9. BETTER TO BETRAY

The deal has been made, the terms set.

Keep this from my sisters.My final request of the Masked Mother.

I cannot promise that, was her answer. I can only promise you won't be stopped by them.

Good, because if they knew what I'd agreed to, they wouldn't understand. No price is too great for success, and if I fail—

I'd rather perish.

I reappear in the throne hall where I lost my head. The blood is gone. Servants polish the floor, murmuring as they work. From their conversation I glean that Xin Bao is on a pilgrimage to the Northern temples.

At the temple, or here, the empress is of no importance to me. I saw as much of her fate as I needed to when I saw Plum's. Xin Bao will remain oppressed by her regents, heirless to the end. She's not destined to be anything more than a figurehead.

But she is Ren's world, and Ren needs to live to save her and her empire.

I start to drift out of the throne hall, slowing as a ghost flows in, then a second. The influx becomes a river. I flow opposite its current, one river leading me to another: the Mica. From afar, its banks appeared fogged. With ghosts, I see as I drift closer. Some stand on the shore, others in the water.

More join their ranks as the executioners carry on.

"What happened?" I ask the ghost beside me as rows of kneeling people are felled. Dewdrop mentioned that the spirits of humans should be able to see and hear me if freed from their body, but no one answers. I turn to the others. "Anyone?"

Silence, but for the pleas of the living before they're cut short. Some require two blows to kill. Their screams would curdle blood if I had any, but I don't. Don't have time to be distracted. Ren will march on Cicada soon, if she hasn't already. I need to find a body, prevent her death, and repair the alliance.

I drift past the ghosts, careful not to touch their degenerate forms.

"T-there was a rebellion against Miasma."

My head turns.

The ghost who spoke wears the robes of the empire court. "Last night," she continues, "in the name of Lotus, Xin loyalists set fire to the armory. Miasma executed them and their relatives. Then this morning, she had the court follow her here." Her gaze guides mine to the field beyond the river. Two flags fly in the gray sky. One white, one red. "If we'd stayed at home that night, we were ordered to stand under the white flag. If we'd gone to the armory to help put out the fires, we were ordered under the red."

"You went to the red."

The ghost nods, lip wobbling. "Truth is, I was asleep, the whole night. I didn't even hear about the rebels until this morning. But I figured it was a test, that the prime ministress would reward the retainers who'd tried to help . . ."

She was right about it being a test. She was wrong about Miasma. To the prime ministress, anyone at the scene could also be a rebel. She'd rather spare those who slept sound in their beds and execute the rest. She's suspicious like that. A scream rends the air, and I grow suspicious myself. "Why are you talking to me, and not the others?"

"I—I don't know," stammers the ghost. She looks down, and I notice the body that's floated toward us, more blood weeping out with the current. "You feel familiar to me. Like we've met."

Have we? Doubtful, I study the body in the water. The river flows, buoying a pale hand to the surface. Caught around the fingers is a string of praying beads, trailing to a worship plaque.

NADIR, GODDESS OF CREATION

"Were you executed too?" asks the ghost, and I glance up into her face, see the fearful uncertainty in it. Nadir would have a comforting word for one of her followers.

I am not Nadir.

"No." I turn away from the girl. "Let go of this world. The Obelisk of Souls will take you and wash you of all these memories. You'll be reincarnated." I draw a breath. "Don't serve a lordess like Miasma, in your next life."

"Wait—"

But I'm already drifting away.

The bodies stretch down the bank. So many bodies—none of which I can take. As a god, I may heal injuries faster, but I can't close fatal wounds. I can lift someone out of a coma; I can't revive someone chopped in half.

Besides, I think, floating to the field, becoming a Northern official wouldn't be much of an asset. The surviving ones are amassed under the white flag, like the ghost described. They shake while Miasma watches the executions from upfield.

She is not alone.

My heart chills at the sight of him, standing beside her. Still alive, just as the Masked Mother said.

Not for much longer.

"It's a shame that so much life must end today," Miasma says as I float to her and Crow. "But better to betray the world than have it betray me. Wouldn't you agree, Crow?"

Whatever Crow says in reply, I don't hear. His mouth moves without sound, its shape so lovely. Even lovelier is the bob of his throat as he swallows. The wind rises, carrying his scent to me. In my memories, he smells like herbs and silk.

Now all I can smell is blood.

Crow. It has to be him. Stratagem Nineteen: Remove the Firewood Under the Cauldron. Crow is the source of the South's strength, their secret weapon. He's behind every loss Ren has faced and will face, culminating with the loss of her life at Taohui.

I must remove him.

And I know just how. My eyes go to Miasma. If she turns against Crow, the Southern-Northern alliance will end. Cicada will remember who the real enemy is. She'll seek Ren's aid again. As to whether or not Ren will forgive Cicada . . . I'll work on that. I just need a body first—and not any.

His.

I choose him.

In this life and every other I forfeited, I choose him.

You once said we don't have to explain ourselves to each other, I think as night falls over our shared memories, my mind a palace of ice. Do you remember? It was the finalnight I pretendedto be on your side. You and I are both strategists. We both know.

It really, really isn't personal.

That night, I follow Miasma into her rooms. The seed of suspicion did not take root for whatever reason, but no matter.

I will plant it as many times as I need to.

I stand by as Miasma gets ready for bed. She undoes her lopsided ponytail and lies down, fully clothed, boots on. The candles flicker—harder, as the ghosts enter. They gather by the bed; one ghost kneels, palms raised as if to deliver a tray. She might be the servant Miasma stabbed mid-dream, inspiring the rumor of Miasma being able to kill assassins in her sleep. I'm among those who believe Miasma was playacting at sleep so she could create a rumor to serve her. But in every rumor is a kernel of truth.

Miasma has many enemies.

Here I am, one of them.

I sit on the bed and stare at her, this woman just two years Ren's senior. Her skin is waxy, her bones prominent. Does she dream of the atrocities she's committed? Does she have nightmares, like I guessed?

She will, after tonight.

If Nadir can send dreams, so can I.

I place my hands over Miasma's eyes and close mine.

The times I touched Lotus and Sikou Hai, I met no resistance. They were empty vessels; I was the liquid that would fill them. Miasma's spirit, on the other hand, is still in her body. At first there's nowhere for me to go. I'm like water poured onto glazed porcelain. I push and shove and—

A great vibration.

If I were focused on Miasma, I'd notice her brow knotting, her jaw tensing, her face in the strictures of a migraine.

But I'm already gone, seeped through the cracks and into Miasma's mind, where all is dark and silent.

Nadir's nightmares worked on me because they pulled at my fears. What are Miasma's?

Show me. I send my qì out into the darkness like the notes of a harmony.

Show me why you don't trust your subordinates.

Why you'd rather betray than be betrayed.

The darkness in front of me shivers, resolving to a scene:

Two young soldiers. One with a royal surname, the other without—but they have something in common.

A shared vision for the future.

At a birthday feast for the court's oldest minister, a Xin loyalist like all the others, he asks the assembled officials the question of the hour: "Who dares kill the tyrant who calls himself regent?"

And a person rises—not the one named Xin, but the one sitting beside her. A recently minted cavalry general, the title so new that most still see a teenage soldier. Others see a charlatan, aspiring for more than what someone of her lineage should desire.

"I, Miasma," says the young general. The sobriquet isn't recognized, and murmurs down the table invoke another name, bestowed by a eunuch.

Mimeng? Her?

She'll fail.

True to their word, she does fail, and in a palace storeroom she hides as the guards outside race by. After the assassin!

And what was anger—they didn't believe in her?—turns to fear. Black-spots-in-vision and pounding heart. Our heart. Before I can stop it, my mind merges with Miasma's, and from her eyes, I watch as the storeroom door slides open. A boot steps in, and our hand tightens around our only weapon—a hairpin with a red bell.

We launch up and forward—but it's her.

Xin Ren tugs us out, down the small palace paths used by servants, through a back door, to a tethered horse. She hands us the reins. "Leave, and don't look back."

Xin Ren is righteous. Xin Ren is good-hearted.

Xin Ren is a fool, for she doesn't understand that no matter where we go, the world won't welcome us like it does her. We have to carve ourselves a place, all because we weren't born with the right surname. So we return, not long after.

We finish the job we failed.

And suddenly, we have on our hands a young empress without a regent, and a realm full of tyrants vying to be the next. If they are flies, then the empress is the rot attracting them. She ruins our vision for the future, a continent united, without war, under one strong ruler.

Kill her, we tell Xin Ren, the only person qualified, in the opinion of most commoners, to assume the throne. If you don't, then I will.

And before our eyes, Xin Ren's expression grows cold. You've become the evil you ended.

Anger, fear, and now betrayal. How childish, that we should feel it. Nothing is unconditional in this dog-eat-dog world. Bonds wither. Trust decays.

All seasons end in winter.

Ren vanishes, and we get up. Step out of the pavilion we met in, into the courtyard. It's snowing. The tree branches are dressed like nobles with their white rabbit-fur muffs. We stare at the snowy branches of a tree . . .

. . . that buds two plums.

They want to kill us.

On the branch land three birds . . .

. . . that become crows.

The people who once saved us.

The candlelit room returns. My breathing is uneven, like I've woken from the dream myself, and as I stare at Miasma—sat upright in the bed—I feel unsettled. Did I regain control at the end? Did Miasma see the same things I did? She calls for a servant to get Plum, and I'm forced to wait too, for the senior registrar, who strides in and bows.

"I had a dream, Plum," says Miasma without preamble. "An odd little dream . . ." Her gaze sweeps through the room and returns to me. I hold my breath. She can't see me. She can't.

When Miasma says nothing else, Plum clears her throat. "I'll summon the imperial cosmologist—"

"Will you, Plum? Do me the honors of interpreting it?"

The senior registrar bows deeper, expression obscured, but I can hear her gulp. "As you wish, Prime Ministress."

Miasma gestures for Plum to pull up a chair, sighing when the older woman stays as is. She begins.

"I dreamed I was in the palace gardens. It was summer, but it was snowing. I heard a caw, and looked up. Do you know what I saw?" A thrill goes through me as Miasma says, "Three crows. They were perched on a tree, pecking at two plums." Miasma rests her chin on her knuckles. "What does that mean?"

Plum's bow deepens. "Forgive any misinterpretations—this is not my usual purview—but snow in summer seems unusual. Perhaps you are under stress or change is imminent. The number three is significant too. I assume it must mean you, Ren, and Cicada. The three kingdoms of this empire."

"Hmm . . . I see. I see. That all makes a lot of sense, Plum." But Miasma isn't done. "What of the crows? What of the plums? How would you interpret those?"

"Those . . ." Plum's waist folds to nearly ninety degrees. "You dreamed of them because you are used to seeing me and Crow."

"Three crows . . . two plums." I urge Miasma to make the connection. "You have no children, do you, Plum?"

There it is.

"No," says Plum. "No children, Prime Ministress."

"That's right," Miasma murmurs. "You entered this court when you were only a child yourself. Then the two plums . . ."

Miasma ruminates while I study the senior registrar. I suppose she still has years left to birth a descendant.

"Prime Ministress . . ." Plum lifts her gaze ever so slightly, peering over her clasped hands, arms suspended in a perfect bow. "Might I be so bold as to hedge that these dreams started after the warrior's execution?"

Slowly, Miasma nods.

"Her spirit must be to blame. Throw a feast to appease it. Our enemy or not, we ought to honor the life of a swornsister."

An intrepid suggestion. Will Miasma agree with it? Or will she be insulted?

In the ensuing silence, the ghosts watch Miasma closely, perhaps reliving their last moments before the execution order was handed down. Risk or reward.

Which will it be?

"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Miasma waves her hand. "See that the feast is arranged—"

She breaks off, clutching her head with a grimace.

"I also know of a physician, Prime Ministress," Plum murmurs. "I can have her come see you."

"Physicians." Miasma's voice is contemptuous. "Since when have they helped?"

"She's very good, I assure you."

"Send for her, then." With that, Miasma relieves Plum. I follow the senior registrar out. She shuts the door behind her and sags. She's outlived her peers because she has a sixth sense for danger. She knows it was a close call.

Not close enough for my liking. In the fates, Plum deposes Xin Bao after Ren dies. But if Ren lives and makes it to Xin Bao's side? Plum's fate may still bite us. I must end Plum as well, before she ever births a child.

"Bad dream, was it?"

At the voice, Plum stiffens while I straighten. He's here. My other target.

In the shadows down the hall, he waits patiently for Plum to go to him, speaking only when she draws into his earshot and out of Miasma's. "Does she suspect you now?"

"Don't spew nonsense," Plum snaps. "Worry about your own neck." Her eyes dart once to the right, once to the left; her whisper is minced and harsh. "We all heard what that warrior said."

"And what of it? Everyone knows I was born in the South." Plum hmphs as I frown. So that's what saved him, a preestablished fact to blunt Miasma's suspicion. Unruffled, Crow presses on. "What did she dream of ?"

"Crows and plums."

"Ah."

"Have you nothing else to say?"

"I'm sure you've already provided her with an actionable solution."

The lighter Crow's mood, the more Plum's darkens. "There are times I've wondered myself, if you really have the empire's best interests at heart. The Battle of the Scarp—"

"My mistake, and I've paid for it."

"This was a mistake too," Plum hisses. "We should have sent the warrior to Cicada as a gift. Let the Southlands execute her! But what have we done? Nothing but give Xin Ren more motive to come at us."

"She won't," says Crow. "She'll attack the Southlands."

"And why in the heavens would she?"

Crow holds Plum's gaze for a long, cool second. He smiles. "What is a strategist without secrets?"

"You—"

"Good night, Plum." Crow turns, starting down the red dim of the corridor. "And relax. Haven't we all fallen under Miasma's suspicion at one point or another? You yourself are no stranger to having your mail read by her. I'm sure in a few weeks, I'll be sent a test of loyalty to clear my name. So don't lose sleep over me."

"Children!" Plum spits, her disgruntlement a satisfying thing to witness. Then my satisfaction wilts.

Yet again, the seed of suspicion against Crow failed to grow.

I tail him to his room. He sits at his desk, touches a brush to ink, then ink to paper.

Stroke by stroke, words emerge.

Do not let down your guard.

The head may have fallen, but the wind may not blow in the direction we thought.

His brushmanship is neater than when I last visited him as a spirit. His music too was barely affected during our duet. In four short months, he's adapted to losing his finger. He has a soul of steel.

But even steel melts to fire.

Write more, I urge. Create hard evidence of your betrayal with every black-and-white word.

When he's finished, he considers the letter. He's surely sent messages like it to Cicada before, just encoded. Anything is better than nothing, I think as he lifts the letter off the desk. If he doesn't send it, then Cicada will think Ren is set to march against Miasma as intended. But if he sends it while his mail is being monitored . . .

He takes the letter to the brazier and feeds it in.

He does not write a coded version.

Ever so careful, my rival.

It will take more than a nightmare to damn him.

Crow is my foe. Plum is my foe. But I have one more—fate—and when the physician Plum vouched for arrives two mornings later, I see that fate is even more heartless than I am.

Because it's the same physician who treated Cloud.

If the scrolls are to be believed, she will tell Miasma she has a mass growing in her head.

She will be executed for it.

"Well, what is it?" asks Miasma after the physician concludes her examination.

Don't, I will her, hoping that she can feel the weight of my stare. Don't say it.

Don't.

"You have a mass growing in your head," says the physician and I look away, unable to watch on as she signs her own death edict. "Eventually, it will kill you." A tremor goes through the officials assembled. Plum herself is as pale as the ghosts by the throne. "But I can help."

Miasma leans forward in her seat. "Do say how."

"I will put you to sleep, open your skull, remove the mass, repair the bone, and finish by sewing up the scalp."

Even to me, a god, the words sound out of this realm. It's never been done—certainly not by mortals.

"And how will I trust you not to murder me in my sleep?" asks Miasma.

"That is a question only you can answer."

By now, the officials have distanced themselves from Plum. The court is so quiet, one could hear a bead of sweat fall.

"Prime Ministress—" the senior registrar starts.

"Guards!" Everyone kneels. Soldiers rush in, and Miasma points at the physician. "Take her to the dungeons. Interrogate her. Find out who sent this assassin." She sits back. "Take her associate too."

"Mercy!" cries Plum. "Mercy, Prime Ministress! I'm also a victim of trickery! I'd only heard of her legendary feats. I have no idea what devilry she spouts now!"

The physician keeps quiet.

The ghosts crowd around her as she's towed out, then Plum.

I float after them, to the dungeons, watching from the corner of the stone cell as the physician is roped to the interrogation rack. If only I could do more to help. She did save Cloud.

Then Plum screams from the abutting cell, and I remember I'm here for one purpose.

Stratagem Twelve: Pilfer the Goat from the Passing Herd. I didn't cause the physician's predicament, but I can capitalize on it. With a confession, I can take out Crow and Plum. No—Crow or Plum. To have both implicated is too suspect even for Miasma. I must choose. Crow is my greatest rival—

But Plum is Xin Bao's fated deposer. She can't be allowed to live one day longer into Ren's future, and I close my eyes to the physician's blood as it pools on the ground.

It has to be Plum.

Jangle of keys; creak of the door.

A voice from the prison hall. "You've worked hard."

"Master Crow." My eyes open to the interrogators bowing—and narrow as Crow steps in.

What is he doing here?

If he's disturbed by the interrogators' handiwork, he doesn't show it. "Take a rest," he says to them. "I'm here to ask the prisoner a few questions on behalf of our prime ministress." When the guards vacillate, he paces deeper into the cell, arms crossed loosely behind his back. "The chefs just finished roasting a boar," he says, his gaze on the ceiling, conspiratorially avoiding the guards'. "Be quick. I'll hold the fort."

"Yes, Master Crow!"

The interrogators leave. Crow maneuvered them so easily.

He did the same to me.

I like you.

A lie.

You deserve to live.

An act.

He steps before the physician, and my thoughts blacken.

He came into this cell sharing my intentions.

"Jin Hua. You, who last treated Gao Yun, otherwise known as Cloud." Crow allows the physician a breath to process that yes, he knows this. The power is his. "Confess," he says, and it sounds like a spell. Confess. "Who sent you?"

"I—already said—no one."

"I know. I believe you." He leans in, mouth near the ruins of her ear. "But you know the human body best. How long it'll hold on, even in the face of certain death. Confess and end this needless suffering. Was it Ren or Plum?" His voice softens. "One, you're already guilty of abetting by saving her swornsister. The other is a suspect in the cell next door."

Crow, oh, Crow. I'd expect nothing less from my rival, also trying to kill two birds. Now that Plum has begun to suspect him, eliminating her is only sensible. You're as ruthless as me, I think as the physician coughs, but then in Crow's eyes, I glimpse a glimmer of . . . empathy. No. Wrong. She's only a chess piece to him. When he brings out a flask from his robes, it's all calculated. She just can't see it as she shakes her head, declining the drink.

"You—may have your machinations—but I sense a kindness." Her gaze rolls up to Crow. "I must—ask you a favor."

Silence. Crow waits.

"My notes—in my robes—let them survive me—"

For the first time since setting foot into this cell, Crow hesitates. Another act. The favor is unwise. He won't risk it—

He reaches into the cross-fold of the physician's torn robes and withdraws the bloodstained book, its cover falling open to a page of anatomical notes before it's quickly slipped into his own robes. "Thank you," the physician whispers as I stare at Crow, who bows, then leaves, closing the cell door behind him.

It's just me and the physician.

As she wheezes, I refocus. She really is like Ren's mother, so devoted to helping others. She praised Cloud for her mettle and Crow for his heart.

Maybe, just now, that heart wasn't so false.

But goodness won't save any of them. I'm sorry, I think to her. For soon, interrogators return to the cell, and to work, until the inevitable occurs. The pain grows too much for the physician to bear. Her head lolls forward. She's not dead—yet.

Her spirit has simply left.

I've been waiting for this moment. Bracing for it.

After this—

There shall be no redemption.

I enter her body just as the guards dunk her face—my face—into a pail of water.

"Stop," I splutter. "S-stop. I'll confess."