Winter was my greater concern. The cold chased us south, a perpetual rime of frost stinging my face. Every night I prayed to the gods, asking them for just two things: that I’d find my brothers, and that I wouldn’t freeze to death in my sleep.
I kept close to shore, letting the sail do most of the work. Only when the weather was fair and the winds were strong did I dare row across the North Sea Strait. Dawns blended into dusks, and I spent so much time surrounded by water that I began to dream in blue.
Sometimes I called out to Seryu in my mind, hoping he’d hear me and dramatically leap out of the sea in his dragon form. He could command the currents to stop fighting my boat, or he could make the water a little warmer. But he never appeared, and I soon gave up.
When I wasn’t rowing, I kept my hands busy to distract myself from the cold. I didn’t have paper, so I folded bits of dried kelp into the shapes of birds, melting wax from my candles to hold them together.
What are you going to do with all those birds?Kiki asked.
I shrugged.It’s something to do.
Oh, good,said Kiki.I was worried you thought you could make a wish. You said once you’d wish me into a real crane. I’d rather stay made of paper, thank you.
Why is that?
Look what trouble having a pulse has gotten you into, Shiori.Kiki tsked.Your betrothed almost gutted you with his sword—can you imagine how painful that would’ve been?She shuddered.You couldn’t even tell him who you were.
Yes, well, I thank the great gods I skipped our ceremony.Ishuddered too, but for a different reason.
To think that everyone used to sing Takkan’s praises. Iknewmy tutors had been lying to me.
I’d asked Father once, “If Takkan is so wonderful, why doesn’t he ever come to court to visit?”
Father had replied that a boy like Bushi’an Takkan wouldn’t fare well in Gindara.
Certainly not. He was a brute, just as I’d pictured him, and I finally felt vindicated for hating him all these years. I just couldn’t believe Father had been willing to marry me to that barbarian; he really must have been under Raikama’s spell.
I’d be perfectly happy if I never heard the name Bushi’an Takkan ever again,I declared to Kiki.
Once I returned home, I would ask Father to annul the engagement.
If I ever returned.
On the ninth sun after I left Tianyi Village, I reached Kiata’s mainland.
I was cold and tired and starved, but the sight of land spurred a burst of energy in me, and I plied my oars into the water and forged ahead.
I navigated the shoreline slowly, taking in the craggy mountains bordering the forest, some so high they pierced the clouds. The forest itself was vibrant, for unlike in Tianyi, the trees here had only begun to lose their leaves. They dazzled my eyes with their raiments of emerald and gold and ruby and stretched as far as I could see, seemingly without end. This was the Zhensa—the never-ending forest.
As I rowed closer, a chorus of birds exploded from the trees into the sky.
Have you seen her brothers?Kiki called out to the birds.They’re six cranes with crimson crowns.
The birds eyed Kiki, surprised that a paper crane spoke to them. Then they chirped their replies.
They say they haven’t seen any cranes come this way,Kiki translated.
I turned to Kiki, amazed.You can speak to them?
She shrugged by lifting a wing.How else do you think I’ve been looking for your brothers all this time?
While I listened, Kiki called out to the butterflies and the bees, even the mosquitoes that pestered me at night.Have you seen six cranes with crimson crowns?
Always the answer was no. And always Kiki would relay the animals’ same response:But we’ll look out for them and tell them to find you if we do.
So it went, until finally, just as dusk was about to fall, we drifted onto the Baiyun River. There, a beaver was working on his dam.
Kiki listened to his grumbles and barks.He says the river bend is just around the corner and that we should pull ashore there. There’s danger ahead.
