Chapter 7 Mercy
MERCY
The hall was silent as the second son entered, dripping water with every slow step.
There was no palanquin to carry him, no servants to tend to him, no allies for company.
His gray robes were entirely plain. The only adornment he had on his person was an unsheathed sword, which he used as a walking stick.
He was shorter than in my nightmares.
There was no scowl on his face, but he did not need one.
There was enough menace in his black eyes to fill the entire room.
Beneath his rain-slicked hair, his 刀/Dao sigil burned like fire, though it was not the only part of him that was magic.
Around his whole body, a stream of Tenshan characters, arcane-white, swirled like glowing chains.
I wondered if it was the Aricine Ward I’d heard so much about, the legendary Blessing that made him unable to die.
“Something’s wrong with him,” the rosy-cheeked candidate whispered.
I blinked; she was right. The prince was not walking normally but stumbling with every step. Several times, he had to use his sword to stop from falling.
As he passed us, I caught the stink of rice wine, strong and sour and sick-making.
“Prince Guan Terren.” The herald’s voice was uncertain. “The Winter Dragon, The One Who Cannot Die, and the Second Son and Heir of the Azalea House.”
He had a hard time getting up the steps to his throne.
He actually tripped and fell—twice—but nobody went to help him.
Not the bannermen in the audience, not the hundreds of servants and guards stationed around the hall, not any of his half brothers.
The empress remained motionless in her seat, though she almost seemed like she was pleased.
“May you live a thousand years,” the guests said in unison. The standard greeting for an empress or a prince.
Terren barked out a laugh as he sank into his throne. “I doubt any of you actually wish that.” Even slurred, his voice was dark and dangerous. “I doubt any of you wish me to live even a day longer.”
A scared knot formed in my stomach, unbidden.
I had tried to prepare myself for the selection by imagining all the ways he could have been terrible, but this was one I could never have conceived of.
The few times I had seen men drunk like this, in Guishan’s gambling houses, they were always angry and throwing things.
And the only things near Terren were knives.
A stooped, white-haired eunuch stepped up to the dais. “If it pleases Your Highness, we will begin your selection now.”
“It does not, Hesin, but I am told we must anyway.” Terren produced a gourd flask from his belt, took a long swig, and wiped his lips with a draping sleeve.
The look of hate on Maro’s face could have burned steel.
The old eunuch named Hesin bowed and waved the first girl forward, who stepped onto the dais.
“Then, on behalf of the Second Son and Heir, and the Mother of the Inner Court, we begin.” He unfurled a scroll and read, “Kang Rho. Daughter of the Scarlet General Kang Zhulun, of Angxi City. Seventeen years old.”
“Discard her,” Terren said immediately. I did not think he had even looked at her.
From beside him, the empress’s mouth twisted.
“We will do no such thing.” She stroked her sleeping son’s head with a nail and turned to Rho.
“I understand, my dear, that your grandfather has given his life for the empire during the War of the Highlands. This sacrifice has not been forgotten. We will retain you as a concubine. In addition, we grant you one of two positions of Noble Consort.”
Rho’s eyes widened. The only rank higher than Noble Consort was Empress-in-Waiting. I knew it must have been a tremendous honor.
Hesin glanced warily at Terren, as if waiting for him to protest the empress’s decision, but the prince didn’t seem capable of speaking. His head kept tipping forward, eyes growing increasingly unfocused.
The eunuch swallowed and turned back to the crowd. “The House has made our decision. We thank Lady Kang for her family’s military achievements, and we grant her the title of Noble Consort.”
Whispers began immediately from every corner of the hall. Everyone seemed as shocked as I was. Prince Terren was powerful. He was the bearer of Dao magic, after all, the heir to the empire, the wearer of the mythical Aricine Ward.
Why was he not even choosing his own concubines? Why leave it to the empress?
The selection continued as Hesin moved to the next candidate. “Bi Lou. Daughter of Bi Byrou, governor of the East Valley District. Age sixteen.” A thin girl stepped onto the dais to await her judgment.
Terren’s head had slid to rest on the iron arm of his throne, his body gone still as ice. For a brief moment, I didn’t think he would respond, but at last he murmured half-coherently, “I tire of this. We already have one consort. Let us end the selection.”
“My dear prince.” The empress’s voice was gentle, as if speaking to a disobedient child. “As Mother of the House, I must remind you of your duty to fill your Inner Court entirely. It is hardly auspicious for so many pavilions to remain empty now, is it?”
One of Maro’s allies audibly scoffed.
Terren forced his head up until his eyes rested on Lou. “Women,” he said tiredly. “They’re all the same to me. We kept the last one, so let us get rid of this one.” He punctuated the pronouncement with another drink from his flask.
The ugly way he said women, like how Ba cursed the rats in our kitchen, sent a shudder through my spine.
Something was desperately wrong. The House had told us we were all here to be planted, to bear a magical son for Tensha and bring glory to the nation.
But if so, why was the prince so uninterested in us?
This time, the empress didn’t speak on the girl’s behalf.
Hesin waited for a while longer, and then he said, “The House has decided. We thank Lady Bi for her willingness to serve the empire. We dismiss her with a reward.” At his word, two maids stepped out of the shadows to hand Lou a red azalea pin and a small but bulging sack. She wept all the way to the doors.
The selection continued. As each candidate stepped onto the dais, Terren tried to turn them all away. The empress, for her part, mostly let him. Very occasionally, she stepped in like she had for Rho, retaining them and giving them titles. Virtuous Beauty. Honored Companion. Second-Rank Concubine.
She only did this for girls from important families, I noticed. It seemed far more politically motivated than for Terren’s benefit.
Minma was not chosen. When she stepped up to the dais, Terren dismissed her handily, in less time than it took to draw breath.
I was not surprised. She might have worked hard in the past month to make allies, might have spent the whole morning inking her brows, brush by brush, but none of it mattered when it was not the prince choosing but the empress.
And the empress chose only based on our family names.
Zou Minma might have been a city girl, but compared to everyone else here, her background was still unremarkable, a bonfire swallowed by the brilliance of suns.
As she was escorted out by guards, azalea pin scrunched in one fist, she turned back and searched the remaining candidates. When she found me, her eyes lingered. For a moment, there was an unreadable expression on her face, and then she turned around and was gone.
I swallowed something bitter in my throat.
I should have felt vindicated—for how cruelly she had laughed at Ba, how she had called me ugly and treated me like I was nothing.
But instead, I could only feel sorry for her.
I still remembered the light in her eyes, on the carriage ride here, when she had spoken of becoming mother to a prince. Now that dream would never come true.
If Minma wasn’t chosen, I thought, then surely I have no chance at all. At once I felt foolish, for coming here at all, for staking all the hopes of my village on an empty wish.
The line of candidates before me was dwindling. As my turn approached, I was not sure if I felt relieved or disappointed. Maybe the reward for coming would be worth something nice. Maybe it could be traded for haw candies on New Year’s.
“Sima Zhen of the Inner Sea District.” Hesin was now introducing the candidate right before me, the girl who had been crying earlier. “Daughter of Sima Emian, Distinguished Merchant of the Inner Sea. Age eighteen.”
By now Terren hardly seemed awake. He had been drinking wine without stop as the selection carried on, commanding Hesin to fetch a fresh flask every time he had finished his previous one. As Zhen stepped onto the dais, his head hung forward. His eyes stayed shut.
He did not notice her drawing a knife. Did not see her plunging it towards—
A knife. Half a gasp escaped my mouth before I could stop myself. By the time I had the sense to react, he should have already been dead three times over. But he was still sitting there, still alive, because Zhen’s blade never touched him.
The Aricine Ward had stolen his death. The band of Tenshan characters around him had lashed out, coiled itself around Zhen’s blade like chains, and stilled it mere breaths away from his heart. I thought I saw the faint outline of a white tiger flash behind the throne, but I blinked and it was gone.
Impossible, I thought, still half in shock. How could magic so powerful be true?
The crowd reacted all at once. Guests crying out, servants screaming, the remaining candidates huddling together like frightened geese. “Take the assassin away!” Hesin cried above the clamor. “Protect the prince!”
“No. Nobody move.” Terren’s voice was surprisingly lucid. His eyes fluttered open, as if waking from a long sleep.
The hall stilled. Zhen let go of the hovering blade—the ward coiling around it keeping it afloat in the air—and dropped onto her knees. “Your Highness,” she gasped. “Forgive me. My father made me do it … it wasn’t my idea…”