Descendant of the Crane(65)

Brown? Hesina looked down and saw the mud reaching up from the hem of her skirts. To explain it would require explaining everything, including her father’s not-dead state, his theoretical immortality, the poison meant to kill him, and the dowager queen who’d done it.

The words pushed against Hesina’s lips. She could have vomited them out. But not here where the maids might overhear.

“Father’s study,” she croaked, and the blush immediately cleared from Caiyan’s complexion. Lilian straightened. The twins followed Hesina through the knit of corridors into the king’s study. Hesina bolted the zitan doors.

Akira came to stand by her, and she braced herself before facing the twins.

The hardest part was starting. Once she opened her mouth, she couldn’t stop, and when she finished, Hesina felt ten times lighter—lighter and barer. There. She’d given Lilian and Caiyan every reason to walk away from her. She was their sister, but not in blood. She didn’t have a choice but to accept her father. They did.

Her fear spiked when Lilian frowned. “Na-Na…have you been dipping into the jiutan?”

“I’m not drunk, or hallucinating. I saw it with my own two eyes.” And felt the beat of his heart, and the brush of his breath.

“It’s true,” said Akira, earning himself a grateful glance.

Of the twins, Caiyan was more likely to reject myth and superstition. But when he said, “I believe you,” and Lilian sighed and did too, Hesina loosed a breath of appreciative relief.

Caiyan started pacing, a fist cuffed over his chin in thought. “Why do you suspect the dowager queen?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Hesina had been justifying her mother’s actions for too long. Was she wrong to see the facts for what they were?

“Do you have hard evidence?”

“I have the poison.”

“But can you prove that she was the one to set it?”

“Still trying to identify the residue on the goblet,” said Akira.

The whirlwind of her thoughts slowed, and Hesina nodded. If the residue matched the poison in the vial, then the poison had been served in the goblet. The next step would be to trace the goblet’s origins. Whoever had delivered it would be their first true suspect.

But none of that was going to happen before Mei stood trial tomorrow. “I have to stop the trial.”

Lilian went to her favorite daybed but didn’t lie down. “How?”

If Hesina could commit treason to bring the trial into existence, she could commit treason to end it. But it was out of her hands, sustained by the machinery of court and law.

She joined Caiyan in pacing the length of the study, then came to a stop at the wall of books. She’d been thinking in the wrong direction.

The solution wasn’t to commit more treason.

It was to admit to what she’d already committed.

“I can show the people that the trial was never legitimate.”

“How—”

Hesina whirled on Lilian. “Xia Zhong,” she said breathlessly. “If the court learns that he didn’t select Akira at random, the trial will be terminated.”

Lilian blinked. “But won’t he claim you forced him to? I’m all for taking out the slug, but not if it means implicating yourself.”

“She’s right,” said Caiyan. “He’s not worth it, milady.”

“Are you saying Mei isn’t worth it? Or the others who will inevitably be framed?” Hesina’s voice rose as her fears spiraled. “This isn’t about Xia Zhong. This isn’t some scenario where I can cut my losses and walk away. Yes, this trial will come to an end, but only on the day I let it claim an innocent as its victim.”

The study had gone deathly quiet.

“If I sink,” Hesina said firmly, “Xia Zhong sinks with me.”

“Na-Na…”

“Have you thought about the people, milady?” Caiyan stopped midpace and faced her. “Ending the trial prematurely won’t answer the question of who killed the king. The uncertainty will poison their minds. Suspicion will mount against everyone, not just the Kendia’ns.”

People aren’t like that, Hesina might have once said. But she no longer could.

“Let Akira acquit Mei the way he acquitted Consort Fei,” continued Caiyan. “Gain another victory over the Investigation Bureau. Rattle the court, and show them who the villain really is. Then…”

“Then?”

“Frame Xia Zhong for the king’s death. Kill two birds with one stone. Rid yourself of an enemy, and avoid condemning your own mother for the king’s death.”

“For once, I approve of this political underhandedness,” said Lilian as Hesina stared at Caiyan, dumbstruck. He wasn’t suggesting anything beneath what Xia Zhong might do himself, but the proposal, coming from her brother’s lips, unsettled her.

“How confident do you feel about acquitting Mei?” she finally asked Akira.

“If it’s fabricated evidence again, decently confident.”

Hesina didn’t like this plan. But the same could have been said for every plan she’d made since rising to the throne. And Caiyan had a point. He always did.

“I won’t reveal my treason yet,” she said, and relief fanned over Caiyan’s face. “But we’ll discuss this again after tomorrow.”