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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Lanthe thanked Heaven for her terrible horse. The ride along the Seizang River could have been a misery of nerves had she spent it in her own head. Instead, all her focus went into keeping her unruly mount under control.

She wasn’t a bad rider—for a peasant, anyway. Like all soldiers, she had learned to sit a horse in her mandatory training at the capital. In subsequent years, as Ro moved her to different fronts, she had learned to shoot and wield a glaive from the saddle. But the horses she’d ridden in the past had all been native animals, bred and trained for Ro military formations. The sand-colored mare bearing Lanthe to the Yao border was a bandit’s horse, seized after the slaughter. The half-wild thing was plainly distressed from the earlier carnage, nippy with the Ro horses, unused to Ro tack, and unresponsive to Ro commands. In battle, all warriors steered mainly with their thighs, but there were subtle differences in the way men of different countries handled that movement. Lanthe and this horse had yet to learn each other, and Lanthe often found herself hauling at the reins just to keep Fidget pointed in the right direction.

“Fidget?” Tairo laughed when Lanthe grumbled about the difficult animal. “You gave her a name? Like a noble’s horse?”

“How else will she know who I’m snapping at?” Lanthe said.

Though, in truth, she hardly snapped at Fidget at all. Whenever they stopped, Lanthe spoke softly to the creature, told her she had done well, pressed slow strokes down her neck.

“You seem eager to make friends,” Tairo observed as he tethered Cloud next to Fidget on the third night. “You know, you don’t need to be the perfect team.”

He didn’t speak explicitly of the plan, but Lanthe knew what he meant. The two of them would not be riding into battle with Tenro’s battalion. Fidget’s only job was to get Lanthe to Yao.

“I know,” Lanthe said but didn’t stop petting the horse’s neck.

If she stayed calm, Fidget stayed calm. This simple connection—twitchy warm muscle beneath her palm—was easier to master than the future sprawling ahead in her mind.

Fidget’s previous rider had braided beads into her pale brown mane. It felt oddly intrusive to remove them, but they weren’t standard. Lanthe had picked at Fidget’s mane at each stop, unknotting the ties, letting the clay beads fall to the earth, and slowly combing the braids free with her fingers. Here on the third night, she was down to the last braid up between Fidget’s flicking ears. She fiddled absently with the leather tie at the end, not quite wanting to undo it.

This was their last night with the battalion.

Lanthe and Tairo hadn’t planned to desert on any specific night. Instead, they had agreed to wait for good cover—to make their “escape” believable. Tonight, the wind was high, the crescent moon was slim, and a copse of old ginkgo trees clung to life between the river and the scrubland where they had made camp. They weren’t going to get better cover than this. While Tairo went to share a game of sen with the other soldiers, Lanthe stayed with her horse and closed her eyes. Calm. Until darkness fell and it was time to move.

They couldn’t say goodbye to Tenro. The fewer people who knew about the plan, the less chance a Yao spy would discover it. If one soldier overheard the twins saying a fond farewell, that detail could make its way back to Yao and weaken Tairo’s credibility with the princess—possibly even get him killed. This had to look like a secret and traitorous escape in the night. Lanthe and Tairo’s only grace was that they knew where Tenro had stationed his look-outs. Knowing made it easy to slip their horses past the guards, through the shifting rush of trees, and out into the dark.

By the time the sun rose, Lanthe and Tairo were riding for their own destination, the battalion hours behind them. Tenro would feign concern in the morning and send men in search of his missing brother. But whatever scouts he sent wouldn’t know which direction to ride and certainly wouldn’t suspect that Tairo’s destination was just a different point on the Yao border.

The kingdom of Yao bowed around Ro like a waning moon, its capital city of Kaisia situated near the center. Tenro’s battalion was bound for a military outpost far from Kaisia, at the crescent’s southern tip. If Lanthe and Tairo wanted to reach Princess Yelhwa in good time, Hyonang Yinzo had recommended that they cross the border as close to the capital as they could get, in the rocky center of the crescent.

It was four days’ ride in a straight line from the point of divergence to their point of entry. The first two nights, Lanthe and Tairo stopped in the shelter of trees, then took their turns sleeping and keeping watch through the night. After that, the trees grew sparser as the fertile soil of western Ro gave way to the sand characteristic of Yao. As night fell on the third day, they rode into a village and made their beds in a wealthy farmer’s stable. As soldiers, they could have demanded the use of his house—he offered it—but Lanthe insisted that the stable would do just fine.

In a stable, she and Tairo could speak without nosy members of the household listening at thin walls. And Lanthe did want to have a last honest talk with Tairo before they reached Yao. Not that they hadn’t spoken a little on the journey. But riding hard against the wind hadn’t left much breath for shouted conversation, and the words they had mustered had been spent reviewing the finer points of the plan to come.

Lanthe had kept track of all the eventualities—what to do if their ruse faltered on the way to Kaisia, or when they got to the palace, or after, and every possible branch from there. Tairo was the one who remembered Lord Hyonang’s interminable list of Yao courtiers, their lineages, and their overlapping webs of alliances. Throughout the days of riding, Lanthe and Tairo had tested each other on every detail, fine-tuning the plan as they went. Nightfall had been no time for idle chat either, with them each getting only half the night to rest. But there was no need for a guard here. They would both get their sleep before the dawn. There was time for conversation.

Sinking back on the straw, Lanthe folded her hands on her sternum and picked at a scab on her knuckle, looking for the right words. A wooden wall separated them from the horses, but the smell and heavy breath of the animals was thick in the air. The scent and the dust made Tairo cough, but it reminded Lanthe of home—creaking the wooden door open to a rush of chickens in the early morning, standing on tip-toe to hitch the plow to the ox, play-wrestling with her brothers until the three of them prickled with straw like little porcupines.

“Tairo,” she said finally, “I need to ask you about something before we reach Yao.”

“What?”

“Now that we’re alone, I want to know your misgivings.”

“My misgivings?” Tairo repeated.

“About the mission,” Lanthe said. “I know mine and, Heaven knows, we’ve heard all about Tenro’s. You haven’t offered much of an opinion.”

“Well,” Tairo sighed, “is it my place—or any of ours—to have opinions about the king’s orders?”

“No,” Lanthe said, “it’s not. But you’re still a man. You have your thoughts, and I’d like to know what they are. If we’re going to do this together, there shouldn’t be any misunderstandings between us.”

“Then, honestly Lanthe, I have no misgivings.”

“Honestly?” Lanthe turned onto her elbow to face Tairo. “None?”

“A soldier’s honor is serving his country. And, yes, maybe the highest honor is to serve in combat, but that’s not what I do best. At this point, I should be a man and admit that. Shouldn’t I?”

Lanthe smiled. General Chang was right. His son really had grown up. She just wished it didn’t have to manifest like this.

“I know the idea of assassination doesn’t sit right with you,” Tairo said. “And I know it’s my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“You’re here for the same reason you’ve been assigned with me since we were boys. My father doesn’t believe I can get the job done on my own—and he has good reason for that. But I also know that your integrity is important to you. So, I just want to say… you don’t need to worry, Lanthe. Captain. I’ll get this done for you. And for Ro. You won’t have to dirty your hands.”

“Lord Tairo…” It was ridiculous—a noble worrying himself about a peasant’s honor—and it was one of the kindest things Tairo could have said to her. “That’s…” Lanthe didn’t know how to respond, so she brushed it off with a shake of her head. “We’ll worry about all that when it comes, alright? For now, we stick to the plan.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Maybe, with Tairo’s conviction, this could work the way King Josan envisioned. Maybe he was a wise ruler after all, and Lanthe would come to feel appropriate shame for doubting his will.

“So, you’re not worried about manipulating Princess Yelhwa?” she had to ask. “After all Lord Hyonang’s told us and all the men she’s overcome? You think you can handle her?”

“Have you ever known a woman who didn’t swoon at the sight of me?”

Lanthe failed to hold back a snort of laughter. But Tairo had a point. Even Lanthe—the least womanly woman he knew—had experienced a moment of mute shock the first time she saw his face. The effect of his beauty might have worn off for Lanthe through years of familiarity, but other women had never stopped going weak at the knees when he rode by. Propped beside Tairo in the straw, Lanthe tried to see her friend anew. The way a foreign lady might see him.

He was ethereal, even here in the humblest of surroundings, eyes sharp black, skin luminous in the low light, his brows a pair of immaculate brushstrokes. Most commoners’ godmarks were short like Lanthe’s, reaching the outer corner of each eye on the face and the largest two knuckles on the backs of the hands. The blue lines on Tairo’s skin extended all the way down his middle and forefingers, right up to his cuticles. Their tips nearly met at the bridge of his nose. Setting aside all Tairo’s other features, those long godmarks were a sign of Heaven’s favor, a noble character, and a great destiny. Nothing was more beautiful than that.

“We’ve rehearsed most of our lines together,” Lanthe said, her voice oddly soft to her own ears. “Have you run through how you’re going to manage the seduction?”

“You want me to show you?” Tairo was half-joking.

Lanthe, in curiosity, said, “Sure.”

Tairo rolled to face her, dim lantern light painting every angle of his perfect face. His voice went low and musical. “Princess, the poet Tyaying compared his lady love to all the stars in Heaven. If she had possessed but half your radiance—” He broke with a laugh.

“What?”

“Sorry. It’s just hard while I’m looking at you.”

Lanthe raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think I make a pretty girl?”

Tairo laughed harder then. It should have hurt. Maybe it did, a bit. But when Lanthe prompted, “What?” there was more relief in her heart than anything else. If she wasn’t pretty to Tairo, he surely wouldn’t want to marry her. They could stay as they were now. Brothers, laughing meaninglessly over girls in the straw.

“That broad nose—and that jaw!”

“My jaw?” Lanthe held her cheeks between her thumb and forefinger, feeling for the shape of the mandible beneath. It wasn’t that she had never considered the structure of her face, but she was no painter or calligrapher. She didn’t see meaning in shapes the way a great mind like Tairo’s did.

“It’s so broad, and square, and—your weird inability to grow a beard notwithstanding—manly.”

“Hmm…” Lanthe ran a thumb along her jaw, remembering Tenro’s hand lingering there too long, too tenderly… But Tairo was the expert on aesthetics. If he said Lanthe’s face was masculine, then it was.

“It’s lovely on you.” Tairo assured her with a hand on her arm. “Properly rugged, but it would never work for a woman—or on a woman, I should say. I’m sure some lady will find it very charming someday.”

“But you wouldn’t marry me?” Lanthe teased, hoping he didn’t sense the tension in her voice.

“No, Princess Luyang,” Tairo said through a laugh. “I’m flattered by the offer, but no.”

“Well!” In mock indignation, Lanthe breathed out the tension, her shoulders relaxing. “Your loss.” She flopped back into the nostalgic crunch of straw, smiling. “My dowry includes three whole chickens. Maybe even a nice plow.”

Tairo was still chuckling as he snuffed the lantern, leaving only the blink of stars through gaps in the stable roof. The next words fell from Lanthe unbidden.

“If I don’t look like a woman, then what was Tenro doing?”

Straw crackled as Tairo turned beside her. “What do you mean? What did he do?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. There was a just a moment the other day… he looked at me in a way that was… I don’t know.”

“Romantic?” Tairo asked bluntly, and it was Lanthe’s turn to shift in surprise.

“Why do you say that?”

“Is it not what you meant?”

Lanthe was quiet.

“Captain Luyang… did you not know how Tenro feels about you?”

“How he—what do you mean?” Lanthe stammered. “I’m a man.” Unless Tenro could somehow magically see what no one else had. Not even his father.

“Did you not know how he feels about men?”

“What are you saying?”

“I think you know what I’m saying.”

Lanthe did. “But… no.” She shook her head, sorting back through her memories of Tenro. With a little rice wine in him, he could be as big a flirt as any soldier in a room full of common girls. “He likes women.”

“Yes,” Tairo agreed, “but not just women. I’m sorry. You’re usually so perceptive, I just… I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t,” Lanthe frowned at the stable ceiling.

So, Tenro hadn’t been drawn to the woman who existed under Lanthe’s lies. He had been attracted to the lie itself. Captain Luyang Lanthe, man and soldier of Ro. Heaven… what was she supposed to do with that?

“It’s not uncommon,” Tairo said when Lanthe had been silent a long moment—seemingly worried that he needed to defend his brother’s honor.

“I know that,” Lanthe said. Soldiers spent months—sometimes years—at a time away from their wives and sweethearts. Men had appetites. Things happened. As a member of the rank and file, Lanthe had learned to stay far away from such activities, which could blow her cover at best and, at worst, get her pregnant. As an officer, she had learned to treat the liaisons the same as any other contraband indulgence. Like alcohol. Irrelevant so long as it didn’t disrupt the order of the camp and performance of the soldiers. The moment it became noticeable was the moment it became a disruption.

“He’s never acted on it,” Tairo said, still with an anxious note in his voice, fearing Lanthe’s judgment—as if she were anyone to judge. “Never. I don’t think he’s even confessed it aloud.”

“If he doesn’t act on it or talk about it, how do you know?”

“I’m his twin, Lanthe. I know everything.”

“Right,” Lanthe smiled.

“And if you weren’t aware, he’s always liked you.”

“Always?” Lanthe was skeptical. What under Heaven would General Chang’s golden son see in a shrimpy farm boy who was neither very pretty nor an excellent masculine specimen?

“Since the day we met you. When he punched you down and you got back up, and he punched you again… and you just kept getting back up.”

“I see.” In the darkness, Lanthe didn’t bother holding the conflicted frown from her face.

If Tenro liked men and women, she should assume he would like her just the same as a woman. And was that such a bad way to be loved? For her resilience? With distance, she could contemplate Tenro’s affections with less panic. But in the moment—Heaven, the panic… Was that any way to love someone? She didn’t think so.

“And what about you, Lord Tairo?” she asked.

“Me, Captain?”

“What sort of people do you like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yet you know all about your brother’s preferences?” Lanthe said in mild amusement.

“I mean—I don’t think I feel the thing other men feel. That kind of desire. I don’t know.” Tairo let out a wry laugh. “Maybe Tenro took it all in the womb. Maybe that’s how he ended up with double.”

“Yet you got all the good looks?” Lanthe almost laughed herself. “You get all the women swooning at your feet?”

“It does sound like some kind of folktale curse, doesn’t it?”

Women flirt with him, the general had said of Tairo, not the other way around.

“I assume your father knows all this?” Lanthe said. He was too perceptive not to.

“About Tenro, I’m not sure. About me, yes. I assume that’s why he chose me for this mission. If I’m immune to desire, I must be immune to Yao’s legendary beauty, right?”

“Do you think that’s how it works?” Lanthe said.

“Well, that’s what we’re hoping, isn’t it?” Tairo yawned deeply, and Lanthe realized how rough the last few days must have been on him. Delicate noble flower, he always seemed to need more sleep than other soldiers.

“Let’s get some sleep, Lord Tairo.”

“Yes, sir.” And in moments, he was snoring softly beside her.

These were Lanthe’s choices as far as marriage, then? A man she couldn’t want and one who would never want her? Bleak, she thought. But somehow, Tairo’s breathing on one side and the shuffle of horses on the other soothed her. She went to sleep smiling. Happy in this moment, beside her brother.

The border was marked not by a river but by rock formations that ridged the land like the back of a sleeping dragon. Everything east of that jagged spine was Ro. Everything west was Yao. In sight of the hills, Lanthe and Tairo dismounted to proceed on foot. An old watchtower stood among the rocks, so weathered and broken down that, at first, Lanthe hadn’t picked it out among the natural formations. Experimentally, she called a surrender to the tower.

No response.

“They could just be hiding in there,” Tairo suggested, “waiting to shoot us while we cross.”

“True…” Lanthe eyed the tower in thought. If arrows were a concern, they should stop here, out of shooting range, and wait the next hour for the sun to set. Guards couldn’t shoot them in the dark. On the other hand, the rocks were steep in places. Crossing without the light would be foolish—especially with horses that could easily slip and sustain fatal injuries.

“Alright,” Lanthe decided, unstrapping the shield from her saddle. “Shields up, then. Let’s move.”

Their entry raised no alarm, which came as a relief but not a surprise. Yao’s border was long, relative to its population. Hyonang had said that half the watchtowers on its borders went unmanned at the best of times—to say nothing of these days, with Princess Yelhwa pulling military personnel for mysterious attacks on Ro.

The sun was setting as they crested the natural border. When Lanthe looked back, the ridges of Yao were driving shadows into the plains of Ro. Red welled around them like blood between teeth.

“Sends a chill up the spine, doesn’t it?” Tairo said, pausing to follow her gaze.

“What does?”

“This is where Sunsai of Yao made his last stand against our people four hundred years ago. This is where Zengar’s army fell. After two decades of domination, this is where our kingdom’s last great expansion stopped.”

All Ro knew and revered Zengar the Conqueror. “Sunsai of Yao…” That name was familiar too. “The last graphemancer?”

“It was a defeat on both sides,” Tairo said, fingers moving almost reverently over the rock where he had rested a hand for balance. “But it set the border between our countries. This land was an open plain then. Sunsai gave his life in exchange for these hills.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it sounds like. With the last of his strength, he begged the Heavens to protect Yao, and God brought these peaks bursting from the earth to kill Zengar and all his men.” Tairo’s voice took on a timeless musicality as he called the poem from memory:

Red was the earth that day.

Red were the banners raised to Heaven,

When pride poisoned glory and hubris failed Ro.

“And you believe this four-hundred-year-old poem?” Lanthe said, incredulous.

“We saw a graphemancer at work,” Tairo said, defensive. “We’re not just looking back at old texts for our accounts. We know they can do the impossible.”

“There’s a big difference between blowing through a single fortress wall and… this.” Lanthe gestured to the stone hills, which stretched to the horizon in both directions.

“Well, yes, but Sunsai was the greatest magic-user of his age—maybe of all time—and this was his greatest act.”

“Right. But there’s the magic of men and then there’s the work of gods.”

“Sometimes, they’re the same. That’s the basis of graphemancy, you know? The mage writes to Heaven, and if his writing is compelling, Heaven answers.”

“So, we’re conceding that Heaven is on the side of Yao?”

“It’s not that simple,” Tairo said. “Heaven is bigger than any king or country. Zengar’s final battle against Sunsai is a cautionary tale about greed without purpose. God had given Zengar the destiny foretold to him: conquest unlike any the world had ever seen, all the fertile lands between the Seizang and the northern mountains. Zengar wanted more not because Yao land was fertile, not because his people needed it, not because he had any divine or ancestral claim to it. Because he thought himself above the edicts of Heaven. At the end of his life, he was a man with no respect for his king, his people, or his soldiers. At that battle, God wasn’t just answering Sunsai’s plea for what remained of Yao. He was answering Zengar’s greed against the interests of Ro. Answering no. And teaching a lesson for the generations to come in all kingdoms.”

“Sure,” Lanthe sighed. “I can’t argue history with you.”

“You didn’t know the history but you felt it the moment we crossed, didn’t you? This is land touched by Heaven. I think you can sense it.”

“I think you read too many novels, my lord.”

“Legends say that when the wind comes through these hills, you can still hear Zengar and his men screaming.”

“Now you’re just being ghoulish.”

“Don’t be afraid, Captain.”

Lanthe looked sharply at Tairo, ready to insist that she wasn’t afraid. But she couldn’t deny the hairs standing on the nape of her neck. “You shouldn’t prey on the superstitious and impressionable mind of the commoner, my lord. It’s mean.”

Tairo laughed. “You never struck me as the superstitious sort, Captain. But if I’ve frightened you, you shouldn’t worry. If there’s a right and a wrong side to the story, Yelhwa and Yao are on the wrong side this time. On the side of hubris.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lanthe sighed, “because we’re making camp here.” She nodded to a level space just ahead.

Defying gravity, wind-weathered trees clung to the slopes, their roots like ancient fingers clutching handfuls of soil in place. Here, a few trees had joined their gnarled hands to anchor a patch of earth broad enough to fit the two soldiers and their horses.

“You want to stop here?” Tairo said. “So close to the border?”

“What’s the matter?” Lanthe threw back. “Afraid to sleep among the ghosts?”

“No. I just think it’s a bit exposed.” He was right. The scraggly branches wouldn’t hide much come sunrise, but hiding couldn’t be a priority in these hills.

“The horses won’t keep their footing in the dark.” Lanthe had been guiding Fidget with a hand firm on the reins beneath the creature’s silky chin. Calm. But the mare’s hooves were slipping more as the light waned. “The lacking cover may not matter, in the end. The closer we are to the border, the more likely it’ll seem that we really did just sneak in from Ro and you are who you say.”

“Right,” Tairo said, “but I thought we weren’t planning to get captured yet.”

“We can’t control when we get captured,” Lanthe said, trying to come to terms with the uncertainty herself. She had thought she was ready, but as the daylight faded and the wind rose, she found her hand clenching too hard on Fidget’s reins. Calm, she willed herself as the horse shifted nervously on the uneven ground. “What we can control is whether our transportation survives the descent. Set down here. I’ll take first watch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If border guards show up, we throw down our weapons and surrender before they get a chance to start stabbing.” They had only brought full weaponry with them because wild animals were common in these hills. If they met a lion, surrendering wouldn’t do them much good; they’d want their guns.

“Maybe the land here is still angry with Ro after all,” Tairo grunted as he settled on his bedroll. “I think the rocks are rearranging themselves to hurt my back.”

“You’re twenty-five, Chang Tairo. You’re ten years too young yet to complain about your back. Go to sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lanthe settled down with her glaive propped against her shoulder and her pistol at her side, loaded and half-cocked. She stayed awake longer than she should have, past the apex of the sliver moon and its descent behind the abandoned guard tower. Tairo was the lord. He was the one who would need to do the talking when they inevitably encountered Yao in the first phase of their plan. He needed the sleep more than she did.

Sagging against the shaft of her weapon, Lanthe fought to keep her eyes open in darkness nearly indistinguishable from the insides of her eyelids. Even now, so many years after that night at the Angtei border, she would still hear wolves sometimes, when darkness swallowed a landscape and her consciousness waned. Something in her would shiver, thinking she heard the rip of cloth, then flesh. Twice, she started to attention, hand on her gun, certain she had heard a man in the jaws of animals. It was only the shriek of wind through the peaks. Damn Tairo and his stories, it really did sound like the dead.

The third time, Lanthe yelped aloud, startling the horses, and finally shook Tairo awake.

“I’m not lucid anymore, lieutenant,” she murmured, clinging a moment longer than necessary to the warmth of his shoulder. “Your turn.”

Tairo groaned and groped for his weapons. “You alright, Captain?”

“Yes.” Lanthe’s tone was too clipped. “Of course.”

“Ah.” The smile was audible in Tairo’s voice. “Heard from the ghosts, have you?”

“Shut up,” Lanthe muttered before tumbling onto her bedroll and into unconsciousness.

Impact jolted Lanthe from sleep.

Before her consciousness caught up, her fingers were on the grip of her sword. The weapon was halfway out of its sheath when a boot came down on her wrist, pinning it in place. Lanthe’s mind woke up in that second heartbeat after her body. She remembered where she was and why—and thanked Heaven she hadn’t beaten the Yao to the draw. Bloodshed here could doom the mission before it began.

The boot heel dug harder into her wrist and pain brought the man over her into focus. A border guard, standing against the dawn in worn lacquer armor. Though Lanthe’s waking animal brain barely registered the man himself, all her attention was on the spearpoint leveled at her throat.

“Drop it!” the man growled in provincial Yao, and Lanthe realized that her right hand was still clenched on her sword.

Stiffly, she opened her fingers, and a second man moved into view to snatch the weapon away. Eyes darting around, Lanthe registered five more guards, surrounding their position. Seven in total. Too many to fend off, even if fighting had been an option.

“Lord Tairo!” she hissed.

“Huh?” Tairo’s voice said groggily behind her. His body shifted against her back, then jerked as he seemed to register the men standing over them. “Oh—shit!”

You had second watch! Lanthe wanted to snap, but they had a more immediate concern: phase one of the plan was here early. “Wake up, my lord. We’re surrendering.”

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