Descendant of the Crane(12)

“My blessing, is it?” Her mother’s hair, quilled with gold pins, was jet-black like Hesina’s. Time didn’t touch her, or these chambers, which had been painstaking preserved for the few days a year she visited.

Being here made Hesina feel six again. The orchids hanging from the beamed ceiling looked like sneering faces, and her knees ached with the memory of kneeling against the russet huanghuali floors. “Yes,” Hesina answered, keeping her voice flat, cool, and stripped of hope.

“Do you have a trusted scribe?”

But a little always crept back in. “I do. I can summon—”

“Good. You may forge the blessing, because you will never receive one from me.”

The maids stopped fanning, then sped back up.

Hesina braided back her nerves. She needed the validation of this blessing. “I am ready to fulfill my duties, Mother.”

Her mother considered the teacup in her hand with disinterest. “You speak of the coronation as if it’s inevitable.” With a clink of porcelain, she set the cup back down. “I may yet choose to stay.”

The chamber froze.

Mother. Staying. Ruling as regent.

Hesina hadn’t considered the possibility, but maybe it wasn’t a bad thing. If she told her mother the truth about the king’s death, the queen would surely want to find the assassin too. What did crowns and thrones matter then?

The Imperial Doctress, who serviced the queen just as often as the maids, placed a steaming porcelain bowl on the side table. The tang of ginseng tunneled up Hesina’s nose. “Be reasonable, Your Highness. You can’t stay away from the mountain air for long.”

“You should focus on getting better, Mother,” Sanjing added, standing at the queen’s side. He belonged there, unlike Hesina, and she stiffened as his gaze drifted to her. “Sina will be a good ruler.”

The queen barked a laugh. “You speak on your sister’s behalf, but do you know half her thoughts?”

As if she knew herself.

The queen canted her head in her daughter’s direction, and Hesina’s spine went rigid. “You. Why do you want to rule so badly?”

A week ago, Hesina wouldn’t have been able to answer. This fate had chosen her. It was only now, seventeen years later, that she chose it back. For truth, for justice, and for her father.

But she wasn’t in a habit of opening up to her mother. “Why shouldn’t I want to rule?” After all, she’d been groomed for this her entire life. Sacrificed normal interests for lessons in calligraphy, cosmology, and diplomacy.

“If you’re doing this for your father, there’s no use.”

Hesina blinked. “What do you mean?”

The queen lifted a hand, and a maid immediately began to massage it. “Nothing you do will bring him back.”

What did her mother think she was, a child? Someone who still believed in the myths tutors told their pupils, that enough studying could make them an immortal sage or give them the power to raise the dead?

Before Hesina could reply, the Imperial Doctress tutted and nodded at the steaming bowl of tonic. “It’s growing cold,” she said, as calmly as she had when insisting that the king had died a natural death.

But this time, Hesina wouldn’t back down. She seized the bowl of tonic and dropped to a kneel, bowing her head. “Please, Mother. Accept this.”

Accept me.

The Imperial Doctress was wrong. The concoction hadn’t grown cold. Heat seared through the pads of Hesina’s fingers and gnawed at the bone. She held on, presenting the bowl as her piety. All the queen had to do was take it.

As Hesina’s arms grew leaden, a knock came from the chamber doors. A maid hurried to open them, and the visitor entered, his hanfu hem skirting into Hesina’s limited range of vision as he approached.

“This had better be important, Minister Xia,” snapped her mother.

Xia Zhong?

Hesina didn’t believe it. Not even when she heard the Minister of Rites say, “I wouldn’t intrude if it weren’t,” or when he knelt beside her, the scent of wet, cold tea leaves emitting from his person.

“I came as soon as I learned of your return,” said Xia Zhong. “It’s on the matter of succession.”

Hesina tensed. He knows. About her treason, her visit to the dungeons. He’d seen her duplicitous heart, so unlike her father’s. He’d come to declare her unfit.

“She isn’t ready.” Her mother’s rejection pinched, but it would be nothing compared to death by a thousand cuts. Hesina’s head spun. She struggled to follow along when the minister recited:

“Passage 2.1.3. ‘No ruler, young or old, can know everything there is to know. The realm is large, the commoners many. Without the guidance of their advisors and ministers, even the most experienced of kings and queens turn incompetent.’”

No one spoke when he finished.

Then the queen did. “Get out of my chambers,” she ordered, just as Hesina understood the meaning of the passage. Xia Zhong hadn’t come to denounce her. Quite the opposite, he was encouraging the queen to give her blessing.

Wait.

The minister bowed low. He got to his feet, one knee at a time, and paid the queen the utmost respect by facing her as he retreated. As the doors closed, Hesina wished she had the power to call him back. But it was pointless—her mother had made up her mind.