Page 71 of The Poet Empress
The doctor didn’t even look at Master Ganji. Instead, he addressed everyone else around him. “The life of our prince is in imminent danger. He must stop using his magic immediately. He cannot finish the Salt Road.”
The mocking whispers in the fortress turned into whispers of sympathy.
“No wonder he was so tired all the time,” the men said. “Poor thing, so young and already so feeble.”
“Is he even fit to inherit the throne? Strong enough to lead a nation?”
“Will we have another sick emperor, falling off his dragon, incapable of saving our dynasty?”
Maro hated these whispers even more.
Terren was hiding.
Maro went looking everywhere for him, and finally found him in oneof the fortress’s empty kitchens, huddled under a table. “You,” he snarled. “You told.”
He made a pitiful sound and shuffled further back.
Maro took a step closer, pushing aside the bench between them with a scrape. “You promised.I trusted you.”
“I was trying to protect you,” he said in a tiny voice.
“Protect?You ruined my life!” Maro was shouting now, really shouting, the way he knew his little brother hated. But he couldn’t stop himself. The anger burned as hot as coals, and it needed to come spitting out as flames.
“We’re family. And family is for keeping each other—”
He squeaked with alarm. Maro had grabbed him by the collar with both hands and dragged him out from under the table. “Didn’t I say I don’t need protection? Only the weak need help, Terren! But I. Am. Not. Weak.” He spat out the words like knives. “I am powerful. I’m going to be emperor one day. I’m going to command armies and send our enemies to their knees!”
“You never wanted any of that,” Terren whimpered. Maro lifted him up by his collar and shoved him against the wall, as a warning, but he had the audacity to keep speaking anyway. “You might have everyone else tricked, but you never tricked me. I know you don’t want to be emperor.”
“I don’t?” Maro said scathingly. “Says who?”
“Says you. That poem you wrote.The wind, born only to run—”
He hit him in the face.
Terren let out a small and terrified sound, and Maro resented it so much he hit him again. When he let go of him, Terren didn’t even bother standing again, just stayed sprawled on the ground with his hands over his head like a coward. “I’m sorry,” he begged, trembling. “I’m sorry ten times. I’m sorry a hundred times. I’m sorry a thousand times. I’m sorry—”
“I wrote that poem when I was six!” Maro screamed.“Six!”He kicked him in the stomach. “I’m not a boy anymore. I have my sigil. I’m grown. And Iwant to be emperor!” He kicked him again. “I want it because I worked all my life for it. Because I suffered for it. Because I’ll be good at it.” Another kick. “Because it’s—my—birthright!” Three more kicks, the last one so hard it sent his brother skidding across the cold stone.
Terren had gone very, very still. He wasn’t even crying anymore. The only thing he did was curl up as small as possible, as if trying to disappear from this world.
He had always been so pathetic.
“Maybe you should want it too,” Maro spat, and left him.
They left the fortress at the same time. It was an angry sunset, like claws had torn apart the crimson sky beyond the Eriet Mountains’ shadowed peaks. Lady Autumn stayed close beside Terren as they rode north, towards Tieza, towards greatness.
Maro went the opposite way.
40TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS
I spent the first few days of our retreat recovering. Aolian disciples, robed and masked in black and white, brought food to our remote cottage—plain rice, unseasoned meat, and an assortment of more teas than I could ever drink.
We were higher in the mountains than at the palace, and it snowed even more here, painting the pine branches white. The landscape outside the window scintillated with the color of funerals.
Lying on the bed, waiting for my chest to stop aching, I found myself far less afraid than before.
In Tensha, it was customary for new brides and grooms to spend a half month alone together at an Aolian temple. It wasn’t practiced much in the villages—we could never have afforded so much time away from farm work—but it was mentioned often in the ballads, and so I had heard about the tradition long before the palace.
