28 Lishi shu'Ling (2/2)

The Guji shifted in his seat and Lishi glanced quickly over to him. She could still feel the way he'd touched her knee this morning, as if she were a piece of art or a bottle of fine wine he'd purchased—in that sense, it had been different than when her papaqin touched her. The Guji hadn't touched her since, but the memory clung to her and colored the smile she gave the Huangdi. "I will try, Huangdi. Whatever Inari wills, will be." The aphorism from the Statements was all she could think to say. She felt as if she were drowning here, lost in innuendo and hidden meanings.

"You'll need to do better than rely on clichés," the Huangdi said sharply, then grimaced. "Forgive me, Ei'Torii; I forget how new you are to your station, and that you don't realize what is expected of you. When in private, I prefer directness and blunt honesty from my advisers. In private, I expect you to tell me what you truly think and believe. You can save polite evasions for when other ears can hear them."

The criticism reminded her of what Hu'Torii shu'Chang had told her, back when she'd been accepted as an acolyte. "You have no idea what you've put yourself into. If you did, you wouldn't be standing in front of me with that meaningless smile pasted to your lips. I know who you are and what you are, Miss shu'Ling. Unless you're more than I believe you to be, you'll be broken and gone in a few months. You'll go sniveling back to your family..." But her resolve hadn't broken and she hadn't left; now, years later, she was here.

"You shouldn't apologize, Huangdi," Lishi said. "You're right to criticize me. I realize that I know far too little. But I also know that I can learn what I need to understand, and I can learn it quickly. This is what I wanted—this is more than I'd dared to want—for me and for my family. I intend to do all I must to prove myself worthy of the great honor that's been given me."

The Huangdi gave a quick laugh that ended in a cough. "Nicely said, at least." She patted her mouth with a linen kerchief. "You trust her, Shiren?" the Huangdi asked the Guji.

"She knows where her loyalty needs to be," the Guji answered. "Don't you, Ei'Torii shu'Ling?"

Lishi forced herself to smile. The Huangdi might indicate that she wanted directness, but Lishi wasn't yet prepared to leave herself that vulnerable. The events of yesterday had swept her up into a whirlwind, and until she found solid ground again, she was going to continue to act as society had always told her she should. She knew from her papaqin, from her mamaqin, from her great-papaqin and -mamaqin, from her peers: the shu' lived always on the precipice of society, looking for a path upward to the wan' but always aware that it was easier to slide downward than to climb. She also understood the fist concealed in the velvet glove of the Guji's words. "I do, Guji," she answered. "I serve Inari, and I serve Orbis."

That, at least, seemed to mollify the Huangdi. "So what type of torii are you?" she asked. "Did the Guji save you from having to light the Main Boulevard every night for the rest of your life, or from stopping the city from burning down, or from driving one of his carriages, or— Inari forbid—from purifying the sewage or some other torii task? Are you fire, water, air, earth?"

"She could do any of them," the Guji said. "She could easily be a war-torii or more."

The Guji sniffed. "Impress me, then," she said. She waved an indulgent hand toward Lishi.

Lishi resisted the impulse to scowl angrily at the Guji for putting her in this position. She thought madly, trying to decide what to do or what the Huangdi might consider "impressive." You'll need to help me, Inari... She closed her eyes with the prayer, and the words evoked the Misogi. She felt it swirling around her, the path to the Second World yawning open, snarled energy caught in strands of violent orange and soothing blues, waiting for her to shape them, to use them...

She didn't know what birthed the decision. Perhaps it was the draped canvas she could glimpse through the balcony doors. There had been other paintings all along the corridors down which she and the Guji had just walked: the Huangdi as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother, as a mature woman. Lishi had been most struck by a painting of the Huangdi on her coronation. The expression on the new Huangdi's face had struck Lishi as perfect: she could see both resolve and uncertainty fighting there, as Lishi imagined she might have felt herself on being handed such awesome responsibilities at a young age.

She heard the chant change, felt her hands moving, as if Inari Himself had taken them. She sculpted the Misogi...

The Huangdi gasped audibly, and Lishi opened her eyes.

Standing at the edge of the balcony, leaning against the polished stone railing a few strides from Lishi as if she were gazing out into the gardens, was the Huangdi—young, wearing her coronation robes, the signet ring of the Huangd heavy on the index finger of her right hand. She turned to the three of them and smiled. "Fifty years," she said, and it was the Huangdi's voice, soft with youth. "I would never have imagined it." She smiled again...

... and the strands fell apart in Lishi's mind, too difficult to hold in their complexity. The weariness of the Misogi came over her then, and she put her hand on the railing to keep her balance.

The Huangdi was still staring at where the image of her earlier self had stood. "I'd forgotten: how I looked, how I sounded..." Her voice trembled, then she pressed her lips together momentarily. "I've never seen a torii do this. Shiren? Could you?"

The Guji was also staring, but at Lishi. She could feel his appraisal. "No," he said. "I couldn't. At least not easily. The girl makes up spells rather than using ones taught to her."

"No wonder An'Torii wan'Kang is muttering about the Confession and the Mategician with her," the Huangdi said.

Lishi shook her head. "It's Inari's Gift," she insisted. "It's not against what He wants. It can't be."

The Huangdi seemed to chuckle, nearly silently. "What you think might not matter, Ei'Torii, if wan'Kang gains any more power in the Concord An'Torii. But it's obvious that you'd be utterly wasted as a lighttorii." She exhaled deeply, looking again at the spot where the illusion had stood. "Let's talk," she said, "because I find that I'm growing concerned at what I hear from both outside and inside our borders..."