THE SORCERESS WHO EATS GIRLS
AT THE FORK OF the Selegan River, a full morning’s walk from the Fifth Mountain, a girl knelt against the damp bank, carefully holding the end of a fishing thread between her thumb and forefinger.
She was alone, wrapped in a robe embroidered with spring leaves and crocus blossoms. At any moment she could fling it off to leap naked into the water and grasp the tail of a rainbow eel caught by one of her shiny lures. Her fishing thread stretched across this narrow channel of the Selegan, tied at the opposite bank to a strongly rooted maple with leaves as wide as dinner plates.
For a little while, the girl thought she was being watched. But when she looked over her shoulder at the line of moss-covered alders and spearing-tall hemlock trees, nobody was there.
As it flowed, the river rippled, catching sunlight in flashes and white-hot winks like the scales of the river’s inhabiting spirit. She reached her free hand to stroke the surface as if stroking a friend, for the Selegan was as friendly a river spirit as they come. Her bargain for fishing in its waters was that in return she always left a coil of delicate hibiscus incense burning against the nearest bed of ferns. The smoke collected in the curling fronds and lingered for the spirit’s pleasure.
Water splashed up for her attention, licking her cheek. She brushed it away.
“Hello,” said a cool voice behind her.
The girl squeaked and dropped her fishing lure. She scrambled to the edge of the water, one hand diving beneath the surface before fear caught up with her and she let the lure go to turn and face the stranger.
Standing under the dappled shadows at the edge of the rain forest was an elegant lady in a draping silk gown. Strings of dark pearls twisted through her black hair, and thin obsidian rings circled her bare toes. By the soft beauty of her features and fine clothing, and her sudden appearance so far from a road, the girl suspected this was a spirit of some kind.
“Hello,” she said, for she ought to be polite whether this was spirit or human, ghost or demon.
The lady stepped carefully against the moss, leaving narrow footprints. Not a ghost, then. Her voluminous skirts were gathered in one arm, but still a gilded hem trailed behind. None of the creeping ferns she brushed against withered and died—not a demon, either. The lady carefully chose a place to kneel and arrange her gown around her on the bending grass. Surely a spirit’s skirts would’ve arranged themselves.
Nearer, the girl could see the lady’s eyes were a deep brown, streaked with gray and rust red, like the lava fields around the Fifth Mountain. The lady seemed only a few years older than the girl, and her skin was powdered a perfect moon-white, with a pink like peonies upon her lips.
“How may I help you?” the girl asked, shifting the folds of her robe to hide her dirty knees. She knew she must smell like fish and mud, and her hair had fallen out of its topknot, black wisps itching down her neck. Compared to the lady, she was grubby and inelegant.
“I saw the glitter of water and thought to seek relief in a drink.” The lady tilted her head so the dancing shadows slid over her face like a caress. “Then I spied you, and a sparkle of rainbow in your lure. I thought to myself, the Queens of Heaven have brought me here.”
Breathless, the girl blinked a few times to clear her heart of its fluttering distraction. “The river will share a drink with you if you ask. And perhaps drop it a pearl.”
“A pearl?” The lady laughed sweetly and touched her hands flat together in delight. Her nails were lacquered a shocking black.
Both offended to be laughed at and tingling at the lovely laughter itself, the girl asked, “Would a pearl not be a wonderful gift?”
“I have heard the Selegan River needs nothing so rich, but prefers more intimate bargains. An eel or two in return for pleasant smoke? That is personal, at least. Nothing like a pearl, which anyone might have.”
“I have no pearls,” the girl whispered, dropping her gaze to her hands, confused how this stranger knew her bargain with the river spirit. Her own nails were even, and mostly clean, but the skin of her knuckles was roughened and dried out from so often being dipped in water.
One lovely white hand touched hers, pleasant and gentle as a blanket warmed by the fire. “What would you give me for one of my pearls?”
The girl turned her hand over so the lady’s palm fell against her own, and heat collected there. Beneath her robe, the girl’s skin prickled with a yearning she recognized but had never felt at the touch of a woman before. When she glanced up, the lady had leaned nearer.
Those pink lips parted, revealing a small sliver of blackness. Beyond that pretty entrance, mystery and breath mingled.
“Oh,” said the girl. “A kiss. A pearl for a kiss.”
“That seems a fair bargain,” murmured the elegant lady. She lifted a hand to pluck free one of the combs holding her hair behind her left ear. Two round gray pearls shimmering with ocean reflections were set into the edge. “Or two kisses for two pearls?”
The girl giggled and touched her finger to a pearl. It, too, was warm.
Then the lady took her chin in hand and put their mouths together in a sweet, tender kiss.
It ended before the girl even realized it had begun, and as her eyes fluttered open, she was very glad the bargain had been for two.
But the lady’s eyes, so near, had changed: no longer rich as lava flow, one had sprung pure green; the other faded death white. Both pupils stretched long and narrow as a snake’s and were as red as blood.
Before the girl could cry out, the lady took her second kiss.
ONE
NOTHING KILLED THE PRINCE.
TWO
KIRIN DARK-SMILE WAS EIGHT years old when Nothing met him playing in the wide Fire Garden in the third circle of the palace. Smaller, slighter, two years younger than the prince, Nothing stared at him from between willowy fronds of imported elephant grass and a dying orange tree that housed a skinny demon sticking its tongue out for her attention. She paid it no heed, perfectly intent upon the prince. Seven other children played in the garden, different ages and shapes but with mostly the same light-copper to shell-white skin, with black or brown hair and round faces. Nothing stared because Kirin was extremely deliberate in a way few children were: it came from being the heir to the Empire Between Five Mountains and knowing, even at a young age, how to pretend he knew who he was and what was his place. Nothing had no place, being Nothing, and her own deliberation was the result of taking great care never to offend or especially entreat. She recognized their similarity and was so pleased, she stared and stared until Kirin Dark-Smile walked around the star-shaped field of gilded impatiens and put his face in hers. He said, “A heart has many petals,” and stared right back until they were friends. They’d seen into each other’s spirits, after all.
That was why Nothing knew, eleven years later, she had to kill him.
THREE
SHE PREPARED VERY CAREFULLY, for any mistake might ruin her chance to destroy him and escape unscathed.
It would have to be done before the investiture ritual began, in the presence of many witnesses, in case Kirin vanished into the wind or crumbled into crossroads dirt. Nothing would greatly have preferred taking this risk privately, to kill him alone and never be noticed.