Descendant of the Crane(102)

Keep calm, Hesina, she ordered, even as she fought for breath. She wasn’t guilty until proven so…the last of the evidence had died with the Silver Iris. Not even the madam of the Yellow Lotus music house could give testimony because Hesina’s hood had been up and Caiyan’s had been down and he couldn’t summon her as a witness without implicating himself and yes, it was fine. This was fine. It was going to be okay.

It’s going to be okay.

Yet she shrank back as Caiyan continued his descent down from the dais, drawing closer. “Though the sooth in question perished a few months back, I think you’ll find my evidence sufficient.”

Why? Simple. She hadn’t heeded his advice. She should have framed Xia Zhong and let him take the fall, not Lilian.

But…this was Caiyan. The brother who had withstood all of Sanjing’s jibes without lashing back, who had helped her through her imperial lessons.

Considerate, reliable Caiyan, who now ordered the first witness forward.

Hesina stared, breathless, pulseless, her heart fished out of her chest and left flopping somewhere on the limestone walk between them.

The witness came to the stand’s edge. It was a stern-faced woman in her forties whom Hesina didn’t recognize.

“State your name,” said Caiyan.

“Meng Hua.”

“Give your testimony.”

“Wait!”

Heads turned.

“Y-you can’t call these witnesses,” stammered Rou as every eye swung toward him, including Hesina’s. “That’s the Investigation Bureau’s job.”

Heavens be kind to him.

“The Investigation Bureau has signed off on the case,” said the director.

“Then this is a trial,” said Rou. “If this is a trial, Queen Hesina deserves a representative like anyone else.”

“I’m afraid you’re forgetting the first tenement of the Tenets, Prince Yan Rou of Fei.” Heads now turned to Xia Zhong. “If this were any other charge,” continued the minister, “the queen would indeed be granted a fair trial and have a right to a representative. Sooths and their colluders are the one exception, as stated in Passage 1.1.2. of the Tenets. But there is nothing to fear. Should Viscount Caiyan’s evidence prove flimsy by the court’s ruling, then we’ll go through the usual rites of selecting representatives.”

The rest of the court murmured in agreement. What the minister had said was, indeed, true. Hesina had known it even before she’d decided to seek out the Silver Iris. All she could do was send Rou a silent thank-you before Caiyan’s voice overtook the court again.

“Speak,” he ordered the witness. “How did you come to witness the event two and a half months ago?”

“I run a carpentry shop with my husband in the eastern sector. That day, the talk of the marketplace was of a borderlands village vanishing like a puff of smoke. Our customers said the Kendi’an sooths were to blame, which was no surprise to me. Maggots are born without souls. We all saw what happened to that scout at the queen’s coronation.”

“Did the rioters do anything else?”

“Yes. They stormed the red-light district because…Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” The woman’s upper lip curled. “That place is a maggot breeding ground.”

“Did you follow along?” asked Caiyan.

“Yes.”

“Did you see what the group did?”

“They rounded up some whores. Killed one.”

“Was the one they killed a sooth?”

“That’s what we thought, yes.”

“Did you see the blue flame yourself?” asked Caiyan.

“I was standing in the back of the crowd—”

“‘Yes’ or ‘no’?”

“I did,” confirmed the woman. “I saw it. But then the queen came along and made a whole show out of burning the place down. Those flames were blue, too, from all the spilled wine. It made some of us doubt, but I know what I saw. Blue flame, brighter than any flame I’d ever seen, erupting from the whore’s body.”

“Do you remember the queen’s reaction to seeing the body?”

“Yes. She was visibly upset. Threw up too. I didn’t think much of it then, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“Continue,” said Caiyan.

“How do I put it?” The woman shuddered. “It almost looked as if she mourned.”

Murmurs rustled through the court.

This was all some terrible fluke. Hesina clung to this belief, though it contradicted everything she knew about Caiyan. He succeeded in whatever he undertook. Her fate was as good as sealed. She should have been prepared.

But she wasn’t.

Without pausing for breath, Caiyan summoned the next witness.

When she saw that cream ruqun edged with hydrangea blue, Hesina felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and embarrassing. She was eight again, crying over some injustice she’d suffered at her mother’s hands, except this time there was no one to wipe the shame from her cheeks.

“State your name and occupation,” said Caiyan.

“Ming’er. I entered the imperial service sixteen years ago and have served as the queen’s lady-in-waiting for fifteen.”