|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:15:59 GMT -5
I am Meilin, daughter of Junjie, the son of Xiaowen. I am a warrior in the Tribe of the Vault. I am in line for the imperial throne, the Seat of Dragons.
And I am dead. On the final morning of the Empress Xifeng's funeral, Meilin is set to ascend to the throne and claim her rightful title as the eldest of her mother's daughters. The responsibility for the Tribe of the Vault will fall to her once she takes her place on the Seat of Dragons.
The trouble is, someone kills her to set the Seven Days of Claim into effect.
Worse yet, somehow, she returns alive.
Now, with only a week to defend her blood claim to the throne from her mysterious assassin, Meilin must win back the trust of her Tribe and put the killer to justice before her contenders for the role of Empress can assert their power over the lands, knowing all the while that each hour that leads toward her coronation is more dangerous than the last. Can Meilin unravel the plot to end her life, or will the Tribe of the Vault find itself under new leadership when the Seven Days of Claim reach their end?
"In the Year of the Tiger is an enthralling read set in a truly unique reimagining of Warriors. The worldbuilding is excellent - I liked both the atmospheric descriptions of the setting and the complex lore of the Tribe, as well as the nods to Chinese tradition. Only six chapters in, the plot is already bursting with mystery, making me anxious to read on. Meilin is a relatable protagonist while the minor characters are realistically and distinctly drawn - plenty of room for future conflict. However, the slowish pace means that the plot isn’t yet as exciting as it could be. I would also like a more clear picture of the seven days of claim, and Meilin’s personal goals beyond becoming Empress. However, there is plenty of this fic yet to go, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes mystery, fantasy and good world-building." ~Sapphire~
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:23:31 GMT -5
Please note that this is not a full cast list, but rather some important characters in their various divisions. The Tribe of the Vault has approximately seventy members.
Empress Xifeng [flourishing phoenix], a ginger-and-white tabby she-cat with copper eyes.
Consort Junjie [handsome hero], a hardy black-and-white tom with amber eyes.
Adviser Zhilan [iris orchid], a long-furred brown-and-white tabby she-cat with green eyes.
Healer Weiyuan [preserving depth], a dark gray tabby tom with blue eyes.
Warriors of Water Meilin [plum grove], a calico-and-white mollie with copper eyes. Yanlin [sparrow forest], a brown tabby tom with green eyes. Shirong [scholar of honor], a silver tabby tom with blue eyes.
Warriors of Fire Liqiu [beautiful autumn], a ginger tabby mollie with amber eyes and white paws. Changming [flourishing bright], a black tom with green eyes. Qiang [strong, good], a brown tabby tom with amber eyes.
Warriors of Earth Niu [the ox], a broad-shouldered brown tabby tom with amber eyes. Tao [the way], a black-and-white tom with amber eyes. Xiaohui [morning sunlight], a gray tabby she-cat with amber eyes.
Warriors of Wood Zhenzhen [very precious], a petite ginger tabby mollie with copper eyes. Biyu [jasper, the precious stone], a long-furred black she-cat with amber eyes. Fan [mortal], a black tom with copper eyes.
Warriors of Metal Yanmei [flattering], a long-legged tortoiseshell she-cat with green eyes. Xue [snow], a white she-cat with blue eyes. Jiayi [auspicious one], a pale gray tom with blue eyes.
Elders Xiaowen [red sky warm], an aging black tom with amber eyes. Huiling [wise jade tinkling], a gray-and-white tabby she-cat with blue eyes. Yaozu [honoring the ancestors], a dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes.
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:24:26 GMT -5
Chapter One My mother is dead.
A lynx has killed her.
I am to take her place.
The Tribe of the Vault has been in mourning for seven days, and tonight is the seventh night before Empress Xifeng’s spirit joins the ancestors. It is the most hallowed night for farewells, and the most intimate. Only immediate family was allowed at her grave before, and now, it is only those she favored.
Junjie alone crouches beside me tonight, nose touched to the damp, fresh earth. Once, he was my father, a hero of the olden days. He wove stories from morning mist and sang them to the sky better than any elder, and his strength of heart was infectious in battle and out. That Junjie had compassion enough for twelve Tribes over, enough courage for twelve armies. But that Junjie died on the lynx’s claws seven days ago, and this Junjie mourns like a stone. He says nothing. Eats nothing. Feels nothing. Truthfully, he is not Junjie, but a shade.
Seven days of me at his side, mourning with him, has done nothing to ease my father’s grief. Even knowing that tomorrow, I take up the honors of Empress of the Tribe of the Vault, the Empress of the Seat of Dragons, he is inconsolable. A rush of bitterness surges in me at his unresponsiveness, only to be washed away by guilt and grief. I want his pride again, but where I have lost a distant mother, he has lost a dear lover; our griefs are incompatible.
His age, too, is incompatible with the growing night. I must sit vigil as part of Xifeng’s funeral rites and my own ascension, but Junjie is no longer a consort. He is a widower. He is my father. “Go rest,” I tell him. “Please.”
“This is rest,” he answers. He does not take his nose from the earth; his mourning posture is sacred, if only to him. It is nothing but painful to me.
“Father, please,” I press. “The seven days are past. Consider the future. Consider tomorrow.”
"She was my tomorrow."
And so we go back and forth this way, hunched over the cold earth. I beg, Junjie stoically refuses, and we both must try again. However, I win out in the end when he shifts his posture and his hips crackle in the predawn chill. It is cruel, perhaps, to use his age against him, but we both know that he is too old to spend so many nights in the open air anymore. Not for love, for war, or for anything in between. If he persists, he will catch cold, and then it will be up to the ancestors to save him. Even Weiyuan and his healing skills cannot cure the infirmities of time.
Defeated, Junjie finally slinks away, but only after stiffly rising from his crouch. I hold my own reverent posture until he is long gone, leaving me behind with the ginkgo trees and my mother’s grave. In my father’s absence, she is harder to honor.
I was not close to Xifeng, not even as her eldest daughter. As Empress, she could not afford to spend her days raising me as most mothers do, with grace and love and affection. Instead, when Zhilan was not rearing me in her place, she brought me up with honor, valor, and faith. Thanks to her, I know the rituals that bring fortune to the dead, the ceremonies that bring prosperity to the living, and the offerings that prevent worse things from traveling between the two.
She also prepared me for the day when she would no longer be around, when I would be expected to take her place. Today.
I used to think today would be brimming with pain, and that the mountain peaks would sink into the shadows of storms, poured down in offering by Xifeng’s ancestors. But as dawn creeps closer, the mist parts to make way for the sun, and with it, the promise of a clear day. Zhangjiajie Forest does not weep for the lost. It merely moves onward, soft and warm, and greater than I.
The dawn brings a heat that thaws my bones, and I sigh, leaning into it. The rising sun carries my last moments of privacy as well, because when it crests the horizon, Zhilan and Weiyuan will fetch me for the ascension ceremony, and I will become Empress. We will hold a celebration in the dove tree grove tonight, calling in every warrior of the Tribe, and then, for another seven days, we will rejoice in peace and prosperity before returning to the daily ebb and flow of our lives.
At least, we are supposed to. But as I return to my mourning crouch to say a last prayer for Xifeng’s safe passage in the afterlife, a whispering in the ginkgo catches my attention. I know the susurrus of the forest better than I know my own heart. The passage of macaques is distinct from the wanderings of sables, and the scent of salamanders in the Lishui River is far different than the tracks of leopards along the banks. The whispering suits nothing that I know, and as quickly as it has come, it vanishes.
This before bursting from the undergrowth in a flurry of claws and mist. I stumble over Xifeng’s freshly dug grave, unable to find solid ground. My paws come up, seeking flesh and bone to rend, and my joints ache with the sudden motion after so many hours of stillness. I cannot move fast enough, though. Even as I slash at my attacker, claws sink into my throat, and my head is craned back against my will, forcing me to stare into the morning sun.
I cannot breathe. I cannot move. I can only blink at the dawn and beg my ancestors for help.
“I invoke the Seven Days of Claim,” someone says. I hear their words in tandem with my heartbeat. Has it always been so slow? "I invoke my right to the Seat of Dragons."
Then, most regrettably, I die.
Chapter Two Dead cats cannot be empresses. They cannot be warriors, either, or elders or healers. They can, however, be buried, and when I wake, I am halfway there. A spray of dirt flies into my face, wet and warm, and I splutter against it. My limbs are too heavy to move, especially with beginnings of a burial atop me, but at least I am alive.
That in itself makes no sense to me. I remember the claws punching into my throat, and the blinding light of the sun filling my vision. I remember the cold terror, the final paralysis. I remember the voice.
“The Seven Days of Claim.” It doesn't matter how heavy I feel. Sucking in a deep breath, I stagger to my feet and crawl out of my grave to the sounds of screams. Dead cats cannot walk.
But I am not dead. Somehow, I breathe and I walk and I burn to know who has tried to send me to my ancestors. Why they have tried.
Zhilan and Weiyuan are the closest to me. Since I do not have children, and because the father of the Empress is rarely taken into account, my healer and adviser are the only ones who have been digging. Despite their wide-eyed terror, the relief in seeing only them with muddied paws fills me with grateful joy. Had more cats been able to offer their services, I would have been fully buried already.
“By my right as healer, evil spirit, I banish you!” Weiyuan suddenly snarls, lashing out at the open air between us with sheathed claws. The gesture is symbolic, not meant for harm, but I flinch all the same. My throat feels raw.
Giving them their space, and ignoring the cats clustered at the edge of the grove, I dip my head. “I am alive,” I assure them. “I am Meilin, daughter of late Empress Xifeng and consort Junjie.” Formal titles cannot be spoken by foul spirits. It may seem stiff, but this is my proof. I still live. I survive.
Taken aback, Zhilan and Weiyuan drop to a deferent crouch, and only when the crowd has done the same do the former two rise. “We found you,” Zhilan chokes out. “Please forgive us. To all our senses, you were no longer with us.”
Another cat might punish them for their mistake. Burying the Empress Ascendant alive could be considered treason in the right light. But their mistake is honest. Unlike all of our onlookers, I believe Zhilan without question. I know that I died. My return, however, is as baffling as the reason I was killed in the first place.
“You are forgiven,” I assure her. “But we must talk. I need your advice.”
Advice. Though she often seems too nervous to offer it, she has been blessed with deep insight by her ancestors. If anyone can lead me to answers, it is Zhilan. It is her role until the end of time, and she holds to it dutifully. She and Weiyuan flank me without another moment’s hesitation, and we begin our trek from the grove to the Tribe’s heart, where the imperial den lies. It is plush with moss, which is woven with crane feathers, and its entrance looks to the south, inviting prosperity and kindness. No other den in the Tribe is so fine or secluded. There, I will be safe from assassins in the mist, as well as the pale stares of my people. They watch my passage warily, eyes flicking up as I go by even though it is bad luck to look upon the empress until she is well on her way. I suppose I am not Empress yet, but there is something more disconcerting about their eyes on me than the breach of protocol. Normally, no one would dare tempt fate. Now, everyone is watching. If Zhilan or Weiyuan notice, they show no sign. They march forward at so brisk a pace that my legs burn trying to keep up. I do not know if I am stiff from sitting vigil, or from my dalliance with death. The forest is holding its breath as we go. It seems to know that the natural order of succession, of life, has been upset, and thus it is silent. Perhaps it is the midday air, always warmer and more tranquil, but I cannot shake the sense that the Zhangjiajie has been violated. Even threading between the warrior dens as we near the camp’s center, familiar as it may be, does nothing to ease the forest’s tension, or my own. At the imperial den, Zhilan ushers me inside while Weiyuan deposits his great gray bulk in the entrance, back to us and ears pricked. “You are a lucky one,” he mutters, sparing me a single glance. “Very lucky.” Without a doubt, he means my pelt, a patchwork affair of black, white, and orange. It is auspicious in any cat, but in an empress, it is downright holy, and the Tribe believes it has protected me since birth. Then, I was born alone and still, but suddenly shuddered to life at Xifeng’s first touch. So too with the eagle that spotted me as a kit. Huiling witnessed the raptor as it dove headlong for me, playing among the dove trees, and before its talons could close around me, it peeled away, warded off by the good fortune written into my fur. It appears that today, it has saved me yet again. “Are you well enough to climb to the Seat?” Zhilan suddenly asks, tail fluttering nervously across her front paws. “You should have taken it at midday, but…” I shake my head. Not yet. The Seat must be taken without contention, thus the immediate ascension of the firstborn daughter, or the Seven Days of Claim. They are barely even a fable in this age, unused the very edges of living memory. Only a few elders today have experienced the Days of Claim. They were employed in times of strife, before the Tribe of the Vault was one unit beneath the heavens. Then, our territory was the Tribe of the Dragon, surrounded by the territories of Fire, Earth, Water, Wood, and Metal. We were the supreme Tribe, issuing orders to the others, but if there was discontent with the empress or her lineage, the subordinate Tribes could invoke the Seven Days of Claim, putting forth their firstborn queens for consideration. The tales of the Seven Days are foggy from that point forward. No one is certain how an empress is chosen in such an event, only that those put forth as candidates must have a claim to the throne by blood or by divine right. Clearly, there is someone out there who believes in her right to hold the Seat of Dragons, and she believes so strongly that she was prepared to kill me for it. Steeling myself, I confess my assassination to my adviser and healer, and even when their eyes widen to rival the moon, I plow forward, taking imperial courage from the faint traces of Xifeng’s scent that still coat the moss beneath me. “The assassin invoked the Seven Days of Claim,” I admit. “I cannot take the Seat fairly.” Weiyuan does not leave his post, but his spine is rigid. “An assassin of the Empress Ascendant has no right to rule the Tribe. Take the Seat, Meilin.” “The ancestors forbid it,” Zhilan answers immediately, kneading her tail. The change in her stance is startling, but I nod, giving her permission to elaborate. “An assassin may have made the invocation, but the ancestors are bound to recognize any call for the Seven Days. Not to mention, well…” She trails off and looks to me, an apology inscribed in her hunched posture. “If what you say is true, and that the ancestors have returned you from death, it may not have been your fate to die, but you have passed into the afterlife. You have died, and you have returned.” “So?” pushes Weiyuan. “Would you rather have Meilin on the throne or a murderer?” “It doesn’t matter what I would rather have, but what the ancestors will allow. When the firstborn daughter dies without leaving a firstborn daughter of her own, there is no longer a rightful heir, even if the empress has other daughters. Only the firstborn may naturally take the Seat.” A shiver lances through me. Zhilan’s words may be needling at the finer points of succession, but to disobey them would be to rouse the displeasure of our ancestors, who value the strengths of our traditions above all else. Claim has been invoked, and I have no defense against it. I cannot even claim that the Tribe does not know of my death. To bury me so publicly, Weiyuan must have proclaimed me deceased, Zhilan must have spread the news, and yet everyone witnessed my resurrection. There can be no question of my death unless suspicion were to be cast upon them. Whispers will likely rise that Weiyuan tried to bury me alive after putting me in a stupor with his medicine, helped by Zhilan’s fervent proclamations of my death, and no one will trust them again. Only the Seven Days of Claim can spare their reputations and placate the ancestors. Where I fall in this, though, I do not know. However, I do know that the Tribe must be told, and Zhilan confirms this. “Without the old Tribes, I suppose candidates may be put forth from the warrior classes, but it’s true: they must be told.” And though Weiyuan looks sour at the prospect, he stands aside as I rise to face my Tribe. “With all due respect, Empress Ascendant,” he says, the words loaded with his opinion on the matter, “you have the sense of a sable if you wish to open the Tribe to this.” But I do wish it. I must. So I leave the den with Zhilan at my side, and I do not believe for a moment that she only trembles in my imagination.
Chapter Three The Tribe of the Vault has a particular talent for gathering as one when the need arises, but today is a special case. There is not a cat in the Zhangjiajie who does not now know what transpired this morning, and even without the formal gathering message sent out, almost everyone is waiting at the base of the Gray One, the oldest dove tree in camp. I climb into the Gray One’s branches, picking my way to the edge of the branch Xifeng once occupied. The claw marks in the soft bark mark the place, and a tail-length beneath me, Zhilan looks up in reassurance, or perhaps seeking it. I bob my head to her, then face my Tribe and begin. “This morning, I was supposed to climb to the Dragon’s Seat and claim it as my own. I was to be your new Empress by midday, and tonight, we were supposed to begin the celebrations. But you have all seen me climb from my own grave, and I will not lie to you.” Here, what little murmuring was coursing through the crowd comes to a halt. The clearing is silent, hanging on my words. I swallow past the lump in my throat and taste the ghost of blood on my tongue. “This morning, I died. An assassin struck at my mother’s grave, and only by the grace of my ancestors can I stand before you now. I cannot explain why or how I have been spared from the afterlife, only that it is true. But because I have died, and although I have returned, the Seven Days of Claim must now be invoked. As in the days of old, each elemental division may put forth a firstborn candidate for empress who can claim blood or divine right. “I forfeit my claim as Empress Xifeng’s firstborn daughter, and instead stake my claim by blood right as a Warrior of Water.” The difference is subtle. Before, I had undisputed claim and status. Now, I can be challenged. Competed against. My blood and firstborn status are not in question, but the immediate link Xifeng and I shared lies broken, worth nothing in the scheme of succession. The Tribe of the Vault erupts. Zhilan predicted confusion, but the scale is more vast than we had prepared for. Cats flock to one another in droves, reorganizing along warrior lines. Mothers pull their kits close and fade to the edges of the group, and hale, hearty she-cats muscle their way to the front of their circles, snapping and snarling for dominance, which comes with the right to challenge me.
From my branch, the world suddenly tunnels. Bright spots flash before my eyes, and my balance wavers; the ground surges upward somehow even with my claws firmly sunk into the bark underfoot. The place where my throat was pierced this morning burns and constricts.
Then the dizzy spell vanishes, and I find Weiyuan sharing the branch with me. “Come to the ground before you fall,” he orders, slithering down a branch to make a clear path. His intervention does not go unnoticed, though, and among all the arguing, I can hear the undercurrent.
The Tribe of the Vault senses weakness in me, and they will never tolerate a weak empress. As my paws touch the ground, emboldened by my single moment of infirmity, the first claim is made.
“I am Liqiu, Warrior of Fire, and I make a blood claim!”
The whole of the Tribe looks to me as I find footing on solid ground. To leave the Gray One during a gathering is deep taboo, and the tension of the claims does not distract from my mistake. I must say something to acknowledge Liqiu, something that restores their confidence in me. Zhilan’s presence behind me is a tempting resource, but sudden fear locks my gaze straight ahead; if I turn to her, will the Tribe believe she holds some sway over me after today’s events? That I cannot allow. Zhilan has no part in this. Weiyuan I also leave behind, striding free of his hovering presence.
“Liqiu,” I echo slowly, dipping my head to her. “I meet you as equal. As claimants.” Barely have the words left my mouth, but I know it is the right thing to say. Before me, fur lies flat on the backs of cats who were moments ago ready to pounce, and here and there, heads nod sagely. A claim has been recognized. A competition has begun.
The other claimants are more hesitant to come forward, and their reluctance gives me similar pause. There is a cat here who doubles as an assassin. As a claimant. They have failed to kill me, but the Seven Days of Claim have been invoked, as they wished for. Of the three remaining groups, anyone who steps forth exposes themselves to my scrutiny.
I welcome it. Let them try to take me again with all the Tribe’s eyes at their back.
Making the list of suspects next is Biyu from the Warriors of Wood, also making a claim of blood. Unlike Liqiu’s claim, which appears to reach through her mother’s bloodline to unite with Xifeng’s parents, Biyu asserts herself as cousin of Xifeng, closer in age and generation than Liqiu and myself.
After Biyu, then, comes Xiaohui from the Warriors of Earth, citing divine right, and finally Yanmei of Metal, the only cat to truly give me pause.
She is my younger sister, born from Xifeng’s second litter. My privilege turned her against me; she was Xifeng’s second daughter, and it only takes being second to be removed from the line of succession. We were never close, and this will not bring us closer.
All the same, I acknowledge her, and the others. They have made their claims, and after greeting Liqiu as equal, I cannot fail to do the same for the rest without further endangering myself in the eyes of the Tribe. So I nod to each, and thus we are bound by our claims.
The Seven Days have begun, and at their end, the Tribe of the Vault will have its empress. How this contest will be decided, though, remains to be seen. With that, the gathering is dismissed, and cats filter away in groups, more divided along elemental lines than ever. Allegiances within the Tribe are shifting in the wake of today’s events, and any certainties have been washed away, as if it is flood season all over again.
As I turn to leave for the imperial den, I pause. It would be presumptuous to use it now that I have lowered myself to the rank of my challengers. Unless they have risen to my rank? Yet another predicament I do not know how to solve smoothly. Refraining from the den seems the safest choice, but this means I must return to the Water dens, where I do not know if I will be welcome.
Zhilan and Weiyuan watch me go from the roots of the Gray One, still as the mountains around us. Their advice I will also have to forgo, as they are chiefly an imperial resource. I can, however, give them one parting request. It is a harmless one.
“Whatever the ancestors decide,” I call from the edge of the track leading to the Water dens, “protect the Tribe. Keep it whole.”
We can all see the cracks forming, and in the next seven days, they will spread. I can only pray that they will be healed, too.
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:24:37 GMT -5
Chapter Four Back at the Water dens, the fissures are already taking clear shape. I have not been here since the lynx felled Xifeng, and seven days of mourning makes a lifetime of difference, as does a resurrection. Few of my fellow warriors look at me now, and those that do stare without shame. They size me up, and some, I suspect, are waiting to tear me down. Previous boundaries matter for naught, and I am one of them now. It is a vulnerable position to be in, and my steps come to a halt, uncertain.
Shirong and Yanlin, thankfully, are stranded on my side of the cracks. They emerge together from the far den, squeezing between bamboo shoots and woven grass to greet me where I’ve stopped, and the relief at their casual contact is unspeakable right now.
Yanlin reaches me first and touches his nose to mine, then steps back to allow his brother to softly headbutt me. “I’m glad to see you alive,” says Shirong, laying his tail over my back as a guide. As a trio, we return to the den they came from, and inside there are three nests.
“Two for me, one for you, and Shirong can sleep on the ground,” Yanlin quips, ducking below a light swat from Shirong that grazes my ear instead. Anyone else would freeze, having laid a paw on the daughter of the late empress, but they are friends. My friends. This is not the first time we have batted at one another for play, and I hope it will not be the last. I need their support more than ever now.
“Maybe we should put you on guard duty all night instead,” I retort, choosing the center nest for myself. The moss is fresh and cool.
Shirong pushes another nest toward me, tucking it beneath my front paws, and settles into the third before Yanlin can beat him to it. “If anyone should have two nests, it should be Meilin,” he says to his littermate. “Have you died and come back today? I think not.”
Instead of joking back, though, Yanlin acquiesces and lies on the ground, front paws stretched out to gently press against my side. His round face takes on a somber cast, and he asks, “Really, though, Mei. Are you doing all right? You died…”
“I survived,” I answer, curling around to place my own paws over his. Shirong leans against my back, sturdy and warm, and together we form an unbreakable chain. “I survived, and I’ve made my claim. I’ll be fine.”
“You shouldn’t have to make the claim,” Shirong says darkly. “You are Empress Xifeng’s firstborn daughter, regardless of whether or not you’ve died. Your blood still stands.” He seems bitter about the matter, as if his anger could change what has transpired. Since the earliest days of our friendship, he has always been the most righteous over the smallest matters. I would expect nothing less than indignation from him.
Yanlin, on the other hand, is an expert in the details, sometimes to Shirong’s great annoyance. Now is one of those sometimes, as he replies, “Yeah, but they say if you go to the afterlife, you only appear the same. All of your blood is gone, and your soul.” Here he pauses, looking at me to consider whether or not I may be soulless, then shrugs. “You came back, so maybe it’s not all gone, but you went. The coming and the going is a change in itself.”
He is wiser than he looks sometimes, and Shirong equally the opposite, prone to action before thought. I have a heartbeat to shrink out of the way before they roll across the den, tussling with sheathed claws and gentle bites meant to admonish rather than wound. Moss scraps fly everywhere, kicked up by their roughhousing, and I pick out more than a few clumps from my fur, flicking them back into the brothers’ fray. Eventually, though, they settle down, and we all resume our positions among the scraps, safe and warm.
A silence that I am grateful for takes hold. Energy expended, Shirong and Yanlin set to grooming one another, shifting to include me momentarily. The unspoken rhythm returns some semblance of order to my day; at dawn, I was dead, but now I am where I ought to be, surrounded by the comfort of my closest friends.
“Thank you,” I tell them, and they understand without elaboration.
“We’re here for you,” Shirong replies, to which Yanlin adds, “Always.”
But there is still the matter of the other claimants, and though we while away most of the heat of midday in the comfort of our den, eventually, they must rise to hunt, and I elect to join them. An empress should be one with her people, not wholly above them. Setting a good example feels paramount to my success as claimant. But who can say for sure? No one knows how the next empress will be chosen among us, what qualities will be selected for. The ancestors have sent no word, and we have no guidelines in place for this. The most I can hope for is a sign in the entrails of a mouse, or maybe even a sable, richly auspicious creatures as they are. I can’t seek them out, though; hunting for omens is a swift path to foul luck. Fortune must be freely given.
And as the moon and sun trade their cycles, fortune comes barreling my way in the form of Junjie. No longer the imperial consort, he has returned to his status as a Warrior of Metal, and thus he should not be here. But he is, more alive than I’ve seen him for seven days, and he skids to a stop, burying his nose in my fur. “You’re safe,” he breathes, and it breaks my heart.
With a nod, I urge Yanlin and Shirong to go ahead without me. Junjie quavers beside me, and no matter how much he pushed me away while mourning Xifeng, I can never do the same to him.
“I am safe,” I echo, pressing my forehead against his. He tucks my head behind his chin and sighs, lungs trembling with the effort; with my ear pressed against his chest, I can hear his heart stuttering in a dance of panic and relief. “I’m very safe.”
Still, my reassurances do little to calm him, and I have to guide him back to the den to shield him from the prying eyes of the cats still hiding in their own nests, waiting for nightfall to begin their own duties. He resists me at first, but relents when I lead the way a couple pawsteps ahead, desperate to keep up. Inside the den, his fussing resumes.
This is still not the father I know. He is not the stone Junjie, drained of life, but he is not the vibrant Junjie either, brave and beloved. He seems more like a pebble in an empty turtle shell, rolling around and rattling rattling rattling until the pebble falls out and the husk is left silent, haunted by absolutely nothing at all.
“Please lie down,” I beg him, trying to sit in my own nest without catching his tail or paws underfoot. He circles me for another long moment, fretting under his breath, but finally gives in, lying at my side and resting his chin on my back.
He breathes out a shuddering sigh, ruffling my fur. “I cannot lose you, too, but…”
“But?” I press. His hesitation draws a chill into the den. I cannot tell if the cool air belongs to the night, or if it is the breath of the ancestors, blown upon us in warning. If Junjie notices, though, under his thick pelt, he says nothing of it.
“The ancestors stopped me at the spring,” he says instead. He means the quiet pool that feeds into the Lishui behind the Metal camp. It is tucked into the shadow of one of many of Zhangjiajie’s stone spires, and its holy waters are for purification purposes only. He wants me to go.
“I saw your mother in the pool,” he goes on, voice breaking. “She was calling for you, and she...she looked right through me. You must visit her.” Then he drops into a whisper, furtively looking toward the den entrance as if he expects that someone is eavesdropping, though we are certainly alone.
“Her spirit is restless. She has not found peace.”
Chapter Five Restless spirits are the pinnacle of bad luck in the Tribe. At first, they may simply be lost on their way to the afterlife, and confused about their predicament, caught so close to the world they left behind. According to the elders, some cannot remember their names or lives, and they travel the world, hopelessly lost until they return to themselves and pass on. But with time, spirits may grow violent if they do not find safe passage to join the ancestors. Cats have been hurled from the spires while hunting because of vengeful spirits, and certain parts of the forest are left alone, not for leopards or lynxes, but for the roiling anger and confusion within. Such emotions can cost Tribe cats their lives.
Thus it is my responsibility to soothe my mother’s spirit if she calls for me. The ancestors must be given what they desire lest one spark their wrath, and Xifeng was a formidable cat in life. I have no wish to draw her ire in death.
Junjie and I wait until moonrise to visit the pool, a sacred time. He may have been able to see her during the evening, but moonrise is a welcome bolstering force between life and death, and I want our connection to be clearer than the spring itself. My mother deserves peaceful rest, and hopefully, I deserve guidance.
At the edge of the spring, Junjie and I both crouch, touching our foreheads briefly to the ground in respect. Then he steps back, and I advance.
The water laps at my ankles, frosty against my skin, and I suppress a shudder at its touch. Deeper I wade, taking slow steps and watching the ripples glide across the glassy surface of the water, giving the stars overhead a shimmering quality. “Xifeng? It’s Meilin. It’s your daughter.” I wait for a response, and receiving none, add, “I’ve come here, like you’ve asked me to.
“Junjie says that he saw you this afternoon, and that you’ve yet to move on. I would like to help you.” Not I will help you, though, because promises to spirits, no matter how friendly, are dangerous. “The Tribe of the Vault is unsteady, and so are you. Perhaps if you can guide me, I can guide you as well. We could help one another, like family does.”
But my offers meet only cold silence and a night breeze that trickles through, nudging the ripples off course.
Except it warps them completely.
Breath caught in my throat, I watch the spring waters contort. They begin to rock back and forth, sloshing over the banks and up to my belly. Freezing spray catches me in the face, and even as I flinch, the earth begins to shake, drawing out a cry from Junjie. I hold my ground, though, sinking my claws into the silty spring bed; we came at moonrise to elicit a connection just like this. We cannot flee now.
I do not look back to Junjie. The only direction to go is forward, where the water now rises from the heart of the spring into a curling column. Carp made of water droplets race up the pillar, and the single fish that makes it to the top transforms at once into a dragon, glittering in the starlight. It stares at me. Through me. And with one claw, it beckons.
Step by step, I approach the dragon atop its pillar, gradually making my way into deeper waters. When I reach the point where I can not longer touch the earth below, I am grateful for my training as a Warrior of Water, and swim forward with my chin held above the miniature tides. The water rocks me back and forth, slowing my progress, but I proceed steadily. If the River Lishui cannot drown me, I will not succumb to the gentler force of the holy spring.
At the base of the column, a gap opens in the water revealing nothing but darkness inside, and it is only here that I hesitate. This could be a foul omen or an omen deeply needed, but I will not know until I put my head into the shadows.
I take a deep breath; what choice do I have? And then I swim inside as far as I can.
The spring surges around me, roaring in my ears, flooding my nose. I keep my jaws clamped tightly shut, clinging to my early training in the slower straits of the Lishui. No matter what, I must not try to breathe. The torrent may seem endless, but if I give in, then I will drown.
So I hold. I hold until my lungs burn and my jaw aches and my ears burble with water in every cranny. Still after, I hold.
I am rewarded for my perseverance.
Finally the water recedes, allowing me to suck in deep, labored breaths. I do not inhale frosty night air, though, but the sweet air of midsummer, thick with plum blossoms and new growth. When I open my eyes, my mother’s grave is before me; she sits atop it, shoulders squared.
Xifeng purrs, to my surprise. “Dear daughter,” she says, drifting from the grave to touch noses with me. She is every bit as warm and solid as she was before the lynx, and I choke on my greeting. Her presence is too real.
She gives me no time to greet her, and doesn’t seem to expect it. Brushing her tail over my shoulders, she guides me to the grave and we take a seat. Sunlight beats down on our backs, gentle and warm, and I hear the rhythmic chirp of the crickets coming from outside the grove.
“I’m so glad you came,” Xifeng says, touching her nose to mine. “Our Tribe has never been so fragmented before, not even when we were six Tribes instead of one. You must reunite them, or the Seat of Dragons means nothing.”
I curl my tail over my paws and ask, “Nothing? But the split Tribes still used it for the old empresses.”
Xifeng casts a glance over her shoulder, and when I follow her gaze, I catch the hazy outline of another cat lying at the grove’s edge, flanked on each side by others. In fact, all around the clearing, cats gather, fuzzy and indistinct. A soft pressure builds on my spine, just heavy enough to threaten, and only when I look back to my mother does it ease.
“They are your ancestors,” she says, nodding past me. “The ones who took the Seat when the Tribes were split failed to reach the afterlife safely. They are as fragmented as the Tribes they came from. Some have their souls and no image of themselves. Others have their bodies but no memory, no being. The Seat could not guide them to the next life without all the Tribes united behind it.”
“And you?”
“Safely dead.” She purrs without humor. “And my mother before me. But we are among the first empresses in a very long time to make the journey without losing ourselves in the process.
“Meilin, daughter, I do not know who killed you, or how the ancestors granted you another life, but you must claim the Seat. You are the only one with the true right, and when you climb the Seat, it will show. You must do it, to ensure the safety of our descendants and our Tribe.”
Can it really be as easy as climbing to the Seat of Dragons? Will the ancestors only deliver a sign then? Xifeng does not allow me a chance to ask. Suddenly, her pelt seems transparent, even wispy, a far cry from the sleek look she maintained in life. “Go,” she orders me, rising to her feet, “and climb the Seat. The Tribe of the Vault needs you, and I cannot rest until you finish your ascension. Climb the Seat and claim your birthright. You have only six days left.”
With that, I am ejected from the grove, thrown violently back into the pool. I splash around, seeking my bearings, and Junjie arrives just as I reach the shallows. He sinks his teeth into my scruff and hauls me from the water, which seems far cooler than when I waded in. I shiver against him as he licks my fur backward, allowing the water to move away from my skin.
“What did you see?” he asks between frantic passes through my fur. But it is what I still see. Seven clouded shapes haunt the edges of my vision, gray and foreboding. Each sits with squared shoulders and a waving tail, focused on me as long as I do not focus on them. Only the seventh silhouette sits before me.
And then it disappears, just as dawn crest the horizon. Six shadows left. Six days.
Chapter Six Junjie insists I rest, even after I share Xifeng’s message. His eyes flash with hurt when I admit that she said nothing about him, but to his credit, he rights himself, narrowing his focus to concern the Seat of Dragons. And me, of course. He herds me back to my den, still shivering, half-drowned, where Yanlin and Shirong are sleeping. Yanlin wakes first, and the moment he realizes who hovers in the den’s entrance, he surrenders his nest to me and falls asleep against my side. The brothers’ warm bulk is welcome after my swim, and it drains my will to follow Junjie into the dawn. It also eases the pressure in my chest, the unpleasant feeling of a river rising in my lungs that makes itself known only when I ought least feel it. I turn my mind away from the discomfort and instead towards the future in an effort to chase the river away.
I have six days to climb the Seat and take my birthright, and I am wasting the first of those days recovering from the event at the spring. The shadows remind me of this, flitting across the walls of the den for my eyes alone. This is the only thing I did not tell Junjie; it is madness to see cats that are not there outside of holy places, and the tribe cannot have a mad empress. Surely if I confess, one of the other claimants will take my place.
Thus when the brothers wake, I keep it a secret from them, too, only vaguely telling them of my vision and Xifeng’s orders. Shirong breathes the tale in, but Yanlin hesitates, sinking into his usual skepticism, searching for holes in my story. He finds none that he can yet argue, though. Who is he to know the workings of our ancestors as they come to the imperial bloodline? He may be my dear friend, but he is of common birth. Our lineages carry different weights, as do our hearts. He and Shirong care deeply for my safety, that much I can sense, but I cannot give my own life even a moment’s thought, not with the fate of the Tribe hanging so precariously in the balance.
“You need to be more careful,” Shirong says all the same.
“I’ll try,” I answer, though it’s not a promise. Things are too uncertain for promises. I am too uncertain for promises. With six days left to take the Seat, six shadows at the corner of my eye, I haven’t a clue how I’m supposed to proceed, how to keep the tribe united. Anything could go wrong. So much already has. And yet it’s on my shoulders to set it all right for the sake of everyone around me.
For the sake of my soul.
A shudder ripples through me at the memory of Xifeng’s words: if I become Empress while the tribe is fractured, there will be no afterlife for me. I will be doomed to a fragmented existence, denied the comfort of my ancestors forever. There will be no redemption.
“Are you okay?” asks Yanlin, scrutinizing me with his bold green eyes.
I swallow my dread and school my features into something I pray is neutral, or close to it. “Just chilly. And hungry.”
He doesn’t believe me, not completely. His brow remains furrowed even as Shirong accepts my words at face value, but nevertheless, he says no more as we go to the freshkill pile as one. My river vole tastes like ash with every bite, worry gnawing more fiercely at my belly than hunger, but the brothers have no such qualms about their meal. They split a fat bream between them, then pry its tender scales out from their teeth with their claws. When they offer me a last chance at the fish before they finish it off, I turn them down. My vole lies only partially eaten at my feet, and it takes all my resolve to choke the rest of it down instead of passing it on to someone else. The ashy taste lingers when I’m done, and I fear no amount of cool, clear river-water will wash it away.
Shirong stretches in the midmorning sun as Yanlin begins to scrape the bones of our meal into a pile. “We should go hunting, top the pile off,” he suggests.
“I overheard Yaozu saying that the pheasants were running past the southern Wood border,” Yanlin replies. “Young ones, still a little slow, but fat.”
It’s been a long time since we’ve had pheasant. Warriors of Water tend to stay close to the Lishui rather than hunt deeper in the forest, where Wood and Earth warriors are most at home. Pheasant is tempting, though, and if we can catch a couple or even a few, ancestors willing, the Warriors of Water might hold us in their favor, favor I desperately need.
“I’ll go with you,” I tell them, pushing the remains of my vole together. “It’s easier to flush prey with two runners instead of one.”
And to my surprise, they agree. Shirong likes the idea of two of us chasing prey into the third’s claws, and Yanlin seems to be pleased with the notion that they can keep an eye out for me. After all that’s happened in just the last day, I can see why they don’t want me to be alone, and I’m grateful that they’re not trying to hide me away instead. I cannot win back my tribe if they cannot see me. I must be visible, now more than ever.
We take our waste to the edge of the Water camp, burying it in shallow scrapes, picking last bits of meat from the bones before we cover them. Then we head towards the border we share with the Wood camp, in full view of our fellow Water warriors.
And of the Wood warriors, it seems. They stare as we approach, and most of them disperse into the undergrowth. One cat marches toward us, though, black hackles raised and bristling, and I recognize him as Fan, Biyu’s brother. He’s always been prickly, but today he seems downright aggressive. Once he spits at us, though, hurling a curse against evil our way, I realize why. My heart sinks low in my chest, and the ashy taste in my mouth intensifies.
“Stay away from our camp,” he snarls. The brothers tense, and I flick my tail at them each in turn. “You and your lackeys. We won’t allow your tricks here.”
“Tricks?” Shirong bursts out. “What tricks has Meilin played? She has been nothing but honest!”
Fan laughs, a derisive, short sound. “Buy into it, then. Be my guest. But only devils can return from the dead, and they won’t rest until they have power. She’s feeding on your pity, and you’re too stupid to see it.”
“She should be our Empress, and the only reason she isn’t already is because she’s abided by our ancestors and the Seven Days of Claim!” Shirong goes on despite Yanlin stepping in front of him, despite me shooting a sharp look his way. “She was attacked and cheated of her birthright, but the ancestors returned her to us so she could take her rightful place on the Seat. You should be ashamed to speak to her that way.”
Claws are beginning to gleam, flashing in the grass as we all tense. I can’t help but unsheathe my own, trying to relieve the pressure building in my chest, the fear in my gut. It only grows, though, as Fan swings his dark gaze back to me, lip curling. “If you died, where’s the wound? Where’s your martyr’s mark?”
I wish I could lift my chin, expose my throat and the truth at once. But we all know my fur is white there, a solid patch from chin to chest, and there is no sign of the claws that pierced me yesterday morning. The proof Fan seeks is nowhere to be found.
“Mogwai,” he spits, and then he stalks back into the Wood camp. There is no one watching, no eyes gleaming in the undergrowth, but I am certain everyone is listening, and from both sides of the camp border. Devil rings in all their ears, and in mine.
“Go hunt without me,” I say before the brothers can argue. “I’m not welcome near their camp, and they won’t appreciate me hunting so close.”
“But—”
“Yanlin, just go. I’ll fish instead. And find Junjie to go with me,” I add for good measure. But even as I leave them behind, I know it’s a lie. I’ll go to the Lishui, but I can’t bear to have company right now. No one should see a claimant so full up with doubt, especially when I am already under suspicion. I know much of the Tribe is wary. We lost our Empress, and now the future is postponed in an empressless Seven Days of Claim, which stem from my assassination, my resurrection. I don’t even understand it, and I doubt anyone in the Tribe of the Vault could possibly understand it better than I. But how much of the tribe is like Fan? How many cats believe I am nothing but a power-hungry spirit?
Devil, echoes Fan’s voice in my head. I run for the river.
The Lishui is safe. I learned to swim in its tributaries, learned to fish on its banks. It gives life to the forest and the tribe, but most of all to the Warriors of Water. We were born under its sign. We owe it our respect, our reverence, perhaps our lives. Even if I am alone, I can trust the river to provide for me as it always has.
Sitting on the banks fills me with a peace I have not felt for some time. I ignore the mud sucking at my paws and sit as close to the steady current as I dare. It slows at the bend I have chosen, a safe haven for minnows that balk as my shadow rises above them, and I manage to snag one before the rest escape. It’s too early to fish from this side of the bank. The sun throws shadows too far over the water.
The lonely minnow flops in the mud until I spear it on my claws and bury it beneath an equally lonely ginkgo tree to retrieve it later. Then I plunge into the river and let the current welcome me home.
Today, the wind is mild and the water manageable. Focus is necessary to complete the crossing, but not any extraordinary amount of effort. A few strong strokes see me safely to the opposite shore, and the sun is warm enough that I can feel my pelt beginning to dry. If it weren’t for the encounter with Fan, with the pressure of the Seat weighing on me, today would be utterly, completely perfect.
But the shadows remind me it isn’t. They hover at the edges of my vision like hungry ghosts, black and empty. The fish cannot see them, thank the ancestors, so I am able to pluck minnows from the water without interruption; the only shadow they fear is my natural one.
I pretend at peace for as long as I can, drawing on moons of training in patience and composure under Xifeng’s watchful eye. In the end, though, I was never quite still enough to meet my mother’s standards, and I have not made any sweeping improvements since her death. “What do you want?” I snap, abandoning the river to round on the nearest shadow. It twists as quickly as I do, never leaving the corner of my eye. “Well? What is it?”
Too late I realize I am snarling at shadows, and I drop low in the grass. Warriors of Water hunt here often, and the last thing I need is for someone to witness me shouting at thin air. A mad empress will never earn the tribe’s favor, and even if I know myself to be sane, all it takes to ruin my chances of claiming the Seat is a moment of belief. If the tribe decides I am mad, that will be the end.
I taste the air before I dare to rise, hoping against all hope that I have not been witnessed. The only scents in the air are those of the river and the minnows slowly toasting in the midday sun, but I still hesitate, scanning the opposite shore for signs of life. Any experienced warrior could hide along the riverbank, masking their scent by lurking downwind or rolling in fragrant herbs.
Eventually, I stand with my heart in my throat, only to throw myself flat again as a dark shape crosses the river. It takes all my courage to peer through the grass at it, and as I do, I realize it is not swimming toward me, but away, and I can only count five shadows in my peripheral. They look more solid than ever, and the one climbing onto the opposite shore looks to be the strongest of all, so opaque it could almost cast its own shadow. It kinks its tail over its back before taking a seat at the water’ sedge. If I didn’t know any better, I would say it’s beckoning me. But it isn’t anywhere close to the next sunrise, so there’s no need for it to count another day as lost. I can’t fathom why the shadow would stray so far from the others.
Its tail lashes as I remain crouched in the grass, and the other shadows press closer as if urging me to follow their leader. Perhaps I should not consort with shadows, especially not after Fan’s accusations, but as I creep toward the river, I cannot deny that they have piqued my curiosity. They did not appear until after I met Xifeng in the sacred pool, and as I slide into the water, I wonder if they are my ancestors come to guide me, the lost ones whose souls fractured like the tribe. It is possible that they’re trying to help me find my way.
As I swim closer, the leading shadow grows darker. It rises to its feet and begins to pace in a tight circle, glancing down now and again, and once bending to sniff something at its feet. My curiosity and the river’s current draw me closer to it, and when I pull myself onto the sunny bank, avoiding a cluster of heavy stones the river could pin me to, the shadow fades into the corner of my eye again. In the place where it stood, a thick patch of grass beside the steepest part of the bank, there is a bend to the grass that suggests something lies hidden there, perhaps something important if the shadow was so desperate to lead me to it.
Carefully, I reach forward and part the grass with one paw, and I am greeted by the gaping, venomous jaws of a viper.
It takes a heartbeat too long to realize the viper’s body is limp and its eyes glassy, but by then, I am already falling. In my alarm, I leap back, only for my hind feet to meet thin air: the sheer edge of the bank. My claws offer my no purchase in the mud, and my chin cracks against the ground, filling my head with stars. Then gravity and the current conspire to the rest, pulling me into the river and smashing me against the rocks I so carefully avoided before.
I cannot help it: I gasp from the impact, and the river pounces, forcing its way down my throat. My home betrays me. The Lishui carries me away.
I come to as an electric shock rockets through my spine, and I shudder as if trapped in fever throes. My chest aches with the same ferocity as my head, and before my vision can focus, I have to roll to the side and retch, coughing river water into the dirt. Beside me, someone mutters the fastest, most fearful string of prayers I have ever heard, and then runs their tongue through my fur backwards. Dimly, I recognize the technique as the one all Warriors of Water learn in the event of a tumble into the river. It allows our fur to dry faster and the cold to be banished from our bones sooner. Then, my caretaker’s scent finally follows, and only the water still clawing its way out of my lungs keeps me from apologizing profusely.
“You said you would take Junjie!” Yanlin scolds me. He is skeptical, unshakable, and yet he trembles as he presses against me, offering his warmth. “You promised you wouldn’t be alone!”
I want to tell him I’m sorry, that I needed to be alone, but when I try, my throat feels raw and I wheeze uselessly instead. He fills the silence for me, though, speaking in between rough strokes of his tongue against my spine. “I sent Shirong for Weiyuan. We found you pinned to the rocks all the way under, and thank the ancestors you survived. It’s a miracle after being under for so long.”
“A miracle,” I manage to croak. My vision is beginning to clear, and with it, my mind and the shadows, too.
There are only five.
I know there were six. I am certain. I’d swear it on every bone in my body that there was a shadow for every remaining Day of Claim, but now there are five shadows but still six days. I can’t tell Yanlin, though, not now. He’ll think I hit my head and he’ll work himself into an even greater frenzy. That, and I don’t think my throat could get through the words without collapsing, so I sit in silence as he fusses, and more silence as Weiyuan and Shirong arrive and heap their concern upon me. At least they are gentle, though, even gruff Weiyuan, and once I surprise them by passing our healer’s emergency evaluation, they help me to my feet.
Weiyuan is the bulk of my support, having dealt with near drownings before, and he allows me to lean against him as I slowly rediscover my balance. “You are lucky, Meilin.” He shakes his head ruefully, giving my pelt an unreadable glance. “I swear, it’s like you have nine lives.”
“Maybe I do,” I rasp. The words are supposed to be light, if exhausted, but I can’t seem to shape them that way.
Out of the corner of my eye, the remaining shadows shiver.
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:24:52 GMT -5
Chapter Seven By the next morning, the whole tribe has heard of my near-drowning. Yanlin and Shirong have tried to keep it quiet, but Weiyuan has a way of issuing orders and revealing the entire situation at once. He also insisted on carrying me straight to his den for further examination rather than looking after my health from the relative privacy of the Water camp, so even those cats who did not see us pass have heard what happened by now.
No one visits, though. I have Yanlin and Shirong to check on me, as I am staying in their den once more, but Weiyuan has dismissed me with a clean, if unusual, bill of health, and Junjie cannot bear to be at my side. I understand, at least in part; my father is already grieving, and he almost lost me to the Lishui. Worse, I lied about taking him with me to the river. Surely that has stung deeply. He must feel that I do not want him near me now, that he is little more than a cover for my poor decisions. But I do wish he was here, and it hurts to know he cannot set aside his grief long enough to look my in the eye.
It was always Junjie who cared for me when I was young. Xifeng had her imperial duties to worry about, and trusted queens were typically tasked with my basic needs instead. They revered me because I was Xifeng’s firstborn daughter. Junjie, though, loved me as if I was a son. He taught me how to hunt, how to pray, how to chase away nightmares when they reared their ugly heads. Even after Xifeng’s other litters were born, I was still the center of his universe, always and forever.
Until now, I suppose. He drifts like he has nothing to orbit anymore. He is a widower, and according to the whispers creeping through the tribe, he is the father of a demon as well. Truly his lot is tragic, and he has become an object of pity.
The brothers have offered to bring him to me, but I have refused. Forcing my father to visit will only bring more pain between us. Even if I want to see him, if he does not wish the same, we will not be able to reconnect. And me visiting Junjie is out of the question; the brothers have appointed themselves as my bodyguards, and have taken seriously Weiyuan’s suggestion that I keep to the Water dens or the neutral heart of the tribe only. For my own safety, said Weiyuan, but I know he is trying to halt the rising animosity in the tribe as well. I cannot take the Seat if I am wounded or killed by those who believe me evil rather than mortal.
I cannot believe that hiding from my tribe is a solution, though. Xifeng’s advice eats at me; I must unite the tribe behind me as I take the Seat, or I will face eternal suffering. How am I supposed to gain the favor I need without being seen?
My legs wobble beneath me as I rise, still haunted by yesterday, but I steady myself with a deep breath. “I’m going to get something to eat,” I announce.
Yanlin is on his feet in a flash the moment I leave his side. “Let me bring you something,” he offers.
I refuse. I need to stretch my legs. I need to get out of this den. I need to be seen. Yanlin may not like it, but I am a claimant to the throne. To hide away is to doom my chances of becoming Empress of the Tribe of the Vault once and for all.
Taking the Seat is the only future I have ever known. Since the day I was born, I have been trained to succeed my mother, to rule the Tribe of the Vault. Every duty expected of me has been drilled deep into my heart so that I can never forget, and every dream I’ve ever had has been measured against those expectations. The dreams that cannot coexist with ascension and service to my tribe, like remaining a Warrior of Water all my life, have been cast aside. I have even made peace with the fact that I will one day need to take a consort and have kits, ensuring the line of succession; it will not be so terrible, I think, as long as my consort expects nothing romantic from me.
There is no other future that I can accept, no other future I have prepared for. My lineage is that of a dynasty, and I cannot throw that away, cannot spit on Xifeng’s grave like that.
Shirong suns himself outside the den as I leave, and though he makes a move to rise, ultimately, he settles back again with his ears pricked. I suspect he only relaxes because his brother still follows me doggedly.
“Spend some time with Shirong,” I say as we wind between dens, heading toward the tribe’s heart.
Yanlin scowls. “I did that yesterday, then found you drowning all by yourself. After you said Junjie would be with you.”
It’s impossible to miss the bite in his words; I lied to him and nearly died because of it. Around me, the shadows quiver, faint in the midday sun, but present enough to remind me that their numbers have dwindled.
Yanlin and Shirong cannot know about the shadows. I considered telling them before, but after yesterday, I do not understand the shadows as well as I thought I did. My uncertainty will only make the brothers more afraid for my well-being.
I already have enough of their concern. What I need now is their trust.
“Yanlin, please.” I stop and face him, a thousand words on my tongue, straining to be free. In the breath that follows, I hope out of those thousand, I have chosen the right ones. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. What Fan said upset me, and I couldn’t bring myself to explain that to my father. I needed time alone.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to the river, then! You don’t go there by yourself. It’s the first thing we learned when we were taught to swim. It’s the most important rule.”
“And I was so upset that I forgot it. I’m not saying I did the right thing or the smart thing. I’m saying I’m sorry for lying to you and Shirong, and that I know it was a mistake. And that it’s not my intent to go rushing into more danger.
“We’re in camp, and everyone is watching, whatever their reasons. I’m safe here, and this is my chance to win back the tribe’s favor. I’m going to get something to eat, and then I’m going to find a way to make myself useful. An empress should help her people, not hide from them.”
“But you’re not an empress. You’re a claimant. You’re Meilin, and yesterday, you almost drowned. Before that, someone tried to assassinate you. You’re anything but safe!”
I know I am not safe. Ancestors, I am not a hapless kit in need of a minder. I have died at the claws of an assassin I cannot name, and I have returned only to find myself in the throes of political discord with depths far greater than I ever imagined could run beneath the Tribe. In comparison, Yanlin means well but knows so little. His counsel harms more than it helps.
But only if I accept it.
“Yanlin.” My mother’s voice springs to mind unbidden, the taut arc of her spine, the bright slits of her eyes when she addressed the tribe from the boughs of the Gray One. I hope I can embody that same grace, since I recall it so clearly. “I’m going to get myself a meal. End of discussion.” And it is. Though I could say so much more, though he could argue until the sun goes down, I clamp my jaw shut and hold my shoulders square. Under my gaze, Yanlin blinks furiously, turning through arguments that never find their way off his tongue. The best he can offer is to storm away with his tail lashing, leaving me to my own devices at last.
I do not allow myself to the time to let this feel like a hollow victory. At least, that is what I tell myself as I set off for the camp’s heart, though I cannot help but wonder if I should apologize to him. Even if I am to become Empress of the Tribe of the Vault, Yanlin is my friend before he is my subject. At the very same time, however, it would weaken my standing to be seen bowing to the whims of unsolicited advice. Worse, the tribe might see it as grounds to make Yanlin my consort. I know what is expected of me as an empress, but I cannot pretend that kind of love for a clear friend. Continuing the dynasty by an acquaintance would be easier, far easier.
These are thoughts for an empress to consider, but I am still only a claimant. Twisting through the bamboo thicket that divides the Warriors of Water from the tribe’s heart, I resolve to let Yanlin apologize to me, if any apologizes must be given, and to focus on what matters most: securing the Seat.
My claim is what brings me to the tribe’s heart rather than the freshkill pile in my own camp. Each of the five warrior divisions brings a portion of their daily catch here, so that in the event of a prey shortage, or in preparation for celebrations, there is always something extra to eat. Cats meet here every day to dine with warriors of other elements, or to gaze upon the imperial court at work, typically the empress and her adviser at the very least. Here, there is no doubt I will be seen whole and well despite yesterday’s encounter with the Lishui.
Better yet, I could be seen as useful. Crouched in the mouth of his den when I arrive, Weiyuan sorts his medicine supply with unbreakable focus, the kind that often seems him work without a meal until his stomach at last rebels. He has probably failed to eat this morning, like any other day in such a focused state, and I select a fat bamboo rat from the communal freshkill pile as my weapon of choice.
“Good morning, Weiyuan,” I say, placing the rat at my feet and waiting outside the den for an invitation to enter. He does not react until I cough politely, though, at which point his healer’s instincts take over.
“Do you have a chill? Are you feeling unwell?” He paws through a leafy bundle near the den’s entrance. “No surprise you’d catch a cough after your swim yesterday.”
“Weiyuan, please, put your herbs away. I was only trying to get your attention.”
The prospect of a visitor interrupting his precious time without any sign of an ailment seems to rankle him. “What for?”
“To invite you to eat with me. This bamboo rat is too large for one, and you seemed so busy that I worried you hadn’t eaten yet.” I nudge the rat toward him with my toes. “Please, share a meal and then let me help you with your work.”
I hadn’t intended to offer any assistance, given that my healing knowledge is rudimentary at best, but I am conscious of all the eyes on my back, all the ears straining toward this conversation. Did I not come to the tribe’s heart to be visible? Did I not wish to carry myself like an empress before her subjects? Submitting to Yanlin would be a weakness, but offering myself to Weiyuan’s knowledge is humble. I am a claimant, ready to assist, ready to learn.
“We can gather herbs after we bury the bones,” Weiyuan finally says. It takes all of my self-control not to puff up with pride at his words, and still more discipline not to look round at the first hint of whispers circling the camp. Now the tribe knows I have Weiyuan’s favor. He has deigned to dine with me, to allow me to accompany him in his important work. A great deal of composure is required to hide my delight, more than I thought I possessed.
Thankfully, we eat in silence, as is polite. There will be time for conversation during out gathering trip, and after that still, should my company prove acceptable. And as long as Weiyuan doesn’t continue to probe me about my health, I am happy to stay as long as I am needed.
Halfway through our shared meal, though, Weiyuan pauses, teeth only just grazing the flesh of the rat. “Do you hear that?” he asks, ears swiveling toward a cluster of Warriors of Fire and Wood. For a heartbeat, I marvel that Weiyuan can make sense of their gossip from such a distance. In the next heartbeat, though, I hear the wailing.
Weiyuan moves with a warrior’s grace, lunging toward the source of the cries with barely a single pop of his joints. The gathered warriors scatter from his charge, taking up the keening that slices through the midmorning air, and before I can shout after the tribe’s healer, he is gone with only a faint rustle of undergrowth to show his wake.
Again, all eyes left in the clearing drift my way, and the half-eaten rat seems to rot before me. Each heartbeat stretches into an eternity before I convince my legs to carry me after Weiyuan, but the damage is already done. A cat twice my age and with half the warrior’s training has answered the call of distress, while I have lagged behind, to all eyes still gorging on a rich meal. What little of the creature I have eaten sours in my gut as my feet remember how to fly, and by the time I reach the space in the foliage where Weiyuan disappeared, it threatens to resurface in nervous retching.
And it does when I see the lynx crouched just ahead. Weiyuan and Yanmei are within reach of the wildcat, too close to its sharp, already bloodied claws, too loud to escape its notice. My mother’s torn pelt ripples through my mind, the frozen snarl on her face proving her last moments were in glory rather than in vain. This is the beast that killed her. This is the beast that forced me closer to the Seat, to leadership, to loneliness.
There’s nothing but bile and bamboo rat in my mouth even when I realize the lynx is dead, throat torn out and eyes glassy. The danger is defeated, but my shoulders shake as I finish disgorging my meal into the undergrowth. How is it that I can face what should have been a drowning with my chin held high, and yet the sight of a fallen lynx sends me spinning out of control? I can’t rid myself of the tremor coursing down my spine even when the living eyes beside the lynx land on me.
“I’m fine,” I snap at Weiyuan before he can ask.
“Then go find cobwebs and the pale yellow flowers to the left of the entrance of my den,” he shoots back. “We have injured.”
“And dead,” Yanmei chimes in solemnly.
Is it the bearing of an empress to sprint away wordlessly, following orders? Perhaps not, but I cannot stand to look at the lynx a moment longer. It may be dead, but knowing it has taken one of our own with it makes my empty stomach churn once more.
I am getting what I asked for this morning as I hurtle into Weiyuan’s den for cobwebs and flowers: I am visible to my tribe, found in the middle of our daily life. But in getting my wish, I have also been cursed. Judgment ripples around the clearing in waves, and the whispers are as much about the source of Weiyuan’s sudden flight as they are about my comportment. An empress does not falter or tremble or duck her head to avoid meeting her subjects’ eyes.
I have done all of these things. I have done them all, and the tribe knows.
I keep scattering the fragile cobwebs with my unsteady paws, unable to keep them together and gather the appropriate flowers at the same time. Weiyuan ultimately bursts into the den and shoulders me aside without a word to retrieve the herbs he asked for, and then he is gone in equal silence, leaving me to wilt in the shadows.
Following him with further supplies would be the right thing to do. The noble thing. But a look into the clearing stops me, for the lynx lies there, sprawled on its side with its monstrous paws limp in the dirt. Even from here, I can see the bloody mass that was its throat, still wet and gleaming. Another wave of revulsion rises in answer, one I tamp down with every ounce of concentration I can muster.
Listening to Yanmei spin her tale is distraction enough. It draws my ire and frustration rather than bone-rattling disgust, seeing another claimant walk without fear, without a single sign that she worries about her perception among her tribe. She is beloved here, and while my blood does not have the energy to boil, I want it to.
She speaks with the same command my mother once did. Our mother. I can see the familiar echoes in the patches of her pelt, in the long span of her legs. My heart constricts at the notion that somehow, Yanmei is more like Empress Xifeng than I am. It’s all in the bearing, all in the way she throws her voice through the clearing without shouting. Despite the body of the lynx, the death of a fellow warrior, the pressure of ascendancy looming, she is steady and unbowed.
And she claims that the lynx has killed Xiaohui.
“It happened not long after we reached the southern border,” she explains. “We fanned out to cover more ground, flush out more prey, but when Xiaohui screamed, we all came running.”
“It had already killed her,” says Jiayi. He is one of Yanmei’s fellow Warriors of Metal, and he favors his hind left leg. A long, triple scrape bleeds across it, but that is nothing compared to Niu’s many wounds. The other tom lies still under Weiyuan’s ministrations, only the terse flicker of his tail tip proof that he still lives.
Yanmei bobs her head toward Jiayi to confirm his addition, then pushes onward. “We were able to surprise it when it tried to take Xiaohui’s body away, and we decided to bring it back as an offering. For the funerary feast.” She says nothing about who dealt the killing blow to the beast’s throat; the crimson staining her muzzle speaks volumes. Instead, it seems to be all about Xiaohui, a respectful choice in all contexts, but one that makes my hackles rise nonetheless. She paints herself the humble hero, avenging Xiaohui’s death and conquering a dangerous beast in one fell swoop, and she has even left Xiaohui’s body beyond the camp borders, to prevent her restless ghost from entering the tribe before the purifying powers of the burial send Xiaohui onward for good.
Her companions are not content to let her brush aside the incident, however. “Yanmei reached the lynx before we could,” Niu grunts from beneath Weiyuan’s cobweb-swathed paws. “She fought as a tiger, on its back and bloody by the time we arrived, and she finished it off while we distracted it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Yanmei answers him. Then she dips her head to Weiyuan and says, “My wounds are superficial, and Xiaohui’s littermates should hear of her death from me. She was brave to the very end.”
Distracted with his wounded patients, Weiyuan gives her a short glance to confirm her wounds are indeed of no consequence, then dismisses her with the threat of chasing her down before the funeral feast if she does not return for an infection deterrent. Even small wounds can fester, but he has greater worries, and Yanmei is free to be the bearer of terrible news for now. With a last bob of her head, she lopes toward the camp belonging to the Warriors of Earth, an escort of its denizens flanking her in grim procession. She does not tarry, nor does she hurry. She simply sets the pace that her entourage will follow, and though she goes to bring death to Xiaohui’s family, she does it with grace.
I must be the only one watching through narrowed eyes, the only one who would rather turn to Xiaohui’s body for answers. In all the sorrow, in the wailing that has risen once more, now identifiable as the sound of mourning, no one has questioned the fact that the Warriors of Earth have lost their claimant to the throne to the same beast that killed the last empress. They do not question that another claimant was first on the scene. Alone on the scene. Covered in blood but uninjured in most respects, the hero of the day, the teller of the tale.
I do, though. And in the deepest pit of my heart, I know a terrible truth: Yanmei has the strength to fell a lynx, and that is more than enough strength to fell a rival.
Chapter Eight
Coming Soon
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:25:07 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:25:38 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:25:56 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:26:18 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:27:10 GMT -5
brownie sapphire swoopsietheowl dingoleap mintedstarfur moonshine06 inversereality headphoneactor lupretia ainewrites shadowface phantomstar57
❃ The Zhangjiajie Forest is a real place in China, as is the Lishui River that runs through it. ❃ All names are real Chinese names, and many of the traditions and social structures here are based on ancient Chinese structures and traditions. ❃ The elemental warrior groups are named for the five traditional elements in China. ❃ Meilin is aromantic. While this story does not revolve around her identity, I believe it is important to include good representation that simply exists without being framed as a struggle or sensation.
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 22:44:58 GMT -5
this thread is open for posting! i expect to have the first chapter formatted by sunday evening at the very latest, and in the meantime, i'm happy to chat.
|
|
|
Post by Brownie on Mar 23, 2017 23:00:17 GMT -5
Looks good so far ;D can't wait to see what it'll look like
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 23:02:47 GMT -5
thank you so much! i'm hoping it meets expectations.
|
|
|
Post by Dingoleap on Mar 23, 2017 23:26:26 GMT -5
What an interesting concept! I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes c:
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 23:31:41 GMT -5
thank you! i'm in the process of drafting the first chapter before i go to sleep, so hopefully i can share it with you all very soon!
|
|
|
Post by Dingoleap on Mar 23, 2017 23:37:12 GMT -5
Awesome! I look forward to reading it!
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 23:38:12 GMT -5
i may even get it out within the next half hour or so, so keep a lookout.
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 23, 2017 23:58:23 GMT -5
chapter one is finished! ideally, chapter two will be rolled out next week.
|
|
|
Post by Brownie on Mar 24, 2017 6:37:01 GMT -5
wow I love the style of this; it's very rhythmic and has a unique voice
fan me?
|
|
|
Post by ~Sapphire~ on Mar 24, 2017 7:23:26 GMT -5
Wow,this is really good! I love the world building so far, and you really make it come to life. Fan?
|
|
|
Post by Owlmoon on Mar 24, 2017 7:34:49 GMT -5
Owlstar shivers. "This story is creeping me out, even though it is very well written." She whips around and screams as she hears something rustle in the bushes. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
|
|
|
Post by Dingoleap on Mar 24, 2017 17:10:53 GMT -5
Well, chapter one was awesome! Your voice is so unique, and the writing style is almost poetic. The world you're building is very unique - something I've never seen on the forums before. I'd love to know what culture you've based this on, if any, because its wonderful.
You can definitely count me as a fan! Can't wait for chapter two!
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 24, 2017 17:48:09 GMT -5
thank you very much, everyone! mobile prevents me from editing my posts easily, but i'll certainly add fans to the list properly.
and dingo, it's based off china, which is unfortunately vague due to the cultural variety that exists, but character names are chinese, the tribe structure, some traditions, and significant numbers are chinese, the five elemental divisions for the warriors are based on the five traditional chinese elements, and zhangjiajie forest is a real national park. the lishui river is a real river running through it, too. james cameron's avatar was filmed there.
additionally, expect one to three more chapters this weekend, based on my output as i write this evening!
|
|
|
Post by Dingoleap on Mar 24, 2017 17:53:56 GMT -5
That's so cool! I love hearing/reading about other cultures! They're all so much more interesting that my own. I'll admit that I don't really know much about Chinese culture, apart from what's in popular culture, so I'm really intrigued to see where this goes! I'll have to look up photos of the river/national park, I think c:
Awesome! Can't wait!
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 24, 2017 18:20:48 GMT -5
Brownie ~Sapphire~ Owlmoon Dingoleapchapter two is available! dingo - so do i. i almost began with a fic set in ancient greece, to suit my username, but i saw a photo of zhangjiajie yesterday and it won my heart. my icon is one photo of the park, but there are so many more that better capture the height, the mists, the beauty of it all.
|
|
|
Post by Dingoleap on Mar 24, 2017 18:23:27 GMT -5
Reading now!
Honestly, I'm really glad you went with China. It's so unique! I'm definitely looking up photos now.
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 24, 2017 18:25:54 GMT -5
wonderful!
i'm so glad, too. it's a nice change of pace, and it gave me a burst of inspiration that ancient greece couldn't quite muster. maybe that can be my next project.
|
|
|
Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Mar 24, 2017 20:19:01 GMT -5
Ooh! I've heard good things about this fic and it looks good to me. I'm putting it on my to-read list and will get to it very soon. Fan me please?
|
|
|
Post by αἱ νεφέλαι ἄνω on Mar 24, 2017 20:21:07 GMT -5
a fan in advance? thank you so much! i hope it lives up to the hype! (also omg there's some hype already? it's been less than 24 hours since i shared!)
|
|
|
Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Mar 24, 2017 20:33:15 GMT -5
The fans talked... Their words produce hype.
|
|