Princess Zhen blinks, not understanding.
“Tell me why she was in Sù!” I demand. “Is she the one responsible for the poison? Is she distributing it at your behest?”
“How dare you!” she snaps, taking a step in my direction, fists clenched at her sides.
“The longer you wait,” I remind her, “the deeper the poison will enter her body, and the harder it will be to save her.” I gamble on the suspicion that she is willing to trust in an untrained physician’s assistant rather than call for the aid of one of the royal physicians. It means she has something to hide.
The princess weighs this, then she sighs as she looks down at Ruyi. “I sent her to look into who is behind the poisonings, and whether they had a direct hand in what happened to my father.”
“Why did you hide his death for so long?” I ask. “Did he disagree with your plot utilizing the tea bricks? Were you planning to cause the unrest yourself and come back with a pretty cure? Win the hearts of the people?”
Red blooms across her face. “I would be very careful with your next words. I could have you executed the moment you step out of this room.”
Ruyi’s body thrashes again underneath my palms. She lets out a guttural moan. I hold her down quickly, pulling her eyelids back. I can see only white.
“Look at her!” I yell at the princess. “Tell me. Why was she in Sù?”
“Stop! Yes!” The princess climbs onto the bed and kneels at the head of her handmaiden, speaking rapidly. “She was there investigating on my behalf, following the procession that delivered my invitations across the empire, seeing if anyone would interfere. But someone followed her at each turn, sowed seeds of distrust, until it became difficult for her to keep her disguise.
“But I swear to you.” She reaches out and grips my arm. “I have nothing to do with the poisonings. I want Dàxī to be reunited and strong. I will not do it by killing commoners.”
She could be lying to me still, but her eyes are only for Ruyi, her concern obvious.
“A life for a life,” I say to her, ready to bargain. “If I heal her now, you will owe me a favor. Do you have the cure-all stone?”
Princess Zhen blinks at me, then dismisses me with an agitated wave of her hand. “That’s just a folktale. It doesn’t exist. Do you think I would not demand its use now if it were real?”
So Kang told me the truth, but something inside me still crumples at the thought.
“Then the use of your royal physicians,” I tell her. “For treatment of the poison—”
She interrupts me with a growl, unable to hide her frustration. “Don’t you understand? The poison is what killed my father. The royal physicians were unable to slow down its course. The only way to stop it is to discover the antidote.”
My heart hammers in my chest. Someone dared to poison the emperor, and now … I have a new purpose. I have to find the antidote.
“You will grant me access to your storerooms then,” I say quickly. “Access to the antidote, when it is discovered.”
“Yes, done,” she says without hesitation. “Now help her. Please.”
“Where are your kitchens?”
* * *
I know from speaking with Steward Yang that there is a smaller kitchen for the inner palace. At this time of night, the ovens are quiet and the stoves dark, but I am still cautious.
I draw on both my mother’s art and my father’s practice as I rummage through the pots and drawers. Slices of licorice root and round, dried pieces of bitter buckwheat. Long strands of ginseng, like an old man’s beard. I gather everything I need and hurry back to the princess.
The room is almost unbearably warm due to the instructions I left behind. The braziers have now been moved closer to the bed. The princess has torn garments into strips for bandaging and stoked the fire until it is hot enough to disinfect the blade.
“If this was a regular arrowhead, I would leave it, allow it to plug the wound,” I explain to the princess, so she does not strike me down for cutting into her handmaiden. “But because of the poison, I have to pull it out. It will be bloody.”
She nods.
After wiping Kang’s blade clean on my tunic, I pass it through the fire a few times to cleanse the metal, before preparing myself for the task of extricating the arrow from the wound.
“Hold her,” I command, and once I am sure she has a good grip, I place my hand on the broken shaft. Using the dagger, I make an incision to help loosen the head and slide the arrow out. Blood spurts, splattering the front of my tunic. Ruyi’s body arcs and then she crumples again. The princess narrows her eyes, but her hands hold firm as she grits her teeth, bracing herself with one leg off the bed.