Moon dark smile, p.1
Moon Dark Smile, page 1
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TO ROBIN MCKINLEY AND KAREN LORD
THE RIVER IS A FLAT, SHINING CHAIN.
THE MOON, RISING, IS A WHITE EYE TO THE HILLS;
AFTER IT HAS RISEN, IT IS THE BRIGHT HEART OF THE SEA.
—LI PO,
TRANS. FLORENCE AYSCOUGH AND AMY LOWELL
NAMES
SUNRISE
SUNRISE WAS A COMMON name throughout the empire. Likely because it represented hope and joy, just like the dawn. Many children with the name were firstborn or born after a long struggle. Most grew into cheerful, happy adults, though a few took the name and ran in the opposite direction. Contrariness was always a risk with such an obvious name.
But this Sunrise, the first—and only—child of Syra Bear Mistress, was given the name because he was born several months after his father died in a violent magical battle with the sorceress of the Fifth Mountain. Syra had clung to the growing spark inside her through her desperate grief, keeping herself alive for the child of her defeated lover, Skybreaker, the sorcerer of the Fourth Mountain. She swore the child would grow in remembrance of the sorcerer’s glory, a monument to it, and a gift of revenge.
Thus Sunrise was named Sunrise, a promise of that soaring splendor.
By the time her child was six years old, Syra sent him down the mountain to be raised by her sisters, a coven of some seventeen witches and priests vowed into service and scholarship. Syra had been one of them, but she had abandoned their work when she fell in love with the Fourth Sorcerer.
As the only child in the enclave, Sunrise was entirely spoiled. Fortunately, the abundance of love only polished his laughter into something easy to share and filled with compassion. He never knew suffering, always was encouraged, and when the aunties laughed at his escapades and mistakes, it was done with an air of familiarity. They taught him to read and cook and clean, to punch and dance and wield a sword. They taught him history and music, how to draw, and how to win graciously. Among the seventeen of them there was very little they could not teach. Sunrise learned it all, and though he had his preferences for warfare and music, his strangely perfect memory meant he could recite or re-create even what he considered boring.
He was so pretty, dimpled, and friendly, his aunties always took him to the market with them, to visit nearby manors for tutoring rich children, or to replenish blessings at crossroads shrines or scholarship temples. He chattered away as they traveled, held their hands or darted ahead, smiled innocently, and never realized it was his adorable charm that helped this aunt haggle or that aunt squeeze into the last room at an inn.
The only scar on this surprisingly idyllic childhood was his reluctance to ask his aunties to stop treating him like a daughter. It was not their fault; they did not know, because he never corrected them when they assumed he was a girl like them. Sunrise did not truly believe they would flinch, much less judge him for being his true self. It was only that this was an enclave of women, and he feared he would be asked to leave if he told them he wasn’t one, and never would be.
So Sunrise left the secret a secret, only curling up at night and wishing for a day when he was old enough and brave enough to confess to the family he loved.
His mother made it easier to hold tight to his secret, for Syra was sharp and violent in her expectations. The widow was determined to carve her child into a weapon against those who’d caused Skybreaker’s death. When she was not up the mountain wrestling with wild sorcery, she told Sunrise tales of his father’s vast strength and clever machinations, of shape-shifting and intricate spells that took months to carefully draw to completion. She said Skybreaker had been the most handsome person, the tallest and most ambitious—too bad Sunrise was delicate and compact like his mother. But she said that Skybreaker had loved three things: his great spirit, Syra herself, and Sunrise even unborn. “They took him from us. You are alone because he is dead,” she whispered late at night when she came down the mountain for a visit. Then she sang a soft, strange lullaby in a language he should have learned from his father.
Sunrise did not think he was alone at all: he had his aunts, his dogs and canaries, the little mice in the fields, and the juniper spirits with their tiny blueberry eyes. Why, if he felt alone he need only look up at the stars in the sky—or the sun!—and see that he was not. But he stopped saying such things to his mother early on, after she locked him in a dirt cellar for three days to prove to him what loneliness was, to show him how he must rely on her.
(After, his nightmares involved the dark and being lost forever, but he refused to explain what had happened to his favorite aunts Tali and Windsong, even when they hugged him tightly and promised to protect him from anything. Even his mother. He assured them with large, shining-brown eyes his mother had not hurt him. Sunrise refused to imagine what his mother would do to retaliate if he snitched on her.)
Syra’s determination to pull apart the remnants of Skybreaker’s spells to try to find a way to bring him back, or to destroy the imperial family, obsessed her: she ate little, only enough to live, and filled her body with shards of power in every way she could think of: wearing charmed bracelets or eating farsight apples—though they showed her nothing because the thing she desperately wished for had died. The great spirit of the Fourth Mountain was named Crown, and because Crown also missed Skybreaker, sometimes it laid its scraggly head upon her lap and listened to her rant and wail. She lost herself in memories, grasped at the bear spirit with hungry fingers, trying to swallow parts of its magic.
She could not. She was not a sorcerer and could not make herself into one.
Often she grew violent when she failed, lashing out at the spirit. She accused it of failing Skybreaker and screamed that it should have died when Skybreaker died—then it would be a great demon and could devour the empire! Beginning with Kirin Dark-Smile and his family.
The fights between Syra and Crown froze the peaks of the Fourth Mountain and set the alpine grasses on fire.
Syra stumbled down the mountain every few months to recover, and Sunrise nervously cared for her, mopping her brow of aether-fevers and helping her sip medicinal teas. She often grabbed him too hard, bruising a wrist, and he never pulled away. He remained huddled at her side because when he was beside her she breathed easier. His mother murmured in her sleep, and tears fell down her temples. She begged him not to die, begged him to stay with her, and late at night she hissed plans for what they would do to his father’s enemies. “They did this to us. To me! They don’t even care, down in their glorious palace. If we all wasted away, what would it matter to the Moon! We must destroy them—we must. I’ll never live otherwise!”
Sunrise promised to help her. The empress and her heir certainly didn’t seem to care what had happened on the Fourth Mountain, or this fallout. If nothing else, they were indifferent. And maybe when Syra’s vengeance was satisfied she could rest. Maybe someday she could look at him and see him for who he was, not only as a weapon.
Maybe. He hoped so. Prayed so, making dangerous offerings of his hair and blood at every spirit shrine he found. Let my mother love me. Let her see me.
When he was eleven, his mother said, “Prove to me you can do what is necessary,” and offered him a small canary in a cage.
“Mother?” he said, confused. It was one of his, which he’d raised for over a year.
“I want to roast it for dinner.”
Sunrise froze, lips parted. He understood this was a test, and one he would fail if he did not harden for her. He blinked, tried to stall. “It is mostly bones.”
Syra Bear Mistress stared at her son, cold and ferocious, until he took the cage with shaking hands and removed the canary. He stared at its little black eyes, its body twitching in his gentle palms. Then he snapped its neck.
Fast.
Before he had even consciously ordered himself to do it.
He dropped it to the floor; it barely made a sound, it was so small.
“Good,” his mother said. “Now get better at such things. No hesitation.”
Sunrise nodded, flushed with panicked relief she’d not demanded he kill one of his dogs. He would have hated proving himself to her over one of those sleek, loyal babies. After waking in a cold sweat imagining it, Sunrise gave the dogs to a neighboring farm with children the right age to adore them.
His aunt Windsong—who did not know about the bird—began to teach him everything she knew about blades and fighting. That took many months. When Windsong declared she had no more to teach, they hired a retired soldier who worked at one of the nearby inns to teach Sunrise more. That took another two years. The work was grueling, and Sunrise never hesitated to push too hard. He broke his wrist. He did not sleep. Until Aunts Tali and Windsong threatened to refuse to let his soldier mentor enter the enclave again if Sunrise did not rest and take care. Sunrise fought them until Tali said, “What good will you be to your mother if you are weak and exhausted?” She said it with an uncertain frown, but it worked.
Then, for no reason Sunrise or the aunties could see, Syra came down the mountain entirely calm. For two years she smiled at her old
She giggled like a maiden and said, “We are not alone, baby.”
She refused to say more but put her finger to her lips as if to keep a secret between them.
On his thirteenth birthday, Syra brought him flowers and strange food, as well as armor and weaponry, showering Sunrise with gifts and laughter.
Sunrise flushed with joy, held her hand, and showed her his hard work. He’d recently learned a new set of sword-forms, and excelled.
Syra kissed him on both cheeks, then held him close all night.
In the morning Syra took Sunrise by the hand and led him toward the paths up the Fourth Mountain.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To meet some friends and finish forging you.”
Sunrise swallowed anxiety at the obscured answer. It could mean anything, but he went with her. What other choice did he have? He needed her to love him.
As they trekked up, he wandered off the path sometimes to caress a lovely fern or pluck a tiny flower for Syra’s hair. Together they sang rounds, their voices weaving around each other into weak spells for blessing. Syra could see scraps of aether sometimes, when they glinted in the shadows, and Sunrise could anytime he tried—but he hid it from his mother, preferring to use his slight gift to mess around with funny spirits like raccoons and sparrows and foxes.
It took them a day and a half to reach the Fourth Mountain gate, where Crown, the great bear spirit, awaited them. The bear stood on its hind legs, its rough fur black as night but glimmering with stars the blue-silver color of aether, and its eyes swirling pools of the same. Sunrise had met the great spirit before, of course, but rarely and not since he was much younger. For some reason, being nearly thirteen years old did not make him feel stronger or taller or wiser in the presence of such a neat, powerful creature. So Sunrise gaped gently and tried not to put his hand on his knife.
daughter of Skybreaker, the spirit said.
Sunrise carefully knelt. “Great spirit,” he said.
you are here for our gift
“What gift?”
transformation
Sunrise gasped. “Mother?”
“Not a dramatic one, daughter. You will recognize yourself, and all your aunties will, too.”
The bear turned those swirling blue eyes to him. you do not wish to change?
Its voice reverberated softly in Sunrise’s skull.
“I… wish to be the best I can be, for Mother. And Father,” he added earnestly.
Syra nodded firmly, and Sunrise knew he’d answered as she liked.
The bear tilted its head and then dropped onto all four paws. Turning, it walked through the gate. Syra took Sunrise’s hand and pulled him after.
Inside it was cool and shaded. Dark.
Syra spoke a word he did not know, and a row of tiny lights sparked to life, curling up the walls of the cavern until the whole place was lit silver-blue. It was a workroom, lined with shelves carved right into the walls, piled with books and jars, items he knew like knives and wands and mirrors, and items he could not name, with strange shapes and colors.
And two men stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at Sunrise.
He froze, pinned by their twin gazes.
Like mirrors of each other, the men smiled: they were pale and handsome, young, with bloodred hair and dark eyes, wearing elaborate suits of black and white. Barefoot, Sunrise noticed. With rings on several fingers, exactly the same.
“You are Sunrise,” one said.
The other said, “We are When the Wind Stills the Stars Dance.”
Sunrise swallowed.
“Lord sorcerers,” his mother said sweetly. “Here is my daughter, and she is ready.”
“We will begin,” said the sorcerers of the Third and Second Mountains.
The bear spirit settled in a bright furry curl and pulled Sunrise onto its lap. Two flashes of aether forced him to blink and shield his eyes. When he lowered his hands, a great spirit sat to either side of them: one a large, sleek tiger, the other a bird of prey combing its curved beak along the feathers of its blue-silver wing.
Heart pounding in his ears, Sunrise stared. He could feel their power radiating against his skin, lifting the hairs along his arms and neck.
He fisted his hands in the cloth over his knees and nodded to each great spirit.
They ignored him.
So Sunrise watched as his mother moved across the flat stone floor with a wand, drawing a diagram. She giggled to herself, and a shudder coursed down his spine. The bear spirit grunted. It was staring at him with one vivid aether-blue eye.
“Hello,” Sunrise whispered.
hello, it said.
“Thank you for caring for my mother.”
our interests align
“Oh. You… want revenge for Skybreaker’s death.”
your father looked like you before he bound himself to me
“Really!” Sunrise grinned in sudden relief. That was the nearest anyone had come to treating him like his father’s son.
“Sunrise,” Syra chided sharply. “I am concentrating.”
“I apologize, Mother,” he called before softening his voice again, attention on Crown. “He was small?”
the shape of his mouth was like yours. The color of his eyes. Your hair and stature are not from him, though. He was always tall.
“That’s nice, though. Thank you, great spirit.”
It nodded and went back to ignoring him.
But shortly, Syra beckoned him over to stand before her and the two mirror sorcerers. “Strip,” she commanded, and he did not hesitate.
Naked, Sunrise stood where he was told, in the center of the diagram. He studied it: the dark silver lines spread from his feet out in loops and jagged letters of some kind, barely visible against the granite floor.
His mother took the wand and pressed one end to her palm, then switched to press it into her other. She passed the wand to one of the sorcerers, who tucked it into a sleeve. Then each sorcerer took one of her hands, palms up, and whispered until her hands glowed.
Before Sunrise could move, a flash of brilliant aether-light flared from the diagram: it burned with blue-silver aether. He gasped, and his skin pebbled as the air crisped; his hair rose down his neck and along his arms. “Wow,” he whispered.
His mother walked to him, placing her toes carefully, and with those glowing hands she began to touch him: first his temples, brushing down to his cheeks and along his jaw. She brushed fingers along his neck, then back into his hair, combing through tenderly. Following the lines of muscles, she traced swooping lines across his shoulders, down his spine, along his hips and thighs and ankles. Sunrise closed his eyes and melted into the gentle warmth: he felt loved, finally, as his mother painted him over with magic.
To finish, she caressed the tips of his eyelashes and said, “Open your eyes, my Sunrise, and hold them wide for me. Trust me, and be strong.”
He did so and bit back a slight whimper as she oh so carefully touched the pad of her forefinger first to one eye and then the other.
At her nod, he squeezed them closed again as they filled with thin tears. He took a deep breath, and his mother held his shoulders, breathing with him.
“Good girl,” she murmured. “You’re all done.”
When Sunrise looked again, the aether had faded and his mother knelt, leaning back on her feet. Behind her, the mirrored sorcerers clapped their hands together once, hard and in sync.
Pain flared in his bones. Sunrise dropped to the ground. He felt drained and bizarre, his skin tingling. He leaned forward, and Syra held him as he pressed his cheek to her lap, shaking. She petted his hair, drawing the long strands apart, letting them slide through her hand and skim his back.
For a long time Sunrise shuddered and sweated, so very cold. A burning kind of cold that raced through his body like the worst fever.
Then it stopped. Someone spoke. Sunrise shook his head to clear it. His mother lifted him, helped him move his noodled limbs. He moved without thought, dull and exhausted. As he tied his pants, Sunrise realized it was not the spiraling aether-lights on the cave walls tingeing his knuckles blue-violet. His skin was changed.
