by Stone, C. L.
That could have been me.
It drained me to think of how my actions had influenced so much around me. Maybe I would have died instead of Mrs. Satsu if it hadn’t been for that letter. Maybe all of us would have died. We could have all been given tea that could have killed us.
Apricot wasn’t the one who had picked herself to be a future empress. Yet, she had suffered for it.
Would I ever be able to make decisions in the future without thinking of this? How would my registering now affect anyone else?
What if helping Apricot had been a mistake as well? The other students had clearly been displeased. Helping her made additional enemies for me.
Despite all my questions, I was driven to continue. Part of it was how Shima and Ryuu continued to practice until we were all so tired we needed to sleep. Deep down, though, the brazen disloyalty and dishonor brought out my determination. I wouldn’t want Ryuu or Shima or Sota to be without my help. I also didn’t want to leave Apricot alone.
On the morning of the inspection, Sota had the tub brought up once more, and I was scrubbed raw as Sota and Shima washed my body. I soaked in the tub while Sota scrubbed Ryuu, who would bathe after I got out.
I hummed absently as I soaked. The water was pink and smelled of sugar and berries. The Taka sung with me, repeating the words I had sung at the wall.
Somewhere deep in the city came an echo.
The sound of the wall singing.
Or perhaps it was just a memory of a hallucination. It had been a stressful couple of days.
I was going crazy, I thought.
Until I looked over and saw Shima get up. He went to the window, looking out into the city. His serious expression made me stop my humming.
He heard it, too?
When I got out of the tub so Ryuu could soak, I left the room to go check on Apricot. A royal guard had been left at her door. Sota must have trusted him.
It was just after the sun had risen high enough in the sky for sunlight to break over the buildings. Apricot was still in bed when I entered. She was curled up on her side, with her dark hair splayed across her futon.
She breathed so softly, I wondered briefly if she was breathing at all.
“You must get up,” I said quietly.
She sighed. “I have my own final inspection today,” she said. “I meet with the emperor. My heart isn’t in it, but I have to fulfill my promise to my mother.”
“You’ll do well,” I said, hoping to instill in her the same confidence she’d provided me. “And we need to do our best.” I paused. “We have to.”
She said nothing but continued to lie in the bed. “He was my escort,” she said to me.
I knelt beside her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Were you close?”
“I trusted him,” she said. She turned onto her back to gaze up at me. “I shouldn’t have. The one I would have married if the emperor hadn’t selected me... he offered to be my escort, but I refused. I didn’t want him that close if we could never be together. I didn’t trust myself not to betray the emperor.”
“So your escort...”
“He was a cousin of his family.” She rose slowly to sit beside me. “He asked me to take him in as my escort. He claimed he was the only one I could trust to protect me.”
I blinked rapidly and then considered. “Why did your escort bring you tea to your room, when he knew you wouldn’t be near to drink it while it was warm?”
Her already-pale face seemed to turn translucent, like a ghost. “I’ve been wondering that all night. I haven’t slept.”
I pressed my palms to her cheeks to get her to focus. “Apricot,” I said. “You can’t tell anyone this...”
“I have to,” she said, and her dark button eyes focused on my face. “I suspect he...he killed her. To free me.” Her face contorted and tears escaped her eyes, rolling down over my hands.
How cruel. How horrible. Someone she loved and trusted had done terrible things. I considered what might have happened. She might have been accused, dismissed by the emperor as a potential bride. It would have been revealed later that she wasn’t involved, but by then, it would have been too late. The emperor would have chosen his wives. Then her lover could return to her, and they could be together.
I realized he had colluded with his cousin to be her escort and keep close to her. And then, further, he’d paid the dismissed student to help Apricot to avoid suspicion and capture.
I wasn’t sure my speculation was proof, but during a trial, information like this was likely to come out. I had to agree with her decision. “If you’re sure that’s what happened, then you must say something. It would be wrong not to.”
“I don’t know how I can,” she said. She wiped at her cheeks and pulled away from me. “I may be dismissed entirely if I do. I may be seen as bad luck.”
“We have to do the right thing, or it will haunt us forever,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be worse if you are selected and it comes out after?”
She held her breath for so long, I thought she was trying to make herself pass out. She released her breath and spoke. “I hate him now,” she said. “At first I was heartbroken, but now, I despise him. And it hurts.”
“Your heart is free to love your future husband,” I said. “Whoever that might be. Hopefully someone far more honorable.”
Her face seemed to alter then, her confidence returning to what I remembered from the day before. She rose on the futon and stepped off it and onto the floor. She turned to me. “Will you dress me today, Mizuki?”
I rose beside her and we began.
She stiffly inserted her arms into the sleeves of a fine silk kimono. The darkness under her eyes, I hid with makeup.
“You should probably leave word of your suspicions before you go to your inspection,” I said.
She said nothing, and I continued to apply her makeup until she was perfect.
After she left with a royal guard to escort her, I had to get to work on myself. I prayed silently that she made the right choice, and that her words reached sympathetic ears.
And I hoped she did well with her inspection. I hoped it would make her happy.
INSPECTION
I DRESSED IN THE SAME practice kimono as the day before, wearing my hair down around my shoulders. This was necessary, as at the start of inspection, I would be examined by doctors and astrologers looking for any reason to dismiss me. Any flaw, and they would throw me right out, to send me back.
I felt myself full of flaws, but I faked my confidence.
Shima and Ryuu wore kimono similar to mine. We touched hands with each other before leaving our room to walk the long way around buildings. Sota followed along beside us, telling us which direction to go.
The sky had brightened. My skin warmed. The walk seemed so slow. With every moment, a heaviness built in my heart, but so did my determination.
Not that being determined at this point had much to do with what happened in the first round of inspections.
Ryuu, Shima and I approached the same red building again, this time in silence. None of us would have Mrs. Satsu’s seal to help us now. We were just like everyone else, only a little better than before, since we’d taken the time to teach ourselves and to learn from Apricot and Mrs. Satsu what they knew.
We were better for it, but would it be enough?
On the steps just outside the door, Ryuu paused and reached for my hand.
“Mizuki,” he said quietly, looking at my kimono.
“Yes?”
He squeezed my hand gently. “You still want me to be your supporter, right?”
I looked at him, confused. “Of course.”
“I feel like you got the bad end of the deal we made,” he said. “I think you’ll get a great position, and I don’t know how I could help you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to bring me along just because you promised.”
I smiled, leaned in and kissed his cheek. He looked at me in surprise. The act shocked me as well.
&n
bsp; “What was that for?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t be here without you,” I said. “Please join me, wherever I end up.”
This seemed to lighten his mood. He nodded and headed inside.
Shima and I stood together, watching him enter.
“Maybe I should have spent the night with the registering agent,” he said. “Maybe he could give all of us...”
I reached out to his hand and held it, squeezing gently.
This seemed to shake him out of his thoughts, and he gazed over at me. “May I ask for a kiss, too? I think it will be good luck.”
I kissed his cheek, too. “You’ll do well.”
“I’ll be waiting for word you got in,” he said.
This time, Sota followed me as far as the main hallway inside the building. He was told to wait by the guard, but before he left, he turned to me.
“Remember what you’ve been taught,” he said.
“I will.”
He paused there and then suddenly leaned in, kissing my cheek before releasing me.
“For luck,” he said.
I walked up to the registration desk, feeling his eyes on me as I moved. I wasn’t the first to arrive at the desk, and there was a line waiting to check in. Women identified themselves. Registration clerks noted their names on the list. The women were ushered into one of three doors.
After I gave my name, I was immediately taken into a large room where two hundred girls also waited to be inspected. I’d been twenty minutes early, and some of them appeared to have been waiting for a long time.
Was this all there were? Even if the other two rooms held as many women, that was still far fewer than the number of those who had been summoned to register. Six hundred among thousands. I hadn’t considered that some of them might have been turned away at registration, before the day of inspection. Or perhaps, like the student who had been dismissed, others might have been disqualified for conspiracy.
It could also be that there were those who felt as I did, that it was impossible for a poor girl from a fishing village to make it this far.
We sat in a long windowless room with a hardwood floor, without any comfort. It was unusually warm for a late autumn day. A servant gave us only water, but some women were hungry.
I remained silent where I sat on a wooden bench. Sota had suggested that making friends at this point might be dangerous. The other girls occasionally asked the same question of the servant. “How much longer do we need to stay here?”
“As long as it takes,” the servant said quietly, without looking at our faces.
The other girls were also dressed in delicate kimono, with clean faces and hair combed down past their shoulders. They had gotten word as well about how to prepare themselves for this examination. Despite their plain faces, I couldn’t help but feel they were divinely beautiful. Some women were slim, while others had the curves most girls found more fashionable, and yet they all had doll-like faces, and the distinctive features of Kuni women.
I stared at the wall in silence to avoid eye contact with anyone while waiting. Over time, I realized I was listening to two women talking behind me.
“I can’t believe we got the seals,” one of them said. “We did it!”
“Even if we aren’t picked to be the one, we’ll still get positions, right?”
“We’ve been selected especially by someone the emperor trusts. I don’t think we’d walk away empty-handed.”
My heart sank. I imagined they’d worked with someone like Mrs. Satsu. I thought we weren’t to tell anyone, so it might be they had been informed upon entering.
I dismissed the thought of being selected for that special position myself. It was a lost cause now. I had to be grateful that Mrs. Satsu had taught me anything. Maybe I could at least be called upon for bannerman, or something else useful.
I wondered how Shima and Ryuu were doing. I wondered if they were standing around like we were, waiting to be inspected.
Hours later, a male court minister arrived, wearing a black kimono with a golden rope to tie it off. He was followed by a female assistant. They seemed ancient to me, him with a long white beard and bald head, and her with a delicate frame and covered in wrinkles.
We were told to line up and undress. We did, undoing our kimono to flutter to our feet and stepping out of our geta. We stood arm to arm.
The minister and assistant walked the floor in front of where we stood, looking over our bodies and making comments, which the assistant wrote down on paper.
I had been warned about this inspection, so I wasn’t surprised by what was going to happen. I stood as still as I could and kept my eyes open, trying to focus on something that made me happy to keep myself calm. Showing nervousness might give the minister a reason to dismiss me. He might think I was hiding something.
The minister went from one girl to the next, looking them over, and only speaking when he saw a flaw. “Too tall. Too dark. Eyes too close together. Crooked knees. Too fat. Feet too big.” His comments went on and on, and the assistant wrote line after line after each of our names.
Those girls he made comments on were ushered to the door by the servant and disappeared.
Was that it for them? Was beauty what the emperor was looking for? Did he seek more wives? It didn’t make sense to me that beauty be the first and most important trait sought out for positions.
The ones that remained were girls who he had not said a word about. This group included me, and when he was finished, we were told to put our kimono back on and to follow him.
We were escorted to another room, where doctors took their turns looking over our charts, measuring our height, weight, heart rate, and other vital signs. They even checked our teeth.
Those with imperfections were immediately dismissed.
This disheartened me. I was sure at some point a flaw would be identified in me. Sota had sworn to me that beauty wasn’t why we were here, yet it was clearly the first priority.
As we finished with the doctors and astrologers, one at a time, girls were taken to other rooms within the building. We weren’t told where they were going. Some women cried as they left. My heart went out to them. To be dismissed for something that wasn’t their fault was disappointing.
When it was my turn, I found myself in a room with a long table, and I was asked to lay on it.
Women surrounded me, looking over my body, lifting my arms. I imagined they were checking for cleanliness. Some of them even sniffed different parts of me, including my hair and my breath.
I had no idea what to make of this. I closed my eyes when it seemed appropriate, and tried to endure the inspection.
Once this was over, I was left alone in the examination room. At this point, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do and waited for someone to tell me. I knew there was more to this and kept thinking of things that made me happy to calm my nerves.
I thought of Sota washing my hair and body.
I thought of Ryuu’s humor and escorting me on a walk.
I thought of Shima, his strong arms lifting buckets of water upstairs for a bath for my benefit.
Again and again, my thoughts turned to them for happiness. With them, everything had turned out okay. I was safe, and at inspection, and so far doing well. If I didn’t earn a position, I would still be forever grateful to them.
Eventually, Sota appeared. He carried with him the finest kimono, one I hadn’t seen before. I’d expected him to bring the one Apricot had given me before.
Instead, the kimono he brought seemed to have been spun from pure silver, and on it were pink swirls of clouds, and birds that looked like my Taka.
My heart soared at seeing it. “Where did you get it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with a surprising smile on his calm face. “It arrived via a courier just as I was about to come back here. He told me to give him the other one and he ran off with it.”
There was a box as well, and a note inside.
Use the black co
al mask for two minutes and wash it off before applying your makeup. – Apricot
I read it out loud to Sota. “Why is she doing this?”
“I thought that would be obvious,” he said and put the kimono down on the table delicately.
I raised my eyebrows curiously at him. “I helped her, but I thought she was with the emperor, getting inspected. She wouldn’t have time for this.”
“It must have gone well,” he said. “She was able to send this along.”
I touched the delicate silk between my fingers. The material shimmered. I was in awe of her generosity.
I hoped she had done well, but what did it mean if she was able to send a servant in to give me this?
Sota left the room again and brought back the cage with the Taka singing inside.
He put it down on the examination table and turned to me. “Mizuki,” he said quietly.
I started to get undressed, thinking he wanted me to hurry things along.
He approached me, taking my hands into his. “I just wanted to tell you, from this point on, things will change.”
“I know,” I said. “I feel changed.”
His blue eyes locked on my face and his lips twitched. “I mean you will have to make choices as to who follows you into the Immortal City. I hope I’ve done a good job.”
Did he doubt it? “You’ve done so much for me,” I said. “You helped me get here and believed in me when I didn’t.”
“I tried to instill confidence. Sometimes I didn’t succeed as well as I should have. Ryuu and Shima sometimes did more than I could.”
I squeezed his hands. “They learned it from you. I would never have made it this far without all of you. But...I’ll need you inside the Immortal City. We need allies. There is no one I’d trust more than you to join us.”
He seemed pleased with this. “I’ll go where you ask me,” he said in a deeper voice. “Even if it’s back to your home.”
A silent moment passed between us. Our gazes locked and I stood still.
Slowly, he leaned in, and when I thought he meant to kiss my cheek, he turned his face and kissed my lips. Just once.