Chapter 39 Fleeting Footprints, Lasting Carvings #2
“… you can come with me,” someone was saying to him. It was Terren, bouncing with excitement. “I’ll make swords for the army, and you can make roads for them to march on. We can work together, take on the north side by side! What do you say?”
Maro blinked at him.
“Come with me to Tieza,” Terren said again, throwing his arms around Maro’s waist. “If we talk to Father together, I bet we can convince him. And once we’re done with my campaign, I’ll go with you on yours!
We won’t ever have to be apart again. We’ll travel the country together, eat all the best noodles, play ‘dueling couplets’ a hundred times a day—”
“Let go of me,” Maro said. He left his bewildered brother behind and walked, very calmly, back to his room.
That night, after everyone else was asleep, he left the fortress.
He went all the way to the end of the tunnel, pressed his hands to the leaf-covered wall, and started channeling his power. Stones rumbled and loosened, persuaded by Heaven’s magic. Chrysanthemums bloomed into life from within nests of orange sparks.
If only he had worked faster, tried harder, been better, he could have completed this sorry road sooner.
If he had completed it sooner, he could have gone back to the capital to see Mother.
Maybe he could have stopped her from dying.
And even if he hadn’t, at least he would have accomplished something while she was still alive.
She would have known for certain he wasn’t worthless.
He put his hand to the wall and kept channeling, harder than he ever dared before. Hot magic from Heaven mixed with his blood and pulsed straight into the mountain.
Maybe he could finish the tunnel early. That would be sure to make Father notice. And maybe everyone else would notice too, and see that he wasn’t weak after all.
The stones kept rumbling, breaking apart, flowers bursting out of cracks in the ice. Their petals smelled like blood.
If he finished the tunnel early, he could go on his next missions early. Widening the Grand Canal. Building roads to Ji Province. Rebuilding the harbor in Tian City. The nation needed him.
More stones breaking, more flowers, more blood.
His sigil burned hot like a fire. The nation needed him so desperately, yet he kept letting Father and everyone else down, just like he had been doing since always.
Why are you so worthless, Maro?
Why are you so worthless?
Why …
Maro.
Maro, wake up.
Maro, please wake up.
He blinked open his eyes and found that his vision was blurred. There was something wet all over his face. Blood. He could tell by the way it tasted in his mouth, copper and salt. He coughed and some more of it burbled out.
Someone was bawling. Terren. Maro had always hated how much of a crybaby he was.
The younger boy was kneeling beside him and dabbing at his mouth with a cloth. “You’re finally awake,” he said between sobs. “I didn’t want to leave you until you were. Stay here, okay? I’m going to get Doctor Shu.”
Maro’s hand darted out and caught his arm. “You’re not going anywhere.”
If word got out about the Heavenly Fatigue, they would send Maro home. Let him recover until he has the Crown, they’d say, not knowing how much time mattered. Not knowing how badly Tensha was dying, how critical these years were.
Not knowing that if he went home, he might not even receive the Crown in the first place. Nobody wanted a weak and bedridden prince to inherit the dynasty. They wanted someone powerful and strong.
“But…” Terren whispered. “Doctor Shu said … he said you were running towards a cliff—”
“You will tell nobody about this. Do you understand?”
“But—”
“Do you understand.”
He flinched. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad.”
“What time is it?”
“I … I don’t know. It’s still night. Everyone’s asleep.”
“Good. There’s still time to keep working.” Maro wiped his mouth with a sleeve and stood. When he discovered that Terren’s cloak was draped over him, he scrunched it up and threw it onto the moss. Then he took two steps towards the end of the tunnel.
“Wait, Maro.” Terren clung to his leg to stop him from moving, but Maro shook him off easily.
“Maro, please, stop.” He tried again, this time clamping his arms across his waist, but he was littler—he had always been littler—and Maro flung him off like an irritating bug.
He reached the wall, pressed his hand to the cold stone, and channeled.
“Stop it!” Terren screamed. He yanked at Maro’s sleeve with just enough force that his hands left the wall, cutting off the flow of magic. “Please. Stop it. Stop it.”
Maro imagined himself strangling him. Imagined his hands closing around that little throat, cutting off all that sniveling and screaming.
He didn’t. Instead, he said, “I am the rightful heir, Terren. I do what I please.”
“But…” He was crying so hard he could barely speak. “But I’m scared you’re going to die.”
Maro looked down at him with disgust. “Our father has done so much for this country, even in his sickness. The Shouyuan Emperor and Prince Han have lost their lives in these very mountains, in the campaign that won us the Fallen Sun Pass. You were born second, so you never learned the meaning of duty. You never learned that there is no glory without sacrifice. There is no greatness without suffering.”
He turned back towards the stone and continued his work on the Salt Road. This time, Terren didn’t stop him.
When he woke the next morning, everyone was standing around his bed.
Maro sat up, rigid with horror. Commander Remi, Master Len, Master Ganji, his advisors from the Dawn Pavilion—they were all there, their faces solemn in the stark morning sun. Behind them, wearing the gravest expression of them all, was Doctor Shu.
“Your doctor has informed us of your condition,” Commander Remi said.
He spoke very gently, as if Maro wasn’t already eleven but a little baby.
“We have already sent a messenger to the capital, announcing your intent to return. You will have the day to pack up your belongings, and then you will go home.”
The horror, sheer and cold, clawed its way into every vein and every crevice in Maro’s body. He couldn’t even speak.
“At least let him finish the Salt Road,” Master Ganji said, his voice iron. “There is not much of it left. The credit for building it must go entirely to the first son.”
“No. We cannot take that risk. The crown prince is too important for us to lose.”
“But Commander—”
“A crew will remain behind to excavate the rest of the tunnel. It will not be as permanent or as safe as what our prince would make, but it will do for now. After his recovery, he can return to finish it.”
“Commander.” Master Ganji’s fists shook with rage.
“You are surely aware of the damage it’ll do to our prince’s already-tarnished reputation.
They’ll say he can’t even complete his most important mission without help—just like his first Blessing.
” He spun to look at Doctor Shu. “Tell them. Tell them he is capable of doing it!”
The doctor didn’t even look at Master Ganji. Instead, he addressed everyone else around him. “The life of our prince is in imminent danger. He must stop using his magic immediately. He cannot finish the Salt Road.”
The mocking whispers in the fortress turned into whispers of sympathy.
“No wonder he was so tired all the time,” the men said. “Poor thing, so young and already so feeble.”
“Is he even fit to inherit the throne? Strong enough to lead a nation?”
“Will we have another sick emperor, falling off his dragon, incapable of saving our dynasty?”
Maro hated these whispers even more.
Terren was hiding.
Maro went looking everywhere for him, and finally found him in one of the fortress’s empty kitchens, huddled under a table. “You,” he snarled. “You told.”
He made a pitiful sound and shuffled further back.
Maro took a step closer, pushing aside the bench between them with a scrape. “You promised. I trusted you.”
“I was trying to protect you,” he said in a tiny voice.
“Protect? You ruined my life!” Maro was shouting now, really shouting, the way he knew his little brother hated. But he couldn’t stop himself. The anger burned as hot as coals, and it needed to come spitting out as flames.
“We’re family. And family is for keeping each other—”
He squeaked with alarm. Maro had grabbed him by the collar with both hands and dragged him out from under the table.
“Didn’t I say I don’t need protection? Only the weak need help, Terren!
But I. Am. Not. Weak.” He spat out the words like knives.
“I am powerful. I’m going to be emperor one day.
I’m going to command armies and send our enemies to their knees! ”
“You never wanted any of that,” Terren whimpered. Maro lifted him up by his collar and shoved him against the wall, as a warning, but he had the audacity to keep speaking anyway. “You might have everyone else tricked, but you never tricked me. I know you don’t want to be emperor.”
“I don’t?” Maro said scathingly. “Says who?”
“Says you. That poem you wrote. The wind, born only to run—”
He hit him in the face.
Terren let out a small and terrified sound, and Maro resented it so much he hit him again.
When he let go of him, Terren didn’t even bother standing again, just stayed sprawled on the ground with his hands over his head like a coward.
“I’m sorry,” he begged, trembling. “I’m sorry ten times.
I’m sorry a hundred times. I’m sorry a thousand times. I’m sorry—”
“I wrote that poem when I was six!” Maro screamed.
“Six!” He kicked him in the stomach. “I’m not a boy anymore.
I have my sigil. I’m grown. And I want to be emperor!
” He kicked him again. “I want it because I worked all my life for it. Because I suffered for it. Because I’ll be good at it.
” Another kick. “Because it’s—my—birthright!
” Three more kicks, the last one so hard it sent his brother skidding across the cold stone.
Terren had gone very, very still. He wasn’t even crying anymore. The only thing he did was curl up as small as possible, as if trying to disappear from this world.
He had always been so pathetic.
“Maybe you should want it too,” Maro spat, and left him.
They left the fortress at the same time. It was an angry sunset, like claws had torn apart the crimson sky beyond the Eriet Mountains’ shadowed peaks. Lady Autumn stayed close beside Terren as they rode north, towards Tieza, towards greatness.
Maro went the opposite way.