Page 123 of The Poet Empress
I had predicted he would. In coronations past, the princes always had allies in the arena with them—the ones who survived, anyway—to cheer them on as they claimed the Crown. Terren might not have brought any allies with him for the fight, but that didn’t mean he had none.
He might be hesitant about trusting anyone, but he had no reason anymore not to trustme. He had already died. I had brought him back, given him life. If I had any intentions at all of harming him, he surely had reasoned, I would have just left him lying on the ground, broken.
As soon as I stepped through, the little fish dug its way into my heart and vanished, and I knew it was at that moment the crowd of ten thousand learned what Terren already knew.
“Wei,” he said with a laugh. “I felt it. Ifeltit. I felt your heart inside mine…”
It was a strange laugh, a laugh I was not used to—one that was entirely devoid of menace, that held only joy.
From the dagger he was holding, still more magic was pouring into the Crown. I knelt next to him in the frigid water and held his free hand whilethe salt wind battered us. I could barely hear anything outside. The barrier must have muffled all sounds, shutting out the world.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Terren asked, still with wonder. “That you were writing a poem to help me with my coronation?”
“If I did, would you have allowed it?”
“Unlikely.” He laughed again. He also looked as if he was about to cry.
And, as I took in the sight of him—exhausted and drenched, water slicking his hair against his sigil—I thought I knew why. All his life, people had only ever hurt him, maneuvered against him, wished him dead. For someone tohealhim must have been so unprecedented that he could not possibly have been prepared.
“Did you frame Hesin, then?” he asked after a while.
“No,” I lied. “He really did betray you.”
He considered this, then nodded. “Tell me everything, but only after this is over. Not now. I am very tired.” A pause. “I am also happy, for once, and I wish to remember this moment untarnished.” More red magic flowed from him into the dragon, hot. The water beads on its scales began to steam.
The dragon was changing. The last of its salt crust was vanishing like snowmelt. Its red scales lengthened, became more muted in color, grew sharper, until each one of them was a knife capable of cutting flesh. The change had begun near Terren’s dagger at its head, but soon spread all the way down its body, until the entire length of it was steel gray and as reflective as a thousand mirrors.
The Crown had turned over to blades.
Dimly, distantly, from beyond the barrier, came a wave of tentative cheering from the crowd.
The sky was not red anymore. The heavy gray clouds had broken, too. Bright sunlight poured through with Heaven’s approval, reflecting off the chopped water and the dragon’s scales.
Terren removed the dagger from its head and stood.
For a long time, he just stared at the Crown, as if he could not even believe he had managed to succeed. Then, all at once, it seemed to hit him. His fists shook as his eyes glittered. “Wei,” he called to me breathlessly. “I did it. I… actually did it.”
Then he said, louder, more confidently, “I did it.Look! There’s proof!”He pointed to the dragon with a sleeve and grinned, near overflowing with joy. And then his lips began to tremble and he made a choked sound, and then he was still grinning but also bawling his eyes out. “The dragon… it’s over… it’s over…”
I stood, dabbed at his cheek with a sleeve, and said, “You don’t have to fight any longer,” which made him shake his head a little and laugh through his tears. Then I put a hand over his and began gently prying his dagger away. “You won’t need this anymore.”
He resisted me, but not as much as I thought he would. The moment it left his hands completely, he began to shake and cry even harder. It was like he did not know who he was, if not someone who held a blade.
“What now?” he said, in a voice small and utterly lost.
I took a step towards him in the water, close enough to feel his breath on my cheek.
His eyes widened. He understood.
And I could tell the idea terrified him. He had gone completely rigid, though his hands still trembled. The fear on his face was so raw that for a moment, I almost regretted what I was about to do—what Imustdo.
Terren. Do you trust me?
Three heartbeats passed, maybe five. Then he nodded to himself, took a deep breath as if to gather his courage, and leaned in. A tear rolled down his shining Dao seal as the gap between us closed, and closed, until there was no room for even the wind, and he had touched his lips to mine.
“Wei,” he whispered. “I was lost, but then you came bearing a lantern.”
The world melted away entirely as I focused on the prince. I sensed his breaths calming as the moment dragged on, saw his expression becoming more peaceful under the wind-stirrings of his damp hair. He kissed me tentatively at first. Then he found his courage after all and kissed me harder, blood and salt. And maybe he was laughing a little, I didn’t know. All I knew was that the moment he closed his eyes was when I stabbed him in the heart.
