Descendant of the Crane

by Joan He

  “Sister!”

  Hesina blinked, stared, and snapped her jaw shut. “What are you doing here?”

  Rou splashed through a puddle, his shell-blue hanfu too bright for his mildewed surroundings, and knelt by the cell bars. “I can get you out of here. Just tell me where your master key is.”

  And then he’d unlock her, and they’d stroll out of here and fly away on the backs of giant cranes. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I have a way.”

  “Of getting past the guards?”

  “You won’t believe me if I explain it now,” said Rou. “Just…trust me.”

  In other words, let me put my life on the line with yours.

  Hesina didn’t need more blood on her hands. “No.”

  “Do you want to live or not?”

  Stunned, she stared at Rou. It was hard to see past his pale, peaky features, to the boy who’d helped the sooths and spoken up for her today when no one else had. By the time she did, Rou was already blushing and saying, “You have to live, Sister,” like his normal self, but then all Hesina could hear was his voice of fire and stone.

  Do you want to live?

  Yes.

  Yes, she wanted to live.

  Yes.

  But not alone. Not in a world without family or friends. Hesina bit her lip and dared to ask, “Can you get Akira out too?”

  “I promise I can.”

  “Then listen closely. The master key is in my vanity drawer, but you can’t be the one to fetch it.”

  “Oh.” Rou didn’t bother hiding his confusion. “Why not?”

  Many reasons—her chambers were likely heavily guarded, and Rou would be an automatic suspect—but Hesina didn’t have time to explain. “I already have a way of delivering the master key to the dungeons. Your job is to keep an eye on my father’s study. If you see Xia Zhong or any of his servants entering it, assume that my plan has worked. Return at the second gong strike with your plan at the ready. Can you remember that?”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Yes.” If Rou’s voice was fire, Hesina’s was ice. A smile frosted over her lips. “Tell Xia Zhong that I have what he wants most.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  SOMETIMES, IT IS POSSIBLE TO GIVE UP TOO MUCH.

  ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON REGRETS

  EVERYTHING AND NOTHING.

  TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON REGRETS

  “Do make it quick,” said Xia Zhong, wrapped in a tiger-pelt cloak that appeared to be molting even though the beast was dead. “My bones ache in the draft, and as difficult as you were, I don’t take particular pleasure in seeing you in such a vile state.”

  Hesina had made herself all the viler for him. At the sound of his footsteps, she’d rubbed her hands over the walls and smeared gray grime over her face. She’d tugged at her hair until it was as tangled as a swallow’s nest, then bit her lip and smudged the blood with the back of her hand.

  That was just setting the pieces on the board. Now she made her first move by crawling to the bars on her knees, clutching them as she begged. “Help me.”

  “I have,” Xia Zhong said. “Twice, if I recall. I believe you repaid me by almost taking my life.”

  “Name your price, and I’ll pay it in full and more.”

  “Your viscount is quite the generous man,” said Xia Zhong. “I have all that I want.” Something squeaked in the dark, and he flinched and turned to go.

  “Wait!” Hesina’s voice cracked convincingly. “I have the Tenets.”

  “I do too. All the editions, in five translations.”

  “Not the original.”

  His step slowed.

  “Neither do you,” Xia Zhong said at last, but something in his voice had changed.

  Hesina kept hers as desperate as before. “It’s yours if you can get me out of here.”

  For a heartbeat, the minister didn’t speak. Then he chuckled. “You, my dear, have an affinity for lies.”

  She must have inherited it from her father. “You think I’d lie? With my life on the line?” She shook her head. “I don’t want to die.” It was the truth, and it made her sound all the more compelling.

  “I’ll humor you then,” said Xia Zhong. “Where is it?”

  “Bring me my master key.”

  “And have you run away first? These tricks won’t work on me.”

  This was it. This was the part where she’d either fail or succeed. “Let me verify the master key. Place it within my sight but beyond my reach. I’ll tell you the location of the book. Once you see I’m telling the truth, come back and place the key within reach.”

  In the dim, Hesina watched Xia Zhong consider her words. Her skin crawled at the thought of his spotty hands on the original Tenets, but she needed him to take it for her plan to work.

  “You’ve thought this over,” he finally said.

  “You would, too, in my shoes. The master key is in the drawers of my vanity. It’s silver and shaped like a dragonfly.”

  Imagine riches. The silence stretched. Imagine glory.

  Footsteps broke the lull; Xia Zhong had resumed his walk.

  Imagine renown and fame, all within your grasp, if you recover the original Tenets when thousands of others have failed.

  The footsteps stilled at the end of the corridor.

  It was funny, thought Hesina, how Xia Zhong could create and destroy opportunities for her all at once. When he said, “I’ll see what I can do,” it was as if she was kneeling before her mother all over again, with the minister beside her, his words offering hope she didn’t dare grasp. He raised her up only to let her fall.

  But this time, Hesina could fall no further.

  So she grasped hope. Patience had never been her strong suit, but the role demanded it, so she played it. She counted pieces of straw on the ground, then cinder blocks in the wall. Finally, shortly after the midnight gong strike, Xia Zhong returned.

  “Show me,” Hesina demanded.

  He held up the pin, and she loosed a genuine sigh of relief. Silver and dragonfly-shaped—it was indeed her master key. She watched closely as the minister set it down in the corner of the corridor, well out of reach and tucked into the shadows where no guard would bend to look.

  “Now,” he said as he straightened. “Where is the book?”

  “On the second shelf of the king’s study, between The Annals of the Empire and Lizhu’s Chronicles. Hurry back,” Hesina commanded as Xia Zhong left.

  Then she wiped the dirt off her cheeks and tamed her hair.

  He wouldn’t return. He had no reason to. For all he knew, she was as good as dead. But he’d already helped her—twice. First, by delivering the master key. Second, by taking the Tenets with him to his own residence in the Northern Palace. Hesina’s blood thrummed in anticipation of reclaiming what was hers, then cooled. It was now Rou’s play.

  What did he have up his blue sleeve?

  Or rather, who? For when her half brother returned at the second hour, it was in the company of two. One was a page.

  The other was Consort Fei.

  That would have been the biggest shock, simply seeing Rou’s mother in that iconic, screened headpiece, if the consort hadn’t then gone on to remove it.

  Rou asked for the location of the master key. Hesina gave it. Rou told her to meet him in the corridor to the left of this block of cells, where he would be waiting with Akira. Hesina nodded. Rou unlocked her, then left with the page.

  Hesina stepped out, gaping at Consort Fei. What did she say to her father’s concubine? What did she say, upon seeing her face?

  “You’re…beautiful.”

  Because Consort Fei was. Skin white as jade. Eyes black as jet. Hair like a spill of ink, and lips stained, rather than painted, by the juice of plums, parting in laughter at Hesina’s words.

  “Hello to you, too, Hesina.”

  Hello. Hesina should have said hello. But she couldn’t manage it. How many times had she envisioned a missing eye, a droopy lip, a terrible birthmark, or a
scaly scar under that veil?

  “Why do you hide?” With a face like that, Consort Fei could have easily garnered respect instead of ridicule.

  “A face is an identity.” The consort passed Hesina her screened hat, then started disrobing. “And some identities, as you well know, are best forgotten.”

  “But—”

  “Time is fleeting,” said the consort, shoving her ruqun into Hesina’s arms. Hesina donned the headpiece, which turned out to be opaque only from the outside.

  “There.” The consort affixed the bixi panel to Hesina’s skirt, stepped back, and dusted off her hands. “You look just like me.”

  Belatedly, it occurred to Hesina that Rou intended for his mother to take her place. “Will you be safe?”

  Would the page, who she assumed was to take Akira’s?

  “Safe as a hare,” said the consort.

  Hesina wanted to point out that hares were hunted animals, and caged ones could not run, but Consort Fei stepped into the cell before she could say anything.

  “Now go.” She pulled in the door by the bars. “Rou is waiting.”

  Hesina made it four steps out before stilling. She turned back around. “What was your relationship with my father?”

  It wasn’t exactly the ideal occasion for a conversation. Hesina realized that. She also realized, since last speaking to her mother, that she had a troubling habit of asking self-destructive questions. But she couldn’t help herself. She needed to know.

  “It’s not what you think,” said Consort Fei with a secretive smile.

  “Then is Rou his son?”

  “Yes and no. Come back when the time is right, Hesina. Then I’ll tell you.”

  Would the time ever be right for a fallen queen? Hesina filed the thought away as a worry for another day. Considering the number of worries she had, perhaps there would never be enough days. “Thank—”

  “Uh-uh.” Consort Fei wagged a finger. The gesture reminded Hesina of Lilian, and her heart panged as the consort said, “This is my thank-you to you.”

  Righting a wrong—what Hesina had done by acquitting Consort Fei—wasn’t worthy of gratitude. But if she started talking about wrongs, then she’d have to go back to the beginning, to those long nights in the consort’s shrubbery in the company of summer gnats and fireflies.

  Flushing hot, Hesina hurried away. She wished that they might have met in the Southern Palace instead of here, these dungeons where all her greetings and farewells took place.

  And now reunions.

  Her heart stopped at the sight of Akira, standing alone up the prison corridor where Rou had told them to meet. Dressed like a page from the back, but with a topknot too sloppy to truly be.

  Hesina couldn’t speak. The last time she’d seen Akira had been in the throne hall. Half a month had passed since then. Would she ever be able to redeem herself?

  She’d start with an apology, one of many she owed.

  “I-I’m sorry about your flute,” she stammered when she reached him. He turned, and she looked away even though he couldn’t see her through the veil. I’m sorry about more than that.

  The air on her cheeks cooled. Her gaze swung back to find the veil lifted, and Akira beneath it, sharing the headpiece’s wide brim.

  “I decided it wasn’t a flute after all,” he said.

  Did he realize how very close he was, those eyes gray as stone a breath’s space across from hers?

  “Just a rod,” he said.

  Did he realize how much she wanted to throw her arms around him and never let go?

  What was stopping her?

  “And a rod is very replace—”

  He broke off as she hugged him tight. Then, just because she could, she raised herself to her toes and kissed him. It might have been the most awkward kiss in the history of kisses, complicated by extraneous veils and not-so-extraneous noses, but she didn’t care because this time, Akira kissed her back. It lasted for all of a second before Rou rejoined them and squeaked, “Ready?”

  Hesina inspected her flimsy costume. “Is this enough?”

  The consort’s ruqun was just silk, her headpiece just wood and gauze. And Akira, even with the cap that Rou handed him to hide the topknot, didn’t look like any page in Hesina’s palace.

  “No one notices the attendants,” said Rou, nodding at Akira. “They’ll be looking at me. And they’ll be looking at my mother, and you look like her.”

  Hesina had to trust. Still, she held her breath as they approached the guards. Nothing came to pass. The guards bowed for them. They made it safely out of the dungeons without trouble, and soon they were traveling down the covered galleries that zigzagged through the snowy jujubes. The maids and pages they encountered hastily moved to the side and bowed, then scurried away, whispering as they went, their eyes darting to Hesina. Her hands balled. She glanced to Rou, but he was reactionless.

  “The carriage is this way,” he said when they arrived at the courtyards.

  She stopped him. “This is far enough.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Xia Zhong’s. He has something of mine,” she continued as Rou stared at her, aghast. “I can’t leave without reclaiming it.”

  “But how will you get out?”

  By one of the passageways that started in the gardens. None of them led beyond the palace walls like the one behind the soapstone reredos, but she couldn’t risk entering the Eastern Palace.

  “Don’t worry about me. I have my ways.” Hesina caught Rou’s arm before he could protest any further. “Thank you,” she said firmly, meeting him square in the eye. “For everything.”

  He blinked, then swallowed. “I’ll see you again, won’t I?”

  “Yes,” said Hesina with more confidence than she felt. “You will.”

  She waved him off and waited for him to leave before facing Akira. “You should go too. Take the carriage out.”

  “I’ll come with you. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

  So be it. There was a good chance she’d need Akira’s help.

  “Keep guard outside,” Hesina said once they reached the Northern Palace. “I can handle the minister on my own.” Then she marched up the steps to Xia Zhong’s courtyard house and sidled up against his lattice windows. She poked a hole in the oil paper with her finger and peered through.

  Past the partition of antiques and relics, Xia Zhong sat at his kang table, reading a bamboo-strip scroll. Alone.

  Hesina burst in, and the scroll fell out of his hand. He scrambled back as she climbed onto the kang and grabbed the sword hanging on the wall behind. A xia was engraved on the hilt. A family heirloom, the length of its steel blade gleaming as Hesina pointed it at the minister. “Where’s the book?”

  He stared at her blankly. “You…”

  She ripped off the headpiece.

  His eyes narrowed. “You.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Lies.” Why else would he have given her the master key? “One last time: where is it?”

  “Why don’t you look for yourself?”

  Hesina was trying to part on somewhat civil terms, but Xia Zhong wasn’t making it easy. She stalked to a wall of drawers and yanked them out. Scrolls tumbled onto the floor, then books from the next drawer. None of them were the original Tenets.

  She slammed them in, then stopped.

  The impact had caused the walls to jingle.

  Hesina stalked to a peeling wall bare of shelves and thrust Xia Zhong’s heirloom sword through the seam between two panels.

  “No,” cried Xia Zhong. “No, no, no—”

  Like a painter with a brush, Hesina stroked left.

  From the slash poured ingots. Gold. Silver. Bronze. It was like watching someone’s innards fall out—ghastly, yet impossible to look away. Hesina slashed another panel. This wound wept red, of rubies. The next wept blue, of sapphires. It seemed that Xia Zhong had stuffed his entire fortune into the walls of a house that was o
therwise falling apart.

  The minister crawled after the rolling gems, futilely trying to gather them up. Disgust reared in Hesina, and without thinking twice, she’d pinned his hand with his own sword.

  “Where have you hidden it?” she asked over his earsplitting howl.

  Instead of answering, Xia Zhong howled more. “How could you?”

  What a strange question to ask, when it was clear that she could, and had, just shoved a blade through his knuckles. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re your father’s daughter. You said so yourself.”

  Hesina hardened. “My father is dead. Now, where have you hidden the book?” When he kept howling, she gave the pommel a twist, working the blade a hair deeper into the wood beneath. His screams went shrill. “Where?”

  “It’s not here! It’s not here! T-the viscount was right! He said you’d try to trick me! Now take it out!” he screamed, scrabbling at the rooted blade himself. “Take it out!”

  His voice faded as Hesina’s blood went cold.

  She had forgotten what Caiyan’s alliance with Xia Zhong meant in its entirety. That the things she said to the minister would reach her adopted brother’s ears. That he would dispense advice. Read her mind.

  As if on cue, the sounds of clashing metal rose from outside.

  Akira.

  This was a trap, and she’d walked both of them into it.

  Xia Zhong caterwauled as Hesina yanked the sword free. “If it’s not here, then where is it?” she demanded.

  He was sobbing too hard to speak. But then Hesina knew. She knew the way Caiyan tackled problems—with parsimony.

  The Tenets hadn’t been moved at all. The book was still in her father’s study.

  Two guards lay heaped in the snow when she ran out into the courtyard. One clutched his head, dazed, while the other struggled to sit up. Hesina’s gaze darted beyond them to the lone, weaponless figure ringed by ten guards.

  “Akira!”

  The snow slowed her run. She was halfway to them when one guard lunged. Akira spun behind and threw an elbow into the man’s neck. A second guard closed in, and Akira caught the woman’s arm and used her sword to deflect another’s blow. One of the swords fell into the snow, but Akira didn’t grab it.