Page 31 of The Scarlet Alchemist

China had fifteen divisions, and each sent ten alchemists, all of them now gathered in this shimmering courtyard. Some of them spoke in dialects I’d never heard and wore robes with plunging collars or widened sleeves, silk braided with tiny jewels. Most of them were men, though several women stood at the periphery. I considered going up to them just so I wouldn’t have to wander around like a leaf floating downstream, but their circle was tightly closed, and I couldn’t imagine how to wedge myself into it.

To my dismay, I spotted the man from Guangzhou with the disgusting mustache, his right wrist still heavily bandaged.It must have hurt holding a horse’s reigns when traveling here, I thought, which made me feel a bit better.

A gong rang at the back of the courtyard, and a man with a twisted mustache and purple robes cleared his throat and began to call attendance by region. Half the alchemists from Hedong and Hebei were missing, and the men around me whispered that they’d killed each other when their paths crossed on the way to Chang’an. I’d heard rumors of scholars poisoning each other or slitting the throats of their competition in their sleep, but that seemed to only be a problem among the Northern divisions. No one really thought of the south as a threat. We hadn’t had a royal alchemist from Lingnan in the last decade.

“Fan...Zilan?” the man called.

I raised a hand, looking away as the other scholars snickered.

“Her name is Zilan?” one of them said. “Is she a servant?”

I dropped my hand as the man called out the rest of the names from Lingnan, hoping everyone would forget about me quickly. It was a bit too early to start making enemies.

“Zheng Sili?” the man called out. Across the yard, the man from Guangzhou with the terrible mustache raised his hand. The name sounded familiar, and I grimaced when I remembered it was the only one above mine on the lists of finalists from Lingnan. Of course, it had to be him. But he was in for a rude surprise when he realized that his high rank as a southern alchemist meant nothing to the alchemists of the North. Considering that we weren’t even allowed to do basic alchemy in public without royal status, it seemed that in Chang’an, either you were a royal alchemist or you were no one at all.

The man at the front began his opening speech about the esteemed duty of royal alchemists, which I could hardly hear over everyone’s excited chattering about the upcoming exams.

“It is our greatest honor to pledge service to the House of Li,” he said. “You are the keepers of gold, which has made our kingdom great, which has cemented its place in eternity, which runs through the veins of the family that Heaven has chosen for us...”

I tried to subtly eavesdrop on some Northern alchemists near me, who seemed wholly convinced that the next round would involve fighting bears. It seemed ridiculous at first, but I supposed the palace was big enough to secretly store over a hundred massive animals. Besides, the government clearly spared no expense when it came to Chang’an.

At the sound of a door opening, the man at the front turned to his left with a look of relief on his face, mercifully wrapping up his speech. I followed his gaze to the far end of the courtyard, where a flock of servants rushed after a man in purple, hurrying across a bridge. He held up a hand to block the sunlight from his face, but as he crossed into the shade and dropped his hand, a wave of dizzying déjà vu washed over me, like when I’d seen the five gates.

This was the man who’d asked me to resurrect him in Guangzhou.

Is he a court official?It was unusual for an official to have so many servants, so he truly must have been rich beyond imagination. Whatever the case, it seemed he’d outlived his own predictions. What had made him so certain of his own death?

“Now,” the man onstage said, “the Crown Prince wishes to welcome you all formally.”

And, to my horror, the man who’d come to Guangzhou stepped onto the stage.

I’d known that Empress Wu had only one living son—Li Hong, Prince of Dai, the heir to the throne. Apparently, the man I’d spoken so casually to in Guangzhou would one day inherit the empire. This whole gilded city belonged to him, as did all the roads I’d crossed to come here, every stalk of grass, even the footprints in the dirt. When I’d refused to help him, he would have been well within his rights to tie me up, throw me over his horse, and take me back to Chang’an as a slave. So why had he asked me to help, rather than ordering me?

I tried to slide behind another alchemist so he wouldn’t see me, hating the idea that someone so powerful even knew I existed. What if he remembered the thousand impolite things I’d said to him and had me thrown in jail? In truth, he hadn’t seemed that cruel, but I knew better than to stake my life on the kindness of the rich.

The prince ascended the platform, his guards hovering nearby. In Guangzhou, he’d seemed so out of place, but here—gazing down at the crowd, the sun catching the gold flecks in his eyes and glimmering in the embroidery on his violet robes—he truly looked like someone who Heaven had handpicked as the future Emperor. Wenshu had always railed against the mandate of Heaven, saying that Heaven wouldn’t choose emperors who neglected half the country and enslaved girls from across the sea, but I couldn’t deny that something about the prince emanated power and certainty. It was as if he’d already read the story of his life and was merely acting out the part with the grace of someone assured of their destiny.

“Greetings, alchemists,” he said, smiling as everyone bowed. “I will be brief, as I know you all have important duties, but I will say this much—do not underestimate your importance to our kingdom. Because of the noble art of alchemy, there are no limits to our dreams. Thanks to your talents, our empire is the strongest in the world. You will carve out a future that...”

He trailed off, squinting in the sunlight. It took me half a second too long to realize he was looking atme.

I tried to duck behind another alchemist again, but it was too late.

“Zilanxiaojie” the prince said, smiling. “I see you’ve made it, as expected.”

All of the alchemists turned to me at once. I felt more exposed than when Zheng Sili had torn up my dress in public. Now everyone knew my name, and my face, and the fact that the prince—for some bizarre reason—was happy to see me. Most of the alchemists were slack-jawed and wide-eyed, probably confused that the girl with the servant name knew the Crown Prince. But some of their gazes burned, expressions sinking into sharp disapproval.

“Yes,Your Highness,” I said, mustering as much bitterness as I could without being executed for my rudeness. His eyes dimmed and he cleared his throat, continuing his hollow speech. Slowly, the other alchemists turned away from me. They didn’t dare to whisper while the prince was talking, but I knew what they were thinking.She’s only here because the prince likes her.She’s probably one of his whores.

Mercifully, his address ended quickly, and his servants swept him away. I let out a breath as soon as he was gone—it felt like a comet had ripped across the sky, dazzling everyone with its light, and now suddenly there was nothing but pitch darkness.

The first speaker returned to show us the training grounds through the next gate—a barren courtyard of pale dirt and stone walls. He gestured to the library just past the western gate, where we could study for our exam at the end of the week, but gave us no indication as to what it would entail. I could barely pay attention, feeling everyone’s gaze on me as they whispered in dialects I didn’t understand.

It seemed that despite my best efforts, I already had a reputation in Chang’an.

“There is absolutely no alchemy in the library,” the librarian said. I would have thought a royal librarian would be the wiry, pale type like Wenshu, but this man looked like he could shove an ox aside and single-handedly drag cargo across town. As soon as I’d signed in as an alchemist, he’d put his hand out and demanded that I surrender my satchel of stones.

“I’m not going to do alchemy in here,” I said. “I’m just going to read about it.”

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