Descendant of the Crane(77)
But I can’t walk away. I’ve given up my mortality to come this far. We all have sacrificed so much. Our fallen ones are watching from the heavens above. Their deaths must not be for naught.
All I want is my name. I want it back, if just for a moment. Nine reminds us that we don’t belong to ourselves anymore, that we forfeited our identities the moment we took on the people’s cause. But right now, right here, I wish to be remembered as myself. I wish to remember the others not as Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, or Eleven, but as Moxia, Jin, Wang A-bao, Wang A-dou, Su Ennei, Zifen, Guo Xiao, Shi Ling, Kaishen, and Sima Lan.
May we go down as legends.
May we live on by the truth.
Li Wen
One of the Eleven
Year 000
Hesina’s legs gave.
“I’ve given up my mortality to come this far,” One had written.
She fell to her knees, but instead of meeting hard stone, they sank into wet dirt. She was back at her father’s coffin side, the beat of his heart against her cheek.
Father. Immortal.
She was in her room, spinning her mother’s silver lock, the metal bands slick under her fingertips.
0
0
0
000. The start of the new era. The day One of the Eleven was born as a ruler. The year her father had been born as a ruler too.
She was eight years old and sat on her father’s knee, sheltered in his candlelit study. Why did the Eleven restart the calendar, Father?
So that all lives could be reborn. Young, old, rich, poor, male, female—we all became children of the new era.
She was reading the Tenets, comforted and unsettled by the kinship she’d felt with a revolutionary, a murderer, his beliefs echoing with hers.
“WE WILL ALL BE REBORN AS EQUALS.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
Knowledge is truth, her father had said. Those who refuse to learn live in a world of falsity.
“KNOWLEDGE IS TRUTH.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON EDIFICATION OF COMMONERS
When you become queen, Little Bird, you must never abandon your people, even if they appear to have abandoned you.
“A RULER WHO ABANDONS HIS PEOPLE IS NO RULER AT ALL.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON MONARCHS
The best way of controlling a person is by reading his heart. And the clearest window to any heart is prejudice and assumption.
“OUR PREJUDICES AND ASSUMPTIONS REVEAL OUR TRUE SELVES.”—ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON HUMAN NATURE
Hesina let their voices fuse. Two halves of a whole. Two lies of a truth.
Li Wen.
One of the Eleven.
Actor, legend, sooth-slayer.
King of the new era.
Her father.
TWENTY-THREE
EVERYONE, REGARDLESS OF GENDER OR SOCIAL STANDING, WILL HAVE A FAIR CHANCE AT EDUCATION AND OCCUPATION.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
IT’LL BE SOMETHING SPECTACULAR. TRUST ME.
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON THE NEW ERA
Hesina didn’t know how long she stayed like this—on her knees, a thousand of her father’s gestures soaring past her as she plummeted, a million of his words kiting above her head as she fell further and further from the sky of his love.
She had loved a mask. She rejected the man beneath.
She rejected herself.
Betrayal buzzed up her veins, stinging. Her insides erupted with hives. Hesina scratched until it hurt to scratch, then curled in on herself with no intentions of uncurling ever again. Here lies Queen Yan Hesina, the histories would say. Lost her way in a tunnel and died from dehydration. They’d never know the real story—she’d died under the crushing weight of the truth—and it’d be for the better.
But the voices came before death could. Distant, at first. Hesina prayed they would go away. Then they grew closer, louder, until she could make out the words—and their speakers.
Caiyan, Lilian, Akira, Sanjing, and Rou.
They were searching for her.
She couldn’t be found. Not like this.
Hesina made herself stand and went out to meet them.
“Where have you been?” demanded Sanjing when she emerged from the narrow bottleneck of stone.
“We looked all over for you,” said Lilian, rushing over to clutch her.
“You were missing for an hour,” Caiyan added gravely.
Rou shivered. “We hit so many dead ends.”
“I—I got lost.” That was true. “I…I didn’t know what happened.” That was true too. For a flash of a second, she imagined telling them the whole truth. She craved to. She dreaded to. She yearned for their acceptance and shunned it at the same time. Because if they accepted her, she might too.
But she wasn’t ready. She couldn’t even think of the blood in her veins without wishing to drain it.
Caiyan suggested taking her to the Imperial Doctress. Sanjing snarled something back. Lilian smacked him, and Rou mentioned staggering their departures. Somehow, the argument ended with Akira leading her away after assuring the others that he knew the way back to the palace.
“I don’t actually know the way,” he said under his breath once they’d left the tunnels for the open streets.
Hesina directed him to the abandoned tavern and showed him how to dribble water down the guardian lion’s throat. But when it came time to descend into the passageway, her chest constricted as if they were going underwater. Each breath felt like taking in a lungful of memories. She must have made it a total of five steps before she heard her father’s voice.