Page 108 of The Poet Empress
“Come out.” A woman’s voice, as melodic as larksong. “Everyone thinks you’re somewhere deep in the East Palace. But I know all your hiding spots.” The voice was accompanied by footsteps. Every snap of a twig made his heart leap to his throat.
Hungry, soaked, and still hurting, he tucked himself smaller inside the shadow of his bush. He sent a silent wish to the Ancestors that she wouldn’t notice him.
But the Ancestors did not listen to his prayers. They rarely ever did. The footsteps came closer.
I did not know if it was some new form of literomancy, or the more simple magic of good storytelling, but as Terren told his tale, I found myself nolonger in the sword cage, holding on to him. I was right there, in the peach garden, in the body of that boy, cowering under the skin of his scars, living by the beat of his heart.
“I was not going to come looking for you, you know. But Hesin asked me to speak to you, to guide you onto the right path. And how could I refuse him? I am your mother, after all.”
The footsteps stopped right in front of him. From under the rain-slicked azalea leaves, he could see shoes, narrow and silk-soft, barely peeking out beneath a maple cloak.
He held his breath, tried to disappear.
“Seven years,” she said. “Seven years since you went to the mountain with him and learned he was dying. Seven years since you’ve begun writing that spell to make him invincible—behind his back, because he would have never allowed it if he knew. And you wereso closeto casting it on him.”
If he stopped breathing entirely, he thought, maybe he could turn into wind. Nobody could see or catch the wind.
“A few more days, and you would have finished the most powerful spell in the world. A few more days, and you would have given it to our enemy.” Her voice was still kind, but it was tinged with disappointment, the way a drop of poison could turn a cup of honeywater bitter. “If I had not intervened, you would have ruined everything we’ve worked for.”
He tried it. He tried squeezing his eyes shut, becoming wind.
“But you are very lucky that I was looking out for you. That before you could cast it, I have shown you the truth. I have shown you who he really is.” The shoes stepped aside, squelching in the mud. Beyond them, in the distance, he could see the pond. It was full of dead fish. “Look. Look for yourself what he has done, the lengths he will go. He understands what you can never seem to grasp: that the right path is thewinning one.”
Maybe it was really working. Maybe he reallyhadbecome air, and she would stay here only a brief while, become bored with him, move on. Maybe—
“But don’t worry, my beautiful son. Soon you will understand this too. Your mother is here, after all, to guide you.”
Without warning, the bush shielding him parted. The harsh afternoon sun intruded inside his shelter, stinging his eyes. A pair of hands seized him. As they pulled him out, the arrow in his leg snagged on a branch. He screamed in pain, but the hands kept pulling. They dragged him out, across the wet earth, until his face fell beside the silken shoes.
“Kneel.”
He coughed out a clump of rotten blossoms, bitter with mud and rain, and pushed himself up. His wounded leg felt like water. Next to him sat a large crate made of lacquered sandalwood. He did not know what was inside, but he instinctively didn’t like it.
“Look at me.”
Trembling, he raised his chin.
Terren never described what she looked like. I pictured her as only a blur—a tower of shifting shadows under that maple cloak, not real.
“He is willing to do anything to win,” the shadows said. “Trick you, betray you, kill you. He is even willing to murderfish.” The voice was like lullabies, like warm hugs from when he was little. He could not reconcile it with the pain. “But your weakness is that you have never been able to do just that,anything. Over the years, your advisors and I have told you, over and over again, to go for his throat when nobody is looking. Yet three days ago, when you had the chance, did you take it?”
A shoe pressed down on the arrow in his leg, sending a searing wave through his body. He gasped as his vision darkened.
“It’s still hard for you, isn’t it? You can hurt almost anyone, kill almost anything—but as for the ones you’ve tricked yourself into thinking you love, it’s still so hard. But don’t worry. We’ll work up to it. We’ll practice.”
The hands unclasped the lid of the crate. Inside was water and a golden carp the size of a kitten. There was a rope hooked in its mouth, making it bleed. One hand lifted it out of the water, and it thrashed in the air, fins stiff with its pain. The other pulled out a knife.
He made the mistake of letting out a sob, which made the shoe press down on the arrow harder. The sob turned into another scream of agony.
“Make a cut,” she said, still in that lullaby voice, and threw the knife on the ground in front of him. “Consider it an act of mercy, if it helps you. These palace carp were never meant to survive long anyway.”
He wanted to become a tree. He wanted to be grass. He wanted to bethe clouds and the daylight, that little ant crawling among the wet blossoms. He wanted, most of all, to become air.
“One cut, and there will be no more lies. No more betrayals. No more poisoned fish or arrows in your leg.”
It hurt so much he could barely think. With whatever bit of magic he could scrounge, he lifted the knife, and it hovered in the air, shaking.
“One cut, and the future of the dynasty will be decided. Everything will be over. You won’t have to fight any longer.”
