Marie Brennan - Within the Sanctuary of Wings

He was displeased when Giat Jip-hau returned to camp—Andrew having dutifully woken him up when the other sentry spotted the prospective emperor returning. He was displeased when he heard that the leader of the Khiam Siu had met with the Draconeans, and I had engineered it. He was displeased when he realized that he could not punish me by shutting me out of his own negotiations, for without me, there could be no negotiations at all; he even went so far as to question my probity in translating their exchanges, and only desisted when Tom threatened to duel him then and there.

I thought of placating the colonel by offering a different kind of glory: allowing him to claim the credit for engineering the three-way alliance between the Sanctuary, Scirland, and the future Yelangese dynasty. But when I opened my mouth to speak the words, they would not come out. I had finished with such concessions. When others have contributed to my achievements, I am more than willing to give them credit. I would not have come to the Mrtyahaima had Thu not first located the dead Draconean’s remains and identified them as something unusual; I would not have been driven into the Sanctuary, and the hands of Ruzt and her sisters, had Tom not spotted the second body in the col; I would not have been able to communicate half so well with the Draconeans had my husband not unlocked the first doors of their language. There are countless others to whom I owe thanks, ranging from my father to my first husband Jacob to Lord Hilford, from Yeyuama in the Green Hell to Shuwa in Hlamtse Rong. I even owe a debt to that unknown desert drake who laid her eggs atop the buried entrance to the Watchers’ Heart.

Dorson had provided me with transportation into the Mrtyahaima, and had played a catalyzing role in sparking our negotiations that spring, not least of all because he brought Giat Jip-hau with him. But he had no part in the alliance, except to obstruct it—and I would not hand him those laurels simply to win his goodwill. As I said to Tom, “He can either join in and do his bit, for which I will thank him… or he can get out of the way.”

The way in question was, of course, alliance. It did not happen overnight: the remainder of the council arrived on the same day that Dorson finally sent the caeliger back across the Sanctuary wall to inform the rest of his expedition of what he had found, and after that things got very, very complicated. But in the end, the council voted to proceed as we had discussed, blessing the reign of the first Khiam emperor.

Some delusionally optimistic part of me had thought that once this was arranged, I would be able to go home. I have rarely been prone to homesickness, but by then my longing for Scirland was so powerful I could taste it. Although I had been reunited with Suhail and Tom, my son still believed me to be dead, along with Natalie and all my family save Andrew, and all the good friends and colleagues I had acquired along the way. It would sadden me to leave behind Ruzt and Kahhe and yes, even Zam, but the Sanctuary was not and could never be my home.

My rationality soon reasserted itself, though. Suhail was devoting himself to the task of learning Draconean with a single-mindedness that astounded even me, and a rate of success that put me utterly to shame. Giat Jip-hau and several others were also bending their efforts to this task, albeit more slowly; and in turn we were teaching small amounts of some human languages to the Draconeans. Scirling and one or more of the Yelangese tongues were the most useful diplomatically, but the Draconeans made the greatest strides with Akhian, because of its relationship to their own language. As strenuously as we all worked, however, I remained the only person who could converse with both species in anything like a fluent manner (and even then, my limitations remained great). No one else, after all, had endured months in which there was nothing to do but herd yaks and acquire vocabulary.

This meant that any alliance expedition must necessarily have me along—and so it was that, ten years after my deportation from Yelang, I returned to that land in a convoy of Scirlings, Khiam Siu, and Draconeans.

Counting both those who came into the Sanctuary on that initial flight and those who had remained outside, the Khiam Siu accompanying Dorson’s forces numbered just under a score, plus Thu Phim-lat. A pair of these remained behind in the Sanctuary, but the rest formed the core of our laughably small invasion force.

To these we added a round dozen Scirlings, including myself, Tom, and Colonel Dorson, and four Draconeans. The elders had decided upon a suitable punishment for the transgressions of Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam: they would be the ones to accompany our group, risking themselves in a world full of humans. But in the end they numbered four, not three, because their clutch-brother Atlim insisted on accompanying them.

This occasioned yet another argument—I thought they would never end. To the Draconeans, four is an auspicious number, echoing the four sisters from whom their species is said to descend. But to the Yelangese, four is decidedly inauspicious; in most Yelangese languages, that word is a homophone for “death.” But Atlim would not remain behind. In the end we resorted to numerical sleight-of-hand; there were not four Draconeans, but three plus one. Only the sisters would publicly bless the new emperor, with Atlim standing aloof.

So altogether we numbered thirty-three. This was, of course, not nearly enough to mount a revolution off our own bat. Should it come to that, however, we were already lost; for it would mean the bulk of the Khiam Siu movement, those revolutionaries who had remained in Yelang, had failed to rise to Giat Jip-hau’s banner. Without them, we had no hope of success; more soldiers in our party would not change that.

And waiting for more soldiers would only put us at risk of losing the element of surprise. Dorson’s message to the outside world had of course been sent with strict orders for military security—but none of us (including Dorson, once his bluster faded) believed that would last for long. And once the Taisên learned about the Sanctuary, their own soldiers would be here as fast as their caeligers could fly. To avoid a pitched battle in this hidden valley, and to preserve the impact of the Draconeans’ first appearance in Yelang, we had to move as soon as we could.

The remainder of the Scirling contingent, and a pair of Khiam men, stayed behind in the Sanctuary. Andrew argued vociferously to come with us to Yelang, but I took him aside and pled with him to accept command of the Sanctuary forces. “You are the only one among Dorson’s men I trust to safeguard the alliance we have made,” I said.

“Suhail will be here,” he said, his jaw set in its most stubborn line.

It was not an argument calibrated to sway me. Leaving my husband behind was one of the most wrenching decisions I have ever had to make; after our winter-long separation, neither of us was yet ready to be parted once more. But it was the only feasible choice: with me gone from the Sanctuary, Suhail was the closest thing to an interpreter anyone there would have. His command of Draconean was still weak, but he would be competent with it long before anyone else could hope to be.

“Suhail’s authority does not apply to the military,” I said. “I need you both here. And—” My throat closed up unexpectedly. “I need you to watch over him. Whatever the council has voted, there are Draconeans who do not like this alliance at all. If something were to happen to him while I am gone—”

Andrew gripped my shoulders. “Say no more. I’ll keep him safe.”

I have never asked who it was that arranged for Suhail and I to be alone on my final night in the Sanctuary, with Ruzt, Kahhe, Zam, and Thu all quartering elsewhere. I think it must have been my husband; but it may have been one of the sisters. Not Zam, as she had little understanding of human notions of privacy and pair-bonding, but Ruzt or Kahhe might have done it. Regardless of the cause, we had one night in which we need not attend to anyone else’s troubles but our own.