TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 27 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 27 - The Court of the Dragon

"If I had followed custom and submitted to execution, how would it have made a difference? There are plenty of people who die, some as important as a massive mountain, others as light as a feather." 

- Emperor Han Wudi (reigning in 99 BCE), quoted by the historian Sima Qian.

Cultivators. Those who spent their lives pondering meditation, achieving breakthroughs, taking fancy pills like candy, overcoming tribulations, opening meridians, ascending to new domains, and tempering this, that, and whatever else sounded suitably profound.

The former titan of industry had not wanted them included in the game initially, but she had been persuaded to allow it as an appeal to the Chinese market. The designers had worked the lore and mechanics into the game itself, with cultivators serving as the game’s excuse for idle progression. A player could log off while their character “meditated” and continued to acquire experience. It was a terrible way to play, naturally. A mode for people who wanted to play without playing, checking in on their phones and devices every now and then while they waited for bars to fill.

They were also, in essence, cheaters.

Cultivators were, of course, somewhere in the Empire. Perhaps not in the capital itself, but somewhere perhaps traipsing about in the countryside. They were exclusive to the human race, and would not be easy to identify at a glance. Though not truly immortal, they lived extremely extended lives and could become quite powerful over time.

In truth, they had been designed as the game’s sort of auto-scaling, penultimate endgame enemies or allies, depending on which choices the player had made and how foolishly confident one felt about fighting ancient men who had spent several centuries breathing correctly.

Seraphina looked over a scroll in the gardens, its subject being cultivators, detailed beautifully with illustrations and ancient Imperial script. Her mind remembered a rather unfortunate detail. She would need a Wisdom attribute of at least thirty to even begin “cultivating” and tap into that minor, if useful, stream of passive experience.

Well, she decided, if she could not join them, then she would simply have to beat them. If it came to that, of course.

“Tia,” she whispered under her breath, closing the scroll with an irate huff. “We are going out.”

It was time to see if her Luck would let her meet a certain Master Chen.

***

It was a full four days before the summons came. The messenger arrived in the form of a eunuch of the Inner Palace, borne upon a gilded palanquin and dressed in fine pink robes, his headdress arranged with the careful extravagance of a man who had made ceremony into armor. He came to read a decree of the court. More precisely, a decree issued in the name of the Imperial Jade Dragon Throne, which was, in all practical terms, a decree of Emperor Hantien Erdian himself. Imperial subjects were required to prostrate themselves while such words were read.

Seraphina, however, was not an Imperial subject. This minor but important distinction would no doubt trouble the honored eunuch greatly.

After alighting from the palanquin, the fat man removed the scroll bearing the decree from a polished wooden case. He then declared, in a practiced voice, that he was about to read the will of the Throne as his piggy eyes settled pointedly upon Seraphina. The blonde girl looked pointedly back at him, tapping one foot as the silence stretched between them.

At last, she explained, with all due sweetness, that she was merely following the laws and customs of his land. Since she was not an Imperial subject, she was under no obligation to kowtow before an Imperial decree. Naturally, she would receive the words of the Emperor’s court with all proper respect, but respect and prostration were not, she felt, quite the same thing.

The eunuch’s eyes narrowed. His face reddened. His voice rose half an octave in shrill complaint. But, unfortunately for his blood pressure, Seraphina did not bend. 

However, it was not pride that dictated this action. Not entirely, at least. No, she wanted word carried back of an intractable barbarian princess, beautiful, troublesome, and unwilling to understand her place. Let that story arrive before her. Let it throw a little doubt and confusion into the court’s calculations, throwing them askew. And, when she did make her formal appearance and observed Imperial custom perfectly, the effect would be all the greater. Let them doubt the very eyes and ears of their servants.

So the girl stood ramrod straight as the eunuch read the decree, his face darkening with each line. When he had finished, she stepped forward and accepted the invitation with both hands, graceful, correct, and smiling as if nothing at all improper had occurred. Which by legal definition, nothing had.

Those within earshot, including Meilin, remained prostrated.

The eunuch’s mouth tightened. With a huff, the cut man returned to his palanquin and snapped at his bearers to move with greater speed. They obeyed at once, carrying him away with such urgency that Seraphina had to hold back a laugh.

“Was that altogether wise?” Desdemona asked, playing with a stray lock of her dark brown hair. “I mean, one can understand growing a little restless, but must you really take it out on that poor ma… thing?”

“No, you are right, of course,” Seraphina admitted with a sigh that contained very little repentance.

The wilful girl’s smile sharpened. “Oh, by the way, if you are off to go on another jaunt incognito, you could always bring me along. I could do with a small change of scenery. Although I would hate to get in the way of your trysts.”

Meilin picked herself up from the floor. “Trysts? That does not sound like appropriate behavior for…”

Seraphina raised a hand as she shot her friend and rival a look that could have wilted flowers. “I have no idea what you are talking about. I was simply getting a feel for the city.”

“A feel for the city,” Desdemona repeated tawdrily, wicked delight blooming across her face. “I am sure you got a very good feel. Or perhaps you were the one being felt up?”

The girl they had picked up from the border lands looked absolutely scandalized.

The blonde girl swung at her. Playfully, of course. Desdemona dodged with a laugh and fled into the gardens, forcing Seraphina to chase after her beneath the budding trees, dignity temporarily abandoned in favor of mock, unladylike violence between friends.

***

Preparing for the Imperial Court was, in Seraphina’s considered opinion, rather like preparing for battle, save that the armor was prettier, the weapons were hidden, and the enemy was expected to compliment you before stabbing you in the back.

Her rooms in the Spring Palace became a quiet storm of movement that morning. Servants came and went with lacquered boxes, folded cloth, steaming basins, trays of pins, combs, oils, powders, and ribbons. Miriam stood at the center of it all with the severe concentration of a battlefield commander, directing the help with clipped gestures. In the corner, the young girls eyes traced over the metal box, the size of a large coffin. 

My insurance policy if all of this goes belly up, she reminded herself as allowed herself to be handled, one of the lesser sacrifices of power.

Cornelia mumbled something in her sleep.

Her hair, now restored to its proper gold after her “adventures,” was brushed until it shone to an auric luster. Miriam worked it into a courtly arrangement suited to Imperial taste, but could do nothing for its length. Still, gold hair would draw the eye no matter what was done with it.

Then, after a moment’s consideration, Seraphina reached for the little fox hairclip.

Miriam noticed at once. “My lady?” she asked, carefully neutral.

“It is cute,” Seraphina explained.

Miriam’s mouth twitched, but she said nothing as she placed the fox among the more formal ornaments. It should not have worked. The clip was carved from pale wood, small, simple, and almost laughably common beside the gold pins, pearls, and delicate chains arranged through Seraphina’s hair. Yet somehow, nestled near one side of the arrangement, the sleeping fox softened the whole thing without weakening it.

Her gown was of the current Imperial cut, in the manner of the ladies of this court. The inner layer was white silk, high at the throat and smooth through the shoulders, embroidered faintly with silver thread. Over it lay a robe of deep green, the color of fresh pine needles, crossed and belted with a sash of red and gold. The sleeves were long, and the hem carried a border of stitched clouds.

Desdemona dressed nearby with considerably less patience and far more commentary. Her own formal clothes were darker, a layered ensemble of midnight blue and wine-red silk that made her pale skin seem almost luminous and her dark brown hair richer by contrast. Her sleeves were lined in deep purple, her sash clasped with silver, and small garnets had been sewn along the edge of her collar. She looked beautiful, elegant, and just faintly predatory. In short, she looked very much like herself, just transplanted into a different setting. Which, if Seraphina thought about it, was exactly what had happened.

“Do you think they will be suitably impressed?” Desdemona asked, turning before a bronze mirror while two servants adjusted the fall of her sleeves.

“With you?”

“With us, naturally. Though mostly me.”

“They will certainly be forced to look,” the blonde girl replied with a shrug.

Desdemona smiled at her through the mirror. “And that thing, the fox?”

Seraphina let a servant apply a layer of powder that added some flush to her cheeks. “I find it appealing,” she explained.

Miriam, with the wisdom of a woman who wished to live, pretended to be very busy arranging her mistress’s sash.

By the time they were finished, the girl in the mirror looked like something fashioned specifically to awe and dazzle the court. A mix of the familiar and the truly exotic.

A small escort was permitted to accompany her as far as the palace gates, and no farther. That much had been made very clear by the officials sent to guide them. The Imperial Court would receive Lady Seraphina de Sariens with all honors due her rank, but weapons, foreign soldiers, personal guards were to remain outside the inner precincts of power.

It was a good thing that, if necessary, Seraphina had several weapons of her own that she did not need to carry in her hands.

Sir Frest waited in the courtyard with the others, dressed in polished armor and looking profoundly unhappy about being made decorative, his ancient railgun strapped across one shoulder. He had been given instructions to create his own path with it if Seraphina did not return before sunset, or word from her came to him. Sir Vikens stood nearby, grim and formal, while Miriam fussed one last time over the line of Seraphina’s sleeve until Seraphina caught her wrist gently.

“It will do, Milly.”

Miriam swallowed. “Yes, my lady.”

Seraphina turned to Frest. “Try to look your best, and remember the contingency.”

The former bandit somehow managed to look offended. “Of course, milady. This is only the twelfth time you have reminded me.”

Desdemona laughed softly.

“Good. Do remember that if anyone attempts to murder me inside the palace, I shall consider it very rude of you if you do not level the whole thing.”

“Yes, Lady Seraphina,” he replied, his eyes growing steely.

Then she stepped into the waiting carriage provided by the court, Desdemona following after her, and the procession began its short journey toward the heart of Imperial power.

As they reached the palace district, she saw broad avenues opening into wider courtyards, each one framed by red walls, pale stone, green tiles, and silver fittings. Gates stood in succession, one after another, each larger and more elaborate than the last.

At the outermost permitted point, Seraphina’s escort halted. Beyond that, she continued on foot with only Desdemona and the appointed attendants of the court.

Eunuchs waited in the next courtyard, rows of them in pale robes with sashes of green and silver, their hats stiff and formal, their hands folded within their sleeves. As Seraphina entered, they bowed in sequence, the motion passing through them like wind bending reeds. Their faces were smooth, unreadable. These were men without households of their own, yet closer to the Emperor’s household than almost any lord in the realm. They were, in short, very dangerous.

Seraphina crossed the courtyard with measured steps. The stones beneath her feet were pale and perfectly fitted. Bronze incense burners shaped like crouching beasts exhaled thin streams of fragrant smoke. On either side, carved balustrades led upward along a great stairway of white stone. The steps climbed toward the hall of the Imperial court.

The eunuchs bowed again as she began to climb.

Seraphina did not hurry and neither did Desdemona, though the young noblewoman could sense her friend’s delight in every carefully controlled step. This was exactly the sort of thing Desdemona loved: spectacle, danger, beautiful clothes, and the possibility of scandal.

At the top of the stairs stood the great doors of the Imperial Jade Court. They were enormous, framed in red pillars banded with silver, their surfaces carved with dragons rising through clouds and waves. Green tiles crowned the roof above, each ridge decorated with little heavenly beasts marching toward the sky. The whole hall seemed to breathe age and authority, the age born from the long years of continuation and the weight of precedent.

The head eunuch stood before the doors. He was tall, thin, and severe, his robes a deep pink, his headdress marked with silver ornaments shaped like leaves. His eyes passed over Seraphina once, taking her in with efficient calculation. Then he turned and struck the floor once with the butt of a ceremonial staff.

The doors opened and sound spilled out: the faint rustle of robes, the soft tap of tablets, the distant ring of metal ornaments, and beneath it all, a sense of anticipation thick enough to have weight.

The head eunuch stepped forward and announced her in a voice that carried through the hall like a bell. “Lady Seraphina de Sariens of Aranthia, daughter of Duke Anatoli de Sariens, granddaughter of Duchess Adelaide of Carcaronne, honored guest of the Jade Dragon Throne, enters the Imperial Court.”

The hall beyond was vast with red pillars rising in disciplined rows toward a ceiling painted with clouds, stars. The floor was polished dark stone, broken by long carpets of deep crimson bordered in pale thread. Silver lanterns hung from carved beams, their light softened by green glass.

The ministers and dignitaries of the land stood arranged according to rank, each man placed as precisely as a character written by a careful hand. Their robes differed by office and dignity: deep green, dark red, black, silver-grey, and imperial blue, embroidered with beasts, clouds, mountains, or waves. Their hats rose in stiff wings or flat dark crowns, and each held a court tablet before him, the narrow polished boards clasped in both hands like shields. 

At the far end of the hall, above the gathered ministers and officials, rose the dais.

Upon it stood the Jade Dragon Throne. It was a solid lump of green stone worked into the shape of a dragon coiled around a seat, its head rising behind the Emperor’s shoulders as if whispering into his ear. Silver claws of Mithril tipped the paws that hung over the arms of the throne and red silk cushions softened the seat. Behind it hung a great screen painted with mountains, rivers, clouds, and a dragon descending from Heaven toward the mortal world. And, on that throne sat Emperor Hantien Erdian.

He was still enough that, for a moment, he seemed part of the throne itself.

A man of middle years, perhaps older than he first appeared, with a narrow face, and dark eyes. His robes were green and silver over red, embroidered with dragons whose threads caught the light whenever he breathed. Upon his head rested the Imperial crown, its hanging beads casting small shadows before his eyes.

Seraphina felt the entire court waiting. Waiting to see whether the barbarian princess would stumble. Whether she would bow too shallowly or too deeply. Whether she would misunderstand the distance, the timing, the proper angle of the hands. Whether she would prove the eunuch’s report true or false.

How generous of them to offer me a stage, she commented to herself in her mind.

Seraphina stepped forward. Then, with perfect Imperial grace, she bowed exactly as she had been taught. It was only as she lowered herself into the motion that she noticed him from the corner of her eye. 

The sinfully handsome First Prince of the Empire stood among the gathered court, looking at her as if the dead had risen, dressed themselves in the finest silks, and walked politely into his father’s hall.

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