Page 101 of The Poet Empress
It was a verse. A verse to fit my poem. And it was far better than anything I could have come up with.
He truly was brilliant. Even having studied all those classics, I had seldom come across words as expressive and heartfelt as his. I copied them down, and then I met his gaze. “Terren, thank you.”
His eyes widened. Then he ducked his head, as if embarrassed, and went to hide behind his mound of swords. I bid him a gentle farewell and made back for the palace.
At the Azalea House, there were imperial guards waiting for me at the gates, weapons drawn and expressions grave.
“Lady Yin,” they said, as soon as I dismounted my horse. “You are to come with us.”
56TEST OF TREASON
They would not tell me what my crime was as they marched me to the palace’s prison, Heaven’s Worship—only that it was treason, something I would be executed for. All afternoon I paced around the ledge of my confinement, mind spinning, trying to figure out exactly what my crime had been.
Confinementwas not quite accurate. The prison was built into the side of a mountain, each cell a ledge, and the only thingconfiningme was a stomach-twisting drop on three sides, far enough beneath me that I could not see individual trees. Even the Aricine River curving away below was no larger than a finger’s width.
The wind at this altitude was ferocious. Even the ancient pines growing out of the cliff face had to submit to it, bent and trembling like the meadow grasses in Tieza. I huddled in the alcove of my cell, trying not to shiver as the cold penetrated my cloak.
The order to arrest me could not have come from my husband. That much was certain. Although I had been nervous about facing him—and the inevitable confrontation about my visit to Tieza—I knew he would not jump straight to executing me. We were familiar enough by now that he would at least talk to me first.
Besides, he would never go through all this bureaucracy, not in ten thousand years. He would put a sword in me, maybe two—and if my crime was severe enough, play cruel games with me until I died more slowly—but he would not do something as impersonal as havingguardsthrow me in prison.
Had one of the concubines finally found an opening to oust me? Had the empress come up with a new way to have me dead?
The third day of my imprisonment, two Azalea guards came to get me. They brought me to the main hall of the East Palace, the Hall of Divine Harmony, the same place my exam with the doctors had taken place nearly a year ago.
There were more people in attendance this time. There was the usual coterie of courtiers and ministers sitting between the pillars, but also officials who had ridden in from afar. Their huge banners announced places beyond the heartlands, places I only recognized from maps. Now that I was no longer Terren’s betrothed but his wife, I supposed my trials had become even more of a spectacle.
As the guards dragged me to the front, I caught a glimpse of Terren, standing at the far side of the hall, alone. But unlike last time, when he kept his thoughts masked, his face now was a dark cloud of fury. His sigil flickered fast with agitation.
What reason was there, I wondered, for him to be so angry he could not even hide it?
A violet-robed magistrate stepped to the front, passing by the empress, Maro, and the rest of the princes. “We will now conduct a test of treasonous intent, devised by Heaven,” he announced in a sonorous voice. “It will help determine whether a woman, like Lady Yin, is tainted in her heart. If she is, then the Ancestors will punish her with pain. If she is innocent, she will remain unharmed.”
Several helpers laid down three large scrolls before me and gave me a long elm branch. “Choose one of them to copy,” said the magistrate, and waved a magnanimous sleeve.
I clutched the branch as I blinked at the scrolls before me.
They were Blessings. The two on either end were as the magistrate had described: pain-inflicting spells, meant for torturing prisoners. The third had no effect. Another girl would have to pray to Heaven for guidance, but since I could read, I knew immediately which was the correct choice.If she is innocent, she will remain unharmed.
But at the same time, something wasn’t right. Why hadn’t they told me what I was accused of? Why did the empress, surrounded by a crowd of Sun men, seem almost smug?
Why was Terren soangry?
I glanced up at him again, standing in the back behind those hundreds of men, fidgeting with his hands. Whatever crime I had been accused of, it must have implicated him as well. And while that had been the case last time, he’d had Hesin then, and the eunuch would have been able to calm him, and—
Wait. I recognized that anger.
It was not the contemptuous one Terren had displayed at the empress, during our wedding; neither was it the pitying one he often showed me. It was pure, raw, and unbridled, the kind he had displayed the night I’d convinced him of Hesin’s treason. The night I’d made him believe the eunuch was working with Maro to get him deposed, by fabricating evidence of my literacy.
This was not a “test of treasonous intent” at all. It was a literacy test.
With enough evidence, an exam might not have been needed. But in the absence of it, the House needed to make certain.
I lifted the elm branch with a shaking hand. I did not copy the third spell, the safe one, but instead traced one of the torture spells. I traced it in the uncertain, unpracticed way that somebody who didn’t know how to read might have done, copying the way I had seen Grandpa Har draw that Blessing on the hill.
Not even three characters in, the pain came for me. Shuddering spasms that shook my entire body, making it hard to keep my grip on the branch. I actually did drop it once, but the magistrate just looked at me and said, “Keep going,” and I fumbled to pick it up again.
When it was over, he swapped out the spells for three different ones. “Again.”
