Chapter 30
THE CAT, THE TREE, AND THE WIND
At first, when I’d heard Hesin’s story, it had not been clear why Maro took such a liking to his younger brother. But after reading his journals, it became obvious: everyone else expected something from him.
His mother and Master Ganji made him study all the time, expecting him to become a prodigious literomancer.
Master Len trained him relentlessly in sword and strategy, expecting him to one day lead armies and conquer nations.
Officials and clan leaders cornered him during festivals to offer him toys and sweets—long before he was old enough to understand what a bribe was—with the expectation of future favors.
His father wanted him to save Tensha.
“Our great nation is dying,” he told Maro, the day he had first learned to read a map.
“Here are our country’s borders in the days of the Shouyuan Emperor.
” He pointed to a mural that took up an entire wall of his strategy room, then to a second on the opposite wall.
“And here is what they are now. Pitiful. We are even smaller than we were during the Sun Dynasty. My son, my heir—you must correct this as soon as you can.”
But Terren never expected anything from him.
Terren was harmless, affectionate, and easy to please.
Make the right silly face, and he would squeal with laughter.
Hug him the right way, in a way that made him feel safe, and he would cling to you like a rescued kitten.
Sneak him a mung bean cake during a banquet, and his entire day would be made.
Maro loved him ferociously.
He loved him so much that he kept sparring with him in the garden, even when Terren kept losing. In Hesin’s account, the eunuch had made it seem almost like Maro was bullying Terren, with how handily he kept winning. But Maro had not seen it the same way.
Mother and Hesin think I’ve hurt him, he wrote in his journal—and I could almost feel the hot indignation through his words—but he isn’t hurt. He wouldn’t want me to stop sparring with him just because he’s still little.
That would be like giving up on him.
But the grown-ups forced him to play a different game anyway, and Maro was still young enough that he had to obey. So he took Terren to climb the Century Peach instead.
One branch, then the next, then the next. Terren clung tight to his back as they climbed. Maro liked the weight of him. Carrying him made him feel powerful and big, like a river dragon.
“Ma-ro!” Terren chimed brightly, as soon as they were out of earshot of the grown-ups. “Wanna play ‘dueling couplets’? I have a first line.”
Maro grunted as he dropped from a branch onto the roof. He set his tiny brother carefully on the eaves, then took a seat next to him, legs dangling over the steep drop over the garden. “I’m still mad at you, you know.”
“Why?”
He crossed his arms and pretended to be fuming. “Because you’re boring. You keep not fighting me. You keep playing the game wrong.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Say it three times and I’ll forgive you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m s—”
“Okay, I forgive you,” Maro blurted out. “What’s the line?”
Terren produced a slip of paper from his pocket. It fluttered in the wind, which came cold from the mountains.
His calligraphy was beautiful. Maro envied it. “The cat lives in pursuit of the mouse,” he read. “The tree grows in pursuit of the sun. Hmm. Let me think.”
It was a game literomancers often played with one another, to practice their art. A poet would come up with the first half of a poem, and their opponent was challenged with completing it. Some of the most famous classical poems had been written as a result of “dueling couplets.”
Maro looked out at the valley as he thought—at the thousand-li view, the far peaks, the Aricine River making its slow way towards the sea. Another wind from the mountain came rushing in, sending blossoms from the Century Peach swirling absolutely everywhere.
He brightened. “Ah! I’ve got it!”
The cat lives in pursuit of the mouse;
The tree grows in pursuit of the sun.
Are we the cat or the tree, pursuers?
Are we the wind, born only to run?
One day, Terren showed up to playtime very hurt. He often got himself hurt—he was little, Maro reasoned, and fragile—but this time, it was much worse than usual. There were bruises all over his neck and collar, and when Maro rolled up his sleeve, he found patches of blue and purple there too.
“What happened?” he demanded.
It took a lot of questioning, but eventually Terren admitted he fell off a tree.
“Show me,” Maro said, his hands balling into fists. When his brother didn’t move, he repeated, “Show me the tree.”
The fury in Maro’s words must have startled him into obedience. Terren led him, limping, to the Century Peach at the far end of the garden.
That one. Of course it’s that one. Maro looked up at the giant tree, taking in its towering height and ugly flowers, and then he started hitting the lowest branch.
Hard. When that didn’t seem to hurt it, he jumped up and hung himself from it, kicking and kicking at its trunk.
He didn’t stop until he heard a snap, and the next moment both he and the branch had thumped onto the ground.
“Ma-ro.” Terren blinked at him, looking very confused.
“I wanted to teach it a lesson,” Maro explained, still panting.
“I wanted it to know what happens when someone messes with my little brother.” He extricated himself from under the branch, wiped his bleeding knuckles on his gown, and kissed Terren on the forehead.
“We’re family. Family is for keeping each other safe. ”
“He is not really your family,” Master Len said, correcting Maro’s fighting stance with a steady hand. “He may seem harmless now, but he is still young enough to not covet your throne. There will come a day when you are both older, and things will not be so simple.”
The Dawn Pavilion, where Lady Sky resided and Maro was raised, was always lively with birdsong. Bushes of golden trumpet flowers blew lush in the earth-winds of summer. At the far side of the courtyard, Maro’s friends—Mei Clan’s “Little Rain” and Song Siming—were sparring with their own tutors.
It was difficult balancing in the Crane Pose, but Maro was getting better at it. “Even when we’re older,” he said defiantly, “we won’t care about thrones. We’ll still play together even when we have white hair like you.”
The corners of his tutor’s eyes crinkled with smile. “Grown-ups don’t play, Maro.”
“We will. And we won’t stop until we’ve played ten thousand games. And written ten thousand poems!” Maro lost his balance, flailed his arms, and fell flat on the moss. “Oof.”
Siming picked that precise embarrassing moment to run over to them. “Your Highness! Master Gu said I just did a perfect Arc of Rising Sun.” He hopped from one foot to the other in excitement. “Want to spar? I’ll show you.”
Maro peeled himself off the ground, rubbed his sore elbows, and looked for permission at Master Len.
He didn’t like sparring with Siming—Siming didn’t fight fair and cheated at every opportunity—but he was glad for the distraction anyway.
It meant he didn’t have to hear awful words about his brother anymore.
Master Ganji’s warnings were far more direct.
“He will go after you,” he said one afternoon, in Maro’s study, during a break in memorizing classics. “It is inevitable. He is the second son, which means that you are all that stands between him and the position of emperor.”
“So? He’ll never win against me in a fight.” Maro tried to open his scroll again, to read one of Tsao Te Shu’s poems, but his tutor snatched it away.
“Maro, you aren’t taking my warning seriously.”
“I am. Can I have my book back?”
“He and his advisors will first try to gain your father’s favor, so that he will switch his named heir. If that doesn’t work, they will depose you by force. And if that still doesn’t work, they will kill you.”
“Please. I want my book back.” Maro reached for it, but Master Ganji held it high over his head.
“Or perhaps they will skip the first two steps. Perhaps they will go directly for your throat.”
Maro was frightened almost into tears. His hands went protectively to his neck as he stared out the window, trying to bite back a sniffle. Mother said a prince should never cry.
“You know what they write about the Azalea House already. Brother betrays brother, blood forgets blood. The August Emperor, who began the dynasty, killed two of his brothers on his path to the Crown. Your second uncle Nisin killed your first uncle Anzha—even after they’d spent years working together to overthrow the Joy Emperor.
And don’t forget your very own baba. You know what he has done for the good of the nation. ”
Of course Maro did. It was a story he’d heard many times. Father killing his own kin to save Tensha, sacrificing blood for country. There was nobody in the world Maro admired more than his father, and he had never grown tired of that story.
But it was not the only story he’d heard.
“In the villages,” he said sulkily, “and other places far away, families live in the same house. Sometimes even in one room, all together. I read all about them in books. Babas and mamas eat at the same table and hug each other lots, and brothers take care of each other even when they’re all grown.
And sometimes there are sisters too.” He had always wanted a sister, but Mother said that even if the Ancestors gave him one, they wouldn’t be able to keep her.
Mother said girls were like water, for helping their brothers grow into flowers.
“That is there, Maro. Not here.” Master Ganji’s voice had become iron, nonnegotiable.
“You are not some lowly peasant. You are heir to the dynasty! For you, the word blood does not mean family but country. Your veins are Tensha’s flowing rivers, your beating heart its capital, your flesh its mountains and fertile valleys. Do you understand?”