Cricket201905-06

crown on the empress’s brow again, and the nightingale sang. Although
his song was for Death, he regarded the empress as he sang it, and she
knew what she must do.
The powerful and feared Empress Wu went down on her knees beside
the bed, and she began to apologize. She apologized for the wrongs she
had done, for the people she had hurt, for the deeds she had committed.
She said the names of those she had hurt one by one. She felt them pass
near and through her. She shivered at the cold they brought, their bodies
brushing against her body, but she continued, allowing the song of the
nightingale to expand her heart that she could embrace all the lost souls
that she had wronged.
In that song, that endless, lovely song, she admitted all her ugly deeds
and she took responsibility for what would come when the breath left her
body. And by the end, she felt light—light as a feather, light as a bird,
light enough to pass from this heavy, jeweled body into the night air and
fly over the sea.
Death tipped his head graciously to the bird, and took his leave,
claiming what was his to claim.
In the morning they found the body of Empress Wu forever still, but
smiling. Beside her, also silent, lay the body of a small, gray bird.