Girls of Storm and Shadow (Girls of Paper and Fire, #2)(14)
destined for glory
a Lolata Clan Queen, imagine it
she will bring us honor and fortune
build us a palace
but remember, she can’t be spoiled
we must keep her working
prove our dedication to the gods
earn her fate with blood and sweat
whip her if she cries
whip her
whip her
Even though she was alone in the room, Naja clutched her arms around herself. The voices themselves felt like lashes, raw and searing across her skin. But she didn’t let herself cry, as she had done when she was young. Instead she shouted back, growled at the bare walls where the ghosts of her parents’ obsessive plans for her still lived.
“I am General Naja!
“I am the King’s closest confidant!
“I am more than enough!
“I am glad I left you all to rot—”
She woke up in a flash. Someone was shaking her. The light of a lantern blinded her for a moment, and she hissed, knocking it aside—along with whatever fool dared touch her.
“G-General Naja,” came the voice of one of her maids. It was Kiroku, a lizard-form girl just a few years past her teens. She picked herself up from where she had fallen to the floor and bowed low, her russet-scaled hands splayed. “I’m so sorry to wake you this way, General. I tried shouting but you seemed in a deep sleep—”
“What is it, girl?” Naja snarled, sitting up. She shrugged off the dream the way she always did: in one smooth motion, discarding it from her body like a lover stepping out of her nightdress.
“There is a—a man demanding to see you.”
“Good gods, girl. If this is all you’ve woken me for—”
“He told me you were expecting him,” Kiroku cut in, head still down. “That you asked him to come if he caught a”—she recited it carefully—“a red, double-tailed Kitorian sand scorpion.”
Naja threw aside her heavy blankets and was on her feet before the girl had even finished the sentence. “Dress me,” she commanded. “Then take me to him.”
The man looked as though he’d ridden for hours through the storm. His cheeks were wind-lashed, his sage-green traveling cloak soaked through. Fat drops of water splashed from his clothes onto the newly laid bamboo matting of Naja’s reception room, and from the doorway she eyed the mud he’d tracked across the floor with disdain, battling the urge to reach for one of the ceremonial swords mounted to the wall.
The man sprang to his feet as she strode in, not waiting for Kiroku to announce her. Another maid, impeccably dressed despite the late hour, was already waiting by the low table in the center of the room. A copper kettle sat on the stove, steam billowing from its spout, filling the air with the delicate scent of silver needle leaves—tea far finer than that her parents’ farm had produced. The maid went to pour some, but Naja waved her away.
“Leave us.”
Both girls lowered their heads, shuffling from the room at once.
“G-General Naja,” the Paper caste man stuttered, bowing deeply. Black hair flopped over his head in wet straggles. “It is an honor to meet you again.”
She gave a tiny jerk of her chin as she knelt opposite him. “Councilor Shiu.”
Even without the cushion she knelt on, Naja would have come to just under twice his height. Shiu was short even for a human. He kept his head half bowed, his eyes flicking up every so often from his lap to meet her steel-eyed glare then promptly dropping, as though the sight of her hurt his sensitive human eyes. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to wet his cracked lips.
Naja’s nose twitched, her own lips furling. The pungent mixture of his sweat and the tang of horsehide wasn’t pleasant, to say the least. This was one of the rare instances where she thought it might be better to be without her enhanced demon senses.
“I—I’ve been riding with barely a break for two days,” Shiu stammered into the quiet. “I rode my horse to death, and had to walk the last four miles.”
He said it as if it were something to be proud of. Naja waited, glaring, her distaste deepening.
He gestured hopefully at the tea and the plate of flower-shaped almond cookies set out on the table. “May I?”
“If you must.” She watched him shovel the biscuits into his face, washing them down with big gulps of tea—three added spoons of sugar, no less. The second he was finished she asked curtly, “You bring news of Ketai Hanno’s whereabouts?”
Shiu swiped a sleeve across his crumb-speckled face. “It certainly wasn’t easy. Accessing the palace to get information from inside was out of the question. Lord Hanno has the place on lockdown. The gates are only opened once a day for essential supplies and preapproved visitors, and his guards have orders to kill on sight if they spot anything suspicious. And it is widely known that Lord Hanno is skilled in qi manipulation. It would be near impossible to track his departure from the palace the traditional ways.”
“I am well aware of all the facts,” Naja snapped. “Do you not think we have spies of our own within his walls?”
“Forgive me, General.” Shiu bowed. But he wasn’t dipping his head quite so low anymore, and a touch of the stammer had dropped from his voice. “I simply mean to explain that while others have been sending spies to watch or break into the palace, I knew it would be more prudent to use shamans to track the use of magic around the palace. Lord Hanno would undoubtedly use some sort of dao to hide his movements, at least at first while he was close to his palace and sure that spies would follow him. That sort of magic is powerful. It would leave a trace.”