Steward Yang picks up the cup and inhales. “It smells like peaches,” she says, surprised.
Even though Qing’er still wants to chatter away, Lian takes him away to the side of the room to show him something, understanding that I require concentration to practice my art.
My mother used her shénnóng-shī skills to coax the truth out of the soul, the problems that worried at the edges of the mind. Like the shadows of the moon, the pruning of branches from a tree. I asked it to reveal the hidden memories of the judges in the competition, and now I want to unveil the cause of the steward’s pain.
“Let the tea flow through you and bring you comfort,” I whisper. She drinks and I close my eyes. Ready to communicate, ready to receive.
A sharp pain quickly pricks the middle of my forehead, like the point of a needle. Then it snaps outward, fracturing from the center. I hiss from the sharpness of it, then the pain funnels into my mouth, causing a bitterness that spreads from my tongue to my throat.
“What’s happening?” I hear her voice, dimly, from a distance. I force myself to inhale, breathe through it. Was this what my mother felt when she opened herself up? Did she take the pain of others into herself? An image spreads in my mind, expanding like watercolor on paper.
I am both inside and outside of myself.
I can feel the firm surface of the table underneath my arm, but I am also somewhere else. Floating above us, watching the steward looking at me. I wish, once again, that Mother was here to show me, to teach me …
Did people watch her with luminous eyes, expectant and afraid?
The pain isn’t only in my head. It extends like roots, tendrils worming their way through my body—her body. Vines choke my heart, squeezing my organs, until it is difficult to breathe.
It’s the worry that is undoing her. The anxiety eating away a hollow in her belly, the thoughts keeping her up late at night.
With a gasp, my eyes snap open.
“Qing’er!” I call out, and the boy is quick to appear at my side. “Go to the storeroom and fetch a few pieces of dāngguī, and five handfuls of dried huáng qí. Try to pick the thinnest strands you can find.”
He nods and runs through the door.
Steward Yang sets down her cup. “Why? What did you see?”
Without the rest she needs, her body will only grow weaker. Dryness in the mouth, affecting the way things taste, loss of strength in her limbs, difficulty catching her breath … and eventually far graver effects.
“I think there is something you are terribly worried about…” I try to untangle the symptoms from the cause, the phantom ache in my head still ringing. “No, not something … someone. Someone close to you, as close to you as a part of your body. It’s keeping you up at night.”
“Like carving out my organs,” she whispers.
Mother used to call us her dear ones, her xīn gān b?o bèi. Her heart and her organs, an irreplaceable part of her. Shu and I would laugh at her exaggerated affection, but we loved her attention.
It finally dawns on me. I should have seen it sooner. “Your daughter.”
She nods. “Chunhua was picked to be the emperor’s handmaiden. I was so proud … she’s clever. Even the emperor himself praised her once. She was happy with her position, until the illness came last winter. All the servants of the emperor’s personal residences have been shut into the inner court. No one in, no one out. I have not seen her for two seasons!” She trembles, and Lian places a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“We’ve all heard about the emperor’s illness,” Lian says. “The news has already reached the border towns.”
“Yes, you would know, wouldn’t you? The ambassador’s daughter.” Steward Yang sniffles, but her tone is now resigned. “There have been … rumors as well. Rumors that the emperor himself has been poisoned by the Shadow, that he is permanently bedridden, which is why he has not shown his face in months.”
The thought is troubling, but it would explain the lack of his presence.
“The emperor must need to eat,” I say. “Can’t you get a message to your daughter somehow through the kitchen deliveries?”
The steward shakes her head. “The inner palace has its own kitchen. When we deliver our goods, we leave them in the courtyard. The staff pick up what they need, then we return to collect the rest. I’ve tried before to supervise the delivery, but they speak through the gate and ask us to leave. The physicians say it is for our own protection, but … I fear the worst.”