Page 116 of The Poet Empress
It took Terren a long time to reach the bottom of the steps. It took him even longer to cross the square to reach its empty center. An area large enough to fit the entire Palisade Garden had been cordoned off from the onlookers by imperial guards, and it was in the middle of it that he took his place.
He looked so small.
In all the tapestries around us, displaying past coronations, the princes were accompanied by rows of specialized swordsmen, martial artists, and archers; more often than not, there were trumpeters, flag-bearers, and heralds carrying strings of firecrackers. In some eras, there had been bridges and platforms custom-built for maneuverability; inothers, the armies had horses or armored elephants to carry them. But in this era, this coronation, there was only Terren standing in the vast and wind-battered square. Alone.
“We begin the Taming of the Dragon,” the Minister of Rites announced from close to me. There was no chance the people at the bottom could have heard him over the wind, but the words were standard; and anyway, a group of servants carrying a banner on the opposite balcony announced the same thing in written characters. “We gather here to witness the coronation of Prince Guan Terren, the Winter Dragon, The One Who Cannot Die, and the Second Son and Heir of the Azalea House. May Heaven above and the Ancestors below watch after our dynasty.”
“May they watch after our dynasty,” the crowd repeated.
“Summon the dragon!”
Cymbals crashed as dancers wearing vivid dragon costumes marched around the perimeter of the square; pillars of flame each as tall as three men flared from the terraces all around. Terren himself traced a summoning spell on the ground with a sword, and the moment the Ancestors drank it, the tear in the sky ripened and reddened, and a deafening roar shattered the nation.
Hurling down from the tear was the dragon. The Crown of the House. First a dot, then larger, then larger still, until the whole length of it landed rumbling on the cobble amidst a storm of dust.
It was the first time I had seen it so close. It looked even more ferocious than all the depictions of it I’d seen, on the murals and tapestries and carvings scattered around the House. The pictures all showed sharp teeth, fierce claws, and a long, serpentine body, but the Crown was even more formidable in real life. Formidable and—I drew in a breath—beautiful. It was a rich, majestic shade of red, with golden horns and a forest-colored mane. White salt crusted between its scales like cloudfoam.
“Seal the arena!” cried the minister.
The dragon-dancers stepped aside, and then two dozen literomancers took their places around the square’s perimeter. They traced a spell in unison, and Terren did too, giving his own words to use as the focus of the Blessing. A moment later, a transparent, cylindrical barrier erupted from the ground just before the literomancers’ feet and stretched all the way to Heaven. It was barely a glimmer, unseeable unless one squinted, but Iknew that it was magic strong enough to protect the spectators from the coming battle between prince and dragon.
And to protect Terren from assassins,I thought. In a moment, he would have to take down his Aricine Ward—for the dragons accepted no literomancy in the taming process. In a moment, he would have to become vulnerable again.
But the barrier, impenetrable by arrows, daggers, or ordinary spells, would protect him from anything coming from outside. Anything—except for a heart-spirit poem.
“Begin the ceremony!” the minister shouted, as another gong shattered the square.
Terren, with one of his swords, cut the chain of white characters swirling around him. The Aricine Ward broke for the first time. It first loosened like a ribbon, then coalesced into the outline of a white tiger, then finally vanished into air. And, just like that, The One Who Cannot Die became as killable as the rest of us.
He raised all eight of his swords and made his way towards the dragon.
From hidden under my shawl, I raised my pen.
64THE PRINCE AND THE CROWN
Terren attacked first. He kept two of his swords near him and sent the rest of them hurtling into the dragon’s body. It shrieked viciously as it thrashed in the air. The knives burst out the other side of the dragon, reversed directions, and sailed back for a second strike.
But they never reached the dragon, because the dragon struck back.
One claw—and it was the size of a house—knocked the swords out of the air; another crashed down towards Terren. He leapt away in time, just barely, and instead of his bones it was the earth beneath that was crushed. Dust and broken cobble spewed from where the claw had landed, making it impossible to see. But from the earth-haze under the dragon’s shadow, a red sigil gleamed like a sun, and the knocked-away swords straightened in the air again and arrowed towards the Crown.
Around me, on the three layers of terraces wrapping around the arena, men cheered: a thundering sound that rose even above the howl of the wind.
The back and forth continued. As my uninked pen moved under my shawl, I watched as Terren wove his swords in and out of the dragon like sewing needles; I watched as the dragon lashed back at him with claw, tooth, and tail. The beast was vicious and merciless in its fury, and I now understood, without the slightest shred of doubt, why the coronation was so dangerous. Each slam of its claw could have crushed five or six swordsmen; each slam of its tail could have thrown twenty archers into the air. Each gnash of its teeth could have torn into the armor of a war elephant and turned it to pulp like a mulberry.
But Terren was, without a question, its match.
Some of the dragon’s attacks he dodged, but the rest he parried with the sheer strength of his sigil magic. With the flat blade of one sword, he could hold back a claw; with two, crossed, he could beat away a lash of its gigantic tail. No wonder he only needed to bring eight of them.
I had known Terren was powerful, of course. I had heard his tales of conquest in the north, and I had witnessed, in person, the way he could command ten thousand knives at once. But even so, his power astonished me. Watching him fight the dragon—in a way that trembled sky and rumbled earth—was absolutely spectacular.
“He’s really doing it,” exclaimed Wang Suwen in awe, from the terrace below where I was sitting. The other concubines around her cried their agreements.
“If our prince defeats the dragon alone,” Liru Syra shouted excitedly, “he will be the first in all of history!”
Under the cover of my shawl, my pen continued to move subtly on the carpet. In the space hidden between where I was seated and the table, I traced one character at a time.
The West Palace was seated not ten paces away. From their midst, Silian watched me closely, with her tea cupped in her hands. There was a conspiratorial half smile on her face, as if she still believed we were working together. Maro was in deep conversation with his friends and advisors, but I did catch him glancing my way occasionally. Both of them, as they witnessed my hand move only slightly, would believe I was still writing the heart-spirit poem. The poem that, once finished, would cross the barrier, find its way to Terren, and kill him.
