Work Text:
I went to Guishan at New Year, in a carriage bearing the Azalea House insignia, pulled by horses with white peach blossoms sprouting for their manes and tails. Ten more carriages followed, carrying lacquer boxes packed with fireworks and Blessings. My chest fluttered as if filled with tiny blue butterflies. It was strange to think of going back, of seeing my family after so long. I had killed my husband; I had lied and schemed and ruthlessly pursued even the power a concubine in Azalea House was never supposed to have. Would they understand? I wasn’t certain.
No one but Isan knew how many of the Blessings I had written myself. We had worked on them together, night after night, brush stroke after brush stroke, character by character, dipping our brushes again and again into black ink, until the boxes were filled, enough to give out in every village across Tensha. And I had one Blessing tucked inside a fold of my gown, words from the heart to reach into eternity, reserved for my family alone. I had written that one by myself in my own chamber, thinking of the spark inside Bao, the sacrifices Ma and Ba had made for us, and tiny Larkspur, gone ahead to the ancestors.
No one but Isan knew that he asked my opinion on his Memorials or that he altered them as I requested: to give additional food to a hungry province, extra years of tax forgiveness to a village hit by a typhoon, more school places funded for children whose families could not pay the fee. The populace prayed to Rice Wife anyway. A people whose leaders cared for them. Who would fight for those leaders. Who could stand up with pride and say that they mattered, that Tensha was worth protecting.