二十五A NAME BEFITTING
Some think the gods walk this realm.
For once, the peasants are not wrong.
Gods do exist, in forms from bees to children. Many dynasties ago, I preferred floating through the skies as a cloud myself. Those days feel like a distant dream as I groan on the ground, biting dust.
“Aiya, Lotus! I know you have more fight left in you!”
Above me is the face of Xin Ren. My lordess, swornsister, and current sparring partner who just knocked me on my back.
Ren offers me a hand. I grab it and—grunting—pull myself up. Around us in the training field, our soldiers are supposed to be drilling, supposed to being the key words. Hard not to watch your lordess fight her second-in-command, especially when said second-in-command is losing as badly as I am.
“Is it the eye?” asks Ren, passing me my pole.
If only. Two working eyes wouldn’t solve my biggest problem: I’m not really Lotus, slayer of tigers, nightmare of men. My name is Zephyr, god of weather, and I’m ashamed to report that I never thought to master the art of pole fighting in my forty thousand years of existence.
“Just tired,” I reply, hoping Ren is too. She’s already dueled three other soldiers, her way of reminding the camp that we’re all equals, united in our mission to free Empress Xin Bao from Miasma.
And I, impostor of a warrior, am not exempt. My hopes are dashed as Ren steps back. “Again.”
Again, we duel.
Again, I lose.
“Again,” Ren says, and for a second I’m whisked back to Master Yao’s porch, his fan smacking my shoulder as I pluck the zither.
Again! Play again!
But Ren is nothing like my former mentor. Even as I miss easy parries, she doesn’t berate me, giving tips instead—Sweep. Hands apart. Stab. But some causes are lost from the start, and on the eighth bout, I’m too slow. Ren’s pole whacks into my side—left, right, left. I back up. I can’t block.
Then don’t. Find the pattern. The pattern Ren created on purpose. To onlookers, it’s not obvious.
It is to Lotus. No cheating, Peacock! I can almost hear her shout, her blood boiling at the insult. No cheat—
I fall left after Ren’s rightward attack, levering her pole down. Now finish it. I surge at her—and trip. Ugh—!
By fate or luck, I flail into Ren.
I smash my lordess into the ground.
Everything spins. Cheers of Lotus’s name. My elbows—are crushing Ren’s ribs. I scramble off. “Ren. Are you okay?”
No answer.
“Ren.”
She opens her eyes and crosses them.
“Not funny!”
“I know, I know.” Ren sits up. “I’m sorry. Though I did feel my life flash before my eyes. But I’m fine!” Her gaze is alight with laughter. Then it sobers. “And you, Lotus?” I sweat harder as she says, “You seem more than tired.”
Is this it? Has Ren finally seen me for who I am?
“Have you been getting enough sleep?”
It’d certainly make my life easier, to be exposed as Zephyr.
It just wouldn’t be worth Ren losing a swornsister.
“Six hours a day,” I lie.
It’s a respectable amount for a soldier, but Ren looks aghast. “No wonder. Remember what happened the last time I woke you up before dawn?”
Something mortifying, I’m sure. “Lotus will sleep more.”
“Good. I order you to, as your lordess.”
I help Ren to her feet, frowning as she pats her chest. If she’s hurt, she won’t say so, would brush it off if I pressed. She threw the fight because she knows the power of appearances. “Sorry about that too,” she says, gesturing to her pole, but no apology is required. I understand. We’re not all equal. Lose too many duels as Ren’s swornsister, and the soldiers won’t follow me into battle.
The same applies to Ren. Her position in the Westlands should be beyond dispute, down to her title.
That is the battle I must win before any other.
As Ren and I leave the training field, I catch Tourmaline’s eye across it. She makes quick work of her opponent and walks over.
“Lordess,” she greets, falling into step beside Ren.
“Tourmaline. How’s Awl formation coming along?”
“We’ve perfected it.”
“Good. And Flying Geese?”
While Tourmaline details our training progress, I watch Ren. The truth is I haven’t been sleeping much at all. The nightmares keep me up—of Ren, dying, sometimes to Miasma, sometimes to Cicada. But it won’t happen. I’m still Ren’s strategist, even if I can’t advise her directly. I glance over Ren’s head and nod at Tourmaline.
Now.
“Lordess,” the warrior begins as Ren observes the soldiers sparring in training field two. “About the coronation…”
Silence descends, heavier than the noon sun.
“My answer is the same,” Ren at last says. “I will not assume my uncle’s throne. I will only govern the people, as I have for the last two months, so that their lives aren’t disrupted. Isn’t that sufficient?”
It should be. The title of governor is a formality. The coronation? Worthless ritual and ceremony, if you ask me. Did Master Shencius? No. Order won’t flow through the world unless a person’s name befits their role, he wrote. Three centuries later, people still live by his words. It’s why so many follow Ren: She has the surname Xin.
It must be why Ren, a traditionalist to her core, can’t see past the name “Lotus” and to my soul underneath.
When Tourmaline doesn’t answer, Ren turns from the training field and walks away.
We hurry after her.
“The people are nervous.” Tourmaline does the talking, as we discussed. She’s known more for her … sensibilities compared to Lotus. “Since marching down to Dasan, Miasma hasn’t moved from it.”
A shrewd play by the prime ministress, no doubt still burned by her loss at the Scarp. Rather than march into the mountainous, unfavorable terrain of the Westlands, she dallies in Dasan, trying to lure us out—
“Then we march on Dasan,” Ren says.
“No!” I yell even as Lotus’s blood spikes. Battle! Battle!
“No,” Tourmaline repeats, blessedly calm. “Not yet. That’s just what Miasma wants. A coronation would reassert your authority in the eyes of the populace without the need for battle. Your officialdom ought to match Miasma’s.”
Please, I think as Ren stops by the palisades of training field three. Assume the proper title.
“You forget something, Tourmaline.” Ren’s gaze swings to the warrior, then to me. “I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this.” Her eyes burn into mine, and I swallow. I know. Asking Ren to celebrate her new office is like asking her to celebrate the bloody coup, Xin Gong’s death, and the prophecy that’s haunted her since childhood:
Xin Ren—she will betray her clan.
But what was portended has come to pass, and if Ren can justify filling in as governor for the people’s good, she can justify a coronation. As she stalks into training field three—alone, Tourmaline and I not invited to follow—my mouth opens. Reason with her. My lungs expand.
“Even the cockroaches are calling themselves king!”
Ren marches faster.
I start after her—and am held back by Tourmaline. She catches my fist before I can register cocking it.
Maybe I really do need more sleep. I mumble some excuse about that and the heat, and Tourmaline gives my knuckles a sympathetic squeeze.
“All is not lost.” Out in the field, the soldiers bow to Ren. “She’s training the troops,” Tourmaline says. “She could still be camping out at your shrine.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“She wants to fight. Morale is high.” Tourmaline tugs me away from the field and with her, through the rest of camp. “We can still march north”—I glare at her—“when the time is right. We still have our allies.”
Ah, our “allies,” who kindly repaid my diplomacy with an arrow to the back—not that Tourmaline knows, or Ren. It’s like I told Cloud: Vengeance is for peasants. Strategists don’t let yesterday’s blood poison tomorrow’s well. Why declare the alliance broken when I can repair it?
Can you repair it, though? goes a voice in my head, and I wish it were just the voice of doubt. You haven’t been able to convince Ren to call herself “governor” when she’s practically acting as one. Are you even still her strat—
“Shut up!”
“Zephyr?” Tourmaline blinks, and I kick myself for actually shouting my thoughts.
“Lotus,” I remind her. “And it’s nothing.” Tourmaline looks unconvinced. “It was Cloud. I imagined her harping just now.” Sorry, Cloud. “What do you think she’s even doing in the Marshlands these days?” I ask as we take the path to the stables.
The clamor of camp fades, the air quiet like Tourmaline’s voice. “If not dueling their generals, then challenging the magistrates to chess.”
“Chess.”
“She once mentioned beating everyone in her village.”
Is that so? I smile. Cloud would be pleased to hear Tourmaline recounting her feats, but she shouldn’t boast until she’s beaten me.
“You’re lucky she didn’t see you today,” Tourmaline goes on. “It reflects badly on me when you lose four duels in a row.”
My smile capsizes to a scowl. Three, not four—but Tourmaline would notice Ren’s throw, as my mentor behind the scenes. “It’s Ren. She’s too good.”
“She trained hard.”
“For years,” I retort. Experience wins fights, not brute strength, and my experience is but months old. It wasn’t too long ago that I ordered Tourmaline to poison Ren’s cavalry, I think sulkily as we enter the stables—then guiltily when the horses whinny. Tourmaline checks over them—“my daily penance”—while I go to Rice Cake. He stares at me. Unlike most humans, he knows I’m not Lotus.
He has my respect for it. “You could look happier,” I mutter, flicking his nose. He blows a snot bubble. “Point taken. You miss her, not me.”
His answer is unspoken, like the words in my heart.
I miss her too. I miss Lotus’s spirit despite all the dirt I’ve eaten for it. I even miss Cloud. The empty stall next to Rice Cake’s, where her mare would be, drives home her absence.
Would Cloud have better luck convincing Ren? I don’t know, don’t know how she is. She writes sparingly, sending only military updates to our camp. I should be glad. No additional word means no movement from the South.
Still, when a scout rushes into the stables, shouting, “Report!” I nearly seize him. Tell me it’s from Cloud.
Then I realize it’s the soldier I tasked with watching over our infirmary.
Come to me and me first, I told him, if anything changes.
Naïve of me, to speak of change as an if and not a when.
“He’s awake, General Lotus.”
Copyright © 2024 by Joan He
