Page 85 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

Xifeng looked into Shiro’s wide, questioning eyes. “Akira is doing well, my friend,” she reassured him. “I sent Bohai’s assistant to her twice every week. He gave her a tonic to help improve her appetite, and she’s been sleeping better, too.”

“Thank you, Xifeng,” he said hoarsely. “If you’ll excuse me, I will go to her now.”

“You have my permission,” she said, pleased, and he left at once.

Hideki’s beard quivered. “I have something for you from Wei.” He reached into the folds of his clothing and drew out an object wrapped in cotton. “He traveled with us midway through the Great Forest, then went west. He said he was going to seek peace.”

Peace in my mother’s death.Xifeng accepted the object, hating herself for hoping Guma’s murderer would return. The cloth fell away to reveal a flat polished stone, rounded like the cap of a mushroom. It was the color of a mushroom, too, but when she regarded it more closely, she saw flecks of blue and gold and purple. It was beautiful as a fallen star.

Hideki watched her with eyes full of pity. “He found it in the ruins of a monastery and asked me to bring it back to you, to remember him by. I believe he means to become a monk.”

She looked bitterly at the stone. “Wei, a monk? I can’t imagine any place more unusual for him.” The silence, the prayer, the plain meals. But he had always longed for simplicity, hadn’t he? She had been the one who wanted more.

“There is something else. He sent this through a messenger later, when the envoy came back through the woods.” And even before Hideki gave them to her, Xifeng knew what they would be: nineteen rectangles of fine gold wood, tied up in rough cloth, their etchings as familiar to her as the ridges of her own hands.

She closed her eyes and swayed as she gripped Guma’s cards of fortune.

A barren field, a dying horse, a man with a knife in his back.

Hideki said her name, and his voice came from far away.

A lotus opening to the moon, a vindictive warrior, an Empress with her hair unbound.

“Xifeng?” Hideki repeated anxiously.

And a girl in disguise, with her eyes on the stars and vengeance in her heart...

“Guma would never have given up these cards if she were alive.” Xifeng held the deck to her heart. Yet another person lost to her. Yet another who would not return.

Hideki fiddled with the hilt of his sword, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry. Sometimes the ones we love leave us...”

“...and sometimes we leave them,” Xifeng interrupted, tucking the items into her robes. She didn’t want to hear his platitudes of stale comfort, no matter how well meaning. Wei and Guma were gone, and that was that. “Do you still plan to return to Kamatsu in the spring?”

The soldier looked grateful for the change of subject. “I do. We have been too long away from home, and my heart yearns for the open sea. Shiro hopes to persuade Akira to raise the child there, and the seas will be calmer in the spring for a woman and a baby.”

The image of them all sailing away together made Xifeng feel utterly alone. One happy family, and the final link to the girl she had been and would never be again. “We must have a banquet for you,” she promised, with forced cheer. “You will be our guests of honor.”

But even after they said goodbye and the eunuchs led her back to the city of women, the restlessness lingered. She took her needlework outside onto the balcony, hoping the glacial air would help her concentrate, but the unseasonable birdsong was so distracting, she gave up. She spent the afternoon pacing in the gardens instead, Wei’s stone and Guma’s cards weighing her down with every step.

•••

That evening, Kang steered her to the banquet hall with gentle determination. “You must eat something. I haven’t seen you take a meal all day.”

“I’m not hungry,” she returned, when a loud, crashing sound silenced the entire hall.

It was the banging of every gong in the city of women, a joyful,rhythmic beat they could hear echoing from the main palace as well. The clamor repeated five times in a pattern of five, and then there was quiet. Everyone seemed to be waiting. But minutes later, there was still nothing but silence, and activity and conversation resumed.

“A princess has been born,” Kang murmured. “We would have heard fireworks if it had been a prince. Her Majesty must be beside herself with joy.”

Xifeng remained silent as emotions warred within her. Underneath her resentment, she felt an unreasonable joy for Empress Lihua, who had wanted this child so desperately, and also despair, knowing how little time mother and daughter might have together. Xifeng had not touched a drop of poison, but the choice she had made—and the darkness to which she had bound her soul—might as well have been lacing the Empress’s tonic herself.

A life for a life. The loss of Guma, for the loss of the Empress.

Mothers and their love, so easily gone.

One of the other ladies-in-waiting appeared at her elbow. “We’re being summoned to Her Majesty’s apartments, to pay respects to the Empress and her daughter.”

“So she lingers on,” Xifeng whispered. The Empress had not yet died of the poison or childbirth.

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