Daemonium

two

I slid my hand over the silk material of the white and yellow hanfu I wore. It was much finer than anything I had ever worn in my previous life before coming to the palace—before Daiyu was crowned the Empress. It hurt a little to feel the softness and luxury of the cloth, as if I was spitting in Father's face and telling him that he could have never amounted to the luxuries that Daiyu had attained for us, simply because she married a powerful man. I had seen how Father had broken his back to pay for every little thing. He sweated for us, he bled for us, and he worked himself to the bone to provide for us. I was happy, however, that he was finally freely living with money. Mother and Father were still not accustomed to it, but at least they didn't have to work so hard. At least they didn't have to cut their meals so that we could eat more. At least Mother didn't have to mend our clothing in the early hours of the morning, a needle in one hand and squinted eyes locked on the lacerated cloth. At least Father didn't have to deal with cheap merchants. At least they both were free of labor.

    Still, it was almost like an insult to all their hard work to be prancing around in such luxuries. I knew that we would never be able to repay them for the work they had done to raise their nine children.

    "Lady Lanfen, are you listening?" Chang, the scholar that the Emperor had assigned to teach me history, said in a stiff tone. He narrowed his dark eyes at me when I gave him a blank look. His arms were crossed over his chest. He was dressed in a dark green hanfu with draping sleeves. It was simple and elegant, matching his character perfectly. "Lady Lanfen?"

    I cleared my throat and bobbed my head. "Of course, sir."

    Chang was one of the youngest scholars in the palace at the moment. He was in his early to mid twenties, from what I could see. Apparently his father was a scholar, as was his father before him, and his father before him, and henceforth. Although he was young, he was much too stern over me. It was as if he wanted to prove that he was indeed good enough to teach me. A request from the Emperor was a huge thing, it seemed.

    He cleared his throat and bobbed his head curtly. "Anyhow, as I was explaining, the Fan dynasty was in disarray the moment the—"

    "Yu Chang," I interrupted him, my mind wandering elsewhere. I glanced over at the various scrolls open in front of me. I could only barely read a few of them, since my abilities were new and it was hard to read all the strokes and understand the characters. I pointed at one of the scrolls that had a very rough sketch of the empire. "Where exactly are we located on this map?"

    His brows came together. "It's quite simple. Can't you read it?"

    My lips pursed together as I stared at the various borders and chunks of land amassed on the parchment. After a moment, I lifted my eyes to meet his. "No, it's too complex and the writing is too hard for me to read."

    His lips thinned down and he leaned in over the table to peer at it. With one slender hand, he pointed to one of the areas. "We live in the State Xue, which is right here."

    "And . . . " I licked my lips nervously and shifted in my seat uncomfortably. "Where is Lebel?"

    Chang leaned back on the floor and stared at me levelly, his dark eyes, so full of knowledge, now masked with unreadable emotions. He assessed me for a moment before looking back down at the open scroll. "This is a map of the Huo Empire. If you want to know where Lebel is, you'll have to find a better scroll."

    "Oh." I thought back the red haired Nikator, so full of cheer and mischief. The land he hailed from, Lebel, was shrouded with rumors and mystery in our lands. To be honest, we didn't know much about foreigners since we never cared too much about them. Or maybe that was the commoner side to me that was speaking poorly, due to my lack of education. I was sure the nobility knew a bit about foreigners.