The Girl King

by Mimi Yu

  Min looked down at her hands and realized with a jolt she was holding the exact pin Wei sought. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, as though her feet belonged to someone else, she drifted over to a richly upholstered chair in the corner. As the ammas gathered around the vanity in concern, Min bent slightly and stabbed the missing pin through the plush underbelly of the chair.

  “Forget it for now. We are late,” her mother snapped finally. “Bring me the gold pin with the pink jade drops. But find the other later—it is my favorite.”

  Min glanced about; no one was even looking her way. She felt the pressure in her chest ease.

  Lu was late.

  The ceremony was set to begin, and all the guests in place, but for the bride-to-be. Min cast about for her sister anxiously but still found her missing. Had something happened? It wasn’t like Lu to be late.

  Min’s legs trembled with the strain of her blood cramps and high ceramic shoes. She hugged herself about the middle helplessly. She felt sore and emptied out. Surely by now she must be bleeding through her wrappings. She imagined a red stain spreading across the backside of her robes; at any moment someone would point it out in disgust and horror. She felt almost too feverish to care.

  It was too hot to care. Even beneath the red silk canopy hanging over the dais, the midday light was punishingly strong.

  Perhaps if I stand still enough, the sun won’t notice me, she thought. Her knees buckled in response, as though her own body were chiding her for her foolishness. Butterfly broke from the ranks of nunas stationed behind her and took Min by the elbow until she regained her balance.

  “Will you be all right?” the nuna asked softly.

  Min flicked a nervous glance toward her mother, but her mother was looking for Lu—still conspicuously absent. The empress’s normally full mouth set in an angry red line as she glared at the second, higher dais before them, as though trying to force Lu to appear, draped in modest black and gray betrothal silks, by sheer will alone.

  Min had always thought the symbolism of the Betrothal Ceremony beautiful: the bride-to-be swathed in dull robes of gray and black, embodying the cold, unawakened state of unused tinder; the plain white dais upon which she was presented forth to her husband-to-be representing the transitional space she occupied, no longer belonging to the family she had left behind her, nor yet to the man come to claim her. The woman had to mount the dais alone and of her own accord—no family, friends, or servants could assist or even touch her. Once upon it, she belonged to the heavens alone.

  And then—most beautiful of all, Min thought—came the moment when the groom-to-be mounted the dais with her. There, he would remove the betrothal robes to unveil the covenant gown beneath: deep, warm gold, like a new flame, to represent the heart that has begun to kindle. On the day of the wedding, she would come to him in the same gown, only now with a cape of brilliant scarlet—a fire stoked and burning and beautiful for him alone.

  The line of servants behind them parted, interrupting Min’s thoughts. A eunuch bowed low beside her father. Min heard him murmur to the emperor, “The ammas checked her apartments. There is no sign of the Princess Lu or her nunas.”

  “Tell them to look harder,” snapped the empress, shooting the hapless man a furious sidelong glare. Then, after a moment, “Check the abandoned shamaness temple.”

  Min blinked in surprise at that—no one ever went into the old shamaness temple, except perhaps the odd page boy on a dare. But, she supposed, that would make it an excellent place to hide.

  “We have people searching everywhere,” the attendant assured the empress.

  Her mother huffed. “I swear to the heavens if the girl’s run off, I’ll flog her myself—”

  “She won’t have run off,” her father interrupted, looking thoughtful. “What she could possibly be doing, though, I wonder.”

  At that moment, a ripple went through the crowd, beginning in the far west corner of the courtyard. Min craned her neck to see the cause of the commotion, for once grateful of her high-bottomed shoes. A group of monks was emerging from the Hall of the Ancestors. Only the monks wore robes of gray and white, and these figures were dressed in the warm orange silks of nunas …

  “The princess!” Snowdrop squealed from behind her. The little nuna had all but clambered onto Butterfly’s shoulders to afford herself a view.

  Min looked to the front of the party and saw her sister, tall and magnificent in a new robe of scarlet silk. Not her betrothal robes.

  “What does she think she is doing?” her empress-mother seethed between clenched teeth. “Daagmun, stop her. Stop this at once—Amma Ruxin … someone find Ruxin! Heavens above, what is she wearing?”

  Min squinted toward where her sister was making her way—slowly, deliberately—toward the dais of betrothal. Her sister had many clothes of red silk, which favored her ink-black hair and copper-flecked eyes in addition to celebrating their Hu heritage, but Min had never seen her wearing these robes before. They were, she thought, rather ill-fitting—far too big, almost as though they had been cut for a full-grown man—and the silk ran thin and nearly threadbare at the elbows. Nevertheless, there was something familiar about them …

  “The robes of Emperor Kangmun,” her father murmured softly. “She must have taken them from the Hall of the Ancestors.”

  “Heavens have mercy,” Butterfly whispered behind her.

  “You,” the empress hissed, pointing at a pair of her ammas. “Fetch the princess. Escort her back to her apartments and change her into the betrothal robes. Have the guards drag her if you must—”

  Min didn’t dare laugh—not in a situation of this gravity, not with her mother in such a state—but she nearly did anyway. They should have known her sister would not take her fate lying down. “It’s too late,” she heard herself say.

  “What?” Her mother whirled on her, but Min pointed to where her sister was mounting the white betrothal dais. Lu’s nunas knelt reverently against the stone floor of the Heart in two neat rows as the princess made her ascent.

  Her fathered chuckled then, unexpectedly. “The little one is correct. Lu belongs to the heavens alone now. We must see what she does.”

  Her sister raised an imperious hand and the chatter in the courtyard evaporated. The only remaining sound was the omnipresent crackle of the First Flame.

  “Open the gates. Let me look upon my suitor.”

  Princess Lu’s voice rang out loud and clear over the hushed crowd. The guards started at her order, then hesitated. They exchanged glances before turning helplessly toward the emperor.

  Her mother started forward, but the emperor grabbed her wrist and she froze in place, staring in disbelief at where they touched. She recovered quickly, though. “Stop this foolishness at once!” she hissed, yanking her arm away. The cold-burning fury in her voice made Min flinch, as though it had been aimed at her.

  But her father ignored his wife, looking instead toward the waiting guards. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. There was a breathless moment, and then the courtyard gates parted with the sonorous wail of iron.

  “The ceremony has begun,” the emperor said.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Betrothal Ceremony

  Lu’s cousin wore a broad, handsome smile when the guards opened the gate, but it curdled into a scowl the moment he saw her. There were no gaps in his teeth, Lu noted. They must have replaced the missing ones with porcelain.

  The Hana had had wedding traditions of their own, but those of the Hu were known and practiced far and wide through the empire since their conquest. Set could hardly fail to notice she was draped in scarlet when she should have worn gray and black. Undoubtedly, Set and his advisers had rehearsed the steps of the ceremony so frequently in the past month that he could recite them in his sleep. But they hadn’t taught him what to do should his bride refuse him, had they? A look of doubt crossed his face, swelling into panic.

  And then Lu found it was she who was smiling.

 
; She stood and clapped once to call attention. The sound resonated loudly against the red earthen walls of the Heart, stark in the silence. There was a muted shuffle as a half thousand bodies turned to acknowledge her.

  “Welcome, my dear cousin; honored Hana guests!” she called to them. “We are delighted to host you. Please, approach.” She gestured them forward.

  Annoyance flickered across Set’s face. According to the traditional Betrothal Ceremony, it should have been he who controlled the movements, his actions that held significance, while she just sat there like a stupid little fool and waited for him to steal her throne.

  Lu’s grin widened. Unbalance your opponent’s footing and take control of the fight … She would need to thank Shin Yuri for his wisdom. Instinctively, she sought him out in the crowd but did not see his face among the gathered shins.

  Her cousin grudgingly dug his heels into the sides of his massive gray destrier to urge the beast forward. He was a handsome sight, a Hu soldier’s studded black leather vest emblazoned across the chest with the symbol of the First Flame fitted over a silk Hana-style jacket of deep, moody blue. Around his neck, he wore a thick chain bearing a single charm: a palm-sized chunk of crystal.

  Set’s retinue followed him, clearly as unnerved by her unexpected appearance as their leader: three hundred men on horseback looking nervous as little boys on their first day at the Imperial Academy. Lu smiled internally, then directed her attention to the unfamiliar old man riding at her cousin’s side. He was small and meekly hunched, garbed poorly in drab heather gray, astride a discordantly handsome chestnut courser. At first, Lu took the old man’s robes for cotton, or even burlap, but as he came closer she saw they were made of raw silk—soft and subtle.

  So, this must be my cousin’s so-called mystic, she thought scornfully. The magic monk who had broken Set’s addiction to poppy tears. Supposedly. Could her cousin truly be abstinent, now? Many believed once addiction set in, it was nearly impossible to free oneself.

  Aside from a spare white brow, the monk’s head and face were completely hairless, like an infant’s, but his eyes were canny. He would have to be clever to manipulate himself into such a high position. He was a person to watch, then.

  Set reached the foot of her dais, the retinue stopping with him. He was close enough now that she could see his gray Hana eyes more clearly. Just like her mother’s and sister’s—the color of storm clouds and smoke—but his stare was even more penetrating than the empress’s, and held within it was a fury the likes of which Min was incapable. He glowered at Lu with those eyes, as though he would have liked nothing better than to tear her down from where she stood.

  She smiled placidly. He was welcome to try. It hadn’t worked when they were children, and she was no child now.

  “Welcome,” she repeated to the Hana men. Then, opening her attention back to the rest of the courtyard she announced, “All of us gathered here today are familiar with the components of the current Hu Betrothal Ceremony: the bride-to-be upon her pedestal, and the three actions of the suitor:

  “The slaughter of the tusked stag with the suitor’s own blade, symbolizing his physical prowess,” she listed. “Then, there are the recitations from the Analecta, symbolizing the intellect of the future emperor, and finally, the call-and-response of the bride’s three riddles, to reflect the suitor’s wisdom of the heart.

  “Each of these acts represents a treasured part of our collective Hu and Hana histories, demonstrating the worth of an imperial suitor. However, we live in dire times. Our need for a Hu emperor of strength, intellect, and wisdom is greater than it has been ever before. My cousin Lord Set of Family Li stands before you now as a candidate who may well possess these traits”—she paused for a moment, breathing hard—“as do I!”

  A shocked murmur rippled through the crowd.

  Lu ignored it. She must not lose her confidence for even a heartbeat. Right now she had a captive audience following her lead because she had thrown all of them off their footing. She had to keep them moving, clinging to her sure grasp, her certain rhythm.

  “In the days of old, Hu kings were chosen through rigorous contests of strength, intellect, and wisdom. These contests insured we chose the very best, the strongest and smartest among us, rather than merely relying on the inertia of bloodlines and a token good word. These contests are what made us warriors—conquerors. And emperors.” She let the words hang in the air for a moment. Conquerors of the Empire of the First Flame, the silence thundered. Your conquerors. Your emperors.

  Galvanized by the thought, Lu snarled with a passion that surprised even her, “And what have our traditions become? What have we degenerated into? This!” She thrust an accusing hand toward the tusked stag’s makeshift pen. The three men tasked with guarding it started.

  “This!” she repeated, making it a scoff. “This dumb, domesticated beast, bred for appearance alone. Yes, its wildly curling tusks—far larger and more ornate than those of its wild cousins—make it fearsome to look upon, but were it to try to run, it would fall upon its face! Generations of safety and comfort and inbreeding have made its natural weapons utterly cumbersome and useless in practice. Like a sword so heavily set with jewels and adornments it cannot be lifted.”

  As though sensing the attention turned upon it, the stag looked up, its eyes patient and docile, chewing on a fistful of hay.

  “The empire does not have to endure such a fate. It cannot. We can still choose the best, the worthiest emperor to lead us toward the future. That is why I ask my cousin, my suitor, to dispense with the pretty gestures and symbolism and prove his worth against mine. Rather than assuming your superior wisdom, let us submit ourselves to the shins for tests of wit. Rather than slaying a caged domestic beast here in this courtyard—ride to the northern forest with me and let us see who can take down a real tusked stag! Rather than wearing a pretty sword at your waist, take it up and prove you can best me with it.”

  She could sense her words working—stirring and rousing the gathered crowd. She could feel the thrum of their excitement in the air, as dense as humidity and the flat trill of cicadas during monsoon season. And so, without giving Set a chance to respond, Lu turned to her father.

  “I trust,” she began, and for a moment, meeting her father’s eyes—dark, interested, but hesitant, undecided—her voice faltered, breath catching in her throat. She squared her shoulders, steeled her bones, breathed. She did not risk even a glance toward her mother. “I trust,” she repeated, “that my father, my emperor, leader of the great Empire of the First Flame, and the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, agrees with me.”

  Aside from the constant crackle of the First Flame, the courtyard was deathly silent. Of the five hundred or so advisers and gentry privileged enough to have station within the inner court, some had been on their knees, foreheads pressed to the ground, some unabashedly gaping up at her, while others were poised in mid-bow, uncertain of what they ought to do. At that moment, though, as one, they all turned toward the emperor in anticipation.

  Please, Lu thought, beseeching him with her eyes. Willing him to look at her, to truly see her. Be the man, the father, the king I know you to be.

  The emperor swept his imperious gaze out over the court, at the thousands of burning, inquisitive eyes staring back at him. He cleared his throat. Lu felt each body in the courtyard lean inward, as if that would allow them to sooner hear his decision as the words fell from his mouth.

  Bright and glorious as polished gold catching the sun, her father laughed.

  He laughed longer and louder than she had ever heard him before. Until tears welled in his eyes. The crowd was beginning to stir, uncertain of how they should react, but eager to know.

  Lu’s lips parted, as though her body were already preparing to rebut his rejection of her. With what words, though? None came to mind. This was all she had, and she had laid it at her father’s feet.

  The emperor looked to her, and in his eyes she finally saw something solid. Something warm and fond
and awed. She saw his love. Good.

  He nodded, expectant. As though waiting for her to return the feeling.

  She made to smile—then stopped. Instead, she turned her chin up coldly and flicked her eyes away before she could see what hurt she had inflicted. Let him be hurt, she thought with a small surge of satisfaction. Let him feel how I felt. In truth, her father was giving her nothing more than she had earned.

  Lu turned back to Set. “The emperor has agreed, then,” she told him. Her cousin’s gray eyes were murderous. The blood in her veins felt molten and desperately close to the skin, as though all of her were about to burst into a shower of flame and sparks.

  “You and me, cousin,” she said. “Let us see who the true emperor is.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Magic

  The celebration that followed the Betrothal Ceremony was something Min had been looking forward to: a wine-soaked daylong feast that stretched into the night, with actors, gymnasts, singers, and jugglers providing entertainment. That had been before she’d received her first blood, and her sister had decided to turn the entire country upside down, though.

  To make matters worse, the sky had darkened, forcing the festivities indoors. An inauspicious sign, several of her nunas murmured until Butterfly pointed out that it was monsoon season, after all. And, she’d added, considering how dry the summer had been thus far, rain wouldn’t be a bad thing.

  Perhaps so, though Min found herself wishing the dry spell had continued a bit longer. The banquet hall was unbearably crowded and humid. Her robes, which had been cut for a body far less bloated and cramped than the one she now inhabited, squeezed at her middle. She found herself wishing for a different life, one in which she had never discovered how badly an operatic rendition of the folk song “Damned Be the False Lover, Damned Be the True Lover” could stoke a headache.

  If only she could retreat to her apartments, close the curtains against the light, and sleep for the next week. Or at the very least, loosen the cinching, oppressive ties of her robes. She glanced at her mother, seated to her left, and decided neither of those options were viable at the moment.