Page 23 of The Poet Empress
“Pity the fish confined to its pond,”she sang.
As the other concubines admired the skit, the empress leaned in close to me. “Did you know that if Terren died, all his concubines would get to go free?”
My heart leapt to my throat. I did know this, of course, but I did not like it coming from the empress’s mouth. Her tone was casual, but her gaze was probing.
“It cannot play in the grass,”the opera girl sang.“It will never feel the breeze.”
“Not to mention that the House will give you a sizable bride price,” continued Empress Sun. “More than enough to pay whatever you came here for. Food for your village, perhaps? Money to buy shoes without holes?”
I looked around, panicked. Nobody was near enough to hear us over the music. I could run to one of the guards by the door and tell him the empress was speaking of treason—but who would believe my word over the Sun matriarch’s?
“Your Majesty,” I said hesitantly. “I do not wish my prince to die.”
“Truly?”
“I… I love him very much.”
“Is that so?” Her smile was like a barbed hook.
The accompanying zithers crescendoed, the light dimmed. The concubines gasped with excitement as the singer belted out a poet’s question:“How can we claim to have suffered enough?”
The empress ignored the performance and peered at me closely, as if I were made of glass and she could see inside me. “Have you heard of the heart-spirit poem, Wei? If you pay a literomancer enough, it is said that they can write even the most powerful of killing spells.” She leaned in as her voice dropped to a whisper. “And they can cast it during his coronation, when he has to fight the dragon. He will not be invincible then.”
My heart raced. I had no idea what the empress wanted. Was she trying to convince me to assassinate Terren? Was she merely trying to fish treason out of me, to use against him politically?
Either way, I could not take the bait. I put as much despair into myvoice as I said, “Your Majesty, I cannot bear imagining the death of my beloved. Have mercy on me, I beg of you, and do not force me to speak of it anymore.”
I must have passed her test, because her smile vanished. Lips pressed into a tight line, she turned her attention back to the opera.
“Pity the fish,”the singing girl lamented.“It will never swim among trees.”
14WORRYING OVER LIGHTNING
The empress might have spoken of Terren’s death only to trap me, but her words lingered long after the opera show, like mosquito bites. I could not stop thinking about them.
That night, I tried to get more information out of Ciyi. I phrased it carefully, pretending like it came from a place of concern. “Is there any way our prince can fall to an assassin?”
The eunuch set down his brush, the lanterns casting his frown in their flames’ light. “Women. Always worrying about things they should not. Do you forget he has the Aricine Ward, which makes him unable to die? Did you not witness Zhen’s foolishness on Selection Day with your own eyes?”
“That may be so, but he will not be invincible during his coronation.”
I had known that even before speaking with the empress.Taming of the dragon,went the children’s chant,when empire changes hands.On Dynasty Day, in Guishan, little boys would run loose in the streets, pretending to be crown princes fighting their dragons. Their friends would light firecrackers in the background, adding to the drama with smoke and noise, or join in the action as allies armed with swords of mulberry branches and pine.
Even the youngest children knew that princes could not use Blessings when taking the Crown, for the dragons accepted no literomancy in the taming process. Terren would have to rely only on the power of his sigil.
Ciyi gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, his ward will be down. But I assure you that he will beverywell protected, just like all the other princes in eras past. There will be guards. He will have an army with him. Literomancerswill put up a magical barrier between the spectators and the arena—one that no dagger or arrow can pass through.”
But what about a spell?“The empress said something about a heart-spirit poem,” I whispered. “I was really frightened.”
The eunuch made an impatient noise, the same one as when I’d refused to flay Jin Veris to death and leave her for the sparrows. “Lady Yin, a heart-spirit poem isnotsomething any literomancer can write. It is one of the most complex spells ever discovered. A killing spell, yes, but one that takes the form of a love poem. One so heartfelt it can only be written for someone whom the composer knows deeply. Tell me, do you think anyone can get close enough to our prince to write apoem of love? You might as well worry over lightning.”
Over the weeks, I tried to probe Ciyi for more information on the heart-spirit poem. Even though I knew it was foolishness. Even though I was not capable of writing one yet, even though I might possibly never be.
It is only out of curiosity,I told myself.I am not really considering slaying the prince.My body still ached with the shadows of the pain Terren inflicted on me when I was not even his enemy. I could not begin to imagine what he would do to me if he suspected me of treason.
Ciyi was always begrudging when I asked too many questions, but since he served me, he had to answer me.
“That Blessing was developed in the early Ash Dynasty,” he explained, “as a potent derivative of the more commonplace healing spell. It is the only killing poem that can find its way directly to the heart from afar—no physical barrier can stop it. But they are rare. Only a handful of them have been written successfully over the years.”
