Descendant of the Crane(79)

Her anxiety swelled with the silence. Was Mei gagged? Hurt? Unconscious?

There came some hmming, some shuffling, a quiet breath, and—Hesina’s heart jumped—words.

“Thank you.” Muffled, quiet, but audible.

Hearing Mei’s voice brought Hesina little comfort. In the morning, the swordswoman would be cut a thousand times, kept alive to the very last slice by a silt-coated knife that would clog the wounds and prevent them from flaming. Mei would die because of the Eleven’s Tenets, and because Hesina was a queen. She couldn’t bring down entire kingdoms for a single soul. She could do all she wanted in the dark, but in the light, she had to choose her people. She always had to choose her people.

Still, desperation made Hesina forget herself. “I’ve put the guards out,” she whispered, tripping over her tongue in a rush to speak. “I can try to think of a way to distract the others. But I can’t open this cell. Can you…can you do anything like the girl who manipulated the sand?”

“Hold out your hand.”

Hesina did as Mei instructed. She bit back a gasp as her hand vanished. She could still feel it, but it had melted seamlessly into the cell’s shadow, which had simultaneously grown bigger. She wiggled her fingers, and they remerged.

“All light dims,” said Mei. “So it’s as simple as moving light to a future state of darkness.”

Simple to a sooth, perhaps. “That’s how you make your shadows.”

“Yes, that’s how I make my shadows. But light and dark are no match for rock.”

“It’s possible though? To change the stone?”

“Yes. Some sooths were so powerful that they could See the future right up to the world’s end. They could turn anything into ash, stone included.” Mei paused. “But they don’t exist anymore.”

The blood in Hesina’s wrists throbbed. “Because of the purge.”

“Yes, but not in the way you think. Do you know why our blood flames?”

Hesina shook her head before remembering Mei couldn’t see.

But Mei had already Seen. “It’s because our power is a flame,” she answered without missing a beat. “But untamed power is like a flame that has overtaken its wick. It may illuminate; it can also destroy. Every sooth used to undergo years of training at the imperial academies, learning to tame the flame. The purge killed that institution. Now, the powerful ones can’t access their powers without literally burning up.”

There were other limitations to what sooths could do. They couldn’t See their own futures, and the futures they did See came in brief flashes, one in a hundred possibilities. The most talented sooths could narrow a hundred down to ten, but the future was volatile whenever people were involved. Predicting the fate of a kingdom was a tall order.

“It’s why the emperor’s sooths failed to foresee the overthrow,” explained Mei. “The Eleven were supposed to die, but in the darkest of moments, humans surprise.”

Mei was trying to distract Hesina, and to Hesina’s chagrin, it worked. For once, knowledge did feel like truth. Everything she learned filled in another blank the books hadn’t.

Were sooths able to detect other sooths?

Not in any special way. There were small behavioral tells, but nothing was as reliable as blood.

How many had both the Sight and magic?

The Sight existed independently, but the Reel (“magic” was simply reeling in the line of time, moving future to present) required the Sight. One in every five used to be born as Reeler. Now, with the loss of so many strong bloodlines, it was closer to one in every twenty.

A thought crept into Hesina’s mind. “Have any been able to See into the past?”

“Theory on that remains sparse,” said Mei. “Kings never cared about the past. All they wanted was to know how to conquer the future.”

Hesina could have listened to Mei talk forever. But they didn’t have forever. These were Mei’s last hours, and here she was, giving them to her.

“Mei…” Hesina started, then stopped. She couldn’t apologize, or make empty promises, or comfort her, not when she was so scared herself. “Did you know?”

That I would fail you?

That my kingdom would fail you?

All this time, Hesina had acted strong for Sanjing. She didn’t want to pretend anymore.

“Did you?” she choked out when Mei didn’t answer.

“Hesina, let it end here.”

“Stop.”

“I See a future without me.”

“Stop.”

“I See a future where the people are convinced I killed the king, and I was rightly put to death. I See this kingdom moving beyond this trial, healing, growing stronger. Let it end here. With me.”

No. Hesina should have listened to Caiyan. She should have framed Xia Zhong when she’d had the chance. She should have done a thousand things differently. She should have had no regrets.

“Will you be there at dawn?”

Mei didn’t specify where. She didn’t need to for Hesina’s stomach to plunge. She’d read about sooth executions, how terrible they were to watch after the hundredth cut, how some sooths were force-fed concoctions, kept alive until the very end. Her voice wobbled when she said, “If you want me.”

“I’d like a familiar face in the crowd.”