Chapter Twenty-Six Arun
“Who? Who bought her?” Arun seized the imp by the front of his cotton tunic and lifted him into the air. His heart was pounding. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t his mother. She couldn’t be dead. It was a lie. Demons lied all the time.
“Arun!” Kasu grabbed his arm.
Lies. It was all lies. His mother was not a thief. His mother was not dead. His mother…
His mother was waiting for him to save her. He was sure of it.
“I–I don’t know!” The imp spluttered and squirmed.
Arun shook him. “Then who does? Who was there?”
“Lord Cobalt’s auctioneers! They keep records of everyone they sell and who the buyers are. If anyone knows anything, it’s them!”
“Arun, let him go! You’re killing him!” Kasu cried.
He knew what she was thinking, that he was being irrational. Aggressive. Breaking a bunch of the Heavenly Principles that no one cared about except her. Arun’s lips curled into a sneer. This was the heavens’ fault. This was General Shusa’s fault. They had thrown his mother out. If she was dead—
She wasn’t dead. It couldn’t be true.
The next thing he knew, the imp was gasping on the ground, the colour slowly returning to his face.
Arun didn’t remember dropping him. He didn’t register the insults hurled at him as the demon limped away as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him.
All Arun could hear was the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears.
“Arun.” Kasu’s hand was there on his shoulder. A hot brand, a painful weight, an anchor grounding him – he wasn’t sure which.
His heart was beating faster than he could think. When he tried to breathe, there was something stuck in his throat.
“Arun.” Kasu repeated. Gentler. Arun felt her fingers tighten ever so slightly. He turned away, embarrassed. He didn’t want her to think of him as some unpredictable brute. He didn’t want to scare her.
“Can – can ghosts return to the mortal realm?” he barely managed to choke out.
“If they have strong enough qi they could visit, especially with the help of a spirit medium or some kind of mystic,” said Kasu.
“But even the strongest ghosts can’t maintain their physical form in the mortal realm.
That’s why whenever you hear humans talk about ghosts they’re always transparent and floaty and able to walk through walls. ”
“So if my mother became a ghost, she wouldn’t be able to visit me.”
That was assuming his mother had become a ghost. Assuming she had not succumbed to one of the many different ways in which a ghost could meet their forever death. Or perhaps her soul had already been torn apart, every last piece of her completely and utterly destroyed.
“Arun. Let’s not jump to conclusions. There’s no point fretting about what might have happened until we have all the facts.”
“And how do we find those facts?” His voice quivered.
Kasu gave him a small, tired smile. “I have an idea.”
Arun smelled the meat market before he saw it.
There was a certain heaviness to the air, as if the stench had taken solid form.
With every breath, the thick odour of rotting meat and the iron tang of blood filled his lungs.
His stomach roiled. Travellers to Bakrute would often turn their noses up at the smell of durian left out in the sun or the liberal use of shrimp paste in their noodles, but there was no comparison to the stink of rotting demon guts.
He quickly looked away as a fishmonger slit open the belly of a large carp only for a heap of tiny still-wailing heads to come tumbling out.
The streets were lined with bloody stalls.
Animal carcasses hung on metal racks as if one could walk in and try them on.
Eyeballs bobbed and bubbled in large iron cauldrons.
Heads sat on pikes, price tags dangling from their ears.
It was exactly the kind of ghoulish horror that most mortals probably imagined when they heard the term “under-realm”.
Arun was sure he had seen a mural like this back home.
Kasu had pressed her sleeve over her nose and mouth in distaste.
In her left hand, she gripped the broken mirror of departure – prised from the hollow tree in the middle of the shadow forest where they had first found it.
The same hand mirror Lord Cobalt’s ghosts had used to escape from Lady Camellia’s chambers.
The one the ghosts had left behind when they fled.
Its broken glass ensured that no one could ever use it again, but it was still a handy object for tracking down Lord Cobalt’s servants.
They had taken it to a fortune teller in the theatre district, who had grabbed the mirror and performed some kind of ritual involving tortoise shells and bone fragments. For a split second, Arun swore he could feel the Pale Lady watching them from behind the performer’s eyes.
I see what they see. Hear what they hear.
They were being watched. Surely, the Pale Lady knew they were looking for Lord Cobalt’s men. Arun quickly averted his eyes while the fortune teller muttered something about an “abandoned shack” and “the shadow of the pagoda”. It was all nonsense to Arun, but Kasu’s eyes had lit up with recognition.
It was hard for Arun to believe that, when they first met, he had thought he would be fine without Kasu. After spending so much time with her, he knew without a doubt his search for his mother would never have progressed this far without her.
“Stay on your guard. The meat market is dangerous.” Kasu gestured for him to stick close to her as Arun followed her through the market. “Those who come here to buy food can just as often end up on someone’s plate instead.”
A few pop-up plays dotted the roads, putting on puppet shows for the handful of ghosts and demons squatting in front of the tiny wooden booths. One of them played out the entirety of General Shusa: Life and Love of a Loser God with shadow puppets.
“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 grand reveal of General Shusa’s disfigured lover was met with the same cruel hooting as before.
The puppet master stepped out from behind the booth and gave a bow to the cheering crowd. “Thank you! Thank you! Until the theatres reopen in the western quarter, we’ll be here every day!”
His mother had seen these sights too. Had walked these roads.
Arun felt a strange emotion surge beneath his breastbone – something quieter than sadness.
He remembered the first time he and Kasu had visited a fortune teller, and Ruo had agreed to give over his mother’s ball of star silk.
If they had not been interrupted, if that wolf-like curse had not stolen the ball …
would they have found his mother by now?
Would he be here at all, wandering the meat market, afraid that his worst nightmare had come true – that they would learn that his mother really had been caught and eaten?
It was a prospect too terrifying to consider.
“Are you all right?” Kasu had noticed the dark cloud of turbulent thoughts gathering over his head.
Arun sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “I’m fine. Just nervous.”
Kasu fell in step with him, their shoulders almost touching as they walked.
Arun stumbled as he felt the backs of their hands brush against one another, but Kasu continued as if she had not noticed a thing.
A flush of heat assaulted Arun’s cheeks.
As he hurried to catch up, he imagined what it would be like for their hands to touch again.
It would be so easy to link their pinky fingers together as they walked.
He couldn’t. Something about a deliberate touch felt dangerous.
He remembered the day his favourite instructor had left the palace to marry a man somewhere far, far away – somewhere Arun could not follow.
He had cried and cried while his instructor smiled and waved at him from the window of her carriage.
He remembered that smile. Remembered wondering how she could seem so happy when he was so miserable.
Didn’t she care that she was leaving him?
His brothers promised to look out for him, and yet they had allowed their father to send them away from the palace. His mother had told him that she would always be there, but she had left when the heavens called.
Teachers, friends, family, favoured servants – everyone left him in the end. Everyone left him so easily.
Somewhere along the way, Kasu had become another person he did not want to lose.
Kasu nudged him. “I know of the pagoda the fortune teller mentioned. It’s this way. We can cut through the middle of the meat market.”
Arun’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Lead the way.”
After all, he was used to chasing after other people’s backs.