Lu’s cousin wore a broad, handsome smile when the guards opened the gate, but it curdled into a scowl the moment he saw her. There were no gaps in his teeth, Lu noted. They must have replaced the missing ones with porcelain.
The Hana had had wedding traditions of their own, but those of the Hu were known and practiced far and wide through the empire since their conquest. Set could hardly fail to notice she was draped in scarlet when she should have worn gray and black. Undoubtedly, Set and his advisers had rehearsed the steps of the ceremony so frequently in the past month that he could recite them in his sleep. But they hadn’t taught him what to do should his bride refuse him, had they? A look of doubt crossed his face, swelling into panic.
And then Lu found it was she who was smiling.
She stood and clapped once to call attention. The sound resonated loudly against the red earthen walls of the Heart, stark in the silence. There was a muted shuffle as a half thousand bodies turned to acknowledge her.
“Welcome, my dear cousin; honored Hana guests!” she called to them. “We are delighted to host you. Please, approach.” She gestured them forward.
Annoyance flickered across Set’s face. According to the traditional Betrothal Ceremony, it should have been he who controlled the movements, his actions that held significance, while she just sat there like a stupid little fool and waited for him to steal her throne.
Lu’s grin widened. Unbalance your opponent’s footing and take control of the fight … She would need to thank Shin Yuri for his wisdom. Instinctively, she sought him out in the crowd but did not see his face among the gathered shins.
Her cousin grudgingly dug his heels into the sides of his massive gray destrier to urge the beast forward. He was a handsome sight, a Hu soldier’s studded black leather vest emblazoned across the chest with the symbol of the First Flame fitted over a silk Hana-style jacket of deep, moody blue. Around his neck, he wore a thick chain bearing a single charm: a palm-sized chunk of crystal.
Set’s retinue followed him, clearly as unnerved by her unexpected appearance as their leader: three hundred men on horseback looking nervous as little boys on their first day at the Imperial Academy. Lu smiled internally, then directed her attention to the unfamiliar old man riding at her cousin’s side. He was small and meekly hunched, garbed poorly in drab heather gray, astride a discordantly handsome chestnut courser. At first, Lu took the old man’s robes for cotton, or even burlap, but as he came closer she saw they were made of raw silk—soft and subtle.
So, this must be my cousin’s so-called mystic, she thought scornfully. The magic monk who had broken Set’s addiction to poppy tears. Supposedly. Could her cousin truly be abstinent, now? Many believed once addiction set in, it was nearly impossible to free oneself.
Aside from a spare white brow, the monk’s head and face were completely hairless, like an infant’s, but his eyes were canny. He would have to be clever to manipulate himself into such a high position. He was a person to watch, then.
Set reached the foot of her dais, the retinue stopping with him. He was close enough now that she could see his gray Hana eyes more clearly. Just like her mother’s and sister’s—the color of storm clouds and smoke—but his stare was even more penetrating than the empress’s, and held within it was a fury the likes of which Min was incapable. He glowered at Lu with those eyes, as though he would have liked nothing better than to tear her down from where she stood.
She smiled placidly. He was welcome to try. It hadn’t worked when they were children, and she was no child now.
“Welcome,” she repeated to the Hana men. Then, opening her attention back to the rest of the courtyard she announced, “All of us gathered here today are familiar with the components of the current Hu Betrothal Ceremony: the bride-to-be upon her pedestal, and the three actions of the suitor:
“The slaughter of the tusked stag with the suitor’s own blade, symbolizing his physical prowess,” she listed. “Then, there are the recitations from the Analecta, symbolizing the intellect of the future emperor, and finally, the call-and-response of the bride’s three riddles, to reflect the suitor’s wisdom of the heart.
“Each of these acts represents a treasured part of our collective Hu and Hana histories, demonstrating the worth of an imperial suitor. However, we live in dire times. Our need for a Hu emperor of strength, intellect, and wisdom is greater than it has been ever before. My cousin Lord Set of Family Li stands before you now as a candidate who may well possess these traits”—she paused for a moment, breathing hard—“as do I!”
A shocked murmur rippled through the crowd.
Lu ignored it. She must not lose her confidence for even a heartbeat. Right now she had a captive audience following her lead because she had thrown all of them off their footing. She had to keep them moving, clinging to her sure grasp, her certain rhythm.
“In the days of old, Hu kings were chosen through rigorous contests of strength, intellect, and wisdom. These contests insured we chose the very best, the strongest and smartest among us, rather than merely relying on the inertia of bloodlines and a token good word. These contests are what made us warriors—conquerors. And emperors.” She let the words hang in the air for a moment. Conquerors of the Empire of the First Flame, the silence thundered. Your conquerors. Your emperors.
Galvanized by the thought, Lu snarled with a passion that surprised even her, “And what have our traditions become? What have we degenerated into? This!” She thrust an accusing hand toward the tusked stag’s makeshift pen. The three men tasked with guarding it started.
“This!” she repeated, making it a scoff. “This dumb, domesticated beast, bred for appearance alone. Yes, its wildly curling tusks—far larger and more ornate than those of its wild cousins—make it fearsome to look upon, but were it to try to run, it would fall upon its face! Generations of safety and comfort and inbreeding have made its natural weapons utterly cumbersome and useless in practice. Like a sword so heavily set with jewels and adornments it cannot be lifted.”
As though sensing the attention turned upon it, the stag looked up, its eyes patient and docile, chewing on a fistful of hay.
“The empire does not have to endure such a fate. It cannot. We can still choose the best, the worthiest emperor to lead us toward the future. That is why I ask my cousin, my suitor, to dispense with the pretty gestures and symbolism and prove his worth against mine. Rather than assuming your superior wisdom, let us submit ourselves to the shins for tests of wit. Rather than slaying a caged domestic beast here in this courtyard—ride to the northern forest with me and let us see who can take down a real tusked stag! Rather than wearing a pretty sword at your waist, take it up and prove you can best me with it.”
She could sense her words working—stirring and rousing the gathered crowd. She could feel the thrum of their excitement in the air, as dense as humidity and the flat trill of cicadas during monsoon season. And so, without giving Set a chance to respond, Lu turned to her father.
“I trust,” she began, and for a moment, meeting her father’s eyes—dark, interested, but hesitant, undecided—her voice faltered, breath catching in her throat. She squared her shoulders, steeled her bones, breathed. She did not risk even a glance toward her mother. “I trust,” she repeated, “that my father, my emperor, leader of the great Empire of the First Flame, and the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, agrees with me.”
Aside from the constant crackle of the First Flame, the courtyard was deathly silent. Of the five hundred or so advisers and gentry privileged enough to have station within the inner court, some had been on their knees, foreheads pressed to the ground, some unabashedly gaping up at her, while others were poised in mid-bow, uncertain of what they ought to do. At that moment, though, as one, they all turned toward the emperor in anticipation.
Please, Lu thought, beseeching him with her eyes. Willing him to look at her, to truly see her. Be the man, the father, the king I know you to be.
The emperor swept his imperious gaze out over the court, at the thousands of burning, inquisitive eyes staring back at him. He cleared his throat. Lu felt each body in the courtyard lean inward, as if that would allow them to sooner hear his decision as the words fell from his mouth.
Bright and glorious as polished gold catching the sun, her father laughed.
He laughed longer and louder than she had ever heard him before. Until tears welled in his eyes. The crowd was beginning to stir, uncertain of how they should react, but eager to know.
Lu’s lips parted, as though her body were already preparing to rebut his rejection of her. With what words, though? None came to mind. This was all she had, and she had laid it at her father’s feet.
The emperor looked to her, and in his eyes she finally saw something solid. Something warm and fond and awed. She saw his love. Good.
He nodded, expectant. As though waiting for her to return the feeling.
She made to smile—then stopped. Instead, she turned her chin up coldly and flicked her eyes away before she could see what hurt she had inflicted. Let him be hurt, she thought with a small surge of satisfaction. Let him feel how I felt. In truth, her father was giving her nothing more than she had earned.
Lu turned back to Set. “The emperor has agreed, then,” she told him. Her cousin’s gray eyes were murderous. The blood in her veins felt molten and desperately close to the skin, as though all of her were about to burst into a shower of flame and sparks.
“You and me, cousin,” she said. “Let us see who the true emperor is.”