Descendant of the Crane(72)

Hesina crouched, met the woman’s eye, and made her voice steady even as she shook inside. “I’m here to lead you to safety.”

“Lies.”

“No.” Her brother joined her, his expression strained. It must have cost him to be here instead of with Mei. “It’s the truth. It was her wish.”

Recognition sparked in those russet eyes, lighting into rage. “You,” hissed the mother, and Hesina flinched even though the anger wasn’t directed at her. “I warned her that day. I told her not to follow you out of this apothecary.”

Sanjing stilled to stone—as did Hesina, when distant shouts floated through the oil-paper windows.

“Milady,” Caiyan murmured in warning.

Hesina seized Mei’s mother by the arms. If a sooth could break a jar by moving it into a future state, maybe a sooth could break Hesina too. She didn’t fully understand their powers.

She didn’t care.

“Mei’s been put into the tianlao cells of Heavenly Sin,” she said, enunciating each word clearly. “Cells that not even my master key can open, patrolled by a dozen of the elite guards at all times.

“Tonight, I will go to her. No matter what, I will tell her I carried out her last wish and moved both of you to safety.” Hesina released Mei’s mother from her hold, but not her stare. “I hope I won’t have to lie.”

Then Hesina rose. Straightened. Exhaled. “The people will be scared. Their fear will overpower their humanity. You may remember some as neighbors, friends, and customers, but they won’t remember you. To them, you’ll just be monsters. Maggots.” Her voice fell quiet. “Something to be destroyed.”

Outside, the shouts drew closer.

“There is no safety in this city,” Mei’s mother finally said. Her gaze flickered around their little shop, to the wall of medicine cabinets, the red paper cutouts pasted on the rafters for luck. They’d carved out this fragile existence for themselves. Hesina was taking it away.

“Maybe not,” she said. “But I know of a place where you’ll be safe for the time being.”

“I won’t hide and leave the others to die.”

Convince her. Lie if you must. “Then we’ll lead them to safety as well.”

The shouts turned their way.

“Come,” Hesina begged. “Please.”

Dismay strangled her as Mei’s mother turned away. But then the woman slapped her husband into semiconsciousness, coaxing him up to his feet. She draped his arm over her. “He’s not as light as he looks,” she warned as Lilian took the other.

“No man is,” Lilian grumbled.

They went through the back cellar and out the half door, checking both ways before slipping into the alleyway. They were but twenty paces down when shouts erupted from the apothecary.

Hesina quickened her lead.

“Where are we going?” Rou asked as she took them past the tavern from which they’d come.

She let the way answer for her.

They went down a set of crumbling, moss-covered steps and came to the shrine. Not the imperial-sanctioned one where commoners went to pray for healthy children and grandchildren, but a dilapidated structure that kings and queens before Hesina had considered tearing down and replacing with a public well. Ministers of Rites had advised against it, citing the presence of vengeful spirits Hesina had never encountered herself. Only thieves visited this shrine, and they’d pilfered everything but the praying mats, furred with mold, and the altarpiece, veiled in spider silk. The tablet underneath was etched with strange symbols, but Hesina’s heart stopped as symbols became words.

To the gods who betrayed us.

The characters were complex Yan. Just like the original Tenets, the shrine must have existed three centuries ago. Everything in this kingdom was older than Hesina expected, and with a spurt of vexation, she yanked aside the hemp skirt encircling the altar base, revealing a hole in the ground.

They crawled in one after another, with Hesina going last. She fixed the altar skirt behind her before turning, momentarily disoriented by the dark. A hand caught her wrist, and she followed its pull down the steps, bumping into Akira once they reached flat ground. Rou complained about the low visibility. Hesina, red in the cheeks, thanked it.

“Hold on to the person in front of you,” she ordered, then strode down the very passageway in which she’d lost her way so many years ago. After her father had rescued her, she had returned, determined to learn it once and for all. Something about being here again, in this place where she’d conquered her fears, made her bolder.

Rasher.

The need to do the right thing took root in her mind, and as they went down a slope, the tunnel yawning ever wider, Hesina faced Mei’s mother. “Tell us where the others are.”

The population pockets of sooths, she learned, were scattered all across the imperial city. Hesina was suddenly glad the others had insisted on coming. Once they reached the cavern, she turned on her group.

“Do you all remember how to get here?”

They nodded.

“Rou, gather the sooths in the red-light district.” Her half brother flushed, and Hesina backtracked. “Lilian.”

“On it.”

“Sanjing and Akira, to the trading sector. Caiyan—”

“I’m coming with you,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument.