Descendant of the Crane(39)

Hesina. A homophone for “dying cranes,” something a younger Sanjing delighted to remind her of. Now he called her “Sina,” which was hardly an improvement; its homophone translated as “Are you dead yet?”

Mei seemed to be asking more or less the same question. “Does it look like I’m dying?” Hesina mumbled.

Mei spurred on the horse as if to say yes.

Hesina frowned. She was fine. Just tired. Sleep-deprived. Sleep…

“Why did you cut yourself?”

Just let me be. “I had to.”

“Why?” pressed Mei, and Hesina frowned.

“I wasn’t sure…if she’d bleed…”

…Like the rest of us.

Or like a sooth.

The next time she came to, Hesina was in the palace. Moonlight from the latticed windows varnished the silent halls. The coals were banked in the braziers, the incense burned down to stubs.

The fog in Hesina’s mind dissipated as Mei carried her, and suddenly she could taste the smoke again, thick with ash.

Her lungs seized at the memory of choking. Then she was choking. The world flashed from bright to dark to bright as it all came back, and she was cold, cold to the bone. She wanted to hide behind her father, bury her face in his cloak. She croaked for him, forgetting, for a single second, that he was gone.

Remembering was like losing him all over again. She cried out from the pain of it. Mei went faster, but they were going the wrong way. Hesina didn’t need the Imperial Doctress. She needed someone to lean on as she came apart.

“Take me to Caiyan,” she gasped.

Mei stopped short of the archway to the infirmary. “I may be in General Sanjing’s good graces, but he won’t forgive me if I let you die.”

“I’m not dying.”

“And I’m not soaked in your blood.”

Hesina could have invoked all her titles—there were a lot of them—and reminded Mei that her word was final. But she was through with being a queen for the day. “Please, Mei.”

Silence.

Mei finally sighed. “May the gods bless me in the afterlife.” Then she pivoted, taking them through the pillared gallery connecting the outer palace to the inner. Hesina’s stomach tightened as they entered the facades, but Mei didn’t slow for the images. The swordswoman set her down when they reached Caiyan’s rooms and knocked on the doors before Hesina could attempt herself. When they cracked open, Mei didn’t bother with a greeting.

“You might want to summon the Imperial Doctress,” she said, then vanished into the shadows.

The doors went wide.

“Milady? What’s wrong? Where are you injured?”

Hesina stared owlishly at Caiyan. Whatever the time, it was clearly late enough that Caiyan had traded paperwork for sleep. His hair had been released from a topknot, dark locks rumpled, and he wore his black-and-gold viscount hanfu like a cape over his nightclothes. He didn’t seem real in his state of disarray. She didn’t believe that he was real, not even when he caught her by the elbows as her legs gave.

“Milady—” He froze when he saw the blood on her sleeve. Then he helped her to the bed, paneled with carved herons to match his doors. “Let me summon the Doctress.”

“No.” She grabbed his hanfu’s cuff. “I just…I need…”

With horror, Hesina realized that everything she needed was out of reach.

A hiccup bubbled out of her. “She’s gone. T-they’re all gone.”

Her next hiccup merged into a sob.

Slowly, Caiyan sat. He gathered her close. In the safety of his arms, enveloped by his fresh-ground ink scent, Hesina cried until she could cry no more. Then, scooped clean like an autumn gourd, she drew new air into her lungs and recounted everything that had transpired.

Caiyan stacked his pillow logs behind her as she spoke, but she didn’t lean back on them. His support was all she needed.

“There now, milady,” he said when she finished. “You’re safe. As long as you’re safe, everything will be fine.”

Normally, Caiyan’s words soothed her. They were calm. Steady. They almost masked his heartbeat, jagged against her shoulder.

With a twist of unease, Hesina sank against the pillows at her back. “It was never fine. The Eleven freed the oppressed by oppressing their oppressors.”

Oppressed. Oppressing. Oppressors. Everything knotted like string in Hesina’s head, until she couldn’t distinguish beginning from end. “When will it end? When we will stop paying for the cost of peace?”

“I don’t know, milady.”

“But you must,” said Hesina in growing distress. Caiyan had an answer to everything.

Quietly, he rose. Paced to his windows. “One way or another, we pay. You can’t gain without relinquishing. For example, the Silver Iris may be gone, but you have gained your freedom.”

“Freedom?”

“From your secret.” He stared at the windows, even though it was dark, and even though the blinds were drawn and there was nothing to be seen. He turned back to face her. “No one shall ever know you spoke to her that night.”

Hesina struggled to untangle her thoughts. Caiyan was right. Her treason had died with the Silver Iris. But she wasn’t free. As long as the Eleven’s teachings persisted, fear ruled the people, not she.