Chapter 69 The Greatest Nation
THE GREATEST NATION
It took only a day before the new emperor visited.
I was pacing my cell in Heaven’s Worship, high up in the mountains, when Isan came.
I spotted his dragon coming at a distance as it unraveled itself, above bent pines and steep valleys, towards the ledge where I was confined.
The sight surprised me. I had imagined he’d be busy sorting out the dynasty’s affairs after his sudden and tumultuous coronation.
Still, it pleased me that I was important enough to see so immediately.
The Crown of the Azalea House was near bursting with fruit.
Its scales gleamed the bright orange of persimmons, its horns the jewel shade of plums, its eyes apricot gold.
Its mane and bristling spine had transformed into verdant branches, which each hung so heavy with kumquats, hawberries, and mandarin oranges that I could not guess at how it stayed aloft.
Isan stood on its head, holding one of its horns; he directed it until its giant eye floated parallel to the ledge I was confined on. They brought with them the scent of orchards, sweet wine, and long-ago fancies.
Once, I had been so intimidated by him. That crowded New Year’s, in Guishan, I had held my breath as he had stepped out of his carriage, too busy staring at his House Seal to judge his appearance. Now he merely appeared like a person.
“Why?” was the first word out of his mouth. “After you healed him?”
I went towards the edge of the cliff. It was the closest I’d ever been to the third son, who wore a gown of pink-and-gold blossoms—gold, I supposed, because he was now emperor.
He looked little like his older brothers.
His mouth was more innocent than Maro’s, his eyes not contemptuous like Terren’s.
His 果/Guo seal shone a riper red than either the 路/Lu or the 刀/Dao, the red of jujubes and hawberries.
As I neared him, he took a step back. He stayed close enough for us to speak, but not close enough for me to reach out and stab him. Possibly he was afraid of me.
“Why do you think?” I replied, a little disappointed he had not already figured it out. Perhaps I had gotten too used to Terren’s cleverness, and had gained unreasonable expectations for his successor.
Isan went quiet for a moment as he pondered. Then he said, “Because Maro died.”
“Yes.”
The choice between Terren and Maro might have been difficult—so much so that I’d spent the entire coronation’s eve agonizing over it—but the moment Maro had died, Isan became the next in line to receive Heaven’s Mandate.
And it had not even been a question then, to choose between knives and something so gentle, so necessary, as fruit.
And even if I had to give up becoming empress, even if it meant I would lose all the power I’d tasted, it had still not been a question. I would choose it over and over again. I would choose it in this life, and the next, and the next.
Isan shook his head sorrowfully. “You are very foolish, Wei. You may think you have done the right thing, but what do you know? A girl like you, having been raised in the rice fields and confined to the Inner Court—you have no idea what the world is really like. The nation has many enemies.”
“Does it?”
“It will not survive long without my brother’s power.”
“Won’t it?”
“Why do you think so many have supported him, despite his villainy?” He sounded exasperated. “By killing him, you may have murdered a dynasty.”
“Murdered a dynasty,” I echoed, and laughed softly. They all cared so much about these things, didn’t they? “You say it like it is an unspeakable crime, Isan. A greater evil than killing a child. But dynasties are not real. They are made up. Fiction.”
It was him who didn’t know anything.
It was the officials of the Outer Court, with their soft faces and shaven chins and bee-eater robes, who had no idea what the world was really like.
Had they seen how the country lay bleeding in the famine, had they seen the rice paddies dried and the wheat fields blanched, had they seen the babies curled dead next to their mothers or buried a sister on a hill with their own hands, they would have known the truth.
And it was not conquest, not glory, not blades.
Truth was simpler. It was warm bowls of rice on the dinner table, enough for everyone, not only young sons who were still growing.
It was families sleeping in the same room.
Villagers working together, staving away demons or something worse that plagued them.
It was suffering. It was enduring. It was living.
Isan, I thought, you have no idea. No idea how hard it is, living.
It is not something you can learn from inside the palace walls.
And if it meant we had no swords to defend our borders, so be it.
If it meant the Cividí would come raiding the west, so be it.
If it meant the Lian charging in from the north, and retaking Tieza, and all the other territories, then let them.
Maybe they would be better rulers. Maybe they would not allow us to starve.
And if it meant provinces rebelling and the dynasty crumbling like dust, if it meant emperors and thrones sinking into the ashes of history, if it meant Tensha, with all its culture and commerce and glory, becoming only a distant memory, then let them, there was nothing so awful about oblivion.
It could be the greatest nation in the world, the most magnificent empire there ever existed. But if it could not keep its own children safe and fed, was it really something worth fighting to save?
Isan’s expression was pained. I could tell he was still thinking hard about how to rescue his new era.
Possibly he was imagining selling his magic on the Salt Road.
Shipping crates of apricots and pears across icy oceans.
Possibly he was making the calculus of which provinces to cede first, to ensure the capital and the heartlands could still be defended.
It is just like the first years of Muzha’s reign, he might have thought to himself. Maybe he was even thinking of making sons to help him.
I let him agonize over it a bit longer before putting him out of his misery. “Do not worry, Isan. Your brother has left you Dao Blessings to defend your new nation. Twenty thousand of them.”
His chin jerked up as his body sagged with relief. “Twenty thousand…?”
I waited. A moment later, he seemed to finally register my implication. His eyes became alert, his tone that of cautious negotiation. “What are your conditions?”
“There are four.”
“Speak them. But do not make them unreasonable.”
“One: you use your amplified power strictly for famine aid, at least in the beginning. Not to export and replenish our treasury, nor to appease the Great Clans. Your debt to them can come later. Your people come first. We will start with Nama District and South-Ulan, the places that have been hit the hardest, and we’ll move northeast from there.
If you perform to my satisfaction, I will release your brother’s Blessings to you—as I see fit, over time. ”
“That is reasonable, and truth be told, I was planning to do similar. But you do not have to speak so harshly with me, Wei. We are negotiating. You need not coerce.”
“Two: I am absolved of all my crimes. Reading, literomancy, stabbing a prince in the heart. Anything else I have missed naming. I walk free, back to my village, and every household in Lu’an gets an annual stipend from the palace for perpetuity.
My brother, Yin Bao, gets free admission to the imperial academy. ”
“Agreed.”
“Three: Terren gets a quiet burial. Nobody attends except for you, and Kiran, if you believe his regard for his brother is genuine.” I thought about it some more and said, “And Yong Hesin, if the eunuch should wish it.”
It surprised him, but he said, “Agreed.”
“Hesin walks free too,” I added. It had not been one of my original conditions, but now that I was thinking of him, it felt only right to include it.
“He already does,” Isan said, and it was my turn to be surprised. “One of the first things I did after my coronation was ask him to be my advisor.”
“And he said yes?”
“Not at first. To be sure, he said he was tired. He wished to go echo-step with Terren. But I managed to convince him to stay. I told him that the nation is in crisis and needed someone with his experience to put it to order.”
“An unkindness,” I said quietly, feeling a twinge of pity for the eunuch.
“A ruler cannot always afford kindness. What is the fourth condition, Wei?”
I lifted my chin and met Isan’s eyes. My last request was going to be the most difficult of them all. “It concerns Terren’s remaining concubines. Tradition would dictate that they go home with gifts. But…”
Wang Suwen and her brother who needed employment. Liru Syra and her clan that hungered for glory. Zou Minma, from Guishan, who dreamed of becoming mother to a prince.
A dream she had clung to so feverishly, I was sure, because it was the only one she had known how to dream.
“But should they wish it, they shall be permitted to stay in the palace’s Inner Court. Should they wish it, they may learn how to read. And if they should further wish it, they may even practice literomancy.”
If I had learned anything during my time in the palace, it was that if we wanted to send Blessings home—to our families, our villages, our clans—the only way was to write them ourselves.
And even if it meant confining ourselves to the Azalea House, even if we had to endure being called to an emperor’s bedside and being planted for a son, at least our cries would now be heard.
Isan’s stare burned into me, brows furrowed, lips downturned.
It was easy enough to forgive one girl for her literomancy, but to endorse it for many was nothing short of heresy.
By accepting my last condition, he would be going against hundreds of years of law and tradition.
A move that would no doubt make him many enemies in court.
A necessary move, I thought.
To grow a tree was not easy, the wait until it bore fruit long. But if the seed was not planted in the first place, nothing would ever grow.
And there was nowhere better to plant a seed, I knew, than the fertile soils of the palace. A place lush despite the famine, strong despite the wars, constant even over generations of empire changing hands. A lot of things began at the palace.
The silence between us stretched ripe and long.
At last, he said, “Agreed.”