Cakes, cakes, with sweet beans and sugarcane.
After she died, I still sneaked into the kitchen to help the cooks make Mama’s soup. It was the only dish they allowed me to prepare, probably out of pity, and I became good at it. It was what my brothers requested whenever they weren’t feeling well, and despite them being strong, sturdy boys who rarely fell ill, thereweresix of them. I took every bruised ego and scraped knee as an opportunity to hone Mama’s recipe.
Whenever I made it, I felt close to Mama—and happy.Almosthappy, which was all I could ask for these days. It was the only time I forgot about the wretched bowl on my head or that I had been cursed into silence. Or that my brothers were out in the world somewhere, their spirits trapped in the form of cranes, lost to me.
Besides, if I didn’t cook, then Mrs. Dainan did. Her recipes tasted like paper, bland and practically inedible. She would have served stew with donkey dung if it meant saving money, but most of the time she reboiled the leftover bones for a week, throwing in half-rotting vegetables and, I suspected, dishwater.
Naturally, she was furious when she caught me adding extra carrots to the soup and seasoning the rice with the broth of fish bones. But the fishermen took note of how the meals suddenly tasted better than before, and how the rice was fluffy instead of soggy, and how the vegetables crunched under their teeth and freshened their breath. Business swelled, and Mrs. Dainan stopped lecturing me about squandering her ingredients. Instead, she raised prices.
I didn’t like her, but it wasn’t easy for a widow to run her own business. Her struggles showed in the deep grooves on her face, which made her look far older than she must have been. She wasn’t kind, but in her own way, she protected me—at least from her customers.
A soldier grabbed my skirts as I emerged from the kitchen, pulling me toward him. “What’s under the bowl on your head?”
I swung my broom into his face.Don’t touch me.
“Why, you—” He rose angrily, but he was so drunk that he swayed, unable to keep his balance. He tried to throw his wine at me, but he missed. “Demon! Demon!”
Mrs. Dainan spoke up. “Leave her alone. My last girl was more of a demon than this little shrimp. She’s not very bright, but she can cook. You enjoyed your soup this morning, didn’tyou?”
“Then why the bowl?” the soldier slurred.
“She’s just ugly, is all,” Mr. Nasawa said. “So hideous her mother glued it to her head to spare the rest of us from seeing her ugly face.”
Mrs. Dainan, Mr. Nasawa, and the soldier shared a laugh, and I stopped sweeping, my vision blurring with anger. My stepmother had done this, not my mother. It sickened me to think a monster like Raikama was still married to Father, still Kiata’s honored imperial consort. My nails dug into the broom handle.
There had been more men like this soldier at Sparrow Inn lately. Drunk and belligerent, traveling through Tianyi Village on their way to defend the North. Every time a new one passed through, a wave of unease settled over me. Gods, I prayed Father was not preparing us for war.
As if Mrs. Dainan could sense my distraction, she turned sharply, wagging a bony finger at me.
“Stop eavesdropping, Lina,” she barked. “We’re low on firewood. Go get some.”
I grabbed my cloak by the door and exchanged my broom for an ax.
Still fuming, I planted myself in front of the nearest woodpile. The chore used to tire me after only a few swings; the ax felt so heavy it took two arms to lift. Now I hefted it easily in one hand.
With every swing, I let out my anger.
It was no coincidence that Raikama had left me in the most isolated part of Kiata, with no way of getting home.
Had she always used her magic to make us do what she wanted? Was that how she had charmed Father into marrying her? Her, a foreign woman from a faraway land, with no money or title to her name.
Part of me wanted to think it was so, but I knew it wasn’t.
I would have noticed her eyes when she summoned her power, yellow as the summer chrysanthemums that bloomed in our gardens. I would have noticed the stone in her heart, shimmering like obsidian in the moonlight.
Most of all, I would have noticed her face. Her true face. Ridged and hideous, with ivory scales—like a snake’s.
The wind lashed at the bowl on my head, mocking me. There was nothing I could do. I was stranded, alone, with no voice, no face, and no magic.
A hundred times, I’d tried making the dead grass under my shoes green again, tried making the rotten tangerines Mrs. Dainan bought from the market plump and juicy again. Tried folding birds and fish and monkeys out of whatever I could get my hands on—to bring them to life. Once, it had been as simple as a word, a thought, a wish. Every day I tried and tried again, refusing to give up.
But whatever magic I’d had was gone. Little more than a dream.
One last swing, and the wood cracked and groaned. I stepped out of the way as the log split in two, and wiped sweat from my brow.
Maybe magic wasn’t the answer. Maybe I had to find another way.
I raised my ax to the next round of wood and gathered my strength.
