by Joan He
Clothes, shredded.
Torso, slit.
Skin, charred.
Eyelids, silver.
Silver like her name, and like her voice, metallic in Hesina’s memory. A nice parlor trick, don’t you think? the Silver Iris had said, lighting the candle with her own blood. But this time her blood had lit her, burning from the deepest part of the gash outward, consuming everything in its wake.
Hesina fell to her knees and vomited.
Feet crowded around her, joined by hands and elbows as people offered their handkerchiefs. No one suspected. No one guessed that it wasn’t the carnage that revolted their queen, but the world, how easily it turned silver to ash, ashes that were on her skin, in her lungs, on her tongue.
Hesina retched again. More hands and handkerchiefs crowded into her vision. She pushed them away. “Get back. Get out.”
The commoners rushed to follow orders.
Her guards weren’t so obedient. Shakily, Hesina rose and turned on them. “Get out.”
Once everyone had retreated to the tavern’s columned entrance, Hesina made for the counter. She didn’t know why. She was apart from herself, a spectator watching the queen rummage for a box of matches, watching her strike one, watching her hold it until the flame burned down the stick and then, and only then, watching her let it fall.
With a roar that drowned out the cries of alarm, the spirit-soaked ground came alive with blue flames. The hue wasn’t quite the same as what had danced atop the Silver Iris’s candlewick, but it was close. Hesina had watched the Imperial Doctress light enough alcohol burners to recall this property of sorghum wine. Now, she made a demonstration out of it. If eyewitness accounts spread like fire, then she would ignite her own. For every person who claimed that the Silver Iris burned blue, there would be three to claim that wine burned blue too. With enough debate, wine would become blood, and blood would become wine. Was there an infestation of sooths in the red-light district or drunkards who spent too much time around flammable liquids? Whom to believe? And whom not to? No one was king in the realm of rumors.
It was already happening. As Hesina joined the commoners and guards outside, disagreements were rising.
“Do you think…you think that’s why she burned blue?”
“No, she was a sooth!”
“But did you see it for yourself? Did she really burst into flame?”
“No, but that’s what the men told me!”
The voices hushed as Hesina threw out her arms.
“The world is full of tricksters,” she shouted above the crackle at her back. “And there is no greater trickster than fear. Tonight, we fell victim to fear. We let it blind us. We thought we were hunting monsters…”
She stared out into the sea of flame-washed faces. It took all her strength not to look away. But we were the monsters.
Then she watched the fire of her own making grow and grow. As the flames leapt to the rafters, her eyes welled. Convincing the people that there were no sooths to hunt was all she could do. Her gift, in return for the Silver Iris’s truth, was this lie.
The flames reddened as they finished off the wine and licked the wood. Beams and pillars dissolved. Half of the roof came crashing down, spraying embers into the night sky. It was very black, the night sky, Hesina remembered thinking, before her world went black too.
TWELVE
WE WILL ALL BE REBORN AS EQUALS.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
FIRST, THE OLD MUST GO.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
When she came to, Hesina felt like one of her father’s shadow puppets. Her flesh was paper. Her bones were reeds.
“Jia!”
A terrifying jolt rocked through her. She clung to the closest solid thing—a wrist—and dreamed it was her father’s.
You coddle her, her mother would snap if she saw.
Her father would reply with a smile and a shrug. I’m the only one who does.
But the arm Hesina gripped now was too slim to be her father’s, even padded with a black leather guard. Reins sprouted from a fine-boned fist, and as Hesina’s gaze tilted up, the rider barked another jia!
Another sickening lurch. The world around them blurred faster. But the rider’s face remained stationary. Russet eyes. Raven braid.
Mei.
Mei’s arm, holding Hesina upright in front of her. Mei’s horse, wherever she’d gotten it. Mei’s cloak, reeking of rust and sticky to the touch.
“You’re bleeding,” Hesina whispered, startled by the broken sound of her voice.
Mei kept her eyes ahead. “I’m not, but you are.”
An ache fanned from Hesina’s wrist. She vaguely recalled cutting it. What a strange thing to do. Her eyes slid shut.
“Stay with me now.” The arms around Hesina tightened. “What’s your name?”
Hesina. A homophone for “dying cranes,” something a younger Sanjing delighted to remind her of. Now he called her “Sina,” which was hardly an improvement; its homophone translated as “Are you dead yet?”
Mei seemed to be asking more or less the same question. “Does it look like I’m dying?” Hesina mumbled.
Mei spurred on the horse as if to say yes.
Hesina frowned. She was fine. Just tired. Sleep-deprived. Sleep…
“Why did you cut yourself?”
Just let me be. “I had to.”
“Why?” pressed Mei, and Hesina frowned.
“I wasn’t sure…if she’d bleed…”
…Like the rest of us.
Or like a sooth.
The next time she came to, Hesina was in the palace. Moonlight from the latticed windows varnished the silent halls. The coals were banked in the braziers, the incense burned down to stubs.
The fog in Hesina’s mind dissipated as Mei carried her, and suddenly she could taste the smoke again, thick with ash.
Her lungs seized at the memory of choking. Then she was choking. The world flashed from bright to dark to bright as it all came back, and she was cold, cold to the bone. She wanted to hide behind her father, bury her face in his cloak. She croaked for him, forgetting, for a single second, that he was gone.
Remembering was like losing him all over again. She cried out from the pain of it. Mei went faster, but they were going the wrong way. Hesina didn’t need the Imperial Doctress. She needed someone to lean on as she came apart.
“Take me to Caiyan,” she gasped.
Mei stopped short of the archway to the infirmary. “I may be in General Sanjing’s good graces, but he won’t forgive me if I let you die.”
“I’m not dying.”
“And I’m not soaked in your blood.”
Hesina could have invoked all her titles—there were a lot of them—and reminded Mei that her word was final. But she was through with being a queen for the day. “Please, Mei.”
Silence.
Mei finally sighed. “May the gods bless me in the afterlife.” Then she pivoted, taking them through the pillared gallery connecting the outer palace to the inner. Hesina’s stomach tightened as they entered the facades, but Mei didn’t slow for the images. The swordswoman set her down when they reached Caiyan’s rooms and knocked on the doors before Hesina could attempt herself. When they cracked open, Mei didn’t bother with a greeting.
“You might want to summon the Imperial Doctress,” she said, then vanished into the shadows.
The doors went wide.
“Milady? What’s wrong? Where are you injured?”
Hesina stared owlishly at Caiyan. Whatever the time, it was clearly late enough that Caiyan had traded paperwork for sleep. His hair had been released from a topknot, dark locks rumpled, and he wore his black-and-gold viscount hanfu like a cape over his nightclothes. He didn’t seem real in his state of disarray. She didn’t believe that he was real, not even when he caught her by the elbows as her legs gave.
“Milady—” He froze when he saw the blood on her sleeve. Then he helped her to the bed, paneled with carved
herons to match his doors. “Let me summon the Doctress.”
“No.” She grabbed his hanfu’s cuff. “I just…I need…”
With horror, Hesina realized that everything she needed was out of reach.
A hiccup bubbled out of her. “She’s gone. T-they’re all gone.”
Her next hiccup merged into a sob.
Slowly, Caiyan sat. He gathered her close. In the safety of his arms, enveloped by his fresh-ground ink scent, Hesina cried until she could cry no more. Then, scooped clean like an autumn gourd, she drew new air into her lungs and recounted everything that had transpired.
Caiyan stacked his pillow logs behind her as she spoke, but she didn’t lean back on them. His support was all she needed.
“There now, milady,” he said when she finished. “You’re safe. As long as you’re safe, everything will be fine.”
Normally, Caiyan’s words soothed her. They were calm. Steady. They almost masked his heartbeat, jagged against her shoulder.
With a twist of unease, Hesina sank against the pillows at her back. “It was never fine. The Eleven freed the oppressed by oppressing their oppressors.”
Oppressed. Oppressing. Oppressors. Everything knotted like string in Hesina’s head, until she couldn’t distinguish beginning from end. “When will it end? When we will stop paying for the cost of peace?”
“I don’t know, milady.”
“But you must,” said Hesina in growing distress. Caiyan had an answer to everything.
Quietly, he rose. Paced to his windows. “One way or another, we pay. You can’t gain without relinquishing. For example, the Silver Iris may be gone, but you have gained your freedom.”
“Freedom?”
“From your secret.” He stared at the windows, even though it was dark, and even though the blinds were drawn and there was nothing to be seen. He turned back to face her. “No one shall ever know you spoke to her that night.”
Hesina struggled to untangle her thoughts. Caiyan was right. Her treason had died with the Silver Iris. But she wasn’t free. As long as the Eleven’s teachings persisted, fear ruled the people, not she.
There had to be something she could do. There had to—
“Milady, you may not want to hear this, but as your advisor, I must speak.”
“I’m listening.”
Caiyan paced back to the bed. “Some will doubt your performance today, especially if they saw her burn with their own eyes.” He knelt before her. “Some might even suspect you sympathize.” He took her hands and squeezed. “Your first priority is to put those suspicions to rest. Make the people feel safe.”
“Make the people feel safe…”
His hands rose to her shoulders. “If you felt something for her and her people, you mustn’t show it. Not through your words. Not through your actions. Promise me, milady.” His voice tightened with his grip. “Promise me you won’t jeopardize your rule.”
Hesina met his gaze. She saw his intentions. Caiyan wanted the best for her. When had he not?
Yet she didn’t promise. “You’re asking me to do nothing.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I do.” But she’d never snuck out into the city without him, or kept something as big as starting her own private investigation from him.
She knew they both must have been thinking that, and her guilt rose, compelling her to say, “And I promise.”
The tension in his chestnut eyes mellowed. “Thank you.” He lifted his hands.
A new force held Hesina still. “Have you…” She wet her lips. “Have you ever felt something for them?”
For the sooths.
The question alone, spoken to the wrong person, could have been construed as jeopardizing her rule, and she worried that Caiyan might reprimand her for breaking her promise so soon.
Yet all he did was shake his head. “No.”
Her blood cooled, mostly with relief. “Good.” She didn’t want him haunted like she was. She didn’t want him to see the stories on the silk facades, watch the plays of the imperial troupe, and wonder if the heroes of their legends were actually the villains.
But it also meant she was alone in her torment.
After visiting the Imperial Doctress—whose lecture brought her closer to the brink of death than the cut itself—Hesina lay awake. The nights were cooling, but her bed was hot. Her silken sheets cocooned her as she tossed and turned. Her blankets ensnared her limbs.
She hurled them off and sat up, breathing hard.
She had let her people’s fear fester while waiting for a Kendi’an reply to her letters. She could wait no longer. If she couldn’t quell a war, she would have to find the truth before it erupted.
Hesina padded to her desk and lit a candle. Her mother’s chest glowed like a jewel in the flame, the silver lock kissed to gold.
Think, she ordered her mind as if it were a courtier. Somewhere in her memories, there had to be a nugget of information that would explain why her father’s birth year was not the combination to her mother’s lock.
The number had to be something significant. If not 265, the current year in the new era, and if not 906, the year it would have been by the relic calendars, then perhaps it was the difference of 906 and 265. She knew 641 was the year of the relic emperor’s death, the last year recorded before the Eleven reset the calendar to zero—so that all lives could be reborn, her father had explained when she’d asked why. Young, old, rich, poor, male, female—we all became children of the new era.
Hesitantly, Hesina spun the first dial to a 6, the second to a 4, and the third to a 1.
641.
She tugged on the lock. It didn’t budge. She shoved the chest away from her. That didn’t budge the lock either, and after a long staring match, Hesina groaned and pulled it close again.
If not 641, then what? 000? The year immediately after 641, when the Eleven had started the calendar anew?
Hesina scoffed, but spun in a 0. Another 0. She almost didn’t do the third. It was too simple. Too obvious. Too—
The last 0 slid into place, and the lock sighed apart.
She couldn’t lie to herself; part of her had hoped the combination wouldn’t work. Her mother’s love for her father was the only thing she and her daughter had ever shared, and Hesina wasn’t ready to lose it. Still, she grasped the lid with both hands. If the contents of this chest could help her end the trial before it hurt anyone else, then she could squeeze her eyes shut. She could lift.
The weight of the lid swung back. The hinges clinked. In the dark behind her lids, her thoughts unspooled.
The denial will pass, said the Imperial Doctress.
Nothing you do will bring him back, said her mother.
The truth might destroy you, said Akira.
But one voice silenced the others. Knowledge is truth, Little Bird.
The edges of her mind feathered like diluted ink, and a conversation from many years ago bled back in.
Why do you think so many scholars live in the imperial city? her father had once asked as they strolled by the city moat.
Because they’re wise.
Yes. A ruler must keep the company of sages, because knowledge is truth. Those who refuse to learn live in a world of falsity. Do you remember how the relic emperors stopped themselves from learning?
They burned books.
Her father nodded. They closed their eyes to the plights of their people and executed their critics.
But didn’t the Eleven burn books too? Hesina asked before she could think better of it.
Her father paused.
Yes, they did. He laid a hand atop her head, eyes crinkling as he smiled. Which is why you’ll be a better ruler than them all.
The memory melted away as Hesina opened her eyes. Her father’s voice faded. But in the near dark, she sensed his presence. He was here. With her. They were looking down at the chest together, at a…book.
A book.
Her disappointment outweighed the volume—a light thing, thi
n as the Tenets were fat, and in shockingly abysmal condition. The cover was singed in some places, stained in others, splotched with ink, grease, and a brownish substance that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Three characters ran down the right-hand side, but as luck would have it, Hesina couldn’t read the language, nor did she recognize it as Ci, Kendi’an, or Ning.
To make matters worse, the author would have dearly benefited from one of Hesina’s mandatory calligraphy lessons. The characters inside the book were squashed, and each short column of text contained several cross-outs. But that wasn’t what drove her mad. As illegible as the characters were, they tugged at her mind, and for the life of her, Hesina couldn’t figure out why they seemed so familiar.
Several hours and lexicons later, she slammed the book shut in disgust. Another dead end. If only the kingdom would wait for her as she cracked the language. But that was too much to ask for. The sun would go on rising; the court would go on assembling. The Kendi’ans would go on ignoring her letters; the people would go on fearing. All she could do was push up from her seat, pop the kinks in her back, and leave one unfinished duty for another.
She headed for the throne hall. The voices reached her before she reached them, buzzing through the carved double doors like hornets.
Hesina clenched her teeth. She knew what she had to do. What she had to say.
They weren’t going to condone the cutting and burning of innocent people, and they certainly weren’t going to perform a citywide sweep of the sooths based on some rumored sighting.
But they also weren’t going to stand by and let Kendi’a continue threatening their borders.
They were going to war.
Her vassals hushed as she entered, and the Grand Secretariat scurried forward once Hesina was seated, bearing a reed tube.
“From Kendi’a, my queen,” the woman murmured as Hesina loosened the twine securing the clay cap.
Her hands stilled. Then she ripped the cap free from the last of the twine. The roll of parchment slid into her palm.
She unfurled it to characters written in the common tongue.