by Joan He
“So, Queen of Yan, do you find the conditions to your liking?”
Just as the Crown Prince intended, the extra information muddled Hesina’s brain. For a split second, she couldn’t remember what the conditions were.
Salt. Sooths.
A trade.
It didn’t matter what the prince threw at her. Hesina already knew her answer. Once the trial was over and stability returned to the realm, she would reject the word of the Tenets. She would fight to create a kingdom for sooths and non-sooths. Before then, she would not forsake them to a life in chains.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” she said. “We have no sooths.”
“My sources say the remnants live in hiding.”
Concede, Caiyan would have advised, and approach from a new direction. “If I give them to you, what will you do? Make them slaves?”
“You should not care.”
The prince was right. Hesina shouldn’t care. If she were truly a Yan queen, she’d agree to this trade in an instant. Salt for sooths—an exchange that cost them nothing.
Righteousness never fails. “The Tenets forbid Yan from involving itself in any part of the slave trade.” But the words didn’t sound nearly as convincing from Hesina as they did from Xia Zhong.
The prince’s smile turned scathing. “You think you are better? You are wrong. You are no better. You killed them. I make use of them because I see their value.” His gaze narrowed. “Is there something wrong with the terms?”
Trying and failing wasn’t a method. The longer this went on, the more she stimulated the Crown Prince’s suspicion. How could she reject the conditions without revealing her true heart?
Slow down, Little Bird. Her father’s voice came to her as Hesina scrambled to think. If you want to understand a person, peer at his heart through the window of his prejudices and assumptions.
Her mind stilled.
The prince had nothing to gain by divulging his plans of enslaving the sooths. He’d only done so because he believed Hesina was like any other Yan, that she would rather kill the sooths than copy his idea.
These were his assumptions. This was his heart. Now he would be in for a little shock, for Hesina would use them against him and offer the last reason he expected.
“As a matter of fact, there is something wrong with the terms.”
“Oh?” The prince lifted his brow.
She lifted her chin. “They’re insulting.”
“Please, explain.”
“Think of it this way, Siahryn. You offer me fish and ask for a boat in exchange. Eventually, we’ll run out of fish, but you? You have the means of getting all the fish you desire.” Hesina took up pacing as she spoke, trying to fill the tent with her presence. “Who knows how many resources a kingdom stands to gain from using sooths?” She spun on her heel. “The uncharted potential! You must take me for a fool if you think I can hand them over.”
The prince regarded her strangely, as if she were prey that had suddenly erupted claws and fangs. “You cannot use them. Your people would denounce you.”
Improvising, Hesina closed in and placed a hand on his chest. “Do you want the truth of me, Siahryn? My heart is not that of my people’s. They might be good. They might be righteous. But I will resort to whatever means necessary to get the things I want. If it’s salt I want to make, I’ll use the sooths. If it’s villages I want to demolish, I’ll use the sooths. And if they refuse to do my bidding, I’ll put them in chains myself.”
She relished how his heartbeat quickened under her palm. He started to move away, but Hesina lifted her hand first. She was an actress. With a costume, a mask, and a mouthful of lies, she was powerful.
And now, it was time to make her exit. She turned for the tent flaps. “Should you continue terrorizing our borderland territories, you’ll find I have no qualms about using the sooths against you either. But Yan honors generosity. Desist from your raids and agree to resume trade, and I won’t abuse the knowledge you’ve shared today.”
Her guards sprung to attention when she emerged into the daylight, but Hesina didn’t give the signal that something had gone awry. If the Crown Prince believed she could and would harness the sooths’ powers if pushed, then perhaps she’d successfully repaired trade and diverted war. They could end this negotiation peacefully.
But that naive hope died when his voice followed her into the open.
“You will honor me with a toast, will you not?”
He was striking in the sunlight. The piercings above his brow flashed gold, and the sands swirled at his feet as he lifted his horn of wine. “It is a custom of ours to end a discourse with a toast. I hope you will partake.”
With that, he drank. Deeply. Hesina’s stomach pulsed with each undulation of his throat, and she scowled when he refilled the horn and held it out to her.
It was impolite to refuse the wine. But it was even more impolite to expect her to poison herself, which was almost certainly the prince’s play here. Had Hesina made the mistake of seeding dangerous ideas in the head of a rival queen, she would have done the same. The wine was spiked; she would die if she partook. The kingdom would weep, war would erupt, and Xia Zhong would drink libations in her name.
And here the prince stood, licking his lips as if to say: I’m fine, aren’t I?
Hesina would be, too, if he did her the courtesy of sharing the antidote.
Think of a plan. Slowly, she reached for the horn; to refuse it was to tarnish an otherwise pristine negotiation. Think of—
A hand beat hers to it.
“Vrakan,” said Akira, bowing over the rim. “Hahzan un dal. I will make this toast.”
The prince’s brows lifted. “Who is this one that speaks the Kendi’an tongue?”
A convict who kept too many secrets for his own good and left Hesina speechless more often than she liked to admit.
“Just the queen’s representative,” Akira answered. “Which, if I remember the customs correctly, allows me to partake on her behalf.”
Then, before anyone could stop him, he drank.
He displayed the emptied horn, and Hesina wanted to smack him. Elevens. Her knees went weak. What had he done?
“I wanted a taste,” Akira said without looking at her. His eyes were fastened on the prince, who appeared equal parts amused and irritated. “I was told Siahryn the Dragon never fails to serve his finest.” He glanced down at the horn. “Sadly, I’m disappointed.”
Hesina didn’t care who Akira was, what crimes he’d committed, or how many languages he could speak. He’d drunk the poisoned wine. He was about to die, not her. The breath in her lungs moistened with a mixture of emotions she couldn’t name, and she grabbed Akira’s hand and dragged him to her while signaling to her guards.
“We take our leave,” she said to the prince.
“That will not do.”
A wave of desert wind rolled over the banks, but it wasn’t strong enough to explain why entire mounds of sand shifted back.
Hesina’s guards pressed close as black-hooded figures rose out of the ground.
“Stay a little longer,” rasped the prince. “And I will serve you the finest.”
FIFTEEN
IGNORANCE LEADS TO THE SPREADING OF LIES.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON EDIFICATION OF COMMONERS
IF YOU LISTEN TO WHAT THE SOOTHS SAY, YOU’LL NEVER BE FREE.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON EDIFICATION OF COMMONERS
Twelve mercenaries sprung from the sand like bamboo shoots.
Hesina’s hand tightened around Akira’s before she realized she was still holding it. Dropping it, she glanced toward her men and women. Their gazes had hardened. They might not have understood what magic entailed, or how it worked, but they knew it when they saw it. It was abnormal, just like the ones who wielded it. This—the shifting sand, the rising mercenaries—was unquestionably the work of sooths.
“Make it quick,” ordered the prince with a flick of the hand.
Blades whispered out of she
aths, and in unison, the mercenaries charged.
“Kill only if necessary,” Hesina hissed to her men. Then she drew her bombs and flung them high.
Red smoke shot into the sky, mushrooming outward and drifting down over them.
Please, Hesina prayed, hoping Sanjing would see. Hurry.
“You cannot run!” cried the prince from somewhere in the red haze, mistaking the signal as a diversion. A yell burst at Hesina’s left, a clash of metal to her right. When the smoke cleared, she found her guards fighting in formation around her. But they were outnumbered. Several guards dealt with two or three mercenaries at once. As they overextended, the formation cracked.
They scattered over the banks, with Hesina ending up near the scout. A mercenary launched himself at them. Hesina slashed him down. The man hadn’t even fallen when two more appeared. One attacked the scout. The other came at Hesina.
She deflected his first blow and met the second. Their gazes locked with their blades. A black scarf had been pulled tight over the man’s skull, and he wore an animalistic ritual mask that cut away at the mouth. The stench of rotting gingko eked past his teeth, which clenched as he jerked his sword up.
The hilt of Hesina’s jumped out of her hand. She recaptured it and, without dwelling on the close call, transitioned left. The mercenary swung in from the right. She spun away from the silver slice of his blade. It was too late to escape the blow, but if she could avoid the brunt of it…
It connected. Sensations came to Hesina in fragments: a blooming warmth, a sticky trickle, a pain that scaled over her ribs and resonated in the spaces in between.
Her fingers fumbled to her right side, meeting the shredded cloak, the torn ruqun, all wet with blood. Her thoughts ran hot with panic. Where was Mei when she actually needed her?
But the cut could have been worse. The mercenary had given everything to that swing. He’d expected Hesina to fall. He was still riding the momentum when she raised her forearm in the move Sanjing had helped her perfect. Recognition flared through the man’s eyes, and he fought to regain his center.
She cut to the right before he could.
Her blade took to him like a wire through clay. His blood splattered her cheek, but it was his gasp that made Hesina stumble. She watched, paralyzed, as he clutched his arm, ropes of scarlet gushing through his fingers.
His roar snapped her out of her daze. It was primal and raw, and when he ran at her, sword held high, she knew better than to meet him. She dropped and rolled and rose—valiant for all of a second before someone crushed her back down.
Hesina had had enough. She bucked her head back, and something clicked. Someone oofed. The weight shifted, and Hesina wormed free. She grabbed her attacker by the neck and was midway through grinding his face into the sand when she noticed the twine securing his hair at the nape.
“Stay down,” coughed Akira as throwing stars volleyed overhead.
He helped her to her feet once the danger passed. “Turns out sand doesn’t taste half bad.” Then he whirled behind her and hefted his rod. “Not that I’d like to try it again.”
He sounded fine. He seemed fine, apart from the sand burns she’d given him. Had the wine not been poisoned?
No time for questions or apologies. The next wave of attacks bore down. Together, they parried and slashed. Akira filled in her openings. Hesina covered his back. Their movements were one, an alliance of steel and wood, and when it broke, it wasn’t because of a mercenary.
It was because Akira had come to blows with their very own scout.
“What are you doing?” snapped the scout as the mercenary she’d been fighting slipped away.
“That one’s on our side,” said Akira.
Hesina scanned the fighters in puzzlement. “That one” had already moved on to his next opponent—one of Hesina’s own guards. The guard swung. “That one” ducked, letting the sword befall the oblivious mercenary behind him while he dashed on, a raven-black braid whipping out from his hood.
Her hood.
Before Hesina had a chance to draw a breath, Mei blurred between a two-on-one fight, slashed the kneecaps of both mercenaries, and sidled up beside her queen.
“You came,” Hesina said, her shock fizzing to somewhat inappropriate elation.
Mei wiped her knife clean. “It seemed like my presence might be appreciated. Do you have a plan?”
She did. She had. A plan contingent on Sanjing answering her call.
But she could do without him. “No. Just fight.”
With a curt nod, Mei set to work. The tide of the fight turned with her help. Eight standing mercenaries became seven, seven became five, five became four.
Three.
Two.
Then one. Akira and Mei finished him with a rod between the legs and a knife handle to the skull.
Sweat-soaked and blood-soaked, Hesina lowered her sword. Her entourage followed in suit and faced the Crown Prince with her. They weren’t a pretty sight, but the same could have been said for the fallen mercenaries. All were bruised and bloody.
And none, not a single one, had burst into flames.
Adrenaline addled Hesina’s mind. Slowly, too slowly, she realized that the mercenaries weren’t responsible for the trick with the moving sand. Neither were the children, who’d barely managed to summon dew. But then, who was?
“Impressive,” said the prince, smiling even as his forces moaned on the ground. “But you have not won.”
At his beckon, one of his advisors stepped forward. She removed her screened hat, revealing a face that was young and smooth and—to Hesina’s surprise—oval, hinting at Yan blood. What was a Yan doing on Kendi’a’s side?
As if in answer, the sand beneath Hesina fell away.
A shout tore the air as she plummeted to her calves. It wasn’t hers. Hesina was too stricken by that oval face watching her sink.
She was the culprit behind the vanishing villages, the reason Yan was on the brink of war. The prince murmured something into her ear and she responded, raising both hands.
Hesina and her guards sank deeper. Sand encircled her hips, her chest, her limbs.
Persuasion was futile, but so was everything else. “Don’t do this!”
The sooth’s eyes flickered open to a blank, uncomprehending stare. Hesina faltered. The girl couldn’t understand her. She was of Yan descent, but she’d never known her motherland or its tongue.
Because of your ancestors, growled the monster in her gut. Because of you.
“Dakan.”
Akira’s voice silenced the monster’s. Hesina stared as he repeated the strange word. “Dakan.”
She didn’t know what it meant, but she understood it by its texture and weight. It was a mirror to her heart, a translation of her intent, and it reflected courage back into her. “Don’t listen to your prince. Join us!”
“Dakansan Vrakan uz. Siubtehn.”
The prince laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Tulsan, cricholon uz. Senyn cricholon.” Then, in the common tongue, with his eyes on Hesina: “Join them, and they will kill you after they use you…”
Sand coiled around her neck.
“Like their eleven killed your ancestors after using them.”
Hesina’s throat closed, preparing for the deluge. But there was still her nose. Her ears. Doors to a granary, about to be filled. Her terror blazed anew, and she screamed. She didn’t want to die. Not like this, not by being buried alive. She’d rather drown. Burn. Hang.
She’d rather be shot.
The second she had the thought, something silver streaked through the air. An arrow, released from behind.
It struck the sooth in the breast.
The sand stopped. The girl looked down. Her mouth rounded to an “o.” Her hands fluttered to the shaft as if to pull it out, and Hesina’s vision went glassy. For that fraction of a moment, before the girl folded forward like a paper screen, they were the same. Powerless and helpless. Trying and failing.
But in the girl’s case
, no brother had come to rescue her.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t bury my sister alive,” rang Sanjing’s voice as Yan banners crested the dunes. Cavalry dismounted and closed in, yet all Hesina could see was the blood trickling out from beneath the body, smoking like a fuse in the sand.
Sanjing had shot the girl.
He’d had no choice.
Neither had the sooth, nor any of the sooths working for Kendi’a.
Hesina suddenly wished she had been buried alive.
But the act wasn’t over yet. As Sanjing’s men and women helped her out of the sand, Hesina gathered her fragmented wits and, in her best imitation of authority, ordered them to retrieve the salt from the tent.
Then she faced the Crown Prince. Sand streamed from the folds of her cloak, leaving Lilian’s ruqun exposed. The headless dragons drew the prince’s eye.
“The barrels of water I promised will be delivered to your markets before the gibbous moon wanes.” Her voice broke like the rest of her. She was back to being Yan Hesina, not strong enough, not smart enough, a heart full of secrets and a bellyful of contradictions. “Accept them, and I’ll take it as a sign that you remember what we discussed.”
The Crown Prince cocked his head to the side. For a fraught second, Hesina swore he saw through her to the impostor of a queen she was. The smile he flashed—nowhere near as rakish as before—didn’t put her at ease. “I will remember.”
If only a prince and his smiles were all that troubled Hesina for the rest of that long, long day.
Instead, the moment they made it back to the encampment, Akira started vomiting blood.
“Just an adverse reaction,” he gurgled, raising a red-smeared hand as if to hold their concern at bay. Hesina shouted for the guard who’d apprenticed as a healer, and Sanjing’s people pressed in to help, but Akira waved them all off. “Water…will do.”
