Ken Liu - The Wall of Storms

She undressed and cut out the tea-soaked section of her sleeve from her dress. Slowly, meticulously, she cut the fabric into tiny strips, and then cut the strips into even smaller squares.

Her hands trembled so much that she was afraid of cutting herself.

Jia’s arguments had been powerful. Risana could not imagine herself ordering soldiers to fire at the enemy when her husband was held up as a shield. She could not imagine going to war against her own son. It was true that Dara needed a firm hand to resist the tide of the Lyucu, and her quaking hands would never be enough to help Phyro, the Pearl in the Palm.

A rabbit cowered in a cage next to her. She dropped the squares of fabric into a cup, mixed it with fresh fruit slices, and slid the cup into the cage. The rabbit sniffed the food suspiciously, but then began to eat.

Risana watched the rabbit carefully. Soon, the cup was empty, and the rabbit moved away from the feeding cup and hopped around the cage, its whiskers twitching.

She could not imagine leaving Phyro behind. The boy might swagger and strut, but he was kind-hearted and gentle. Love made one do strange things, it was true. But was it strange to not want to die, to not want to leave your child behind?

The rabbit hopped around the cage, showing no signs of discomfort or pain.

The tea had not been poisoned.

Risana closed her eyes. It had all been theater. Jia was willing to drink the tea because she knew there was no danger. She had been performing to gain Risana’s admiration, to gain her trust, to make her offer to remove herself from life at the court, from life altogether.

She shook even harder. She could not leave Phyro with such a woman, who thought only in terms of iron and blood. She would go to Phyro and leave the palace with him. They would disguise themselves as commoners and live in some forgotten corner of Dara, much as she had lived with her mother before she met Kuni. Jia wanted to guide Dara through the season of storms, and she and Phyro would not stand in the way.

“Mocü! Cawi!” she called out to her maids. “I need my traveling case.”

“They won’t be coming,” a voice said behind her.

Risana whipped around and saw the figure of Empress Jia in the door.

“Your servants and maids have all been called away to receive a special bonus from the palace treasury,” said Jia.

Risana opened her mouth to scream, but Jia went on, “The palace guards have blocked off all entrances to the private quarters. No one will hear you and no one is coming.”

Risana stared at her, a bitter smile on her face. “I was going to leave with my son. We would hide in the most obscure valley and never emerge to bother you. I would have used smokecraft to disguise ourselves.”

Jia shook her head. “You weave a romantic vision that will fool only yourself. No matter how much smoke you wrap around yourselves, the ambitious will find you and turn you into a symbol of rebellion. Phyro would never be content to live and die in obscurity when he knows he is the rightful heir to the throne. He may listen to you today, but will you be able to stop him from coming to challenge me in ten years? Meanwhile, you will have denied him the opportunity to learn how to wield power responsibly from the only one who can teach him. You will have prevented him from growing into a man who can face down Timu and Vadyu and save Dara from the looming darkness.”

Risana lowered her head. “I am not like you. I cannot think as you do.”

“I know. I wanted you to see the path for yourself, and you came so close to transcending your fears, so close.” There was pity and compassion in Jia’s voice. “That is why I have come to steel your resolve and make sure you fulfill the role that you’re meant to take on, to weave a masterpiece of smokecraft that will save your son and Dara.

“The moon is particularly lovely tonight. Shall we go to the tower?”

Flickering light from a single candle; two women kneeling across from each other in a room away from prying ears.

“Let them call me a villain, so long as the lives of the people are better with me than without.”

“You have a flair for grand gestures, Jia, believing that they will redeem all the messy, bloody ruins left in your path. But redemption is but a mirage so long as you persist in your methods.”

“Have I finally lost you, Soto? Will you plunge Dara into civil strife?”

“For the sake of the people, I will keep your secret for now. But if you do not give up the reins of power when Phyro is ready, I swear by the Twins that I will proclaim the truth to every corner of Dara.”

Tanvanaki had come to him and asked him to choose a new reign name for himself. After all, he was supposed to be the Emperor of Dara.

It was one of the few things on which she bothered to ask for his opinion.

In truth, he knew he shouldn’t be resentful. Tanvanaki had her hands full. The death of Pékyu Tenryo had created a temporary power vacuum, and several prominent thanes had made moves to challenge Tanvanaki’s leadership. With a combination of guile and murder, she had barely managed to hold them off, and the other thanes had finally acquiesced to her claim as the successor to Pékyu Tenryo only after the tribute paid by Dara and the discovery of tolyusa in Dara. These were not matters in which his knowledge of the Ano Classics could help her.

And now, as he held his newborn son, he felt lost. At twenty years of age, he was barely more than a child himself. The idea that this new life depended on him, much like the fragile new union between the Lyucu and Dara, overwhelmed him.

Tanvanaki had named the boy Todyu Roatan—she did not care for the Dara custom of waiting until the age of reason to formally name a child—but Timu had taken to calling him Dyu- tika , and the servants, most of them Dara slaves, had followed his lead. He was pleased. It was a way in which he could feel himself making a difference, small though it was.

But with the peace now in place between Lyucu-occupied Dara and the rest of the islands, there was a chance for him to do more. His skills had always been more useful in peace than war. Tanvanaki would need his help to set up a system in which the natives of Rui and Dasu could live in harmony with their conquerors, and he would do his utmost to show his dead father that he had been right.

Dyu- tika mewed in his arms, and Timu soothed him with gentle cooing noises. As the baby balled his tiny fists next to his delicate chin, a powerful surge of love suffused Timu’s body. Dyu- tika was but one of the many babies like him born during the last year and this on the islands of Rui and Dasu, products of the union between the Lyucu and the natives—however painful and violent and terrible the origins of their lives, the babies were innocent. They belonged to these islands and had a claim to these shores.

Freedom required treading new paths, required audacious leaps of faith. He was going to cast his shadow down the pages of history.

“Come,” he said, summoning the scribes of his tiny court. “I have decided on a new reign name: Audacious Freedom.”

Emperor Monadétu came to the docks of Ginpen to say farewell in person.

“Big Sister—” The young emperor was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t continue.