Page 12 of The Poet Empress
Terren’s head had slid to rest on the iron arm of his throne, his body gone still as ice. For a brief moment, I didn’t think he would respond, but at last he murmured half-coherently, “I tire of this. We already have one consort. Let us end the selection.”
“My dear prince.” The empress’s voice was gentle, as if speaking to a disobedient child. “As Mother of the House, I must remind you of your duty to fill your Inner Court entirely. It is hardly auspicious for so many pavilions to remain empty now, is it?”
One of Maro’s allies audibly scoffed.
Terren forced his head up until his eyes rested on Lou. “Women,” he said tiredly. “They’re all the same to me. We kept the last one, so let us get rid of this one.” He punctuated the pronouncement with another drink from his flask.
The ugly way he saidwomen,like how Ba cursed the rats in our kitchen, sent a shudder through my spine. Something was desperately wrong. The House had told us we were all here to be planted, to bear a magical son for Tensha and bring glory to the nation. But if so, why was the prince so uninterested in us?
This time, the empress didn’t speak on the girl’s behalf. Hesin waited for a while longer, and then he said, “The House has decided. We thank Lady Bi for her willingness to serve the empire. We dismiss her with a reward.” At his word, two maids stepped out of the shadows to hand Lou a red azalea pin and a small but bulging sack. She wept all the way to the doors.
The selection continued. As each candidate stepped onto the dais,Terren tried to turn them all away. The empress, for her part, mostly let him. Very occasionally, she stepped in like she had for Rho, retaining them and giving them titles. Virtuous Beauty. Honored Companion. Second-Rank Concubine.
She only did this for girls from important families, I noticed. It seemed far more politically motivated than for Terren’s benefit.
Minma was not chosen. When she stepped up to the dais, Terren dismissed her handily, in less time than it took to draw breath. I was not surprised. She might have worked hard in the past month to make allies, might have spent the whole morning inking her brows, brush by brush, but none of it mattered when it was not the prince choosing but the empress. And the empress chose only based on our family names.
Zou Minma might have been a city girl, but compared to everyone else here, her background was still unremarkable, a bonfire swallowed by the brilliance of suns.
As she was escorted out by guards, azalea pin scrunched in one fist, she turned back and searched the remaining candidates. When she found me, her eyes lingered. For a moment, there was an unreadable expression on her face, and then she turned around and was gone.
I swallowed something bitter in my throat. I should have felt vindicated—for how cruelly she had laughed at Ba, how she had called me ugly and treated me like I was nothing. But instead, I could only feel sorry for her. I still remembered the light in her eyes, on the carriage ride here, when she had spoken of becoming mother to a prince. Now that dream would never come true.
If Minma wasn’t chosen,I thought,then surely I have no chance at all.At once I felt foolish, for coming here at all, for staking all the hopes of my village on an empty wish.
The line of candidates before me was dwindling. As my turn approached, I was not sure if I felt relieved or disappointed. Maybe the reward for coming would be worth something nice. Maybe it could be traded for haw candies on New Year’s.
“Sima Zhen of the Inner Sea District.” Hesin was now introducing the candidate right before me, the girl who had been crying earlier. “Daughter of Sima Emian, Distinguished Merchant of the Inner Sea. Age eighteen.”
By now Terren hardly seemed awake. He had been drinking winewithout stop as the selection carried on, commanding Hesin to fetch a fresh flask every time he had finished his previous one. As Zhen stepped onto the dais, his head hung forward. His eyes stayed shut.
He did not notice her drawing a knife. Did not see her plunging it towards—
A knife.Half a gasp escaped my mouth before I could stop myself. By the time I had the sense to react, he should have already been dead three times over. But he was still sitting there, still alive, because Zhen’s bladenever touched him.
The Aricine Ward had stolen his death. The band of Tenshan characters around him had lashed out, coiled itself around Zhen’s blade like chains, and stilled it mere breaths away from his heart. I thought I saw the faint outline of a white tiger flash behind the throne, but I blinked and it was gone.
Impossible,I thought, still half in shock. How could magic so powerful be true?
The crowd reacted all at once. Guests crying out, servants screaming, the remaining candidates huddling together like frightened geese. “Take the assassin away!” Hesin cried above the clamor. “Protect the prince!”
“No. Nobody move.” Terren’s voice was surprisingly lucid. His eyes fluttered open, as if waking from a long sleep.
The hall stilled. Zhen let go of the hovering blade—the ward coiling around it keeping it afloat in the air—and dropped onto her knees. “Your Highness,” she gasped. “Forgive me. My father made me do it… it wasn’t my idea…”
The way Terren looked at her, as if she had told a joke nobody else in the room found funny, made my blood turn to frost. Hesin must have seen that look too. “Your Highness, please,” he said hurriedly. “Let us take her to Heaven’s Worship, where we may question her according to procedure.”
“No need. I shall deal with her myself, here and now.”
For the first time all morning, the prince was alert. His dark eyes fixed intently on Zhen, as if he had not had trouble keeping them open mere moments before. “I had thought my selection would be a torturously boring piece of theater, but it seems the Ancestors are kind today. They have sent me entertainment.”
Zhen let out a choked sound and shuffled backwards.
“Terren.”Maro stood from where he was seated by the Salt Road merchants. “Do not forget yourself. This is the Azalea House, and there are procedures to be followed. You must not dishonor our father and our Ancestors.”
Terren’s eyes flicked to him. “Ah, Maro. You plead on behalf of an assassin. An ungenerous interpretation would be that you also wish me dead.”
Maro’s hands clenched into fists. “The only thing I am pleading on behalf of is the Crown’s dignity. Whatever you are about to do, don’t do it. Not in front of all these honored guests. Not in front of Ruyi!”
