Descendant of the Crane(11)

In the end, she’d taken everything on the desk, along with the courier costume he’d been wearing at the time of his death, and boxed them away. Boxed away her grief too. Placed it out of dust’s reach, where it would remain like new.

“Na-Na…” An arm wrapped around her shoulders, and Hesina let Lilian pull her in. “You can always slow down. Rely on us. We’re here for you.”

It wasn’t the same. Her father had filled her nights with shadow puppets, dress-up, and maps of secret passageways. Year after year, he boosted her onto his shoulders—her very own throne—and together they’d watch the queen’s carriage fade into the mist, whisking her back to the sanatorium in the Ouyang Mountains, where the air and altitude could preserve her failing health. Afterward, the king would take Hesina into the persimmon groves. They’d eat fruit picked straight off the branches until they bloated, and Hesina would cry, missing a mother who would never miss her.

Her tears had blinded her to the unconditional love right in front of her. Now, justice was her only way to say thank you. To say goodbye. To say I love you too.

Caiyan joined them on the second level. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders, and the three stayed that way until a distant drumbeat passed through the air. Horns blared into the chorus, and a gong struck a single, deafening note.

The twins stepped back at the same time Hesina pulled away.

She walked out of the study, telling herself not to run, not to rush. Only fools were eager to receive disappointment. But the sound of the gong resurrected the little girl she had been, and she became a fool again as she climbed the steps of the eastern watchtower, first at a steady pace, then a jog, then a run.

She burst through the doors, cut through the startled guards, and leaned over the granite parapet. The watchtower stood a whole li from the city walls, but Hesina was tall enough now to see the line of carriages on her own. It slithered through the Eastern Gate like a serpent scaled in mourning white, horned with banners flying the imperial insignia, wending between crowds of commoners.

Hesina’s heart filled and emptied all at once. Her mother had finally come home.





FOUR





THERE SHOULD BE SIX, ONE FOR EACH MINISTRY, GRANTED OFFICE ON THE BASIS OF MERIT.

ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON MINISTERS


THEY’RE THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST CORRUPTION.

TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON MINISTERS

Standing on the terraces, with commoners and nobles blanketing the Peony Pavilion below, Hesina couldn’t remember the warmth of her father’s study. Blades hung in the air as her mother made the slow ascent up the terraces, the people rippling as they bowed. Summer had ended with the return of the queen, and autumn, the season of death, began.

The imperial children awaited her in the same order they always did, with Sanjing to Hesina’s right and Rou, the Noble Consort’s son, to her left. For reasons Hesina could not understand, Xia Zhong had deemed Rou closer to a trueborn offspring than Caiyan and Lilian. The twins stood behind with Consort Fei herself, who rarely left her lodgings in the Southern Palace. When she did, she wore a screened headpiece that covered her entire face. The headpiece was the source of many rumors. Hesina would know; she’d fed some herself.

To be fair, she’d been young. Four when she’d first seen Rou—a two-year-old toddler then—from afar. Six when she learned the truth—that in the Southern Palace, behind the wisteria vines, there lived a consort, and Rou, the boy in blue, called Hesina’s father his own.

Her first taste of betrayal went down about as well as a bowl of tortoise blood tonic. Her father had lied. The boy wasn’t a visiting prince from the kingdom of Ci. The queen didn’t have all of the king’s love. Hesina hadn’t spoken to her father for weeks. Then, when it hurt more to stay angry, she forgave him, but a knot remained in her heart, and blaming someone else was the only way to untie it.

So she blamed Consort Fei and Rou. It wasn’t right. But it was easier.

Well, easier when Rou wasn’t trying so hard to catch her eye. Hesina’s dread mounted as she sensed him working up the courage for words. Finally, as the queen reached the final terrace landing, he offered Hesina a smile and said, “Good luck, Sister.”

It was the exact sort of gesture that made her feel terrible in comparison, and she acknowledged Rou with a stiff nod. Later, she would wonder what the good luck was for. Meeting with the queen? Asking for her blessing? Or good luck in general, because her half brother was kind like that?

Not that it mattered. Luck was never on Hesina’s side when it came to her mother.

The queen reached the final landing, immaculately wrapped in a voluminous ruqun of the deepest blue. She had a face like ceramic—arresting to behold yet quick to fracture, her mouth carved downward as she dismissed everyone but her two trueborn children.

Hesina and Sanjing followed their mother to the red lacquered threshold rising before the palace’s front hall. There, she refused Hesina’s offered arm and took Sanjing’s instead. It could have been worse. At least Hesina hadn’t been shamed in front of all the commoners.

The humiliation continued. When they reached the queen’s chambers, their mother rejected Hesina’s cup of tea and choose Sanjing’s instead. Her entourage of maids pretended not to notice and continued fanning the queen. Hesina pretended not to care.