The Girl King Read online

  “Girl King” was the derisive nickname Lu had earned among both court officials and commoners contemptuous of her ambitions—as Snowdrop well would have known, had she the sense of a child half her age. She understood the language of awkward silences at least; she went quiet, sensing her error.

  “The Girl King?” Lu said with a deliberate smile. The tension eased just slightly from Min’s shoulders. “Perhaps I will be! We’ll see soon enough.”

  Very soon. By the end of the day, she would have her new title, and finally put to bed all the rumors: that she was too weak to rule, that the Hu dynasty was on its last legs, that her father was planning to marry her off to her stupid, drug-addled Hana cousin, Lord Set of Bei Province.

  “Yes,” agreed Min. Her voice was rushed in eagerness, grateful to move past the discomfort Snowdrop had initiated. “We should probably head over to court soon.”

  “Court?” Lu repeated. She cursed, looking toward the sun. “Is it that late already? Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

  Min flushed as she always did when sensing the slightest displeasure directed her way. “Well, it’s not so late yet—” she amended quickly.

  “Snowdrop, take Princess Minyi to her apartments and get her dressed for court,” Lu interrupted, her thoughts racing. It wouldn’t do to be late today of all days. “Butterfly, run ahead to my apartments and tell my nunas to prepare a hot bath and lay out my clothes. The formal teal robes, and the plum underskirt with gold trim. Make sure to speak to Hyacinth directly. She knows the clothes and how best to prepare my bath.”

  “Yes, Princess.”

  Lu turned toward her sister. “I’ll see you at court.”

  “Should we meet beforehand so we can walk to Kangmun Hall together …?” Minyi ventured hopefully. Lu tamped down a sigh; Min hated making an entrance on her own. Most days Lu didn’t mind playing the chaperone …

  “Not today,” she said brusquely. “I can’t afford to be late.”

  “I won’t be …”

  “Best hurry now!” Lu flashed her an encouraging smile before turning away.

  She hurried back to Shin Yuri, who had removed his sword belt and was now worrying the shoulder buckles on his sparring jerkin.

  “I apologize for the interruption, Shin Yuri.”

  “Interruption?” he said blandly. “What interruption?”

  A smile quirked at the corners of Lu’s mouth.

  Shin Yuri spat in the dirt, then turned to fix her with a tight frown. “Time for court, is it?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Well, before you go, allow me to do my duties as a shin and give you some notes on your performance today.”

  Lu sighed, hands on her hips, but Yuri was immune to her impatience by now. “I’m an old man, Princess. Half a century on this earth wears on the body,” he told her, extracting a handkerchief from his tunic. He wiped his face, soiling the fine silk. “You did well today, used your speed to your advantage. But you would not have succeeded against a man—an opponent—the same age as you.”

  Lu bristled. Her arms rose to fold over her chest—a defensive gesture. She willed them back down. “You can’t know that.”

  “You have talent and strength on your side. Good instincts. But that will take you only so far. If you’re going to survive in a battle, you need to develop your mind as well as your body. Efficiency of movement comes from experience, keen observation, and observation can only be done with—”

  “Patience!” she snapped. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me a thousand times before.”

  “And I’ll tell you a thousand times more if I think it will help you survive.” His eyes locked with hers, and Lu was struck with the uneasy sense that he was speaking of more than just sparring.

  He is just being condescending, she told herself fiercely. Her father was about to name her his successor; what did she have to fear? One day she would be Yuri’s empress, and yet he persisted in trying to put her in her place like she was a child. Why were old men so tiresome?

  As though hearing her thoughts, he said, “If you do not trust my words as your elder, then trust my experience as a warrior.”

  A warrior who abruptly resigned from his post in the North for the comforts of the capital, a nasty voice in her head hissed. This was the undercurrent of gossip that had been following Yuri around since he had returned to court some five years ago. An odd tension—to be labeled both the best and a coward.

  “I trust you,” she told him, scuffing the sand with the toe of her boot.

  Yuri resumed the task of loosening his jerkin. “I should hope so,” he said. “If you don’t, I’d have no business being your shin.”

  He dismissed her with a wave. “Best get prepared for court. You have a long day ahead of you.”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “I do.”

  The drums heralding the start of court beat solemn and orotund, steady as blood. The theater of power. Standing with her sister and their nunas like actors waiting backstage, Lu peered through the seam of Kangmun Hall’s closed front doors, out into the Heart. The massive yellow stone courtyard was made small by the scores of court officials, magistrates, prefecture governors, and Inner Ring gentry pouring in.

  There would be more people outside the closed gates—unlucky lower gentry whose family rank did not warrant a seat within the Heart, and supercilious First Ring gossipmongers who bandied fresh information as currency. There might even be a few Second Ringers lucky enough to sneak through the Ring walls under some pretense or another. All of them waiting to hear secondhand tellings of the emperor’s pronouncements.

  Word of my succession will spread fast. Lu’s chest tightened in anticipation. At long last, it was happening.

  “Really? You can’t even wait for them to open the doors?” The voice was low in her ear. Lu jumped, whirling to find her eldest nuna Hyacinth doubled over in silent laughter.

  “Cut it out,” she hissed. But she was unable to suppress a smile. “I’m just gauging the crowd,” she said with exaggerated primness. “Reconnaissance.”

  Hyacinth snorted. “You look like a child sneaking into her birthday gifts.”

  “I think you mean I look like a future emperor.”

  “Certainly. A future emperor sneaking into her birthday gi—” She broke off into a strangled giggle as Lu poked her in the ribs.

  “Oh!” Min exclaimed. “I’d forgotten. The pink men are visiting today.”

  Her sister was peeking through the gap in the doors. Lu leaned back in over her shoulder and glimpsed three foreign men in the crowd, their pale pinkish flesh and bulbous facial features marking them as the delegation from Elland.

  Lu pulled her sister back from the doors. “Call them Ellandaise. Not ‘pink men.’ ”

  Min flushed at the admonishment. “Of course. The nunas call them that sometimes … It’s just a bad habit. Forgive me.”

  “Commoners use that term. It does not do for a princess,” Lu told her. Then she frowned. “It doesn’t become a nuna, either. Well-bred girls from Inner Ring gentry with sky manses ought to know better. I’ll see that Amma Ruxin has a talk with them.” The stern old amma in charge of training Min’s handmaidens would not stand for such behavior.

  “I understand, sister. I’m sorry—”

  “So,” Hyacinth’s effervescent whisper came in her other ear. “What will be Emperor Lu’s first decree?”

  “Stemming the northern expansion,” Lu said, turning away from Min. “We’re bleeding resources needed for the city’s poor into the colonies.”

  “It’ll be difficult to walk back those mines. The wealth from the sparkstone they’re dredging up—it’s enticing. And popular.”

  “What is popular is not always what is right,” Lu countered. “We’ve encroached onto northern land for too long.”

  Hyacinth tilted her head, considering. “It’s not like there are any slipskin clans left to give it back to.”

  “Right,” Lu snapped. “Because the few Gifted we didn’t kill are languishing in t
he labor camps.”

  “It’s time! Everyone into their places!” Amma Ruxin snapped, giving both Lu and Hyacinth a reproachful look as the doors began to open. Hyacinth rolled her eyes at the woman’s turned back. Then she winked at Lu and stepped into place with the other nunas.

  “Good luck,” she mouthed.

  Lu took a deep breath and stepped outside, in front of the assembled court. Min trailed so closely it looked like she was trying to hide beneath her skirts. Even a regular court session left her little sister anxious; a crowd this size might kill her. Hopefully Butterfly would catch her if she fainted.

  Their parents were already seated on the stone portico, side by side, though somehow they made the arm’s-length distance between them look much wider. Theirs had been a marriage of politics, arranged to strengthen ties between the ethnic Hana aristocracy and the ethnic Hu royals, and they had never found reason to make it anything more.

  “Come on, then,” Lu directed Min. “Let’s play our parts.” She said it with the edge of a shared joke—one only they in the whole world could share.

  Her sister blinked, a surprised smile quivering across her mouth, chasing away the rictus of fear for a moment.

  The sisters filed over and fell to their knees before their father, Emperor Daagmun, ruler of the sixteen provinces of the Empire of the First Flame. “Your child and subject bows before the Lord of Ten Thousand Years,” they recited in unison.

  “Rise, my daughters.”

  Lu stood easily; Min’s heavy layered robes made the task more difficult. Butterfly and Snowdrop hurried over, heads still bowed in respect, to assist the younger princess.

  Their father caught Lu’s eye and smiled. He looked well today, resplendent in formal robes of saffron and gold—all signs of illness tucked away beneath silk and royal pomp. He looked every bit the strong and formidable Hu ruler he needed to be.

  Lu stepped forward and dropped a warm kiss on his hand. It trembled in hers and she swallowed a pang of sadness. He could not hide his disease forever. From this close she could see the tired lines of a much older man around his eyes.

  By contrast, Empress Rinyi looked ten years younger than her thirty-some years. Lu had always felt there was something almost urgent in the care she took with her appearance—all those oils and salves and meticulously applied powders. As though she were preserving her beauty for some later occasion. Lu nodded curtly in her direction, and their mother responded in kind, her fixed smile barely hiding a poisoned well of disdain and impatience beneath.

  As Lu and Min took their seats the drums stilled, leaving in their wake only the sharp crackle of the First Flame, burning bright and eternal at the center of the Heart. According to Hana legend, the flame had been ignited by a drop of the sun thousands of years ago—a gift from the gods to their then-fledgling kingdom—and kept alive ever since.

  Her father spoke: “Ours is the greatest kingdom this world has ever known,” he began. For a moment, his voice cracked, and she flicked a sidelong glance toward him. Was he having one of his spells now? But, no. He remained steady and upright in his throne. She relaxed as he continued.

  “Our kingdom comprises an empire the likes of which our ancestors could not have imagined. Beyond what even my bold, visionary great-grandsire Kangmun, the first Hu emperor, foretold. Each day our borders grow wider. Our colonies are hungry, thriving, like the topmost branches of a great tree, stretching ever closer to the sun. At the same time, our towns and cities grow more prosperous and efficient—the strong roots of the empire.”

  Her father went on to describe news from the northern front. The mines were dredging up enormous wealth from the earth—sparkstone enough to soon see the entire imperial army fitted with firearms. Settlements were sprawling, and soon they would make proper colonies, worthy of women and children, shops and cities.

  There had been another—highly improbable—sighting by scouts in the Ruvai Mountains of a battalion of men clad in the white and gray uniforms of Yunis soldiers.

  Her father did not mention the bandit raid on prison camp eight two weeks ago that had sprung over fifty laborers and left her cousin Lord Set, General of the North, looking the fool. Everyone knew of it, though.

  Lu hid a satisfied smile and parsed the crowd. The left side of the Heart was filled with officials, while on the right were the First Ring gentry. Each was ordered such that the most important among them were seated in front, closest to the emperor.

  A few rows deep, she spotted Hyacinth’s parents, the Cuis, and her nuna’s three younger sisters. With them sat a boy of thirteen or fourteen she nearly didn’t recognize—until she noted the small birthmark on his chin. Wonin, Hyacinth’s younger brother. He must nearly be of age to begin his studies at the Imperial Academy. It had been some time since Lu had last seen him, and in the intervening moons he had grown into a tall, elegant-looking youth.

  Another boy a few rows behind—older than Wonin, though considerably less well mannered—met Lu’s gaze as it moved over him. He gawped at her as if she were some kind of court dancer, eyes traveling down the length of her body. She felt her face go cold, and he blushed, dropping his stare into his lap.

  Soured, Lu closed her mind to the crowd. She had chosen today’s robes not just for how their cut elongated her elegant figure, but because the teal gave her a cool, imperious air. Memorable, yet dignified. Smart. But in the end, would any man see that, or was she only a pretty thing for them to gaze upon? It irritated her that she couldn’t say.

  Beauty was a weapon—one that required honing and care, like a sword. But also like a sword it could cut both ways.

  We will see who cuts whom once this is over.

  A flutter of movement caught the corner of her eye; Min bent in her chair to scratch at her calf through the layers of her skirts. The beads dangling from her hairpins rattled from side to side with the movement. Lu bit her tongue; better not to draw further attention now. She vowed to speak to Min about it later and turned her attention back to her father’s words.

  “… Even at the best of times, an empire must not leave anything to chance. A strong emperor does not just rule for the present—he plans for the future.”

  His words sent a trill of excitement traipsing down the notches of Lu’s spine, like a series of bells, each amplifying the last until her body rang with it.

  The future.

  It was finally happening. She kept her face trained in a mask of assured solemnity.

  “And so, today,” her father continued. “I will announce my successor.”

  He was looking at her. Lu gazed back with the slightest of smiles.

  And then it happened. He looked away, as though ashamed of himself.

  An unfamiliar sensation seized up her insides, then released, like the black and spotted fronds of a dying fern unfurling in her gut.

  Dread.

  All pretense of poise and gravity evaporated. Lu was shaking her head in a mute “no” before her father even said the words.

  “I hereby betroth my eldest daughter, Princess Lu, to Lord Set of Family Li, General of the Fifth Regiment in Bei Province. He will be your next emperor.”

  Stillness fell, tentatively placid as a newly frozen lake. The only sound was the murmur of the First Flame.

  What happened next, Lu supposed, depended on one’s belief in ghostly interventions. Either the hungry fires consumed a bit of still-damp kindling, or some greater cosmic force was stirred by her father’s speech. In either case, the First Flame reared up high, then let off an excited pop that resounded through the walled Heart. A shower of sparks rained down in its wake, forcing those seated closest to it to lunge back in alarm.

  The crowd took it as a sign. Their roar was deafening. For a disorienting moment, Lu thought they were angry. But then, no; she could make out the words. Long Live the Emperor! they shouted. Long live the Empire of the First Flame!

  It was like hearing the ocean at a distance. Blood thrummed so hard in her ears it was as though the drums tha
t had signaled her entry to Heart had taken up again.

  Not Set, was all she could think. Anyone but Set.

  The dread in her blossomed into outrage, its vines scrabbling at her guts and climbing into her throat, as though trying to escape through her mouth. Some part of her registered that if she allowed it out, it would come as tears.

  So she choked on it, bit and swallowed it back down. Crushed the life from it until it was nothing more than a blackened pit.

  How could he do this to me?

  Lu looked to the emperor with beseeching eyes, but her father was still gazing out at the cheering crowd. And then Lu noticed her mother and sister looking at her from their seats. Minyi was bent at the waist, hunched over; she had been scratching at her calf again when their father’s pronouncement came and was too stunned to right herself. Their mother was as still as ever, her face unreadable.

  You, Lu thought. Their mother had to be behind this, just as she had been when Set and Lu were children. Even after all these years, she had never given up on her heinous nephew.

  The empress ever possessed a studied air of stern, benign dignity. At least in public. The only time Lu ever saw her speak sharply was in the closed company of her amma and her daughters—the usual targets of her ire. Some, like Lu, more often than others. Even in relative privacy though, Lu rarely saw her look excited or pleased.

  But now, as the emperor called the meeting to a close, her gaze still locked with Lu’s, the empress smiled. With teeth.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Apothecarist’s Apprentice

  A fat green fly lit upon Bo’s haunch, pierced the mule’s flesh, and began to suck. Nok smacked it dead.

  A rote prayer for the loss of life rose to his lips, but he did not say the words. His mother had taught them to him when he was small—picking grubs off fruit, pinching fleas from his neck. Or had it been his aunt? It didn’t matter. They were all gone now—his Kith and all the others—and Nok didn’t pray anymore.

  Bo continued eating, oblivious to both fly and boy. He was a dull, indifferent creature, but Nok didn’t mind. Some livestock grew skittish around him, as though they could smell the residue of something predatory—something canine—on him. Something he’d rather not think about.