Chapter 24

Chapter 24

I started and sprang up, putting distance between us. “Your Majesty, if you continue, I will – ”

He slapped me, seized my hair, and smashed my head against the floor again and again.

“Who are you making that miserable face for? Do you think We are unworthy of touching you?”

“Then who is worthy? Chen Dong? Hahahaha! He threw you into the frozen cavern all the same.”

“Do you think he knows how wantonly you moan in Our bed every night? Oh, perhaps he does not care. His army camp is full of women.”

“Kneel! Slap your own face. Do not stop until We tell you.”

He seemed to have become once more the grotesque, terrifying king I met when I first entered the palace. Back then, tormenting me was his greatest pleasure. He bound me and covered the space around my body with maggots. He stroked my hand and said how beautiful it was, then pulled out my fingernails one by one… Every torture beyond my imagining was inflicted upon me in that single year.

The horror before my eyes tangled with my memories until I could bear no more. I snatched up a knife and drove it into his heart.

Danchi looked curiously at the blade in his chest and reached down to touch it. Then he lifted his head and cackled at me.

He was not human.

“Why are you hiding, beauty? Come here! Come to Us!”

I backed away, trembling.

The veins across his chest bulged. Fine red capillaries spread through them as if alive. Tender green shoots thrust rapidly from the wound in his chest, then burst into flowers of every color. They were autumn hibiscus, but packed so densely that the sight turned my stomach.

Flowers rapidly swallowed his body and face, leaving only a mouth with yellow teeth and strings of drool. Still laughing, it said, “Come here, beauty. Come to Us!”

I shoved him away, only to discover the same flowers had spread to my body. They took root and sprouted from my skin, devouring my organs bite by bite.

He embraced me from behind, his foul mouth kissing my neck over and over. I could not break free. The agony was worse than death.

Then I saw a knife on the floor.

I scrabbled for it in frenzy, cut open my abdomen, and tore out the revolting flowers. Yet more blossoms opened along the wound, too many to remove. Nauseated and terrified, I suddenly saw Old Ge.

He stood outside, cataract-clouded eyes fixed on me. He gave a sinister smile.

“You. Will. Die. A. Wretched. Death.”

Horror jolted through me, and my eyes flew open.

I was still in my familiar sleeping chamber. There was no Danchi and there were no flowers.

It had been a dream.

I released a long breath.

Why would I dream such a thing? Had the gelu truly cursed me?

The thought drew a bitter smile from me. The Master did not speak of supernatural forces or disorderly spirits. I had personally seen that a gelu’s supposed rite of passage merely used a drug to dissolve a corpse. How could I believe such absurd nonsense?

“Princess, you’re awake! Do you feel any better?”

Youchun’s cheerful voice sounded nearby. She drew back the bed curtains, but her smile abruptly froze.

“What is it?”

I followed her gaze and discovered blood had soaked through the front of my robe. In my clenched fist was a sharp hairpin.

Once the wound had been hastily bandaged, the first thing I did was summon Naihe.

“His Majesty drank too much yesterday. When he awakens today and learns the gelu is dead, his fury will be terrible. Your delegation may well leave its lives here.”

I spoke while brewing tea, but the boy was impossible to frighten. He continued to smile serenely.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing. I simply believe Your Majesty will not let me die.”

“And why is that? Because of the little regard I have for your master?” I passed him a cup and smiled. “The examination is complete. You were right: Old Ge died when a heavy blow ruptured his organs. Most of those in the inner court at the time were civil officials, women, and guards with little martial skill. If we are naming suspects, the first must be Yu Qing, Prince of Dishi. His sudden attempt to kill me that day looked very much like the act of a guilty man.”

Naihe lowered his head and drank without speaking.

“But northerners have a deep-rooted reverence for the gelu. I cannot imagine what motive Yu Qing could have for killing him. If the killer were a southerner, however, everything would make sense. Would you not agree?”
Naihe raised his head. In the morning light, his brown eyes were clearer than the tea.

“The fact that you could take a sword from a celebrated Northern Qian general means you were capable of killing the gelu. You could perhaps kill everyone in this palace.” I quietly held his gaze. “Who are you? Why have you come to Great Qin? What do you want?”

He sighed softly. “This humble monk is a man of the cloth. Taking the sword was only a means of speaking.”

“Speaking?”

“That day, people listened to me only because the sword was in my hand.”

Something trembled in my heart.

“I came only to congratulate Your Majesty on your birthday. There was no other reason.”

He set down his cup and said quietly, “As a monk, I should desire nothing. Yet after meeting Your Majesty, I found myself desiring many things.”

I frowned. “I do not understand. Tell me plainly what you want.”

He smiled. “Then… my purpose is for Your Majesty to live a little better. And then better still.”

The absurdity nearly made me laugh. “Why?”

“Because Your Majesty does not live well.”

“Who told you that? I stand above all but one – ”

I was preparing to argue when Youchun came to report. “Princess, His Majesty has summoned you.”

The gelu had left no successor, which amounted to the collapse of the state religion. Danchi finally woke from his drunken stupor and flew into a rage before everyone.

“Three days! Chen Dong, find out who killed the gelu within three days, or every last bastard who was present will die!”

Chen Dong stood below the dais and did not immediately answer. Naturally, he needed a moment to hesitate; his wife had been present too.

Sitting behind the furious Danchi with my head propped on one hand, I studied them one by one.

Everyone who had been there stood below us, some terrified, some aggrieved, some angry. Naihe alone remained clean and composed, like a bodhisattva untouched by mortal passions.

“What if there is no murderer?” Chen Dong suddenly asked.

“What do you mean?” Danchi demanded.

Yu Qing nearly roared from the side. “What else could he mean? Your Majesty, the gelu was the messenger of the Wolf-Headed Buddha. Who could kill him? That formation! That posture! He clearly took his own life to curse an evil spirit! Elder Brother, that woman is the evil spirit! She is the demon bringing ruin upon Great Qin! How long will you continue protecting her?”

His roar echoed throughout the hall. Silence fell. Danchi slowly raised his head, then suddenly locked both hands around Yu Qing’s throat.

“Have We not said…” He leaned close to Yu Qing’s ear, that familiar derangement in his voice. “…whoever disrespects the empress dies?”

Yu Qing gave a strangled whimper. His face turned crimson. Danchi smiled hideously at him, though his next words were addressed to Chen Dong. “My son, do you also think the gelu killed himself?”

Chen Dong said nothing. A deathly hush gripped the hall.

Then a young man’s clear voice sounded from one side. “Your Majesty, the gelu did not take his own life.”

Every eye turned to Naihe. He pressed his palms together and slowly bowed. “This humble monk should not presume to speak on Great Qin’s internal affairs. But as this matter concerns all our lives, I must tell the truth as I know it.”

He paused, then uttered a sentence that struck the hall like a thunderbolt. “Your Majesty, the formation beneath the gelu that day was false.”

The chamber erupted. Chen Dong barked, “You have a death wish!”

Danchi waved him off and turned to the young man with interest. “You are the envoy from that little southern court, yes? Go on. You say the formation was false. On what grounds?”

“As a child, this humble monk once studied under a gelu. I cannot claim full understanding of gelu sorcery, but I know something of the forms used to establish a formation. I am certain the formation that day was not the gelu’s work.”

Chen Dong clenched his fists until the veins stood out. Danchi’s smile vanished as well. “You studied under a gelu? You?”

Only later did I learn that northerners believed a tribe could have only one gelu, or a terrible omen would follow. Every tribe once had its own, but after Danchi unified the grassland tribes, only one gelu remained.

“That claim alone warrants death by flaying,” Chen Dong said coldly.

“What proof do you have?” Danchi asked Naihe.