shed our exhaustion from the day’s journey with the feast. The roast pork was seasoned with salt, lemongrass, and garlic. Eaten with a dab of rice and eggplant, it all but melted in my mouth in a sea of fat and crackling. Good Jinsein food was simpler than Zarojo, but just as hearty, and I had missed not feeling bad about eating with my fingers. I thought I saw Agos wipe away a tear.

Afterwards, the villagers came with bowls of water for us to wash our hands with, and then the elder came to pass around a jug of strong coconut wine. I took a long drink straight from the bottle, wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, and thanked him. The men laughed.

I turned to Dai, who was still looking at me. “Pampered brat, you said,” I told him.

Dai smirked. “Anyone can drink, pampered or not.” He was using the softer voice, the business-like tone. He passed the coconut wine back to me. “I entertained your husband here years ago, you know.”

I paused, my hand on the handle.

“He left you and I was intrigued. I sent him an invitation—he accepted.” I took a drink and passed the wine back to him. “A true Ikessar, that one.”

“I could’ve told you that,” I said with a smirk.

Dai didn’t return the gesture. “This nation doesn’t need another few centuries of Ikessar rule.”

I watched the expression on his face before replying. “Perhaps I agree.”

He wiped the rim of the bottle with his hand. “Do you know what their biggest problem is?”

“My vote is on the butterfly-keeping.”

Dai chuckled, blue eyes deep in thought. “Among many things. The Ikessar clan has prided itself in valuing knowledge and education and scholarly pursuits. Progress can be found in an open mind, so an Ikessar or two have said. And yet…all these years, they remain a royal clan. Reshiro Ikessar fought for a merchant caste in order to facilitate trade all the way to the east. But why not abolish the castes altogether?”

“You know the warlords would never agree to it.”

“And they were open to the idea of a merchant caste, you think? That people can keep their profit instead of passing it on to their lord?” Dai broke into a grin. “No, you see, the Ikessars talk well enough, but they’re just like everyone else. They want to hold on to their power, too—they just want to look good while doing it. I proved that when your husband was here. I requested that he ride with me out here to show him these things, as I did with you. He refused me outright.” His face tightened. “I need you to understand that you are not my prisoner.”

I smiled. “And yet I feel like one, despite your best attempts. Perhaps you should’ve tried harder.”