Chapter 4
AZALEA HOUSE
The girl in the carriage with me was named Zou Minma.
She was eighteen and the daughter of a literomancer.
It had taken a while for us to speak—we did not much like each other, for clear reasons—but there was nothing else to do while the carriage rocked us over hills of famine-starved land, and so eventually we relented.
Her father wrote spells for mending clothing and blankets, which they sold in Guishan’s archives.
Both her older and younger brothers had gone to school, so I gleaned her family was moderately well-off.
I wanted to ask her if she had taught herself how to read in secret, but I knew that she would not tell the truth even if she had.
Girls did not speak of learning to read, not if they wanted to keep their lives.
And besides, she was very suspicious of me.
“How did you get the money?” she kept asking, one inked eyebrow raised. “There’s no way you could have gotten in without bribery—you don’t even know the first thing about being a concubine.”
“And you do?” I said. When she didn’t reply, I tried to figure out how to get more information from her and settled on flattery. “It’s very impressive that a girl in Guishan should know what life is like in the capital.”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “I’m not a dumb village girl like you. I know politics. I keep up to date with the succession war.”
“Succession war?” I played with my hands, trying to seem embarrassed that I was not aware.
Her lips curled up, clearly smug that she knew something I didn’t.
“Do you think Prince Maro is happy his brother was chosen instead of him, when he had been heir all his life? Do you think with all his power and allies, he would let Prince Terren even close to the throne? The two have been fighting for the Crown since they were old enough to know what it stood for. If it were possible to kill Terren, Maro would have done so long ago.”
Brothers fighting brothers. Brothers killing brothers. I tried to imagine Bao hurting anyone, even a sparrow, and could not.
“Is it really true?” I asked in a small voice. “That our prince has a spell that makes him unable to die?” As with all rumors about our princes that made it to Lu’an, I had no idea if this was the truth or an embellishment.
Minma glared daggers at me. “The Aricine Ward? You best hope it is true. If Terren does not live to become emperor, then what is the point of us serving as concubines? What is the point of us letting him plant us, over and over again, for the small chance that just one of the seeds will take?” She looked out the carriage then, at the hills barren of anything edible.
“What is the point of suffering if we have nothing to gain?”
It was towards the evening that I had my first glimpse of the Azalea House. The carriage had crested a hill, and because I smelled flowers, I thought to open the curtains and have a peek outside.
For a moment, I couldn’t even breathe.
The Azalea House was beautiful in a way that made me understand why scholars wrote poems. Some kinds of beauty were too large to hold with simple prose.
The palace, vermilion and striking, sat between two lush peaks through which the setting sun bled its light.
It was enormous and sprawling, with many-tiered pagodas and walkways and courtyards that were all visible only because I was still far enough away.
Around it, flowers bloomed on the hills in ten thousand colors, red poppy and yellow rapeseed and blue hyacinth, and many others I did not know the names of.
A huge red dragon was unfurling in the sky like a ribbon, chasing its tail with the slowness of clouds. I had not noticed it at first, because its colors had blended in with the setting sun, but as soon as I knew it was there, I could not look away.
“That dragon,” said Minma conspiratorially, “is the Crown of the Azalea House. He serves whoever the emperor is, and amplifies his magic a thousandfold. Guan Muzha now—but soon, Terren.” And then, with a calculated amount of threat in her voice, she added, “And after Terren, my own son.”
I tried to imagine my son with the Azalea Crown at his command and found that I could not.
It terrified me. I should have been more afraid of Prince Terren’s knife, the one that cut off tongues, but all I could think about was how much I did not want to be planted by him and have to hope that something magical would grow.
And if by some miracle of Heaven it did, I did not want to carry it in my belly for nine months.
But then I thought of my family, who needed me. And Bao, especially Bao. And so I hugged myself to keep warm and tried to imagine it anyway.
I tried to imagine becoming a high-ranking concubine in the court, sharing tea with the prince in those beautiful pagodas.
I tried to imagine bearing a son for Prince Terren, one with a seal.
One that would please him enough that he would not hurt me, and instead send Blessings all the way back to Lu’an.
I closed my eyes and held on to that image, because if I didn’t, I thought I might cry. Why had I told Ciyi to bring me so I could be the prince’s joke? Why had I told him it was fine for me to be laughed at, to be beheaded?
Later, when the air grew cool and the stars winked into view overhead, the carriage, at last, pulled to a stop.
I thought I would see Prince Terren as soon as I stepped out, the sigil for Dao glowing stark on his cheek. I imagined him pointing his sword at me and having me cut up on sight when he saw how unsuitable I was.
But he was not there. It was a quiet night, with only a sprinkling of guards at the arched gate. It had to be a side entrance, for how unassuming it was, tucked away behind branches heavy with blossoms and whistling nightbirds.
Of course he wouldn’t be here, I realized. The heir was too important to see two of presumably many candidates on arrival. I was ashamed of how much it relieved me.
Ciyi whispered something to one of the guards, who went inside. A moment later the door opened, and two young girls came outside in flowing robes.
“These are attendants from the House,” Ciyi said pleasantly. “They’ll wash you up and make sure you look presentable.” At the word presentable, his eyes flickered unsubtly to me.
I tried not to stare too long at everything as I was led inside.
Everything in the palace was so intricately made, from its ancient walls, brilliantly red, to the fountains and sculpted osmanthus trees.
As we went down a hall, along a courtyard, I noticed that even the smallest pillars had carved gold etchings on them, depicting ancient seal-bearing men fighting demons and moguei and more horrifying things.
Even the red lanterns lighting the walkway held stories, lines of verse inked on their papery sides.
At last, we arrived in a far, tucked-away wing of the Azalea House.
“This is the Hall of Earthly Sanctity,” said Minma’s attendant.
“Where the candidates will stay.” Hundreds of occupied chambers all faced a huge, peony-filled courtyard, candlelight flickering from every window.
“Selection Day is one month from now. If His Highness chooses to retain you as one of his thirty concubines, you will move to his East Palace, the Palace of Blades. If not, you will be sent home.”
“This way,” my attendant said, and pointed in the opposite direction that Minma’s attendant was about to lead her.
Before we became separated, Minma grasped my wrist without warning and leaned into my ear.
“You may be a village prude, and ugly, but you are also from Guishan. I do not wish for you to die. So let me warn you: do not trust any women in the court. We may not fight with swords and poems like the men, but we have other ways of fighting. You may think the women here are your friends, but we are all competing.”
“For the prince,” I agreed, because I thought what she said was obvious.
“For power,” Minma corrected. “Those who are starved are most desperate. And even the Ancestors know that women have long been starved for power.” We went our separate ways.