Chapter 55 Speaking With Ghosts
SPEAKING WITH GHOSTS
The ghost was perched atop my carriage, which was still parked in front of the Violet Heron Tower. It was a sparrow the size of my palm, sitting in a bed of azaleas and glowing faintly. I recognized it immediately as something not from this world.
A ghost bird. Just like the ones I had seen everywhere in the palace.
It cocked its head at me and fluttered off. Suspecting that it would lead me somewhere important, I left my servants and followed it outside the city, across the Aricine River, and into the surrounding meadows, where fireflies played.
I was right. There was a ghost boy there. About nine or ten years old, kneeling among the wildflowers. Even without the red seal on his cheek, I would have recognized him. He looked just the way I had pictured him from all the accounts, small and wide-eyed and timid.
He was doing something with his hands. Making a sword. His sigil glowed as he brushed his palm across its side, leaving a red-hot trail wherever he touched.
“Terren,” I said.
He did not acknowledge me, since he could not hear me.
I had seen quite a few ghosts before. My grandmother one summer in Lu’an, so hot the rice paddies misted into the sky, and the snowless winter after that, my two eldest brothers.
For a few days after her death, Grandpa Har’s wife had stayed behind to wander the village, and we had followed her as she drifted from door to door as if to say her final farewells.
Ghosts were harmless, I knew, and rarely stayed long.
But I had never seen the ghost of someone still alive.
I seated myself next to him and watched him for a while. I was still angry, but not at him. I was angry at Aunt Ahma and Lady Autumn, and at the real Terren, who had tortured me and slaughtered my friends. But for the ghost boy in front of me, I could summon no such blame.
“I think I understand now,” I said, though I knew my words could not reach him.
“You were frightened, and hurting, and nobody had ever shown you a different way to be. So, you began hurting others. Maybe you wanted us to feel as you did. Maybe you wanted to frighten us, so that we would keep our distance. Maybe you didn’t even think about it.
You had learned that suffering was normal, a part of life, and so it hardly seemed remarkable to do it to others. ”
He continued his work. With a child’s hand, he molded the sword into something sharp, new white flowers blooming with every stroke.
“They sent you to war so young. Young enough that you were still learning what the world was like. But the world they showed you was full of bloodshed and pain.”
I thought, strangely, of the way Bao went to the stall selling glazed hawberries on New Year’s. His eyes had been wide with longing, but he had not asked for one, because the world we had shown him had no money in it, no sweetness, no berries. Children were clever. They learned quickly.
How many weapons had they made him forge? How many battles had they bade him fight? How many people had they forced him to kill?
“The Aricine Ward,” I continued. “Maro and everyone else, they think you’ve written it to make yourself strong, so that you can become powerful enough to seize the throne.
” Discovering that ward was why the West Palace had decided they were out of time, why Maro had met him in the peach garden that last time to kill him—why the carp in the pond had been poisoned, why arrows had rained from the sky.
“But that wasn’t why, was it? You only wanted to protect yourself, to make yourself invincible.
You spent years writing the most difficult spell Tensha had ever known—not to fight your brother, but for the far simpler reason of making sure nobody could hurt you again. ”
Another flash of his sigil, another brush of his hand. His friend Little Sparrow fluttered onto his shoulder, watching him. It was taking him far longer to make his sword than I was used to. His movements were still uncertain, like it was something he was only beginning to learn.
I fished into my pocket, found the shell I had taken from the Violet Heron Tower, and set it onto the grass. “Here. I believe this belongs to you.”
He did not take it, because he could not see it.
An idea struck me. I looked around and found two large rocks in the meadow. I set Niu Niu on one of them, and, using the other, smashed the shell until it broke into pieces.
It worked. Terren’s head jerked up. His face lit up with unbridled joy as a ghost snail appeared, shimmering, from between the crystal pieces. He crawled over to it, took it into his arms, and nuzzled his cheek against its shell.
Then he looked up, and his eyes landed on me.
He blinked.
He reminded me so much of an older Rui Dan, from my village.
In spite of my anger, hatred, and grief, I could not help as my mouth tugged into a smile.
“Pretend I’m not here, all right? Keep doing what you were doing before.
I wish only to keep you company for a while, and then I will be on my way. ”
He resumed his work, with two of his friends keeping him company.
I seated myself next to him, on the summer grass, and pulled out paper and ink to work on my spell.
Around us, the scene had changed. A battlefield.
Gone was the summer scent of earth and pollen, replaced by hot winds of blood and copper ash.
Gone were the fireflies, replaced by smoke and flames.
A towering mound of finished swords had appeared behind Terren, swallowing him in its shadows.
There were more ghosts.
Ghosts bearing both Tensha’s banners and foreign ones.
Crowding around us, whispering. Standing on hills of corpses, stray weapons, broken shields.
Some wore armor, tasseled helms and lamellar; others were clearly civilians, their clothes plain and stained with dirt.
Some still had swords buried in their bellies or arrows in their hearts.
Now I knew where men aimed on battlefields.
They all seemed so afraid of him, the berth around him so wide.
Was he the one who killed you? I could not help but wonder. Or was it the war, our enemies, our country?
It was almost completely dark, except for the ghosts and the fire, and, across the distant river, the lantern light of the city.
And my poem. I had already rewritten the verses I had burned, and the characters were glowing once again. I added a few more lines, from what I had learned in the Violet Heron Tower, and then, watching the ghosts, I added a few more.
As I was finishing up to leave, I was surprised to find someone looking over my shoulder.
“I thought I said to pretend I’m not here,” I told the ghost boy, in the same tone I would have used to tease the village children.
He glanced again at my poem, and then he used his freshly made sword to carve a few hurried characters in the earth. When he was done, he stepped back and presented it to me—shyly, with his eyes on the ground.
I stared at the words he had written. “Is this for me?”
He lifted his head but did not speak.
It was a verse. A verse to fit my poem. And it was far better than anything I could have come up with.
He truly was brilliant. Even having studied all those classics, I had seldom come across words as expressive and heartfelt as his. I copied them down, and then I met his gaze. “Terren, thank you.”
His eyes widened. Then he ducked his head, as if embarrassed, and went to hide behind his mound of swords. I bid him a gentle farewell and made back for the palace.
At the Azalea House, there were imperial guards waiting for me at the gates, weapons drawn and expressions grave.
“Lady Yin,” they said, as soon as I dismounted my horse. “You are to come with us.”