Tigers And Horses.
Swaying grass, and horses, a tall, swaggering stature, warm brown skin, and bright, jade-coloured eyes over a set of strong shoulders–all of that must lead one to think of but one character in a book.
With The Tiger’s Daughter, K Arsenault Riviera has gifted us with an epic tale and, to my mind, utterly delicious world-building, followed by the sequels The Phoenix Empress and The Warrior Moon. The first book in the trilogy introduces us to two fated lovers through a letter to the Phoenix Empress, which retells their story in flashbacks and from the view of Barsalai Shefali. Shefali, her consort, whom the Phoenix Empress has not seen in eight long, lonely years.
Shefali is a Quorin girl born on the steppes one month after the heir to the Phoenix Throne. That selfsame heir, Shizuka, is the daughter of her mother’s best friend. Shefali’s mother, who is none other than the feared Kharsa Burquila Alshara, thenotorious leader of the Quorin people. Shizuka is Hokkaran. Her own mother Shizuru is no royal, not even nobility, but a demon–slaying swordfighter married to the Emperor’s younger, gentler brother. Where Quorin lead a life of physical hardship in the harsh climate of the teppes, their folk diminished by starvation, illness and the wars with previous Hokkaran emperors, Princess Shizuka’s life begins in the Hokkaran Imperial Palace. But as different as they are, even from birth, Shefali’s and Shizuka’s lives are bound by omens and their mothers’ bond: Burquila and Shizuru are the last survivors of a band of warriors once sent against a demon general. Shefali’s and Shizuka’s unlikely birth omens of two pine needles, with their clusters indivisably connecting the single needles to a pair, mark their entwined futures–or maybe it is just their warlike mothers’ deciding that they ought to be inseparable which makes it so.
Their first encounter, however, is sobering. Shizuka tries to strangle Shefali the first time she really meets her, at age three. This is how the princess learns for the first time what a ‘No’ and a punishment for bad behaviour are… and for a while, the two of them do not see each other again. Shizuka’s mother worries her own temper has been passed on to her daughter, and tries to steer her interests towards the artsier pursuits of her husband: poetry, music, calligraphy. It does not stop Shizuka’s swordfighting talent from asserting itself. But it widens the range of subjects in which she continues to excel. With an Emperor uncle merely waiting for an heir of his own to overthrow her claim to the throne, who detests her mother and his own brother for marrying her, any accomplishment that gives Shizuka an edge seems one more gossamer sheet of protection at court.
So as Shizuka learns calligraphy, she begins to write to the girl on the steppes, to ‘apalogize because her mother wants them to be friends’. The letter reaches Shefali just after she has seen Burquila kill someone for being disrespectful to the Kharsa’s daughter. While Shizuka was filled with senseless rage at their first encounter, for Shefali, seeing Shizuka and receiving her letter at this time feels like a promise that everything will be alright.
Shefali has trouble reading and writing, and being half Hokkaran–her biological father, it is said, is a prince with whom Burquila arranged a political marriage after the last war between Quorin and Hokkarans–she is often singled out for some of her features. The respect of her own people has to be earned. But nonetheless, she thrives and eagerly waits for every single letter from the so-called Peacock Princess. Shizuka likes flowers, chrysanthemums and peonies, so Shefali tells her she knows only the ones from the steppes.
The steppes are a strange place, just like the borderlands of the Hokkarans. Shefali sees things her older brother does not seem to notice over the years. When Shefali and Shizuka are seven, their mothers attempt another personal meeting. This time, it is at Shefali’s father’s palace in Oshiro. And this time, Shizuka somehow has managed to litter the palace’s passageways to their meeting point with peonies, and indeed seemingly brought an entire garden with her. Shefali watches as the flowers turn toward the princess…
Shizuka only learns that flowers do not usually turn their heads after the heir to the empire, or transform into gold at their touch, when she turns half the Imperial Gardens into gold by accident. Her uncle, despite his Divine Mandate, cannot change them back but has to resort to burning them to assert his power over Shizuka, over her mother and father. It is then, that she begins to truly hate him. It is then, that her mother tells her to keep Shefali close no matter what, because whatever is going on with Shizuka will be going on with Shefali too. Only the fear of what her uncle might do to her mother and father makes Shizuka cater to her uncle’s pride. She kneels to him while he threatens her family and burns her beloved flowers.
At eight, Shizuka is finally allowed formal sword lessons. Shefali comes as a guest to the Imperial Palace and is allowed to train with her, but she is already a skilled rider and archer. Because the sword lessons are difficult and frustrating for her, Shizuku takes her out for a ride in the Imperial Forest. On that outing, the girls finally confide in each other their notions that they are something entirely apart from others around them. At last, Shefali can tell someone of the souls she observes departing from the dying. That she can shoot a bow in any way, at eight, and never miss her target, that she can talk to horses if she wants to. Shizuka, confident as ever, already has processed and accepted what many smaller and larger incidents in their lives lead up to: they are not human. They are gods. Scared, eight year old gods. Skizuka makes Shefali swear an oath to always return to her, before they make camp in the Imperial Forest for the night. Shizuka, in true princess character, falls asleep, while Shefali keeps watch. So it is her who first sees the hungry tiger stalk them at dawn. Shefali only has time to try and wake Shizuka by shouting while she already runs to her horse and nocks her first arrow. The tiger chases her through the forest. After a wild ride they end up in the camp again, where a wounded Shefali is saved by Shizuka’s sword and the tiger is killed.
The killing of the tiger is of great cultural significance for Shefali, who makes her own traditional garment of its fur, a gift for her mother. And it is her fierce, proud, unflinching mother who awards Shefali her adult Quorin name: Barsalai, the tiger-striped. (While, because the Hokkaran court decides it cannot possibly be any other but a princess who slew the tiger, the Quorin accordingly name Shizuka Barsatoq, the tiger-thief… she wears it with dignitiy.) However, for Shefali and Shizuka, their night in the forest marks much more than surviving a tiger attack. They are forever set apart from their families, from anyone but one another. They are slowly becoming something else, together.
Tragedy strikes early for Shizuka. At the same time, Shefali has already had her first cruel encounter with a demon. Killing a demon must be done safely, so as none of their fouled blood infects one, otherwise any warrior will soon turn into a demon themselves in an agonising process. They only know this, and that there are demon generals directing the infected, and that all demons come from the Traitor, a new dark god in the north. Steel-Eye, the demon names Shefali. In contrast to any oracle hitherto questionened, it seems to know exactly what her future holds. Of course, she merely alludes to Shefali’s later life, but her taunts are ominous and fearsome. When Shizuka is taken in by the Quorin shortly after, both girls know they will not have long before they will go north together, to the damaged Wall of Flowers which protects the humans from the demons, and begin their fight against the Traitor’s foul armies.
But both also realise, as they begin to grow up being as two pine needles, they are in love with each other. Self-evidently. Fiercely. Finally, Shefali is able to do what she has always felt was right, and treat Shizuka the way a Quorin would treat her lover. Share her horse. Share her tent the night that Shizuka’s godhood begins to truly manifest. They set out immediately in the morning, with only an inkling of what they are meant to do, northward, driven by Shizuka’s conviction. And so, they set events in motion which slowly start to turn the god “the Daughter” into Shizuka, the Phoenix Empress, while the great Quorin hero god Tumenbayar gradually morphs into Shefali Steel-Eye, the Tiger-Striped warrior daughter of the most infamous Kharsa, Burquila. But Shefali’s path is one of hardship and filled with a darkness Shizuka has not forseen. While the Peacock Princess is bold, she is also sometimes reckless. Will Shefali be able to bear paying the price for her love’s shortcomings? Or will they be torn apart irrevocably just as Shizuka defies her powerful uncle to protect Shefali?
