A cold breeze grazed my cheek, and my ear stung. I did not slow down. The door was closer. Five paces. Warm liquid trickled down the side of my face. Three paces. I stretched out my arm. I could smell the fragrance of wine and cooked meat in the courtyard. I surged forward, my fingertips touching the solid wood of the door, and gratefully, it squeaked, opening wider.
A large figure appeared in the center of the courtyard—the Captain. He shouted at me, but I could not understand him. The killer! The killer! I wanted to scream, but before I opened my mouth, a hand clamped around my throat and everything went dark.
? ? ?
The moment, dark and dreamless, swallowed me. I could not breathe, see, or hear. I was going to die, I knew it. But I did not want to. I must not die. Mother was waiting for me. I had not done anything to make my father proud yet… Suddenly, sweet air poured in my throat. I gasped again and again. I could breathe!
But I could not see well. Everything appeared blurred. I rose, wobbling. Somehow I was in the corridor, where bolts of bright daylight blinded me, and shadows of people, screaming, flitted around me.
Some guards carried the Emperor on a stretcher and laid him down. A dozen imperial physicians knelt beside him, while a ring of guards surrounded the physicians.
The body of the assassin was carried out too, and the Captain waved at the people, asking them to step aside.
My ear throbbed. Some blood had stained the shoulder and the front of my robe. But it was only a skin wound. In a day or two, it would heal. Someone bumped into me, and I almost tripped. I kept walking.
I had to stop to lean against a kylin statue. The stone felt warm, but I shivered. Behind the roof of the Altar House, clouds flooded the sky, and the oak tree, its lush leaves drooping, curved over the roof like a giant sickle about to tip over. The storm would arrive soon. I wanted to get out of there. Now.
“Where are you going?” A man in a splendid, embroidered purple robe stepped in front of me.
The Duke.
“I—”
“Who are you? What were you doing in the Altar House?”
“What?” My throat hurt. It was hard to swallow.
“You’re a woman, and a Select!” He scanned my green robe. “What were you doing in the sacred Altar House?” His voice was louder.
In a moment, the crowd swarmed around me like a human siege wall—the Emperor’s uncle, the Chancellor, other ministers in red, green, purple robes and high hats, Taoist priests, the guards bearing swords and clubs, and Taizi, who cracked his knuckles, as if readying to throw me over the roof.
I dropped to my knees. “Mercy, esteemed Grand Duke. I trespassed.”
He paced around me without a word, then his ominous voice rose again. “Who is the killer?”
I shook my head.
He circled me again and then tossed something to the ground. “Do you know what this is?”
“A fish emblem.” I heard the hollowness in my voice. Everyone knew what the carved emblem meant—admission to the palace. Anyone who requested to enter the palace, including the ministers, had to present it to the sentries at the watch tower, who verified its authenticity by matching it with a counterpart before granting entrance.
“The Captain found this on the assassin’s body,” the Duke said.
I wanted to ask how the assassin could have gotten access to the carp, but I could not speak. An ominous feeling clouded my heart.
“Did you steal this and give it to him?” he asked. “Or did someone ask you to give it to him?”
His words sent a jolt down my spine. “What? No!”
“Then why were you in the House?”
“I…I don’t know.” I should have ignored the shadow on the roof. I should not have gone inside the House. I should not have hidden in the garden at all. If I had just left the yard, nothing would have happened to me.
The Emperor’s uncle threw his hand in the air, looking outraged, and the crowd murmured in anger. I curled my hands into fists, refusing to let tears roll. An ant crawled out of a crack in the stone floor. Probing with its tiny antennae, it veered toward my hand but slid and fell on a tuft of grass.
The Duke stomped on the grass. “Why didn’t he kill you?”
I felt like the wretched ant under his foot. But I refused to let the Duke stamp me with his hand-stitched leather boots. I faced the Emperor’s stretcher. “The One Above All, it was wrong that I entered the House, but I am telling the truth. Believe me. I swear on my father’s honor.”
The Emperor did not answer. The physicians glared at me as though they believed it was better for the Emperor to save his energy rather than my life.
“Your father?” the Uncle asked. “Who is your father?”
“He was Wu Shihuo, the governor of Shanxi Prefecture,” I said.
“So you are the maiden who composed a riddle.” He nodded, looking less angry. “I’ve heard of him too, the wealthy Wu Shihuo from Shanxi Prefecture. He was a man of meritorious service in founding our dynasty.”
“That was twenty-five years ago, venerable Uncle.” The Duke frowned.
“What are you going to do, Grand Duke?” a minister in a red robe asked.