Chapter 36 A Burning Star
A BURNING STAR
The next morning, Maro took Terren around the fortress.
They bid hello to the cooks and the sentries, the men repairing its stone walls.
They lit incense at the shrine dedicated to the Shouyuan Emperor and Prince Han, who had retaken the pass on the same campaign they had lost their lives on.
Then they climbed up the guard tower, so that Terren and his friends could have a look at the Eriet Mountains’ jagged peaks and stunning vistas, at all that unending snow under a red-scorched dawn.
Maro drew his brother under his cloak and pointed towards the horizon. “That peak over there—I’ve always thought it looked like the head of a dragonhorse.”
Terren leaned his cheek on his brother’s shoulder, breaths coming out in white puffs. “It does!”
“And that one next to it—that’s the titan hero who rides it,” Maro said, conspiratorially, the way they used to whisper secrets to each other from atop golden pagodas.
“And look over there, across the snow, the big one. That’s the demon king they’re about to fight. Those craggy overhangs are its brows.”
Terren’s eyes widened. “It has horns, too! Scary ones, rising out from just behind its head. Ones he intends to use against the titan hero.”
Maro laughed. “I see it! I see it!”
“Do you think he’ll win? Can he really slay the demon king?”
“’Course he will. Evil always gets defeated in the end, doesn’t it?”
They shared a quick lunch after that—of steamed wheat buns, mountain grouse, and white radish soup—and then Maro took him to the Salt Road.
“It’s about a quarter of the way done,” Maro declared, proud.
They stood at the east side of the Long Peace Mountain, not far from the fortress, where a tunnel had opened up like a long, verdant dragon.
Willow leaves and ivies draped lush over its stone walls.
Flowers bloomed, impossibly, from amidst the ice and frozen stone—anemones and orchids and lots and lots of chrysanthemums.
“You did this?” Terren’s eyes went wide with admiration, which made Maro feel like he was glowing.
“Of course! Who else?” He led the way inside.
Lanterns lit the path at regular intervals, the character for 鹽/Yan flickering gold on their round bellies.
The first commodity to be traded once the tunnel was completed, the imperial edict had mentioned, was scheduled to be salt.
It would be an homage to the early days of the Yongkai era, as well as an auspicious sign for the dynasty’s future.
Barrels of it stood waiting in the palace’s storerooms for the Salt Road’s grand opening, alongside shelves full of the emperor’s Blessings, to make even more.
We await news of your success was the edict’s concluding sentence. Meaning the nation was counting on Maro.
At the end of the tunnel, his support was already waiting for him. His tutors and Doctor Shu, a few trusted servants from the Dawn Pavilion, some high-ranking soldiers. Commander Remi frowned when he saw Terren there as well, but upon seeing how Maro clung to him, he reluctantly let him stay.
With his brother around, Maro was the happiest he had been in a long time. I could tell from the way the journal entries shifted in tone, the word choices becoming more joyful, the brushstrokes light like clouds.
Terren is my equal, he wrote, during one of his many moments of sentimentality. My tutors, my elders, Mother, Father—I must look up to them. Everyone else must look up to me. Even Little Rain and Siming call me “Your Highness”!
But my brother, with a sigil like mine—he is my only equal.
For the next few months, Terren went with him to the tunnel as Maro carved through the mountain, bit by harrowing bit.
Terren was not there every day—sometimes he had to study with his own tutors, or perform filial duties for his mother, Lady Autumn—but he went whenever he could.
Maro was far too focused on his own work to engage in conversation, but just knowing Terren was by his side, reading a book or practicing calligraphy, made everything better.
Even his headaches became easier to ignore.
He was reminded of peach trees and sunlit afternoons.
After a long day of using his magic, Maro was usually too tired to play. Sometimes he was even too tired to eat dinner and went directly to bed. Those days, Terren was the one to tuck his older brother into bed and blow out the last lantern. “Good night, Maro.”
“Good night, Terren.”
I should have known something was wrong. My headaches have always felt different than the ones I got before.
The fifth month working on the Salt Road, Maro was in the tunnel, channeling his magic as usual, when yet another headache began.
But this time, when he tried to ignore it, it didn’t go away.
It grew. It grew and grew, and soon it hurt so bad that it felt like somebody was taking an ax to the inside of his skull.
His vision blurred. He fell to his knees, fighting for breath.
When he woke again, he was in his bed and it was dark.
“… overuse of magic…”
“… he’s still young. It’s still reversible…”
He pushed himself up to a sitting position and blinked open his eyes. Lanterns lit up the faces of Doctor Shu and Master Ganji, talking in hushed voices not far from his bed.
“Maro,” said Doctor Shu, when he noticed he was awake. He placed a bowl of herbal medicine into his hands. “Drink this while we talk.”
It tasted absolutely awful. It was even more bitter than the stuff Mother used to make him drink when he had a cold.
“You have always been a bright and discerning boy,” said Doctor Shu. “I can speak to you as a child and mince words, but I would rather speak to you like an adult and peer. Can you handle it?”
His tone was frightening. Maro felt his pulse race, but he forced himself to nod anyway.
“Today confirms something I have suspected for a long time: that your capacity for magic is not as high as most seal-bearing sons. It has not even been two years since you’ve received your sigil, and you are already suffering from Heavenly Fatigue.
” He heaved a sigh. “Then again, most princes rarely use their magic with such intensity, and at such a young age.”
Worthless.
That was the only conclusion Maro could draw from the doctor’s words. First, he had to lag behind his younger brother at literomancy. Now, it turned out that his magic was weak. How was he supposed to save Tensha when he was so much worse than what they needed him to be?
“Okay,” he said.
“You know about the Fatigue, I presume. You have seen your father go through it.”
“Uh-huh.” It was hard to keep his voice steady. He was trying very, very hard to keep being an adult and a peer, but he just wanted to throw something and scream.
“Well, your case will be even worse. The trajectory of your decline is far faster. You are a burning star, Maro. Brilliant, but fleeting.”
In other words, worthless.
“But the good news is that, at your current stage, recovery is almost guaranteed. If you stop using your magic at once and return to the capital, and rest for a few years, all the damage will become undone. You will be as healthy as the day you received your seal. After you inherit the Crown from your father, your magic will be amplified, and you will find that everything will become much easier. It is not too late to wait until then to accomplish things.”
Maro stared at him.
“Do you understand?”
“The Salt Road. I need to finish it.” It was the doctor who didn’t understand.
Maro had been in the mountains for five months already, and at the rate he was going, he only needed about two more.
“The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can control trade with the West again and replenish our depleted treasury.
Tensha is a nation holding its breath. We cannot wait to save it, in the same way we cannot wait to save a drowning child. ”
The doctor and Master Ganji exchanged glances.
“And what about the missions that come after?” Maro pressed.
“Father has already planned the next few years. We need to widen the Grand Canal. We need to add new mountain roads to make Ji Province more defensible. We need to rebuild the harbor in Tian City, to replace the ones our enemies destroyed.” The more he spoke, the more panicked his voice became.
“Everything is urgent. The nation needs me. I can’t hide in the capital like a coward. ”
“Maro, let me put it more simply: you are dying.”
“Tensha is dying!” he screamed.
So everyone kept telling him, from his first breath, his first words.
So his father kept reminding him, over and over again.
Pitiful. We are even smaller than we were during the Sun Dynasty.
So he had seen for himself, in all the reports he’d read about the famine-stricken cities, the raids near the borders, the people impoverished.
It was one of the first truths he’d ever known.
The room echoed with his outburst. In the silence that followed, Maro heard only his own breathing, very fast.
Then Master Ganji laughed. It was chopped and without humor. “I told you, Doctor Shu. I told you the boy would side with me.”
Rare emotion broke through the doctor’s mask of gravity. When he spoke next, his voice even wavered a little. “Maro’s stubbornness I can at least sympathize with. But yours, Master Ganji, is reprehensible.”
“These years are more important than ever, and you know why. The emperor does not have long to live, but he still has time to change his mind about his heir. If Maro lacks accomplishments during these critical years—”
“You would risk his life?” Doctor Shu snapped. “Just so you can rise with him in status?”
“I am thinking of him, not me.” Master Ganji was completely calm. “Besides, I am not convinced it is as bad as you say. Maro is tenacious. When he was younger, he used to study even through his worst fevers. Minor ailments and little pains do not bother him.”
“Little pains,” Doctor Shu echoed, disgusted. “Since you find yourself qualified to make diagnoses, then I do not know what you need me for.” He turned to leave, but Master Ganji blocked his exit.
“Remember my instructions earlier.” The tutor’s voice was full of menace, and Maro wondered what he had threatened the doctor with.
“You will tell nobody the true nature of his illness. You will tell them he’s sick because he’s not sleeping well, or because he’s skipping dinners, or because he’s working long days—but you will not mention the words Heavenly Fatigue. ”
“I do not answer to you.” Doctor Shu looked past Master Ganji to Maro. “I answer to my prince and future emperor.”
Maro understood at once, and rose from his bed. He was only in his sleeping robes, and still exhausted, but he tried to put as much dignity in his voice as he could. “Doctor Shu, it is my will that you do as my tutor says. Tell nobody the truth of my condition, and dispel any rumors as they come.”
The doctor’s eyes lingered on him a long time, but at last he gave a resigned sigh. “If that is your will, my prince, then I will follow it. But know that you are running straight for a cliff’s edge. You may find yourself falling suddenly, fatally, without warning.”
“I understand, Doctor.”
“Monitor your symptoms closely. If you faint again, or if there is blood-cough, inform me at once. That will tell us you are close to the edge.”
“I understand, Doctor.”
The moment the doctor left with Master Ganji, and the door had closed behind them, Maro threw himself face-down onto his cot.
He pounded both fists into the bed, so hard that it sent Niu Niu’s shell rattling on the bedside table.
“Worthless,” he screamed into the blankets.
“Why am I like this? Why can’t I be better? Why why why?”
“Maro.”
He whipped his head to where the timid voice came from. Cold horror seeped into his chest when he saw his brother crawl out from under his own cot, beneath a swath of fur blankets that had been hiding him.
“You were spying on me.”
“No.” Terren was crying. He must have been doing so for a long time, judging by how red his eyes were. “I stayed because I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Horror turned to fury. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He flinched. “Because the grown-ups can’t be trusted. I didn’t want them in a room with you while you were sleeping and helpless.”
Maro wanted to pick him up and throw him against the wall. Terren was still small enough that he bet he could.
He didn’t. Instead, he swallowed a painful lump in his throat as he let his brother climb onto the bed beside him.
A moment later, little arms wrapped around him, warm and unconditional.
“Family is for keeping each other safe,” Terren said, barely a whisper, and a moment later Maro was crying himself.
Hot, shameful tears came gushing out, and even when he tried to hold them back, they kept coming anyway.
They stayed holding on to each other for a long time. Then Maro said, through his sniffles, “Promise me. Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“I promise.”
He cried even harder. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Say it…” He could barely choke out the words through his tears. “Say it three times and I’ll forgive you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”