The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(54)

“North?” Min repeated. “Me? I am to go to the war front? But my mother will never allow it.”

“I know girls your age tell their mothers everything, but you’re a married woman now, so can you keep this confidence for your husband? Even from her?”

“Yes . . . I th-think so,” she said, because she knew it was what he wanted to hear.

“Good,” said Brother. “Then we will all go north. Your cousin will become the greatest emperor of the greatest empire known to man. And you are the key—you, in the service of your husband. My dear, are you ready to serve him?”

The monk’s words were so lofty as to be meaningless. A hundred questions and fears sprang to Min’s mouth, prickling and buzzing like insects. To ask them though would reveal her stupidity.

“Yes,” she said instead. “I’m ready.”

A lie. The accusation crackled within her like an ember flaring back to life. It sounded like someone else . . .

Min flinched. When she looked up again, Set’s gaze was fixed upon her with a keen intensity she had never seen before—never warranted, she supposed. It burned with delight, with intrigue.

A lie, a lie, a lie . . .

“I’m ready,” she repeated, hoping desperately against hope that somehow she could make it true.



But as soon as the doors to her apartments slid closed behind Brother and Set, the tears fell. They streaked hot down her face, falling from her chin to leave dark fingerprints on her white robes. Without the glowing attention of the two men, all she had left was herself, and her fears.

She would never bear children. Never give Set sons—heirs. And they wanted her to go north, ride into war with them. The very notion filled her with a terrible, wordless terror, consuming as fire.

She had scarcely left the capital in her life, save for summer visits to the palace by the lake, and that fateful trip up to the slipskin encampments when she’d been a little girl. But they’d traveled by carriage and palanquin then—luxurious gilded wheel houses with silk pillows and her nunas close by to fan her sweaty face and pour her cold drinks. She couldn’t begin to imagine what riding into war would look like, but she suspected there would be no silk pillows.

She slid down boneless until her face touched the cool of the floor. What will I do?

Lu would know. But Lu was gone. And Min knew, with each timid beat of her despairing heart, that she was not Lu. Hadn’t that always been the problem?

Help me, she thought. A desperate prayer—but to whom? There was no one left to hear her.

“I am.”

The other girl’s voice slid around inside Min like oil in a glass. “I’m still here.”

Fear shot through her, pulling her upright. “You!” she cried. “But Brother, he . . . he—”

“Killed me?” the shamaness concluded with sweet scorn. “I died long ago, before you were born.”

Min frowned, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of a hand. “W-who are you? What do you want?”

The shamaness sighed, as though disappointed. “The question is, what do you want, Min?”

“I—I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Aren’t you? You’re a liar, Min, and that’s what liars do.”

“I’m not!” Stupidly, tears welled in her eyes again.

“You are. Listen to me: in this world, there are only fools and liars. Fools are largely ordinary, but every now and then one will be born who is blessed—golden. Golden fools are beautiful, so they can afford to be honest. They float above the rest of us, wearing their pretty truths on their breast like a badge.”

Lu, Min thought, and it was like a cold finger prodding the meat of her heart.

“The rest of us aren’t allowed such luxuries. We’re too twisted and cruel and ugly. If people saw what we were—well, that is why we must lie, isn’t it?”

“We . . . ,” Min repeated softly. Her tongue was thick and slow in her mouth, like running in a dream. Perhaps this is all just a dream, she allowed herself to think. Stupid. She knew what this was, even if she couldn’t admit it.

“Yes, Min,” the shamaness continued as though she had heard. Perhaps she had. “We. You know what you are. You’ve always known.”

“No, no, I’m not, I won’t—”

“Don’t be sad, you silly girl,” chided the shamaness, and it was so playful as to be scornful. “Golden fools are all alike, but there are so many different kinds of liars. We’re forced to toil, nothing is given to us that we don’t tear our fingers to the bone digging for, but liars are so full of possibility. There’s nothing that can’t be won with a well-crafted lie. Why, in the right light, a liar might even glint like gold.”

Her voice was beautiful and hideous in equal measure, a hoarse singsong both sweet as a child’s and guttural as a death rattle, with none of the harsh crackle of the fire-creature in the brazier.

“What do you want?” Min whispered.

“I want the same thing you do.”

Min closed her eyes. Each word seemed to scrape and claw away at her, leaving her raw and open all over.

“But I don’t know what I want,” she insisted again.