at least I was, what we even knew about the enemy, when a few days ago they were our so-called new allies and friends.
It was different from the battlefield, where colors signaled who each man was and where his loyalties lay. It was more like subterfuge, all the espionage I’d known took place but was never a part of, even if all the chances for promotion were there and everybody knew it. It was more like the way things got in the very thick of battle, at night, when you couldn’t see what someone was wearing and you couldn’t hear what he was screaming, either, and you just had to hope you were striking out at someone who was on the other side. You just couldn’t think about it. You’d go mad, same as the Ke-Han Emperor.
“It’s the only plan we’ve got,” Josette said grimly.
We both knew she was right, Caius and I, and we sat there for a while longer, just to solidify our intentions. At least we had each other to trust—but after that, it was a free-for-all, a melee of instinct and uncertainty. It was what I’d thought I’d wanted all along—getting back to the dividing line, putting myself on one side and them on the other—but the terms were different now, and I was in Josette’s camp. I’d never had anything against Lord Temur, at least not off the battlefield.
But for the moment, all our hopes hung on getting Lord Temur alone.
After that, we were relying on little Greylace, his one good eye afire with the promise of what might come next.
MAMORU
The second border crossing was closer than the first. It had been a little less than a week since we’d left Aiko and the troupe. Although the time seemed to pass for us very slowly as it passed without incident, when I looked back on the number of days that had elapsed, I felt quite surprised.
I knew the country from above like a bird, but the mountains and the plains had been as real as the words next to them, denoting each province distant and remote from my place in the lapis city. Kouje and I had campaigned once in the mountains, but even then we were no more than a few days’ ride from the palace. I had traced the boundaries from childhood, and so I knew how close we were to the second checkpoint. After that, we would be in Honganje prefecture; Kouje’s sister, and her fishing village, lay to the east.
It was a lucky thing that I had memorized my maps so well.
Imagine, Iseul had said, that the mountains are the veins upon the back of your hand. The Cobalts are your knuckles. And so you see that all of Xi’an is within your grasp.
I shivered, and looked to Kouje. Thankfully, he didn’t notice.
We’d already been lucky; too lucky, I even thought, and the burden of that good fortune hung heavy in the air, like the tension before a summer rain shower. At any moment the clouds could break. I did not expect another Aiko to materialize out of trees and mountains beside us and to whisk us across the border as though Goro himself had contrived the device.
We were on our own for the next one. And I wasn’t the only one to be troubled by it.
At least we were sleeping well, though each night I dreamed of Aiko, dressed as the second prince, posing on the stage with the blue makeup of the hero obscuring her face. Her pillow was enchanted, but the sleep itself was deep enough.
“We will come to the crossing by midday,” Kouje said, the morning of the second day apart from the troupe. “I’ve no inspiration for it.”
“I play the role of your wife well enough,” I said, but Kouje shook his head.
“I don’t feel safe,” he replied. What he meant was, I don’t feel you are safe.
“If only Goro had written that far.” I laughed. “He would have thought of something.”
The smoke from our fire dwindled; we were delaying setting out on purpose. With no solid plan and no inspiration, we were at a loss. And wasting time; I could see in the set of Kouje’s jaw how anxious that made him.
I traced the veins on the back of my hand. Iseul would have killed me sooner if he’d ever guessed that I might have made it that far. Such a guise was impossible to imagine for someone of my birthright. My brother would have