Descendant of the Crane(55)

“You are many things,” Hesina spat, empathy evaporating. “But I didn’t think ‘murderer’ would be one.”

“He was a leper who knew his time in this world was nearing its end. I gave him enough gold so that his family would be provided for after his death. It was a transaction, much like ours.”

A transaction. The words jarred purpose back into Hesina. She hadn’t come for Xia Zhong’s tragic backstory. She’d come for Mei.

“Release the suspect, and I’ll give you whatever riches you desire.”

Xia Zhong went to his kang and sat. “I can’t release her,” he said as he spread out rolls of parchment. “It would interrupt the interrogation.”

Interrogation?

“I can grant you visiting privileges, seeing that the Investigation Bureau has suspended them.”

Interrogation. Torture. Imprisonment. None of this had happened to Consort Fei. Hesina’s mouth opened, then closed. What could she do? Accuse him of being unfair? The game they played wasn’t fair.

Visiting privileges, Xia Zhong had offered.

It was better than nothing, and nothing was all Hesina had.

“Write the document,” she ordered.

The minister already was. “What would you like to trade?” he said as he stamped it with his seal and held it up to dry.

Too late, Hesina realized she had nothing on her. Nothing but her travel-worn ruqun and her imperial seal, the dusty slippers on her feet and the hair on her head.

And the pins in her hair. Most were small, whittled from whalebones imported from the Aoshi archipelago, hardly worth a silver tael combined. Knowing what she knew now about Xia Zhong, they wouldn’t satisfy him.

Only one pin would.

She hadn’t removed the crane pin since her coronation. Slipping it out now felt like relinquishing another piece of her father. Recognition lit in Xia Zhong’s eyes, and Hesina’s throat squeezed as his fingers pinched the jade length. She forced hers to let go.

The minister pocketed the pin and lifted the document. “Not your father’s daughter after all,” he said as she, in exchange, pocketed the visiting privileges.

Hesina froze.

Anger was a form of confidence, Mei had said, but her anger toward Xia Zhong was fire and acid. It corroded rationale, reducing her to pulse and impulse. She was a reaching arm. A seizing hand.

She wrenched the minister’s beads into a noose around his neck. “You’re wrong.”

He had the audacity to laugh. But then she gathered beads into her clutch, and the laughter stopped. His face reddened. Purpled. Spittle frothed at his mouth, and Hesina knew she was close. To cutting off his air. To appointing a new Minister of Rites.

All it’d take was one more bead.

It shouldn’t have been a decision. She’d come to bargain, not murder. But there was a moment of teetering, of peering into an abyss that called to her, before she pulled herself back and yanked.

Xia Zhong fell to his knees, gasping as beads bounced around him.

Hesina’s hands rose to her own throat. Flesh and blood. That was all they were, even Xia Zhong. Had she really considered ending him?

No, she was just trying to scare him.

She was sending a message.

She was asserting her power.

Her hands twitched as she told herself these lies.

“There is only one thing we have in common, Minister Xia.” Clenching her hands, Hesina turned for the threshold. “We’re not who we think we are.”

With a sweep of brocade, she crossed into winter’s chill.



If she regretted choking Xia Zhong, she didn’t the moment she saw Mei. The swordswoman lay unmoving in the corner of the cell, her fingers swollen to the size of baby daikon radishes. Scarlet and plum banded around the knuckles, hallmarks of the bone-cruncher. It was the only legal interrogation instrument of the new era, able to inflict excruciating pain without breaking skin.

Caiyan went straight to Mei’s side, setting his lantern onto the hay-scattered prison cell floor and unstacking his medicine box. Lilian joined him, removing instruments from the trays.

“Get away from her,” Sanjing growled, advancing.

Akira checked the general with his rod at the same time Lilian said, “Touch one hair of his, and I’ll castrate you myself.”

Sanjing’s fury jolted Hesina out of her own, and she seized her brother by the arms. “Control yourself, Jing.”

“Control myself?” Sanjing barked a laugh. “You bring him and expect me to control myself?”

“You asked for Caiyan.”

“I asked for anyone but the Imperial Doctress. I guess I should have known that you’d run for your manservant.”

“He knows what he’s doing.”

“In your eyes, he knows everything under the sky. What’s the worst injury he’s seen?” snarled Sanjing. “A paper cut? How many broken bones has he set?”

“More than you.” Lilian handed off a roll of gauze to Caiyan and rose, bringing herself chest to chest with Sanjing. “And if you don’t shut up, he’ll have to set yours too.”

A muscle ticked in Sanjing’s jaw. Hesina tried to pull Lilian back, but Akira took Hesina’s arm first, shaking his head.

Then Caiyan finally spoke. “She’s going to be all right,” he said, his hands deft at work, applying poultices, binding linen, aligning splints. Sanjing was right in thinking that most courtiers wouldn’t know the medicinal arts, but most courtiers also hadn’t grown up in the slums, where brawls led to broken bones, and broken bones led to infection and death. Caiyan tied off the last splint, and with a twang of nostalgia, Hesina recalled the time he had done the same for an injured sparrow in the imperial orchards. They’d been twelve and ten, respectively, but the gap between them was one bigger than age.