Chapter Three To Quench Thirst with Poison

CHAPTER THREE

TO QUENCH THIRST WITH POISON

I’m falling, falling, falling.

When I land, the impact shatters me to pieces. I am a wreckage of garbled limbs and protruding bones. My heart and lungs struggle behind fractured, exposed ribs.

With excruciating effort, I flip myself over and drag my ravaged body forward. There’s someone standing ahead. I open my mouth to plead for help, yet the voice that rasps out of my throat isn’t mine.

“Zetian…”

My perspective jumps. I am now the one standing, looking down. The crawling one lifts his head. Bloody hollows gape where his eyes should be.

“Zetian…How could you leave me like this, Zetian?”

I’m sorry , I try to cry, yet it’s as if someone has sewn my lips shut. I stagger backward. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry …

He crawls quicker after me, leaving a wide trail of blood behind his partial body. “Help me, Zetian…”

I trip and land painfully on the ground.

He snatches my leg with a mangled hand. “Make…me…whole…”

The apologies trapped in my head sharpen into a silent scream. I jerk my leg free and roll away, only to feel another bloody hand on the ground. Its contorted fingers lock with mine like a trap. Ma Xiuying’s eyes, once so soft and kind as she gave me advice, stare emptily at me, upside down. Her body lies pulverized to muddled gore in a pile of metallic shards.

“You did this…” Her voice surrounds me, though there’s no movement of her jaw, dislocated and smashed to one side. “You claim you’re fighting for the sake of women, yet you did this to me…Me, only trying to protect my children…”

What was I supposed to do, let you kill me? I want to shout but can’t. I rip my hand from her grasp and scramble in another direction.

This time, my mother’s and grandmother’s crushed bodies block my path.

“You should’ve saved us.” Their words echo around me, on and on and on. “You could’ve saved us.”

I didn’t know how!

My justifications can’t reach any of them. More ruined bodies crawl to me, clawing and tugging at my limbs. No matter where I turn, there is no way out. They overwhelm me, tearing the flesh from my bones. I feel every rip of skin, every laceration of muscle, while not being able to make a single sound.

When I shudder awake, nothing makes sense. I don’t recognize my surroundings. It takes a while to remember myself, to separate reality from nightmare.

“No—” I lurch up in an unfamiliar bed. Dizziness comes over me. My head sways.

A chain rattles, accompanied by a pressure at my wrist.

I break into a cold sweat. I’m shackled to a post on a canopied bed. An infusion line tugs at my other arm, connected to a fluid bag dripping high on a metal stand. Squinting, I make out part of the text on the bag. Some kind of nutrient solution that aids in qì recovery.

“My lady!” A girl springs up from a fancy cushioned chair near the door. She turns and calls out, “The lady is awake!”

“Where am I?” I croak. My heart thrashes as I take in more of the room. It’s expensive-looking, with intricate rosewood furniture and dark walls painted with golden scrollwork. Amber light seeps from a wooden lattice on the ceiling. No windows. I have no idea if it’s night or day.

Shit, how long has it been and what have I missed? What happened to the Azure Dragon, to Qin Zheng, to Yizhi, to the other Chrysalises? And why am I chained up ?

The girl shuffles to my bedside and bows. This might be the Gao Estate, because she’s dressed like their maidservants, with a pink vest over a white blouse tucked into a blue pleated skirt. Her hair is done up in twin bundles on either side of her face and topped with a hairpiece shaped like cat ears.

“You’re in the new palace, my lady,” she says, keeping her head low. “You’ve been in a coma for about three days.”

Fuck! That is way too much time to have missed. Like—what does she mean, “new palace”?

“This isn’t the Gao Estate?” I demand.

“Not anymore, my lady.”

Okay, so it is. They’re just calling it by a different name.

Knowing where I am brings no relief when the weight of the manacle hangs on my wrist. Yizhi would never do this to me, so what’s going on?

“Who brought me here?” I examine myself. I’ve been stripped of my armor and conduction suit and put in a short-sleeved sheer robe tinged with gold. There’s no spirit metal left on me, not even the spinal brace pilots keep in our backs so we don’t have to stab ourselves with needles every time we put on our armor. I think I’ve been washed, too. My skin gives off a faint floral fragrance. My hair has been brushed soft and smooth. Nausea churns in me as I imagine strangers handling my naked, unconscious body. Whoever wrapped my feet back up did it particularly wrong; they throb with a dull, burning pain. “Where’s Yizhi? Gao Yizhi?”

The maidservant’s gaze remains on the polished floorboards. “His Majesty will be here to answer your questions soon, my lady.”

His Majesty?

Oh, no.

As I begin to fear my questions will have answers I don’t like, the door bursts open. Qin Zheng marches in, armor clattering, a black, gold-embroidered cape sweeping behind him. His half-masked face carries noticeably fewer flowery marks than when I first awakened him. Most seem to have scabbed over and flaked off, leaving faint white traces on his skin.

“Take your leave.” He waves a hand at the maidservant.

She bows and scuttles backwards out the door, never turning her back on him. I catch sight of two soldiers stationed outside.

My skin prickles the moment the door clicks shut, leaving Qin Zheng alone with me. It’s chilling to think back on how calculating he was while acting too dazed to pilot. He was observing me, determining how best to turn my weaknesses—my pride—against me. He let me wear myself out on purpose.

“ Remember this lesson, little girl. ”

I will. I must never underestimate him again.

“I’d like to know why I’m cuffed, Your Majesty.” I raise my chained arm and speak in the flattest tone I can manage, the archaic title feeling so strange on my tongue.

“A precaution,” he says, no longer using the dialect he woke up speaking, but something closer to radio-standard Hanyu. “I could not be sure how you would react upon awakening. I discovered you’re quite fond of causing public disturbances.”

He flexes his fingers. A curl of spirit metal swirls out of his gauntlet and morphs into a key in his grasp. I thought the stories exaggerated his abilities, but given the way he sculpted that Yellow Dragon subunit in the blink of an eye, they didn’t laud him enough .

I can’t help but shrink against the headboard when he strides toward me.

“Fret not,” he says, with an edge of bitterness. “The physicians determined that my strain of the pox is practically harmless in this era. How lucky you all are in the future, with your herd immunity and sophisticated vaccines.”

Every time I remember he’s from two hundred years in the past, it throws me off kilter all over again. This is weird. This is so weird.

When he lifts my wrist to unlock the shackle, I fight the urge to pull my blankets over this flimsy robe that barely covers anything. I cannot betray how vulnerable I feel, how I can scarcely breathe with him so close. I thought of him as a boy when I first saw him in the Yellow Dragon’s cockpit because the legends fixate on how young he was when he activated the Dragon, but this is definitely a full-grown man. Biologically in his twenties, if I’m doing the math right. His crown, like a tall, antlered headdress topped by a platform with bead veils in the front and back, casts strings of shadow over his forehead. The mask that curves over half his face and hooks behind his ear has gained a dragon-scale texture since his first, hasty creation. I’m not sure what made that side of his face look like it was melting as he came back to life, if it had anything to do with his scars, but otherwise he seems…fine?

“All technicians involved in decoding information from the old palace were assassinated,” he whispers near my ear.

I snap out of my stupor. “What? How?”

“Sniper wounds to the head. Current theory points to hit men hired over the…dark networks.” He trips over the term, surely unfamiliar to him. “I have investigators tracking the hit men down, but I do not expect the trail to end anywhere but in untraceable messages. This was a warning from the gods. Speak no more about them out loud.”

He drops the opened shackle. It clanks against the headboard on its chain. I don’t fail to notice how he’s leaving it dangling there like a threat, but that pales in comparison to my most urgent concern—

“Yizhi,” I gasp. “Did they get Gao Yizhi? The boy who rode in the Yellow Dragon with us?”

“No.” Qin Zheng melts the key back into his gauntlet. “He is too well protected. He is my Imperial Secretary now, after all.”

“Wh—” I feel like I’m the one who woke up in a different world. “So you—Your Majesty spoke to Yizhi after the battle?”

“Indeed. He offered this estate as Huaxia’s new governing palace, so I rewarded him with the position. He has been of tremendous assistance in navigating the intricacies of this future.”

“Where is he? I need to speak with him.” I look for my wristlet on the nightstand beside the bed but can’t find it anywhere.

“It would not be proper for him to come here.”

“What do you mean? This is his home.”

“No. Did you misunderstand me?” Qin Zheng enunciates. “He relinquished ownership of the estate. I am allowing him and his family to continue living in the side buildings out of courtesy, but this estate now belongs to the government of Huaxia. It’s mine .”

The way he says that word sends a chill down my spine. I knew he might pose a problem, but I hoped he’d be too disoriented by his displacement in time to do much. Then I could just kill him if he proved too difficult to deal with. Yet in a mere three days, he’s reclaimed his power at the top of the world. I can’t believe Yizhi helped him, though I can’t deny it was the right choice. If he didn’t immediately snag Qin Zheng’s favor, a whole city of other rich and powerful people would’ve pushed and shoved to do it first.

But where does this leave me ?

“Why am I here, then?” I say, twisting my sheets. “What does Your Majesty plan on doing with me?”

Qin Zheng puts his hands on his hips and looks me up and down. “Well, I was never one for marriage, but given that you announced yourself as the Empress of Huaxia, I suppose I must marry you to avoid the inelegance of having to refute that statement.”

I know I should disguise my reactions, but my mouth falls open. Coming from him, “empress” means something completely different from what I intended. All of a sudden, I get why he said it wouldn’t be proper for Yizhi to come see me.

Qin Zheng flips his cape aside and sits down on the bed. This time, I don’t hold back from gathering my covers over myself.

“Oh, do not flatter yourself,” he says. “I find you far too mentally childish and physically repulsive to have any carnal interest in you. This arrangement shall be strictly political.”

My grip on my covers loosens. There’s indeed no lust in his eyes, just cold calculation. Which is preferable in this moment, but much more unpredictable in the long run.

“Listen.” He puts a hand near me. “I am aware you wished to take the throne for yourself. It was amusing to watch, and I understand the feeling of invulnerability the Yellow Dragon can confer. But it was a foolish, impulsive move that would have brought you to a very quick end. However, I am not one to dismantle the bridge that let me cross the river, so to speak, and it would be a shame to let you perish when you have almost as much raw piloting talent as my nine-year-old self, so I am saving your life from the considerable number of calls for your death.”

“Considerable number?” I feign shock. “For what reason?”

It’s not that I’m surprised, but I’d like to know what, exactly, they’re saying to him.

“You are…not liked.” He peers at me with a mix of pity and amusement. “They tell me you are vulgar, dangerous, bloodthirsty, self-absorbed, manipulative, and an all-around affront to sensibility. What do you have to say for yourself, Wu Zetian?”

I fold my arms over my chest. No point denying any of that when he’s been inside my head.

“Yes, that’s pretty much who I am. Still want to marry me, Your Majesty?” I say it like a challenge.

I don’t believe he’s saving me out of gratitude . He has other plans for me, probably to use me as a steady co-pilot to kill more Hunduns en masse. The thought makes my stomach turn, but I need to ensure my survival before worrying about issues beyond me. If this marriage proposal is in name only, I have more to gain from accepting it than being squeamish.

A small smile curls his lips. “Frankly, I am offended by the insinuation that I would not be able to control you. Though, I must admit, when you invited me on a coup, I did not realize you were launching it with no power base at all among the masses. Not even a local dissident network? No assessment of which critical roads, ports, infrastructure, and military storehouses to secure? What was your plan?”

My face goes hot. “To not get killed. The Sages were bent on doing that, so I killed them first.”

“Oh, you ought to garner at least some support among the people before you start a revolution, little girl. You cannot simply skip the middle steps.”

I don’t argue. I can’t in good faith accuse him of being wrong.

“No matter.” He strokes his chin. “I can work with this. Not my first time turning a military coup into a proper revolution. Rest assured: I announced to the masses that you deserve the immense credit of freeing me from my slumber and alerting me to the extent of corruption among the Sages. I made it clear that I then decided it would be easier to create a new government than to work with that rotten mess, so I ordered you to crush them with me once we finished the battle at the Zhou province.”

“That’s not what happened,” I blurt.

“Is it not? Do you prefer the version of the tale that would intensify the calls for your blood? Would you like to speculate on what would have been done to your unconscious body if I had left it in the street?”

I shake away the horrible images rushing behind my eyes. “Don’t act so noble. You only saved me to use me for your war plans.”

His demeanor darkens like a gathering storm. “Do not speak to me of using others!” He lunges over me, backing me against the headboard. “ You are the one who awakened me into a world I no longer recognize. You are the one who sought my power and my Chrysalis to free yourself from your conundrum. Did you think you could use me as a game piece only to discard me?” He runs his fingers down the chain hanging near my head. “I blame you not. Plenty of others have endeavored to do the same. It’s never worked out quite as they intended.”

My throat goes dry under the pressure of his scrutiny, his face so close I notice the eye on the masked side of his face is slightly cloudy. He must not have great vision on that side. Noted.

“Your Majesty is a little close,” I make myself say.

Slowly, he pulls away. His gaze drifts toward the wall.

“Do you know the sharpest sentiment I felt since awakening? It’s disappointment . Nothing about this future is how I imagined, aside from the minor miracle of Huaxia holding together as a single entity. I’ve discovered that I made the mistake of leaving too many reactionary forces alive in my time. As soon as I vanished, they leaped to purge my government and reverse my most revolutionary policies. They retaliated without mercy against the workers and peasants who rose up at my call. Now, despite all the improvements in technology, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor have gotten poorer. The war has gone nowhere. Pilots have devolved into entertainment . The masses lose themselves in flashy yet meaningless amusements, or they take their misery out on those more vulnerable than themselves.” He glances in disgust at the outline of my bound feet beneath the covers. “Look at you, made physically useless for the sake of vanity.”

A sourness prickles like acid beneath my skin. “It wasn’t my decision,” I say, though I don’t know why I’m defending myself. I shouldn’t have to.

“It better not have been. I cannot stand women content to be nothing but a pretty face and a birthing vessel. Once you recover from the surgery, I expect you to do your fair share of labor.”

I’m about to argue most women don’t get a choice, but something else sticks out in what he said. “Surgery? What surgery?”

“I had your foot situation reversed.” He twirls a finger above my covers. “The best that the top orthopedic surgeon of this era could do, anyhow. The bones realigned, the flesh reattached, implants used where necessary.”

I hurl my covers off my legs. I thought my feet felt weird because whoever clothed me messed up the binding technique, but my feet are, in fact, noticeably longer and wrapped in medical bandages.

“ You had surgery done on me? ”

“Insolence!” Qin Zheng chides. “Do not raise your voice to me. Would you have wanted your feet to remain in their putrid state?”

“I—” Admittedly, I’ve fantasized plenty about getting this kind of surgery. If the recovery period wouldn’t have left me dangerously vulnerable for too long, I would’ve demanded it before the counterattack. But that is not the point! “Your Majesty should’ve asked me first!”

“There is no need to get emotional.” He flashes his hand at me. “You were comatose, and time was of the essence.”

As I do my very, very best to not scream at him, I notice my legs are perfectly smooth. I touch my face and inspect my arms. There are barely any hairs left on my skin. “Did you have me shaved, too?”

“Something better. I was informed there now exists a treatment with”—he gestures vaguely—“concentrated beams of light that can remove body hairs permanently. And so I bestowed it upon you. You were in urgent need of it.”

“You mean lasers ?” I’ve seen ads about this all over Chang’an the few times I traveled its streets.

“If you are to become my empress, you must be at least halfway presentable. Which also includes no longer having this ‘lotus feet’ ignominy.” He snarls. “In my time, only so-called high society families in certain regions did this to their daughters, a grotesque symbol of their lack of need to toil for a living. So proud were they to live off the labor of others that they delighted in having wives unable to function without servants. I banned this ludicrous practice, but after my disappearance the ban was repealed in the name of ‘personal liberty.’?” He utters the term as if he wants to bite whoever coined it. “To think it’s spread to even the peasant class! Outrageous.”

Every sentence he speaks gives me a different whiplash of emotion, my urge to call him a pig extinguished by the thought that foot-binding could’ve been eradicated two centuries ago if he’d lived a few more years. That would’ve changed the fate of so many girls, including me.

“This is the kind of revolutionary policies Your Majesty was talking about?” I say, caught between guarded hope and stinging grief.

He raises his chin. “Did you think I unified Huaxia for the thrill of conquest alone? I was born into a world that saw me as less than dirt due to the circumstances of my birth. I spent my life proving the injustice of this judgment, because a society that values birthright over merit is fundamentally broken and nonsensical. I was out to transform it, to rid it of those parasites who amassed their riches by exploiting the less fortunate. Only by destroying this system can we most effectively harness the talent among our population to win our freedom.”

I tense up at that last line. It’s natural to assume he means victory against the Hunduns, but according to him that can’t happen as long as the gods exist. So then…?

“Are you with me?” Qin Zheng asks in a low voice, staring into my eyes as if he can see the turmoil behind them.

“Yes, if Your Majesty is sincere about transforming the world,” I mutter. “But how exactly can we defea—”

He puts a finger to his lips and shakes his head. His eyes flick upward.

I catch his meaning. We have no idea how closely the gods can watch us. We can’t plot against them without taking more precautions.

“I have a plan for Huaxia,” he says. “I shall let you know when you have a role to play. Until then, do not get any stray ideas.”

I don’t like the way he said that, but I have to pick my battles. Whatever gets me closer to the changes I want. “As long as that plan includes no more foot-binding and no more unequal inputs in the yīn and yáng seats.”

“Done. I have no love for unproductive practices.”

I blink. That’s it? It’s that easy? A few words, and lives will change by the thousands? Millions, even?

So this is what it’s like to have power.

Of course, the power is his, not mine. Something I don’t think he intends to let me forget. How do I change this situation?

I need information from someone who isn’t him, at the very least.

“Also, can Your Majesty give my wristlet back?” I ask in my most unassuming voice. “I would like to talk to Yizhi.”

“No.” Qin Zheng gets to his feet and adjusts his gauntlets, looking ready to leave. “I do not trust you with any device capable of spreading information on a wide scale.”

“ What? Why?”

“ You know why .” His eyes burn with a reminder of our argument over the truth.

My palms go clammy. “Fine, I promise not to say anything Your Majesty doesn’t want me to say. Just let me talk to Yizhi.”

“You expect me to take you at your word?” He scoffs. “Besides, I’ve been told those advanced devices carry significant security risks. If hijacked remotely, they could transmit audio and visual information to nefarious parties. Why would anyone keep such things on their person? I shall call for writing utensils. Whatever you wish to say to whomever, you can write on paper, and I shall check and deliver it.”

There is no way I’m taking that option.

Seeing no cane to use, I clutch my drip stand and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I will find Yizhi, even if I have to crawl through every building in the estate.

Qin Zheng holds me down by the shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I bite back a reflexive demand for him to get his hand off me. That is not the way to get through to a man like him when I have so little leverage. He’d refuse out of spite alone.

“I’d like to not be touched,” I say calmly. A request, not a command.

To my mild surprise, he actually takes his hand away. “You are in no condition to walk. Not to mention it is far too dangerous for you to wander about.”

“Then Your Majesty will give back my spirit armor so I can protect myself, right?”

“You are in no condition to wield that, either. You are lucky not to have suffered permanent brain damage from overexerting yourself. Forcibly taking in large amounts of qì in a short time is extremely grating on your meridians. You must rest for the next few weeks to recover. This is for your own good.”

I make an indignant noise before I can help it.

He tilts his head. “If you insist on being difficult, you leave me no choice but to chain you up again.”

Dealing with him is impossible. I rise to get past him, biting my lip as I put my bandaged feet on the floor. It sends up a hotter, more swollen kind of pain than what I’m used to.

Qin Zheng shoves my shoulder. I flop back down on the bed, breath leaving my lungs. Heat surges in my face as I get up on my elbows, though I hiss when the movement rips the infusion needle out of my arm.

“That hardly took any strength.” He lowers his hand. “The soldiers at the door have orders to keep you safe. I would love to see you attempt to get past them. Really, it would delight me.”

I briefly fantasize about tackling him to the ground and strangling him. I want to scream, I want to fight, but I would lose, and that would only prove his point.

“Then I want to see Dugu Qieluo.” I pick up my infusion needle to stop it from dribbling onto my sheets. “The White Tiger’s yīn pilot. What did Your Majesty do with her and the other pilots who came with us?”

“I have them aiding in the efforts to excavate the old palace ruins. Including that insolent pair of children who had the gall to challenge us.” Qin Zheng shakes his head while opening a drawer in the nightstand. “Children these days. Nothing like community service to make them repent.”

There’s a certain relief in knowing it’s unlikely we’ll face more Chrysalis attacks after Qin Zheng has taken charge so aggressively, but the price is that…Qin Zheng has taken charge very aggressively. The last thing I wanted was to trade one prison for another.

He opens a small, flat package from the drawer and pulls my arm toward himself. I resist until I see he’s holding an alcohol swab. With circular motions, he cleans the skin around my needle puncture. The tiny squares of metal that make up his gauntlets are so fine they fit his hands like snakeskin.

I look away from what he’s doing. “Well, there shouldn’t be a problem with Qieluo visiting me since she’s a woman, right?”

“I suppose not. I shall summon her.”

He opens another package from the drawer for a fresh needle. When he takes my arm again, a fluid loop of spirit metal from his gauntlet tightens around my elbow as a tourniquet. Squinting in concentration, he pushes the needle into my vein. I swallow my protests. If a doctor has me on this drip, I probably need it. Yizhi may have had no choice but to go along with confining me to this room, but he wouldn’t have let them go as far as drugging me with something dangerous.

Qin Zheng tapes the needle down before hooking my dripping infusion line onto it.

“You’re awfully familiar with doing this,” I remark, shivering when the cold fluid enters my blood.

“My mother used to need many such treatments. The setup has changed little in the past two centuries.”

His mother the prostitute , I automatically think before immediately feeling bad. For her, not him. Surely she deserves to be known for more than her profession.

“Now, behave yourself. I have much work to do.” Qin Zheng leaves without another look at me, cape sweeping behind him.

I watch the door close, thumbing the needle in my skin. The room falls deathly quiet, aside from the pounding of my heart and the drags of my breathing.

Empress . Fancy title for a girl who can’t even leave a room as she wishes. I stare at my feet, operated on without my knowledge, and see a long future where Qin Zheng makes every decision in my life according to his whims. I went through all I did, sacrificed my family, just to end up in this situation?

And I brought it on myself. I was so desperate when I unleashed him that I didn’t consider the danger he might pose. I almost laugh out loud at myself when I remember a proverb: “to quench thirst with poison.”

I drag my nails down my chest, leaving red streaks. What would it take for me to no longer be a woman? If I cut off my breasts? If I cut out my womb?

I glance around for something that could do the job, but whoever prepared the room swept it well. No sharp objects anywhere. Even if there were, and I mutilated myself with them, would it change anything?

I’m a prisoner in this world, in this era, in this room, in this body. It never ends. It will never end.