Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

by Julie C. Dao

  That afternoon, Jade stepped out of the Tungs’ teahouse dressed like a princess. The ladies-in-waiting had scrubbed her with rose-scented oils and dusted some shimmering substance on her eyes and lips. Her hair had been pinned into elaborate knots with shining gold ornaments, and she wore deep ruby brocade with delicate gold piping around the sleeves and collar.

  She walked with the attendants trailing her like colorful birds and an honor guard of fifty gold-armored soldiers at attention before her, and felt certain she would wake from this dream soon. She would open her eyes and see her tiny room at the monastery again. She strained her ears for the sound of the gong, for Auntie Ang calling her and Amah to the morning meal.

  Instead, Jade heard metal scraping as the Imperial soldiers bowed low and hushed whispers from the crowd of spectators gathering on the street. A gilded two-wheel carriage pulled by four gleaming black horses stood waiting for her. Though it was larger than the palanquin, her attendants moved to a second carriage and the soldiers mounted their steeds, ignoring Wren and Amah. Apparently the men expected them to walk or ride Wren’s pony.

  “Excuse me,” Jade called awkwardly. “Would it be all right if my nursemaid rode with me? There is plenty of room.”

  One of the soldiers obeyed at once and opened the door for Amah, who grinned as she climbed in. “You have such power now,” she said, running an approving eye over Jade’s robes. “I’ll say this much for that stepmother of yours. She has a good eye for clothing.”

  Wren pulled her pony alongside the carriage, scrutinizing Jade with her customary sullenness. “You’re wearing enough fabric to last you the rest of your life.”

  “Speak to the princess with respect!” Amah chided her.

  The young woman gave a cold bow. “I apologize, Your Highness. I’m a lowly kitchen wench who knows nothing of silks and jewels.” She turned her face forward and didn’t look at Amah or Jade again as the retinue began moving.

  “Don’t mind her,” the nursemaid began.

  But Jade waved the apology away. Wren’s rude behavior irritated her, but acknowledging it might only give the older girl satisfaction. And her jealousy isn’t unfounded, Jade thought, but she pushed aside the stab of guilt. She had too much to occupy her mind, including the fact that a massive crowd had begun to gather to gawk at the honor guard and the ostentatious carriages.

  The procession traveled at a stately pace, parting the sea of wagons and livestock, and Jade shrank back against the cushions at the citizens’ craning necks and staring eyes.

  “They know the princess has returned,” Amah said. “No other personage would warrant such an escort to the palace.”

  Jade wiped her clammy palms on her silks. “What are they saying? Are they angry?”

  A steady, rhythmic chant had begun to rise beneath the hubbub of the crowd, becoming a dull roar as the procession progressed. It seemed to be localized to one quarter—an open square in front of a blacksmith’s shop. A middle-aged man, his clothing ragged and his arms powerful with muscle, stood on a rock in the square. He led the crowd in the chant, all people dressed in the worn attire of poor farm folk. They stood proudly, fists clenched at their sides.

  “Free the children! Let them go!” they shouted over and over, the words harsh, furious.

  “What’s happening?” Jade asked Wren, alarmed. On her gray pony, the other girl had a better vantage point.

  “They’re protesting child labor,” Wren answered, pointing at the blacksmith’s shop, where several men continued hammering away as though nothing had happened. But every so often, they wiped their faces and darted wary glances at the Imperial soldiers passing by.

  Jade shook her head, confused, but then she saw them: small, thin figures scurrying about in rags and barefoot despite the cold. Two boys no older than twelve held a large piece of bronze steady as a man shaped it, wincing each time sparks flew at them from his hammer. A girl of six or seven, who coughed as she swept ashes, stopped to stare at Jade’s carriage until a man poked her in the back, hard, and said something sharp. Other children ran all around her, carrying heavy bricks and tools, their wan faces smudged with soot.

  “Orphans, or children whose parents couldn’t afford to pay taxes,” Wren said. “They’re lucky to be out in open air. Some are shut up in warehouses, breathing in toxic dyes for silks.”

  “Lucky?” Jade sputtered, horrified.

  Behind them, the chant grew louder. “Free the children! Let them go!”

  The protesters’ leader, whose eyes were fixed on the royal procession, bellowed, “All hail the princess! All hail the true queen!” The crowd echoed him, magnifying the power of his words twentyfold up and down the avenue.

  “How can they oppose Xifeng in such a public way?” Amah demanded, horrified.

  Wren leaned her head inside the carriage window, her face intent. “Stay down.”

  In one smooth motion, the nursemaid pulled Jade onto the floor, her face taut with anxiety. A moment later, Jade understood why. Several members of the honor guard and the Empress’s black-clad soldiers broke away from the parade, moving with seamless precision. The protesters raised their fists, which weren’t clenched in anger as she had thought. They were holding large, heavy rocks, brandished at the soldiers’ faces in self-defense.

  “The people support you,” Amah whispered. “They won’t hurt us if they can help it. But I’m afraid we’ll get caught in a cross fire.”

  All at once, the carriage stopped and a soldier barked gruff commands. The rest of the gold-armored men on horseback formed a tight circle around the carriage, spears facing out. Jade could not see beyond them, but she heard everything: the protesters screaming, the soldiers roaring. Horses whinnied and a shattering sound came, then moans and the running of many feet.

  And through it all, the chant went on and on, fainter, but just as defiant.

  “Free the children! Let them go!”

  “All hail the princess! All hail the true queen!”

  A female voice shrieked, “Where are the women? Where have they gone?”

  “Why have they disappeared? What has the false queen done with them?” a man yelled.

  Ning’s words about the missing women came back to Jade. Were these foolhardy people accusing the Empress without proof when a mere whisper was cause for execution? She leaned against Amah, seeing again in her mind the corpses on the city walls.

  Over the commotion, a soldier boomed: “Proceed!”

  The gold-armored men turned crisply without breaking rank and rode aside the carriage in perfect formation as it continued down the avenue, moving at a brisker pace.

  Jade gripped the edge of the window. She saw teeming crowds and flashing spears, and, inexplicably, several citizens attacking their own kind—or so it appeared. One such man accepted a sword from the soldiers and wielded it with a sure hand, swinging it at others.

  A soldier disguised as a villager, she realized, watching more men in peasant garb wield Imperial weapons with too much confidence. At the monastery, the elder had told her and Amah of hearsay from travelers passing through his village: that Empress Xifeng employed a coalition of secret police, Imperial soldiers who dressed as commoners to hear what people said about her.

  But before Jade could see much more, the carriage pulled away from the chaotic scene, with Wren keeping pace beside it. Jade helped Amah back onto the seat and wrapped her arms tightly around her. “Are you all right?” she asked her nursemaid.

  The old woman shook, but it was not from fear. “Imbeciles,” she seethed. “What did they think would happen? That they could speak their minds, fling rocks at palace soldiers to defend themselves, and escape? Gambling with their own lives, for nothing!”

  Wren’s eyes blazed. “Was it for nothing, I wonder?”

  “Don’t get any ideas into that foolish mind of yours!” her grandmother snapped. “It is all very romantic u
ntil Xifeng has your head roasting on the end of a spit.”

  “Please calm yourself,” Jade begged her. “It will do no good to make yourself ill.”

  They sped on for another quarter of an hour. At last, they passed through the palace’s gilded gates, which slammed behind them. Amah exhaled as Jade surveyed their surroundings, her heart still racing from the chaotic scene.

  The palace looked like something from one of her nursemaid’s fables. Gold roofs gleamed above immense buildings connected by elegant covered bridges. Heavily armored soldiers stood all around the great stone courtyard, as did nobles in resplendent silks. They bowed low as the carriage pulled to a stop.

  Jade’s breath caught in her throat as she realized that all this pomp and splendor was for her. She sank against the cushions when some of the courtiers tried to catch sight of her.

  “Home again,” Amah said, looking a bit calmer as she feasted her eyes on the spectacle before them. “It doesn’t seem to have changed since Lihua was here, and yet . . .”

  “I wish Mother were with me.”

  The nursemaid squeezed her hand. “She always is, dear one.”

  Jade breathed in and out slowly, her eyes closed, trying to conjure up some image to quell her anxiety. Somehow, it was the lanterns in the Great Forest that appeared in her mind, with their cheerful white glow, so like the ones she pictured whenever she heard her mother’s beloved folktale. She felt her shoulders relaxing as the carriage door opened.

  The courtiers bowed when Jade stepped out, and kept their chins lowered even when they straightened. Still, she felt curious eyes on her that dropped when she met them. Not a single person spoke, out of deference. She swallowed, wondering if they expected her to say something.

  A large, bald man moved to the front of the crowd. He appeared to be about forty, with gleaming eyes and an air of command. Brown silk cascaded around his broad body, standing out from the nobles’ colorful attire. For one heart-stopping moment, Jade wondered if he was her father. She had never thought of what to say to Emperor Jun when they met.

  Relief flooded her when he bowed, which His Majesty would certainly not have done. “Welcome to the palace, Your Highness. The Empress is eager to see you again,” he said.

  Jade knew from his high-pitched voice that he was a eunuch, a person who had been deprived of his physical manhood as a child. Amah had explained that they were the only males allowed to guard the harem. The man’s tone was courteous and friendly, but from his keen, intelligent appraisal of her, Jade suspected he was not someone to be crossed.

  “I am Kang,” he said. “The Empress entrusted me with the task of bringing you to her.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Kang,” Jade said, recalling what Amah had taught her of the hierarchy of the palace. Most high-ranking eunuchs possessed the honorific of Master, but it was not a princess’s duty to use it. “I would be honored to come with you.”

  The eunuch glanced at the ladies-in-waiting, then at Amah and Wren. “Your attendants may accompany you, but your other servants can bring your belongings to your quarters.”

  “They’re not my servants,” Jade said quickly. “Wren may leave whenever she prefers, but Amah is family, and I’d like her to accompany me. That is, if it’s all right.”

  Kang blinked at her. “Of course, whatever Your Highness wishes. Did you have a pleasant journey?” he asked, leading them up the steps.

  “We did, thank you.” Jade’s mind raced for something clever and appropriate, what Amah called the little talk of the court. She had not practiced it much, for the monks had never wasted words. “The Great Forest was beautiful, and I wish we could have spent more time there.”

  The eunuch gave a trilling laugh. “You’re like your mother. She, too, loved the forest. She gave me employment in her household when I was a boy, and I maintain it even today.”

  “For a different Empress,” Jade said without thinking, then blushed.

  But Kang didn’t seem offended by the implication that he had betrayed Lihua. “I serve Empress Xifeng now, it’s true,” he said as they entered an imposing edifice with gold doors. “This is the main hall of the Emperor, where banquets and functions are held. The royal gardens are just beyond, but they’re much lovelier in the spring, of course.”

  The guards bowed low, their chests parallel to the ground. Jade wondered if she would ever get used to people behaving this way for her.

  She placed a hand on Amah’s shoulder for comfort as they walked. The palace was so magnificent that it was almost frightening, and she felt homesick for the monastery’s simplicity at the sight of the painted ceilings and jade-embedded pillars. She guessed Abbess Lin was leading the monks in meditation right now, before their simple afternoon meal.

  “Will I see His Majesty today?” she asked Kang.

  “The Empress will bring you to see him, but I’m afraid your visit won’t be long. His Majesty has a fever, but Gao, the Imperial physician, will have him feeling better in no time.”

  “Gao?” Amah echoed. “What happened to Bohai?”

  Kang’s eyes swept over the old woman before he addressed Jade. “Your Highness may remember Bohai, who served your mother, Empress Lihua, years ago. He was deemed unfit after endangering Empress Xifeng’s life several times and failing to save the baby boys she lost in pregnancy.”

  “He was dismissed?” Jade asked.

  “Executed,” Kang said with a tight smile. “Since Gao came on, Empress Xifeng has had her longest pregnancy yet. It was not successful, but we have high hopes for another.”

  Hope blossomed in Jade’s chest. She had assumed this summons meant she would certainly take the throne, but if Xifeng was still trying for a son, Jade might be free after all. But the hope faded as quickly as it had come. Even if her stepmother had a boy, they would still find a use for Jade. Her studies on history and politics had shown countless royal daughters being married off for lands, goods, and even armies.

  They had brought her this far. They would not let her go so easily.

  She saw now how hopelessly naïve she had been to think she could ever be left in peace.

  “Your Highness, is everything all right?” Kang asked.

  Jade blinked, realizing they had stopped. A set of onyx metal doors stood before them with coiling serpents etched into the frame, their inlaid ruby eyes leering at visitors. “I’m sorry,” she said, searching wildly about her for an excuse. “I was lost in thought about . . . why some of the soldiers are in black armor and others in gold.”

  “The gold-armored soldiers belong to the Emperor’s army, and the black are in Her Majesty’s service,” he explained. “Now, if you’ll come this way, the Empress is just beyond.”

  They entered a vast chamber of black marble, offset by cascades of deep red flowers. Each blossom was in the shape of a heart, dripping a tinier petal. Amah pressed close to her as they approached two black thrones, raised on a platform with stairs covered in rich scarlet rugs.

  A woman reclined in the larger throne, her legs crossed beneath yards of fiery orange silk. She leaned to one side, a slender hand tipped with sharp nail guards dangling over the arm of the other throne. She gazed out the window, the soft light bathing her delicate profile, and turned her head upon hearing their footsteps.

  Jade felt her throat go dry.

  To hear of Empress Xifeng was to hear of her beauty, but everything Jade had been told had been an understatement. The woman looked like a mythical being, a goddess from a legend, all moon-glow skin and blood-red lips. She wore no crown, opting instead for fresh flowers that bloomed like frost against her jet-black hair, and the simplicity suited her to perfection.

  Her tilting, long-lashed eyes narrowed at the newcomers, and her mouth opened to show teeth like pearls. She straightened girlishly in her seat like a child caught slouching.

  “Approach, my daughter,” she said.
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  Though Jade had never seen or heard the ocean, she thought Xifeng’s voice might sound like the sea—gentle beneath the wind, but hiding wild, untamed depths below the surface. This, then, was the woman who had risen from poverty to hold Feng Lu in her grasp and of whom people feared to speak, though frightened rumors slipped out like gasps for air.

  Jade bowed low, and though courtesy would have her avert her eyes, she could not tear them from her stepmother. Xifeng was like the art in the palace corridors—incandescently flawless, made to draw the eye. This was a woman meant to be admired.

  “I’m happy to see you at last, my dear,” Xifeng said, her eyes shining as she descended. She lifted Jade’s chin with one hand, her sharp nail guards brushing against Jade’s neck.

  Jade was surprised to find that they were the same height, having thought her stepmother would be tall and imposing. Up close, the Empress’s skin was flawless. Her eyes angled bewitchingly at the corners, and every movement she made exuded grace. Jade found it hard to believe the woman hadn’t been born noble, emerging from the womb with godlike elegance.

  Xifeng’s shoulders relaxed as she finished surveying Jade. “You’re the image of Lihua. I see her nose and cheekbones and sweetness in you,” she said, her tone affectionate and not at all imperious. “And you have your father’s mouth—there are lines of determination here and here. But those wide eyes are all your own, Jade of the Great Forest. Yes, indeed,” she added softly, as though speaking to herself, “quite a striking girl you have grown to be.”

  Jade blushed, unused to such praise. “Your Majesty is too kind.”

  “You don’t think I’m being truthful?”

  “I’ve never given much thought to beauty.”

  The woman’s scarlet mouth curved. “I said you were striking, not beautiful.”

  “Not at all like you, Your Majesty,” Jade agreed, and Xifeng’s smile broadened, almost wolfishly. “But the monks taught me that a person’s true beauty lies in their deeds.”

  The Empress’s countenance flickered, like a mask slipping. “I’m impressed. I never thought any woman could be free from vanity, but I suppose your being kept away from the world has much to do with it. I take responsibility for that.” She took Jade’s hand, her face shadowed with regret. “Much took place when you were young. Your mother and half brothers had passed on, and there was discord when Emperor Jun married me. It wasn’t safe for a princess to be at court. So he sent you away for your protection and I accepted his decision, as I always do.” Xifeng’s sooty lashes fanned against her cheek, the image of an obedient wife.