by Joan He
Her life.
Her ideals.
Right after she gave Sanjing up to his duty as her general. “Then I grant you high command.”
Her brother bowed. “I’ll ready myself now.”
This is what he wants, Hesina reminded herself as he went down the dais in two quick strides. The vassals bowed as he swept past. It’s too painful for him to stay here.
Still, something in her closed as the doors groaned shut behind him.
Exhausted, Hesina gripped the throne’s arm. “On to the matter of restoring order to the imperial city.”
Officials came forward with their proposals. Some pointed out that the majority of sooths were likely living in the underground sewage system and suggested burning them out. Others argued for letting the vigilante groups do the dirty work. Issues of costs and efficiency were raised, but no one, not a single soul, voiced Hesina’s thought: the majority of sooths were innocent. She ached to say it, but at a time when she needed the support of all her subordinates, she couldn’t alienate them by revealing her true heart.
She looked to Caiyan. He hadn’t said a word this entire time. A silly part of Hesina was waiting for him to swoop in with the best solution. But there wasn’t any. The people had decided.
What is power? Hesina had thought it was wielding the knife, or getting someone to wield it for her. Now she realized it was neither. Power was yielding. It was taking the bloodstained knife out of a thousand frenzied hands and making it hers alone.
“Silence.”
The court hushed.
“Tomorrow—” Her voice cracked; she tried again. “Tomorrow, I will make a tour of the imperial city. We will show the people I am alive and well. The procession will start and end at the terraces with the sharing of my decree. I—”
Her throat was in her stomach, and her stomach was in her throat, and her heart was somewhere between them, clawing to resurface.
“I will sanction a citywide cutting, to be conducted by the imperial guard and only the imperial guard, enacted sector by sector, ward by ward. Magistrates and hand-selected officials will oversee that everyone in the population records is processed equally. Any discovered soothsayers will be detained…”
Not at the palace, not after what had happened.
“…in the city guard barracks,” she finished, “where they will await further processing.”
“Death by a thousand cuts?” piped up an official.
Placate the people, and buy time. “We must wait to learn the total numbers of sooths before we decide how to proceed,” Hesina said before she could come up with the proper justification.
Caiyan provided it. “If the number of discovered sooths is high,” he said, his voice unusually gravelly, “then we can’t afford to carry out the executions to their fullest extent.”
The officials grumbled, protesting that foregoing the executions went against the Tenets.
Caiyan continued, his words hoarse and strained. “Every province is watching this city. Should we publicize that soothsayers comprise ten, fifteen, or twenty percent of our population, surpassing all prior expectations, the entire realm will turn on itself. The Kendi’ans will advance, and the militia won’t be able to stop a two-front war.” He glanced to Hesina, his chestnut eyes unreadable. “The queen is right. What happens after identifying the soothsayers will be determined by the numbers.”
The protests died down to mutters.
“If you still object, speak now,” Hesina ordered.
A minister shuffled forward. “It will take time…”
Another took a stand to her right. “It will be expensive…”
A third joined on the left. “But it’ll cap the chaos and curb the infighting.”
Then suddenly, there was an outpouring of support.
“It will reinstate order.”
“If everyone is subjected to a cut, private disputes will no longer lead to fights to the death.”
“It returns power to the imperial guards.”
“Good.” Hesina rose—a terrible mistake. Caiyan caught her arm as she stumbled. “It is settled then,” she said through her teeth, gritted against the pain. “Grand Secretariat, prepare a procession route for tomorrow and select the palanquin bearers.”
“Understood, dianxia.”
She would round up the sooths and strip them of their cover, giving the people half of what they wanted. Then the real test would begin. Could she reverse centuries of hatred and turn this city into a sanctuary before it became a burial ground?
Or would she become a murderer no different from her father?
TWENTY-FIVE
NURTURE THE PEOPLE AS IF THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON RULING
THE MASSES MAY BE MISGUIDED, BUT THEIR HEARTS ARE TRUE.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON RULING
As the ministers streamed out, the weight of what Hesina had decided came down on her shoulders alone.
She’d had no choice. They’d come to an impasse. It was her ideals against the people’s. One side had to give, or more would die.
Still, the thought of tomorrow horrified her, and it wasn’t until Caiyan had walked her back to the infirmary and was turning to go that Hesina realized he hadn’t said a thing since leaving the throne room.
“Wait.”
A wince cracked Caiyan’s face as she caught his right arm. Hesina froze. He started to pull away, but she was faster. She pushed up his sleeve, recoiling at the sight of his skin. It was black and blue and red and swollen, as if something heavy had fallen and crushed the very bone.
Her hand dropped as he doubled over, grabbing the bed frame as his body convulsed with coughs.
This was why Caiyan had seemed so strained in court. Why he hadn’t visited all this time. Why he was so eager to make his escape.
The reason behind his injured arm.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
Caiyan smoothed down his sleeve. Adjusted the brocade cuff. Hesina was on the verge of ordering him again when he raised his head.
“You were there, weren’t you?” she whispered. “Right after the explosion?”
Caiyan didn’t answer.
He must have been one of the first responders. He must have inhaled all the smoke and ash in the immediate aftermath, rushing to rescue her as the prisons came down around them.
He’d put himself in danger.
Hesina couldn’t keep the tremble out of her voice. “How did you know—”
“You promised you wouldn’t jeopardize your rule.”
She flinched, then recovered. “You shouldn’t have risked yourself. You shouldn’t have acted on your own.”
“You shouldn’t have been there.” Caiyan’s words landed like the strokes of a whip. “You shouldn’t have survived.”
He left her in stunned silence as he paced to the fretworked doors. “I moved both of you up the arcade before summoning the guards. If they found you by the sooth’s cell, spared by an explosion that had blown the rest to pieces, how would they have explained it?”
The fight trickled out of Hesina. She could see it all too well. Caiyan, immediately realizing how suspicious the scene looked, struggling to drag both Sanjing and her out of it. Always thinking ahead, even in the face of peril.
“Let me call the Imperial Doctress,” she said through the pressure in her throat.
“There’s no need.”
“Please.” It was getting harder to breathe. Hesina couldn’t see his arm anymore, but now she was visualizing the hilly scar that gouged up the crook of his left elbow, white like the new ice on the koi pond that winter morning. Sanjing had just turned seven. He’d lured Caiyan out onto the ice, expecting it to crack, hoping to give his rival a good scare, but never imagining that broken ice would cut skin like knives, or that Hesina would jump in to save a brother.
One prank gone wrong. Dozens of apologies she never accepted. The ice on the pond melted in the spring, not the ice between her and Sanjing’s heart
s.
“Please,” Hesina begged when Caiyan remained silent. The notion of his pain rivaled the pain in her back.
“I’ll see to it myself.” Again, he turned to go. “You should rest, milady.”
“Wait.”
He stopped at the doors, a hand on the latch.
It wasn’t fair of Hesina to ask more from him, but she needed his opinion. “Did I make the right decision today?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
Caiyan said nothing for a second. “There’s a tale. The tale of Yidou.”
“Tell it to me?”
“You really should rest, milady.”
“Just one story.”
She waited for him to come back and sit with her on the bed, but he stayed by the doors, the distance between them feeling as large as it had that winter day when she’d run across the ice to save him.
“A boy by the name of Yidou had lost his way in the Ebei Mountains,” Caiyan began. “Out of food and facing the first snows, he had been resigned to death.
“That’s when the wolf had appeared. Yidou had a knife. He had his two feet. He could have fought. He could have fled. But he knew he was weak, so instead, he turned the knife on himself and cut off a finger. He fed it to the wolf. He cut off another, laying a trail of his own flesh, feeding the wolf’s very desire while luring the beast farther and farther down the icy pass.”
“And then?” she asked, breath held, voice hushed.
“He survived,” Caiyan said simply. “He gave the wolf a piece of what it wanted without sacrificing all of himself. Tomorrow you will do the same. It may hurt, but it’s the only way.” Then his voice softened. “Lilian and I will be there on the terraces with you.”
“Is that my name I hear?”
The story’s spell broke as Lilian came through the doors, ruqun silks spilling out of her arms. “A little bird told me that you have an important tour tomorrow. I’m here to make you presentable. What?” she asked as Hesina frowned at the flashy selection. “A queen should decree things in style.”
“Pretty sure you said the same thing about the negotiations.” That had ended well.
“Pretty sure my gown saved your life.” Lilian turned on Caiyan. “Shoo now. You have ink on your nose, by the way. Not that it really ruins the I-will-forever-be-a-bachelor look.”
Caiyan bowed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, milady.”
“Make sure you see the—”
The doors slid shut behind him.
—Doctress.
Lilian laid out the ruqun on the neighboring bed. “How’s your back?”
“Fine,” Hesina muttered.
“You sound glum about that.”
“He’s upset with me.”
“The stone-head? Since when?”
Since Hesina started getting caught in explosions. “He didn’t take my injury well.” She picked at a loose thread in the silk blankets. She hadn’t placed the bombs in One-Eye’s hands, but they’d gone off because of her. Because of her, Mei was dead and two of Hesina’s brothers were injured.
The bed dimpled as Lilian sat beside her. “And you think I did? We all hide ourselves, Na-Na. You most of all.”
“What do I hide behind?”
“Lies. Duty. The things you think you should do and love, but that you actually hate. You don’t owe the people some better version of yourself. In fact, you owe this world nothing.”
Hesina dragged out the thread, undoing the feather of an embroidered phoenix. Easy for Lilian to say. The kingdom was currently falling apart because no better version of herself had arrived to save the day. “I’m the queen.”
“It’s not too late to run away. I’m being serious, for once. We can go to Ning.”
“And freeze?”
“Their smoldering men make up for the cold,” said Lilian with an eyebrow wiggle. “Besides, I hear they have sapphires as big as your fists.”
“Xia Zhong would love it.” Hesina had finally handed him the war he wanted. As she sat here, picking dresses, he was probably throwing a feast.
“Okay, forget about Ning.” Lilian tapped her lip. “We could go anywhere, do anything. We could ride serpents in the Baolin Isles, soak in the floating hot springs on the Aoshi archipelago.” She leaned in, chestnut eyes hopeful. “If I asked you to come, would you?”
Yes, Hesina desperately wanted to say. Let this kingdom burn. Let the people kill. I want nothing to do with them. But if she didn’t rule, who would? Sanjing? Although he was next in line, he was no more suited to this fate than she.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
She’d said no to Lilian before. To pranking the imperial tailor, to skipping lessons and countless other things. But this time felt different. The air went too still, too silent, and Lilian’s smile wavered before it brightened again. She gestured at the gowns. “Then shall we?”
Narrowing down the pile of ruqun was easier than it looked. Applying Hesina’s stipulations (no inappropriate embroidery) took them from a dozen options to three.
One ruqun was cut from crimson silk. Golden sun rays fanned from the sleeve cuffs. Light-blue clouds scalloped the hem.
“Too conservative,” declared Lilian when she caught Hesina eyeing it. She laid out the coordinating sash and bixi brocade panel anyway, found a chiffon wrap, dip-dyed to resemble mist. She suggested a mink-trimmed cloak and a gold hair comb to match.
Hesina lifted the comb. Its shaft was wrought with serpents, their scaled bodies weaving in and out of a cloud bank. Russet jaspers had been set for their eyes, reminding her of Mei’s. The comb grew heavier in her hand. She set it down.
“Lilian.”
“Hmm?”
“While the people are distracted by the tour tomorrow, I want you to visit the caverns. Take some sticks of black powder with you and find the passageway sealed with stones. It goes to the city walls.” It had to, given what Hesina now knew about her father’s identity. “Blast away the stones, and lead Mei’s parents and the others out of the city before I read the decree.” Before it’s too late, in case I fail. “Can you do that for me?”
Lilian took her hands. “Of course, Na-Na.”
Hesina gave Lilian’s a grateful squeeze. Then she looked past her sister, across all the empty beds in the infirmary.
You hide, Lilian had said, but Hesina didn’t want to hide. To Lilian, she wanted to be herself. Be true.
“I’m scared,” she admitted. “If I give the wolf a piece of what it wants, won’t it hunger for more?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The tale of Yidou.”
“That macabre thing?”
“You know it?”
“‘Yidou, Yidou, a finger, a toe, tricked the great beast and struck down the foe.’”
“Wait. He killed the wolf?”
“And ate it. How else would he have survived to pass on the tale?” Lilian asked, and Hesina paled. “Anyway, it’s just a silly little story. We used to tell it to each other when it was bitterly cold and our stomachs were empty. But now we have all the pork buns in the world. Why think about wolf meat?”
Why indeed.
But it wasn’t a wolf hunting Hesina. It was the people’s fear. She’d either rule with it, or be ruled by it. Either way, blood would spill.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Ministers scrambled to prepare for the tour. Scribes hurried to transcribe the time and location of the queen’s decree reading, and couriers ran to post the notices all over the city. Pages streamed in and out of the infirmary with route proposals, guard numbers, and weather forecasts.
Sanjing stopped by in the middle of everything to bid Hesina farewell. He was dressed to ride and had a bronze helmet cradled in his arm. Hesina almost asked him to send a commander in his place before swallowing the words.
He guessed them anyway. “I’m useless here.”
“How do you know that? What if I need someone beheaded?”
Turn to your m
anservant then, she imagined Sanjing saying. Instead, he replied, “My place is on the field. Remember my promise?”
How could she forget? Long ago, before the incident on the pond, they would sneak out into the courtyards at night to practice their swordsmanship. Afterward, they’d throw themselves down on the watercress, the stars bright above, and Sanjing would turn to her and say, When you’re the queen, I’ll be your general, the best this realm has ever known.
Now he said, “I keep my word.”
Then he tossed her something.
It was the dog-lion seal. Hesina barely managed to catch it; she nearly dropped it when she did.
“I don’t want this.” She tried to give it back. “It’s yours.”
“Keep it,” said Sanjing. “And stay out of my rooms.”
His bravado was his shield. Hesina saw past it to a boy still hurting. She grabbed his wrist, pressed the seal into his palm, and curled his fingers shut over it. “Holding on to something isn’t weakness.”
Sanjing’s grin faltered. His throat bobbed. He turned to go.
Wait.
Tell him to stay.
“Jing.”
Her brother turned.
Hesina fumbled with the words. They’d only ever existed in her mind or on paper. “Stay safe.”
He blinked, slowly. Spoke, gruffly. “Don’t worry. Whatever happens, I can’t end up as badly as you.”
She grimaced. “You kill me.”
“You kill yourself.” But there was a catch in his voice and a hitch in Hesina’s heart. She watched his shadow fade through the oiled-papered fretwork panes, until she could see it no more.
How long would he be away this time? Three months? Six? Or longer? They’d lost those simple days; a single misstep from either of them might send Yan spiraling into war.
Night fell. The golden turtles and yuanyang ducks on the beamed ceiling shimmered to life as apprentices lit the candles and laid fresh coals in the braziers. The Imperial Doctress examined Hesina’s back and, deeming the skin fully sealed, removed the bandages so the wound could breathe.
Once everyone was gone, Hesina spread the blank decree scroll; she’d been saving it for last. She put brush to silk, and wrote.
