Descendant of the Crane(23)

Now the court stood for her, sat for her. The director of the Investigation Bureau stepped onto the dais, wearing the standard malachite and black court hanfu and winged wusha cap. He bowed before the balcony. “May we begin?”

“We may,” said Hesina. She scanned the ranks, finding Caiyan. He touched two fingers to his chin; she lifted hers higher. Next she found Xia Zhong, who gave her a nod before returning his attention to the director. The stocky official had unfurled a scroll.

“Welcome to the 305th court,” he boomed. “The case in question today is that of the king’s murder. The plaintiff is our queen, Yan Hesina. For the first round, we will present the representatives, preliminary evidence, and suspect on the stand. Allow me to introduce the scholars representing both parties. The defendant’s representative: Hong Boda of the Yingchuan Province!”

The great doors opened.

The scholar assigned to defend the suspect, a young man of average build, had tried—and failed—to grow a beard. His brows, in comparison, put his facial hair to shame; they were fat like silkworms, inching up as he covered his mouth with a sleeve and yawned.

“Next, we have…” The director frowned at his scroll. “A-ke-la of the Niu Province.”

And they were already off to a bad start.

“Oh my,” whispered Lilian as Hesina cringed. “Is that how you say his name?”

“No.” There weren’t any Yan characters that could represent the exact phonemes in Akira’s name. “It’s Akira.”

“Much better.”

Hesina leaned forward in her seat as Akira entered the court. Three weeks had passed since their duel, and she scrutinized him as he ascended the dais. On the whole, he looked…almost decent. Like the defendant’s representative, he wore the black-and-white scholar’s hanfu, which was baggy enough to hide most of his sharp angles. Though his hair was an awkward length, too long to leave loose and too short for a topknot, it’d been tied back in a short, brown tail. And the cuts and bruises on his face had mostly faded. Hesina sighed in relief.

Lilian wasn’t quite as impressed. “I was expecting more.”

“More what?”

“I don’t know. Girth. Muscles?”

“Muscles would be very helpful in court.”

Lilian sniffed. “You never know what might come in handy.”

What would be handy right about now was an edible sort of insecticide to kill all the dragonflies in Hesina’s stomach. Today was just a formality, she reminded herself. The presentation of the representatives, evidence, and suspect was like the distribution of an exam, and not the exam itself. Keel over now, and she’d miss the real trial.

The director presented the preliminary evidence. The king had been poisoned; Hesina had delivered half of the sample herself. On the day of his death, no one had left the palace. No one had entered. There were other ways of coming and going, as Hesina knew best, but the passageways were a secret between father and daughter. They didn’t show up on any map that could be purchased, which reduced the likelihood of a foreign assassin. No, the suspect was someone in this kingdom.

Someone in this palace.

The dragonflies in Hesina’s stomach multiplied as the director rolled up his scroll. “Finally, allow me to present the first suspect.”

He said a title. He said a name. The title and name rang in Hesina’s ears like a misplayed note.

It couldn’t be.

It made no sense.

How could a concubine who never left the Southern Palace be suspected of killing Hesina’s father?

The great doors swung open, and everyone craned their necks, compulsively drawn to the most enigmatic member of the imperial family. Hesina couldn’t move. She couldn’t even react, astonished as she was when it wasn’t Consort Fei who came down the aisle, but her son, Rou.

Whispers percolated through the ranks as Rou ascended the dais. The director frowned. “Do you go by the title Noble Consort or the name Fei?”

“No.”

Her half brother’s squeak brought Hesina back to herself. A chill prickled over her skin as the director followed his question with, “And are you the one charged with regicide?”

No. Her confusion turned to nausea. Consort Fei. Regicide. The words sounded wrong together, like a wedding ballad at a funeral.

“No,” repeated Rou.

“Then why are you here?” demanded the director.

Rou quaked in his shell-blue hanfu, and Hesina grimaced when he struggled to project his reedy voice. “There’s been a mistake. My mother couldn’t possibly have killed my father.”

Jeers surged from both the upper and lower galleries. The director swept out his sleeve, and the rumble quieted. “Mistake or not will be up to the court to decide.”

“N-no.”

“No?”

“I—I can vouch for my mother.”

“Yes,” dismissed the director. “Any filial son would.”

“Please.” Rou spun in a shaky circle, looking to the ranks as if they were the walls of a well he had to scale. “She never left the Southern Palace that day. She—”

“An accusation is not a sentence, Prince Yan of Fei.”

Hesina’s gaze snapped to Xia Zhong. He sat among the other ministers, a dull rock against a bed of gems. But his voice wasn’t unkind when he continued, “Your mother has a representative to defend her. Let justice run its course.”