“Of—of course.”
“You ran from me last time.”
I lick my lips. “I was scared—”
“I did everything I could to make you comfortable. I gave you a home. I made sure you had entertainment. And when you came to me that first time, I had your favorite foods prepared, I talked to you, shared things with you.” One hand creeps round the back of my neck, and it’s so big his fingers close at the front, pinching the base of my throat. His cold eyes bore into mine. “And still you ran. Still you humiliated me. So I ask you again, Lei-zhi. Are you grateful for what I’ve given you?”
I push the words past my lips. “Yes, my King.”
He lets me go, and I gulp in a deep breath, lifting my fingertips to my neck.
“Then show me,” he commands. “Show me how grateful you are.”
The intent in his words makes my skin crawl. Out of the corner of my eye, I focus on the vial of sake, imagining releasing the crushed herbs in my palm, the poison drifting into the liquid.
“L-let me dance for you,” I start, my voice pitching. Holding back my draped sleeve, I reach for the vial. “Madam Chu taught us a new routine I think you’d enjoy. I’ll pour a drink for you while you watch—”
“Enough!”
The King’s roar snaps me to attention. Knocking my hand away, he snatches the vial with such force the glasses beside it tip over, shattering on the floor. Scarlet candlelight glints off the broken shards.
“It’s you who needs a drink if you think I brought you here to watch you dance!”
Seizing my face, he grips my cheeks to force my lips open, and pours the sake straight into my mouth. I splutter. The alcohol stings my throat. I gag, but the King laughs, holding me until my clothes are soaked and I’m coughing and spluttering, eyes squeezed shut, skin sticky with the liquid.
When the vial is empty, he flings me aside. I double over, retching. Wet drops splatter the floor around my hands.
“You think I don’t understand what you’re up to?” he roars, arms wide, fists curled. “You cannot hide from me forever, Lei-zhi. This is my palace. My kingdom!”
The boom of his voice shakes the room, sending a ripple through the floating candles. I sway to my feet. Cast a desperate look over the scatter of glass around me, the splashes of ruined rice wine. There’s no more drink left to poison with the herbs I took from the kitchen gardens earlier; the ones that would have cramped the King’s gut and made him too sick to move for the rest of the evening, sparing me at least one more night.
It would only have been a temporary reprieve. But maybe it would have been enough. Maybe after tonight, Wren would have managed to get to the King before he got to me.
As the King makes a lurch, I spin round, clutching up the layers of my skirt and stumbling into a run. But I’ve only taken a few steps when his hands seize me. Lift me into the air. With a bellow, he throws me to the floor.
My cheekbone cracks.
Pain splinters through me, fissures my skull.
The next instant, I’m swallowed by the King’s shadow as he bears down on top of me. He brings his mouth to my ear and whispers, crooning almost, like some kind of sick, twisted lullaby, “I ordered the raid on your village, Lei-zhi. My soldiers told me they killed all the women they took that day—including your beloved mother.” And then he grabs a fistful of the silks at my waist and tears them open as I let out a cry no one else can hear.
THIRTY
EVEN THE SOLDIERS ARE UNABLE TO hide their shock when I finally stagger from the King’s chambers.
I have no idea how long I’ve been in there. Only minutes could have passed. Or an entire lifetime. How long does it take to break a person? To take their will and fire and spirit and love and crush them beneath your fists?
As the doors swing shut behind me, my legs give way. Wren’s wolf strides forward to catch me. He lifts me gently, the other guards watching in silence as he lopes past, cradling me to his chest. The torn robe I’ve wrapped around me is bloodied. Dully, I notice the servants as we go by, the way they avert their eyes. Even the Paper caste ones.
Shame flows through me, a constant, unforgiving ebb.
I look up at Kenzo. My voice is a croak. “They’ll suspect you.”
“No,” he says, staring ahead. “They won’t. This is not the first time a Paper Girl has had to be taken from the King’s rooms in such a condition.”
Underneath the pain and horror: a shot of rage.
“I hate him,” I whisper with the last bit of strength I have.
Kenzo doesn’t answer, but he holds me a little closer, and before I pass out I understand this to mean that he agrees.
When consciousness returns, the comforting scent of Wren’s wolf is gone. There’s the whisper of voices around me. The soft pressure of a warm hand on mine. I must be back in my room at Paper House. I try to move, but currents of pain snap and fizz through my body, forcing me to fall still. The pain wasn’t so strong earlier. My mind must have blocked it out as the King took from me what I have denied him for so long.
That’s what it felt like. A taking. A robbery.
I inch my eyes open, and even this hurts.
“She’s awake!”
Aoki’s face is the first I see. Her hand is the one wrapped round mine, and she leans over me, eyes so wide that my entire vision is an ocean of deep green. Then she draws away and is replaced by Wren.
The expression on her face. I can barely look at her.
“Oh, gods, Lei,” she whispers, dipping her forehead to mine. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I lick my cracked lips. “The wolf. He—”
She shoots me a warning look. “You mean Major Ryu? Yes, he brought you back. He escorted you all the way here.”
My eyes drift shut.
“How kind of him,” Aoki murmurs.
There’s the sound of the door opening.
“The doctor’s on his way, Mistresses. He won’t be long.”
My heart gives a little leap at the sound of Lill’s voice. Even though my plan failed, she’d been the one who made it possible in the first place.
And then I remember. My plan. The herbs.
The poisonous herbs.
I jerk upright. Pain erupts, a starburst all over me. Aoki and Wren try to draw me back down, shushing, but I struggle against them, eyes wild.
“Where are my clothes?” I cry.
“Lei,” Aoki pleads, “you need to rest—”
But I’m almost screaming now. “Where are my clothes?”
Lill snatches up a torn bundle of fabric, lantern light illuminating the layered pattern of my robes—wildflowers and vines, twisted in a kaleidoscope of deep magenta and lapis. “This is all you had with you,” she says sorrowfully, holding them out for me.
I riffle through the flimsy material. A sob racks through me and I slump back as if winded.
“Lei?” Wren asks, fingers light on my wrist. “What’s wrong?”
I close my eyes. “The sash,” I whisper. “It’s gone.”
I have to wait until much later, until the doctor and shaman have checked on me and magicked away my wounds, and Aoki and Lill have gone to bed, to tell Wren about my plan to poison the King.
She lets go of my hand when I’ve finished, and the gesture loosens something in me. “So the herbs are still there?” she asks sharply. “In his chambers?”