“Concentrate,” Brother instructed. “Close your eyes if you think it will help.”
Min didn’t think it would—he made the same suggestion every day.
What’s the point? Nothing ever changed. She never changed.
But she did as he suggested, shutting out the monk, her bedroom, the table between them, arrayed with crystals and browned ledgers, a hand mirror, several odd metal contraptions she did not recognize, and disconcertingly, a small knife with a blade that looked hewn from glass. Brother’s “tools.”
“Perhaps one of these will work, since the tea did not,” he had said when he’d arrived. That had been hours ago.
She’d had to bite her tongue to stop herself from telling him that the tea had worked. But if that were the case, she would have to explain why she’d lied, all the things she had seen, what Set had done to that old man, what her mother had said about her sister—
“Think of what it felt like when you broke the cup at the Betrothal Feast,” the monk pressed. “Try to conjure what was going through your mind. What you felt in your body, and where.”
Min furrowed her brow. She’d been annoyed. At Snowdrop, at her sister. She searched for something deeper, something more meaningful, but all that surfaced was anger, harsh and red.
“I need her with me!” Set bellowed. The sound was close; he was in her apartments. He, and her mother with him. Min winced. They’re fighting again. She flicked her eyes toward the red-lacquered pocket doors that stood between her and their chaos.
Brother smiled encouragingly, as though he hadn’t heard anything at all. “Pay them no mind,” he told her. “Concentrate on—”
“In a war zone? On the front lines of battle?” her mother countered. “Have you lost your mind?”
“On the contrary, I see more clearly than ever.”
“Then you’re going to have to explain it because all I see is madness.”
There was a heavy thud, as her cousin—no, her husband—struck something. A wall, perhaps. Min flinched. Brother sighed.
“Let us see what they want.” The monk leaned back in his chair.
“Stop lashing out,” her mother scolded the emperor. “You’re acting half a child! How am I to trust your word if you can’t behave like an adult?”
Min resisted the urge to clap her hands over her ears. Instead she rose and walked toward her windows, gazing down onto the garden where her nunas milled like pigeons. Brother had sent them away for her “lesson.”
He made them leave so they wouldn’t gossip. Well, all this shouting certainly would give them something to gossip about.
Below, Butterfly stroked the seven-stringed zither, laid across her lap like a cat. The others sang along, their voices coming through the window muted and somehow sad, though the lyrics were happy.
Min felt so far away. As though they were in a world apart from her. She lingered there like a mournful phantom, half waiting for one of them to look up and see her. They wouldn’t, though.
They never really liked me, she thought, not for the first time, but still, it stung. No one does. Not truly. I could die and they would all weep dutifully, but not one of them would miss me.
Min might have accepted this as the way of the world—the natural order between servants and those they served—had Lu’s nunas not hung on her every word, fought for her sister’s attention and praise. Loved her as a friend. A sister. Even having to sort her laundry and wash her hair had not dampened their enthusiasm.
For all the good it did them, murmured a voice in the back of her mind. Now they’re locked up. They’ll be tortured, kicked and beaten—
No! She shook her head as though to knock loose the thought. That was a dream.
But she found herself imagining Hyacinth, her knuckles bloody, her skinny ankles draped in chains—
Who cares about her? a voice within hissed. Who cares about any of them?
Lu’s nunas, her own, it didn’t matter. They didn’t matter.
They’re just maids, anyway, the voice sneered. Was it hers or the other? It was so hard to tell, lately.
“We need to leave soon. Brother says . . .” Set’s voice rose in the other room, penetrating the doors and overtaking her own.
“As though what that creature says matters to me,” her mother snapped.
Min glanced anxiously toward where Brother was still sitting, hands crossed in his lap. He didn’t seem to have heard, though of course he must have.
“There is a prophecy!” Set raged. “My reign over the empire will only be secure if I can take the North, and I can only take the North if I have Yunis! Brother has seen it!”
“What do you really know of that man?” her mother demanded. “You should hear the things people say about him, Set, when you’re not around! And you leave him alone with my daughter to do heaven knows what!”
“He saved me!” Her cousin’s voice thundered, his rage so palpable it hit Min like a fist. She backed toward the windows. “He showed me there is still magic in this lousy, worthless world. Don’t you ever, ever speak ill of him!”
“Magic . . . ? This is absurd. Minyi is my child. My only child. I won’t have you and some quack monk telling me what to do with her.”
They went quiet. For half a ragged breath, Min wondered if they’d left. Then her door burst open and her mother strode into the room, making straight for her as though Brother wasn’t even there. Min flinched as her mother swept down upon her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders, her belled sleeves settling like wings.
“Min, come with me. We are leaving for the Eastern Palace. You went there once as a child, do you remember? You loved the lake.”
Min did remember, but she hadn’t loved the lake, which had seemed a vast, swallowing maw. It had been Lu who stripped down to her waist, splashing around in the shallows with Hyacinth, then swimming out farther than the others would dare, until her head was just a speck of black in the silver water. Min had stood on the rocky shore and wept in fear as Amma Ruxin shrieked for Lu to return this instant, the gods help you, child.
How had her mother so misremembered things?
“That wasn’t me,” Min whispered, but no one seemed to hear. Perhaps she hadn’t really spoken at all.
“What you’re proposing is treason,” said Set. “I order Min to come with me, and if you take her away I swear I will have you locked up, Aunt Rinyi. No one is stopping me. Not Lu, not the court, and not you.”
Her cousin filled the doorway, leaning heavily against the rounded frame with both hands. His handsome face was stiff with frustration and spite, blazing eyes locked on her mother. A hank of black hair had fallen loose from his plait.
Brother stood, holding a steadying hand up in Set’s direction. “Let’s all calm down—”
“Why, Set?” her mother demanded over him. “Tell me what on earth you could need Min for. She’s just a girl, and she belongs with her mother.”
I’m no girl, Min thought in outrage. You told me yourself, I’m a woman now!
“Minyi.”
Set’s voice was still and even, ringing in cold contrast to her mother’s ragged yelling. He straightened, released his hold on the door frame with some effort. Then he smiled—false and faint—and held out his hand.
“Min, come here,” he said.
Her mother’s arms tightened, pulling Min against her chest so hard she could feel the give of the empress’s flesh beneath the layers of her robes. Instinct and discomfort made her move to pull away, but her mother did not let go.
“We’re going, Min,” the empress said. Min could feel the vibration of her voice, and in it the tremor of doubt undercutting her words.
She looked up at her mother’s face, then to Set’s. One taut and self-righteous, the other frenzied and furious. Both pale. Both expectant. Waiting for her to choose.
Between what, exactly? What were they each offering?
Nothing, she realized, in that voice that was hers, and also not.
They were each asking something of her. Demanding.
The choice between the dangerous unknown, and the stifling, unbearable familiar.
She had to go to Yunis, didn’t she? For Set. But how to make her mother see? What do I do? she asked the no one within her.
In the end, she didn’t have to do anything. Set strode across the room and seized her by the hand. With one firm yank, she was torn free from her mother’s grasping embrace and tumbled into his own.
“Tell her, Min,” he said, his voice wet and overeager. “It’s time. Tell her what’s inside of you.”
Min’s whole body trembled. I have to stop. I’m not a little girl, I can’t be scared . . .
“Be gentle, my emperor,” Brother said, his voice still inappropriately calm, as though he were in some other conversation.
“Why, Set?” her mother said, and Min was astonished to hear how small and broken she sounded. How defeated. “Tell me why. You promised me you would protect her.”
“Min can protect herself. She has strength beyond what you can imagine. It was foretold.” He shook Min’s shoulder, sounding absurdly cheerful. “Come on then, cousin. Wife. Tell her what you are.”
“You’ve gone mad,” her mother was saying, shaking her head. “You want her to tell me what she is? She’s a child.”
“Show her,” Set insisted. “Show your mother what you can do.” He prodded her forward.
Min looked between them again, both so rattled, so weary, and looking oddly young. She glanced at Brother, but he was still standing behind her cousin, hands at his sides. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—do anything. No one could stop this now.
No one except . . . Help me, she thought. A silly futile prayer.
You already have everything you need, you stupid girl, said the voice that was hers and also not.
She didn’t, though—she didn’t have anything. “I . . . I can’t,” she said, turning pleadingly to Set. “I don’t know how to do it yet on my own. I don’t . . .”
His face softened, as though he only now registered her terror and uncertainty. What this was doing to her. “Min, I’m sorry,” he said, and something like shame welled up in his voice. “Of course you can’t . . . I’m sorry. Come here.”
In spite of herself, she felt gratitude flush through her veins. At last, he recognized what he was doing. He saw. She stepped forward, allowing him to tug her once again into a gentle embrace.
She sensed the change a heartbeat before it happened, felt the warning in her blood, her bones. Too late. His hands were hard, viselike around her shoulders and he whipped her around until her back was flush to his chest.
“I really am sorry,” he said, his words fluttering against her ear like a kiss. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.” Then he pushed her forward. “Brother? As we discussed.”
Min stumbled, but the monk was there to catch her. Like a magic trick, the glass-like knife appeared in his hand. She stared at it uncomprehendingly.
The monk yanked her hair back and drew the blade across her throat.
Her mother shrieked.
She shouldn’t do that, Min thought vaguely. The nunas will hear. They’ll talk . . . Everyone knows nunas are terrible gossips . . .
The pressure on her shoulders was gone. Brother had released her. She stumbled toward the windows. Below, Snowdrop and Butterfly and the others were still singing, though now the song had turned sharp and eerie, more like sobbing than music.
No, Min realized. That’s me. That’s me singing.
Her hand went to her neck and came away slick with blood.
She sucked a breath to draw a scream, too late remembering that would only pull the blood in, down her throat, down into her lungs, drowning her in her own red waters . . .
Only the feeling never came. Just a pain, sharp and fine and bright as the first moment of dawn. I’m still alive, she marveled. The cut was shallow, just breaking the skin.
Set stepped toward her, but her mother was faster, pushing him away. The empress was upon her, catching hold of Min’s face with her cold hands.
“Let me see!” she cried. “Let me see, baby.” And whirling on Set, “What have you done? What have you done?”
Set’s face was raptly curious, disappointment fraying the edges. He stepped forward, cautious, and the light from the windows caught the hollows of his cheeks, making him look stern, old.
“What were you thinking?” her mother screamed, whipping her head between Set and Brother. “You could’ve killed her! You still might! Oh, my baby . . . my sweet only baby . . .”
I’m not your only baby, Min thought distantly. I’m not yours, I’m not a baby at all . . .
“And look at her!” her mother continued, gently pulling Min’s head to the side, inspecting her throat. “Gods! Think of the scar it’ll leave! My sweet only baby . . .”
It was the wrong thing to say. Wrong. All of it wrong.
Not your only. I have a . . .
“My only baby,” her mother repeated, as though to refute the thought. Her hands fluttered about Min’s shoulders like pale doves.
“Get away!” Min shrieked. “Get away, get away from me!” She moved like an animal, flinging her arms wildly. Her hand caught, leaving a streak of blood across her mother’s mouth. It looked like she’d smeared her lip paint.
“Empress Minyi,” Brother said, stepping forward. “You’re in shock, we need to fetch the Court Physician—”
No, Min thought distantly. I already have everything I need.
“Don’t you dare touch her!” her mother was screaming at the monk. “I’ll see you hanged—I’ll see you flayed and forced to crawl through the streets of the Second Ring . . .” She moved to seize Min.
“Get away!” Min threw out her hands, and in that moment felt a new power course through her. Or perhaps it was the same power she had felt before, now swollen, amplified, transmuted. Gold and fire and heat and something like joy surged in her veins—and burst from her outthrust palms, invisible to the eye, but real. So real; the realest thing Min had ever felt.
Her mother flew backward, fast and impossible, as though lifted clear off the floor by a pair of unseen arms. She opened her mouth as though to cry out, but if she did, Min never heard. At that moment came a much louder sound—big and physical and wrong.
There was a great, ceaseless wind roaring behind her. The air surged, filled with scintillating floating bits of light. It was everywhere—cold little silvery flecks catching the light as they blew past. She could hear her mother screaming then, and Set, too. Did Brother cry out? She couldn’t hear him. All three of them were cowering, tucked in on themselves, covering their faces.
Snow, Min thought deliriously. It’s snowing inside . . . Why be afraid of a little snow?
One of the flecks caught her cheek. It was cold like snow, but hard. Ice? Then she felt the kiss of pain blossom in its wake.
Glass.
She turned, and with a strange calm she understood she had shattered every window in her room.
A few remaining shards fell from the emptied frames as she walked toward them, tinkling merrily to the floor. She took another step, heard the glass crunch under her slippered feet, crisp as autumn leaves.
She looked out onto the garden. This time, every nuna below looked back, standing frozen with wide eyes. The zither lay in the grass at Butterfly’s feet; it must have tumbled from her lap when she stood.
Min lifted a hand to wave, then realized her face was wet. When had she started crying? She touched her cheek. This time, when it came away red she did not shriek. She was not afraid anymore. Not of a little blood.
Everything is different now, said the voice that was hers and also not.
She heard stirring behind her and turned in time to see her mother stand, flecks of glass raining from her shiny black hair. The backs of her hands were bleeding from shielding her face, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. When she looked at Min, though, her eyes were vacant and unknowing as that of a doll.
“Min?” she whispered.
Min looked about her ruined bedroom. Brother was still standing by the table, his face aglow with something like awe. No—not quite. Hunger. Want.
She felt Set step in behind her, rest a hand upon her shoulder. She didn’t look at him, but she could feel his shock, his exhilaration, his fear, radiating like heat from his body.
This is what he wanted.
“What have you done?” the empress said, and her voice was pale with horror. At first it wasn’t clear who she was addressing, but then her bright eyes fixed upon Min. “What are you?”
Min felt her face move, the skin crying out from a hundred cuts she hadn’t felt before. She smiled, anyway. And when she spoke, her voice sounded like someone else. “Don’t you know me, Mother? I’m your baby.”