Page 84 of The Poet Empress
“Is it now?”
The voice coming from the darkness was not Wren’s.
I spun around. There, standing not two paces from me, his face all sharp angles in the moonlight, was Yong Hesin.
He was pointing a knife at my neck.
I was sure my heart stopped beating then. Instinctively, uselessly, I grabbed the paper and hid it behind my back, as if removing my spell from view would make him forget what he had already seen.
His expression was tired, but his eyes were sharp. “For months, I have been telling him to be more careful of you, but he would not take my concerns seriously without proof. Now, it seems, I have proof.” He extended a hand, the one not holding a blade. “Give it to me.”
My throat had become very dry. I did not, could not, move.
“Give the poem to me. If you cooperate with me, I will talk him out of exterminating the rest of your relations. They might even receive some grave-money for your service.”
Do something,I told myself.Don’t give up. Buy time.
Everyone in the Cypress Pavilion, everyone in Lu’an, they were all counting on me to kill Terren. As long as there was still blood pulsing in my veins, I had to keep fighting, keep trying.
“Hesin, listen to me.” I didn’t need to feign the desperation in my voice. “You can still change your mind. You don’t have to keep serving Terren.”
My long bedrobes pooled on the ground. Hidden by the silk and the night’s darkness, my foot moved.
“I serve the nation, Wei. I have already explained this to you.”
“But how does helping him become emperor help Tensha? He’s cruel, Hesin. Vile. Just because he is his father’s chosen—just because he holds Heaven’s Mandate—does not mean he is fit to rule.”
Hesin’s eyes burned into me. “That is the way this nation works. That is the way it has always worked. Now, give me the poem. Killing you here would violate the dignity of the House, but I will do it if I must.”
“What if the Yongkai Emperor made a mistake?” I whispered. “Many believe he had only changed his heir because he was sick and not in his right mind. Hesin, have you really not once doubted? What if it was never meant to be Terren?”
His eyes never left me. “I watched Muzha write the edict with his own pen. And even if I hadn’t, Iknowhim. I have served him for over two decades. How could I not know what he would want for the nation? War is coming, Wei, even if many in the palace do not know it.”
“Another war of conquest,” I said, still trying to buy time. I put as much venom into my voice as I could, though my disgust did not have to be feigned. “A needless one. Lives will be lost for no reason other than pride and greed.”
“You think this time it will beour choice?” A humorless laugh. “Who told you this? Your scribe? Gossiping maids, who have never once stepped outside the Inner Court? The House does not like people to know, but this war is inevitable. It is coming for us whether we are prepared for it or not. And there are far more of us than you’d ever know, who wish to beprepared.”
For a moment, I was so astonished I didn’t know what to say. It was the first time Hesin admitted his support for Terren extended beyond the Mandate of Heaven. What he had told me before, about not being loyal to the prince, had only been half the truth.
“Since you will soon be dead, I may as well tell you everything.” Hesin’s voice was now more weary than angry. “The nation is not doing very well, Wei. Despite the appearances the House tries to make. The interest on our debts grows larger every year, and rebellions are blazing across the provinces. Unrest roils through the Great Clans while the palace busies itself infighting. Our enemies see our weakness, make no mistake. They have not attacked for one reason, and one reason only.”
The Dao seal.They must have seen how the second son rained blades over the north and feared his strength. If Hesin was right, and Terren was the only thing keeping the nation from invasion, then it was a compelling reasonnotto kill him.
And if things weren’t so dire, I might have given it more consideration. Perhaps a small part of me might have even doubted the path I had chosen, the vow I had made to Wren the night Pima nearly bled to death.
But it was too late now, by far. I had gone too long down my path, risked too much, experienced too intimately the depth of Terren’s evil. There was absolutely no turning back.
And besides, I was no longer convinced Hesinwasright. There was so much he had gotten wrong already. Why the branch had broken off the Century Peach. What happened in the Eriet Mountains. The poisoned fish, Taifong’s death, the truth of why Terren turned against his brother. Hesin might have had decades of experience in politics, he might have served three generations of Azalea sons, but in the end, he was still only one man.
“That doesn’t change the fact that Terren is wicked,” I insisted. The hidden Blessing I was tracing on the rug, with the tip of my shoe, was almost complete. “The Dao seal does not sit the throne—the man bearing it does. A seal does not hold the title of emperor—a man does. You say you are loyal to Tensha, yet how can you let someone so evil write its laws?”
“Without the sigil,” Hesin snarled, “there may notbea Tensha. Now, I will say it one last time.Give me the—”
His knife flew out from his hand and slammed into the wall behind me. A heartbeat later, I had pulled it from the wall and pressed it to Hesin’s throat.
Orange sparks sizzled from the ground beneath my bedrobes, where I had drawn the spell, and more danced around the blade’s hilt.
“Ah,” he said, looking down at it calmly. “One of the prince’s disarmament Blessings. I should have seen it coming.”
