I Am the Messenger of God

Newly made Queen, Star was preparing to abolish the institution of slavery, and to lift the fate King Yesael had forced upon those wretched people in God's own name and by his own authority.

In truth, a curse passed down through generation after generation.

With her own eyes she had once seen the wretched condition of the slaves, and the horror of it had left her trembling, handed down unchanged from one generation to the next.

She meant to revise the legal code. Let the code itself decree it, and these slaves might still carry forever the brand the royal authority of Wisdom had marked them with, but nobles and merchants alike would be forbidden from now on to buy and sell them like goods, or butcher them like so much meat.

Inside the palace, several ministers and a crowd of nobles seethed with outrage.

"This is tradition. This is the law."

"It stands written in the code the King of Wisdom himself compiled. Slaves are sinners, and it is right that they be punished."

Star was not frightened by what the ministers and nobles did. There was nothing especially forceful in her nature, but faced with something right she held to an obstinacy hard to put into words.

"Then we shall change the code."

The minister would not give an inch. "That is the code the King of Wisdom laid down. That is the law King Yesael established."

"Though you are King now, you are still bound to uphold the will of the King who came before."

Star sat unmoving upon the throne, but her eyes did not yield an inch. "And what if King Yesael was wrong?"

The minister bowed his head. "How could King Yesael ever be wrong?"

The difficulty of it went far beyond anything Star had expected.

Almost every person of power and every noble present was fiercely opposed to what Star meant to do, and it was plain to see.

Without slaves, who would tend their fishing grounds? How would their bone-craft workshops keep running?

Who would do the hard labor for their caravans? Who would maintain and attend to their lives of luxury?

The standoff held.

But even a royal power in decline was not something an ordinary noble could stand against. Set beside Star, the ministers and men of power beneath her had more to fear, and more reason for their nerve to fail them.

Someone stepped forward from the crowd, and knelt at the foot of the steps before the throne.

"My Queen, your command has been heeded. But to revise the code is no simple matter. The scholars who compile it must be gathered, the change must be studied, and all of that takes time."

Star came from a family of the Royal Bloodline, from the lofty heights of the Sky Temple.

She knew that issuing a command and actually carrying it out were two very different things. The nobles of the Yinsai Kingdom had long since learned how to obey in name while defying in practice.

But so long as the ministers had backed down, she had taken her first step.

Star was overjoyed just then, certain she had accomplished something great. Off she went to find Polo, eager to share the sense of triumph with him.

Sunlight came through the window and fell on Polo until the whole of him seemed to shine.

Polo was setting out stone chess pieces on the table. The moment he saw Star arrive he turned, and his smile broke out as bright as the summer sun.

"Star, come and look, quick! It's a game that came all the way from the Samo city-state, and it's so much fun!"

The Queen took off her crown, and sat down beside Polo.

Polo chattered on and on to Star about the rules of stone chess. He fiddled with the pieces while he told her how he had traded for the set from some crafty merchant, a man who had no idea he was dealing with the Messenger of God, and who had actually tried to talk his way into cheating him.

Star listened closely too. She had meant to rush straight into telling him how excited she felt, but once she heard Polo's voice, the urgency of it faded.

It was as if simply being at his side brought a kind of peace all its own.

Only once Polo had finished talking did Star turn to him, smiling so wide her eyes nearly closed.

"I told them today."

"I'm going to abolish King Yesael's slave clause and strike it out of the code altogether."

Polo looked at Star and sprang to his feet with theatrical flair, praising her with an exaggerated expression.

"Star, I admire you so much! You did exactly the right thing!"

But then he frowned, raised a finger and wagged it back and forth.

"But those people definitely won't let this go so easily. Star, you have to watch out for them!"

After traveling through the Yinsai Kingdom for so long, he was no longer the same person who had once understood nothing at all.

Star was not afraid. She spoke in an earnest tone.

"King Yesael was wrong, and as a priest of God it falls to me to set his error right."

"Making slaves of the craftsmen who built the Sky Temple was his own idea and nothing more. It was never God's will."

Then she turned to Polo. "And I'm not afraid of them, because..."

"I have you."

Now that she had said this much, Star felt something in her chest straining to break free.

Shyness and thrill came over her at once, and still she knew her own choice.

And she understood her own heart.

She rose to her feet in excitement, looking straight at Polo's face.

"Polo, come to me! Stay here at my side!"

"I can share my royal power with you. Everything I have is yours."

Polo, innocent and romantic by nature, stared blankly at Star, not understanding what she was even talking about.

Not until Star cried out to him, "Polo, I like you."

Polo's whole face flushed red in an instant, and he felt utterly at a loss for what to do.

"Ah!"

"But I'm not planning to stay here!"

"Polo still has to go traveling, to witness all those... miracles... in this world... and... and..."

Polo's words came out stumbling over each other, his mind gone completely blank.

Then, all at once, a perfect excuse came to him, one there was absolutely no way to see through.

"I am the Messenger of God. I must return to God's side."

"I came here to find the god-descending technique. I must complete God's mission."

Star looked Polo in the eye. "And then what?"

"Will you come back?"

Polo was afraid of making a promise. He looked away, avoiding Star's eyes.

"I don't know either."

"There's a lot to do at the temple, and God has so many instructions that need me..."

"And... and..."

Star could see Polo's hesitation. He did not want to stay by her side.

He was a free and unfettered soul, one who could not be bound by anything, not even by her.

But she had summoned every ounce of courage to speak her true feelings, and the answer she hoped for never came. Shame overwhelmed her, and anger beyond all measure.

Star no longer wanted to hear another word of Polo's clumsy refusal. She took out a stone tablet and set it down on the table, then turned and stormed off in fury.

"Your divine technique!"

"This is the only thing you care about. This is the only thing you know."

"Now it's yours."

"Just go!"

"Don't ever come back."

She had finished it long ago. She had only been afraid Polo would leave, and so had never brought it out.

Polo opened his mouth, but in the end he could say nothing at all.

Star stormed toward the door. She was waiting for Polo to call out and stop her, or to come after her with some word of comfort, and yet behind her there was no sound at all.

She turned back, wanting to see what Polo would do.

Only to find that nothing remained in the air but a scattering of starlight.

And before the table, there was no figure to be seen at all.

Star rushed back at once, and stopped before the table, where dreamlike starlight kept spilling out and fading away.

"Polo!"

Star called out Polo's name, but he was already long gone from that spot.

Polo had truly left. He had fled without a single word.

A flicker of regret came over her for what she had just done on impulse, and it was as though she had lost the single most important thing she had.

But she never let the regret pass her lips. Instead, she shouted out across the whole palace.

"So he's gone. Let him be gone, then."

"I have a Ruhe Beast. I am Queen of Yinsai. And I am not weak the way I once was."

"I am strong now."

"I really..."

"don't need you."