They moved together, hidden from the world rather than each other. A couple of times Lis thought she saw someone look towards them, or watch them walk, but when she turned she couldn’t find them again.
The dock was more crowded than the last time Lis had been on it, and she glanced around wondering how they could take a boat amongst this noise and movement without anyone noticing.
A man sat alone on a small boat, smaller than her family vessel, something more like Peng would sail from his island to hers. Lis felt the lump rise in her throat. The woman took her hand, and the man looked up.
Lis wasn’t sure if he could see them or sense them. He didn’t look directly at them, only in their direction, as he stood and readied the boat for departure. Without hesitation, the other woman dragged her forward. Lis was sure she bumped into someone, but the dock was crowded enough that the person thought it was someone else and grumbled at them for their ineptitude.
As they reached the little boat, the man pulled it a bit closer with the rope. It looked like he was untying it, but he was in fact helping them in. He subtly pointed to the back of the small vessel, and Lis sat down thankfully. Although as he quickly untied the boat and the wind caught the sail, she started to regret it, feeling somewhat queasy.
‘She hasn’t eaten,’ Wei-Song said to the boatman as they sailed out from the dock.
He picked up a bag from near his feet and held it out as the other woman became visible, taking the bag and holding it out to Lis.
She shook her head.
‘You need something in your stomach.’
Lis touched her hands together, and the man sat back. She took an offered biscuit and slipped her hand under the veil to eat it.
‘Your Highness, what have you done?’ the man asked, trying to gather himself as he looked back towards the dock.
‘How do you know…’ Lis started.
‘Hold your tongue,’ Wei-Song snapped.
The man nodded, then pulled a rope attached to the sail and they were off at a faster pace.
Lis looked from one to the other, but she said nothing.
After an hour in the boat, she looked up at the man, who was watching them more closely than the waters ahead. She stretched out her magic, but she could sense very little around him. A slight energy, but very weak. She squinted.
‘He can sense us,’ Wei-Song answered her unasked question, her voice sounding loud after so long in silence. ‘Like you sense the magic, but only just. He knows where we are without seeing us.’
‘But the hunters can’t sense me.’
She shrugged.
‘Could there be others out there that can sense us too?’
‘Not that I have found. He waits by the dock in case we need him.’
‘How many are you?’
‘You’re…’ the man started, but Wei-Song shook her head. Lis turned back to the water and wondered how long it would take them to reach her father in this little boat and what she would do when they did.
Chapter 18
‘This is the reason she left the hidden princess alone at the bath house,’ Remi said. He wanted to be angry, but he was too shocked.
His mother looked disappointed, and he wondered if U’shi had been more of his mother’s choice than his brother’s all those years ago. In a strange way, he felt a little vindicated. He had never liked the woman, the little he knew of her, and now she had been discovered hiding away in an abandoned building with a tutor.
‘There needs to be more protection within the hidden princess’s palace,’ he said. ‘I have been trying to tell you this.’
‘She disappeared with several of your soldiers already on the grounds,’ his father said softly. ‘You have taken on too much with this girl.’
He opened his mouth and then closed it, unsure how he could explain why he needed to be involved in her protection. He knew he was supposed to stay away, that she was his mother’s domain. Yet she was to be his wife and, despite her initial refusal of him, he felt a connection to her. He wanted to know her better than tradition dictated. ‘Yes, Your Eminence,’ he said, bowing before his father.
‘Bring the girl in,’ the emperor said, standing from his throne, and Remi stepped up to stand behind his father.
He expected U’shi to be sobbing and begging, like she had the day she had come to his room to ask for a better life after his brother died. But the woman before him held her head high as she entered the room. She stopped before them, put her arms together and bowed low.
‘You have embarrassed this house,’ the empress said, her voice catching, and Remi realised that she cared for the girl. She had spent more time with her than he had, putting much into her training. He wondered if she could care for Lis in the same way.
‘Do not get sentimental,’ the emperor said, stepping forward. ‘This woman has risked our Empire. She has risked our future empress and abandoned her position.’
U’shi looked up then, as though a little confused.
‘You have damaged the memory of my son,’ he said firmly. ‘If you were willing to allow harm to come to the Hidden Princess of Rei-Een, I wonder, did you also allow harm to come to him?’
She shook her head vigorously and dropped to her knees. ‘I loved the crown prince. I would never put him in danger.’
‘And yet.’
‘I was distracted in my grief,’ she blubbed, and Remi saw the girl who had visited him, hoping her tears would sway the emperor.
‘Distracted?’ the emperor boomed. ‘You took her clothes and left her to die.’
U’shi gulped down her tears and shook her head again.
‘Explain yourself, when you would not before.’
‘I was lonely,’ she whined, and he glared at her. ‘It is a difficult life as the hidden princess, but there is a reason for such a life. I understood such things, but then the prince died and I was trapped with no future.’
‘And so, you took it out on the new hidden princess?’ Remi asked, and his father gently shook his head.
‘Tutor Nizen has always been kind to me. He has helped me become the woman I am, trained and ready to be Empress.’
The emperor actually growled, and the empress glanced at him nervously.
‘I am ready, Your Eminence, whether I am needed to be or not.’ The confidence had returned to her voice, and her tears dried quickly.
‘This does not explain your behaviour.’
‘I know little of the world outside of the hidden princess’s palace.’
‘You have just told me you are trained and ready to be Empress.’
‘I know of the world, Your Eminence, but I have not experienced it. In my grief, he comforted me, and I found something in that comfort I did not think I could ever have.’
‘You took her clothes to give you time to spend with the tutor,’ Remi said.
She nodded.
‘What did you think could happen?’ he asked before the emperor could say anything further.
‘The tutor could take a wife. He could continue to teach, and he has a small house by the hidden princess’s palace. We would have continued to serve.’
‘A tutor with an empress as a wife?’ the empress whispered.
U’shi gave her a small smile.
‘You are no empress,’ the emperor roared, and she pushed back from him on her knees. ‘Does the man want you for a wife?’
U’shi chewed on her lip then. ‘I carry his child,’ she whispered.
Remi blew out a long, slow breath.
‘I should have you beheaded for what you have done,’ the emperor said in a low, angry tone. ‘The disgrace.’
She bowed low, touching her forehead to the floor. ‘Please spare my child,’ she begged.
He pointed to the door, and the guards stepped forward. They lifted her to her feet and dragged her from the room. She wailed as they dragged her away, her voice carrying back through the doorway. ‘Please, sire.’
He glared at the empress, who looked at the floor. ‘I
do hope you have chosen better this time,’ he said, and Remi felt the threat behind the words.
His mother remained unmoving.
A soldier appeared in the doorway and the emperor nodded. He moved back and settled into his throne before two more soldiers entered, the tutor pressed between them.
They pushed him forward, where he knelt and bowed low before them.
‘Tell me the history of the veiled hidden princess,’ Remi demanded, and the man before him looked a little confused. His mother raised her eyes and gave him a questioning look.
‘In a time when more than one princess was hidden away, they wore veils to ensure they were all hidden,’ the tutor murmured, looking between the three of them.
‘How many were hidden?’
‘All the girls of the Empire of age and eligibility.’
‘All hidden and all trained?’
He nodded once.
‘How was the future empress chosen from amongst these empresses?’
‘A Choosing was held. They were tested, and the crown prince would view each one.’
‘They weren’t hidden to him?’ Remi asked, surprised.
‘Not for the Choosing. He would select the brightest, calmest, and most talented of them. Some stories claim the most beautiful was chosen at times, but it depended on the prince.’
‘And the others?’
‘Your Highness?’
‘The others trained to be Empress who could not be—what happened to them? I can’t imagine we could have an Empire full of empresses?’
He shook his head and glanced at the current empress.
‘Well?’
‘They were put to death. Poison is the kindest method, arsenic or the like in their wine at night.’
‘Do you think U’shi should be…’ the empress stammered.
‘Do you think we should have two women trained to be empress?’ the emperor asked.
‘We have, in our more recent past, had a similar situation to what we have here,’ the tutor continued. Remi raised his eyebrows, and the man coughed. ‘Where a crown prince has been lost and we have had to choose another hidden princess. In those instances, the first hidden princess has continued in service to the royal family.’
‘I don’t think it is us she has been serving,’ Remi murmured, and the man, to his credit, blushed.
‘Is this where the focus of the royal family should be?’ the tutor asked.
‘You would question us?’ the emperor asked, the sharp edge evident in his voice.
The man actually gulped. ‘Should you not be looking for your current hidden princess, or is she lost? Would it not be a notion to use the other hidden princess?’
‘And raise your child as my own, perhaps?’ Remi said.
The man slipped to the side then, surprise covering his features, and then a small smile lit up his face.
Remi scowled. ‘She lied,’ he murmured.
‘She would not dare,’ the empress said quickly.
‘You continue to defend her,’ the emperor said, clearly angry and forgetting their audience.
‘She would have told you,’ Remi said to the tutor. ‘If she carried your child, she would have told you so. She has used the idea of it to save her own skin.’
‘You cannot be so sure,’ the empress said.
‘I can,’ he murmured. ‘Go for the Imperial Healer and ask him to examine her before she is returned to the cell,’ Remi said clearly to the soldier by the door, who bent in a bow to the prince before disappearing. ‘How long has this been going on?’ he asked, turning back to the tutor.
He shook his head, clearly uncertain how to answer.
‘You are a well-trained man yourself. You have studied for many years to be in the position you are and, although young for such a position, you are still much older than the maid.’
‘Don’t call her that,’ he muttered.
‘Really? What title should I give her?’
‘She is more than a maid,’ he whispered.
‘She is no more than a common whore,’ Remi snapped, the words surprising him as much as his mother, whose eyes grew wide. ‘What have you tried with the new hidden princess?’
‘That creature is not worth my time,’ the tutor said, disdain evident, and Remi stepped forward to find his father’s hand across his chest.
‘She is the future empress of our Empire.’
‘She is a country girl too keen to tell me what I should teach. There is not enough time,’ he said, beseeching the empress.
‘So she said,’ Remi said, more subdued.
‘What do you mean?’ the emperor asked.
‘I think the pressure to train the princess is being put on the princess rather than the tutors.’ He looked at his mother. ‘She mentioned something about how they lament at the lack of time, telling her she can’t learn it all, and yet they do not utilise the time appropriately. This man spends his time bedding the maid rather than training our future empress.’
The emperor nodded slowly and turned again to his wife.
‘When she is returned, I shall ensure all is done to assist her,’ the empress said.
‘If you can find her,’ the tutor murmured.
‘And do you know who took her?’ Remi asked.
He shook his head. ‘But U’shi and I may have pushed her a little too far.’
The soldier rushed back into the room, and all eyes moved to him. He stepped forward with a small letter.
The emperor glanced at it and handed it to Remi.
‘With child,’ it said.
He screwed the letter in his hand and glared at the tutor. How had this man been elevated to such a position?
Chapter 19
Lis stood silently at the end of the pier watching Wei-Song and the man in the little boat sail away. She held her breath as her father walked towards her. But she wasn’t sure how to face him yet, and so she remained hidden from the world.
He sighed and looked after the boat. She hadn’t thought of him seeing the boat sail towards the island, and when she looked at him, he looked so sad. The loss of her mother must have been hard on him. He watched until the boat disappeared, and then he walked slowly back to the house. Lis waited before following him, remembering the creaky jetty. She feared the noise would give her away. She wondered if this was a skill her father knew her to have.
As she followed his path back to the house, she breathed in the familiar scent of home and realised just how much she had missed it. In some ways it was no longer her home, and as she watched his slow walk and drooped shoulders, she wondered if he would allow her to stay.
Her father had allowed her to be who she was growing up. She had been able to do anything she wanted with her magic, but it had just been games. She had never thought about what she could really do, and she didn’t know how powerful she might be. He had mentioned so many times the need to hide it that she had assumed there was no one, or not many, with magic left in the world. Until the bath house, and then she had met Wei-Song. She had been kind, Lis thought, but there was something beneath the kindness, something she wanted from Lis. Despite their time together, Lis couldn’t determine what that might be.
‘Who were they?’ Ting asked, rushing forward as Lis followed her father into the main room.
He shook his head and sat heavily. Ting knelt beside him and poured tea. It was sad watching them, as though it was only the two of them left and they knew there would never be another. Lis moved as she heard footsteps behind her, and Ting’s face lit up with a smile.
‘Did they bring word of Lis?’ Peng asked.
Lis bit hard on her lip to prevent the strange cry in her throat from escaping. How could he be alive? She moved carefully towards him, taking in his familiar scent. She wanted to throw her arms around him and pull him tight against her body to be sure he was real, but she hesitated, and he was out of her reach.
‘They didn’t stop. Perhaps they had the wrong island. They pulled up to the jetty and almost immediately left
again.’ Her father sighed and turned the cup slowly in his hand without drinking from it.
‘What could they want with her?’ Ting asked, and Peng rushed forward to take her hand.
‘They wouldn’t hurt her,’ he murmured. ‘They would only try to send some message to the emperor.’
Lis’s heart stopped and the breath left her body. Peng wasn’t dead, but he was lost to her.
‘If it was those with magic as the crown prince fears, perhaps they do know what she is,’ he continued.
‘There is no one with magic left,’ her father said, his voice hollow.
‘Then who and why?’ Ting implored.
Her father shook his head. ‘Let us eat,’ he said. ‘The crown prince has promised to inform us the moment she is found.’
Peng huffed, and her father gave him a friendly smile.
‘I am glad you have stayed with us,’ he said.
Peng nodded and sat at the table. Ting stood slowly and moved from the room, returning soon after with a tray. She set bowls and rice down before her father and Peng, who smiled too much at her. Then she left and returned with another for herself, and they sat to eat in silence, Ting and Peng occasionally looking up across the table at each other.
Lis felt the sharp pain across her chest as her heart broke. They had moved on without her, and there was nothing for her here.
She turned her back and walked carefully from the house, continuing out to the middle of the field, where she sat down. She breathed in the flowers she had hoped would be blooming and then raised her hand, bringing them to life and hiding her further in a sea of pink. Putting her hands together, she came out of hiding. The sun felt warmer on her skin and, with a simple movement of her hand, her hair was loose around her shoulders down her back. A slight breeze picked up and she closed her eyes, pretending she was in another time, a time when the world was easy and she was happy.
She lay back and watched the clouds drift across the sky, slowly changing as they moved, in no hurry to go on their way. She closed her eyes and sighed. It had been so long since she’d had the freedom to simply be, and she tried to focus on the moment rather than where she would go next.
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 14
