Chapter 7 Mercy #2
The way Terren looked at her, as if she had told a joke nobody else in the room found funny, made my blood turn to frost. Hesin must have seen that look too. “Your Highness, please,” he said hurriedly. “Let us take her to Heaven’s Worship, where we may question her according to procedure.”
“No need. I shall deal with her myself, here and now.”
For the first time all morning, the prince was alert.
His dark eyes fixed intently on Zhen, as if he had not had trouble keeping them open mere moments before.
“I had thought my selection would be a torturously boring piece of theater, but it seems the Ancestors are kind today. They have sent me entertainment.”
Zhen let out a choked sound and shuffled backwards.
“Terren.” Maro stood from where he was seated by the Salt Road merchants. “Do not forget yourself. This is the Azalea House, and there are procedures to be followed. You must not dishonor our father and our Ancestors.”
Terren’s eyes flicked to him. “Ah, Maro. You plead on behalf of an assassin. An ungenerous interpretation would be that you also wish me dead.”
Maro’s hands clenched into fists. “The only thing I am pleading on behalf of is the Crown’s dignity. Whatever you are about to do, don’t do it. Not in front of all these honored guests. Not in front of Ruyi!”
The fifth son had awakened sometime during the selection and sat blinking at us with big eyes. With a shaking hand, and a look of pure enmity at Terren, the empress turned the infant’s head away.
Terren’s eyes never left Maro. “I do what I please. I am the rightful heir, after all.” His voice was calm, not argumentative, and that seemed to rile his brother even more.
“And besides, I had only planned to be more merciful, not less.” His gaze traveled to Zhen, who whimpered.
“Surely you are aware of the usual punishment for what you have attempted. The Extermination of Nine Relations.”
Tears streaked through the powder on the girl’s face.
“Though it is an inconvenient process, I must admit. To hunt down so many grandparents, siblings, and cousins. It is much simpler to let you go.” With a flare of his sleeve, Terren gestured to the open gates, beyond which the rain still poured—a dozen pillars away, all the way across the length of the hall.
“Leave, Zhen. Once you make it to the doors, I will see to it that we spare your family too.”
My chest seized with terror. There was not a chance this wasn’t a trick. Zhen seemed to realize it, too. She stayed on her knees, shivering like a leaf in the wind.
“What are you waiting for?” the prince said, becoming impatient. “Do you not wish to live?”
“Terren,” Maro warned again.
He ignored him and leaned closer to the assassin. “Don’t worry,” he said, as if telling a special secret to a child. “My aim is not very good. As you can see, I am quite drunk at the moment.”
That finally seemed to startle her into motion. She climbed hesitantly to her feet, took two slow steps along the moss path that Maro had made. Then, as if making a quick decision, she bolted for the gate.
Terren waited until she was halfway across the hall before raising an arm. There was a flash of his 刀/Dao sigil, and then the blades on the ceiling rattled like chimes.
Instantly, everyone realized what was about to happen.
Guests, servants, and candidates all screamed as they leapt out of Zhen’s trajectory, and I cried out as I dove after them.
Half a heartbeat later, the knives rained down.
Clattering against the wooden pillars, plunging through the tables, shattering porcelain plates, cutting through carpet.
A sword caught Zhen in the arm, then another in her leg.
She screamed and dropped to all fours, but kept crawling forward, a smear of blood emerging in her wake.
Terren watched her progress silently from his throne. When she drew close to the gate, he sent down a second shower of swords. One of them clipped her shoulder. A second plunged into her back and out her belly, its tip glistening red.
Zhen collapsed onto her side, sobbing incoherently.
I was close to crying myself. All the rumors were true.
Prince Terren really was as wicked as all the stories—maybe even more so.
During my month in the palace, a small, childish part of me had still been hoping that the crown prince wasn’t really cruel, that they had only said he was.
I had even hoped he might turn out kind.
I should have known better than to indulge in such foolish fantasies. None of them, not even Maro, were kind. I had gone to Guishan all those empty New Year’s mornings. I had known what they were all like.
Terren’s sigil had stopped glowing now, the blades lying on the ground motionless. In the lingering silence, I could hear only the rain—and the scrape, scrape of Zhen dragging her body forward by her arms. With each movement, she grew slower, feebler.
Let her suffering stop, I begged of the Ancestors, sick to the pit of my stomach. Let this end quickly.
She was so close to the gate now that for a brief moment, I thought she might make it. That she might really feel the rain on her cheeks before death took her, save her nine levels of relations from a similar fate. But at only an arm’s length away from the gates, she spasmed and went still.
Nobody said a word.
Isan sat statue-silent among his men in blossoms; across from him, by the South Sea sailors, Kiran had taken a sudden interest in his tea. Even Maro seemed subdued, his face a dark mask of defeat.
It was Terren who broke the silence. “A pity. It seems we must exterminate her family after all.” When nobody responded, an uncanny smile appeared on his face.
“Shall we resume, then? I believe we were in the middle of my selection. Say, Empress Sun, didn’t you mention I must fill my Inner Court completely? ”
The empress clutched her son tighter, her scowl deepening.
Terren turned to the old eunuch. “Well, Hesin? I am not used to repeating myself, but I will if I must.”
“Your … Your Highness.” Still half-dazed, the eunuch returned to the dais, bowed to the prince, and turned to the next candidate in line, which was me.
I did not know how I made it to the dais, with how much I was shaking. I could hear every thump of my heart as I forced myself to stand in front of the prince.
In Guishan, when I’d prayed to the Ancestors, it had been Let me be chosen.
And maybe if I was braver and more worthy, I could have kept praying for the same.
But after all that had happened, with the air redolent of wine and blood, with the knives strewn all over the ground, with Zhen’s body cooling in the same room, I found I could not make myself brave.
When I sent a prayer into the earth, it was only Let the prince spare me. Let me return to Lu’an alive. I prayed that I could marry a city boy like Ma wished for me originally, and that the Azalea House might exist only in stories once again.
“Yin Wei of Lu’an,” Hesin announced, “of the Guishan District. Daughter of Yin Huang, Rice Farmer. Sixteen years old.”
I prayed desperately and with as much heart as I had left to give. I told the Ancestors that if they helped me this once, I would never ask anything of them again.
“Rice farmer,” Terren echoed, and the contempt in his voice was so great that I braced myself for the worst. But he didn’t kill me.
Instead, he said, “I choose her. And I grant her the title of Noble Consort.” The entire room stilled with shock, but he kept speaking.
“No, I change my mind. I shall make her Empress-in-Waiting. I shall wed her.”