by Joan He
Her relief was short-lived; Akira was already moving into the washroom. Hesina followed, overcome with vertigo when she saw the rosewood tub, raised on rooster feet, sitting in its corner.
“You won’t find anything,” she tried to tell Akira again. Her voice sounded as hollow as the tub did in response to Akira’s rod.
“You might.” He went on to examine the poultice cubbies built into the wall. “You’re her daughter. Try to think of where she might place something important…”
His voice faded as Hesina stared at the tub, a memory appearing as clear as yesterday. It’d been after kneeling for several hours in her mother’s sitting room. Petals had skimmed the surface of the water like little skiffs. Clouds of steam rose and parted, unveiling her mother, shoulders bare, eyes closed. Hesina had only peeked into the washroom to ask if she could leave. She wasn’t supposed to see the scar around her mother’s neck split open, blood weeping against her pruned skin.
She’d tried to back away.
Tripped.
Her mother’s eyes had snapped open.
Pain crackled up Hesina’s spine, jerking her into the present, where she’d backed out of the washroom and straight into her mother’s altar. Rubbing at what was sure to become a hideous bruise, she lifted her eyes to the pillar of stone, carved with the immortal gods the relic emperors had aspired to become.
Her mother’s illness of the mind had stumped the Imperial Doctress so thoroughly that she’d prescribed spiritual medicine. It hadn’t worked. But the altar had stayed, likely to the dismay of the maids. Altars were a hassle to maintain. They had to be cleaned a certain way. Positioned a certain way.
Which made them the perfect hiding place.
The pain in Hesina’s spine fled, replaced by a cold trickle of revelation. With a trembling hand, she reached out and—heavens forgive her—turned the altar pillar.
Its back contained a hollow, and the hollow cradled a bronze chest strung with a silver half-moon padlock. Hesina stared, triumphant to have found something, and terrified for the same reason.
Before she could recover her bearings, Akira came over and lifted the chest.
“A wedding lock,” he explained, fiddling with the three dials. “One of a pair, exchanged during a marriage ceremony. The combination is traditionally set to the other partner’s birth year.”
His gaze flicked to her, expectant.
“265.” Two hundred and sixty-five years since the end of the Relic Dynasty.
Akira spun each dial. The lock didn’t budge. He looked to her again, and Hesina probed at a raw spot on her inner cheek in thought.
“Try 906.” The year it’d be if the Eleven hadn’t started the calendar anew.
Akira entered those numbers. The lock remained firmly shut. Again, he looked to her, this time with skepticism.
“I know my own father’s birth year,” Hesina said, defensive. When his gray eyes disagreed, she grabbed the chest. Their hands brushed, and Akira’s expression lost that chilling focus. He peered at her through the fall of his bangs, as if beholding her bloodless, sweaty face for the first time.
“I know my own father’s birth year,” she repeated quietly, and Akira nodded. But the damage had been done; her eyes grew scratchy as she stared down at the whorls of patina on the lid of the chest. She was the one holding them back, not the Investigation Bureau, because while she knew her father as well as she knew herself, she didn’t know her mother. She didn’t know what the dowager queen might have set the lock to, if not her father’s birth year.
“I’ll find the right numbers,” she said as Akira picked up his rod. “I promise I will. Just give me some time.”
He walked to the door and stopped under the frame. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes!”
Akira hefted his rod up and down, seeming to weigh it with his words. “Sometimes I lose myself,” he finally said. “I get too focused. Forget that feelings matter. I was raised this way, and I’m still trying to change.”
Hesina mustered the courage to join him, then the nerve to place a hand on his back. He stiffened as her palm came to rest over the sharp jut of his shoulder blade, and she swallowed, keenly aware of the bones beneath her own skin.
“Sometimes…” Her voice caught; she tried again. “Sometimes, I’m afraid of finding secrets I’m not meant to know.” Or was deemed unworthy of knowing, in her mother’s case. “But I want to be braver. Stronger. I want to be worthy of the truth. And I’d like it…I’d like it very much if you could help me.”
Please.
After a long second, Akira nodded. Then he moved out of her touch. Her hand fell, but her heart didn’t. This was the beginning of their partnership, not the end.
Grateful, Hesina released a breath. “I’m sorry about the lock. I know we don’t have much time.” It was their investigation against the Bureau’s, their suspects against innocents.
“There are other ways of staying ahead,” Akira said as they left her mother’s chambers.
“Such as?”
“I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It sounded like the comforting thing to say.”
Well, that wasn’t comforting at all.
After they parted, Hesina racked her brain. She had a list of potential scapegoats that was thirty names long, but after Consort Fei, anyone with the slightest relation to Kendi’a could be fair game. If only there was a way of knowing who would be framed next. She couldn’t foresee Xia Zhong’s or the director’s future moves, but…
She stopped between two embroidered facades, the chest heavy in her arms. On either side of her, the silk depicted soothsayers nailed to the stakes, surrounded by flames.
…There was someone who could.
ELEVEN
THEY CONTROLLED THE PEOPLE WITH FEAR.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON THE RELIC EMPERORS
FEAR, AND SOOTHS.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON THE RELIC EMPERORS
When had the secret keeping started?
Since Caiyan had become her first advisor, Hesina realized as she turned away from his doors. She left without knocking; she’d come all the way to his chambers only to withhold her intentions of revisiting the Silver Iris. His safety mattered more than ever. If she suddenly died while Sanjing was halfway across the realm, the court and throne would temporarily go to Caiyan. Granted, Caiyan would argue that her safety trumped his. He would win that debate. Which was why Hesina didn’t want one in the first place.
On her own, she readied the gold, studied the imperial city map, and then headed for the throne hall to review paperwork on the ivory kang while waiting for night to fall. Hours crawled by. Dusk stained the hall when her head page came to deliver the daily report on the realm.
“Any response from Kendi’a?” Hesina asked when her page concluded his updates.
“Nothing, dianxia.”
Lilian’s suggestion of using force had never seemed more appealing. But until her wrist gave out, Hesina would have to content herself with writing letters. Such was the almighty diplomacy of a queen.
“But there is news from the borderlands,” said her page as she returned to editing a memorial on infrastructure.
“Yes?”
“Another village is gone.”
Hesina’s brush streaked across the paper.
For a second, she couldn’t think or speak. She stared at the gash of black ink. Her irritation spiked—she’d spent an hour writing this—and she latched on to the simple emotion as the cosmos fell around her.
Another.
Another village.
“Where?”
“A millet hamlet twenty li south of the northern loess basin and fifty li west of Yingchuan,” said her page. “Population was numbered at around sixty.”
Was.
The brush dangled lifeless from her hand. Ink dripped onto the memorial, splattering like blood. “The people? The livestock?”
Her page gave a silent shake of his head.
&n
bsp; Hesina’s vision dimmed. “My brother?”
“According to our most recent reports, the general is still fighting skirmishes along the southern borderlands.”
Then he was safe. As long as he was fighting, he was safe.
Hesina wrestled her panic back by the horns. She’d be playing into Xia Zhong’s hands if she lost her nerve. “How far has this news spread?”
“We intercepted the messenger dove the moment it arrived. The news is contained.”
For now. Hesina doubted it’d stay that way. They were moving along Xia Zhong’s ideal trajectory—one where suspicion against the Kendi’ans mounted day after day. The people wouldn’t brush off the disappearance of two villages.
She crumpled the memorial and fed it to the desk urn, taking measured breaths as the rice paper curled and blackened in the fire. “Set your best eyes and ears on Xia Zhong.”
“Xia Zhong…as in the Minister of Rites?”
At least she wasn’t alone in misjudging the minister. “Yes, the one and only. I want to know of his every movement and word.”
“Understood, dianxia. Is there anyone else you’d like monitored?”
What about the people close to the king? whispered Akira’s voice.
Flame scorched her fingertips. Hissing, Hesina dropped the memorial’s remnants.
“No.” She’d rather lose the mandate of the heavens than spy on her own family. “That will be all.”
She exited the throne hall shortly after her page. The time for indecision had passed. If Xia Zhong got to the suspects first, he’d drive the final nail into Yan-Kendi’an relations. She had to see the Silver Iris before then.
Back in her chambers, she fumbled with her commoner’s cloak while Ming’er stood by.
“It’s growing dark, my flower.”
“I won’t be gone long.”
She protested as Ming’er took the cloak from her, but the woman fastened the cloth buttons with much more finesse. “Be careful,” Ming’er said, notching the last one.
Hesina vowed she would. Then she hurried to the imitation mountain range in the centermost courtyard. The lichen-draped cliffs shielded her from any eyes as she jammed a reed into a hole in the pumice. The mountains split apart.
“Not so fast.”
Hesina whirled, brandishing the reed like a sword. “Show yourself.”
“Over here.”
She spun, but still nothing. Just shadows.
She’ll be protecting you from the shadows.
Hesina lowered the reed and sighed. Even when he wasn’t here, Sanjing still made her look the fool. “Mei.”
“Mmm?”
This time when Hesina turned, a lithe girl stood before her, outfitted from head to toe in black, from her formfitting hanfu to the many daggers sheathed at her waist. An equally black braid tumbled out from the side of her hood, and a black cloth covered most of her face, sparing only her russet eyes.
“Well, hello,” said Hesina, attempting to be amicable.
Mei didn’t reciprocate. “Bad time to be visiting the city.”
“Did I say I was visiting the city?”
“I’ve been warned of your tendency for lying through rhetorical questions.” Mei ignored Hesina’s snort of disbelief and scanned her figure. “No weapons.” She did a slow sweep of their surroundings. “No guards.”
“How long have you followed me?”
“Since your coronation.”
“And nothing bad has happened.”
“Yet,” said Mei, sounding all too similar to Sanjing.
Like general, like commander. With a huff of exasperation, Hesina took one of the daggers strapped to Mei’s broad-belt and tucked it into her own. “Better?”
“Not really,” said Mei, but she didn’t stop Hesina from entering the passageway.
The autumn harvest festival was mere days away. The streets should have been packed. Now was the time to stock up on sorghum wine and cooking oil, or hot zongzi sticky-rice triangles wrapped in lotus leaves and red-bean moon cakes stamped with chrysanthemum designs. But the market sector was deathly quiet when Hesina emerged from the abandoned tavern. Vendor stalls stood forlorn without their owners. No palanquins bobbed down the narrow streets. No mule drivers yelled at children in their way. The night was thick with smog, and when Hesina looked to the red-light district, her breath stopped.
The horizon was eerily aglow, baking the silhouettes of the ridged roofs black.
“Seen enough?” came a quiet voice from behind.
Ignoring Mei, Hesina picked up her pace until she reached the first sign of life: a fleeing crowd. People ran past her, away from the red-light district, their faces engraved with terror. Panicked cries and shouted words sailed overhead, cleaved by the blast of the city-guard horn.
“Call for reinforcements!” cried the captain, heading a horde of armored men and women. Their red-tasseled halberds gleamed as they marched past.
Hesina grabbed the cloak of one. His spear jerked to her throat, and black flashed in the periphery, but she dropped her hold before Mei could spill blood. “What’s going on?”
The guard stepped back, halberd still raised, and took in Hesina’s commoner’s garb. “Stay away from the red-light district.”
“Why?” Hesina pressed, but he’d already rejoined the rest. As they rushed by, her hand shot to her silk broad-belt, where her imperial seal dangled. Then she froze. She could get the answers she wanted by revealing her identity, but then the guards would swamp her like fifty Caiyans. She’d forfeit any chance of making it to the Silver Iris.
Before Mei could stop her, Hesina turned and ran against the tide. She passed under the west arch, down the streets lined with dingy pawnshops, taverns, and teahouses, not slowing until she hit the crowd that had formed in the middle of the limestone street.
It was a bristling thing of people fleeing and people joining. Guards hemmed it in but did nothing to disperse the mob, or silence the shout that came from the heart of it.
“Another village has disappeared!” Hesina couldn’t see the person, only the torch he’d thrust high. “The Kendi’ans grow ever stronger!”
“And why?” cried another torch-holder. “Because of them! Their kind live among us! They disguise themselves as beggars and whores, hiding themselves among the dregs of society as they bide time and recover from the blow the Eleven dealt them. But mark my words! One day, they will hatch like maggots! They’ve oppressed us once with their powers! They will oppress us yet again!”
Arm by arm, torso by torso, Hesina squeezed past the human barricade. It ended abruptly, and she pitched into the clearing.
In the middle rose a hastily erected stake. The girls and boys lashed to it stood out like exotic birds in their brothel colors, but they weren’t beautiful. The kohl lining their eyes dripped black over their rouged cheeks, the carmine stain on their lips smeared like blood. They cowered as the crowd raged.
“Sooths!”
“Whores!”
“Maggots!”
“Destroy them now!” screamed a woman. “Destroy them before they destroy us!”
Hesina didn’t trust herself to speak. She feared her voice would betray her, that the mere sound of it could reveal her horror and her guilt, for taking from the Silver Iris and giving nothing in return.
So she watched with the rest as one of the men handed off his torch and approached a tied-up courtesan. The girl shrank, flattening against the stake as the man cut her free.
He dragged her to her feet. “From this day forward, we strip them of their disguise!” He turned to the girl. “Burn,” he spat out. “Burn, and show us your true identity!”
He raised her arm.
Do something.
Drew something from his belt.
Do something.
It was a sickle, the Eleven’s weapon of choice, symbolic of the peasants’ struggles against the sooths and nobility. Its sharpened edge grinned under the torchlight, ribboning the air in Hesina’s throat. Then it hu
rtled down in a streak of silver.
It should have been a fast moment, over in second, ending in a spray of blood, perhaps a flicker of blue flame. But instead, time slowed. Hesina envisioned the Silver Iris again. Saw her back, the monstrous truth of Hesina’s kingdom carved into skin. The truth of her, if she stayed silent.
“Stop!”
The blade stopped short of flesh.
Eyes fell on Hesina, then flashed up to her jade seal raised high in the air. With her free hand, she tore apart the buttons Ming’er had so carefully fastened. The cloak slid to the ground.
Gasps rose as people fell. The mob, worshipping another leader just seconds ago, dropped into a collective koutou. The reverie only kicked up Hesina’s disgust. She faced the ringleaders. “Step away from the girl.”
Once they did, she spun to the guards pushing through the crowd. “Seize their weapons.”
Then she drew Mei’s dagger and strode to the young courtesan, who blanched when Hesina grasped her arm.
But it wasn’t the courtesan’s skin that broke under the blade.
In one heartbeat, Hesina sliced her own forearm and pressed the flat of the blade to the courtesan’s bare one, streaking the flawless skin with her own blood. By the next heartbeat, Hesina had let her own sleeve fall over the wound. She spun around and, with her good hand, held the girl’s arm up for all to see. “Look! Does it burn?”
People shoved and pushed, fighting for a view. Nothing happened. The girl’s “cut” didn’t burst into flame.
Hesina dropped the arm and held up Mei’s knife. “Does it burn?”
The knife didn’t burst into flame either.
Under Hesina’s sleeve, warmth vined around her wrist and budded off the knuckles. She desperately hoped no one would notice in the falling light.
“But she burned,” someone cried.
“Who? Who burned?” Hesina demanded when the people failed to answer.
They led her to the tavern by the music house. The path to the counter was strewn with broken tables and chairs, mosaicked with smashed jiutan of sorghum wine.
Brushing aside the people’s warnings, Hesina strode toward the dark shape in the back, coughing on the gray motes clouding the air. Her eyesight gradually adjusted, and she made out the chair. She made out the person bound to the chair.