Page 89 of The Poet Empress
Silian lowered her mandolin as I approached. “I was not expecting you tonight, Wei.”
Even as anxious as I was, the way she looked at me still made my cheeks heat. “The heart-spirit poem that Maro wrote,” I said, trying to remain focused. “May I see it?”
Something in my voice must have alarmed her, because she took me to his study at once. She watched me copy a segment of it onto a scroll as I explained my predicament and my plan to counter it.
“You seem frightened,” she said. “Are you worried your plan will not work?”
I sucked in a breath, stole a glance out the window at the lantern-lit waters. “Yes, very. And…” My voice came out quiet. “And I’m also worried itwillwork. Yong Hesin is innocent. I do not wish him harm. All he has ever done is serve the nation dutifully, even if it meant attaching himself to princes he hated. He definitely doesn’t deserve…” I shuddered evenimagining what Terren might do if I successfully convinced him of Hesin’s treason.
Either way, someone was going to have to be on the receiving end of knives.
“He is far from innocent,” Silian countered. “He has made no shortage of ruthless decisions, in the name of serving his nation.”
It was true, but hardly justified what I was about to do to him. “Silian, I will become no better than the rest of them.” Qin Rong, whose false accusations had nearly destroyed Maro’s reputation. Empress Sun, whose gambit during my wedding had nearly killed either me or Maya. Song Siming, whodidkill Taifong, gruesomely, just so he could frame Terren for it and turn Hesin against the East Palace.
All those insidious lies, told only for political gain—and now I was about to do the same.
“Is it necessary to be better?” At that moment, Silian’s smile had become as sharp as the empress’s. “Remember: our cause is noble. So many more innocents will die if we let the second son become emperor. Whatever the cost, you must survive to kill him.”
“Everyone believes their own cause is noble.”
“Then may everyone do what they must to win.”
I hid the copied verses somewhere I thought Hesin might find them and asked Wren to keep checking on them. The moment they went missing, I asked Ciyi to send a message to Terren.I cannot bear to spend another day without you,the message said.If I do not see you at once, I shall weep so hard I go blind.
He was sufficiently alarmed when he received me in his tower. “What is it, Wei? Something urgent again?”
“I went to visit Lady Song in the West Palace.” I put a stammer in my voice, as if I expected the news was something he didn’t want to hear. “But before I met up with her, I saw… I saw Hesin there, speaking with your brother.”
He instantly stiffened. “When was this?”
“Two nights ago, after supper.”
“Two nights ago? He told me he was going toyourpavilion.”
I lowered my head and said nothing, letting the silence be an implication.
His breaths quickened. “What were they discussing? Did you hear?”
“Yes, some of it. They were walking around the lake, and I could not get close enough to catch it all. But I think… I think they’re looking for a way to depose you through me. They want to come up with enough evidence that I am literate.”
If a prince’s wife was found literate, it would be grounds for him to be deposed. The idea was that if he couldn’t even keep his own wife in check, how could he keep an entire nation in order? Usually, any accusations of literacy would be verified through an exam, but with enough proof—especially if it was brought to light by the prince’s own advisor—the exam could be bypassed.
“I don’t believe you,” he said quietly. But beneath the sleeve of his dragon robe, I saw his hands opening and closing into fists. He was nervous.
“Hesin mentioned he had doctored some of your memorials to frame me. In a simple way, a way a woman might have done. Since I am the only one who sleeps with you, I am the only other person who has access to your documents. Any changes to them will be evidence directly pointing to me. They plan to bring them to the public.”
His eyes narrowed. He went to the door, threw it open, and summoned one of the servants waiting outside. “Go get some of my old memorials,” he said to the young and frightened-looking eunuch. “The ones I stamped and sent to Hesin to process. I want to see them.”
As soon as the door was shut again, I said timidly, “There is another thing.”
His head swiveled to me.
“Prince Maro”—I winced, as if I knew saying his brother’s name would enrage him—“is helping him fabricate evidence. He was saying that I would not learn to read without a strong motive. They mentioned… a heart poem. Something like that. I saw Prince Maro giving him a piece of paper.”
Terren was pacing the room now, his ward swirling frantically around him. “No. It can’t be. Itcan’t be.” He grabbed at his hair. “Hesin is loyal. He has served me since I was sixteen, running council for me all thistime. If he wanted to betray me, he would have done so long ago. Whynow?”
“Perhaps…” I looked at my feet, trying to seem too afraid to speak my mind.
