by Jamie Lackey
in Issue 134, March 2023
My mother and the monk whispered in a corner while I stared down at my baby brother. I didn’t need to eavesdrop to know what they were talking about—it was written on the baby’s stupid fat face. The mark of an eagle’s talon stood out in red against his dark tan skin, right over his left eye.
It was an idiotic place for the mark of the chosen one. I’d always thought so, and now I could see it in reality. Why didn’t the gods put it on his foot or chest or something? Even his neck or hands would be easier to cover up. He stirred in his sleep, waving his tiny fists.
“Yeah,” I whispered, brushing the thin black hair back from his forehead, “that’s right. Practice those punches. You’ll need to be able to fight.”
I’d wanted a baby sister. My father had hoped for a son to work his fishing boat. Instead, my mother got what she wanted. A son destined to lead our people to freedom.
And now, she was crying.
“You know that he won’t be safe here, Maya,” the monk said, no longer whispering. “He has to come with me.” He was a large man, all muscle and power, and my mother was tiny next to him.
But my mother shook her head. “He’s my baby. Mine. I should raise him. The gods gave him to me for a reason.”
“His very existence is a testament to your faith. But you can’t protect him. He will be taken and killed within a fortnight if he stays.”
“Then let me go with him.”
I blinked back angry tears. I shouldn’t be surprised that she’d want to leave, that she’d choose him over me. Who wouldn’t? He was the chosen one, after all.
“No, Maya. We can’t take a woman in—it would draw too much notice.”
“Who will nurse him? He’s not yet a day old—he needs milk.”
“We have taken in infants at the temple before. He will not starve.”
“Taking him away from his family isn’t right.”
“Think how much good he can do. Do you really want to risk that, Maya?”
“What about me?” I asked. I could make choices, too. Maybe, if I chose him, it would hurt less when everyone else did, too. “I could go with him. I can blend in at the temple. People think I’m a boy all of the time.”
They both turned and stared at me.
“I wouldn’t mind pretending to be a boy,” I said. In fact, the idea appealed to me. I’d always thought working on my father’s boat seemed more interesting than my mother’s work around our house. “And then at least he’d have a part of his family with him.”
“No, you can’t take both of them,” my mother said. Tears streamed down her face.
But the monk ignored her. He knelt, so that our eyes were level. “Our life is not easy,” he said, his eyes locked with mine. “We would train you just like any other recruit. You won’t get any special treatment.”
“So I’ll learn to fight?”
“Yes. But we’ll also shave your head and you have to bind your chest when you’re older.”
“I understand.” I wasn’t afraid of shaving my head or binding my chest—assuming there was ever anything to bind—and I wanted to learn to fight. If I could fight, no one could ever make me do anything I didn’t want to ever again.
“Are you sure you want that?” the monk asked.
It seemed like a simple choice. “Yes.”
“Why?” My mother buried her face in her hands. “Why would you leave me, too?”
I looked at my brother’s tiny hands and feet, at the stupid, obvious mark in his face. He was so tiny and helpless. Even if he was the chosen one. “He’s my brother.”
My mother sobbed.
“I will take both of them,” the monk said. “And you will say that the baby was stillborn and the girl died of a burning fever.”
My mother wiped her tears away and took a few deep, shuddering breaths. Then she pulled me close. “He is the most important person in the world. Promise me you will take care of him.”
My chest ached. “I promise.”
“I’ll tell your father—”
“You’ll tell him the same thing you tell everyone else, Maya.”
“I won’t lie to my husband.”
“Are you so sure you can trust him? Does he never spill secrets in his cups?”
My mother glared at him.
The monk touched her arm. “The fewer who know, the safer the boy will be.”
My mother looked at my brother, traced the birthmark. “Very well,” she said, her voice small and soft. “Where do I say the bodies went?”
“I took them to stop the spread of the fever.”
“Then you’ll have to carry them out of here. If anyone sees them leave with you, all the lies in the world would be for nothing.”
The monk smiled. “I can manage that.”
My mother wrapped me up in my rough bed sheets. “I love you,” she whispered, but her gaze kept straying to my brother. “And your father does, too. We’ll miss you so much. Don’t forget us.”
I wanted to say that I loved her too, to promise that I’d remember their faces till the day I died, but my throat was too tight. I just nodded. She pressed a kiss to my forehead through the cloth, and the monk threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
It hurt, but it would be worth it. I would learn to be strong, like he was.
He placed me in the wagon and nestled the baby next to me. I closed my eyes against the sudden tears and kept my sobs caged in my throat.
The monk unwrapped me on an empty stretch of road, surrounded by barley fields. His hands were gentle, and he was careful not to tangle my hair. “What is your name?” he asked as I stretched and tried to get feeling back into my feet.
“Rani.”
“Does the boy have a name?”
“His name is Ryo.”
“You understand that you have to live as a man, now, Rani?”
I nodded. “I’ll need a new name.”
“You can pick one, if you’d like.”
“Dev.” It was my father’s name, and it felt like a way that he could still be a part of my life.
“Very well. I’ll shave your head now. No one—not even Ryo—can know that you’re a girl. Do you understand, Rani?”
“My name is Dev,” I said.
He smiled at me. “So it is.”
His knife was cold against my scalp, and my hair fell in long strands into the dust along the road. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“I am Brother Wan.”
“Ryo will be safe in the monastery, right?”
“Yes. No one there would ever seek to hurt him, and no one in our order would betray him to our enemies. However, if you are discovered, that is a different matter entirely. You cannot let anyone guess that you are not a boy.”
“Will you be in trouble if someone finds out?”
He shrugged. “I’m often in trouble. But you will be cast out. Women are not welcome in our order. So no one can know. Do you understand?”
“Why can’t women join the order?”
“We are a brotherhood.” He shrugged. “I’ve never really asked why.”
“Can Ryo know that he’s my brother?”
“We’re all brothers in the temple. But yes, he can know that you are related by blood—that you gave up your life to watch over him.”
We traveled for the rest of the day, and I held Ryo close to my chest so that no one could see his birthmark.
We reached the temple at sundown. Brother Wan clapped me on the shoulder. “Welcome to your new home, Dev.”
#
Brother Wei-un stared down at Ryo in awe. He was a tiny, wrinkled man, whose dark skin sagged off of his bones. Tears glistened in the corners of his dark eyes. “I had almost given up hope that this day would come in my lifetime. He will have my chambers.”
“Can I stay with him?” I asked. “I am his si—brother.”
“Of course. It was very dutiful for you to come to watch over him. Did you have any interest in our order before?”
“I’ve always wanted to learn to fight,” I said. “But I’m not very interested in religion.”
Brother Wan shot me a worried look, but I ignored it. If my life here was going to be based on one huge lie, I couldn’t afford any small ones.
“My mother was devout, but my father and I never saw much use in it,” I said.
“Do you see a use now, since your mother’s faith has brought the chosen one into the world?”
I shrugged, remembering her tears. “All it did was lose her both of her children.”
“Then why are you here?” Brother Wei-un asked.
I had thought about that, while I held Ryo to my chest, hiding his face from the world. “Because everyone else will see him as the chosen one. They’ll look at his face and not see beyond that stupid red mark. He needs someone to see him as Ryo.”
“It sounds like you are a good brother to him. I hope you can be a good brother to us, as well. Let me show you to your rooms.”
The bed was a shelf carved into the wall. A woven straw mat and thin blanket were folded neatly on top of it, and another straw mat covered a portion of the cold stone floor. If this was how the head of the order lived, I didn’t really want to see the other rooms.
But it did have one key luxury—a private attached bathing chamber. I hadn’t even considered just how easily my body could betray my secret, and I offered a silent prayer of thanks to whichever god might be watching out for us.
The water was cold, but clean. It was strange to not have hair to wash, and when I saw my reflection in the water I hardly recognized myself.
I wiped dust off of Ryo’s face, traced the mark over his eye. “You’d better be pretty special,” I said.
He reached up and curled his tiny hand around my finger.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got your back, no matter what. Even if you turn out absolutely normal, you’ll still have me. I promise.”
Brother Wan gave me a strip of cotton to bind my chest, a loose tunic, and breeches.
Even though there was nothing to bind, I wrapped my chest before I donned the rest of my clothes. Maybe binding them early would discourage my breasts.
He also gave me a bottle for Ryo.
I eyed the thick mixture warily. It was a gray-green color. “What is it?”
“A sacred formula passed down by our healers. It will sustain him until he can eat solid food. Come on, it’s time for evening meal.”
I carried Ryo in one arm and the bottle in the other. All eyes turned to us as we entered the long dining room. “Brothers, we have two new additions to our number tonight. Please welcome Brother Dev, and his brother, Ryo. As you can see, Ryo carries the mark of the chosen one. After all this time, our faith has been rewarded. He will lead our people out of our suffering. Until then, it is our duty to protect him.”
I expected cheering, but the monks were quiet. They just stared at Ryo with awe in their eyes.
I sat at the end of one of the long tables. Ryo was hungry, but pushed the bottle away after only moments. His fussing was the only sound in the hall.
One of the brothers placed a small bowl of barley stew in front of me.
It was cold by the time I got Ryo to finish his bottle. Everyone was still staring, but at Ryo, not at me. He was in my arms, but I was in his shadow.
“Today, you’ll start your combat training,” Brother Wan said. “Brother Wei-un will watch Ryo.”
I figured Brother Wei-un could be trusted with my brother, and handed the baby over, excited to finally get to learn how to fight.
The small group of boys had been training since they were toddlers, and it showed. They moved against each other like striking snakes, like tigers. I watched in awe.
“Brother Dev will be joining your class.” Brother Wan’s hand was heavy on my shoulder. “Brother Lan, please partner with him and show him the basics.”
One of the boys broke away from the others. He bowed to Brother Wan. “It will be my pleasure.”
Brother Wan bowed back, and departed.
“Thank you,” I said, bowing.
Brother Lan kicked me in the face.
I fell back, blinking away tears. “I bet you think you’re so special,” Brother Lan said. “Brother to the chosen one, lording over everyone at dinner.”
Rage simmered through me. I was intimately aware of how not special I was. I wanted to rip him apart. But there was no way I could beat Lan—he’d been training for years. I spat blood onto the sand. “Are you going to teach me, or just beat me up?”
“Why don’t you learn from the chosen one?” Lan said.
“Are you an idiot? He’s a baby.”
Lan launched himself at me. I managed to cover my face with my arms and curl away from the hardest blows. Eventually, three of the other boys pulled him away.
I tried to assess the damage, by my mind was fuzzy. Everything hurt. I picked myself up slowly.
Another of the boys approached, and I flinched, expecting more blows.
He knelt beside me. “I’m Leehom. I was newest, before you. Lan’s a jerk. Did he break anything?”
I moved gingerly. Everything hurt. But I could still move, and I didn’t want to look weak. “I don’t think so.”
“Good. I’ll show you the basics, if you want.”
“Thanks.”
“We’ll start with blocks. That should help the next time Lan comes after you.”
“You think it’ll happen again?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. He’ll keep beating you till he can’t anymore.”
“You mean when I’m dead?”
“No, when you’re better than him.”
I laughed. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
Leehom shrugged. “What I think doesn’t matter. You’re the one who has to believe that it’s possible.”
“Well, we’d better get started.”
Time slipped by. Dev started to feel like my real name, instead of a mask that I wore. Ryo started to babble, then crawl, then walk and talk. I had to bind my chest tighter, so that every breath reminded me that I was one slip away from being cast out. Lan beat me once a week, but never as badly as the first time. Bruised ribs were just another part of my new life.
If any of the older brothers noticed that I had more bruises than the others, they never mentioned it. Lan wasn’t the only one who resented my proximity to the chosen one.
We sparred every morning. After that, we spent an hour meditating, then we helped with assigned chores in the monastery. We cooked and cleaned and gardened—all of the things that my mother did at home that I’d hoped to avoid.
After dinner, we had lessons.
I’d never given much thought to history before. We paid heavy taxes to the king in the west, and if his soldiers came they took whatever they wanted. I thought that was the way it had always been.
But it hadn’t. Once, our people had chosen our own ruler, and our taxes hadn’t supported a huge foreign army. Things had been better, and it was Ryo’s job to make them better again.
I watched him sleep the night after that lesson. He was still so small. I picked him up and pulled him into my lap.
“Dev?” he asked, his voice small and sleepy.
I hugged him. I imagined him fighting the king, with his armies. Who did Ryo have? Me and Leehom and Lan? Fewer and fewer families sent their sons to the monastery. There were whole halls full of empty rooms. People cursed the gods for abandoning us. Our mother’s faith was an exception. I wondered if she still believed. If she was lonely. If she missed me at all, or if she just longed for her place by the chosen one’s side.
“Is something bad?” Ryo asked, clutching my shirt.
I shook my head. “No. It’ll be okay. Go back to sleep.” I smoothed his dark hair back and kissed his forehead. “I’ll make sure that everything is okay.”
I approached Brother Wei-un the next morning. “Brother, I’m interested in learning more about strategy.”
He arched a thin eyebrow. “Oh? And why this sudden interest?”
“Ryo is going to lead us against a much greater force. If I’m to help, I must understand strategy.”
“Come with me.” He led me to the library, to a board covered in black and white stones. “This game will help to train your mind. You and I will play after dinner three days a week. I’ll also find you books to read.”
“Thank you, brother.”
“No thanks are necessary. It is an enjoyable game.” He grinned at me. “First, I will explain the rules.”
I placed a black stone on the board and scowled when Brother Wei-un placed one of his white ones. “I should have seen that coming,” I muttered.
He grinned. “Anticipating the enemy is key.”
Brother Wei-un beat me just as unmercifully as Lan did. But I did enjoy the challenge of it, and it didn’t leave me with aching ribs.
I struggled with the reading, but it was slowly beginning to make sense. Brother Wei-un gave me books about strategy, but also about government and philosophy and ethics and agriculture.
Lan, of course, saw my reading as some kind of challenge. “What are you doing, Dev? Got your nose stuck in a book again? Because you’re just better than everyone else, right?”
“Better at what, exactly?” I snapped. “You’ve proven time and time again that you’re stronger than I am, Lan. Everyone knows. We all get it.”
He sniffed. “But you think you’re smarter.”
I wondered what Lan could possibly want from me. “The library is open to everyone. Do you want to learn the game that Brother Wei-un taught me?”
He snorted. “Of course not.”
“I would,” Leehom said. “Would you teach me?”
Lan glared at both of us, but I just shrugged. “Sure.”
The boy’s voices started to change, and a few bragged about shaving their faces as well as their heads. There were no mirrors in the monastery, but I stared at my reflection in my bathwater. I bound my breasts and snuck extra food to Ryo. I did my best to act like the other boys. Would my voice or face betray me? If I was cast out, Ryo would be alone. No one else really talked to him, really treated him like a person. They all saw him as something else. Something greater.
I couldn’t allow them to force me from his side.
I read Ryo stories about heroes, and tried to force my voice into the lower registers.
Ryo giggled. “You sound funny when you talk weird, Dev.”
I laughed, then winced at the high, feminine echo that bounced back in our chamber.
“I like that you’re not like the others,” Ryo said. “You’re different, too.”
I nodded, afraid that he’d ask me why. “Do you ever wish that you weren’t different?” I asked, hoping to distract him.
Ryo was silent for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine being someone else. I’ve always been me.”
For the first time in years, I wondered what my life as Rani would have been like. I imagined having long hair and suitors and never having boys beat me.
I shoved the image away—it made my chest ache, even more than it did in the morning when I tightened my bindings. “Do you want to hear about our parents?” I asked.
Ryo nodded, and so I told him.
We were fifteen when I beat Lan for the first time. I stood over him, panting while he writhed. “Are you okay?” I asked.
He glared up at me, his right eye swollen shut and lips bloody. “I hate you.”
“I know. But I don’t understand why.”
“Because the chosen one loves you. Because Brother Wei-un favors you. Because of your stupid face and stupid voice.”
“Have you ever talked to Ryo?” I asked.
“Don’t be an idiot, Dev. He hates me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he knows what I do to you.”
I sighed. “I’ve never told him. And no one makes you treat me the way you do.”
“Just leave me alone.”
That night, in the quiet dark of our room, I turned to my brother. “Do you hate Lan?” I asked.
The silence stretched, and I thought maybe Ryo was asleep. Then he said, “I try not to. He is one of my followers, so I should love him. But I know he hurts you. Sometimes, I dream about sending him away, making up some mission so he won’t hurt you anymore.”
“I think I’ve handled that myself,” I said.
Ryo sighed. “Good. I guess now I have to try to forgive him.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Because you’re you.”
“Not because I’m the chosen one?”
I laughed. “No.”
“Where does Ryo end and the chosen one start?” Ryo asked. “Is it all that I am? Or just a part? Who would I be if I didn’t have this stupid mark on my eye?”
“You’d still be my brother,” I said.
“And you’d still be mine I love you, Dev.”
“I love you too, Ryo.”
The next day, Lan went after Leehom, but I stopped him.
There was a part of me that never really believed the chosen one nonsense. That still scoffed at my mother’s faith, and believed that it was just a chance birthmark, and what made Ryo special is how everyone around him reacted to that birthmark.
If he was a little smarter, a little wiser, than a normal little boy, wasn’t that just confirmation bias?
But on his tenth birthday, the king’s soldiers came to the monastery, and everything changed.
We knew they were coming—they didn’t try to hide as they marched across the fields, trampling green barley under columns of booted heels.
Leehom and I snuck out and spied on them. We noted their numbers and supply lines and the siege engines they towed. But our monastery was a fortress, and we’d been preparing for years.
I was hopeful that we could stand against them.
A man in glistening red armor strode forward, as the base of our walls. “We’ve come for the boy.”
“You’ll never have him,” Brother Wan shouted.
Then Ryo poked his head over the wall. An instant later, he was standing on top of it, in clear sight of the enemies.
“So, you’re the heathen’s chosen one,” the general shouted. “Are you really going to let them die to defend you? Do you really think you have any chance against my army?”
“I do.” Ryo held out his fist, and flames rained from the heavens. Soldiers screamed, and the scent of burnt meat filled the air. In minutes, all that remained in front of the monastery was a scorched field littered with charred bodies.
“Did you know he could do that?” Leehom asked.
Leehom sounded so awed. So amazed by the destruction Ryo had caused. But all I could think of was the look on my little brother’s face. He hadn’t looked victorious. He’d looked resigned. Sad. Horrified. “I don’t think anyone knew he could do that,” I said.
I found Ryo in our room, staring at his hands. “I’m a monster,” he said.
“You’re not.”
“I killed all of those men.”
“They were here to kill you,” I said. “You were just defending yourself. Defending all of us.”
“I don’t want to be the chosen one anymore, Dev.” His voice cracked when he said my name, and I wrapped my arms around him. He sobbed into my tightly-wrapped chest. “I want to leave this place.”
“Wherever you go, I go.” I said, and I held him till he fell asleep.
#
I left Ryo sleeping and slipped out of our room. Brother Wei-un stood outside the door, his face old and brittle in the moonlight.
“How is he?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“How are you?”
My throat tightened, and I shook my head. I had no idea how I was. He held out his arms, and held me while I cried.
He kissed my bare head, his lips warm and papery. “He will always need you, Dev. The two of you have a special bond.”
I went out to the scorched field. I had to see it, to face what my brother could do. So that I could protect him from it. The air was thick with ashes and the smell of char. Bones crunched and crumbled beneath my feet.
I had counted these men, seen their faces. And now they were all gone. Their siege engines had burned away, leaving bits of twisted metal. Nothing had survived the heavenly fire.
The next morning, the barley fields were already sprouting again, and the harvest was the richest in living memory.
Ryo didn’t leave our room all summer. He sat on his bed. He read books if I brought them, ate food if I put it in front of him. Sometimes, Brother Wei-un would come and speak with him. Once, a bluebird flew in the window and perched on his knee. It gazed at him with tiny black eyes.
Ryo refused to acknowledge its presence, and eventually it left.
“What happens now?” Leehom asked one morning. “Why have we been training, if the chosen one can call fire from the sky?”
“Do you regret your training?” Brother Wan asked.
“I don’t,” I said. I didn’t regret any of it—the sparring, the lessons, even the gardening—they were part of me now.
Brother Wan smiled at me. “I’m glad to hear that, Dev.”
“I just want to know the plan,” Leehom said.
“I’d like to know, too,” said Lan. “I’m tired of sitting around, waiting for the chosen one.”
“He’s only ten years old,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter. He’s the chosen one,” Lan said. “He was born for this.”
“He’s the chosen one, Lan. That means that he will be ready when the time is right,” Brother Wan said.
“So, we should just keep waiting?” Leehom asked.
“That’s exactly what we should do,” Brother Wan said.
“Are you really in a hurry to see that again?” I asked, waving my hand toward the barley field. “Maybe we should be more thankful for these peaceful days.”
Lan rolled his eyes and walked away.
I woke in the middle of the night, and a stranger stared down at me. I should have been afraid, but his head was shaved and he was dressed as a member of our order. He held a finger to his lips and beckoned for me to follow him.
He led me to Brother Wei-un’s room, then vanished.
Sudden fear drove the last vestiges of sleep away, and I opened the door without knocking.
There was a single candle burning next to the bed, and Brother Wei-un smiled at me. “Dev, thank you for coming.”
I wanted to ask how he had sent for me, who the messenger had been. Instead, I asked, “Why me?”
“Ryo is the chosen one, and even though I changed his diapers, he’s beyond me. But you—we do not have children, but I imagine you are what my grandchild would be like. You have been a light in these dark years. So, I wanted you by my side, now.”
I took his hand and blinked back tears. “Don’t go. Ryo still needs you.”
“I have seen the chosen one. I had always thought I could die happy, knowing that he lived. And he is just what I always dreamed he would be. Wise and kind and just. He does not need me.”
“I need you.”
Brother Wei-un chuckled. “I was so proud of you when you sought me out. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, so much more than just Ryo’s brother. I’m grateful that you showed me that.” He squeezed my fingers. “You don’t need me any more than your brother does.”
“Yes, I do,” I said.
He squeezed my fingers again, and I squeezed back, clinging to his hand like it might keep him with me. “I have one final request,” he said.
“Anything,” I whispered.
“Sing for me.”
“Sing? I—I can’t sing.”
“You don’t sing. Because you worry that your voice will betray you.” A tiny smile danced at the corners of his mouth. “You needn’t worry. I’ll take your secret to my grave.”
“You know,” I said.
“I’ve always known.”
And so I sang for him, till he was gone. Then I kept singing till the sun rose, all the songs that I’d been afraid to sing for over ten years, till I was hoarse and exhausted, and Ryo found me and took my hand and led me back to our room.
Brother Wan and I stood together at Brother Wei-un’s grave. “Will you be the head of the order now?” I asked.
“It seems likely.”
“I think that would please him.”
“I’m not sure if it pleases me, but I will do as the gods will.”
I nodded, and turned to go.
“Dev, wait. Could you—could you talk to Ryo? The waiting is starting to wear on everyone.”
I sighed. It was his job to worry about everyone. But it was mine to worry about Ryo. Still, brooding wasn’t doing my brother any good. “I’ll try.”
Ryo was back in our room, sitting on his bed. “We missed you today,” I said.
“Why aren’t they afraid of me?” he asked. “I could kill any of you. Instantly. It would be easy.”
“They know that you wouldn’t,” I said.
“How can they know that?”
“I suppose they have faith.”
Ryo sighed. “Faith in what? In me? In the chosen one? In the gods?”
“I have faith in you,” I said.
Ryo just sighed. “I know you do. I don’t know if you should.”
“What do you want to do?” I asked. “We can do anything. We don’t have to stay here. We could go face the king, if you wanted. Or we could go somewhere else. Somewhere where no one knows what your birthmark means.”
“I don’t think the gods chose me so I could run away.”
I shrugged. “The gods chose you, so whatever you want to do must be the right thing.”
“Leaving this behind does sound nice, but it doesn’t feel right.”
“Then what do we do?”
He sighed. “I suppose we should go and face the king. And then at least it’ll be over.”
We marched. Along the way, people lined the streets to throw flowers. The king’s soldiers fled before us—none of them wanted to face Ryo and the gods’ wrath. As we neared our hometown, I scanned the crowd for familiar faces. Would I even remember our parents? Would they come?
Our mother was waiting at the gate, standing apart from everyone else. She stepped forward and held out her arms.
She only had eyes for Ryo.
“I am your mother,” she said.
He smiled at her and stepped into her arms. “I know. I would know you anywhere—Dev told me all about you.”
She blinked, confused. “Dev?”
Ryo drew back, frowning. “My brother.”
“Oh. Yes, yes of course. Where is—he?”
I stepped forward and bowed. My chest felt like Lan had kicked it.
She stepped up to me and traced the line of my cheek. She still smelled just as I remembered her. “Yes, I see it now.” She laughed. “You really did shave your head.” She hugged me, all awkward angles. “Thank you for taking care of him.”
Ryo looked at me, then back at her. “It is good to meet you, mother. Perhaps we can see you again, on our way back?”
“Don’t be silly,” our mother said. “I’m coming with you. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”
That night, Ryo shook me awake. “Dev, why didn’t she know you?”
“It’s been ten years,” I said.
“But she knew me.”
“Ryo, you’re the chosen one. Your birthmark is pretty distinctive.”
He stared at me, his eyes black in the moonlight. “I don’t know why she makes you so sad. But if you want me to send her away, I will.”
“That would crush her,” I said.
“Will having her with us crush you?”
“I’m not that fragile.”
“You matter more to me than anyone.”
I hugged him. I focused on my breathing to keep the tears at bay. He’d never said those words before, and they meant more than I expected. “I’m glad. But I can handle her. I promise.”
Our mother pulled me aside after breakfast. “Taking your father’s name was sweet,” she said.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He died in a storm a few years ago. I remarried, but left when I heard that Ryo was coming.” She traced my cheek again. “You make a very convincing young man, Rani.”
I pulled away. “My name is Dev.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
I managed a smile and bowed. “There are some things I need to attend to.”
I crawled into our tent and practiced my breathing.
“Sad because your mother doesn’t love you?” Lan asked, ducking inside.
I glared at him. “My father is dead.”
“Oh.” Lan settled on the ground next to me. “I don’t remember my parents. I have dreams of them, sometimes.”
“Why did they give you to the monastery?”
Lan shrugged. “Either they were devout, or they had too many kids.”
“You never asked? I’m sure Brother Wan could tell you.”
“Would you want to know?” Lan asked.
I considered the question carefully. “I don’t know.”
“Exactly. I’ve almost asked a hundred times. But it doesn’t really matter why they didn’t want me. Just that they didn’t.”
“Knowing that my father is dead doesn’t do me any good. But I’m glad to know, I think.”
Lan shrugged. “Maybe you’re just braver than me.”
I sighed. “I didn’t say that.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m not trying to fight.” He patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry about your father. And your mother, too.”
“Thanks.”
“But you still have Ryo. Things could be a lot worse.” He crawled out of the tent and didn’t look back. “You could be me.”
Leehom fed us as we marched. He accepted donations from joyful farmers and convinced towns to share water with us. “I’ve never seen so many people,” he said to me. “They’re marvelous. It will be hard to go back to the monastery.”
“Maybe Brother Wan will let you do work outside. Once we’re free to worship our gods, we’ll need someone to teach our people what they’ve forgotten.”
“Do you really think I could do it?” he asked.
“Of course. You taught me to fight, remember? I’m pretty sure you can teach anyone anything.”
The king met us at the borders of his lands at the head of a huge army. Armor and weapons glittered for as far as I could see, but a messenger waited with an invitation to parlay.
Ryo, Brother Wan, and I walked out onto the open field. The king rode a black horse and wore gold armor and brought a gaggle of armed men.
Deep lines creased the king’s face, and his hair, when he pulled off his great helmet, was thinning and gray. “I hear that you can call fire down from the sky,” he said. “That you destroyed the army that I sent to fetch you in an instant.”
Ryo looked so small, standing next to him. “I did.”
“Are you here to destroy me?”
“That’s up to you,” Ryo said. “All I want is freedom for my people.”
“Can you demonstrate your power?” the king asked.
An instant later, flames fell from the sky, and all of the king’s war engines were burning. The strikes were precise, and the fire touched nothing but the war engines.
And while everyone was distracted, a soldier lunged forward, aiming a spear straight at my brother’s unarmored form.
I stepped forward, deflected the spear, and flipped the soldier over my shoulder. I pointed the tip of his own spear at his throat.
Behind me, Ryo glowed golden like the dawn. “Do you really think your weapons could touch me?” he asked. He didn’t raise his voice, but I felt it in my bones.
The king’s shoulders sagged. “Even those chosen by the gods are mortal. Even if I can’t kill you, you will die, sooner or later. Do you think what you do will last longer than your lifetime?”
“For now, I would have your vow of peace,” Ryo said. “The future will take care of itself.”
The king looked at his burning war engines, at his sweating men and his nervous horse. At me, holding a spear to his assassin’s throat. “Very well. You have my vow of peace, and I release your people from their loyalty to me.”
Ryo bowed, and the king rode away.
“Can it really be that easy?” Brother Wan said. “After so many years of waiting, we’re free?”
“Free of the king, at least,” Ryo said. “But now you have a kingdom to rule.”
“I do?” Brother Wan asked. “Surely you mean you do.”
Ryo shook his head. “I was chosen to free our people, not rule then.” He turned to me. “Do you really think that there’s somewhere where no one knows what my birthmark means?”
My lessons had taught me that our home was small, and the world vast. “Yes.”
“Then let’s go. Just you and me.”
“You can’t be serious,” Brother Wan said. “You can’t just leave!”
Ryo shrugged. “I want to leave.” He turned to me. “But I won’t go without you, Dev. I’ll stay if you want me to.”
Brother Wan turned to me, his eyes pleading. “Please, Dev. We need you. Both of you.”
“Do you really need me?” I asked. “Enough to change the rules of the order? Enough to accept me as I actually am?”
Brother Wan looked confused for a moment, as if he’d actually forgotten the secret that I’d been keeping for over a decade. Then he nodded. “Yes. From now on, we will take anyone who wishes to join our order.”
“What are you talking about?” Ryo asked.
I took a deep breath, feeling my ribs press against my chest binding. I was afraid of Ryo’s reaction. How would he feel when he learned I had kept a secret from him for his whole life? “When we left our mother, I wasn’t your brother. I was your sister.”
Ryo blinked at me. “Yes. I know. Was I not supposed to know? We live in the same room, Dev. Does it bother you, not living as a woman?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to get married or have children.”
“What do you want to do?” Ryo asked.
No one had ever asked me that before. I’d never considered what I would do if I had a choice. “I don’t want to leave you,” I said.
He laughed. “Good. But what do you want to do? Do you want to stay? Or go?”
I looked out over the crowd who had followed Ryo. And Lan and Leehom and our mother. I thought about Brother Wei-un, about my strategy and history lessons and all the reading he’d had me do. Maybe they could do some good, after all.
“Will you really stay for me, even though you want to go?” I asked.
He reached out and took my hands. His were small and soft—he had never joined in the sparring or the cleaning or any of the things that had made my hands hard and calloused.
“Yes,” he said. “Where you go, I go.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s stay. I want to see how much good we can do.”
©March 2023, Jamie Lackey
Jamie Lackey’s work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, and previously in Swords & Sorcery.