Descendant of the Crane(78)

Watch the drop, Little Bird.

She went sprawling so fast, dry heaving, that Akira couldn’t catch her. He crouched beside her, but she turned away—only to heave again. Her eyes watered with embarrassment as he held back her hair. She could never be a girl who blushed over simple things. Not as queen, not as…

She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut.

Not as the daughter of One of the Eleven.

Murderer. Hero. Monster. Savior.

She hurled again.

“I learned something about my father,” she gasped throatily when she was finished. At the very least, she owed Akira an explanation after nearly spewing on him. “But I need time…”

To accept? To heal? To vomit some more?

“To think,” she finished.

Akira nodded, then guided her back to her chambers. There, he made his one and only demand: that she drink a goblet of water.

“All of it,” he insisted when Hesina tried to get away with half. “Your insides need it.”

What her insides needed was a break from the truth. Her father had the face of a boy, yet was apparently three centuries old. He’d lived during the relic reign. Lived during the hunt for the elixir of immortality, which the Eleven had denounced. But if Hesina knew anything about the Eleven, it was that they did not do as they said.

She downed the rest of the water, knocking back a resurgence of acid. That seemed to satisfy Akira. He turned to go.

“Akira?”

He stopped.

She wanted to ask him to stay. She could have drunk a second goblet, just for him. But in the end, Hesina said a quiet “never mind” and let him go.

Alone, she took a long, shaky breath. Then she selected a lantern with very little wick left, tucked a medicinal candle that the Imperial Doctress had prescribed for insomnia into her sleeve, and threw on the thinnest of her winter cloaks.

I am the daughter of One, she repeated to herself as she made for the dungeons. She liked to think she shuddered a little less each time. I am the daughter of One. She passed through the facades and the Eleven’s stories—her father’s stories—stitched upon the silk. I am the daughter of One.

And she was on her way to see a sooth.

Tianlao was a misnomer. It literally meant prison in the sky. But these cells had never seen the light of day and were reserved for those who’d committed the highest treason. Hesina shivered as she descended. This was the underworld in flesh, a place to rot and die. The dark wound around her, judging her with its sightless eyes.

You belong here, don’t you?

The stairs bottomed out, bringing her before an arcade of black-iron gateways. A line of bronze-mailed guards stepped forward and bowed.

“Take me to the soothsayer.”

“Dianxia—”

“The people are scared. I’m here to see for myself that she is secured.”

They insisted that the sooth was, indeed, secured and warned her against proceeding farther.

Hesina didn’t speak. She used her silence to bleed their persuasion dry. Then, when they had nothing left to say, she took one step forward.

They reacted as she’d predicted, immediately circling her, their gazes fine-combing. They’d be patting her down if she weren’t their queen. But she had nothing to hide. She was weaponless; she wasn’t about to murder her elite guard. She was keyless; the tianlao key was melted down after every execution and reforged the dawn of the next. She gave them no reason to turn her away, and at last they escorted her down the arcade.

Doorways opened in the stone, leading to the crypts. The relic emperors had crammed them full of commoners suspected as rebels, left to defecate and die on top of one another. Hesina’s hand involuntarily rose to her heart. The emperors had committed unspeakable crimes. But her father—One—had too.

At the arcade’s end, five guards posted themselves at the final gateway, while two ducked under a smaller archway with her, leading her to the cell.

It was a protrusion of solid stone, curved like a kiln with thin, vertical slats carved at its base. When Hesina envisioned Mei carrying on in that lightless space, her throat closed. She set her puttering lantern to the ground and reached into her sleeve, drawing out the replacement candle. The guards at her sides didn’t move.

As she transferred the dying flame to the candlewick, Hesina launched a volley of questions. What kind of stone was the cell made out of? How durable was it? Was there enough oxygen within? Was there anyway Mei could hurt herself?

“I can’t have her dying before the execution,” she added sharply, detesting the words.

The guards assured her the sooth had no chance of dying before the execution. There was enough air in the cell, her hands were bound, the walls were padded. The medicinal candle burned as they spoke, and Hesina took shallow breaths. With luck, Mei would know to do the same by seeing into the future.

And the future arrived—quickly. The guards buckled, put to sleep by the candle fumes. Hesina lugged them to the wall as quietly as she could, trying not to alert the ones standing guard outside. By the time she managed to prop them in a sitting position, she’d gulped several mouthfuls of air and her own head spun.

Hurriedly, she unfastened her cloak. She drew it over the guards’ helmeted heads and slid the lantern beneath the silken canopy, where the fumes might be somewhat contained. Then she knelt by the cell, pressing her lips to the slats. “Your parents are safe. So are many others.”