Gunpowder Magnolia

Please note that the chapter below is an early draft. Names and world-building details subject to change. Early chapters are available on my Patreon.

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Every soldier’s first battle was a frightening experience. Lanthe’s first battle had been one of Ro’s most profound defeats in a century.

Apparently, General Fen had lost a little piece of his mind when his son died of an infected blade wound. Apparently, he had hit the rice wine a little too hard in the aftermath. Apparently, he had ordered his fresh troops to charge too early. Apparently, General Chang was still two days out with the planned reinforcements. All this, Lanthe had learned later. That day, she was just a new soldier, scrambling to be a good cog in the great war machine of Ro.

She didn’t remember the doomed charge at the border, nor the whistle and fleshy thud of arrows mowing down the lines before her, nor the impact that had rendered her unconscious. Her memory of that day began with her choking, her mouth full of a thick taste of metal, and her chest crushed under a smothering weight. A fellow soldier lay atop her, blocking out the midday sun. When she tried to squirm from beneath his bulk, something sharp carved a stinging cut through her brow. The body’s head lolled to the side, and she recognized him as a fellow recruit named Paru. The thing that had grazed her brow was an arrow protruding from the back of his neck. And, when she moved her tongue around her mouth, Lanthe realized what that metallic taste was. Turning onto her elbow, she retched, spitting gobs of Paru’s blood into the dirt.

Had Lanthe stood up, she would have seen Fen’s entire army—eight thousand Ro—lying in a great blanket across the field, stitched with Angtei arrows. Thank Heaven she did not stand up.

In the distance, someone called a command in lilting Angtei, and arrows sang from several thousand bows to darken the sun. A bolt thudded into the body over Lanthe, and she flinched. Another clipped her boot as two more buried their heads in the dirt by her ear. As panic brought lucidity pounding back to Lanthe, she remembered covering this scenario in training. The Angtei would keep firing until their arrows were gone or until no Ro moved on the field. And the damn forest people were never short of arrows.

As the command rang across the slopes again, Lanthe seized poor Paru by his armor and hauled him completely over her, his legs over hers, his chest braced against her forearms, his cold cheek pressed to her forehead. The minor lord’s son was far bigger than Lanthe, covering her in a thick wall of muscle that shielded her through the next volley of arrows, and the next, and the next.

Lanthe spent that worst afternoon of her life perfectly still under Paru’s weight as the tension trickled hot pain through her shoulders, and she wondered why she bothered sheltering at all. The Angtei were familiar with Ro tricks and tenacity. They would wade into the blue-caped sea of bodies when their arrows were spent and drive their spears through the Ro who hid beneath the corpses.

It was hard to say why, this time, the Angtei didn’t complete their final sweep. Maybe, with the sun sinking beneath the hills, they hadn’t wanted to search out survivors in the dark. Maybe they knew the surrounding wilderness better than their Ro enemies. And, when they heard the howling from the woods, knew their work would be done by morning.

When darkness descended, so did the animals, yipping and snuffling at first. Then snarling. A sound of tearing fabric reached Lanthe’s ears. As what was happening dawned on her, she wished she had met her end at the end of an Angtei pike. All Ro prepared to face the most ruthless of human enemies with steel resolve and bared teeth. No one prepared to lie still as animal jaws tore into their comrades’ bodies in the distance, then a little closer... and a little closer.

Lanthe had never been one to cry. In that total darkness, she pressed both hands to her mouth to stifle the sobs. That was before a human voice roared in pain. At first, Lanthe told herself it must be another animal. Then the voice gasped in distinct Ro, “God! God! No!”

This realization didn’t waste time creeping up Lanthe’s spine. It hit like an arrow through the chest: it wasn’t just the dead being eaten.

Like a good Ro, the man tried not to scream. He failed as bones broke and flesh tore.

Lanthe had thought of that man many times in the ensuing years. She had thought of him the day she was promoted to second lieutenant. She had thought of him at Yansey, in the ringing aftermath of the mage’s shockwave, when she realized that the chain of command had run down to her. God, she had thought, let me never do that to the men who follow my orders. Let me never do what General Fen did to all of us that night.

The man’s scream ultimately ended in a gurgle as jaws found his throat. And something in Lanthe went cold. The knuckles pressed into her mouth had stopped shaking. Her eyes were wide open in the dark.

She would have waited for the Angtei with a hand on her sword. She would have tried to take one out—or at least give his leg a good slash—when they came for her. She couldn’t wait in the dark for the animals to find her. Purpose overwhelmed fear, and her body surged into action.

Heaving Paru’s now-rigid corpse off of her, she rolled to her feet and felt her joints crunch with the movement. Hours lying unmoving had left her nearly as stiff as the dead man, and she immediately staggered, falling over someone’s shield. She caught herself on yet another body, her palm squelching in a mess of half-congealed blood.

Lanthe had never encountered wolves or tigers in the forest by her village, but the folk of her father’s generation told grisly stories of friends and siblings gone missing on the path. The old fishmonger swore on his parents’ graves that the scar on his leg was the work of a wolf. Lanthe’s father had always told her, in case the man-eaters ever returned to their region: wolves would rather attack prey that was down than an animal on its feet.

So, even though she tripped on a dead limb every other step, Lanthe tried to walk tall through the field. The border hills and the total darkness did strange things to the animal sounds. One moment, Lanthe was sure that she was putting the predators behind her. The next, a scrabble of claws seemed to come from right beside her. As something shifted directly before her, she banged her shin on a glaive and swore.

“Hello?” a voice said hoarsely. Not a wolf. A boy. A boy she knew. “Please. Is someone there?”

“Tairo?” Lanthe exclaimed, all formalities forgotten in her disbelief. God may as well have cast a shaft of pure light through the darkness. Her training partner was here with her. No matter what happened now, she wasn’t going to die alone.

“Luyang?” the voice answered, equally shocked. “Is that you?”

In her sheer relief, Lanth pitched toward the familiar voice, tripped, and ended up scrambling over bodies on her hands and knees. An exposed blade tore a gash in her thigh. She didn’t care. “Lord Tairo!”

“I’m injured,” he said as she reached him, hands grasping the front of his uniform, so relieved at the feel of a living body. “I don’t know if I can walk.”

“But you have to, my lord. We’re dead if we stay here.”

“I know that.” In the dark, Lanthe could feel Tairo shaking his head. His grip on her forearms was unsteady. “If you’re able, you should go. Run as fast as you can from this field. Get word to my father.”

“And tell him I left his son to be eaten by dogs?”

“Luyang, I can’t walk.”

“And I can’t face the general if I’ve just left his son to die.”

“You don’t have to tell him it was dogs…” a smile trembled in Tairo’s voice. “Tell him I died doing something heroic.”

Despite everything, Lanthe barked out a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. Use me as a crutch if you need to, my lord, but you will walk.” She had no idea where this deep calm had come from but she latched onto it and breathed in strength. “Come on, now. Stand up.”

Tairo made a terrible sound as Lanthe pulled his arms, hauling him to his feet. Ro didn’t make that sound if they could avoid it. He must have been really hurt.

“It’s alright.” Lanthe let him fall against her and didn’t buckle.“Breathe deeply, my lord. I’ve got you.”

“But—”

“I’ve humped sacks of rice heavier than you, my lord. Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Tairo asked.

“I don’t know.” Away from the wolves, the frantic part of her thought, unhelpfully. Away from the screaming. Brutally, she dragged her mind out of panic and back to reason. “There’s a village southwest of here, right?”

“Yes. But southwest is this way.” Tairo pulled at Lanthe, changing their stumbling course among the dead.

“How do you know, my lord?” Lanthe had just been blindly fleeing the animal sounds, which she assumed were coming from the forest to the north.

“Astronomy lessons. I know my constellations.”

So, leaning on one another, they staggered south, away from the cries of men and beasts. There was no point in looking down when they couldn’t see the bodies of their comrades. Later, Lanthe let herself wonder how many of their commanding officers and fellow trainees they had trod on in that darkness. But that night, they kept their eyes on the stars. Tairo’s leg gave out repeatedly but, as they pressed on, it didn’t matter. Across most of the field, the bodies lay too thick to step over, and the pair had to crawl over their dead comrades, pushing through arrow-shafts like rice stalks in a marsh.

Lanthe didn’t remember reaching the edge of the field, nor did she remember distinctly when Tairo had fallen unconscious. She didn’t know where she had found the strength in her fifteen-year-old body to carry him. She just remembered locking her eyes on the string of stars Tairo had pointed out and telling herself: one more step, Lanthe. One more… one more… one more…

When the world came back to Lanthe, she was lying on a bamboo mat. Shelves loomed above her, lined with meticulously labeled boxes and bottles.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a voice said—deep and familiar, but strangely out of place. “Good timing.”

Turning her head, Lanthe registered a blue-caped mountain of a man sitting cross-legged beside her mat. Tigers on the clasp of his cape. Bronze on the tops of his boots.

“General…?” Lanthe couldn’t make sense of the picture before her, no matter how many times she blinked to make it clear. She didn’t think she had ever seen General Chang sitting down. He was always on his feet. “Am I dead?”

“No, thank Heaven.” A laugh rumbled from the General Chang’s chest. “You’re in a physician’s office a little south of the Edzar fields.”

“Sir?”

“The townspeople here tell me you showed up yesterday morning with my son on your back.”

Townspeople? 

Lanthe had a vague memory of farmers drawing close in the light of dawn, asking if she needed help. They had looked like men from her own village but had spoken in thick eastern accents.

“They say you must have carried him three miles from the battlefield. You must have walked all night.”

“No, sir…” Lanthe said as she struggled to remember through the fog in her head. “He walked the first part himself.” But he had been so weak… “Is he alright?”

She started to sit up, but the general held up a hand, and she sank back down.

“Easy, soldier,” he smiled. “Tairo is in the physician’s house, expected to make a full recovery. He was treated right away, as you demanded.”

“I did?” Lanthe had no recollection.

“Apparently, you said only two things before falling unconscious: ‘get word to General Chang,’ and ‘treat Lord Tairo first.’ The physician also told me something else…”

General Chang reached to move the blanket and Lanthe, panicked, clutched it closer to her chest. It was only belatedly that she realized this gave everything away. Chang pulled his hand back, having seen all he needed to see. A man, after all, wouldn’t need to cover his chest.

“General, I…” I have pox scars, was what she always told her fellow soldiers, but she could see on his face that he already knew the truth.

“Is Luyang Lanthe your real name?” he asked calmly.

“Y-yes, sir. A cousin of mine told me there was a masculine variant of Lanthe that was common in the north, so I kept it the same. I thought it would be easier.” Why was Lanthe trying to explain any of this? She had lied her way into General Chang’s army. Why should any of the details matter to him?

“How did you do it? How have you hidden so well all this time?” Still, the general didn’t sound angry. And Lanthe didn’t know what to do but keep telling the truth and wait for the wrath to come.

“I grew up pushing a plow, sir,” she said, “and play-fighting with my brothers.”

“I didn’t mean how you keep up in training. Heaven knows plenty of women can do that part. I meant, physically, how did you keep this from your fellow soldiers?”

Lanthe felt her face heat in shame. “I-I strapped my breasts down, sir. That’s all.”

“Do you not bleed each month?” General Chang seemed more intrigued than anything else.

“I… I have a way of taking care of that too, sir.” It wasn’t terribly clever. Lanthe had stitched layers upon layers of fabric together into a strip that she tied inside her uniform pants and then washed out each day among a roll of bandages, so no one would give the blood a second thought. It also helped that she never bled heavily, but none of this seemed like a matter for discussion with a lord.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and found a lump in her throat when she realized what this would mean. General Chang was going to send her away now, back home to her life on the farm where she had never fit quite right, never been terribly useful. She closed her eyes, waiting to see if the dismissal would be a gentle one or a harsh one. She hoped he would be angry. Strong men broke before General Chang’s anger. If he was angry, no one could blame her when she started to cry.

In the end, there was no dismissal at all. After an agonizing silence, he said, “I could secure you a position in Lady Marshal Fanwei’s battalion.”

Lanthe’s eyes flew open. She searched the general’s face for a sign that he was joking, but she had never known him to joke.

“Or with the queen’s guard,” he added after a moment’s thought. “That is if you want to continue your military career. I’m also happy to let you return if you’d rather—”

“No!” Lanthe blurted out in panic. “I mean—no, I wouldn’t—but my lord, th-that’s… those are positions for noblewomen!”

“Well, noblewomen and castrated men. The current queen prefers eunuchs, but I’m sure she could be persuaded to make an exception.”

“I-I…” Lanthe was struck again with the sense that she must be dead or dreaming, and it took her a moment to remember how to use her tongue. “I don’t know how to attend a queen, my lord. I’m a farmer’s son—daughter.” Heavens, when had the lie come to feel more natural than the truth? “I can’t go to the palace!”

“Fair point,” General Chang said. “Of course, everyone can learn the ways of the court, but it would seem a shame to remove you from active duty. Guardlady Fanwei’s battalion, then?”

Lanthe shook her head, still not quite able to believe the offer.

Military distinction was a luxury for a woman, and only the most fortunate of families could afford it. Fanwei’s battalion was comprised entirely of noble daughters who had excelled in martial arts alongside their brothers and came from a family blessed with many children.

They were women Lanthe had always admired, but they were so far above her and so removed from her world that they might as well have been a teahouse story. As yet, she had never even seen one of Fanwei’s gunmaidens. Imperial decree kept them strictly separate from the main army to prevent unwanted pregnancies. If the main army was in the south, Fanwei’s battalion was in the north. If they collaborated on a campaign, they slept in separate camps with guards in between.

“It’s above my station, my lord.”

“Most of them are noblewomen, yes,” Chang agreed, “but, at the risk of sounding arrogant, my recommendation is as good as at least two generations of noble blood. Wherever you want to go, wherever you want to serve, I will see it done.”

Now, the tears were coming anyway. Lanthe’s voice shook as she asked, “Why? Why would you do this for me?”

“You’re the reason my son is alive. You’ll have whatever you ask for.”

Lanthe’s mind spun, reeling off to the far northern border where Guardlady Fanwei and her all-female battalion kept the Loi barbarians at bay, then to the royal court, then back to the training yard. Where Tenro smiled after knocking her down, clasped her arm, and pulled her up.

“Do you mean that, sir?” she ventured quietly. “Wherever I would like to serve?”

“On my wife’s grave, my child. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Then… I would like to serve here, my lord.”

“Here?” he said in surprise.

“Where I’ve been serving, sir. With your men.”

“This is not a reasonable request, Miss Luyang. Ro has its place for women to serve. The main army is for men.”

Lanthe crumpled. And she had never known that the general’s expression could soften as it did then—as he watched her heart break.

“You really want to stay here?” he said in fascination.

“Yes, sir.” Lanthe had found something under Chang’s command. A type of belonging and power she had never felt behind her mother’s loom or her father’s plow. She would face Angtei arrows again to keep that. She would face another pitch-black night of wolves. “I want to keep serving with you.”

“By law, only Lady Fanwei’s battalion can draft a woman.”

Lanthe nodded her understanding, swallowing tears.

“But you saved my son’s life…” he paused, “so, from today on, I never spoke to the physician here. We never had this conversation. I know none of what you’ve just told me.”

“Sir?”

“This is my thanks for Tairo’s life. I will never speak of this again to anyone. As long as you want this secret kept—even if it’s for the rest of time—you are Luyang Lanthe, a man and soldier of Ro.”

The word of a general was ironclad, and Lanthe hadn’t thought much of their agreement in years. It wasn’t until she stood in the war room with the twins waiting for General Chang that the secret started to weigh on her. This was a place for men—or surpassingly trained and talented noblewomen. No peasant girl had ever held council with guardlords and generals.

“Something you need to say, Luyang?” Tenro demanded. He must have noticed her staring distantly across the war room map.

“No, sir,” she said immediately. Tenro was a wall of wrath that morning, and she had decided that the less conversation they made before the general arrived, the better. He wasn’t letting her off that easily.

“You’re not a good liar,” he said bluntly. “Something’s bothering you.”

Lanthe shook her head. “Just thinking on the mission, my lord.”

She realized as soon as the words were out of her mouth that she should have not raised the subject.

“An odd notion, isn’t it?” Tenro’s face twisted. “A lord of Ro sneaking around like a whore, stabbing a woman in the back like a faithless dagger for hire?”

Lanthe hadn’t been in the war room when the general shared the plan with his second son, but she had heard the shouting through the thick stone walls of the officers’ quarters. Tenro, predictably, had all the same ethical misgivings as Lanthe. The difference was that Tenro was never afraid of a fight—even with his father.

Tenro’s frown deepened, and he turned to Tairo. “We need to say something.”

“I thought you already did,” Tairo said.

“Alone,” Tenro said with a vaguely accusatory inflection. “We need to come at him together.”

“Why?” Tairo sighed. “You know it won’t end well.”

“Because it’s madness! This whole infiltration plan, it’s as paper-thin as it is demeaning. Lanthe, you’re not an idiot. Back me up.”

“Don’t do that, Tenro,” Tairo said softly.

“Do what?”

“Pull him into this.”

“Pull him into it?” Tenro repeated, incredulous. “He’s already in.”

“Because he agreed to it,” Tairo said, “just like I did.”

“In a private meeting with Father. You know that doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t that count?”

“Please!” Tenro gestured in exasperation. “All he has to do is sigh in disappointment and you turn into a spineless child.”

Pain that had nothing to do with his injured arm strained Tairo’s expression. “I know I don’t have your strength. You don’t need to remind me.”

“I—Tairo, I didn’t mean it like that.” Through his frustration, Tenro managed to sound apologetic. “I meant—I understand, alright? I know how it feels—”

“No, you don’t,” Tairo said. “If you raise your objections to Father, it’s because you’ve earned the right to speak that way before him. I’ll never…” His voice hit on something dangerously close to a quiver, and he had to take a breath. “The ways I can serve my country are limited. If our father and the king have found a way for me to serve, I’m grateful for that. I have to be.”

Tenro’s jaw clenched, and a breath of rage filled his great chest. But even in his anger, he couldn’t spit on his brother’s conviction. Tairo was right. Tenro, with all his talents, didn’t understand Tairo’s position and couldn’t judge. Instead, his narrowed eyes shifted to Lanthe.

“And you, Luyang? You’re just going to let him do this? Your integrity allows that?”

Lanthe fixed her eyes on the clasp of Tenro’s guardlord’s cape to keep from looking him in the eye. “I’m a farmer’s son, my lord. My personal integrity is nothing before the will of a king and the good of Ro.”

The sound Tenro made then was so derisive that Lanthe glanced up at his face. “What?”

“You’ve been a soldier for longer than you’ve been a peasant, for Heaven’s sake! The dumb farm boy act doesn’t work on a captain.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Cowardice doesn’t suit you, Luyang.”

The hurt went straight to Lanthe’s heart, and she spoke without thinking. “You—”

“You’re out of line, Tenro!” Tairo growled before Lanthe could say something truly out of line and, for a bizarre moment, he matched his brother’s aggression. “Apologize!”

Tairo had advanced on his twin. The two stood at eye level, though their physical presences could not have been more different. Tenro folded his arms and held Tairo’s gaze coolly.

“I see.” The hurt was evident in his voice, but Tenro’s hurt didn’t quiver like most people’s. It smoldered, threatening explosion. “Luyang’s honor is worth standing up to me. Just not to our father.”

“My lord,” Lanthe spoke up—if only because she worried for Tairo’s injured arm if the confrontation escalated. “May I tell you what I think?”

Two sets of coal-black eyes turned to her. “Please,” Tenro said.

“I think… this is a matter of picking battles.”

“You’re telling me it’s a bad idea to challenge my father?” Tenro said. “Astute, Captain. I never would have thought—”

“No, sir. I…” Lanthe swallowed, hesitating to speculate about things so far above her station, but it needed to be said. “I think your father picked his battle…”

“Picked his battle?” Tenro uncrossed his arms. “With us, you mean?”

“No, my lord. Not with you.”

Neither of Chang’s sons was stupid. Lanthe watched them process her meaning at the same time, though none of them had any business saying it aloud.

With the king.

The war room doors opened and all three of them snapped to salute in silence.

“Children,” General Chang said calmly. “I assume you’re finished arguing?”

“Yes, sir,” the twins said in unison—though their inflections could not have been more different.

The general’s eyes moved to Lanthe, and she realized she was expected to respond as well. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Chang took his seat at the table. Not the war room table but the smaller one by Captain Arza’s desk. An attendant followed closely and placed a tea tray before him. “I’ve sent for our guest. Luyang, if you would greet him.”

“Yes, my lord.” Lanthe saluted, grateful for a chance to escape the tension of the room.

Lanthe opened the door to find two of General Chang’s guards bringing Lord Hyonang up the steps in chains.

“Those aren’t necessary,” Lanthe told them.

“Sir.” The guards unlocked Hyonang’s manacles, gathered the chains, and stepped back, leaving Hyonang alone before Lanthe.

Per General Chang’s orders, Hyonang had been clothed, fed a soldier’s rations, and given water to wash. Considering he had spent the better part of a week in a cell, his condition could have been far worse. Still, he seemed overly thin and pale, like just the morning light outside his cell was faintly overwhelming.

“With me, my lord,” Lanthe said, and he followed her to the war room doors without objection. His feet only faltered when they reached the threshold and he saw the general waiting behind the tea table.

“General, this is Lord Hyonang Yinzo, who ordered the Yao surrender,” Lanthe said, stepping back for a proper introduction.

Hyonang stood still on the threshold, tense as a fully strung bow. Another captain in Lanthe’s position would have kicked his knees out and shoved him to the floor. That wasn’t the kind of influence Lanthe had built with her prisoner. It wasn’t the kind of influence she and the general needed for the conversation to come. She placed a hand on the Yao’s shoulder—firmly but without aggression.

“Bow, please.”

Hyonang obliged, dropping to both knees and pressing his forehead to the floor in the Yao fashion. At his father’s side, Tenro made a barely audible noise of distaste. Ro nobles didn’t put their heads to the floor for anyone but the king.

“Hyonang of Yao,” General Chang said. “Welcome. Do stand up.”

As Hyonang straightened up, his eyes flicked to Lanthe in a strangely pleading fashion. Though he was higher born than Lanthe and at least ten years her senior, he suddenly seemed very young. And Lanthe realized he was looking to her for protection. He had come to trust her in these few days. She might be the enemy, but she had kept all her promises to him and his men. He didn’t have that trust with the general and his sons—nor should he.

“It’s alright, Lord Hyonang,” she said as the guards closed the doors behind them. “General Chang means you no harm.”

Her words had the opposite of the intended effect. As the doors thudded closed, at Hyonang’s back, his godmarks lost all their color. And Lanthe realized that, from within the walls of his cell, he must not have realized precisely who had come to Yansey’s rescue.

“General Chang?”

“Now,” the general continued without acknowledging Hyonang’s shock, “Luyang and Tairo have kindly caught me up on your recent conversations. Their reports have left me eager to speak to you myself. Sit, Hyonang of Yao. Take tea with me and my sons.”

Hyonang still didn’t move. Judging by the look on his face, Lanthe wasn’t sure he could.

“You’re aware of my reputation, I see,” General Chang said. “I assure you, I only ever dismember my prisoners for tactical reasons. Fortunately for you, Captain Luyang thinks you have other tactical uses. Let us hope he’s right.”

Hyonang’s eye twitched when the general mentioned dismemberment, but fear seemed to stop him from voicing his disgust.

“If you are cooperative and civil with me, as I understand you’ve been with Captain Luyang, I can be civil in turn. Come, Hyonang,” Chang said with the cordial calm of a courtier. “Let’s take tea, like civilized men.” Having been on the general’s good side for most of her career, Lanthe forgot how serenely terrifying the man could be with his enemies. Though he had clearly lost patience with Hyonang, he didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“Sit,” he said, and the single word somehow promised a thousand unthinkable horrors.

Hyonang was in the chair in the next breath.

More slowly, the twins took their seats on either side of their father, closing the Yao in from all sides. Lanthe remained standing a pace from the table for the moment, leaving Hyonang alone opposite the tiger and his grown cubs.

“First, I believe thanks are in order”—the general poured a cup and set it delicately before the prisoner before pouring his own—“for being so very forthcoming with my officers.”

Hyonang swallowed, fixing his glare and courage. “I did it for Yao.”

“So the captain tells me,” the general said mildly. “In your words, I believe, we have a common goal. You want to see Princess Yelhwa removed from power. Our king would like the same.”

Hyonang’s voice shook but, to his credit, he got the question out. “How do I know that’s true? How do I know you’re not lying to manipulate me?”

“You don’t,” General Chang said, “but why would I make such a thing up?”

“To justify invading Yao and replacing the princess with your own ruler.”

“Hyonang of Yao,” General Chang favored the prisoner with a scathingly sympathetic look, seeming to pity his simplicity. “For all the differences between Ro and Yao, we are of a mind in our view of land. We might squabble for control of the little bays and rivers at our borders, but when the sun sets each day, Ro is Ro and Yao is Yao. Our king has no interest in ruling your country, nor would our people have any interest in living there. That is not the Ro way.”

“Except in the second century,” Hyonang spat, trembling but unwilling to back down, “when you ate two of the formerly Twelve Kingdoms.”

“Those weren’t legitimate kingdoms,” Tairo shot back, never able to let an irrelevant technicality pass when it came to history, “Ro was reclaiming its rightful land from interloping—”

General Chang held up a hand and Tairo went immediately silent. “I’m sure you and my son could argue semantic circles for some time. The relevant, immediate fact is that King Josan wants these attacks on our God-given land to stop. If they don’t, well… you soft scholars all know your books. You know what happens to Ro’s enemies, justified or otherwise, magical or otherwise.”

“You can’t punish Yao for the decisions of one deranged girl!”

The general leaned forward and said very amicably, “You cited the histories yourself. You know we can.”

He let the Yao squirm there, fighting his emotions, and took a slow drink of his tea.

“You’re all monsters,” Hyonang whispered.

“You have no idea,” Tenro said icily. “Keep insulting my father and I’ll educate you.”

And Lanthe was surprised anew at how Tenro had grown. Whatever the tension between himself and his father, there was no trace of it in his glare now. Before an enemy, father and son were a single entity. United and terrifying.

Tairo picked up a practiced beat after his brother. “All we want is your help, Lord Hyonang, with our alternative to open war.”

That got Hyonang’s attention. His eyes flicked with hope to Lanthe as if to ask ‘is he serious?’ Lanthe gave a small nod.

“Our king has a plan to remove Princess Yelhwa from power,” Tairo continued, “with minimal loss of life. I’ll be carrying it out myself, along with Captain Luyang.”

“Captain—?” Hyonang started but General Chang was on him before he had a chance to address Lanthe.

“Your role here is simple, Lord Hyonang. You will tell us all you know about the Yao court and how to infiltrate it effectively.”

Hyonang seemed to experience the same moment of confusion that Lanthe had upon hearing the plan. “You’re Ro,” he said. “Aren’t you going to—”

“Raze your little wood and paper kingdom to the ground?” Tenro cut him off. “That can be arranged if you’re not interested in our first offer.”

“I didn’t say… I…” the poor Yao stammered in indecision. “If I agree, what’s to keep me from lying to you? Feeding you false information?”

The general set his teacup down. “I said I had no interest in dismembering you, Lord Hyonang.”

The Yao went pale at the implication, and Lanthe experienced the briefest pang of guilt at having passed this particular game piece over to the general. Hyonang’s defenses crumpled into two broken words. “My son…?”

“Is under my care,” General Chang said pleasantly, “in case, at any point, your intel turns out to be less than complete and accurate. Your son goes free when Princess Yelhwa is dead.”

Hyonang breathed out a laugh that seemed to surprise him as much as any of the Ro. “I hope you’re right.”

“What was that?”

“That sorceress has taken my children from me.” Hyonang’s fists clenched hard on his knees. “If my actions here can help bring her down, then… it’s worth it.” He said the words softly, as though trying to convince himself. His treason wad to be worth it. What else did he have left? “You will have my help, Lord Chang. Anything you need.”

“Excellent,” said the general. “Captain Luyang, get the man a brush and paper. A lot of paper. We have much to cover.”

Night had fallen by the time the General had questioned Lord Hyonang to his satisfaction. As Tairo and Tenro escorted the Yao lord back to his cell, Lanthe stayed to tidy the war room. When she had finished stowing the unused paper, she stood at attention and waited to be dismissed. The rest of the fort and the camp beyond the walls was asleep, the only sound the night breeze broken by the occasional knicker and grumble of horses.

In the lantern light, General Chang leaned into his elbows, surveying the map of the Ten Kingdoms with strange intensity. Lanthe was wondering if he had forgotten she was there when he spoke.

“Lanthe.” It was the first time he had ever used her given name in isolation.

Taken aback, Lanthe said, “Sir?”

“Forgive me.”

“For what, General?”

His voice had gone somber and soft in its deepness, like the steel sheet of a shield stripped back to the wood beneath. “Forgive me for bringing this up, when I promised not to…” It took him a moment to speak again, as if he was mulling his words, considering whether it was wise to give them breath. “I am getting old…”

“Sir?”

“Fifteen years ago—Heavens, even five years ago—I nurtured a hope for a future where Ro was at peace. Tairo would never have to hold a sword again. Tenro would retire in comfort on the back of a short but distinguished military career. My sons would both marry accomplished girls from good families and go on to start families of their own.” A soft laugh. “I might even take another wife and have more children before that part of life passed me by.”

He shook his head, looking wistfully over the flame-lit map. “With new enemies rising on all sides—Loi in the north, bandits in the south, Angtei in the east, now Yao in the west—it looks as though Ro won’t see peace for a long time… long after I’m gone.”

Lanthe usually followed the general’s train of thought—it was one of the things he liked about her—but she had no idea where this monologue was headed. He had never spoken this way to her, with such contemplative vulnerability. If she’d had a month to anticipate his next words, she never would have guessed them.

“How would you like to marry one of my sons?”

The world stopped.

“I… Pardon, sir?” Lanthe said, certain she must have heard wrong.

“I know,” he said, apologetic in a way she had never seen him. “I promised in that little physician’s office that I would never speak of your secret again… But if these wars drag on for another ten or fifteen years, my sons won’t need wives whose talents lie in maintaining a home. They’ll need someone to move camps with them, an advisor and confidant. In that world, I would rather have you for a daughter than any other woman.”

Lanthe didn’t know what to do.

At that moment, she would have given anything to be back in the deafening shock after Yansey’s wall had blown apart. At least then, there had been a rallying point, a direction, a need that had allowed her to pull herself to her feet and back into motion. This was a different kind of shock, one Lanthe was hopelessly unequipped to handle.

“My… my father should know of this,” she said finally. A man shouldn’t even raise this with a woman before talking to her father first. “N-not that he would object.” He couldn’t, if Ro’s greatest general was asking. “But… you know my background, sir. My dowry wouldn’t be worth having.” A cow and a handful of chickens constituted a respectable payment between farmers, but the idea of presenting ragged Heba livestock to a man of Chang Shuro’s status was comical.

“Luyang Lanthe.” The general looked almost wounded. “I wouldn’t want you for your dowry, nor would I ask your parents to pay one. Livestock, furniture, farm tools… all these are gifts for peacetime, are they not?”

“I suppose so, sir,” Lanthe said, unsure what to do but agree.

“This fort still stands because of you. My first son still lives because of you—several times over now. If a criminal may pay his debt to the country in military service, you’ve certainly paid your dowry.”

“I…” I didn’t do it for that, was on Lanthe’s tongue. Instead, she said, “You honor me, General.”

He was studying her face intently in the low light, the way she had once seen him study an enemy fortress that seemed to have no access point. He was trying to parse this strange wall of apprehension around her—and the more luck to him, since Lanthe didn’t understand it herself. She should want to marry one of the twins, shouldn’t she? The thought should fill her with elation. Heaven knew, she had loved them both for many years… and she was, beneath all the armor, a woman. By her nature, shouldn’t she want that love want to grow to something more?

“You must want a husband and children one day,” the general said, his thoughts following with her own. “Don’t all women?”

“I—” I assume so, Lanthe was about to say out of habit before remembering that she was the woman in this conversation. But she had no idea how to speak of these things as a woman. She had no practice.

“I thought you might be worried about your future, about giving your parents grandchildren.”

“My parents have other daughters and other sons, my lord,” Lanthe said, “all more marriageable than a girl who ran off to the army for ten years. They’ll have all the grandchildren they could wish for.” Her oldest brother had already given them three.

“And you, Luyang Lanthe? What about your wishes for the future?”

“My wishes, sir?”

Lanthe hadn’t given much thought to a life beyond the military. It had seemed silly to think that a farmer’s daughter who wasn’t particularly big, or strong, or skilled would live through one tour of service. Then, it had seemed silly to think that she would live through two… then three… then four… and she supposed, at this point, that it was no longer such a silly thought.

“My sons have inherited a responsibility to the army,” General Chang said. “Their military careers will last as long as there are wars Ro must fight. If you marry one of them, then so will yours… if you want that.”

Lanthe did want that. Didn’t she? A man she genuinely loved, a marriage that wouldn’t take her from the military, the opportunity to stay on the battlefield for as long as she wanted. Why? Why did the thought turn her blood to cold water?

“Bearing children might take you off the frontlines,” the general continued, “but you could always consult on strategy, since you clearly have an affinity for it. You could train your children for the field like no other mother could. What do you say, Luyang?”

“General, I…” She couldn’t give him an answer. Not through the dissonant crash of logic and emotion fogging her mind. God, for an explosion! A hail of gunfire, something to knock out the noise and snap the world into focus. “I-it’s my father’s decision to make,” she said finally. Even though it really wasn’t. It was the only way she could think of to get out of a straight answer.

“Of course,” the general agreed, expression inscrutable. “You’re a good child, Luyang Lanthe. You do your parents credit. Take some time to think on the matter. I’ll provide you a scribe and messenger to write to your parents, if you want. I won’t bring a proposal before him unless you wish it.”

“For now, sir, I’d like to focus on the mission in front of me… if that’s alright?”

“Of course.” The general shook his head, looking faintly annoyed with himself. Another moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability. “That’s only prudent. I’ll see you and Tairo in the morning to discuss your mission further. Good night, Luyang Lanthe.”

“Good night, General.”

Lying in the darkness of her chambers, Lanthe didn’t undo the bindings around her chest, she didn’t touch herself, and she didn’t sleep at all.

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