by Joan He
“But that’s terrible.” Terrible to be a sooth. Terrible to be a human. Terrible no matter how Hesina looked at it.
“Stone-head!” Lilian’s voice echoed across the cavern. “A little less pontificating and a little more help, please? I think this man has a broken wrist.”
“Excuse me, milady.” Caiyan went to his twin, leaving Hesina on the periphery. She wanted to help, too, but the encounter under the bridge had shaken her. How could she do anything when she represented everything the sooths feared?
What would Father do?
Simple. He’d be himself. Elders regarded him as a son; grown men and women regarded him as a brother. Children chased him, begging for a ride on his shoulders, and he’d always oblige, sometimes carrying one on each just like he’d carried Sanjing and Hesina. He treated them like his own. He told them the same truths. The same lies.
Hesina’s hands closed into fists. He had no reason to tell the people about his immortality. But he should have told her. She was his daughter. He had named her and raised her. She deserved his honesty more, for example, than the little girl who tugged on her sleeve.
“When can we go back home?” asked the girl. Her hair had been parted lovingly into three pigtails for luck, and a jade mandala rested against a padded coat with pink cloth-nub buttons.
“Ailin!” A woman ran over, scooping the girl into her arms, shielding her from Hesina. “D-Dianxia.”
Hesina should have acknowledged the woman. She should have soothed her fears, told her that she’d never harm a child. But the girl’s innocent question had netted her, drawing her into the harsh reality she had created.
When can we go back home?
She passed the mother and child. She passed the group of raft pushers. Their scowls glanced right off her.
When would these people be able to return to their lives?
Would the commoners notice their absence? Would they guess that the missing mantou vendor or the sedan carrier had actually been a sooth? Perhaps Hesina had saved them. Perhaps she’d also condemned them to an eternity in hiding.
Different conversations and voices all washed into one, asking the same question:
When can we go back home?
Hesina backed into the cavern side, then into a random tunnel opening. The voices eventually faded, but she kept going, sloshing through pools of stagnant rainwater, pushing onward until she came to a dead end of stones, perfectly stacked to form a wall.
Who had sealed this passageway? And why? What lay beyond?
Hesina froze. The cavern was somewhere beneath the eastern market sector. She’d come a long way from it. In fact, she must have been nearing the city walls.
Aboveground, the hour struck. Each note was muffled, dulled by layers upon layers of earth, yet the air about Hesina vibrated as if the gong tower was directly above her.
Four notes passed.
Could it be…that this tunnel ran all the way to the city walls?
Was this how the Eleven had breached them?
Impossible. The Eleven were heroes. They hadn’t brought an entire era to an end by worming through underground tunnels. No, the passageways were Hesina and her father’s little secret, a puzzle they had worked on together between the tedium of ruling and imperial lessons.
Unless their cherished secrets were sketched out of lies too.
Hesina shivered, shrinking into herself, but that brought her closer to the ache in her heart.
I miss you. I miss you, even if you were a lie. I hate the truth of you.
I hate you.
“I hate you,” she whispered aloud. “I hate you.” She whirled and screamed into the yawning tunnel way. “I hate you!”
Her words echoed back threefold.
She ran. Just as she had that day in the gardens, she ran as if she could outstrip the terror of finding her father’s body. Then, the ground had been soft and squishy underfoot, summer nectar florid in her nose, tears in her eyes, and disbelief in her chest.
Now, anger drove the ground hard into her heels. She pounded down the tunnel. Flew past the branch she was supposed to take, stumbled blindly up a set of stairs, tripping more than once on her wet skirts, but never falling. The pathway narrowed. She didn’t stop, and her shoulders scraped against the stone.
The bottleneck widened abruptly, spitting her into an open space. Gasping, Hesina looked around, trying to regain her bearings.
She was in another cavern. Again, it was lit with torches, and again, the flames didn’t waver in the dank. Alkaline water and coppery earth staled the air—and the smell of something else.
A man-made tang…a piney spice with a hard-candy finish.
Varnish. The place reeked of varnish and cinnabar. It reminded Hesina of the throne hall, with its varnished dais of black lacquer and ruby-red cinnabar pillars.
Gingerly, she picked her way to the cavern walls and placed her hands on them. Her palms met cold, slick stone.
Soapstone. A whole expanse of it, utterly smooth except for the seam where one panel met the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next—and the next.
Hesina jerked her hands away with a sharp intake of breath.
Twelve panels in all.
Only one twelve-paneled screen existed in the entire palace, and that was the reredos that rose tall behind the throne. If this was it, then that meant—
She took a step back.
—this place smelled like the throne hall because the throne hall lay beyond this wall.
Hesina had just entered the Eastern Palace complex undetected. Anyone could have done the same. Her heartbeat raced, and when the torchlight flickered, she spun, convinced that someone had snuck up on her.
But no one was there.
In the breathing silence, every song, every performance, every story told about the Eleven rushed back to Hesina.
They breached the city walls. They stormed the palace gates. They beheaded the emperor where he sat on his throne.
How? generations of scholars had asked.
Now she knew how.
She returned to the wall. Her legs weakened with disbelief. A hundred times, she must have sat with this screen at her back, and a hundred times, she’d dismissed it as yet another gaudy antique from the relic days. She never would have guessed what lay behind it. Neither had the last emperor. How shocked he must have been, when One of the Eleven materialized out of nowhere. Hesina could imagine the iron tang of his fear. She could taste it—because she’d bitten her cheek.
There was writing on the walls. She rubbed at her eyes; the words remained. Columns of characters, crawling down the soapstone like ants, the calligraphy shaky, as if the writer were unfamiliar with the strokes.
But Hesina knew them well. This was simplified Yan, the language of her era. Without realizing it, she’d already read the rightmost column.
TODAY, A RULER WILL DIE.
The crackling of the torches quieted. The distant tunnel wind sang to a stop. Woozy, Hesina leaned on the soapstone. Her forearms bracketed the words.
TODAY, A RULER WILL DIE.
She’d found him. The murderer was the writer of this line; no ruler of the new era aside from her father had “died” before his time. But she didn’t want to read on. It wasn’t too late to walk away and pretend she’d never seen this.
Knowledge is truth, Little Bird. Those who refuse to learn live in a world of falsity.
Hesina let out a sob of a laugh before choking down the tears. She’d believed him. Deceit was in her nature, but for her father, she had tried to be better. She’d chased the truth for him, even though it hurt. What reason did she have to chase it now?
To be better than him.
Her arms trembled as she pushed away from the wall.
To be better for no one but yourself.
Her spine twinged as she straightened.
TODAY, A RULER WILL DIE.
She took a deep breath
and read on.
Nine says it must be my hand. I said that he’d be better suited for the task. That got a rare laugh out of him.
“I belong in the dark,” he said. “You belong in the light. I can end our villains, but you must end the era, starting with the emperor.”
I told him he wasn’t making any sense. Even now, writing this out in an attempt to clear my mind, I still don’t understand why it must be me. He claims the people will follow me because I have a good heart, but we both know Six has the best heart out of us all.
“It’s because of your childish idolization of the truth,” Two says. “This world has gone to rot. The throne needs someone pure.”
“It’s because you know what you want,” says Three, “and how to get it.”
“It’s because we believe in you,” says Six. “We were orphans and consorts and fallen princes. You gathered us and gave us something to live for. When we were reeling over our losses and on the verge of scattering, you held us together. You will do the same for the people.”
They make me feel like some sort of god. Maybe I am—I’m definitely not human anymore. But at least they know me, the real me. The people don’t—and won’t, not after I kill the emperor of their nightmares. I’ll be given a hero’s narrative. There will be songs and operas and epic poems composed for this very moment, and none of them will mention the scared boy, the shaking boy, the boy who wanted to drop his too-heavy sword and walk away.
But I can’t walk away. I’ve given up my mortality to come this far. We all have sacrificed so much. Our fallen ones are watching from the heavens above. Their deaths must not be for naught.
All I want is my name. I want it back, if just for a moment. Nine reminds us that we don’t belong to ourselves anymore, that we forfeited our identities the moment we took on the people’s cause. But right now, right here, I wish to be remembered as myself. I wish to remember the others not as Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, or Eleven, but as Moxia, Jin, Wang A-bao, Wang A-dou, Su Ennei, Zifen, Guo Xiao, Shi Ling, Kaishen, and Sima Lan.
May we go down as legends.
May we live on by the truth.
Li Wen
One of the Eleven
Year 000
Hesina’s legs gave.
“I’ve given up my mortality to come this far,” One had written.
She fell to her knees, but instead of meeting hard stone, they sank into wet dirt. She was back at her father’s coffin side, the beat of his heart against her cheek.
Father. Immortal.
She was in her room, spinning her mother’s silver lock, the metal bands slick under her fingertips.
0
0
0
000. The start of the new era. The day One of the Eleven was born as a ruler. The year her father had been born as a ruler too.
She was eight years old and sat on her father’s knee, sheltered in his candlelit study. Why did the Eleven restart the calendar, Father?
So that all lives could be reborn. Young, old, rich, poor, male, female—we all became children of the new era.
She was reading the Tenets, comforted and unsettled by the kinship she’d felt with a revolutionary, a murderer, his beliefs echoing with hers.
“WE WILL ALL BE REBORN AS EQUALS.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
Knowledge is truth, her father had said. Those who refuse to learn live in a world of falsity.
“KNOWLEDGE IS TRUTH.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON EDIFICATION OF COMMONERS
When you become queen, Little Bird, you must never abandon your people, even if they appear to have abandoned you.
“A RULER WHO ABANDONS HIS PEOPLE IS NO RULER AT ALL.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON MONARCHS
The best way of controlling a person is by reading his heart. And the clearest window to any heart is prejudice and assumption.
“OUR PREJUDICES AND ASSUMPTIONS REVEAL OUR TRUE SELVES.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON HUMAN NATURE
Hesina let their voices fuse. Two halves of a whole. Two lies of a truth.
Li Wen.
One of the Eleven.
Actor, legend, sooth-slayer.
King of the new era.
Her father.
TWENTY-THREE
EVERYONE, REGARDLESS OF GENDER OR SOCIAL STANDING, WILL HAVE A FAIR CHANCE AT EDUCATION AND OCCUPATION.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
IT’LL BE SOMETHING SPECTACULAR. TRUST ME.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
Hesina didn’t know how long she stayed like this—on her knees, a thousand of her father’s gestures soaring past her as she plummeted, a million of his words kiting above her head as she fell further and further from the sky of his love.
She had loved a mask. She rejected the man beneath.
She rejected herself.
Betrayal buzzed up her veins, stinging. Her insides erupted with hives. Hesina scratched until it hurt to scratch, then curled in on herself with no intentions of uncurling ever again. Here lies Queen Yan Hesina, the histories would say. Lost her way in a tunnel and died from dehydration. They’d never know the real story—she’d died under the crushing weight of the truth—and it’d be for the better.
But the voices came before death could. Distant, at first. Hesina prayed they would go away. Then they grew closer, louder, until she could make out the words—and their speakers.
Caiyan, Lilian, Akira, Sanjing, and Rou.
They were searching for her.
She couldn’t be found. Not like this.
Hesina made herself stand and went out to meet them.
“Where have you been?” demanded Sanjing when she emerged from the narrow bottleneck of stone.
“We looked all over for you,” said Lilian, rushing over to clutch her.
“You were missing for an hour,” Caiyan added gravely.
Rou shivered. “We hit so many dead ends.”
“I—I got lost.” That was true. “I…I didn’t know what happened.” That was true too. For a flash of a second, she imagined telling them the whole truth. She craved to. She dreaded to. She yearned for their acceptance and shunned it at the same time. Because if they accepted her, she might too.
But she wasn’t ready. She couldn’t even think of the blood in her veins without wishing to drain it.
Caiyan suggested taking her to the Imperial Doctress. Sanjing snarled something back. Lilian smacked him, and Rou mentioned staggering their departures. Somehow, the argument ended with Akira leading her away after assuring the others that he knew the way back to the palace.
“I don’t actually know the way,” he said under his breath once they’d left the tunnels for the open streets.
Hesina directed him to the abandoned tavern and showed him how to dribble water down the guardian lion’s throat. But when it came time to descend into the passageway, her chest constricted as if they were going underwater. Each breath felt like taking in a lungful of memories. She must have made it a total of five steps before she heard her father’s voice.
Watch the drop, Little Bird.
She went sprawling so fast, dry heaving, that Akira couldn’t catch her. He crouched beside her, but she turned away—only to heave again. Her eyes watered with embarrassment as he held back her hair. She could never be a girl who blushed over simple things. Not as queen, not as…
She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut.
Not as the daughter of One of the Eleven.
Murderer. Hero. Monster. Savior.
She hurled again.
“I learned something about my father,” she gasped throatily when she was finished. At the very least, she owed Akira an explanation after nearly spewing on him. “But I need time…”
To accept? To heal? To vomit some more?
“To think,” she finished.
Akira nodded, then guided her back to her chambers. There, he made his one and only demand: that she drink a goblet of water.
“All of it,” he insisted when Hesin
a tried to get away with half. “Your insides need it.”
What her insides needed was a break from the truth. Her father had the face of a boy, yet was apparently three centuries old. He’d lived during the relic reign. Lived during the hunt for the elixir of immortality, which the Eleven had denounced. But if Hesina knew anything about the Eleven, it was that they did not do as they said.
She downed the rest of the water, knocking back a resurgence of acid. That seemed to satisfy Akira. He turned to go.
“Akira?”
He stopped.
She wanted to ask him to stay. She could have drunk a second goblet, just for him. But in the end, Hesina said a quiet “never mind” and let him go.
Alone, she took a long, shaky breath. Then she selected a lantern with very little wick left, tucked a medicinal candle that the Imperial Doctress had prescribed for insomnia into her sleeve, and threw on the thinnest of her winter cloaks.
I am the daughter of One, she repeated to herself as she made for the dungeons. She liked to think she shuddered a little less each time. I am the daughter of One. She passed through the facades and the Eleven’s stories—her father’s stories—stitched upon the silk. I am the daughter of One.
And she was on her way to see a sooth.
Tianlao was a misnomer. It literally meant prison in the sky. But these cells had never seen the light of day and were reserved for those who’d committed the highest treason. Hesina shivered as she descended. This was the underworld in flesh, a place to rot and die. The dark wound around her, judging her with its sightless eyes.
You belong here, don’t you?
The stairs bottomed out, bringing her before an arcade of black-iron gateways. A line of bronze-mailed guards stepped forward and bowed.
“Take me to the soothsayer.”
“Dianxia—”
“The people are scared. I’m here to see for myself that she is secured.”
They insisted that the sooth was, indeed, secured and warned her against proceeding farther.
Hesina didn’t speak. She used her silence to bleed their persuasion dry. Then, when they had nothing left to say, she took one step forward.
They reacted as she’d predicted, immediately circling her, their gazes fine-combing. They’d be patting her down if she weren’t their queen. But she had nothing to hide. She was weaponless; she wasn’t about to murder her elite guard. She was keyless; the tianlao key was melted down after every execution and reforged the dawn of the next. She gave them no reason to turn her away, and at last they escorted her down the arcade.