by Joan He
Hesina exhaled, trying not to laugh.
“D-did I say something wrong?”
You usually do. Rou’s kindness always reminded her of her father’s betrayal.
Instead of responding, Hesina opened a hand. Rou poured lotus seeds into her palm, covering the fate lines, before closing his fist and scattering the rest over the pond. A second later, Hesina joined him, and together they waited for the koi to come. She was almost sorry when the seed ran out and there was no excuse not to stand.
Silence cemented the space between them all over again as they faced each other. The willows had begun to brown, and a catkin had fallen onto Rou’s head. Hesina instinctively reached to flick it out. Then she remembered Sanjing’s cowlick. Her hand fell.
“Do you like persimmons?” Rou blurted out.
“I—I do.”
“Maybe…you’d like to visit our courtyards sometime? They’re ripe, and, um, I don’t really like persimmons, but my mother does, and she says they’re best right now, and, well, she’d like to meet you. She’s wanted to for a long time.”
How long was long? Hesina dearly hoped it wasn’t when she’d still been spying on the consort from her shrubs; then she’d never have the face to visit. “I appreciate the invitation and will keep it in mind. Please send your mother my regards. And…” Hesina glanced to the mossy stone at her feet, composed herself, and looked Rou in the eye. “My apologies.”
Rou smiled shyly in reply.
As she watched him go, his pale-blue hanfu turning ivory in the sunset, determination gripped Hesina. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t quite bring herself to call Rou a brother yet. She would protect him. She would protect Consort Fei. She would protect all of the innocents in this trial by finding her father’s murderer on her own.
TEN
KNOWLEDGE IS TRUTH.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON EDIFICATION OF COMMONERS
GIVE THE NOBLEMAN A BOOK, AND HE’LL TURN IT INTO A WEAPON THAT ONLY HE CAN USE.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON EDIFICATION OF COMMONERS
A snuff bottle.
A book.
A bronze goblet.
A folded courier’s costume.
Hesina’s stomach lurched as she stared at her father’s items. If she was searching for poison, the goblet was the most obvious place to start—assuming she knew how to start. A thousand directions existed in an uncertain sea, and the full implication of embarking on a private investigation slammed into her.
Her, against a seasoned court. Her, against the tides of war. Her, against the king’s assassin.
Akira had been right to call it a story worth spectating.
With a shake of the head, she shut the chest. Then she gripped the lid, a thought blooming like ink.
Akira.
He’d deconstructed Consort Fei’s case so deftly that she’d almost forgotten who he was. A convict. The convict with the rod, destined to help her find the truth.
Hesina rose, giddy, and walked to the servants’ quarters of the outer palace, where representatives stayed for the duration of a trial.
Akira sat on the floor of his simple room, chair untouched. A pile of medical tomes sat on the floor, too, neglected; he was too concentrated on his rod, peeling it with a paring knife, making more wood shavings, it appeared to Hesina, than anything else. She cleared her throat, and he slowed his carving.
“I—I have something to show you.” It hadn’t been her intention to stammer, but things never seemed to go as intended around Akira. How was Hesina to speak to her representative? As an equal? A lesser? A servant? A friend?
Might as well get used to ordering him around; that’s what queens did, right?
“Come,” she said, sighing. “You’re moving rooms. Bring your belongings.”
The “move” consisted of Akira carrying his rod and Hesina leading the way, a grand distance of two rooms down. She unlocked the door and held it open for him. He stayed under the frame.
A high-ranking maid had recently vacated the chamber. Rumor was that she’d been caught with her fiancé—palace servants weren’t allowed to start families of their own. Hesina was usually two months behind on imperial gossip, but this maid was special.
Rather, this room was special. Even at a glance, the ornate details set it apart. Budding branches latticed the sitting table’s skirt; swirling clouds patterned the divan. Chiseled monkeys scurried across the bed’s lacquered headboard, peaches clutched within their hands.
“This is a bit…much,” Akira said, sniffing the air as he entered.
Hesina thought so too. But she wasn’t here for the decor. She made a beeline for the far wall. “You haven’t seen the most important part.”
She lifted a hanging brocade tapestry and thumped a fist against the zitan panel beneath it. The panel fell back, giving way to one of the few secret corridors that started in the outer palace and snaked into the inner palace.
This one, it so happened, went directly to Hesina’s chambers.
They stared down the gilded corridor in silence. It was a vestige from the relic era and—Hesina’s cheeks suddenly burned—had probably been well-used by the empresses who took servants as lovers in defiance of their husbands’ growing harems.
Whatever Akira was to her, he was not a lover. Stranger was more fitting, considering she hardly knew him. But she did know one thing.
“I’m going to find Father’s murderer.” She turned to face him. “And I’m going to need your help.”
He scratched his head. “I thought I was already helping you.”
Yes and no. Hesina had envisioned an honest investigation. A fair trial. Instead, they were battling against lies. Their victories redeemed the innocent, but they brought her no closer to the truth.
Akira sat on the floor by the bed. He took up his rod and started to carve. “It’s happening.”
“What?”
“The loss of your idealism.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Is a spectacle all you really want?”
The carving stopped.
She waited for him to meet her gaze, and when he did, she stared into his gray irises until she thought she might lose herself in them.
She broke eye contact first. What should she have expected? Everyone was the same; everyone was waiting for her to fail. But failure wasn’t an option, not when her trial was so close to becoming a persecution.
“This”—she jerked her chin at the corridor—“is so we can meet more easily. The other end connects to my private study. I’ll bring you the evidence I have. You, on the other hand, are free to come to me anytime. That is…” She wouldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t torture herself by watching him debate his answer. “That is, if you accept.”
There. She’d done it. She’d asked for his help without downright begging.
The silence that followed made her wonder if she should have fallen to her knees and pleaded.
“Okay.” His voice was quiet. Almost gentle. “I’ll help you. Just one request.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to keep my head if the truth ends up destroying you.”
And with that, he returned to sounding like his usual self, one who’d seen everything terrible in the world and decided nothing was that terrible after all. But whatever Akira had done before—be it merchant robbing or worse—Hesina could look past it. All she’d needed was this one yes.
“Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say. “Make yourself comfortable. Let me—I mean the servants—let the servants know if you need anything.”
No reply.
Wonderful. He probably thought she was utterly unhinged. Bracing herself, Hesina finally faced him.
His head was bowed. The string at the nape of his neck had come undone, and messy locks of ash-brown hair fell over his forehead.
“Akira?”
His breathing had slowed.
Instead of scaring him off, Hesina had bored him to exhaustion.
She gathered the down-and-silk blan
ket from the bed and knelt before him. He held his rod even in sleep. The detail brought a small smile to her lips, and she settled the blanket over his shoulders.
Something caught her eye as she did. The crossed collar of his hanfu had shifted to reveal a dark claw hooking over his shoulder.
No, not a claw. A tattoo of a leaf, the tip of it brushing his collarbone. The rest disappeared over the slope of his trapezius.
Hesina squelched her curiosity—disrobing her representative was the last thing she wanted to do—and carefully tucked the blanket under his chin.
“Hello.”
Hesina spun so fast that she nearly knocked over a candle and set her desk aflame. But it was only Akira standing in her wall. He pulled the panels of the corridor exit shut, and she slumped in her seat with a sigh. “Please knock in the future.”
“I did.”
Well, she hadn’t heard it. Perhaps the sound had gotten lost in her gnashing migraine. The life of a queen was tedious and horrible for her posture; she’d been hunched over paperwork since seeing Akira yesterday and hadn’t gotten a chance to deliver the chest of evidence to him yet.
He cocked his head to the side. “You’re one of those, aren’t you?”
“Those…?”
“A queen who’d be assassinated in broad daylight.”
He came closer before she could be properly affronted, invading the wide breadth of personal space Hesina preferred to maintain at all times with strangers. She rushed to organize her desk, but he passed it for her bookshelf.
“You’re welcome to any,” she said as he surveyed the rows.
Of the many he could have chosen, he slid out her copy of Assassins through the Ages.
“Yes, I probably shouldn’t have that.”
Expression unreadable as always, Akira flipped through the book. “Interesting.”
“What is?”
Without answering—a quirk Hesina found infuriating—he set it back on the shelf and took a seat on the floor. “So, how do you want to do this?”
After some wrestling with her desk drawer, Hesina successfully lifted the chest of her father’s items. She laid out the contents. The snuff bottle. The tripod bronze goblet. The Tenets, open the way her father had left it. She spread the clothes he had worn: the navy courier’s hanfu, the brocade broad-belt strung with his paring knife, and a knotted cord with a medallion in the center.
She removed the pouch containing the vial last, and hesitated as she slid out the tiny glass bottle. Half of the gas had already been wasted on the Investigation Bureau. The golden wisp was smaller than ever. Swallowing hard, she handed it to Akira.
He turned it to the light. “Mind if I study this further?”
She wanted to protect the vial, keep it out of sight. But she had to trust Akira, so she said, “Do as you please” instead. Then she reached for the bronze goblet. “Here. This might be linked—”
“Hold. Where do these items come from?”
Slowly, Hesina withdrew her hand. “His study. It was the last place he was seen.”
“Did anyone else enter the room that day?”
“No. At least, that’s what the maids say.”
“The guards?”
“They wouldn’t know.” She wound a tassel on her sash around and around her index finger. “Father always hated having them stationed in the inner palace. But I went to the kitchens after…”
I found his body.
Hesina counted to ten. By seven, her throat stopped closing. By nine, her eyes cleared up. But there were not enough numbers in the universe to seal the hole in her heart when she said, “Breakfast is”—was—“his favorite meal of the day. But all the cooks and maids claimed he didn’t want breakfast that morning.”
Akira took the goblet and ran a finger along the rim. “There’s a residue.”
“Sometimes Father keeps”—kept—“a stash of persimmons in the study. He likes to juice them himself.”
Then Hesina froze. When had he been poisoned, if no one had delivered food and drink that day?
“Some poisons take several days to act,” Akira said. “Or the cup was already coated.”
That made sense. Bit by bit, she unwound the cord around her finger.
Akira pulled the Tenets close. Together, they studied the pages. It’d been left open to a biography on One of the Eleven. The man had spent his early life as a humble street actor before committing some unspecified offense against the emperor and being slated for execution. The rest of the details—about his escape with ten other convicts and his subsequent rise to leadership—were just as vague.
Hesina wasn’t surprised. Legend was the sort of wool that people willingly pulled over their eyes, especially when it came to heroes. One was the best example: an overwhelming chunk of the passage praised his kindness and fairness. This kind, fair man had gone on to kill tens of thousands of sooths, but no one mentioned that.
If Akira had an opinion on One, or any of the Eleven, he didn’t show it. He simply rose, taking the book with him, and held the pages over the candle flame on the desk.
“What are we searching for?” Hesina ventured. She felt as though she was in her swordsmanship lessons again, always one step behind Sanjing.
“An assassin’s mark.” Akira touched the book to his nose. For an alarming second, Hesina thought he might lick it, but he only inhaled from the pages.
“But why would an assassin want to leave a mark?” She feared she was asking the obvious. “Wouldn’t that give them away?”
“People think poison is the subtlest method of killing.” Akira set the book down and started going through the other items. “In reality, you can arrange a carriage accident just as easily. A poisoner who doesn’t dispose of the body wants to send a message.”
He handed her the corded medallion before she could ask anything else and turned his attention to the courier hanfu.
On her own, Hesina studied the character etched into the jade round. Longevity. A generic bauble. There was nothing notable about the cord looping either.
The scream of tearing silk shredded her thoughts. She winced as Akira finished splitting apart the hanfu’s seam, but helped him smooth the single layers flat. Nothing unusual appeared inside.
She sat back on her heels and saw her “evidence” for what it really was: a random collection of knickknacks. What could she learn from an ornament or a paring knife that her father wore everyday on his belt? Reeling with disappointment, she reached for the last item remaining: the snuff bottle.
A tiny mountain was painted on one side of the alabaster bottle, a crane on the other. With a thumbnail, Hesina popped the jade bead stopper.
“Careful.” Akira took the bottle from her and sniffed first. He passed it back. “Just incense.”
Hesina raised the soybean-sized opening to her nose. A scent she could have recognized anywhere hit the back of her throat.
Slowly, she lowered the bottle. Her voice rasped when she spoke. “It’s Mother’s.”
Sticks upon sticks of this exact juniper incense had burned while she knelt in her mother’s chambers as a child. What did it mean for this snuff bottle to have shown up on her father’s desk? Hesina’s anxiety grew when Akira didn’t say anything for a long, long time.
“Did anyone have reason to kill your father?” he finally asked.
Before, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. Her heart had been too raw to entertain the notion. But now the wound had scabbed; she spoke around its rough edges. “Xia Zhong.”
She went to her desk and returned with a blank scroll and a brush wet with ink. “He wants Yan to go to war against Kendi’a. Father never would have allowed it.”
Her hand shook as she wrote the minister’s name, botching three strokes out of ten—not that he deserved any better.
Akira took the brush when she was done. “What about the people close to the king? Like your sister. Lilian, wasn’t it?”
Her gaze jerked to him.
He patted his ne
ck. “We had an agreement.”
“I’m not so eager to behead everyone,” Hesina muttered. Still, she chewed uneasily on her cheek as Akira wrote Caiyan and Lilian after Xia Zhong, his brushstrokes quick and sharp.
“And the dowager queen?”
“Mother couldn’t have.” Hesina’s denial was vehement. It didn’t matter if the snuff bottle was the dowager queen’s, or if illness of the mind made her say terrible things. Her father had loved her mother. He would have wanted Hesina to defend her. “She’s at the mountains for months at a time. In fact, she’s there right now.”
Akira got to his feet. “Then she won’t mind if we search her rooms.”
“We—” Shouldn’t.
But he was already at the door, waiting.
Just a search, Hesina told herself as she reluctantly joined him.
They made sure to travel through the secret corridor and exit through Akira’s room. Even then, several servants gawked as the queen emerged, unattended, from her representative’s quarters. Heat rising to her cheeks, Hesina averted her eyes and focused on the route to her mother’s wing. The sooner they got this over with, the better.
Yet at the dowager queen’s opal-inlaid doors, she faltered. While Akira cut across the sitting room, Hesina gingerly stepped around the gourd-shaped stools and matching tables. The curtains were drawn. What little sunlight eked past was rusty red, making the chamber seem like the heart of a slumbering beast that might rouse if startled.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Hesina jumped as Akira tested the floor with his rod. When he approached the dowager queen’s sleeping chambers, he ducked under the brocade curtains.
After a conflicted moment, Hesina did too.
“We shouldn’t be here,” she whispered as he swept his rod under the vanity, then started opening drawers. The air seemed palpitate in tandem with her heart. She swore she smelled juniper incense, though none of the censers burned.
“Check the bed,” was Akira’s answer.
“Me?”
Akira didn’t reply, too absorbed in turning over some vials and pocketing others.
Hesina checked under the pillow log. Flipped over the embroidered quilt. She found nothing amiss.
