The General regards us in silence, his face impassive. “The boat is ready to set sail,” he says, turning. “Follow me.”
I sense Sith relax. “Yes, General.”
“But, Sith?” The General pauses, continuing over his shoulder, “If I ever catch you touching the girl inappropriately again, it will be your job to explain to the King how you soiled one of his concubines. Do you understand?”
Sith flinches. “Yes, General.”
This time when he grabs me, Sith takes care to keep to where my shoulders are covered. But he marches me forward with the same aggression and shoots me a sideways look, slatted eyes narrowed in disgust.
I scowl openly back, but I don’t struggle. His grip is tight, and ahead of us the General’s fist is still around the hilt of his sword, reminding me how easily he would be able to turn it against me.
We follow General Yu in the opposite direction to which I ran, out to the oceanfront. There’s a port, busy even at this hour. Lights glint from the wooden gantries, rippling the water with color. A wide, star-speckled sky stretches out to an invisible horizon. Despite everything that’s going on, my eyes go wide at the sight.
I’ve always dreamed about seeing the sea.
Behind us, restaurants and hookah cafés line the street, the night filled with raucous laughter, the jeers and yells of an argument bursting into life. Wherever we are, it doesn’t seem like a rich town. There are only a few demon figures amid the crowds and all of them are Steel. Outside one of the shops, a salt-stained banner snaps in the wind. I make out the faded pattern of two rearing canines back-to-back painted in sweeping brushstrokes across the fabric—the famous dog clan of Noei, the Black Jackals.
I do a double take. “Noei?” Louder, I call ahead to General Yu, “We’re in Noei?”
He doesn’t turn, but his head tilts, which I take as a yes.
My mouth goes dry. Noei is the province to the east of Xienzo. We’ve traveled farther than I hoped.
As the General leads us to the far side of the port, we pass young ship hands dressed in grubby sarongs and fishermen deftly picking squid from clouds of tangled nets. We come to a stop at a large boat moored at the end of a dock. A crowd of cream, fin-shaped sails, unfurled, flutter in the wind.
The tiger soldier is waiting at the top of the gangplank. “The captain is ready to set sail, General,” he says with a tuck of his chin.
“Good. Sith—take the girl to her room.”
“Yes, General.”
“And remember what I said.”
As soon as he turns away, Sith scowls. He lowers his mouth close to my cheek, and I stare ahead with my lips pressed, holding down a shiver as his words unspool silkily in my ear. “You’re welcome to try to escape again, pretty girl, but this time it will be the sea’s arms waiting to catch you. And I think you’ll find them an even crueler embrace than mine.”
FOUR
NO ONE TELLS ME HOW LONG we’ll be sailing. I watch for differences in the ocean, scan the horizon for signs of land, any opportunity for escape. But after three days, the rolling slate-blue of the sea still looks identical. And besides, most of the time I’m crouched with my head over a bucket, watching another kind of liquid slop back and forth. I’m so seasick I barely have the energy to worry about what will happen when we arrive at our destination. Resignation is beginning to settle in my bones like a poison, black and slow.
There’s no going back now. I’m ready for whatever is coming my way, I tell myself, so many times that I wonder who I’m trying to convince.
Two times a day the General sends a ship hand to bring me food. After I throw up the steamed taro dumplings he serves me one night, the boy sneaks back with a second helping. He’s a Moon caste fox-form, probably just a couple of years younger than me. Maybe it’s because of his age, or how he can barely look me in the eye, but for whatever reason it’s the first time I haven’t been completely intimidated by a Moon demon. Over the days I’ve come to appreciate the lovely umber hue of his fur. How there’s something beautiful about the way his jaw is molded, a hard curve tapering to a sharp chin.
“Wait,” I say now as he hurries to leave. I don’t dare touch the bamboo basket, even though the smell of the dumplings inside makes my mouth water.
The fox-boy stops in the doorway. The white tip of his tail flicks.
“It’s just… they’ll notice,” I continue. “That some food is missing.”
He hesitates. Then he says jerkily, “It’s my portion.”
This simple act, the kindness of it, surprises me so much—especially coming from a Moon caste, willowy vulpine haunches showing beneath his worker’s sarong—that I just blurt straight out, “Why?”
Looking over his shoulder, he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “Why what?”
“Why help me? I’m… I’m Paper.”
The fox-boy turns back to the door. “So?” he answers. “You need the help more than anyone.”
I blink, glad that he’s gone before he can see how much his comment has stung. I consider not eating the dumplings out of principle—who needs pity dumplings, anyway? But I’m too weary to hold out for long. Still, his words stay with me. It makes me recall something Mama once told me, when I’d come back from a trip with my father to a neighboring town to collect a batch of rare herbs.
“A fat man threw his banana skin at us!” I told her when we arrived home, indignant, my eyes puffy from crying.
My mother had shared a look with my father before crouching down in front of me, hands cupping my wet cheeks. “Oh, darling,” she said, before asking me calmly, “Do you know why?”
I sniffed, my little fists bunched. “He told us we shouldn’t be in the same shop as Steels or Moons.”
“He was a demon?”
I pouted. “A fat, ugly dog one.”
Behind me, Baba snorted—falling quiet quickly at the look my mother gave him.
“Would you like to know a secret?” she said, pulling me closer and tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ears. “A secret so secret not even those who know it are always aware?”
I nodded.
Mama smiled. “Well, despite what they look like, all demons have the same blood as us. Yes, even fat, ugly dog ones. If the gods gave birth to us, why should we be any different? We are all the same really, little one. Deep down. So don’t you worry about what the silly man said.”
And six-year-old me had nodded, believing her. Trusting in the certainty of her words even if the world was trying to prove me otherwise.
Then—a year later. The claws and fire, the crush and cries.
We might be the same deep down, Paper, Steel, and Moon, but it didn’t matter then.
I rub my arms over my pale leaf-thin skin.
And it doesn’t matter now.
On the morning of the fifth day at sea, shouts ring out from the deck. Though the words are muffled, stolen by the wind, one reaches me. It flies into my heart on wings both shadowed with fear and bright with relief.
Han. The royal province.
We’ve arrived.
I scramble to the window. At first I can’t see anything, but after a minute the shape of the coast reveals itself, the city nestled in the bay growing clearer as we approach.