Chapter 12 Sheuan
Sheuan
Langzu – inner Bian
The Sovereign often lamented the inefficiency of the clans before he took control of the realm.
He thought that by uniting, they could stop unnecessary administrative overlap and accomplish more.
So when he took the castle in Bian that once belonged to the Hangtao clan, when he had every other clan sign agreements with him and with one another, he established ministerial positions that he doled out to those he most favored.
The Minister of Trade, of Arms, of Archives, and of Austerity.
It took longer than she’d expected for the Sovereign to fall asleep.
She’d learned something of the people she’d taken to bed over the years by the way they slept.
Some turned away from her, shoulders sloping like some distant, unreachable hill.
She’d often test these ones, placing a hand on the valley of their waist, waiting to see what they did – if they’d shrug away or let her hand sit.
Others pressed against her, as if they could relive the closeness of coupling in their sleep.
And a very few nuzzled at the junction of her neck and shoulder, seeking the comfort of a nurturing touch.
She treated those the way a mother would a child, stroking hair and murmuring sweet-nothing phrases into their ears.
The Sovereign slept with his fingers wrapped around her wrist. She couldn’t tell if the touch was possessive.
It certainly didn’t feel tender. It felt as though he sought the beat of her heart as a line into her thoughts.
Every so often, his fingers would tighten and then relax, a twitch of his mouth, a hitched breath.
She waited until his touch relaxed, and even then she feigned rolling over in her sleep to get away.
She’d almost expected him to send her back to her rooms when they’d finished with one another; instead, he’d said nothing, ignoring her completely until she’d slid into bed next to him.
Then his fingers had settled around her wrist, a manacle made flesh.
There was a slight bit of satisfaction in winning this battle, in him falling asleep before she did, though it felt like the sort of conciliatory handshake one gave after thoroughly trouncing an opponent. You’d given it your best try, but you never stood a chance. Valiant effort. Fair play.
The blankets rustled as she swept a foot out from under them and set her heel on the floor, holding her breath as she listened for any sound from the Sovereign. Nothing. It had been easy for her to stay awake, his words still swirling in her mind. I wonder what your father would think of this.
There had been a shift in her father’s demeanor, now that she looked back.
She couldn’t recall exactly when it had occurred, but she remembered him at the dinner table, more quiet than usual.
He’d brushed his robes to the side as he sat, the star anise scent of him wafting toward Sheuan.
When her mother had asked him how things were at the castle, he’d only shaken his head and run a hand through his thick black hair.
He’d always had a smile for Sheuan, no matter the difficulties he faced with the other ministers, with the demands the Sovereign made of him.
Yet that night, he’d not even looked at her, staring into the bottom of his teacup as though the answers to whatever bothered him lay there if only he looked hard enough.
How soon after that had the Sovereign arrested him? How soon after that had the enforcers questioned him?
The hallway was quiet, a few guards doing the rounds. They only bowed their heads at her as she passed, her robe brushing the wooden floorboards. At least she didn’t have to sneak around. This was her home now; they expected her to be here.
The door to the Sovereign’s study opened with a soft creak. She lit the lamp near the door and unhooked it.
This time, he wouldn’t barge in on her. This time, she’d get what she’d come for.
She closed the door behind her and made her way across the rug, the soft fibers giving way beneath her feet. The windows were dark but for a few lamps still lit in the city below, pinpricks of light swimming in a depthless sea.
The circle of the lamp’s light followed her, swaying and sending her shadows creeping across the far walls of the room. The ledgers were there on the bookshelf, organized by year and date. She walked her fingers over the spines, picked one of the relevant ones, and pulled it from the shelf.
Pages fluttered as she settled onto the floor.
She set the lamp to the side as she thumbed through it.
Back when she’d focused on proving her father’s innocence, on chasing down the one who’d framed him, she’d memorized the numbers in the clan’s books – the tithes they’d sent to the Sovereign.
It hadn’t been intentional; she’d just spent so much time thinking about these numbers, prodding them as though they were a loose tooth, not trying to work them free exactly, but to discover the depth of them.
And there. Exactly what she’d wanted to know.
The numbers didn’t match. Someone had falsified the ones in this book. Someone had taken his seal and pressed the red ink into the paper, just so. And they’d signed his name next to it.
It wasn’t her father’s handwriting. It was close, but she knew exactly how large his flourishes were, where he placed more pressure for thicker lines, and where he pressed less.
The page… it wasn’t quite the same color as the others.
Sheuan ran a hand across it and into the crease where the binding was.
There was an extra stitch there. It was messily done, observable after only a moment’s study.
But why would the Sovereign have to be careful? He was too powerful to have to be careful. He’d said as much to her.
He was right in what he’d said. She could find all the evidence in the world that he had framed her father.
She could have caught him in the act and still the clans would not move against him.
All that time she’d spent, all that effort, all that will directed toward a stone wall.
She’d been asking the wrong questions. She’d asked: is my father innocent? If he was framed, who had done it?
The pages lined up neatly when she shut the book; they’d taken enough care to trim them at least. Her lip curled, her disgust reserved only for herself.
She wondered how she’d appeared back then – to Mitoran, to the Sovereign himself.
So na?ve, a lost lamb trying to sniff out the wolf that had eaten her parents.
She pressed her fingernails into the cover of the ledger, felt half-moon impressions in the leather.
What she should have asked was: why? What had her father uncovered?
What had made him so dangerous to the Sovereign that he’d accused an effective, intelligent trade minister of embezzlement and sentenced him to death?
When she lifted the ledger onto its end so she could see down the spine, the extra stitch was even more apparent, the faint edges of ripped paper a whisper next to the replacement pages.
Her eye caught on something else. There was something wedged in the space between the stitched papers and the spine. Carefully, Sheuan bent back the covers until they touched. The space widened. There was definitely something in there. A folded piece of paper.
Quickly, her heartbeat thumping, she went to the Sovereign’s desk and found a metal seal-breaker.
She knelt back on the floor, bent the covers again, and pushed the folded paper with the seal-breaker.
The edges stuck a little on the binding glue.
Sweat pricked at her forehead as she did her best to work the paper free.
It tore – once, twice, the seal-breaker piercing one of the folds – before it finally fell to the bottom of the bound book.
She seized the end of it and pulled it free.
Someone had gone to some effort to hide this. It couldn’t be coincidence that it lay within this altered ledger, that anyone examining the binding and seeing the replacement pages might happen across it. With trembling fingers, she opened it.
Her breath stopped, her eyes blurring with unshed tears.
It was her father’s handwriting. She’d know his true script anywhere.
The page smelled of ink and glue, crackling as she laid it flat.
They’d sold so much after his execution to keep their estates afloat; she didn’t have much left of him except her memories.
I know I am walking on dangerous ground.
Why doesn’t anyone know where the Sovereign comes from?
Why doesn’t anyone know who he is? How did he rise to power so swiftly?
We think we know the answers to these questions, but I don’t think we actually do.
I don’t know the answer yet, but I am searching.
If I am killed, it is only because I found the truth.
Sheuan might have been a little na?ve, but she’d never been a fool.
She held the secret of the filters. That made her valuable to the Sovereign; it made her worth keeping around.
But he’d do his best to uncover how they were made.
If he found out, he could produce them without her and she’d no longer be quite so useful.
She’d be a liability he could easily dispose of.
But if she uncovered what her father had discovered, she’d have leverage against him.
She wandered back to her rooms, on the opposite side of the castle from the Sovereign’s.
She’d have to move carefully. If she made the same mistakes her father had, then she’d just land herself in the same predicament: with her head on the chopping block.
She’d have to discover the Sovereign’s secrets before he discovered hers; she’d have to set up a failsafe that would reveal them as soon as he tried to move against her.
There was information she could leverage in her search, things she’d learned from her time as Mitoran’s informant.
Though she’d been far below the Sovereign’s ministers in the social hierarchy, rumors still filtered their way through the ranks like jewels sinking into shifting sands, their worth quickly obscured.
But if there was one thing Sheuan was good at, it was digging for secrets.