Prologue
“THIS IS NO PLACE to be dozing off, Lady Kenshuu!”
At the call of her trusted gamboge gold, the empress of Ei—Kenshuu—forced her drooping eyelids open. “Keep it down, would you? This is a mausoleum. Have some respect, Wagyoku,” she said, scowling from her spot on the floor.
“The one who brought in a fur pelt, pillow, brazier, and perfumed sachet for a nap has some gall to be lecturing me!” the elderly gamboge gold—Wagyoku—shot back without missing a beat. Having served Kenshuu since her Maiden era, she had no qualms about taking the empress to task. “I know it’s difficult for the bureaucrats to set foot in the inner court, but that’s no excuse to run off to this deserted mausoleum for some sleep. Even the poor ministers are braving the winter cold to look everywhere for you.”
“It’s not me they’re looking for, it’s the Imperial Seal in my possession. And instead of sympathizing with them, you ought to sympathize with me for having all these obligations dumped in my lap. Hey, hands off the fur!”
Heedless of Kenshuu’s complaints, Wagyoku swiftly stripped her mistress of her fur pelt and folded it up. Left to shiver in the freezing cold of the mausoleum, Kenshuu sat up with a grimace and pulled herself into a cross-legged position.
“Good grief, what a miserable hand I’ve been dealt. Do I really have to spend three more days getting chased around by the ministers?”
“I’m afraid so. Your work should settle down once the Repose of Souls is over, and His Majesty will be sure to return soon after. Just hold out until then.”
“We’re mere days away from the Repose of Souls Service. Service! A sacred national ceremony. Tell me, why is the crown prince no longer around to run the event? Why has our sovereign emperor stuck me with the Imperial Seal and fled the capital? Mark my words, those two will regret this.” Kenshuu’s grumbling turned murderous, emboldened by the fact that no one else was around to hear her.
It was Ei tradition to hold a ceremony called the Repose of Souls Service once every year, on the day the yin reached its highest concentration. Souls were known to depart the body when yin and yang were out of balance, so the original purpose of the ceremony had been to coax those back into their vessels. Over time, it had taken on the role of a memorial service to pacify the wandering souls of disaster victims. These days, it was a major national event counted among the Five Grand Festivals.
Despite this, Kenshuu’s son and husband alike had absconded from the imperial capital right before the main event, and now she was being called upon to step up as empress and take over their duties. She had hardly gotten a wink of sleep since the emperor’s disappearance came to light three days ago. After reaching the limits of her patience, she had escaped to the mausoleum on the inner court’s outskirts to sleep off her bad mood.
“A visit to a disaster site? At a time like this? Spare me.”
Her son was one thing. At least he had planned out his departure, making arrangements with all the relevant departments to ensure the ceremony would go off without a hitch. The real problem was her husband. Emperor Genyou—that impassive, apathetic, dead-eyed drifter through life—had simply left the Imperial Seal in the empress’s bedroom and vanished into thin air. This jade seal engraved with a five-clawed dragon was the source of ultimate authority in Ei, an heirloom that could grant the power to command the entire army at will.
“Do you have any idea how I felt waking up with the Imperial Seal next to my pillow, left with nothing but the single sentence ‘Consider this an order’ as an explanation? Can you imagine what it’s like for the empress to be handed all the world’s power and responsibility with those scant words? Hm? This has to be a historical first.”
“That His Majesty would leave you in charge of the government is a sign of how deeply he trusts you,” Wagyoku replied mildly. However, she knew full well that if he had pulled that stunt with any of the consorts or vassals, the kingdom would have collapsed in an instant.
Kenshuu’s original goal had been to become a civil servant. She had the political acumen to occasionally participate in state affairs regardless of gender. Her handling of her routine duties as empress—such as hosting tea parties or embroidering the emperor’s clothes—was controversial, but she could put the bureaucrats to shame when it came to diplomacy, performance evaluations, and policymaking. Brazen attitude aside, her political judgments were swift and principled. She could handle running the government for a few days even without a proper transition process. The emperor must have entrusted Kenshuu with the Imperial Seal because he had faith in her character and abilities.
And yet, when Wagyoku suggested as much, Kenshuu dusted off the hem of her robes and rose to her feet, muttering, “Hardly. He just couldn’t care less what happens to this kingdom.”
“Pardon?”
“He only has one person on his mind.”
Her eyes narrowed, focused on a pillar near the altar.
Upon following her mistress’s gaze, Wagyoku caught sight of the clumsy characters carved into the wood. “My, what is this? Graffiti? ‘O traveler slumbering at journey’s end, what visions dance in shuttered sight? Do they blossom in the domain of life?’ Oh, it’s a long poem. Goodness, they even wrote down the melody to sing it to. How very thorough.” She strained her eyes in the dim light of the mausoleum, sounding a touch impressed as she scanned the lines of the poem. “Hee hee, but the handwriting is rather sloppy, and one phrase sticks out as peculiar. I suppose one of the princes must have carved this in his younger years. It’s quite a heartwarming sight.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Wagyoku hadn’t meant any offense by it, but she caught her mistress’s face twisting into a slight grimace. She blinked and tilted her head to one side. “Is something the matter, Lady Kenshuu?”
“Not at all.” Kenshuu quickly rearranged her face into a playful grin and pinched her attendant’s nose. “I was merely astounded that you have the audacity to call a defacement of the sacred mausoleum ‘heartwarming.’”
“Oh, please. Remind me which of us was sleeping like a log in here?” Relieved to see her mistress back to her usual roguish self, Wagyoku hefted the brazier. “Come now, we mustn’t keep the ministers waiting. Let us be off to the main palace at once. I will carry the brazier, so kindly gather up the fur pelt, pillow, and sachet yourself.”
“Ugh. How did I get stuck cleaning up a couple of men’s messes? I ought to take all the classified documents I’ve gained access to and shove them under these floorboards.”
“Nowadays, fewer and fewer girls are ambitious enough to devote themselves to covert studies, I’m afraid. I doubt anyone would notice.”
After shutting down her mistress’s complaints, Wagyoku briskly headed outside. Kenshuu, meanwhile, stayed put in the mausoleum. She clung to the pillow, fur pelt, and sachet as if to soak up a few last drops of warmth. The intricate embroidery on the sachet wasn’t to her usual tastes, yet she always kept it close at hand.
“‘He only has one person on his mind,’ I said? I guess I don’t have much room to talk.” As Kenshuu hugged the pillow and sachet close, a whisper of sound escaped from within the bundle of cloth. She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow, stifling her voice. “It’s not fair for you to reach your goal without me, Your Majesty.”
Her murmurings were too quiet for anyone else to hear—as was the rustle coming from inside the sachet.
“Hurry along now, Lady Kenshuu!” came Wagyoku’s harried voice from the other side of the mausoleum door. “This is no time to dawdle!”
Not a second later, Kenshuu looked back up with a dismissive shrug. “Don’t rush me. Can’t a woman take a moment to stick her face into a pillow?”
“At the moment, I would rather you stuck your nose into politics!”
“Ooh, nice one.”
Kenshuu left the mausoleum behind, cracking wise with her long-serving court lady all the while. Her breath forming white clouds in the air, she strode ahead without a single backward glance.