Page 105 of The Poet Empress
“They were about to kill you.”
“You should have let them.”
He gave me another one of his glass stares, the way he did whenever he thought I was being stupid. “I’m the only one who gets to take your life.”
It might have been the most romantic thing he’d ever said to me, and I was startled into bitter, self-pitying laughter. Then I started coughing, because the pain came like a dagger between my ribs. It was a while before I recovered enough to speak again. “The level of treason you committed, the House will not let it go. Word will spread and all the Great Clans will turn against you. They will band together and overthrow you.”
At that, he actually smiled. He took a few steps inside until he was facing the window, with its lush summer cypresses and warm winds just beyond. “You know, I’m beginning to suspect they won’t.” My confusion must have shown plain on my face, because he said, “Hesin used to tell me the same thing.Be careful, Your Highness,he would always remind me.Watch yourself, and rein in your cruelty, lest even your allies betray you and destroy you.It used to frighten me, quite a bit—the threat of everyone rallying behind Maro, marching into the East Palace, and ending me. But not anymore. After I had gotten rid of that traitor eunuch, and that annoying buzzing in my ear was gone, I finally began to think for myself. And I thought, maybe they won’t do such a thing after all.”
Two cuckoos chased each other just under the eaves. He watched them absently.
“It is true that if the whole nation worked together, it could defeat me. Even the combined army of six or seven of the biggest clans could overpower my blades and my ward. But that’s the thing. I don’t think they are going to do that,work together. The Sun Clan hates the Jin. The Wang can’t stand the Nian. The Qi and the Miao have been fighting for control of the southeast coast for centuries. The Shangtze Coalition might hate me, but they hate Maro more; Salt Road imports have destroyed their near monopoly on ivory.
“And don’t forget what I have done for the north. You’ve seen those dragon statues; you know already what they think of me. Do you think the herders in the mountains care whether a prince calls his fatherboiled radish? Do you think wheat farmers would pick up their scythes, make the long march to the capital, and storm the palace in defense of the emperor’s dignity? The north is too far away to care what happens here. But war, occupiers, liberation—that is close enough to home to matter.”
Dragon statues.I sat up straighter. So he already knew I had gone to Tieza.
Maybe that was why he’d saved me. He wanted me to explain myself, did not want me to die before I could. But then I remembered the tea he had been leaving on my table, and I thought, maybe not. Not entirely, anyway.
“You see now.” He turned back towards me, a twisted smile on his face. “Nobody will challenge me. Nobody is brave enough—or foolish enough—to stand up to me. You and me, Wei, we can rule together for as long as I live. Our enemies will fear us, and the nation will kneel for us, and nobody in the world can ever hurt us.” The Aricine Ward flashed. His smile vanished. “So long as you give the explanation you owe me.”
It was time for my lie. A lie that would never have worked before, but might work now.
One that was—as far as all my lies went—surprisingly close to the truth.
“It’s simple. I went to Tieza because I knew you had left a piece of yourself there.” He stared at me blankly, but I kept speaking. “During our wedding, I pledged to you,care. I knelt before your bed that night and toldyou that I wished to stand at your side. To love you. And I could not do so, not truly, without finding it.”
Half a year ago, he would have drawn knives at this. Now he just looked at me tiredly. “You have a roundabout way of speaking, Wei. Just tell me straight. What did you find?”
“The Violet Heron Tower.”
“Ah.” He was far more serene about it than I could have predicted. “Beautiful place, is it not? Quite a few poets frequent there.”
“I know what they did to you. How they made you fight. Your mother and everyone else—”
He cut me off almost immediately. “I cannot imagine you learned anything new. You are already well acquainted with my shortcomings—the best acquainted of anyone alive. I can only imagine you went to Angkin to spite me. To take pleasure in knowing precisely how deep those shortcomings go. Tell me, did it please you to know I had been undutiful even then?”
Shortcomings.Undutiful.
My mouth fell open. Did he really see Tieza as his own failure?
“Terren,” I said uncertainly. “What they made you do, it was not your duty. The burden of empire is not a child’s to bear.”
He blinked. “Of course it is. I am a prince with magic, and it is my duty to spread it. The House only needs more seal-bearing sons, so that the dynasty can become glorious and lasting.”
They were words given to him, not his own. I knew him well enough to know he would never, not in ten thousand years, speak that way. “Terren—”
“And if I had been stronger, less of a coward, I could have succeeded.” His breaths were coming faster now, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. “And maybe Father would have named me heir sooner and there would not have been a fight for the throne. And maybe Maro would not look down on me and hate me. And maybe Lady Autumn would not be dead. It’s my fault. I couldn’t manage it. All the other princes, they sacrificed so much for the country, but I—”
“Terren.”All at once, I had tears in my eyes. I had no idea where they had come from. “What your mother did to you was cruel, and needless, and evil, and it wasnot your duty.”
They were the first words I had said to him, since I had begun writing the heart-spirit poem, that had not been for my survival or to gather material for it. They were earnest words.
He was shaking now. Sigil flickering like a wild flame. “Say one more word,” he said, burning and dangerous, “and I’ll kill you.”
“She failed you. They all failed you. Everyone who knew what was happening to you—”
“I’ll kill you!”he screamed. “Did you not hear me?”
