Page 62 of The Poet Empress
“Good night, Terren.”
I should have known something was wrong. My headaches have always felt different than the ones I got before.
The fifth month working on the Salt Road, Maro was in the tunnel, channeling his magic as usual, when yet another headache began. But this time, when he tried to ignore it, it didn’t go away. It grew. It grew and grew, and soon it hurt so bad that it felt like somebody was taking an ax to the inside of his skull. His vision blurred. He fell to his knees, fighting for breath.
When he woke again, he was in his bed and it was dark.
“… overuse of magic…”
“… he’s still young. It’s still reversible…”
He pushed himself up to a sitting position and blinked open his eyes. Lanterns lit up the faces of Doctor Shu and Master Ganji, talking in hushed voices not far from his bed.
“Maro,” said Doctor Shu, when he noticed he was awake. He placed a bowl of herbal medicine into his hands. “Drink this while we talk.”
It tasted absolutely awful. It was even more bitter than the stuff Mother used to make him drink when he had a cold.
“You have always been a bright and discerning boy,” said Doctor Shu. “I can speak to you as a child and mince words, but I would rather speak to you like an adult and peer. Can you handle it?”
His tone was frightening. Maro felt his pulse race, but he forced himself to nod anyway.
“Today confirms something I have suspected for a long time: that your capacity for magic is not as high as most seal-bearing sons. It has not even been two years since you’ve received your sigil, and you are alreadysuffering from Heavenly Fatigue.” He heaved a sigh. “Then again, most princes rarely use their magic with such intensity, and at such a young age.”
Worthless.
That was the only conclusion Maro could draw from the doctor’s words. First, he had to lag behind his younger brother at literomancy. Now, it turned out that his magic was weak. How was he supposed to save Tensha when he was so muchworsethan what they needed him to be?
“Okay,” he said.
“You know about the Fatigue, I presume. You have seen your father go through it.”
“Uh-huh.” It was hard to keep his voice steady. He was trying very, very hard to keep being an adult and a peer, but he just wanted to throw something and scream.
“Well, your case will be even worse. The trajectory of your decline is far faster. You are a burning star, Maro. Brilliant, but fleeting.”
In other words,worthless.
“But the good news is that, at your current stage, recovery is almost guaranteed. If you stop using your magic at once and return to the capital, and rest for a few years, all the damage will become undone. You will be as healthy as the day you received your seal. After you inherit the Crown from your father, your magic will be amplified, and you will find that everything will become much easier. It is not too late to wait until then to accomplish things.”
Maro stared at him.
“Do you understand?”
“The Salt Road. I need to finish it.” It was thedoctorwho didn’t understand. Maro had been in the mountains for five months already, and at the rate he was going, he only needed about two more. “The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can control trade with the West again and replenish our depleted treasury. Tensha is a nation holding its breath. We cannot wait to save it, in the same way we cannot wait to save a drowning child.”
The doctor and Master Ganji exchanged glances.
“And what about the missions that come after?” Maro pressed. “Father has already planned the next few years. We need to widen the Grand Canal. We need to add new mountain roads to make Ji Province more defensible. We need to rebuild the harbor in Tian City, to replace the onesour enemies destroyed.” The more he spoke, the more panicked his voice became. “Everything is urgent. The nation needs me. I can’t hide in the capital like a coward.”
“Maro, let me put it more simply: you are dying.”
“Tenshais dying!” he screamed.
So everyone kept telling him, from his first breath, his first words. So his father kept reminding him, over and over again.Pitiful. We are even smaller than we were during the Sun Dynasty.So he had seen for himself, in all the reports he’d read about the famine-stricken cities, the raids near the borders, the people impoverished. It was one of the first truths he’d ever known.
The room echoed with his outburst. In the silence that followed, Maro heard only his own breathing, very fast.
Then Master Ganji laughed. It was chopped and without humor. “I told you, Doctor Shu. I told you the boy would side with me.”
