Kogo no Midori: Abe Chisato

Not long after returning to Tokyo, I was scanning the fantasy shelves at my favourite bookstore in the hopes of finding a new Yatagarasu book, as is my custom even when I know there couldn’t possibly be a new one yet since the last one only came out the week before. But hope springs eternal as they say, so I was looking at the A section, desperately scanning the Yatagarasu volumes that line my own shelves when suddenly I stopped with a gasp. A new book! A title I had not seen before!

From the spine design, I could tell it was not a new installment in my favourite fantasy series, but any new book from Abe is cause for excitement. She’s so good at what she does! Her writing is delightfully sensual; she lingers over the smallest details and introduces us to the sounds, smells, visuals, and more of the worlds she creates. She takes her time with the narrative to let the story unfold at its own pace without being heavy-handed or hitting us over the head with whatever it is she’s trying to say. Her first book was already incredibly polished and mature, and she’s only gotten better in the dozen-ish she’s published since then.

So you know I was going to buy this new book, no matter what it happened to be about. But when I pulled it off the shelf to investigate further, I was rewarded with an absolutely gorgeous cover, and that sealed the deal. Off I went to the cash register, clutching this unexpected treasure.

While Kogo is not in the Yatagarasu universe, it is nonetheless still high fantasy, unlike Abe’s previous solo outing in the supernatural Hatsugen (which I did not write about here, but enjoyed very much. I just don’t have time to write about every book I read. I read a lot of books). This time, the fantasy is about nature spirits. Naomi is a child earth spirit whose world comes crashing down around her when a dragon (aka a fire spirit, definitely not to be trusted in any way ever) comes along and burns down the kingdom in which she lives. Far enough away from the central blast zone, she flees with the other surviving earth spirits and is rescued by an impossibly beautiful wind spirit, the Peacock King Noah.

Fast forward a few years, and Naomi is now a young woman serving in Noah’s court. She’s grateful to him for saving her and giving her a home of sorts, but life in the court of the wind king is rough for an earth spirit. She’s the only one who can’t fly in a palace built for creatures with wings, so she’s stuck clambering up the stairs built for non-windy guests. And being an earth spirit among wind spirits, she knows she’ll never marry and have a family of her own, unlike the other ladies of the court. But she believes she is nevertheless happy serving the king who saved her.

Until a fateful banquet when she catches the eye the Dragonfly Emperor, the belligerent ruler of all the spirits since the war between the bird spirits and the insect spirits (all wind spirits—it’s complicated) a hundred or so years ago. He has a fondness for ladies who are green of eye, which Naomi just so happens to be, and so she is whisked away to his castle to be the fourth of his queens.

And this is where the book starts to take some interesting turns. Like the first two books in the Yatagarasu series, Kogo is a mystery. Naomi can’t help but wonder why the emperor wants her for his fourth queen. Surely it can’t only be the colour of her eyes. And for how bloodthirsty and ruthless his reputation makes him out to be, he is the picture of kindness itself with her. After meeting his other queens, she is even more convinced that there’s something else going on. They are all noblewomen, spirits from different backgrounds, but united by their green eyes and immense power. So Naomi sets out to understand exactly what she is doing in the emperor’s palace and eventually discovers a doozy of a secret.

Obviously, I will not spoil that secret for you. But I will say that I did not see it coming at all. Abe plays her cards close to her chest. Much like in Hitoe, the first of the Yatagarasu books, she weaves a world of women and men in traditional roles: men going out to conquer, women busying themselves with domestic matters and the court itself. To the point where it almost seems regressive. But like in Hitoe, Abe pulls the rug out from under her readers so hard that we almost get a concussion from the fall. There’s secret scheming, insurrection, magical intervention, and some of the most girl power, patriarchy smashing action I’ve seen in a fantasy novel. I literally cheered out loud more than once in the last sixty or so pages.

Abe also devotes much of the book to contrasting the horrors of war with the quiet beauty of human connection, small and large acts of kindness. There’s Naomi’s rescue, of course, but she’s also given an abandoned garden when she arrives at the Dragonfly Emperor’s palace, and much of her story there involves her tending the plants, finding out what they need to grow, and in the process, learning about her own needs and desires. The chief eunuch at the palace tells her of the emperor’s past atrocities, even as he nurtures her talent with magic and encourages her to find her own place at court. Children that are destined to become soldiers are shown in all their childish weakness, tended to by dedicated nurses, a reminder that everyone who steps onto the battlefield is someone’s child, someone’s beloved.

I am still dying to read the next Yatagarasu novel, of course. But if this is the kind of work that Abe is producing when she takes a break from her crow people, I honestly hope she takes more breaks.