Descendant of the Crane
Joan He
To my parents, whose sacrifices have made dreaming possible
I
TREASON
A well-conceived costume is a new identity, the father used to say as he put on his commoner’s cloak. From now until I return, I am no longer the king.
Teach me how to make a costume, begged the daughter.
He did that, and more. By candlelight, he divulged every way he knew of escaping the palace, for King Wen of Yan loved the truth, and little was found within the lacquer walls.
ONE
WHAT IS TRUTH? SCHOLARS SEEK IT. POETS WRITE IT. GOOD KINGS PAY GOLD TO HEAR IT. BUT IN TRYING TIMES, TRUTH IS THE FIRST THING WE BETRAY.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON TRUTH
TRUTH? WHY, IT’S A LIE IN DISGUISE.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON TRUTH
No night was perfect for treason, but this one came close. The three-day mourning ritual had ended; most had gone home to break the fast. Those who lingered in the city streets kept their eyes trained on the Eastern Gate, where the queen would be making her annual return.
Then came the mist. It rolled down the neighboring Shanlong Mountains and embalmed the limestone boulevards. When it descended into the bowels of the palace, so did the girl and her brother.
They emerged from the secret passageways the girl knew well—too well, perhaps, given her identity—and darted between courtyard compounds and walled wards, venturing toward the market sectors. When they arrived at the red-light district’s peeling archway, an ember sparked in the girl’s stomach. Some came to the seediest business quarter of the imperial city to buy warmth. But she?
She had come to buy justice.
Her brother held her back before she could cross. “Milady—”
If he called her “milady” out here, he might as well call her Princess Hesina. “Yes, Caiyan?”
“We can still go back.”
Hesina’s fingers closed around the glass vial dangling from her silk broad-belt. They could. She could let her resolve fade like the wisp of poison bottled in the vial. That would be easy. Figuring out how to live with herself afterward…not so much.
Grip hardening, she turned to her brother. He looked remarkably calm for someone risking death by a thousand cuts—crisply dressed despite the rough-hewn hanfu, every dark hair of his topknot in place.
“Having doubts?” She hoped he’d say yes. At fifteen, Caiyan had passed the civil service examinations. At seventeen, he’d become a viscount of the imperial court. At nineteen, his reputation was unparalleled, his mind more so. He wasn’t renowned for making bad decisions—unless they were in her name.
“How would you find the way?” asked Caiyan, countering her question with one of his own.
“Excuse me?”
Caiyan raised a brow. “You’re hoping that I’ll say ‘yes’ so you can proceed alone. But that wasn’t our agreement. I am to lead the whole way, or I don’t take you to this person at all.”
Our agreement. Only Caiyan could make treason sound so bland.
“I won’t be able to protect you.” Hesina scuffed one foot over the other under the hem of her ruqun. “If we’re caught…if someone sees us…”
A man bellowed an opera under the tiled eave of a dilapidated inn, and something porcelain shattered, but Caiyan’s voice still cleaved the night. “You don’t have to protect me, milady.” Red lantern light edged his profile as he looked into the distance. “He was my father too.”
A lump formed in Hesina’s throat. She did have to protect him, in the same way her father—their father—had. You can’t possibly touch all the lives in this world, he’d told her that winter day ten years ago when he’d brought the twins—slum urchins, one thin girl and one feverish boy—into theirs. But if you can lift someone with your two hands, that is enough.
Hesina wasn’t lifting Caiyan up; she was leading him astray. But when he reached for her hand, she held on, to her dismay. The confidence in his grip grounded her, and they crossed into the district together.
They entered a world of slanted teahouses and inns, brothels and pawnshops clustered like reeds on a panpipe. Men and women spilled out of the paper-screened doors, half-clothed and swinging certain appendages. Hesina averted her gaze and pressed closer to Caiyan.
“It’ll get better up ahead.” Caiyan had once called streets worse than these home, and he guided them around peddlers with impressive ease. He didn’t pay any mind to the occasional beggar, not even the one who tailed them down the block.
“Beware the night,” cried the man, shaking coins in a cracked ding pot. Hesina slowed, but Caiyan tugged her along. “Beware the rains, the crown, and the Sight!”
“Ignore him.” Caiyan’s gaze glowed with focus. “He speaks of the bygone dynasty.”
But on a night like this one, the past felt uncomfortably close. Hesina shivered, thinking of an era three centuries ago, when peasants had drowned in summer floods and perished in winter famines. The relic emperors had pursued concubines, conquests, and concoctions for immortality, while their imperial soothsayers Saw into the future to crop resistance before it could sprout. As for the sick and the starving, too weak to resist, the sooths placated them with visions of the brilliant tomorrows to come.