Descendant of the Crane(41)

Her father paused.

Yes, they did. He laid a hand atop her head, eyes crinkling as he smiled. Which is why you’ll be a better ruler than them all.

The memory melted away as Hesina opened her eyes. Her father’s voice faded. But in the near dark, she sensed his presence. He was here. With her. They were looking down at the chest together, at a…book.

A book.

Her disappointment outweighed the volume—a light thing, thin as the Tenets were fat, and in shockingly abysmal condition. The cover was singed in some places, stained in others, splotched with ink, grease, and a brownish substance that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Three characters ran down the right-hand side, but as luck would have it, Hesina couldn’t read the language, nor did she recognize it as Ci, Kendi’an, or Ning.

To make matters worse, the author would have dearly benefited from one of Hesina’s mandatory calligraphy lessons. The characters inside the book were squashed, and each short column of text contained several cross-outs. But that wasn’t what drove her mad. As illegible as the characters were, they tugged at her mind, and for the life of her, Hesina couldn’t figure out why they seemed so familiar.

Several hours and lexicons later, she slammed the book shut in disgust. Another dead end. If only the kingdom would wait for her as she cracked the language. But that was too much to ask for. The sun would go on rising; the court would go on assembling. The Kendi’ans would go on ignoring her letters; the people would go on fearing. All she could do was push up from her seat, pop the kinks in her back, and leave one unfinished duty for another.

She headed for the throne hall. The voices reached her before she reached them, buzzing through the carved double doors like hornets.

Hesina clenched her teeth. She knew what she had to do. What she had to say.

They weren’t going to condone the cutting and burning of innocent people, and they certainly weren’t going to perform a citywide sweep of the sooths based on some rumored sighting.

But they also weren’t going to stand by and let Kendi’a continue threatening their borders.

They were going to war.

Her vassals hushed as she entered, and the Grand Secretariat scurried forward once Hesina was seated, bearing a reed tube.

“From Kendi’a, my queen,” the woman murmured as Hesina loosened the twine securing the clay cap.

Her hands stilled. Then she ripped the cap free from the last of the twine. The roll of parchment slid into her palm.

She unfurled it to characters written in the common tongue.


To the Queen of Yan,

We have received your request for negotiations, and we accept. On the first day of the eleventh month, we will wait for you by the banks of the Black Lake. We hope you find this to be a suitable intermediary location. You may bring six companions of your choice, but no more.


Transcribed by Jikan the Scribe

Dictated by Tasn the Eunuch

Willed by the Dragon Who Wields the Fire, Crown Prince Siahryn, Fifth to His Name





THIRTEEN





THE FOUR KINGDOMS MUST BE KEPT IN PEACE.

ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON WAR


AT LEAST FEED YOUR PEOPLE BEFORE CONSCRIPTING THEM.

TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON WAR

Hesina was going to the Black Lake, and nothing Caiyan did or said could dissuade her.

That didn’t stop him from trying.

“If you go,” he said on the morning of her departure, two days after receiving the Kendi’an letter, “they might break the truce.” The two of them had climbed to the imperial mail room atop the eastern gong tower, stooped between the gabled ceiling and the bird droppings on the slate floor. “They make their demands—land, water, whatever it may be—and attack when you refuse. They may even kill you.”

It was troublesome, thought Hesina grimly, that everyone believed her so easily killed.

“In doing so, they force Yan’s hand,” continued Caiyan. “War will erupt over your death.”

“There will always be risks.” They’d come to a point in the debate where every argument and counterargument felt like the steps of a well-rehearsed dance. Maybe that’s why Hesina improvised with a little wave of the hand. “There might even be sooths.”

Caiyan’s expression hardened like clay, and she wished she could take back her words. She didn’t want to believe that the sooths had allied with the Kendi’ans, but she and the rest of the delegation were prepared—as prepared as one could be with anti-sooth paper talismans tucked into sleeves and shoes.

“I understand this isn’t ideal.” Doves cooed as Hesina passed the cages for Sanjing’s birds. “But I have to do something. And yes, I know,” she said before Caiyan could interrupt. “I know I promised I wouldn’t jeopardize my rule.”

She unlatched a cage. “But let’s consider the alternative: I don’t go. Kendi’a continues threatening our borders while the trial frames more suspects. The people grow more paranoid by the day. War erupts, I enact the first conscription in centuries, and my rule is jeopardized anyway.”

Caiyan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re comparing plums to persimmons.”

They weren’t all that different, in Hesina’s opinion.

“Any danger can be faced from the throne,” Caiyan insisted. “But out there? Without support?”