Page 5 of Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame

CHAPTER FIVE

A SOLDIER OF Mithrandon walks the streets of Daqiao. Heavy and faceless in her garb, her footfalls seem like an avalanche coming violently through the airy byways, punching through the merriment that fattens the air this early afternoon. It’s lunchtime and the streets are bustling. Mothers haggle while children play skipping games in alleyways. A laborer, a stout young woman, walks past balancing bales of fragrant tea on her shoulders. Painted sign-cloths, drawn across the doorways of buildings, flutter in the wind. Yeva is furtive in the easygoing atmosphere of a market, unsure of its customs and anxious for purpose. Her feet lead her in unchartered directions. She cannot remember the last time she has explored a city as though a mere traveler—perhaps she never has. In this casual environment the armor she wears like a second skin starts to feel more like a cage, suffocating her and dimming her sight, making it hard to breathe.

Voices old and young call out from the stalls lining the streets, hawking their wares. The local tongue, which she has mostly caught as low fragments of a syllabary as officials whispered, now rushes around her like a rain-swollen river. Something about the lilt of those sounds opens a sweet well of familiarity in her mind so potent she feels intoxicated. She hears words that are almost like the language she spoke as a child. Words that haven’t left her mouth since she went to Mithrandon. Yeva remembers her mother coming home from her trips to Quanbao with bagfuls of trinkets—a frog that sang when tilted, a cloisonné goldfish which rippled on the end of a rope like a living thing, a beautifully made lap zither—and a bosom full of wonderful stories and strange new knowledge. She always returned in high spirits, enervated by her trips to the neighboring country. In some stubborn crevice of her mind Yeva wants Daqiao to feel like another home, embracing her the way it once embraced her mother.

Would the citizens understand her if she spoke her mother tongue to them? Yeva wants to try. She approaches the closest stall, laden with jars of crystal honey and sticks of candied fruit. “Hello,” she begins, haltingly. The words seem to come sideways out of her as she struggles to shape sounds she hasn’t made for years. “What are you selling?”

The stallkeeper, a young man barely done growing, stares past her as if she’s invisible. Perhaps he hasn’t heard her. Yeva tries again. “Can you understand me?”

This time the man deliberately turns his head and barks something at the neighboring stall. The portly woman in charge shakes her head and replies in the same unintelligible language, but Yeva knows sarcasm when she hears it. The two share a laugh.

The rebuke could not be clearer. But Yeva can’t give up so easily. On impulse, hand trembling invisibly within her gauntlet, she flashes the braided seal to the young man. The dragonscale catches the light in tints of pink and blue. “Your king gave this to me,” she says in Thrandish, thrusting it in his face. “Will you talk to me?”

The man’s gaze drops to the scale, then back up to Yeva’s face. His expression is inscrutable, his dark eyes like mirrors. She knows she’s made a mistake—what was she thinking? The silence between them stretches until Yeva steps away, face burning with shrouded embarrassment. She feels the man’s blank, accusatory gaze as she walks away, unable to blend into the crowd. Everywhere she goes a cushion of space opens up. Passersby take wider steps to avoid walking next to her. No one will meet her eyes. She walks among them a stranger, a threat sheathed in metal. A casual, careless sweep of her arm could destroy their wooden stalls and fragile buildings.

This denial hurts; her wish for Daqiao to be welcoming shattered as soon as she tries to bring it into reality. The city turns away from her. After all, why should the denizens of these streets know any better? They cannot see her and recognize her as a daughter of the land. All they see is the heraldry of the Empire. It is as though the child Yeva had once been never existed in the first place, and her fragmented memories of souvenirs from Daqiao are only delusions. Can she really be sure her mother ever came here? Is it not just wishful thinking?

The further she goes, the deeper into despair Yeva sinks. Inns and shops in the buildings wave her away or simply ignore her. Brandishing the girl-king’s seal elicits silence, or questions in the local language she cannot answer. The solution, to her, seems obvious. Take off the helm, let them see that she isn’t some marauding stranger who has come to threaten their country with Imperial power, let them see that she is a neighbor and a daughter to a woman who loved this city.

But that would be a lie. Yeva is every bit a marauding stranger from a foreign land, and the woman she is thinking of she has not spoken to for more than half her life. The idea of removing any part of her armor in public, revealing her visage to the world and the goddess in the skies above, turns her stomach. She cannot do it. It feels as impossible as asking her to sprout wings and fly.

Yeva is wasting her time. She should return to her carriage. The safety within that shell of wood and metal will not make her feel like a mistake for existing.

She turns and heads back up the street. Mired in gloomy thought, she is startled when she hears someone call out in familiar words. “Knight from up north!”

A gray-haired woman leans in the doorway of an eatery she was too heartsick to bother trying. She gestures with a stiff hand. “Come here.”

Her stomach drops again at the sound of the language she spoke at home. Yeva approaches slowly, trying to piece together what she knows of this woman. There’s nothing familiar about her face, and yet—

“You’re Douma’s eldest, aren’t you?”

Her heart leaps into her throat at the mention of her mother’s name. Here it is, at last—a trace of her mother’s journeys from her childhood, proof that her memories of childhood, and therefore Yeva herself, have not been so summarily erased from the rest of the world outside the walls of Mithrandon. “You know my mother? You know who I am?”

“Of course I do. Come.”

The woman beckons her inside. Chest rushing with equal parts hope and fear, Yeva follows her instructions. She does not know what awaits her, but she cannot not know.

Sound spills over her as she steps inside: the clack of utensils, the burble of laughter. The ground floor bubbles with activity, every seat taken, every table laden with food. Wine is poured and oaths are sworn. A serving boy dodges past with a whole loin of crackle-skin pork laid upon a gleaming celadon plate, nimble on his feet despite the size of the dish.

The mysterious woman shouts instructions in Quanbao’s language; somewhere in the depths of the eatery a hand waves in acknowledgement. Then, to Yeva: “Follow me.”

Yeva feels two sizes too large in the building’s cramped interior, stiff and bulky amongst these carefree civilians. Heads turn to stare at her, as though a guardian gargoyle has detached from its pedestal of stone to walk among them. Her chaperone heads up the stairs where it’s quieter, leading them to a private room behind a paper-screen door. A long, low table has been set up with appetizers: sweet and spicy pickles, anchovy crisps, braised groundnuts. Embroidered cushions of silk line either side.

The woman doesn’t sit down. She instead turns to Yeva. “Now. Will you take that silly helmet off?”

“I—” Yeva hesitates. Her heart works so hard in her chest it brings her pain. “I never take it off.”

“What? They haven’t glued it to your head, have they?”

“No, but—”

“Then take it off. How else are you going to eat?”

Yeva freezes. This stranger does not know what she’s asking. The impossibility of wings, the fear of being seen outside the solid, protective walls of Mithrandon. She may as well have asked Yeva to boil her own flesh and turn into a dragon.

But—this woman knows Yeva’s mother. She knows her by name. She knew who Yeva was without seeing her face. If she refuses—if she turns tail and runs, fleeing back to the sanctuary of her carriage—she shall never know the story here. And perhaps she will curse herself to remain a stranger to all of Daqiao for as long as she is here.

She cannot do it. But she must do it.

Clumsily, hands almost unsteady, Yeva lifts the helmet off her head. She struggles at the task without the aid of her contraptions. But the damned thing eventually comes off, exposing her to a world that feels horribly bright and unrelenting. She squints on instinct, breathing the unrestrained air, pungent with grease and perfumed steam from the kitchens below.

The woman looks her up and down. “It is you,” she says, nodding in satisfaction. “I see her in you. Clear as a spring pond.”

Yeva gingerly draws in fresh air. The woman’s gaze feels like hot coals upon her face. She thinks: This is what it feels like. This is what it’s like to be normal. “How did you know my mother?”

She gestures to the table, brusque in her coyness. “Sit.”

A serving girl brings them cups, a pot of tea, boiling water to wash the cups with. The woman begins to talk while she rinses the cups with the water and pours the tea. “You don’t know me. Of course. My name is Anuya. I’m from the same village you were. Growing up, your mother and I were friends. Best friends, you could say. Then as a young woman I did what young women do and fell in love with a boy who passed through the village, and followed him home to Daqiao. Here I’ve been ever since.”

“How did you know who I am?”

“I heard about you through gossip. How many girls from a small village like ours go off to the capital to become a heroic dragon-slaying knight? Everyone knows about the famous guildknight of Mithrandon. Even here in Daqiao.”

Her offhand proclamation only worsens Yeva’s anxiety; she imagines the hidden conversations people have had of her over the years and cannot imagine anything good has been said. Anuya glances at her face, her unshielded face, and laughs, finding amusement in Yeva’s expressions. How do people live like this? Suddenly, Yeva doesn’t want to talk about herself anymore.

She asks: “My mother used to come to Daqiao a lot. Was it to see you?”

“Ha!” Anuya sets one of the cups in front of Yeva. “If only! Your mother had much finer friends in this city. She was a confidante of the late King of Quanbao. Used to come in to give her counsel and everything.” She catches sight of Yeva’s round-eyed expression and snorts. “Didn’t know that, did you?”

“She never told me. She said…” Yeva frowns. “ One day, when you’re grown…”

“Ah. Well, that sure sounds like Douma. Even as a child she was so full of secrets, always running off into the woods, learning magic and whatnot. When it turned out that she had royal favor in the neighboring kingdom, we weren’t even surprised. Still… It was a scandal, you know, when you left for the north. In between Douma’s reputation and who she married. Our village chief didn’t approve of the union, but she did it anyway. She loved him, she said. Ah, look at the stupid things we do for love.”

Yeva stares at the surface of the tea while her stomach quietly churns. Her family is a distant memory, and a happy one: warm afternoons in the fields and the laughter of her little sister as Yeva chases her. To hear these ugly secrets so casually dredged up by someone she doesn’t know brings a wave of sourness to her mouth.

Anuya tuts. “You don’t like tea? Your mother always ordered this.”

Reluctant, she takes a sip. The tea is deep and smoky, with a woody fragrance that reminds her of incense burning. “It’s a good brew.” She thinks: my mother has good taste.

The screen door parts and the serving girl reappears with a tray: two bowls of chicken congee and a plate of stuffed pork buns. Simple. Delicious. The smell alone suffocates her with so much nostalgia she finds herself tearing up. “Eat, eat,” Anuya says, waving generously at the dishes.

Yeva almost can’t bear to. But she must. She’d be rude not to. She spoons in a taste of the ember-hot congee and shuts her eyes. The emotions that flood her pull her in a thousand different directions; she has no words in any language to describe the heavy, golden feeling that settles in her chest. How can she explain what it’s like, what it means, or where it comes from?

Anuya watches her. “So what news of your mother? I’ve not seen her in a while, what does she get up to, these days?”

Yeva’s hand freezes as she’s halfway to another mouthful. “I haven’t seen my mother since I went to Mithrandon.”

Anuya raises an eyebrow. “Oh, haven’t you?”

“No. Does she still come to Daqiao often—?”

The older woman’s face darkens, but only momentarily. “Oh no, she hasn’t visited in years. In fact she stopped visiting Quanbao not long after you went north. A few years after, I think. I don’t remember exactly. But it’s been a while. She used to come round for a bowl of congee whenever she was here. And then she stopped. Why? No one can say. But I heard she and the late king had some kind of falling out. Rumors, of course. Can’t say the former king was too pleased to hear her daughter had become a dragon hunter. Or so I hear.”

Yeva’s mouth goes dry.

Anuya scoffs; Yeva has forgotten that her face is exposed, her expressions can be read. “It’s just a rumor,” Anuya says. “Who knows what really happened?”

“You don’t think she’s—” Yeva’s trying to get a thought out, you don’t think she’s dead, do you? But the words weigh down her tongue like rockfall. Clog up her throat. Only silence remains.

Anuya understands all the same. “No, no. I would have heard if something serious had happened to her. News like that would escape the village. And I still talk to my parents, you know.”

Unlike me, Yeva thinks.

Anuya huffs. The mood is ruined. “Well, that’s a pity. I was hoping to catch up with news from home! But I suppose there’s no shortcut to it; if I want information I shall have to go pry for it myself.”

Which reminds Yeva of the reason she came to town in the first place. Gingerly, she reaches for the royal seal she placed upon the table when she sat down, and pushes it forward. “This,” she begins, uncertainly.

Anuya glances at it. “Yes, yes, I know,” she says, almost annoyed. “Lady Sookhee will pay the tab. I wasn’t going to charge you for the food, you know.”

“No.” Yeva taps the scale in the center of the seal. She doesn’t even know why she’s asking. Is it because this thing she doesn’t understand is in fact a solid thing she can point to, can touch and can describe? “Tell me about this. It’s dragonscale. Where did it come from?”

Anuya looks at her as if she’s lost her mind. “How would I know? Affairs of the palace are affairs of the palace, we commoners don’t learn where they get their little treasures from. If only! Shouldn’t you be asking the Royal Highness, not me? I’m just an old woman who sells congee.”

“I’m sorry.” She closes her gloved hand over the royal seal and wishes desperately to put her helmet back on. “I thought—perhaps—people would know.” But it’s a foolish notion. In the end, neither of them have the information the other needs. Yeva finishes the piquant meal and slowly, clumsily replaces her helmet.

Anuya says, “Even if you’ve grown up so far from her, you’ve turned out a lot more like your mother than you think. Come back anytime for a meal.”