Chapter Seventeen Arun
Arun glared at the Pale Lady as she left.
Kasu might have accepted the demon’s offer, but he was not so convinced.
Even if they found this ridiculous elixir for her, how did they know the damned demon would tell them the truth?
The Pale Lady had said that his mother had stolen a reincarnation wheel and fled from the heavens – and that was obviously a lie.
“I don’t know about this.” He leaned across the table. “It sounds like a trap.”
Kasu glanced down at her untouched cup. “But we don’t have many leads.”
“How do we know she won’t just make stuff up?”
Kasu blinked in surprise. It was clear she hadn’t thought of that. Arun wanted to throw his hands up in frustration. How could someone be so na?ve? She was in the under-realm, for goodness’ sake!
Kasu’s eyebrows furrowed. “We made a deal. Even though she is a demon, the Pale Lady will honour it.”
Arun opened his mouth to argue when a sudden thunderclap of applause erupted from the tables around them. On the main stage, surrounded by a circle of crouching actors, a ghost dressed in a long golden robe with flowing sleeves turned to address the audience.
“Demons and disasters, ghosts and ghouls, gather round as I tell you the story of General Shusa, the heavenly guardian god of the south! This tale may shock you; it may upset or enthral you; but I promise it is the very real and true tale of the general’s rise to the heavens!”
They were close enough to the stage that Arun didn’t have to crane his neck to watch as another actor rose up from the middle of the circle and began to shout.
“General Shusa was a young cowherd who fell in love with a lowly weaver girl. When war struck, the local lord drafted all young men into the army. Shusa went to war, leaving the girl behind…”
The dishes on the table were starting to grow cold, but Arun found he didn’t have much of an appetite.
The food wasn’t unpleasant, but it was all so …
bland. He knew Kasu would think him nothing more than a spoiled prince if he said so, but he missed the cuisine of his homeland.
Not just the dishes from the royal palace but Bakrute’s street food too – curries made with lime and coconut milk, chicken so tender the meat fell off the bone, colourful fruit, and strips of beef smoked with ginger and galangal and turmeric.
Some buffoon pretending to be a young General Shusa tripped across the stage, dressed in rags and carrying a giant knapsack over his shoulder. A wooden token, carved into the shape of a winter iris, hung around the actor’s neck.
“General Shusa is the guardian god of Bakrute.” He wondered if Kasu knew that. Arun’s kingdom was in the south, and General Shusa was the guardian god of the south – their land came under his protection.
“Oh!” Kasu sat up a little straighter. “It must be strange seeing such an unflattering depiction of him. Don’t let it get to you. It’s all vile slander!”
Arun shrugged. He couldn’t say he cared what a bunch of demons and ghosts thought of the guardian god.
Back home, he had visited Shusa’s temple to light incense and offer his prayers, of course.
Everyone did. Even his father, who liked to wield his power like a cudgel, was forced to bow and pray, but it was like visiting the tax collector every season.
You did it because you had a duty. Arun had never much cared about the heavens or the gods, otherwise.
Not until Shusa had called for his mother. Not until the heavens banished her.
Ghost Shusa was soon joined by a demon in a scandalously short dress. The two actors kept making over-exaggerated kissing faces at each other as the audience chortled and hooted and made lewd suggestions about what they should do next.
Kasu squirmed, clearly uncomfortable. Arun still didn’t understand her. Sometimes he found himself staring at her, unable to fully grasp the reality of her existence. It seemed ridiculous that such a person could exist in the under-realm. Like a rare flower blooming in the desert.
Was it because she followed the Heavenly Principles so diligently?
In Bakrute, the monks and teachers were always talking about how important it was to obey the heavens, but in Arun’s opinion all it did was make people inflexible and self-righteous.
Kasu had a stubborn streak, but she was kind too.
Generous. Thoughtful. There were still times Arun had to remind himself that she wasn’t just putting on an elaborate act to trick him.
In the middle of the stage, the show continued. The actor playing General Shusa rode a wooden horse, his fake armour clattering with every motion.
“Shusa quickly distinguished himself from his peers through great feats in battle. Many kings wished for him to serve them, and many ladies wished for him to court them. Soon, the gods themselves offered him a place among their ranks.”
The crowd booed as the actor vanquished several demons dressed in what could only be described as coloured rice sacks.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Kasu pulled his attention away from the play. “Why did you come here? You said you’re the third prince. Why you and not your brothers? Or your father?”
Arun almost laughed in her face. “They don’t care about my mother.”
Kasu frowned. “I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure your family just—”
“What would you know?” he snapped. “You think you understand my family better than I do?”
Kasu flinched. “I–I apologize.”
A twang of guilt struck a hollow chord inside his chest. He hadn’t meant to shout, but it was hard to think of his family without feeling the familiar twist of a blade, the throbbing ache of a bleeding wound.
He thought of his brothers: Niran, who would spar with him every day, and Corun, who had taught him how to ride.
They had promised they would never leave Arun’s side, but Corun had caught some illness and was transferred to a mountain monastery to recover, and Niran was sent away to fight at the northern border.
His father treated Arun like a spare piece of furniture – sometimes, he wondered if his father remembered that he had a third son at all.
Then his mother left for the heavens and never came back.
In the end, Arun was always the one left behind.
“It’s nothing. I just—” He sighed. “My mother was my father’s fifth wife.
All the women my father married were beautiful and full of life until he married them.
He wore them down like a man grinding an iron pestle into a needle until there was nothing left of them.
I saw it happen to his fourth wife and I saw it happen to my mother. ”
“Then your brothers… You have different mothers?”
“That’s not uncommon in Bakrute. Kings may take many wives at once.
The first prince is my half-brother, but the second prince and I have the same mother.
Not that it matters. They left me and all I had was my mother.
I don’t…” Arun drew a shaky breath. He didn’t want to go back to that empty palace. To those cold marble halls.
He didn’t want to be alone.
For a moment, Kasu looked like she was going to reach her hand across the table and touch his. Now that he thought about it, how long had it been since someone had touched him with any kindness?
She didn’t reach for him, though. Kasu’s hand remained resting against the table. Arun did his best not to feel disappointed.
He shook his head. “Let’s just eat.” The dishes were stone cold, but if they left it Kasu would probably start reciting all the Heavenly Principles about food waste.
The show had already moved on to its third act. The demon playing General Shusa’s lover was dressed in a red bridal robe. A red veil concealed her face as she walked demurely towards the general.
“When the war came to an end, the heavens rewarded him for his courage and might with a position among their ranks, but Shusa wished to see his love. Yet on his return, he found his town had been hit by plague. His beloved had been disfigured by disease. Now she was uglier than the cows he had once herded!”
The actress pulled her veil off with a flourish to reveal a pig’s head underneath.
The crowd screeched and hooted, falling about with malicious glee.
The actor playing Shusa gave a comical leap in the air and ran behind the stage curtain.
His pig-headed lover wailed, hitched up her robes and ran after him to the thunderous roar of the audience.
Though Kasu had claimed the play was just baseless lies, Arun wondered if there were tiny nuggets of truth among all the cruel jokes and slander.
Something in the air shifted. In a flashing swirl of smoke, Ruo appeared beside their table.
“The wolf got away.”
Arun had not thought the news would affect him so strongly – after all, he had been perfectly fine relinquishing the ball when he had first met Kasu and Ruo – yet somehow having it stolen felt different. Far more permanent. More personal. Like he had lost a piece of his mother too.
They had also lost one of the few methods they had of tracking her down.
If Arun had known, he would have filled a bag full of his mother’s things – her jewellery, her perfume, those yellow silk slippers she adored so much.
Now their only option was to do as the Pale Lady wished and hope that the demon wouldn’t lie to them.
“You did your best, Ruo.”
Arun wished he could be as forgiving as Kasu.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he felt.
He should have found a way to follow the curse himself.
If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself, his father always said.
He should’ve known, should’ve ignored the others, should’ve never—
“Oi, you!” One of the waiters stared at Ruo with wide eyes and an empty tray clutched to his chest. “Scram before you upset our guests! Go on, shoo!” He waved his tray at the cat.
Ruo jumped back with a hiss.
“Let’s go.” Arun wasn’t interested in watching the cat do battle with some poor waiter.
“Arun!” Kasu called after him, but he was already on his feet, making his way to the wooden elevator. As the play entered its final act, the audience’s booming laughter echoed around him, travelling on the still night air and carrying on into the darkness.