Chapter 4 | Ikara

4

 IKARA

✦ ✦ ✦

The streets of Kaguri are more packed than they should be, filled with northerners who came to see the glory of the south. It takes me a while to hunt down the neighborhood I’m looking for—even then, I have to double-check the address Danyu gave me that day at the market, because I haven’t been here in years.

Were it not for the deep-seated affection the rich merchants here have for me—my father always took me with him on his trade outings—I wouldn’t be allowed on this soil. This is a city crawling with Yulai, after all. Embarrassing though it is to hear them tell their relatives stories of six-year-old Ikara charming candy out of vendors and jumping up to disturb tinkly bell chimes hanging from stall roofs, it’s worth the free food. 

As it stands, Danyu and Bari Hiunjie are my favorites of Pater’s old friends. Bari is Geujinese, but she is an exception to my distaste for most of them. Danyu is from Zhenguan and speaks with a large, belly-deep accent that endears me to him, while Bari is motherly and worrisome and has a habit of commenting on how skinny I am, if only as an excuse to cook for me more.

Like I said, it’s worth the free food.

I reach Mr. Hiunjie’s shop and stop to admire it for a while. It is relatively small compared to the others on the block, but still large, with squat walls braced beneath navy roofs and a set of polished stone steps leading up to the porch. Dangling from small frostflare lanterns clinging to the roof are strips of paper that read ONLY AT HIUNJIE’S in bright crimson ink, their underbellies flashing gold when the wind flutters past them.

The inns and apothecaries along this street are decades old, the skyscrapers and spires brushing the horizon towering over it like an animal puffing out its chest. The Dominance wanted to adapt it so it looked like the rest of the city through and through, but someone—a Yulai official, maybe—paid for it to remain the same. Either as a tribute to our ancestors or because our leaders can’t spare the funds to do it anyway, I don’t know. These parts are stooped but they stand proud, the marks of tradition pressed into their frames and breathed into their structure.

As I enter the shop, I run my hand along the simple architrave of the round doors, my fingertips smoothing down stray splinters of the gray-blue ice osier wood. Then I stop before the threshold to take in the scope of the place.

It hasn’t changed in the last five years. Two cream-colored shojis on either side of the area block off other rooms, while the main area is mainly obscured by small lantern-topped tables scattered here and there. The smell of this place—lavender, ginseng, and warmth, like softly-made clothes—makes me close my eyes. Here, in the earliest hours of the morning, all is quiet—both the shop and the living space set above it.

Before I learned to put my fingers to work, our family stayed with the Hiunjies, since Danyu was the only one of my father’s business associates who looked on us with compassion and not empty pity. We slept on the third floor and payed our due by keeping out of the way when business flooded into the shop or customers flocked to the restaurant. Sometimes I couldn’t help but glance down the fifth floor landing and watch all those Yulai gathered in one place, united by hunger but not starvation, the rings on their fingers shining like stars the sky couldn’t hold. Sometimes I couldn’t help but envy them.

I step into the room and nearly jump when a set of wind chimes stationed above me loudly announce my arrival.

“Shop is closed, shop is closed!” a deep voice laced with exasperation booms in English, the common tongue. A shadow appears behind the leftmost shoji and slides it open, revealing a short, round man with dark hair and crinkles around his warm-toned eyes. “The restaurant opens in two hours! Come back tomorrow to buy—” He stops at the sight of me. “Ikara! When did you get here?”

Before I can even open my mouth to reply, he bustles across the room and pulls me against him, a wheeze of surprise escaping me as he crushes me in a bear hug. He pulls back and looks at me, his eyes flitting across every inch of my face as if trying to confirm whether I’m real. Finally he reaches up to ruffle my hair and grumbles, “Bah! You’re getting too tall.”

I almost smile. “Good to see you, too.”

“Well, come in, come in. What are you waiting for? You brought the goods, I expect?” He glances at me sidelong when we’re halfway across the room, eyeing the bundle of clothes I carry with me, and adds, “Not that you had to, of course, but—”

“Mr. Hiunjie,” I interrupt, “please. We’ve gone over this before.” I slip my boots off and set them by the small heap of other shoes near the threshold, the polished wooden floorboards creaking beneath me. “Is your wife here?”

As if on cue, another figure appears beside the rightmost shoji, and both our heads turn to see who it is.

Bari Hiunjie is taller and slimmer than her husband, but they share the same kind gaze and the same smooth lily-white skin. A cluster of golden leaves adorns her neck, their edges winking white when she slants her head. Her stained apron is loosely tied around her waist, and flyaway strands of hair gather at her nape, her dark eyes flickering as she surveys the room with the air of a woman who knows she’s being talked about.

At the sight of me, Bari smiles, crosses the room with fluid steps, and envelops me in her arms. I stiffen but allow her to embrace me. When she pulls away, she smiles and says, “I knew I heard my name.”

“I brought you this.” I hold out the bundle of fabric draped over my arms like a shawl. 

Danyu’s wife steps back and takes the hem of the first dress in her hands, running her thumbs over the fine-cut surface. I watch as she picks apart each layer, unfolding silks and furs and fabrics in jewel tones—things I didn’t bother looking at properly, though she seems to like them anyway.

Bari looks back up at me, and for a moment I think she’s going to hug me again, but all she says is: “My gods, Ikara, you didn’t have to get me all this!”

I shrug, trying not to feel too pleased at the way her smile widens. “I had money to spend.”

She laughs, but it’s sharp and frayed, like she knows I have never spoken those words before and probably never will again. She touches my arm with two fingers and asks, “Should we go into the kitchen? I need to grab your stuff, and I’m sure the children want to know you’re here.”

When I nod, she clasps my arm and steers me toward the shoji she came through, even while Danyu calls after us in a tone of feigned offense. “Oh, don’t mind me! I’ll just stay here all alone, setting the tables!”   

His wife’s lip twitches as she leads me into the kitchen.

The space is comfortable and large, but humid. Steam rises from every boiling pot and sugirue blubber blazes in the hearth. The ginseng smell is a lot stronger here, lingering among the faint taste of spices. Young servants flit here and there, carrying empty dishes and tidying linen napkins, while older ones defrost cabbage and fruit and press newly-baked sweetmeats into heat cells to keep the food warm.   

Bari eases the pile of clothes out of my arms, gathering them into her own. “Make yourself at home. I need to put these away and grab your stuff.”

With a dazzling smile, she whisks away to some unseen part of the vast room.

When she’s gone, I look around without really seeing anything. The Hiunjies haven’t had any more children since their daughter Rukkeiva’s death, yet, coupled with their many servants and waiters and waitresses, this whole place is practically family-owned. The last time I saw them they’d opened nine different restaurants across three different cities; this one must hold the most memories if they’ve decided not to move.

The promise of warming myself by the fire lures me to the other end of the kitchen. Avoiding arms and hovering dishes, I sidle beside the hearth and am just about to make myself comfortable when someone clears their throat, making me jump. I turn and see a stout elderly woman holding a large kettle in her arms, her satin-black bangs pulled back to reveal the sharp edges of her face. She looks Geujinese, but her faint accent leans toward Yatahaman.

“You’re holding up the line,” she says, sounding amused more than annoyed. She nods to the small group of kids behind her, all of whom carry tottering plates weighted down with luxury cuisine.    

“Oh. Sorry.” I lean against the wall to make room for them to pass, my heels scraping the stone floor. The children file past me like lambs dutifully following a shepherd, some of them glancing at me curiously, others falling back to bask in the warmth of the hearth without looking too idle.

Once they’re gone, the elder stoops long enough to place the kettle over the crackling fire, then straightens and moves to the counter in front of the hearth without looking at me once. I watch as she slides an open box from beneath the shadows and grabs a glowing steel canister out of its depths.

“You ever used a bolt canister before?” she asks without looking up.

I blink. “A what?”

“A bolt canister.” She rattles the container for emphasis.

When I shake my head, she pulls a stool from the corner of the room, lifts herself onto it with surprising nimbleness, and inserts the bolt canister into some unseen hollow in the roof. For a moment, nothing happens. Then whatever glowing liquid the canister holds empties into a network of tubes embedded into the ceiling, lighting up the room in one quick motion. I look away a second too late, so that by the time the tubes stop flickering, their outline has already stained my eyelids.

 I blink the stains away and look incredulously at the elder, who seems unfazed.

“New and improved lighting,” she explains, stepping off the stool. “Danyu was all for it, but Ms. Bari preferred the traditional way. Eventually he managed to convince her bolt energy would last a lot longer than candles and weak matches.” She looks at me when I don’t reply, taking my silence for incredulity. “See for yourself if you don’t believe him.”

I would rather not subject my eyes to that kind of torture again, but she looks so expectant that I kneel and reach for the last bolt canister in the box.

 The second my fingers close around the container, a shock shoots up my arm, making my hand jump away from the surface. I clench my stinging hand into a fist, the nerves in my fingertips buzzing. My palm feels empty—too empty, like a connection was broken that wasn’t there before.

Aware of the elder’s stare on me, I unclench my hand and rock back to my feet, squinting my eyes at the bright light.

“He was right. He was definitely right,” I say, wiping my palm on the side of my trousers in an attempt at nonchalance.

“Told you.” A faint smile plays about the elder’s lips. Thank the Seven, she doesn’t seem to have noticed anything. “I’m Taeko.”

“I’m—”

“I know who you are,” Taeko says. “Danyu told me about you. Masako and Nakenji’s oldest kid, right?”

I stiffen, all attempts at nonchalance gone. It feels wrong to hear Pater’s name—Nakenji—on someone else’s lips, a word we haven’t forgotten in my household but never say anyway. Wronger still to hear it said so casually, without any weight holding it down, making it harder to swallow.

Nakenji. That’s it—no title, no honorary prefix. I never knew his surname.

I can only bring myself to nod, acknowledging her dangling question. Then I gesture to the roof, indicating the bright tubes, and ask, “Why are they called bolt canisters?”

“It refers to what the energy is made of.”At my bemused look, Taeko raises an eyebrow. “Surely you aren’t that clueless about what the legends say?”

“The legends?” In ancient times, there used to be a force in Sora that protected the peoples from wild tempests. They say that when the force disappeared from Sora, it took the Realm’s verdure with it. That was when our Realm became barren, set apart from Avairis and Ethur, forever cold and unyielding. 

Surely you’re not that clueless about what the legends say.

Lightning. The legends say the force was made of lightning.

So that’s why the bolt energy reacted to my touch.

Taeko opens her mouth to say something else, but before she can, Bari returns laden with the goods she left to retrieve—three sacks of rice, a net of tempura, and a bag of round orange fruits that glimmer in the firelight like burning suns.

“Oh good, you’re still here,” Bari says to me. “I thought you’d gone off with Danyu to see the decorations. Do you want me to set your things here until after the air performance, or would you mind holding them?”

I snap out of my daze at that. “Air performance?”

Her smile falls. “Aren’t you staying for Kemyoto?”

Kemyoto. Treasured Find. I’ve been avoiding the end-of-spring festival for the past few weeks, mainly because I know I won’t be able to do anything special for my family on the occasion. A full breakfast, maybe, or a quick walk through the market. Before my other siblings were born, Pater used to take us to see noh plays in Yurue, where Iko and I would giggle and whisper in the darkness of the theater and then Mater would shush us because others were trying to follow the story.

But that was when we had money to spend.

And I really need to get going.

“Erm . . .” I hesitate, grappling for an excuse. “I wouldn’t want to bother you and Danyu, since you’re taking the day off for the festivities, right?”

The two women exchange a glance, like they’re passing their shared bemusement back and forth. When Bari returns her gaze to me, the corner of her lip twitches with the effort of suppressing a laugh. “Taking the day off? Ikara, we’re going to be packed for as long as the festival lasts—and that includes today. I just thought maybe you’d like to see the air performers and their tempests before the place gets crowded with customers.” She pauses, her lips slightly parted, and then adds, “I know you don’t enjoy company, so I planned ahead.”

I am so taken aback by her thoughtfulness—and the fact that she knows me so well—that it takes me a hot minute to respond. “Well . . .”

Again, I hesitate. This time my thoughts stray to my siblings, who are probably expecting me to slip through the front door at any moment, my arms laden with treats and greenhouse fruits and none of the sour ice-osier syrup we have to eat almost every day—

“. . . I can spare a few minutes,” I finish, and Bari beams. 

✦ ✦ ✦

In no time, Only at Hiunjie’s is flooded with Yulai seeking the promise of warmth and homemade food.

The women arrive first, flaunting their festive shades like peacocks, their kosode sleeves decorated with floral patterns and their white tabi peeking from beneath their frothy skirts; their husbands and sons follow soon after, the fronts of their happi decorated with crests belonging to noble Kagurian families I know nothing of. Even from my perch atop the first floor stairwell, I can hear Danyu’s voice echoing like a gong as he greets them all in stilted Hanaki. He never told me to keep out of the way—he’s too kind to—but I came here before he could.

Laughter sounds downstairs, followed by a round of cheers, and then the sound of someone strumming a handful of opening notes on a koto. I run my thumbs across my hands, feeling the press of my gloves against my knuckles. 

“What do you think?”

The stair I’m sitting on creaks loudly as I turn, nearly overturning the bags of food beside me. Bari stands before me in one of the dresses I brought her, her leaf necklace peeking beneath her collar in a slash of gold. Her face is void of cosmetics or kohl and her hair is pulled back simply, but the flashy colors of her qipao—probably worn in honor of her husband’s Zhenguanese heritage—make up for it.

“You look great,” I blurt out, because she does.

“No, no.” She laughs. “I meant what do you think of this?”

I look at the jade kimono draped over her arms and freeze like she’s brandishing a sword at me.

I groan. “Bari—”

“It’ll go well with your eyes!” she insists, her gaze pleading. “Please, Ikara? I hardly see you in anything but that parka. You wore it all the time when you were a little girl.” 

“I won’t look festive in that,” I say, a weak excuse.

“Oh, you’ll be fine. Wouldn’t it be nice for a change?”

She looks so hopeful that I manage a reluctant, “Alright.”

She grins and holds out her arms. I shed my parka, and she pulls the garment over my head, covering my weathered trousers with the flowing skirt. At least this way, I get to keep my gloves. No one can see them either way.

Bari unpins my hair, letting it swing over my back, and pinches my cheeks to bring color to my skin. I wish she wouldn’t. “There, now don’t you look nice?”

The color is nice, but the fabric feels heavy and the kimono is too wide through the shoulders, so it hangs off my frame. Either Bari doesn’t notice my discomfort or the question was rhetorical, because she doesn’t wait for an answer; she just smiles again and bustles down the stairs, her voice preceding her descent.

“Oh, and would you grab your parka, dear? We can throw it in the bin on the way out.”

My face flushes. Even if Bari means well—even if she doesn’t know what that parka means to me—her words still sting. Seven Thrones, why am I so attached to a bundle of fabric? I snatch the food bags and fallen coat from the polished floors and descend the stairs, trying not to stumble over the swish of silk trailing me like a shadow.

A few moments later, I reach the landing, my hands shielding my eyes from the lanternlight pouring into the space. The room is a clash of mixed scents and music, all blurred into one body of people. I spot the owner of the koto, a small man with overlarge ears, sitting by a center table. I’ve never eaten here, but I can see why other people would want to—when you see the community, you can’t help but want to linger, or at least stay long enough to find out why the place is so inviting.

Bari nods to me from across the room before turning and disappearing out the door. I look around for a moment, my teeth digging into my cheek, then I shove my parka into the bag of oranges and follow her.

Outside the shop doesn’t feel as stiflingly jovial as inside, like an imaginary weight’s been lifted from my shoulders. The chill presses against my back and cools my face; childishly, I imagine it expands the distance between me and Bari, too, though I shouldn’t. The thought makes my lip twitch, for some reason.

I try not to stare as more people stream into the restaurant, throwing upturned glances at me and Bari as they pass—Bari because she looks so Geujinese, and me because I look so . . . Kijra. When the crowd has mostly cleared, I set the bags in my arms down by the porch and join the older woman at the foot of the stone steps, knowing it’s what she wants me to do.

“They should be here in a bit,” she says, as if in response to some unasked question. She glances at me. “The air performers. This is the first year they’re appearing in our city—last year it was Chan’angi.”

I hesitate, probably because my question’s going to sound as stupid when spoken as it does in my head. “What do they perform?”

To my relief, Bari takes it in stride. “Nothing over the top. . . . They just kind of swirl and twist in the air.” She wheels her hands in exaggerated demonstration and laughs. “The tempests are pretty. You’ll see.”

The image of a snarling aekor—the largest and most vicious breed of tempest—fills my mind, the exact opposite of what someone would call pretty, but I don’t question her. She’s seen more of these performances than I have, after all.

“This is only my second one,” she tells me, and I realize, with a rush of sudden shame, that I said that last part aloud. She laughs again, but this time it has an edge of sadness to it. “I don’t know much about Yatahaman festivals or culture. I don’t even know how to say ‘my name is Bari’ in your language—I have to get by with the common tongue.”

“Kyasukei-bari,” I say in Hanaki. It is all I can offer her. “That’s how you say it.”

She turns to look at me, her surprise reflecting my own.

“Kyasukei-bari,” she repeats thoughtfully. Her Geujinese accent, sharp and thick, butchers the words, but at least she’s trying.

My eyes lift to the sky, imagining its blue depths full of light and color and tempests. If I’d known the air performers were coming, I would’ve brought my siblings with me—or at least one of them. That way I’d spend my time listening to their cheers and squeals and not the sound of my own gnawing guilt at leaving them alone for so long. At any rate, at least they have Mater.

“Where did you get it?” Bari asks abruptly.

I startle, looking away from the sky. “Get what?”

“The money for the dresses.”

I stare at her for a moment, not comprehending. Something about the way her question is slanted tells me she’s not asking because she’s actually interested in the answer; she’s asking because she knows what I’ll say, and she wants to hear me say it. I’ve stolen dozens of times before, but thinking of it now makes me shift uncomfortably against the porch railing. Stupid Yulai virtue.

Choosing my words carefully, I respond, “I didn’t acquire it through honest means.”

Bari seems to understand—a bit too well, judging by the expression on her face. She slides her hand into mine and looks at me, really looks at me, for the first time today.

“Sometimes,” she says quietly, “we must lose our innocence so others can keep theirs.”

The quote is Yatahaman, one of many maxims my mother taught me that I forgot out of ignorance—or indifference, I’m not sure which. No wonder Bari gets along with her so well.

I lift my gaze; she’s still looking at me. Even with her smooth skin, her fullness, her privilege, I find it hard to believe that she’s not speaking from experience. Maybe I’m not the only one who’s gotten her hands dirty, whether for herself or for others.

We stand in silence for a while, my palm slowly warming in hers.

Then a roar splinters the air.

The noise is so loud it could split my head, but so musical that I don’t want to cover my ears. Bari and I both jump as another roar follows the first, our hands dislodging.

“Seven Thrones,” she swears in her excitement. She turns and shouts through the doorway, “Danyu! The performers are here!” though I don’t think anyone required the heads-up.

A shrill ring taps my ears as I watch her rush back into the house, every part of me rattling down to my core, the blood in my veins replaced with adrenaline. Feeling giddy for no reason, I rush down the porch steps into the street and step back to see the sky, and there they are.

Six tempests and their riders circle the expanse way above the neighborhood roofs, a swish of color. Two are pearl-white yemikhas, their underbellies a shining gold; two are silver taikaelys, their eyes a bright moon-yellow; and two are swift bloodred galamés that dart between the other four like lightning bolts that don’t know where to strike.

The riders are dressed for Kemyoto, their faces painted with fresh swirls of scarlet and gold and their wrists decorated with ribbons wrapped in enchanted quickflame, which clings to whatever it touches. They are bright and bold and everything and nothing and—

A smile tilts my lips, and this time I don’t push it down. “Bari was right,” I murmur to the sky. “They are pretty.”

Bari and Danyu soon return accompanied by a circle of customers and Yulai neighbors flocking to watch the show—I even spot the koto player at the back of the crowd, holding his instrument in both hands. Sooner or later the street is flooded with festivalgoers, all donned in heavy silks and jewel tones, gold pins and silver rings. I step to the side, mainly to better see the show, but also for some space to breathe.

First come the twists, the spins and spine-tingling dips and gaps. The galamés weave above and below the yemikhas, who spiral into elegant curves to make way for the passing taikaelys, all moving in rehearsed unison.

The taikaelys have always been my favorite creatures. They are the storm tempests, the breed associated with Demetria, goddess of lightning and hunting. Their presence exudes a sense of steadiness that I can’t describe, an inscrutability that draws me to them.

The Yulai, even the ones who have probably seen more than one of these shows, gasp and cheer and weep every other second, like they can’t decide how they should feel. Their voices flit through my ears, one after the other.

“The Seven have blessed us!”

“Make a wish!”

“Did you see that dive?”

The performers toss their flaming ribbons over their heads and then catch them one-handed; they dive toward the street, their tempests’ wings briefly bathing us in darkness, only to propel themselves back upward to shrieks of delight. While we’re still reeling from the shock, they shower us with sweets taken from their saddles, at which point Bari—when did she reach my side?—grabs my arm and laughs into my ear.

“Aren’t you glad you stayed, Ikara?”

Stayed. The word is simple enough to stall my thoughts. If I’d stayed home, my family would have no food, but I also wouldn’t be celebrating Kemyoto without them. If I’d stayed long enough for the guards at the gate to apprehend me, if I’d stayed to watch the fleeting expressions of disgust on the dress merchant’s and her assistant’s faces, things would be different—but they are not.

“Oh, let the poor girl alone,” Danyu cuts across my musing, throwing a thick arm across both our shoulders and nearly knocking me upside the head in the process. “Just enjoy the show!”

His wife says something that’s drowned by another round of cheers, but it makes Danyu chuckle. 

I watch the festivalgoers scramble for cover as the sky rains candy; the jolt of guilt in me dulls a fraction, so subtly that I barely notice it’s there. And then I’m laughing, too, but at the same time still craning my neck to see the riders. They move so fast that my eyes can only register one trick at a time without getting vertigo, yet I don’t seem to miss a thing. I don’t want to, either.

Is this what every day is like for the rich: always laughing, never worrying? Always full and whole and together, never wondering whether the contents of their pockets will be enough for them to feed themselves at the day’s end? Always abundant, never afraid to face their family with empty hands?

 I wouldn’t know. This taste of Yulai life is much too little for me to be satisfied, but it’s also too much for me to fully enjoy, so I brush away the thought and let Bari pull me back into the crowd.

It is a long time before I smell the smoke.