Steel Crow Saga Page 7

  The rooster still hadn’t let up with his squirming. “Yeah, we’ve never felt closer,” Lee grunted. The princess’s presence was making her annoyingly self-conscious. She didn’t want Xiulan to look at her like some idiot gutter dog who couldn’t hack it. “So now I’m just supposed to…chip off a bit of my soul, right?” She’d heard much and more about the practice and its significance, but she was starting to realize how little she’d ever heard about how the thing was actually done.

  “Ah, yes,” Xiulan said. “This will be trickier. Look for the calm place within yourself. That’s where you’ll find your soul: the most unfettered and pure distillation of who you are. You can close your eyes, if you like; it aids the focus.”

  Lee wasn’t in the habit of closing her eyes. Closing your eyes at the wrong moment was generally the best way to get your purse strings or your throat cut. But Xiulan had a shade and she didn’t, so Lee figured she might as well do things the inspector’s way.

  She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to shut out all her thoughts. But her brain chugged like a train now—after the day she’d had, how could it not? Coming off two straight weeks of quiet, stillness, and impending death, she’d managed to pack so much into the last few hours. The memories were all so squashed together that they were sticking and fusing into one lump, like dumplings in the bottom of a basket.

  And the whole time, the dogs-forsaken rooster wouldn’t. Stop. Squirming.

  But as she began to get a feel for the ways the rooster could move, her grip became more certain. And while meditation wasn’t her style, she could feel something warm inside herself, though it felt like it was hovering just out of her mind’s reach.

  “Good.” Xiulan’s voice floated into her ears, gentle as incense. “It doesn’t surprise me that one so self-possessed as you would be able to attune yourself to your soul energy with such little preparation.”

  “Living selfish gets you far,” Lee muttered. “Now, are you gonna let me concentrate, or what?”

  “Apologies,” Xiulan whispered. “Pursue that feeling inside you as far as you can. And at its end, a question will await. Answer it in the affirmative, and speak your partner’s name.”

  Lee gritted her teeth to concentrate, and as she plumbed deeper into her trance, she sensed a second warmth drawing nearer. This, she realized, had to be the rooster, who’d grown calm and still in her grip.

  Cautiously, she reached out for it…or whatever passed for reaching when you were mind-melding with an animal. The presence she sensed was…it took her a moment to place the feeling: Curious. Inquisitive. Tranquil.

  Hey…rooster, Lee said. Her greeting wasn’t words, just feelings. But somehow, she had a sense that they’d be understood. What can I do for you?

  She felt that presence react with pleasant surprise at being asked the question. Lee took that as a good sign. She had to hand it to the Shang: It was a hell of a racket they’d been pulling off, keeping shadepacting off-limits to everyone else. If Lee had known it’d be this easy, she would’ve tried it years ago.

  I want…the rooster began.

  Bolstered by her early success, Lee prodded him. Come on now, she said. Out with it.

  The rooster took her encouragement well, because Lee felt the connection between them open wider. I want to bathe in the blood of my enemies beneath the cold and unfeeling moon.

  Lee stopped dead. Uh, what?

  For too long, the other creatures of the world have not trembled when my shadow falls upon them, the rooster went on. With your pact, I will at last see them cower—

  Gonna stop you right there, Lee said. I’m starting to think maybe you and I want different things, little bird.

  …Oh, the rooster said to her after a moment. A shame.

  Before she could suss out what he meant by that, the rooster finally managed to rip himself free of her grasp, slip out from under her armpit, and peck her once in the side. Lee let him go with a shout of pain as her eyes flew open. Immediately her sight was assaulted by red everywhere she looked. But she managed to lock onto the one thing that clearly didn’t belong: the angry tornado of feathers running as fast as his pointy legs would carry him.

  Xiulan moved to intercept him, but the rooster dipped just below her grasping hands and hopped up onto a chair near the open window. He spread his wings and leapt straight through the gently wafting scarlet curtains, away into freedom.

  Lee and Xiulan rushed to the window to see him running along the narrow ridge atop the nearest rooftop. Xiulan started to bring up her hand. “Ko—”

  “Wait,” Lee said, putting an arm out to stop her. “Let’s maybe not.” And as she said that, the rooster reached the edge of the roof, then hopped clumsily to the next-closest roof with a frantic flap of his wings. He kept running and running, until eventually he darted out of sight.

  Silently, Lee watched him go. She was getting the feeling she might’ve dodged a bullet there, but she was embarrassed by how much her failure stung anyway. In Shang, shades were status. Not everyone had the stuff it took to tame one, and Shang society had forbidden her people from even trying. Having one of her own—and being the first daughter of Jeongson to have one, no less—had been irresistible the moment Lee had let herself believe it was actually possible.

  And yet there went the rooster, who seemed to find it a lot more resistible than her.

  She tried to mask her disappointment, letting her gaze fall—

  —onto her hand, which still lay on Xiulan’s arm.

  When she glanced up, Xiulan was staring at her hand, too.

  She ripped it away, a little too hastily. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Wasn’t thinking.”

  Xiulan studied her a long moment, a searching expression on her face. But then she shifted her focus back to the open window and said, “The shortcoming here may not have necessarily been yours. We could have simply chosen the incorrect partner for you to pact with. At some point in our travels, perhaps a more suitable candidate will make itself known to you.” She pulled out her pipe and took the time to light it before adding: “But I regret to say we have no more time to search now.”

  “Made it sound like we didn’t have time for this one, either,” Lee said. “Why’d you humor me with this one, Your Highness?”

  “It’s ‘Majesty,’ ” Xiulan said. “And like you, I wished to see what would happen. It’s as simple as that, Lee Yeon-Ji.”

  “Is it really?” Lee said, letting herself drift away from the window.

  “I suppose not,” said Xiulan. “I’d also thought that since our ship doesn’t depart Jungshao port until tomorrow, we had some spare time to fill. That said, perhaps we should part ways for the day. In the morning, you’ll meet me at Jungshao Jetty, and together we’ll board a ship on which I chartered us passage, the Wave Falcon.”

  “You seem awfully confident I’ll be there.”

  Xiulan shrugged her slim shoulders. “Perhaps I’m not confident. Maybe I once again simply wish to see what will happen. And one way or another,” she added meaningfully, “I will. Until sunrise, Inspector Lee.” She headed for the door, a bounce in her step.

  “Wait, where are you off to?” Lee said.

  “I’ll secure other lodgings for myself,” Xiulan said with a dismissive wave. “Consider tonight’s stay a welcome gift from me. I’m certain you’d like the night to relish your newly regained freedom.” She lingered in the doorway. “…Unless, of course, you had a reason for me to forestall my departure.” Her eyebrow raised inquiringly. “Is that the case, Lee?”

  Lee briefly entertained the thought before shaking her head. This was some kind of test. There was no way she could actually be making it this easy. “I’m good here.”

  She expected Xiulan’s eye to glint with satisfaction, but to Lee’s surprise she saw a twinge of…something else. Amusement? Disappointment? It was hard to tell, a
nd in a heartbeat the moment was gone. But while Xiulan was back to smiling, Lee was left with the growing feeling that maybe she hadn’t passed the test after all.

  “Very well, then,” Xiulan said. “Until tomorrow…Inspector.” And with a swish of her white coat, she disappeared down the hall, leaving the very thick door open behind her.

  Lee crossed to it, grumbling the whole way about royals and servants. Over and over, she played the princess’s offer in her head, like a movie reel on loop. Except each time she played it, the actress playing Lee Yeon-Ji sounded more and more like a fucking idiot.

  She had half a mind to go out for a drink, maybe hire up a girl or a boy to spend the evening with. But instead she slammed the door shut and turned to regard the garishly red and suddenly inviting bed. She meant to just sit down on it, but the moment she let herself relax partway, the rest of her followed suit. She lay back and felt muscles in her back unknot after weeks of holding themselves tense. That morning, she’d woken up at the end of her life. Now she was…well, she was a lot of things, the least unlikely of which happened to be “still here.”

  She glanced up at the ceiling. The one in her cell had been featureless and white, but this one was, to her complete lack of surprise, a deep red. She squeezed her eyes shut and found the darkness there to be preferable by far. And in the darkness of her own head, she whispered to herself the words that were never far from her mind: Leave them before they leave you.

  She turned it over in her head. Sure, Xiulan was an inspector of the Li-Quan, which meant she had to be at least halfway as good at finding people as Lee was. Hell, she’d found Lee already, hadn’t she?

  But Lee had spent her whole life living on the periphery of the world’s vision. She’d attracted the attention of two powerful, important people in the last month, but that was an aberration. If she disappeared tonight, she knew she could make sure it never happened again.

  Then she realized: She was thinking about it. She was taking the time to think out a question that, a few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have needed a second to consider.

  And that was how Lee Yeon-Ji knew that come tomorrow morning, she would be sailing to Tomoda with Princess Shang Xiulan.

  “Thirty slaves to one master? Impossible!” Jimuro said. His shrill uncertainty undercut whatever authority he’d tried to muster in his tone.

  Tala kept her back to him, staring down at Private Radnan as he breathed his last. But even though her eyes were on him, her mind was on the word he’d made himself say before he went.

  Splintersoul.

  “Radnan was an honest man,” she said finally, voice heavy as she caught herself switching to past tense. Gently, she reached down and closed his eyes. It lent his face a peaceful expression at odds with the horrible brutality the rest of his body had endured.

  Slowly, she rose, fist clenched at her side. Through the loading hatch, she heard the sounds of the battle that was raging topside without her. It was a symphony of roaring shades, Sanbuna war cries, and the staccato report of blazing guns. But even as she listened, she could hear the fire waning. She gritted her teeth as she considered what that could mean.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the prince said. She turned around to see him leaning up against his cell bars. “You want to hare off and join that fight upstairs. I’ll let you know straight off that I forbid it.”

  Beaky croaked again in a sort of dry, rasping laugh. It was a mirthless sound that echoed even more deeply in Tala’s head and heart than it did her ears.

  “You ‘forbid’ me?” Tala said. Only her years of military discipline allowed her to keep her voice from shaking with the rage that boiled in her gut. “I’m not one of your subjects, Your Brilliance. I don’t take orders from the man who lost the war.”

  “No,” said the prince, unperturbed by her. “But you do take orders from the woman who won it, and hers are to keep me alive. I’m sure you have a burning desire to rush to aid your poor, beleaguered squad, so you can single-handedly save them. Isn’t that right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “If you really trained your marines to be any good at their jobs, they should be able to protect this ship without your help.”

  That brought Tala up short. She couldn’t believe it, but the bastard had actually made a fair point.

  She scowled at him but stayed put.

  The prince smirked as she stood down. “So unless you don’t have faith in your own troops, you and your slave will stay right here and guard me with your life.”

  Her nascent calm shattered.

  In a heartbeat her rifle was shouldered, its barrel and a chambered round aimed squarely at the Iron Prince’s forehead. He jerked his head back so quickly that his glasses bobbed up, then fell back onto his nose askew.

  “Are you barking?” he shrieked. “I’m your entire mission! You wouldn’t dare!”

  But hate pumped through her like venom. She could just put a bullet in him. He more than deserved it. General Erega had stressed he was the only one who could speak for the Tomodanese people, but if these were the things their voice planned on saying…

  Beaky cawed. Something had him agitated, something that Tala could sense had very little to do with her standoff. Still, the noise was enough to shake her out of her scarlet tunnel vision. Slowly, she lowered her rifle, glaring at the prince as if her gaze alone could stop his heart. “Use that word again in my earshot…and I’ll shoot off your ear.” She turned away from him.

  “What word?” the prince sneered at her back. “ ‘Slave’?”

  She whirled around. Her hand snapped up like a striking viper, her sidearm gleaming in her grip. The muzzle flashed, and a bullet streaked through the narrow bamboo bars, just past the prince’s ear, and buried itself in the wooden wall behind him with a spray of splinters.

  He staggered back with a scream and fell flat on his ass. He sputtered madly in Tomodanese, frantically patting his head in search of damage. But good as Tala was with a rifle, she was a proper artist with a sidearm. At this range, she wouldn’t have hit him unless she wanted to.

  Well, no. She definitely wanted to. But good shooting made a warrior; discipline, a soldier.

  “I’m going topside,” she said coldly, then turned and stalked toward the door once more. With a flutter of shadowy wings, Beaky fell in just behind her. She felt a pang of guilt at just leaving Private Radnan’s body where it lay, but he would have to wait. After all this was over, she and Maki would make sure he was buried at sea with full honors, same as anyone else who fell today on the deck of the Marlin.

  “Wait!” Prince Jimuro wailed behind her. “I command you, Sergeant, to remain at your rightful post and protect me!”

  Tala almost turned around and fired off another shot. She was starting to feel like it would’ve been worth the gamble, almost. But no. The cylinder only had six shots left in it now. Better to save those for the enemy that lurked topside, rather than the captive prince.

  “Captive though I may be,” Prince Jimuro cried, “I’m still a foreign dignitary! I have rights and privileges! And by my order, you will not leave this hold unless I—”

  The entire Marlin rocked hard to port, and the starboard hull wall burst open as if it’d taken a torpedo. Tala swayed and nearly fell as water surged in. But there were no other signs of enemy ordnance: no flames, no sonic concussion, not even explosions.

  Besides, the evidence before her eyes spoke for itself.

  It was a shade: an orca with a slick black hide blotched in white. It had a heavy bottom jaw and crooked yellow teeth the length of Tala’s arm. Huge, jagged chunks of wood protruded from its face like splinters, and its mouth looked large enough to swallow them whole.

  The shade had punched a massive hole in the side of the Marlin. Already, Tala knew: Maki’s ship was doomed.

  The orca-shade opened its mouth wide, only to disappear out the breach it had ma
de. It cried in pain as it vanished into the darkness of the water, and Tala was certain Tivron, Maki’s shark-shade, was fighting as valiantly to defend the ship as its human partner. But while shark fought whale, the sea continued to pour into the hold like blood from a wound.

  She gritted her teeth and ran through the watery onrush. They were only a day’s journey from Tomoda. Even with their ship sunk, the 13-52-2 could survive this, if they acted fast.

  “Sergeant! Wait!”

  She froze at the sound of the prince’s voice.

  Already the water was nearly mid-shin. In a matter of minutes, the entire hold would be underwater. The Iron Prince of Tomoda was supposed to be a powerful metalpacter, but there was no metal with which he could save himself here. If she left him now, he would die. All the people his nation’s lives had destroyed would be avenged in a single stroke. Without him to lead them, Tomoda’s people would learn to suffer, the way they had taught the rest of the world.

  It would be justice, a voice in the back of her head whispered.

  Dimangan’s face flitted across her mind’s eye again. Not enough, she thought with gritted teeth.

  “Sergeant!” the Iron Prince shouted. “Sergeant, please! I’ll drown!”

  Her hand, still heavy with the sidearm it held, shook at her side.

  “Sergeant—!”

  She sent a spike of will to her waiting shade. “Beaky.”

  Beaky wheeled around, flying straight for the cell. It only took a single peck to shatter the wooden lock holding the door fast. The cell door swung open as Beaky banked away from it, eager to return to her side. The prince looked at the open door, dumbfounded.

  “Run,” Tala said. “Before you have to swim.”

  The pitch of the stairs had already changed underfoot. She found herself bumping into the wall as she climbed. She could only imagine how much more difficult this was making conditions for her marines. She growled to herself and ran faster. She should’ve been up there to begin with.