Chapter Thirty-Nine Kasu
As she STEPPED from the darkness of the tunnel into the glowing circle, Kasu fought the urge to fall to her knees.
The next thing she knew, she was standing in the most lavish room she had ever seen.
Not even the private dining rooms at the most exclusive teahouses in the under-realm could compare.
The large chamber was sparsely decorated, yet it did not feel barren.
Leafy plants occupied white vases in the corners, and the tiled floors were so clean she could see her reflection in them.
In the distance, she could hear birdsong and the soothing trickle of running water.
The same symbols the guards had etched onto the ground were carved into the marble floor. General Shusa smiled kindly and let go of her hand just as Arun appeared in the middle of the circle. Ruo came next, nose wrinkled as if smelling something foul, followed by the two guards.
“General Shusa, you’re back!” Maids flocked to him, stopping only when they laid eyes on Kasu and Ruo.
The general held up a hand. “Peace. Do not be afraid. These three are my guests. They have fought bravely for what is just and right and have earned my respect.”
Kasu tried to ignore the flutter of happiness in her stomach. General Shusa had said that he respected them. The guardian god of the south, one of the highest and most virtuous members of the heavens. He respected her!
The general turned back to them with a sweeping bow. “This is my home, the great southern palace. Have you eaten? You must be thirsty and tired. I have to report what has happened to her majesty the Celestial Empress, but in the meantime, allow my servants to take care of you. Orro!”
At his command, a thin man with greying hair stepped forward.
“Please see that my guests are fed.” General Shusa directed the man and his maids to take Kasu and the others to the dining hall, then gestured for his guards to follow him out of the room.
His servants stared at Kasu and her companions hesitantly before ushering them through wide, airy hallways of white stone.
The palace smelled pleasantly floral – so unlike the stale, musty scent of the under-realm. Kasu took a deep breath and drank in her first lungful of fresh air in years.
“This place reminds me of my father’s palace,” Arun murmured.
Ruo snorted. A sentiment Kasu would have mimicked if she were as crude. Of course Arun would liken his father’s abode to the hallways of a god.
The maids were always careful to remain a good ten steps ahead as they led Kasu and the others through to the inner courtyard. Only the servant Orro stuck close, though Kasu had the impression that he was only doing so to make sure they didn’t steal anything.
“Ghosts. How unusual. I dare say you must be the first ever to step foot in the heavens.” He had a thin, nasal voice that made him sound like he always had something stuck at the back of his throat.
“It’s an honour,” said Kasu, but Orro was not as pleased with her response as she thought he would be.
“Yes, well, try not to get in the way.” He coughed and ushered them along.
Kasu’s brows furrowed. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about the servant struck her as odd. Like a chord with a single note out of key.
“Are you the person in charge of General Shusa’s estate?”
Orro shook his head. “Not at all. I only began serving General Shusa a few months ago. Before, I was a mere human monk from the Kingdom of Utuin.”
“I know Utuin! My father went to war against them four or five times!” Arun exclaimed.
The servant cleared his throat, clearly annoyed by Arun’s enthusiasm.
Kasu didn’t know the history between the two kingdoms, but she thought it better to steer clear of any messy mortal world politics. With a small cough, she deftly changed the subject to the design of General Shusa’s estate.
Flowering plants bloomed beneath ornamental elm trees. A path of smooth stone ran through a large, enclosed courtyard and past a pond filled with lilies and fish. Kasu absorbed it all in awe.
The air was so fresh and the flowers so vibrant and beautiful. An unfamiliar warmth beat against her skin. The sun. How long had it been since she had last seen the sun? Since she had stood in its radiance and marvelled at the clouds drifting across the blue sky?
A hollow, aching sadness swooped through her chest. It felt almost like hunger. Like an old scabbed-over longing that reached down to her bones. She had waited so long for this day. She had worked so hard and endured so many things.
Now finally, finally, she was here.
As soon as General Shusa returned, she would ask him to allow her to be reborn in the mortal world. To rejoin the cycle of souls. Even if she had to spend a few lives as a cat or a donkey or somebody’s herding dog, she did not care. One day, she would work her way up to being human again.
A small house on the edge of an apple orchard. The smell of blossom perfuming the air. Someone waiting for her on the porch of her house. Someone waiting for her to come home.
“Kasu?” Ruo nudged her knees.
“I’m fine.” She hastily blinked away her tears before they could fall.
“I don’t see what’s so great about this place. It’s just a bunch of fancy grass,” Ruo muttered, though their gaze lingered on the bright fish swimming lazily in the pond.
In the shadow of the stone columns, scribes carrying stacks of paper hurried from one building to the next. Kasu tracked their long strides as they bustled about. Like the maids, they were probably people who had once been average mortal humans, called to the heavens for their righteousness.
And Arun’s mother had been one of them. At least, until she had been exiled.
Or rather, until she had fled with the reincarnation wheel.
Kasu tried to imagine what it was like to live here, to spend every day in the light of the sun and smell the gloriously fresh air, to wake up to the sound of birdsong and go to sleep beneath a blanket of stars.
The work seemed hectic, but she bet it was fulfilling to spend every day making sure humans in the mortal realm were safe – nothing like her work at Camellia House.
She wondered what could have made Arun’s mother want to throw such a life away.
Orro led them past the courtyard and into a large dining room.
Someone had likely informed the palace that General Shusa had guests, because the table was already laid with an array of dishes – fluffy white rice, noodles of various hues and thickness served with a variety of sauces, leafy vegetables slathered in soy sauce and carrots cut into the shape of stars, roasted yams and straw mushrooms served with snap peas, fruits of every colour and kind, and desserts made from agar.
The soft scent of jasmine wafted from the teapots.
Delicate osmanthus wines and freshly squeezed fruit juices sat in crystal decanters in the middle of the table.
“I thought the Heavenly Principles were against flavour.” Even Arun was taken aback by such a spread.
Kasu shook her head. How could he have spent so much time with her and still understand so little?
“The Heavenly Principles discourage eating food that is rich in fat, salt or sugar not only out of consideration for one’s health, but because becoming too attached to food distracts the mind and body from what is truly important: the careful meditation of the Heavenly Principles.
For one-off celebrations, it’s OK to indulge. ”
“Indulge.” Arun smiled, though it was a tense, strained thing. “Careful: indulgences are for demons.”
Kasu scowled at him. General Shusa had ordered this feast, so, surely, it was fine. There was no way the general would do anything that went against the Heavenly Principles.
“Do you have any eyeballs?” Ruo asked Orro.
“Ruo, behave!” Kasu hissed, horrified.
“It was just a question!”
The servant decided against answering. “Please, do help yourselves.” He gestured to the spread, though Kasu could not help but notice how he subtly leaned away from them as he did, as if they were a bad smell he could not escape.
They sat around the table while Orro and the maids stood to attention at the edges of the dining room.
It was slightly uncomfortable feeling the eyes of a dozen attendants watching them eat.
Kasu wanted to call them over and invite them to feast as well, but the moment she met one of the women’s eyes they would quickly look away. Eventually, she stopped trying.
General Shusa ordered them to serve us, she reasoned. I would only be putting them on the spot if I asked them to eat too.
Ruo bemoaned the lack of meat and tried to go back to the courtyard to catch some fish. Only Kasu catching them by the scruff stopped them from breaking out of the room and killing General Shusa’s prized celestial carp.
“Come on, at least try the rice.” She dragged the cat to the far end of the table.
They needed to sit down and talk anyway. She was not looking forward to telling Ruo everything she had learned from the elixir Lady Camellia had given her, but she owed them enough to tell them the truth.
“Ruo,” she said in a serious tone. “Do you remember when you were born?”
The cat jumped onto the chair next to Kasu. “Do you?”
That was a fair point.
“Do you remember … killing anyone?”
In the throes of hatred, with the last of her life slipping away, Kasu could not remember exactly who she had cursed. Her mother, certainly, but what about the people who had abandoned her mother? What about the man who was Kasu’s father? The villagers who did nothing to help them?
The cat regarded Kasu with eyes the colour of newly minted gold.
“I remember a fire and screams. Flashes of someone’s face.
A woman. I know that I killed who I was meant to kill because I felt happy afterwards.
I was going to drift away – I felt my body breaking apart – but something kept me clinging on.
The next thing I knew, I was in the under-realm. ”
Kasu pursed her lips. So perhaps Ruo had only killed her mother. She was not sure whether to feel relieved.
“Ruo, I think … no, I know that I’m the one who created you. When I was a mortal, my mother betrayed me and my sister. Left us to rot. I was so angry I used my dying breath to curse her. When Lady Camellia forced me to drink that elixir, I remembered how I died. I remembered creating you.”
When Kasu thought of her death, there was only shame.
She thought of the stupid, weak girl she had been – too na?ve to see that her mother’s plan would not work, too meek to object to selling her soul, too feeble to save her sister, too petty to die without trying to drag someone along with her.
Ruo might have caused her mother’s death, but Kasu had been the trigger that had set them on that path.
She was the one who had really killed her mother. Her own flesh and blood. Kasu bet no one who reached the heavens had ever cursed their own family. They would never have stooped as low as Kasu had.
Yet in the midst of all the shame and guilt, she could not regret having created Ruo. Kasu could not imagine her life in the under-realm without them.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice how quiet Ruo was until she heard the cat’s claws scratch against the wooden chair. When she turned her head, they were staring at her with bright eyes.
“Mama!” the cat chirped.
“Please don’t call me that.”
A wide grin split Ruo’s mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth. “I knew there was a reason I liked you so much!” Ruo pressed their front paws against Kasu’s thigh and rubbed the top of their head against her cheek.
“You like me?” Kasu braced herself against the furry assault.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
A knot of anxiety and regret loosened inside Kasu’s heart. “I like you too. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
Ruo’s chest gave a deep rumble.
Before they could continue speaking, Arun sauntered up to their end of the table with a plate stacked high with food.
“So,” he said, like he was the one in charge of hosting this extravagant feast, “is this everything you ever hoped and dreamed?”
“It’s fantastic.” Kasu assumed that he was talking about the food, though honestly the same could be said for the southern palace, or for the heavens in general. Everything she had seen so far was wondrous.
“Have you tried everything yet? You should sample as much as you can while you have the chance – the cooks here are almost as good as the ones in my father’s palace. Almost.” Arun grinned at her when Kasu scowled.
Setting down his plate, he plucked a hard, purplish fruit from a bowl on the table and squeezed it between the heels of his palms until it cracked open.
“What’s this?” Kasu asked as he offered it to her.
“Mangosteen. General Shusa is the guardian god of the south. It makes sense that his palace serves southern-grown fruit.”
“I prefer apples.”
Arun nudged her.
Kasu grinned back and took the fruit. Inside were little white segments not unlike a tangerine. When she popped one into her mouth, it burst on her tongue with sweetness.
“Good, isn’t it?” Arun gave her a knowing grin.
Kasu was too enthralled to pretend otherwise. She popped another segment into her mouth, then another and another. Were all southern fruits this good? She had to try them all.
Her gaze travelled across the table, picking out the fruits she did not recognize. When she glanced back at Arun, he was not looking at her any more.
“What’s wrong?”
Arun jumped. “Nothing. I just wonder… What do you think will happen to us now?”
“We’ll be rewarded, of course!” said Ruo. “Showered with gold and silks and eyeballs!”
“And then what?”
Ruo shrugged. “We go back to the under-realm?”
Kasu planned on asking General Shusa to let her reincarnate. There was no better time or opportunity than now. Honestly, she thought that Arun should ask for the same thing.
But if they did that, then they would not be together any more.
Once you walked through the wheel, your memories were erased and you were reborn into a new life.
Though the gods could decide where and what you would be in your next life, there was a measure of randomness to it.
Even if they both reincarnated, it was unlikely they would be born anywhere near one another.
And even if they were, they wouldn’t remember each other, wouldn’t remember this.
Everyone leaves.
Beneath the table, Kasu reached for Arun’s hand. Their fingers laced together. Kasu wondered if Arun also dreaded the end of their adventure. If it felt as unbearable to him as it did to her.
“I—” she began, but was interrupted by a maid’s screech. Kasu looked up just in time to see Ruo slip through the dining room doors on their way to eat General Shusa’s fish.