Jebi tried to sort out their inconvenient feelings about Vei as they watched the priest anoint Vei with that same clear liquid. Vei and Chuora took up their positions several paces apart, each poised with their hands above their swords’ hilts. The priest raised their hands.
“Here we go,” Zakan mouthed, her eyes bright. “Don’t you worry.”
The crowd roared Chuora’s name, chanting it until the syllables blurred.
The priest spoke—or anyway, their lips moved; Jebi couldn’t hear a word.
Forever after Jebi would remember how Vei looked: her long hair swept up into a chignon so it wouldn’t get in the way, her brow marked with red paint, her jacket whipping about her slim, poised form. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the murkiness of the light made her into a phantasm of a bygone spring. I could paint you, Jebi thought, and my sister would kill me for it.
Jebi didn’t have the space to pull out their sketchbook again, but it didn’t matter. The image had already burned itself into their brain.
Then the priest brought their arms down, slicing through the air like an executioner’s stroke.
Both duelists leapt forward. Jebi’s eyelids felt as though they had frozen open. Not that it made a difference. They didn’t know what to look for; couldn’t follow motions that swift.
Two blades flashed in the winter sunlight, so quick that they were visible only as blazing crescent blurs.
Jebi’s throat ached. Only then did they realize that they had, damningly, screamed Vei’s name. Not Dzuge or Master Dzuge, which would have been proper, but her personal name: Vei.
They held their breath, wondering. Then Vei was on the other side of the platform, as though she had simply translated across the intervening space. Blood dripped from her blade. Jebi swore they could hear it hitting the platform, impossible as that was.
Then they saw Chuora. Vei had slashed him from hip to collarbone, nearly cleaving him in two. Jebi was suddenly glad they hadn’t rented the balcony long enough to down more than one or two of the cookies, because they would have vomited it all up. Oh, they’d seen dead people before—everyone had, who had lived through the consolidation—but not like this. Not freshly dead people.
And not over... at this point Jebi realized that they had no idea why Chuora and Vei had dueled each other. And it was a little late to ask. A matter of honor, they presumed, since the Razanei cared about such things. And never mind that Vei was only—‘only’—half-Razanei.
As the crowd keened its grief for the beloved Master Chuora, Jebi stood numbly, wondering if they had wanted Vei to live or die.
SEVEN
ZAKAN TACTFULLY DIDN’T attempt to engage Jebi in conversation on the way back to the Summer Palace. Jebi wasn’t making any secret of their mood. At first they fretted that they wouldn’t be able to return before Dzuge Vei did, but they needn’t have worried. The rituals of the duel, to say nothing of the combination of mourning and celebration—a few people had in fact supported Vei, outnumbered though they were—meant that Vei was unlikely to extricate herself from the crowd anytime soon.
The rest of the day passed in a haze, as did the ones following it. Jebi wished they’d stayed out longer. It might have been nice to see the night sky again, and lose themself in the study of the winter constellations. The stars reminded them of their sister and her fascination with stories of the celestials.
Jebi longed to ask around and find out if Bongsunga missed them yet. Unfortunately, even though they went up topside again to indulge in roasted chestnuts and buns stuffed with sweet red bean paste, they had no luck shaking their watcher. Frustrated, Jebi fantasized about the things they would say to Bongsunga, even though they knew everything would end in her telling them I told you so.
By the time Vei returned to the Summer Palace, Jebi had thrown themself back into studying Issemi’s notes to double-check their work. They had a solution in mind, but not one that they dared show to Nehen. Since they wouldn’t have the usual safeguard of a second pair of eyes on the new grammar they planned on giving Arazi, they had to make absolutely certain that nothing would go wrong.
The artisans of the Summer Palace remained reluctant to discuss the Ppalgan-Namu incident with Jebi. But Jebi knew of one more witness, if they could only coax it to talk: the dragon itself. After all, who knew better what Arazi had done than Arazi itself?
Jebi remembered what Nehen had told them about contradictions and choices, and attempted to communicate with the automata that guarded the cafeteria. The human guards in their blue uniforms gave Jebi carefully neutral looks as Jebi approached. “You just missed the last of the extra desserts,” the taller one said.
“Oh, I don’t mind that,” Jebi said, although they wouldn’t have minded the flower-shaped cookies that the kitchens had been producing lately, in lopsided imitation of Hwagugin sweets. “Can I talk to the automata?”
The other guard, a squat fellow with a birthmark along the side of his face, shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to us one way or the other. They’re not exactly great conversationalists.”
“Thanks,” Jebi said, turning to face the automata. “Do you understand me?” they asked.
The automata stared blankly back at them.
“Can you nod, or sign?” Jebi tried. Some of the vendors at the market that Bongsunga frequented had been deaf, and communicated by signing. Jebi didn’t know the details, but surely the automata would have come up with the solution for themselves even if they didn’t have voices.
The automata didn’t move.
One of the servants cleaning up dishes in the cafeteria pointed at the spectacle Jebi was making of themself and grinned. Another, speaking in Hwamal, whispered back something unflattering about Rassanin and their airs. Jebi flushed, but didn’t react. They knew they looked ridiculous, and besides, they didn’t want to get the servants in trouble if the guards didn’t understand them.
“It was worth a try,” Jebi said. The grammars of standard automata hadn’t allowed for that kind of intelligence or reactivity, but they’d wanted to be sure.
But they’d studied the initial grammar Issemi had given Arazi. Not only had the grammar involved more advanced glyphs—enough, Issemi hinted, to give the dragon intelligence equivalent to a human’s—she had also used the rarest pigments, such as Phoenix Extravagant. The pigment Jebi needed the most, though, was fortunately extremely common: Chirping Cicada, which represented the desire to communicate one’s ideas—a motive shared by many artists. They thought they saw a way to modify certain glyphs so the two of them could share thoughts without speaking them aloud, a device they had seen in one of Bongsunga’s adventure novels and one that would be handy to avoid being overheard by the guards.
“Sorry it didn’t work out,” the squat guard said. “Like I told you, they’re no good for witty banter.”
“You did warn me,” Jebi agreed, and retreated to the workshop. They opened up their sketchbook, in which they’d written in deliberately terrible handwriting to reduce the chance that anyone would spy on their notes. In fact, that probably made their scribblings look more suspicious, but no one had commented on it—yet. They kept hesitating over the matter of contradiction and choice. If they forced the dragon to always tell the truth, it would just as easily reveal Jebi’s questioning to anyone who asked. If they gave it a choice, the dragon might lie to them.