It was getting late, and the hearth was nearly burnt out. The watery orange sun poured in through the great windows in Tingting’s bedroom, casting half the room in a flat rectangle of harsh light—her bed, her writing desk, her mirrors and glasses, a rocking-chair and a few closets. The other half lay in darkness.

Tingting was grateful for her room. Father had given her her Mother’s quarters, quarters worthy of a queen, but they were so vast she never felt she got to know them, and in the night the shadows in its hundred hundred nooks and crags made her feel horribly small, a thing easily lost—like if she took one wrong step, one small tumble, she might fall through a crack in the world and never be found again.

This room was better. It was small; it was meant to be a servant’s quarters, but she knew every inch of it, every little painting she hung on the walls, the little plush sofas by the tall windows she liked to read on under warm gaze of the midday sun. But she was also grateful because of where it was. It was a floor under her Father’s rooms. She didn’t have to hear him screaming up-close.

He was up to it again. He screamed a lot when she had been very small, sometimes at her, and that was where the worst of her feelings about it came from, she thought. But he got better as she got older—after her accidents he saw how he was hurting her, and he did better, and she was grateful to him for it. For a few years things were good, even… when Chen came those first few awful months, Father even stepped in to protect her. He could be a good man.

Now things were coming undone again.

She read in a textbook once that when people saw certain shapes and colors, like a yellow-black wiggly line, their minds were primed to feel fear, since it reminded some part of their minds of a snake. Even if it was just a line. It was like that when Father raised his voice; she told herself she wasn’t scared of it, over and over—there was just a little girl in her whose chest felt like it was seizing up, who felt like her heart was going to burst. It was just a line, that was all. It was just a wiggly line.

She had done all she could. She’d grabbed all her blankets and stuffed them into the sliver of light between the doors and the floor, and she’d stuffed little bits of cotton onto her ears, but sometimes it got so loud even that didn’t help. The worst part was, it was never one loud sound; it got really loud sometimes, so loud she couldn’t help but cry out and curl up shaking, and then it would soften, and then, just when she let herself believe it would stop it would come back again louder and catch her unready. It was a cruel trick she kept falling for.

This time she couldn’t stand it. She got her bedside lamp and made for her closet with her papers. Her last try was locking herself in here. She was working on her latest paper, on certain kinds of fire fungus, but she couldn’t keep the words in her head. Other words kept forcing their way in—

“Hours out! Three!”

“Then hold them, damn you! … Lieutenant Lo?”

“Dead… They …him as they came through the wall.”

Father cursed. “And Yin?”

“Turned, like the rest.”

“I raised that boy,” Father snarled. “Like a son!”

“There is no time.”

“Fuck your time! I am the Emperor of the Song Dynasty!”

Tingting sucked in a breath. “No, no…” She could feel it coming on, could feel the strange tightening in her chest, her breaths dragging in ragged. A line, a line, a line—

“We must speak of other plans—”

“What, evacuation? Running like a beaten dog? I should have your head for that. I told you never to bring this up to me again.”

“Your Majesty.” The captain sounded desperate. “We must face reality.”

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“I am the EMPEROR!” Father shrieked, and Tingting choked out a sob. She couldn’t remember what she was thinking. Her lantern dropped clattering from her shaking grip.

“I am only trying to help.”

Tingting curled up on her bed and closed her eyes tight and put her hands to her ears.

“Then do something!”

“There are tens of thousands of them. And two hundred of us left.”

“And what of General Yang?”

“He has not answered.”

“The ravens went out what? Four days ago? I ought to brand him a traitor too!”

“Your Majesty…respectfully. In a week, you have told him to murder his daughter, and this had already displeased him. Now you tell him to put down his son… I would not expect a reply.”

A long silence.

“We have gold!” Father sounded desperate.

“None will take it.”

“The ingrates! I made them. I gave them those blasted Ruyi Elixirs, I gave them their powers, and this is how they repay me?”

Tingting couldn’t take it anymore.

Ruyi, what would Ruyi do?

Ruyi wouldn’t sit here and take it. Ruyi was strong. Between the two of them Tingting was never the strong one; but there was no one else, and Ruyi was gone…

“My patience has run out!” said Father. “I want them dead, Yuan. Every last one of them, I want them flayed on the fucking Middle Wall! Round up the ringleaders, starting with that traitor Jin, and all his—”

Tingting ran over to her door and shoved it wide open. “STOP IT!”

Her scream echoed up and down the pagoda, all nine floors of it, and it left a dreadful silence in its wake. She swallowed; her heart throbbed hard in her chest, harder with every beat. She’d gone and done it. There was no stopping now.

She jerked herself up to the top floor.

It was just Father and Captain Yuan in his audience chamber, Father on his throne with his crown, but he didn’t look much like an Emperor to her. Maybe he did once, but whatever air he’d had was gone. He looked like he was playing at it, putting on a costume.

“Tingting?” gasped her Father.

“This isn’t r-right,” Tingting got out. Her fists were clenched so tight her nails drew blood.

Father’s face was changing color, moving from disbelief back to anger. “This,” he said, teeth clenched. “Is none of your concern, dear. Be a good girl and let the adults talk this out. Go play in your room.”

“No,” she said. It was such a weak, trembling no it almost sounded like a yes. But she said it, and she was proud of herself. “Father… we’ve lost. Can’t y-you see?”

Then Father stood, and all her pride drained out of her. He took a step, then another, down the golden steps, moving to her, the sharp clap of his steps echoing down the hall, echoing in her head, and the look on his face was so harsh she couldn’t believe he meant it for her.

But she stood there. She made herself stand there, she made herself look him in the eyes, even though she was trembling so hard she felt she might fall apart; sometimes she felt like she was sewn together by a thousand thousand little strings, and they were stretched so hard she was sure they’d snap any moment, and she would just… come undone.

The last time she felt this scared was in the bedroom with Chen, when he’d found her with Ruyi’s kiss-marks. She’d cringed and curled up before him then; she was ashamed to remember. But she hadn’t given into him, and she’d never been more proud of herself after. She didn’t know what gave her the strength then. She prayed she would have the same strength now.

Father raised a hand and she couldn’t hold herself together anymore. She flinched; she squeezed her eyes shut. He hadn’t hit her in so long… she turned a little, stung by an old memory. When he used to hit her, the sides hurt less than the front.

But the hand didn’t fall. Instead, Father sighed.

“Has it come to this?”

She heard the weariness in his voice; she blinked up at him. He shook his head, a sad smile spreading across his face. “My citizens, my guards, my general… even my daughter disobeys me. What sort of Emperor am I?”

It took a breath for Tingting to find her voice.

“We should g-go,” she whispered. “Um. To the, um, woods, where they’ll never find us, and, um. We can make a little cabin, and l-live there forever.”

She wasn’t making any sense. Father kept shaking his head.

“No,” he said softly. “The Song family has sat this throne a thousand years. Your grandfather has sat this throne, and his grandfather. A thousand springs, summers, falls… I will not be the one who gives it up.”

Tingting felt a stab of fear. “But they’ll, they’ll—” she said. She couldn’t even make herself say it. She grabbed his sleeve, tugging at it like she was a little girl again. “Maybe we can hide with the Guos, or the Qin—”

He ripped his sleeve free. “My mind is made.”

He turned away from her. He stumbled to his throne, and said, without looking at her, “Go with the captain. He will take you somewhere safe. To the Dragonspire Lis, perhaps—Lady Li was always fond of you. Be a good girl, now.”

“But—“

“Go.”

Captain Yuan took her by the shoulders, just like he used to when she was little and it was time for bed. “This way, Princess,” he said, just as gently.

Ruyi would’ve stayed, she knew. Ruyi would’ve made a last stand, but some folk were made for fighting like that… Tingting felt so tired, webbed with cracks. If Father shouted one more word at her she knew she couldn’t take it. She bowed her head and nodded and let him guide her off, and let the great red doors swing shut behind her.