Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

by Julie C. Dao

  Xifeng gripped the table, all thoughts of the tengaru’s disapproval gone. “Truly, Your Majesty? You would bestow such an honor upon me?”

  Empress Lihua’s lips didn’t quite form a smile. “There is something about you, Xifeng. You belong here, but to what end, I know not. Perhaps you’ve come to save me.” She gestured to an object beside the tree of a thousand lanterns: the poultice Xifeng had made for her. “My appetite has improved greatly. But let’s not hurt Bohai’s feelings, for he has tried longer than you have. All I know is that if you were my child, I wouldn’t let that woman within an inch of you.”

  Xifeng’s heart lifted and soared. She knelt until her forehead met the floor, her eyes prickling with emotion even as gooseflesh rose on her skin. Everything was happening as it should, but all so fast she scarcely had time to draw breath. In one day, she had met the Emperor, and now she would be close to his wife—the woman whose place she would take.

  The Empress extended her hand, and Xifeng took it, trembling. Thinking of the future, of what was meant to be, was no better than wishing for this woman’s death. “I don’t deserve such kindness from you, Your Majesty,” she whispered.

  If only you knew . . .

  Empress Lihua tucked a strand of hair behind Xifeng’s ear, and it felt so natural that her tears sprang anew. In this abrupt hunger, she thought she knew what it might be like to be a daughter, and what kind of mother the Empress might be to a girl.

  “Perhaps now you will find yourself on a better path,” the older woman said. “Sleep now, my dear, and come back to me tomorrow.”

  But as grateful and overjoyed as she felt, Xifeng’s heart sank as she left the royal apartments. The Empress thought she was merely showing kindness to a lonely, friendless girl, but she had unwittingly embraced her fate. There could only be one ending to this story, one woman who could sit upon the throne of Feng Lu.

  And it would not be Empress Lihua.

  Kang was waiting by the pond when Xifeng left to collect her possessions and move them to her new chamber in Her Majesty’s apartments.

  “I’m to serve in the Empress’s household. Starting tomorrow,” she said, still stunned.

  He gave a laugh of genuine delight. “Didn’t I say you would find success here? How do you feel about being plucked away from danger?”

  “Tigers can still climb trees.” Xifeng’s heart sank again as she touched her cheek. “How can I succeed in Her Majesty’s household like this? Bohai gave me a salve for the pain, but he warned there might be scars.” The very word made her physically ill.

  Kang tilted his head. “You’ll be under much more scrutiny as one of the Empress’s ladies,” he agreed. “But at least now you’re under her protection. I do wonder whether our gentle Empress is gathering you closer because you’re Lady Sun’s enemy.”

  “You think the Empress is plotting against Lady Sun? It seems beneath her.” She wondered if the concubine were watching them from her darkened windows. Her chest tightened when they passed the place where she’d knelt at the mercy of Master Yu’s whip. “Those hundred lashes weren’t for any comb, real or imagined.”

  The eunuch growled. “She’s depraved. I’d like to snap that alabaster neck in two.”

  “How many stripes did you get?”

  He looked her in the eyes. “Ten.”

  For merely speaking to Emperor Jun, the concubine would have given Xifeng ten times Kang’s punishment. Lady Sun had saved the most violent, horrific punishment for her, and who else would resort to such measures but the Fool?

  Xifeng gritted her teeth. “She will pay for what she’s done to us. There has to be a way.”

  Everyone despised Lady Sun, from the Empress down to the lowliest maids. The woman hung by a thread, but by the most important one at court: the Emperor. That was the thread Xifeng had to rip from the tapestry.

  Xifeng closed her eyes, imagining a winking from within her ribs. The creature had made her feel such powerful anger before. She almost, almost longed for that fury again, for this time it seemed more than justified. What dark visions would it give her? An alligator trap whose teeth widened for the concubine’s limbs? A torch to singe the flesh from her bones?

  Her eyes flew open in horror at herself, her delight fading. “Thank you, my friend,” she told Kang. “You saved my life tonight.”

  “Then you truly believe I am your friend now? You trust that I will protect you?”

  “And I will protect you, if I can,” she promised.

  When Xifeng returned to bed at last, her sleep was filled with poison smoke, steel-tipped daggers, and the forgotten springs, locked in time, waiting for someone worthy. Waiting for her.

  She felt the creature dreaming inside her, pressed against her impenetrable heart, its head a vault of toxic reveries. And when she woke in the inky blue darkness, hours still before the first rays of morning, she knew she needed to speak to Guma. She needed to see her, if only in a vision, and to hear her advice.

  At the very least, she needed to try.

  She rose, collecting the incense, an unlit lantern, and a few sulfur matchsticks in her sack. After consideration, she included her mother’s jeweled dagger and amber hairpin—they would be safer hidden underground—and crept out into the night. The Empress’s rooms were guarded night and day, but her ladies-in-waiting shared a separate entrance to their own chambers, to ease their coming and going to the shrine and bathhouses without disturbing Her Majesty’s rest.

  Xifeng retraced her steps to the garden with ease, undetected. She struck a matchstick against the wall, applying the flame to her lantern. It illuminated thick grasses heavy with rain, almost obscuring the hole in the ground and the stone floor some twenty feet below. The palace gardeners never bothered pruning this corner, as Empress Lihua preferred a touch of nature in the otherwise meticulous landscape, and the hole had been left undisturbed. Xifeng hadn’t noticed before how irregular the stones in the wall were, some jutting out enough that she might be able to climb back out of the tunnel with the help of the surrounding shrubs. It would have to do, or she would be forced to climb up to the main passageway again and think of another excuse for getting past the tunnel guards.

  She jumped into the hole with her sack and lantern hugged to her body. With each step she took toward the hot springs, the creature grew more awake inside her. She felt a movement like fangs emerging, but through the fear she felt comfort, too, in something familiar.

  The lantern light gave the cavern an ancient air, an aura of mysticism, and Xifeng felt at once she had done right to come. If she could find answers anywhere, it would be here.

  She approached the strange waterfall, still unnerved by how clearly she could see her reflection in the sheets of fast-moving water. Striking another matchstick, she lit the incense. Within seconds, the powerful scent snaked into her nostrils. It was almost like being back in Guma’s sanctuary, with the door shut and all the world’s secrets laid bare.

  Xifeng knelt beside the gurgling water and closed her eyes, letting the smoke surround her. She had once hated this thick, cloying fragrance, but when it mingled with the steam of the water, it became something alluring, irresistible. She gave herself up to it, taking it in.

  Fairest, said the voice within, and she opened her eyes.

  Though she was on her knees, her reflection in the waterfall was standing, strong and proud with shoulders flung back. On her imperious head, above the black silk-spill of her hair, she wore a pointed crown of sharp, lethal steel. All around her, the shapes of men huddled in surrender, and her eyes glittered in a face white as the moon, white as snow, gleaming like a blossom in the tree of a thousand lanterns. Over her chest, where the creature nestled, was the outline of a phoenix with a tail licked by fire—the symbol of the Empress of Feng Lu.

  Fairest of all.

  A breeze blew from some unseen crevice, pushing away the threads of incense
, and for one moment Xifeng felt overpoweringly afraid. Where was she? Who was she? And then the plumes of smoke overtook her once more and dashed her terror and confusion away.

  “Guma,” she commanded, her eyes on her crowned reflection. It transformed into an unsettlingly familiar image: a sea of grass crashing against a cave and a slithering, too-tall man, facing a girl who looked like Guma. He flicked the cards of fortune at her and she caught them in delight, turning them into other objects: a snakeskin, a jeweled dagger, a gilded book of poetry.

  The man held out his hand—for the objects or for something else—and the girl ran away. The image changed to show a nobleman bending over the hand of a pretty girl while young Guma watched in a rage of jealousy. Xifeng watched in bewilderment as Guma returned to the cave, her hands outstretched, imploring.

  The waterfall shifted back to the crowned Xifeng, with a figure at her feet resembling Lady Sun. In her chest, the woman’s heart glowed like the moon, or a precious red apple.

  “Is she the Fool?” Xifeng called, pulse thundering.

  Instantly, the vision shifted into the card: a youth gazing at the stars, one step away from brutal death.

  Memories swirled in her mind: lying awake at night, too hungry to sleep; Guma hunching over her embroidery; Wei turning away from the shoes he needed but could not afford. And then: Xifeng herself, crouching, skin weeping beneath the cracking whip, Lady Sun flushed with triumph. Everything she had endured to get here. All of the suffering and hope and pain.

  “I have not come this far to fail,” she said through gritted teeth, balling her hands into fists. This could be confirmation from the spirits of magic . . . They could be telling her that Lady Sun was the enemy who would vanquish her.

  There is only one way to make certain, the voice rasped.

  A glint of light caught her eye in the blanket of fog around her. She saw the dagger that had belonged to her mother: hilt and sheath of burnished bronze, inlaid with kingfisher feathers and slivers of deep green jade. In the mirror-water, the dagger’s painfully sharp tip hovered inches above Lady Sun’s heart.

  Be the blade and the edge together, the light and the dark. You have two faces, Xifeng.

  She felt sick to her stomach, the way she had when Guma had thrust the first squirrel into her hands years ago. “This is a woman,” she protested, utterly repulsed, but the memory of the rabbits returned. Her first kill away from Guma. How their slippery hearts had scorched her throat, how the hot metallic tang of blood had given way to a roar of satisfaction that shook her whole being. The hunger came back, primal and potent, nearly overcoming her disgust.

  Another breeze dispelled the smoke and she backed away from the dagger’s deadly shine. “Blood has a price. It is not worth my soul.” She spoke the tengaru queen’s words with all the conviction she could muster.

  The billowing, purple-black smoke expanded and wrapped its gossamer arms around her. It reminded her of the Empress’s silvery robe. Destroying Lady Sun wouldn’t only be revenge for herself and Kang, but also a favor, a gesture of loyalty to Empress Lihua, who might come to love her like a mother.

  Xifeng panicked. If Guma truly was there, she may have heard that thought. But there was no betrayed reproach in the humming that grew louder in her ears. The smoke turned into a thousand forked tongues before her eyes, emerging from fanged mouths.

  You know what to do. It’s only a matter of choosing to do it. It’s her death . . . or yours.

  “There has to be another way,” she cried into the darkness. “I will find another way.”

  There is only one choice.

  “No!”

  Falling, crying, screaming, she pushed through the tongues of smoke and stumbled toward the incense. She flung the burning sticks into the springs and ran in terror back to her bed, safe above in the city of women. But when she fell at last into an exhausted, dreamless slumber, a voice still lingered at the edge of her consciousness . . . There is only one choice.

  And even after she awoke, it remained in the deepest shadows of her mind.

  The ordeal of her first month having passed, Xifeng found herself in a better situation among Empress Lihua’s ladies-in-waiting. The other women—whose names she did not know, as they all insisted she call them Madam—were too old to harbor resentment toward her. They taught her to perform their duties: arranging flowers, ensuring the smooth running of the household, and stitching emblems on Her Majesty’s ceremonial robes. This last task occupied most of their time, with the Festival of the Summer Moon days away.

  “Your embroidery is beautiful,” one of the ladies told her as they sat working on the balcony. “That rabbit looks real enough to jump out of the fabric.”

  Xifeng glanced up, taking care to keep her cheek concealed. It had healed well, thanks to Bohai’s salve, but she felt certain everyone pitied her and talked about it when she wasn’t there. “I’ve had practice.” She smoothed the ocean-blue festival skirt on which she was stitching lucky rabbits in silver thread. “It was difficult to satisfy my aunt. Her needlework is superb.”

  “It must be, if yours is of such quality,” the woman said, and Xifeng returned her smile.

  “The Empress has a different outfit for all seven days,” a rosy-cheeked lady told Xifeng. “Three for the prayer days, one for the moon-viewing party, and three for the carnival days, which are my favorite. It’s a tradition Emperor Jun bestows upon the city. The markets expand, and people come to buy and sell, eat, and drink. The Imperial Army even gives a demonstration.”

  Xifeng stopped sewing. “The Imperial Army? Do all of the soldiers attend?”

  “Of course. His Majesty wants a large spectacle. There’s music and parades, and the Emperor and Empress award prizes to the best performers.”

  The ladies continued discussing the carnival, but Xifeng didn’t hear a word. She picked at a snagged thread, her heart lifting as she thought of Wei. They hadn’t seen each other for eight weeks, and she was ashamed she had to work to remember details: the way he laced his fingers through hers, his teasing laughter, and the slow, warm smile he saved just for her.

  “We’re to accompany the Empress to the gates of the main palace,” said a woman with steel-gray hair. “Wait until you see the dragon dance.”

  “We won’t be there long if Madam Hong has anything to say about it,” grumbled the rosy-cheeked lady. Xifeng watched her companions hush her and giggle like schoolgirls, amused that even these senior ladies hated Madam Hong. “I can’t wait to see what Lady Sun will wear. She’ll probably strap her son to her back as her costume, to remind the Emperor.”

  “And squeal like a pig about how she deserves the Empress’s apartments,” another woman added, grinning. “Like that tart could ever grace these walls.”

  Xifeng’s needle slipped, and she winced as it stabbed her thumb.

  She hadn’t seen the concubine in weeks, but still the unspeakable hunger haunted her. She pushed it deep down and focused instead on her anger. The Fool, the Fool, the Fool. Lady Sun was the enemy, and no other; she would stop at nothing to destroy Xifeng. Had she succeeded in having Xifeng whipped to death, her path to the throne would now hold one fewer obstacle. If the game was kill or be killed, she would strike again and Xifeng’s hesitation would cost her.

  But unlike the concubine, Xifeng would not shed blood again if she could help it. The creature might whisper as many evil thoughts as it liked, but she would hold fast to the tengaru queen’s words. Violence wasn’t the only means by which to deal with Lady Sun.

  “The way she speaks to Her Majesty,” one woman growled, yanking her needle as though she were pulling the concubine’s hair. “If I were the Emperor, I wouldn’t let her treat my wife that way. But men are all the same: they think not with their brains but with . . .”

  “Watch your mouth,” the gray-haired lady scolded her.

  “It’s true. He’s the only reason she can
do and say whatever she wants.”

  Xifeng kept her eyes down, listening intently. It seemed Emperor Jun would forgive almost anything where his lover was concerned. If she wanted to discredit Lady Sun, it would have to be a public spectacle . . . an embarrassment. Everyone at court despised the woman, even her own informants. Xifeng imagined them pointing and whispering as Lady Sun stood red faced and humiliated, and the Emperor livid . . .

  “Hush, all of you,” the rosy woman hissed. “Look who’s here.”

  Lady Meng approached them, clutching needlework in her thin hands. “I thought I might join you,” she said awkwardly.

  Xifeng noticed the young concubine still spoke with the messy, slurring accent of the village commoners, which Guma had beaten furiously out of Xifeng. It grated her ear after months of hearing the cultured, educated tones of the court ladies. Once again, she found herself feeling sorry for the girl she had envied, with whom she would have gladly traded places once.

  The girl sat down with a shy, diffident air. She was younger than Lady Sun, with a lovelier face, but one had only to observe the way she carried herself to know the difference in their positions at court. Her health, too, did not seem as robust as Lady Sun’s; the girl had a slight, delicate frame and narrow hips and shoulders like the Empress. Whereas Lady Sun was a tiger waiting to pounce, Lady Meng was a doe among predators.

  “We’re glad to have you, Lady Meng,” the rosy lady said. “I was about to tell the fable of the moon tree. Xifeng doesn’t know the story behind the Moon Festival.”

  The concubine’s vague eyes turned to Xifeng and sharpened. “Oh, yes,” she said slowly, as though struggling to search for words. “You’re the maid the Crown Prince brought to court.”

  “I’m one of Her Majesty’s attendants, my lady,” Xifeng said after a pause, wondering whether Emperor Jun regretted taking such an odd, awkward girl for his concubine, despite her beauty. Lady Meng continued staring fixedly at her as the rosy woman began her story.