Descendant of the Crane

by Joan He

  In the end, she’d taken everything on the desk, along with the courier costume he’d been wearing at the time of his death, and boxed them away. Boxed away her grief too. Placed it out of dust’s reach, where it would remain like new.

  “Na-Na…” An arm wrapped around her shoulders, and Hesina let Lilian pull her in. “You can always slow down. Rely on us. We’re here for you.”

  It wasn’t the same. Her father had filled her nights with shadow puppets, dress-up, and maps of secret passageways. Year after year, he boosted her onto his shoulders—her very own throne—and together they’d watch the queen’s carriage fade into the mist, whisking her back to the sanatorium in the Ouyang Mountains, where the air and altitude could preserve her failing health. Afterward, the king would take Hesina into the persimmon groves. They’d eat fruit picked straight off the branches until they bloated, and Hesina would cry, missing a mother who would never miss her.

  Her tears had blinded her to the unconditional love right in front of her. Now, justice was her only way to say thank you. To say goodbye. To say I love you too.

  Caiyan joined them on the second level. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders, and the three stayed that way until a distant drumbeat passed through the air. Horns blared into the chorus, and a gong struck a single, deafening note.

  The twins stepped back at the same time Hesina pulled away.

  She walked out of the study, telling herself not to run, not to rush. Only fools were eager to receive disappointment. But the sound of the gong resurrected the little girl she had been, and she became a fool again as she climbed the steps of the eastern watchtower, first at a steady pace, then a jog, then a run.

  She burst through the doors, cut through the startled guards, and leaned over the granite parapet. The watchtower stood a whole li from the city walls, but Hesina was tall enough now to see the line of carriages on her own. It slithered through the Eastern Gate like a serpent scaled in mourning white, horned with banners flying the imperial insignia, wending between crowds of commoners.

  Hesina’s heart filled and emptied all at once. Her mother had finally come home.

  FOUR

  THERE SHOULD BE SIX, ONE FOR EACH MINISTRY, GRANTED OFFICE ON THE BASIS OF MERIT.

  ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON MINISTERS

  THEY’RE THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST CORRUPTION.

  TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON MINISTERS

  Standing on the terraces, with commoners and nobles blanketing the Peony Pavilion below, Hesina couldn’t remember the warmth of her father’s study. Blades hung in the air as her mother made the slow ascent up the terraces, the people rippling as they bowed. Summer had ended with the return of the queen, and autumn, the season of death, began.

  The imperial children awaited her in the same order they always did, with Sanjing to Hesina’s right and Rou, the Noble Consort’s son, to her left. For reasons Hesina could not understand, Xia Zhong had deemed Rou closer to a trueborn offspring than Caiyan and Lilian. The twins stood behind with Consort Fei herself, who rarely left her lodgings in the Southern Palace. When she did, she wore a screened headpiece that covered her entire face. The headpiece was the source of many rumors. Hesina would know; she’d fed some herself.

  To be fair, she’d been young. Four when she’d first seen Rou—a two-year-old toddler then—from afar. Six when she learned the truth—that in the Southern Palace, behind the wisteria vines, there lived a consort, and Rou, the boy in blue, called Hesina’s father his own.

  Her first taste of betrayal went down about as well as a bowl of tortoise blood tonic. Her father had lied. The boy wasn’t a visiting prince from the kingdom of Ci. The queen didn’t have all of the king’s love. Hesina hadn’t spoken to her father for weeks. Then, when it hurt more to stay angry, she forgave him, but a knot remained in her heart, and blaming someone else was the only way to untie it.

  So she blamed Consort Fei and Rou. It wasn’t right. But it was easier.

  Well, easier when Rou wasn’t trying so hard to catch her eye. Hesina’s dread mounted as she sensed him working up the courage for words. Finally, as the queen reached the final terrace landing, he offered Hesina a smile and said, “Good luck, Sister.”

  It was the exact sort of gesture that made her feel terrible in comparison, and she acknowledged Rou with a stiff nod. Later, she would wonder what the good luck was for. Meeting with the queen? Asking for her blessing? Or good luck in general, because her half brother was kind like that?

  Not that it mattered. Luck was never on Hesina’s side when it came to her mother.

  The queen reached the final landing, immaculately wrapped in a voluminous ruqun of the deepest blue. She had a face like ceramic—arresting to behold yet quick to fracture, her mouth carved downward as she dismissed everyone but her two trueborn children.

  Hesina and Sanjing followed their mother to the red lacquered threshold rising before the palace’s front hall. There, she refused Hesina’s offered arm and took Sanjing’s instead. It could have been worse. At least Hesina hadn’t been shamed in front of all the commoners.

  The humiliation continued. When they reached the queen’s chambers, their mother rejected Hesina’s cup of tea and choose Sanjing’s instead. Her entourage of maids pretended not to notice and continued fanning the queen. Hesina pretended not to care.

  “My blessing, is it?” Her mother’s hair, quilled with gold pins, was jet-black like Hesina’s. Time didn’t touch her, or these chambers, which had been painstaking preserved for the few days a year she visited.

  Being here made Hesina feel six again. The orchids hanging from the beamed ceiling looked like sneering faces, and her knees ached with the memory of kneeling against the russet huanghuali floors. “Yes,” Hesina answered, keeping her voice flat, cool, and stripped of hope.

  “Do you have a trusted scribe?”

  But a little always crept back in. “I do. I can summon—”

  “Good. You may forge the blessing, because you will never receive one from me.”

  The maids stopped fanning, then sped back up.

  Hesina braided back her nerves. She needed the validation of this blessing. “I am ready to fulfill my duties, Mother.”

  Her mother considered the teacup in her hand with disinterest. “You speak of the coronation as if it’s inevitable.” With a clink of porcelain, she set the cup back down. “I may yet choose to stay.”

  The chamber froze.

  Mother. Staying. Ruling as regent.

  Hesina hadn’t considered the possibility, but maybe it wasn’t a bad thing. If she told her mother the truth about the king’s death, the queen would surely want to find the assassin too. What did crowns and thrones matter then?

  The Imperial Doctress, who serviced the queen just as often as the maids, placed a steaming porcelain bowl on the side table. The tang of ginseng tunneled up Hesina’s nose. “Be reasonable, Your Highness. You can’t stay away from the mountain air for long.”

  “You should focus on getting better, Mother,” Sanjing added, standing at the queen’s side. He belonged there, unlike Hesina, and she stiffened as his gaze drifted to her. “Sina will be a good ruler.”

  The queen barked a laugh. “You speak on your sister’s behalf, but do you know half her thoughts?”

  As if she knew herself.

  The queen canted her head in her daughter’s direction, and Hesina’s spine went rigid. “You. Why do you want to rule so badly?”

  A week ago, Hesina wouldn’t have been able to answer. This fate had chosen her. It was only now, seventeen years later, that she chose it back. For truth, for justice, and for her father.

  But she wasn’t in a habit of opening up to her mother. “Why shouldn’t I want to rule?” After all, she’d been groomed for this her entire life. Sacrificed normal interests for lessons in calligraphy, cosmology, and diplomacy.

  “If you’re doing this for your father, there’s no use.”

  Hesina blinked. “What do you mean?”

  The que
en lifted a hand, and a maid immediately began to massage it. “Nothing you do will bring him back.”

  What did her mother think she was, a child? Someone who still believed in the myths tutors told their pupils, that enough studying could make them an immortal sage or give them the power to raise the dead?

  Before Hesina could reply, the Imperial Doctress tutted and nodded at the steaming bowl of tonic. “It’s growing cold,” she said, as calmly as she had when insisting that the king had died a natural death.

  But this time, Hesina wouldn’t back down. She seized the bowl of tonic and dropped to a kneel, bowing her head. “Please, Mother. Accept this.”

  Accept me.

  The Imperial Doctress was wrong. The concoction hadn’t grown cold. Heat seared through the pads of Hesina’s fingers and gnawed at the bone. She held on, presenting the bowl as her piety. All the queen had to do was take it.

  As Hesina’s arms grew leaden, a knock came from the chamber doors. A maid hurried to open them, and the visitor entered, his hanfu hem skirting into Hesina’s limited range of vision as he approached.

  “This had better be important, Minister Xia,” snapped her mother.

  Xia Zhong?

  Hesina didn’t believe it. Not even when she heard the Minister of Rites say, “I wouldn’t intrude if it weren’t,” or when he knelt beside her, the scent of wet, cold tea leaves emitting from his person.

  “I came as soon as I learned of your return,” said Xia Zhong. “It’s on the matter of succession.”

  Hesina tensed. He knows. About her treason, her visit to the dungeons. He’d seen her duplicitous heart, so unlike her father’s. He’d come to declare her unfit.

  “She isn’t ready.” Her mother’s rejection pinched, but it would be nothing compared to death by a thousand cuts. Hesina’s head spun. She struggled to follow along when the minister recited:

  “Passage 2.1.3. ‘No ruler, young or old, can know everything there is to know. The realm is large, the commoners many. Without the guidance of their advisors and ministers, even the most experienced of kings and queens turn incompetent.’”

  No one spoke when he finished.

  Then the queen did. “Get out of my chambers,” she ordered, just as Hesina understood the meaning of the passage. Xia Zhong hadn’t come to denounce her. Quite the opposite, he was encouraging the queen to give her blessing.

  Wait.

  The minister bowed low. He got to his feet, one knee at a time, and paid the queen the utmost respect by facing her as he retreated. As the doors closed, Hesina wished she had the power to call him back. But it was pointless—her mother had made up her mind.

  Hesina’s temples tensed as she ground her teeth. She began to lower the bowl.

  The weight of it suddenly lightened in her hands.

  The porcelain parted from her fingertips.

  “If this is what you want, then take the crown. Take my blessing.”

  Head still bowed, Hesina dared to hope.

  “You can bring this kingdom to its knees, for all I care.”

  The bowl, concoction and all, crashed to the floor as her mother let go.

  The queen laughed, and coughed, and coughed as she laughed. Half the maids tended to her while the other half huddled around Hesina to clean up the shards.

  Hesina remained kneeling. There was a time when she would have cried as she blamed herself, the illness, anyone and anything but her mother for her porcelain heart.

  That time had passed. As the dark green liquid spread over the varnished floor, Hesina laid one hand over another, pressing them palm down to the floor and her forehead to their backs in a final koutou to the queen. Because of her, Hesina could risk everything and more for her father. Because of her, she had no regrets.

  “Xia Zhong! Wait!”

  It wasn’t queenly to shout, but Hesina didn’t care. The minister turned as she hurried down the covered gallery.

  “Thank you,” she said when she reached him. For someone who supposedly subsisted on tofu and leeks, he walked at an impressive speed. The Northern Palace—home to the relic emperors’ harems in the past, now the offices of ministers—lay just past the rock gardens.

  Xia Zhong bowed, the wooden beads at his neck clicking as they swung forward. “A minister does what duty demands.”

  “Please, at ease.” Hesina helped him upright.

  The minister hadn’t aged well. His nose was sharp and defined, his frame tall and thin, but his skin was creased and sagging, his bald scalp dark with liver spots. His eyes bugged, draped with bags so heavy that they pulled red into the rim, giving them a fishlike quality.

  His court robes, too, had seen better days. The black cloth had faded to charcoal, the malachite cuffs bordering on mold green. The smell of damp tea leaves enveloped Hesina again. She tried not to gag.

  Xia Zhong took a step back as if sensing her discomfort. “Can I help you, dianxia?”

  Her automatic answer was no. She’d come to thank him, not to flaunt her incompetence.

  But he’d already seen her at her lowest. He’d spoken for her. His words had carried a torch down to the deepest, darkest dungeon of her self-doubt. He wasn’t a friend, but perhaps, if Hesina played her cards right, he could be an ally.

  “I’d like some advice.” She invited Xia Zhong to walk, and they started down the gallery and through the rock gardens. The twisted pumice boulders on either side of them were supposed to evoke auspicious characters such as longevity, but all Hesina could see were the nooks and crannies where she and her father had played hide-and-seek. “If, let’s say, my father didn’t die a natural death…”

  She braced herself for derision, for scorn.

  None came.

  “If he were murdered,” she ventured, “would the people have the right to know?”

  “Passage 3.4.1: ‘A suspected case of misdemeanor, private or public, personal or institutional, must be forwarded to the Investigation Bureau of the province in question.’ The Bureau deliberates, not you or I. If the Bureau can find enough evidence and suspects, then the case goes to trial, and the people must be notified by the law of the Tenets.”

  If only she’d had Xia Zhong to convince her brother. “What if the political climate is…unstable?”

  “Passage 3.4.2: ‘Justice is a muscle. Without faith, it weakens. Without use, it decays. Without challenges, it does not strengthen.’ Small cases have their challenges, dianxia. So do large ones.”

  Hesina always considered the Tenets, with their sooth-hating passages, as propaganda. Even her father had cautioned her against reading the book too literally. But the passages were like weapons in Xia Zhong’s hands. It stunned her. It awed her.

  “If there’s nothing else,” said the minister as they neared the end of the gallery, “I must be going now.”

  “There is something else.”

  They came to the Northern Palace moon gate. Through the circular opening of cutout limestone, Hesina glimpsed the minister’s residence. Just like rumors claimed, the roof was missing half its tiles.

  Xia Zhong didn’t invite her in. Hesina didn’t blame him.

  They stood under the gallery eave, the minister waiting for her to speak. She collected her courage, building it like a house of twigs. “I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Is it in accordance with the Tenets?”

  She could not lie. “I don’t know.”

  “Then I can’t help.”

  “Wait,” Hesina said as Xia Zhong started to go. She thought she caught a flash of annoyance in his red-rimmed eyes, but it was gone when she looked again.

  “I know a boy. A boy of immense talent and skill.” The lies came easily this time. Too easily. Hesina almost grimaced when she imagined what her father would think. “He made some mistakes. His life was hard, and he was desperate. But his dream always was to pass the civil service examinations. Become a servant of the state.”

  She layered emotion to her voice, infused the story with truth. She’d known a boy like
this, after all. It was Caiyan.

  But Caiyan had never robbed a merchant of five hundred pieces of banliang. “Now he’s wasting away in the dungeons. I could pardon him, but he is without a home and family. I’d be releasing him to rot on the streets. The only thing that can save him now is a ticket past the preliminary exams.”

  Xia Zhong shook his head before she had even finished. “No.”

  “Please. If my father’s case makes it to trial, pick him for me as my representative.”

  “I said no.” The minister slipped past her.

  Hesina balled her fists. She’d lost count of all the sunny days she’d stayed in to read another treatise or commentary on the Tenets, reciting the passages to her tutors. It couldn’t have been for nothing. If Xia Zhong could use the words of the dead, then so could she.

  “Passage 5.7.1: ‘The death sentence for petty crimes such as theft and vandalism will be lifted because the potential for such persons to contribute remains.’ Passage 4.6.3: ‘The examination system will not discriminate on the basis of gender, class, or background.’ Passage 5.2.2: ‘Everyone, under the new era, will have an equal chance at a self-sustainable living.’”

  Xia Zhong stopped in his tracks.

  “Passage 2.4.1,” she added for good measure. “‘A minister serves.’”

  A gale swept down the gallery, bringing the first of the fallen gingko leaves to Hesina’s feet.

  “Name. Quickly,” snapped the minister when she didn’t speak. “Before I change my mind.”

  Name.

  Name.

  She had no name. She’d made up this elaborate story about a boy whose name she didn’t even know. Demons take her. “Cell 315.”

  She wanted to disappear into the ground as he left without a word.