Descendant of the Crane(105)

“Don’t waste your breath asking for forgiveness.”

“I know,” whispered Ming’er. “I just want you to know the truth.”

It was a little late for that, in Hesina’s opinion. “Hurry up and say what you need to say.”

“My fl—”

“Or leave, if you can’t control yourself.”

“It was Minister Xia.” Ming’er’s eyes brimmed. “M-Minister Xia found out about my daughter.”

Hesina’s gaze snapped to her. “You have a daughter?” Maidservants were forbidden from starting families of their own.

Ming’er nodded. “She was born early. The midwife didn’t think she’d live past her first namesday. Now, she’s seventeen—”

Hesina’s age.

“—still sickly, but so full of life. My sister takes care of her, and I send them my earnings to cover the cost of tinctures.”

A lump grew painfully in Hesina’s throat.

“I’m sorry.” Ming’er blotted at her lashes as tears eked out anyway. “I’m sorry.”

What did Ming’er expect her to say? I understand? I forgive you? You betrayed me, but for a good reason? Hesina felt a sudden surge of animosity toward Ming’er’s daughter. The girl had stolen the one mother Hesina had ever had.

“Get out of my sight.” But as Ming’er stumbled away, Hesina thought everything she couldn’t bear to say.

I understand.

I forgive you.

She pitied Ming’er, even though there was no one left to pity her. She was going to die tomorrow, and there was no kick in her chest, no urge to survive. What’s the point of clinging to a world that has abandoned you? her mother had asked. Now Hesina knew real abandonment. It was being queen of a kingdom that was clamoring for her execution. It was having nothing to live for.

Some time passed. She wasn’t sure how much, but enough for the guards to deliver a meal of watery congee garnished with some stringy scallions. It seemed rather pointless; Hesina wasn’t going to starve before dawn tomorrow. She pushed the bowl away, the bottom scraping against stone, almost covering the guards’ mutters.

“Serves her right.” Their voices were distant but amplified by the dungeon tunnels. “Now this kingdom will get cleaned up once and for all.”

Cleaned up.

They didn’t need to say “of what.” Sooths. Maggots. The feared. The unknown.

Have you…ever felt something for them? Hesina remembered asking Caiyan. He had shaken his head. Don’t show your sympathy, he’d said. Don’t speak your feelings. Don’t act on them. Don’t jeopardize your rule. Trust me.

She had listened. She had trusted. She had believed him like a brother.

Not anymore.

Now she listened to Mei, who told her to protect them. She listened to Lilian, whose sacrifice had saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of sooths from losing the only cover they had. She listened to her father, whose heart she finally saw. His words passed on a love for the truth, but his actions passed on love for the people. For them, he’d given up everything, truth included. But bloodstained or hallowed, cursed or celebrated, named or nameless, he had never surrendered. He’d filled the throne hall with ghosts; he’d returned to face them all the same.

Hesina would too.

Because tomorrow at the sixth gong strike, she wasn’t going to die.

She dragged the shaguo of congee close and choked it down. Then she closed her eyes and began to think.

She couldn’t simply escape. If the Tenets held her people in the throes of hatred, then she would continue her parents’ work of trying to destroy it, with or without her throne.

As she pieced together a plan, the outer prison doors whined.

More visitors? Becoming a fallen queen was doing wonders for her popularity.

“Sister!”

Hesina blinked, stared, and snapped her jaw shut. “What are you doing here?”

Rou splashed through a puddle, his shell-blue hanfu too bright for his mildewed surroundings, and knelt by the cell bars. “I can get you out of here. Just tell me where your master key is.”

And then he’d unlock her, and they’d stroll out of here and fly away on the backs of giant cranes. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I have a way.”

“Of getting past the guards?”

“You won’t believe me if I explain it now,” said Rou. “Just…trust me.”

In other words, let me put my life on the line with yours.

Hesina didn’t need more blood on her hands. “No.”

“Do you want to live or not?”

Stunned, she stared at Rou. It was hard to see past his pale, peaky features, to the boy who’d helped the sooths and spoken up for her today when no one else had. By the time she did, Rou was already blushing and saying, “You have to live, Sister,” like his normal self, but then all Hesina could hear was his voice of fire and stone.

Do you want to live?

Yes.

Yes, she wanted to live.

Yes.

But not alone. Not in a world without family or friends. Hesina bit her lip and dared to ask, “Can you get Akira out too?”

“I promise I can.”

“Then listen closely. The master key is in my vanity drawer, but you can’t be the one to fetch it.”