Chapter 59 The Right Path
THE RIGHT PATH
He never left the peach garden that day.
As he was running from the arrows, under the cover of mist, he had passed by one of his usual hiding places.
An azalea bush, near the gate. He had thrown himself under its leaves and waited, breathless, for the men with swords to pass him by.
His leg throbbed terribly. There was an arrow still stuck in it.
Arrows were not quite blades, and even if he could bend them in the air with his sigil, he had not been able to mend a wound caused by one.
For days he hid there, while the sky battered the garden with cold rain, huddling in the scent of blood and wet earth. He would have hidden there forever, except on the fourth afternoon, when the sun finally broke through the clouds, someone found him.
“Come out.” A woman’s voice, as melodic as larksong. “Everyone thinks you’re somewhere deep in the East Palace. But I know all your hiding spots.” The voice was accompanied by footsteps. Every snap of a twig made his heart leap to his throat.
Hungry, soaked, and still hurting, he tucked himself smaller inside the shadow of his bush. He sent a silent wish to the Ancestors that she wouldn’t notice him.
But the Ancestors did not listen to his prayers. They rarely ever did. The footsteps came closer.
I did not know if it was some new form of literomancy, or the more simple magic of good storytelling, but as Terren told his tale, I found myself no longer in the sword cage, holding on to him.
I was right there, in the peach garden, in the body of that boy, cowering under the skin of his scars, living by the beat of his heart.
“I was not going to come looking for you, you know. But Hesin asked me to speak to you, to guide you onto the right path. And how could I refuse him? I am your mother, after all.”
The footsteps stopped right in front of him. From under the rain-slicked azalea leaves, he could see shoes, narrow and silk-soft, barely peeking out beneath a maple cloak.
He held his breath, tried to disappear.
“Seven years,” she said. “Seven years since you went to the mountain with him and learned he was dying. Seven years since you’ve begun writing that spell to make him invincible—behind his back, because he would have never allowed it if he knew. And you were so close to casting it on him.”
If he stopped breathing entirely, he thought, maybe he could turn into wind. Nobody could see or catch the wind.
“A few more days, and you would have finished the most powerful spell in the world. A few more days, and you would have given it to our enemy.” Her voice was still kind, but it was tinged with disappointment, the way a drop of poison could turn a cup of honeywater bitter.
“If I had not intervened, you would have ruined everything we’ve worked for. ”
He tried it. He tried squeezing his eyes shut, becoming wind.
“But you are very lucky that I was looking out for you. That before you could cast it, I have shown you the truth. I have shown you who he really is.” The shoes stepped aside, squelching in the mud.
Beyond them, in the distance, he could see the pond.
It was full of dead fish. “Look. Look for yourself what he has done, the lengths he will go. He understands what you can never seem to grasp: that the right path is the winning one.”
Maybe it was really working. Maybe he really had become air, and she would stay here only a brief while, become bored with him, move on. Maybe—
“But don’t worry, my beautiful son. Soon you will understand this too. Your mother is here, after all, to guide you.”
Without warning, the bush shielding him parted.
The harsh afternoon sun intruded inside his shelter, stinging his eyes.
A pair of hands seized him. As they pulled him out, the arrow in his leg snagged on a branch.
He screamed in pain, but the hands kept pulling.
They dragged him out, across the wet earth, until his face fell beside the silken shoes.
“Kneel.”
He coughed out a clump of rotten blossoms, bitter with mud and rain, and pushed himself up. His wounded leg felt like water. Next to him sat a large crate made of lacquered sandalwood. He did not know what was inside, but he instinctively didn’t like it.
“Look at me.”
Trembling, he raised his chin.
Terren never described what she looked like. I pictured her as only a blur—a tower of shifting shadows under that maple cloak, not real.
“He is willing to do anything to win,” the shadows said.
“Trick you, betray you, kill you. He is even willing to murder fish.” The voice was like lullabies, like warm hugs from when he was little.
He could not reconcile it with the pain.
“But your weakness is that you have never been able to do just that, anything. Over the years, your advisors and I have told you, over and over again, to go for his throat when nobody is looking. Yet three days ago, when you had the chance, did you take it?”
A shoe pressed down on the arrow in his leg, sending a searing wave through his body. He gasped as his vision darkened.
“It’s still hard for you, isn’t it? You can hurt almost anyone, kill almost anything—but as for the ones you’ve tricked yourself into thinking you love, it’s still so hard. But don’t worry. We’ll work up to it. We’ll practice.”
The hands unclasped the lid of the crate. Inside was water and a golden carp the size of a kitten. There was a rope hooked in its mouth, making it bleed. One hand lifted it out of the water, and it thrashed in the air, fins stiff with its pain. The other pulled out a knife.
He made the mistake of letting out a sob, which made the shoe press down on the arrow harder. The sob turned into another scream of agony.
“Make a cut,” she said, still in that lullaby voice, and threw the knife on the ground in front of him. “Consider it an act of mercy, if it helps you. These palace carp were never meant to survive long anyway.”
He wanted to become a tree. He wanted to be grass. He wanted to be the clouds and the daylight, that little ant crawling among the wet blossoms. He wanted, most of all, to become air.
“One cut, and there will be no more lies. No more betrayals. No more poisoned fish or arrows in your leg.”
It hurt so much he could barely think. With whatever bit of magic he could scrounge, he lifted the knife, and it hovered in the air, shaking.
“One cut, and the future of the dynasty will be decided. Everything will be over. You won’t have to fight any longer.”
He let out another sob—he couldn’t stop it from coming out. He was exhausted, and still hurting, and the fish was suffering so much, dangled like that.
“One cut, and you will become the most powerful in all of Tensha. Nobody will be left to contest you. Not one person in the world can hurt you.”
The carp’s thrashing was feebler now. It was dying.
The shoe stepped down into the arrow. It broke with a snap. He collapsed onto his side, gasping for breath. It took everything he had not to pass out from the pain.
“One cut, and you will be safe again. No more hurt. No more fear. Just one cut, my beautiful child, and you will become—”
Heir, was what she likely meant to say.
Free, was also possible.
Wind, was how he liked to imagine it.
He would never know for sure, because he finally did make a cut. And then the voice and the shadows, the hands and the shoes, they all went as silent and still as the fish.
Seven years.
Seven years since you’ve begun writing that spell to make him invincible.
How arrogant I had been to assume I’d known the whole truth—when I had heard it from Hesin, when I had heard it from Maro, even when I had gone in person to Tieza.
How foolish I had been to have believed I could write Terren’s poem without once speaking with him, without hearing his testimony from his own mouth.
That night, after I’d returned to my pavilion, I added one final, crucial verse to my love poem. Then I summoned my messenger.
“Tell Lady Song it’s done,” I said.
“What’s done?” Ciyi asked, out of habit, but he knew better by now than to press me.
He left to deliver my message, leaving me in my empty parlor, with my killing spell safe under the floorboards, its characters glowing hot like the Archer’s nine shot-down suns.