Page 103 of The Poet Empress
The murmuring crowd was stunned into silence. Nobody spoke of the emperor like this. Not even a prince. Not anyone, notever.
Even the magistrate was too shocked to respond.
Terren used the silence to take echoing steps forward, down the length of the hall, to stand not two paces from the magistrate. He might have been shorter, but there was no question which of the two men was more dangerous. “My father is as good as dead. He will never wake up againor regain the ability to overturn his decision to name me heir. Tell me, Magistrate—does that not meanIam effectively emperor?”
“Impudence!” the magistrate screamed. “Treason! Guards, take him!”
The imperial guards stationed along the perimeter of the hall started to move, but immediately froze when the knives on the ceiling began to rattle.
Everyone else became equally still.
Terren looked with pity at the magistrate, whose eyes had begun bulging. The magistrate’s head spun around wildly before his gaze settled on Maro, who was sitting among a group of his own allies. “Prince of Roads,” he said, desperate. “Do something. You heard what he said.”
Maro needed little prompting. He stood, hands in fists, and as he spoke his voice shook with rage. “Even you are not above Heaven, Terren. You might have disrespected your post, the Azalea House, the whole country—but speaking ill of the emperor is thehighest level of treason.”
“I spoke merely the truth.”
“True or not, those words were a crime.”
Terren kept looking at him, a dark fire burning in his eyes. “So punish me for it.”
Maro stared at him, but didn’t move.
“Punish me for it,” Terren repeated, louder. “What are you waiting for?”
There was enough hate in the first son’s eyes to end dynasties, but still he didn’t move.
“I thought you were honorable.” Terren sounded almost disappointed. “Patriotic. Pious. Yet you would letthe highest level of treason,as you say, go unpunished.”
That finally incensed Maro into motion. He threw himself at Terren, but he had not made it two steps forward when he was forced to halt. In the time it took to draw breath, the ten thousand swords in the ceiling had dislodged themselves from the lichens and were now swarming in the air. About a hundred of them hovered around Maro, restricting him from moving; the rest were flying everywhere else around the room. A few people started to scream, but quickly stopped when they found a blade at their throat.
“It is not a crime,” Terren said through his teeth, “if nobody can punish me for it.”
The swords pressed lower and lower onto Maro until he was forced onto his knees, his head down, his body hunched into a humiliating posture of subservience. He was shaking violently, and his face was twisted with loathing, but he did not speak further.
This seemed to satisfy Terren, because he now stilled the rest of the swords and turned them all to the magistrate. “Any other objections?”
The magistrate’s face was completely white. He did not look capable of speaking either.
Terren laughed without humor, then spun to face the Orchard Palace and the men in blossoms, his suspended swords spinning with him. “Isan. Perhaps you would like to help our magistrate out.” When he was met with silence, he turned his attention and blades to Kiran and his Southeast Palace, to his sailor friends all averting their eyes. “How about you, little brother? Perhaps you would champion for resuming his precious trial.” None of them so much as looked at him.
His eyes flicked to the pillar closest to him. “Sun Ai.” He took a few steps towards the empress, who was trembling as she clutched Ruyi tight against her. “Surely you have something to say. You always do.”
He lifted her chin with the edge of a floating knife, and she squeezed her eyes shut, let out a tiny gasp, and did not speak.
He made a sound like a laugh and let her go. Then he swept his eyes across the rest of his audience, all in varying shades of terror. “Well, then. It seems that we are in agreement.Iam the emperor. And as emperor, I declare the trial over.”
57DUTY AND SHORTCOMINGS
I woke to the cry of an enormous gray cuckoo, perched on my windowsill. When it spread its wings, its flight feathers were almost translucent against the summer sun.Bu-guu,it mourned.Bu-guu, bu-guu,like a haunting ghost.
It flew off somewhere into the canopy of cypresses.
I wasn’t dead, I was somewhat surprised to discover. I knew this because it still hurt everywhere, my body still searing with a flame-river of pain.
Mi Yung in her blue dress came to my bedside to bring me medicine and watery congee. She had to spoon it all into my mouth, since I could not move at all, and the whole time, I could not stop thinking about how little she had in common with Wren.
She only managed a few spoonfuls before my eyes closed and I sank back into the darkness.
