Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T he sun was just starting to pull itself up over the horizon when we reached the mountain peak. The last time we were here, it had simply been to flee the heat of the summer. A small, isolated room had been carved into the rock, like a temple but without the altars and the sweet incense smoke and red mats for kneeling. But the air here was thick with prayer anyway.

There weren't many of us left. Fuchai and I entered the room first, followed by a dozen or so guards, a few ministers I vaguely recognized, and a handful of maids, Xiaomin among them. She was still in her nightclothes, a flimsy layer of white cloth wrapped around her shivering body. Tears shone on her cheeks.

"Are you all right?" I asked her. A foolish question, but I could not think of anything else.

"My sister," she whispered.

"What?"

"My little sister." She choked out the word, like it might kill her. "She's still somewhere inside that palace—I couldn't find her. I couldn't… I couldn't save her. She must have been so scared…"

I stepped back, feeling sick. When I'd mounted the horse on the riverbanks, left my home for the palace, I had imagined the world righting itself, the scales tipping back, the balance finally restored in Susu's absence. That was what revenge was. What it promised. But now the ground seemed to sway violently beneath my feet, everything spinning into reverse.

I raised a hand to comfort her, then withdrew it. She would likely wish to scrub her skin raw once she found out what I'd done.

Instead I made myself go back to Fuchai's side. He was staring around the room. The furniture was simple, sparse, designed for practicality rather than aesthetic; there were none of the jeweled vases and intricate tapestries he was used to, the luxuries of a king. All of us seemed to be waiting for—something, I don't know what. Perhaps he would kill someone, or kill himself, or fall to the ground and weep.

Then he shrugged off his traveling cloak and reached for a jug of wine. Popped the seal. Took a swig.

"This really doesn't taste as good," he muttered, but continued drinking all the same.

In my peripheral vision, I saw the looks exchanged, the questions asked by gaze only, with no one to answer. What comes next? The maid next to Xiaomin was crying, stifling her sobs with her fist. The guards wore varying expressions of shock, fear, disbelief. These were people who had been taught to obey the king at all costs, to forever place the kingdom before the self. It posed the greatest question of all: Could there be a king without a kingdom?

"Fuchai," I began.

"Come sit with me," he said, lowering himself to the ground until he was sitting cross-legged, like a student in class, then patting the space beside him. I approached slowly.

"Fuchai," I tried again. "Are you…"

"I'm fine." He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, resting his head against the faded gray wall, his dark hair falling over his eyes. The future plays about him would all be tragedies, I thought to myself, a small but sharp blade twisting in my heart. "Listen, Xishi…" His breathing was oddly staggered. I scanned him in confusion, and spotted the crimson patch staining his left sleeve. It didn't stand out well against the black of his robes, but there was enough blood to reasonably conclude that the cut wasn't fresh.

"You're hurt," I said, frowning.

I waited for him to pout, to lean close, to exaggerate his pain and ask for comfort. But he just shook his head, hiding his sleeve behind him, and drank deeply from the wine jug using his other arm. "Just a scrape," he said, his voice mild.

"But—"

"This is important," he insisted. "Just listen for a moment, okay? This is really—a revelation. I've been thinking about it, and I've decided… none of it matters."

"What?"

"The kingdom." He tilted his head farther back, eyes closed. "The land, the lakes, the places of worship. All the gold and the godly statues and the jewels. I'm willing to give them all up," he said, a grin splitting across his face like lightning, "as long as I can be with you always."

I stared. I had not imagined this. It was one thing to know that he desired me, that he enjoyed my presence, admired my dancing, that I occupied a place in his heart few others ever would. But what he spoke of now—it sounded suspiciously like love. "You don't know what you're talking about," I managed.

"I do," he said sincerely.

"You're drunk."

"I'm always drunk."

He was not wrong. "You are a king," I reminded him, gazing around the room at all the somber faces, those who had left their homes and their lives behind just to serve him. "The kingdom is your birthright."

"Is that a no?" He looked more agitated than when the Yue had been on his doorstep. He'd set his jug down, shifting forward to meet my eyes. "Don't you wish to be with me too?"

The words stopped in my throat. I didn't know what to say, how to tell him that none of this mattered anyway. Would it be kinder to feed him another lie now? Or give him the truth?

I was a coward; I shrank from the question, took the easy way out. "We can talk about this another day," I told him gently, knowing there were no days left.

First we heard the hoofbeats. Distant, but growing more distinct by the second, getting higher and higher up the mountain path. Then the swishing of armor.

"Are those reinforcements?" a maid asked hopefully, running to the entrance. "Maybe they're coming to rescue us."

Fuchai had already run through the supply of wine available. He blinked at the noise, as if pulled here from a great distance. Then he rose, supporting himself against the wall with his good arm, and said with sudden, surprising sharpness: "Don't open the door."

Too late.

The maid fell back with a startled cry, and an emissary marched in, surrounded by soldiers. They were all well trained, a perfect line of men in fine-quality uniforms, their hair left long and pinned into sleek black knots atop their heads, the Yue flag flying out behind them. Next to the Wu—the cowering maids, the exhausted guards with their tunics hanging in tatters, the ministers slouched by the far walls—their preeminence was a visible fact, a taunt. The air seemed to solidify around them.

The shriek of a sword. In two strides, Fuchai had stepped in front of me, throwing his injured arm before my body, his sword pointed at the emissary. Someone cried out.

My blood had become ice. Years of preparing for this very moment, and now it was happening too quickly.

"Get back," Fuchai warned.

The emissary was a tall, lean man with a face like a hawk and the build of an archer. He looked like the kind of person Fanli might pick out from a crowd, seeing potential others didn't. He regarded Fuchai with cold disdain, and Fuchai's sword as if it were a stick wielded by a boy. "Do you even know how to fight?" he scoffed.

I could see the color rise up the back of Fuchai's neck. In the palace, everything and everyone was his; nobody ever dared scorn him. Still, when he spoke, he retained the dignity of a king. "Well enough to cut off your head."

The emissary made another scoffing noise, but didn't draw his sword. "No need. You're outnumbered; surely even you can see that?"

Fuchai stared around the room in silence. For every Wu guard and maid left, at least two Yue soldiers stood, armed with polished blades and carved shields. The doors had been blocked, the windows locked tight. Outside lay the sheer drop of the cliff, and a treacherous mountain path that required the best steeds to navigate.

"But don't worry," the emissary said, pacing around the room with leisure. He stopped only to snap a fan open and hold it out over his face so only those coldly gleeful eyes were showing. I wondered if Fanli had specifically asked him to be as infuriating as possible, to better rub the salt in the wound. But no, that was not quite Fanli's style—to be malicious without reason, to stomp over the dead body once it had already cooled. It was more like some thing Goujian would do. "I'm not here to pick a fight, only to deliver a message from King Goujian."

"Goujian," Fuchai repeated with vehemence. Under the black fury in his voice, I sensed the sting of betrayal too. Perhaps he had genuinely considered the two of them friends. From everything Fuchai had told me, it was not as if he'd had much experience with real friendship.

"He says he can be magnanimous and spare you. If you agree to leave right now, he is willing to arrange for you to travel to Yongdong; you will be allotted three hundred families there to wait upon you for the rest of your days. You will never have to worry about hunger or poverty until your old age; that will all be taken care of."

My heart thudded almost painfully. I knew it was more a calculated jibe than a gesture of goodwill, and yet… some weak part of me wished Fuchai would agree to it. His palace lay in ruins; his kingdom, wrestled from his control. Perhaps he need not die too.

I couldn't fully make out Fuchai's features, but when he spoke, there was mockery laced in his tone. "How generous. Is that all?"

"That is all," the emissary said, smiling. Then he caught my eye over Fuchai's shoulder, and recognition flashed over his face. I felt my pulse throb. "Oh, I did also have a message for Xishi."

Everything seemed to go completely still. Then, very slowly, Fuchai turned toward me, confusion written over his features. "What?"

What happened next took even me by surprise. The emissary bowed low, only as one would bow to a king, or a great hero. One by one, the other soldiers joined, a rising tide of motion, their spines bent, their heads dipped toward me.

"King Goujian would like to congratulate you, and thank you for your outstanding service to the Yue," the emissary said, that cold, provocative tone wiped clean. Now he spoke only with respect, his voice earnest. "Without your help, the Yue's resurrection would never have been possible. Your mission is now complete."

All eyes in the room fell on me. But the only ones I could focus on were Fuchai's. I would never be freed from the memory; even beyond the grave, I would see it, that moment of terrible understanding, when everything fell into place. Such hurt blazed in them—as if I had dealt him a physical blow, driven a knife through his flesh. It was the kind of grief that could kill you: grief over the living. His sword arm wavered.

"He's lying," he whispered.

"No," I made myself say. My voice came out remarkably steady, like it was a separate entity from me. "No, Fuchai. I've been lying to you."

He shook his head as he stared at me, just stared and stared. He looked completely speechless, clutching at some wound that no one else could see. No one but me. I watched how every memory we'd ever shared was recast in a different light; every soft word spoken, every tender touch, every quiet promise. He was trembling.

"Since when?"

"Since the very beginning." I let the answer sink in, cutting to the core of him. "It's the only reason I came. To steal your heart, and ruin your kingdom."

The tremors in his hands intensified. "So—Zixu was right."

I could not reply.

The emissary broke the silence. "Lady Xishi, you may take your leave now. We'll handle the rest from here—"

"Don't." The word was breathless, raw. Fuchai was still gazing at me with that wretched, torn expression, his eyes the black of a moonless winter night. "Not—not yet. Tell me something, Xishi. Anything. Isn't there…" He steadied his voice before it broke. His hand was reaching for the empty air, grasping at nothing. "Isn't there something you wish to say to me?"

"I hate you," I whispered. I had envisioned this moment ten thousand times over. In my imagination, I spat the words out like a curse. I screamed them at him while I beat at his flesh. I watched with pleasure while he crumpled, recited every crime the Wu had ever committed against the Yue. All our fallen soldiers, all our lost men, all our broken homes. Zhengdan, her hand falling limp on the floor. Fanli, the sword twisting deeper and deeper into his chest. All the vengeance-hungry ghosts rising around me like black smoke, waiting for exactly this. And yet my voice was soft, not a weapon, but a song. I could conjure no flames; I was too hollow, drowning in cold blood, my insurmountable sorrow, my unspeakable grief. How much loss could one soul tolerate?

"What?" Fuchai asked, like he didn't believe it. Refused to.

"I hate you," I said again, repeated it over and over like a chant, like a prayer. As if it were something I was trying to convince myself of. I needed to hate him. Everything I had sacrificed led to this. "I hate you, I hate you, I—I hate you —" I broke off, breathing hard, unable to continue.

His pupils shrank into two fine points, his face ashen. Then, to my shock, he smiled. It was startlingly beautiful, but it was all wrong. "Good," he said quietly, advancing a step, fingers outstretched as if to brush my face the way he had a hundred times before. There was a rustle of movement; the emissary and the waiting soldiers immediately tensing, weapons at the ready, waiting to intervene. But I gave them a small, silent shake of my head. It was just me and Fuchai: the enemy king, my great tormentor, my heartsick nemesis. "At least you admit you feel something for me."

Then he turned to the emissary, and spoke calmly, clearly, "Tell Goujian that I thank him for his offer, but there'll be no need."

The emissary frowned, not understanding. But I did. My body was frozen to the ground; all I could hear was the violent rushing of blood through my veins, like a hundred rivers churning at once, flowing on to the very depths of the world.

Fuchai was still smiling at me with painful gentleness. Just as gently as one would offer up a bright bloom of flowers, an intricate hairpin, their hand in marriage, he extended his sword to me. "Do it."

"I… I can't—"

"If I am to die, I want you to be the one to kill me." His smile widened, like a burst of light in a gray storm, a melting of ice in early spring. And there was the sword between us, the hilt facing me. A choice. An ending. "I want this to be the last of my memories."

"Fuchai—"

"Please," he said. "There can be nobody else but you."

In the back of my mind the images flashed, a roar of noise and color: Susu gasping her final breath, the heavy creases bracketing my mother's lips, the fire blazing in our village, the cracks running through our walls like scars. The cold satisfaction of his gaze as he watched Fanli suffer, the mocking, wolfish curve of his smile.

But also: his face in the dawn light when he was just waking, still drowsy and content, turning to me already. His hands clasped around mine in the winter to warm them. His laughter when I teased him, when he leaned in during a meeting to tell me a private joke. His chopsticks dropping the most tender slice of pork or the sweetest red date into my bowl before his own.

How could I ever forgive him?

Yet how could I ever fully hate him?

I saw my fingers close around the hilt, as if I were a spirit suspended over my own body. I saw my grip tighten—twice. I was shaking so hard I almost dropped it. The sword was so heavy it could have been molded from pure jade or gold. I saw my arms move.

Fuchai closed his eyes, his lashes outlined dark and long against his cheeks, tilting his head back slightly. When the tip of the sword sank in, he flinched, a low sound escaping his throat, but didn't try to retreat. He just stood there, letting me drive the blade through his heart. Ribbons of red spilled over my palms, trickled down my wrists. My skin was too hot, wet and clammy with blood.

And there was blood on his lips, too, a stain of crimson in the low light.

History seemed to be holding its breath, gazing down upon us.

The king of Wu crumpled, and then he was no longer a king at all, but a boy, bleeding against my robes. I held him. His eyes fluttered open, focused on me; it was how he had looked at me in all our time together, across the palace rivers, across the polished floors of his chambers, underneath the moonlight. No matter where we were, he was always the first one to spot me, always the last to look away. As if afraid I would disappear at any moment, like smoke in a breeze. As if he knew that one day, he would run out of time, out of chances.

"Xishi," he said. By now he was already too weak, his breathing shallow, his voice but the faintest whisper. I had driven the sword all the way in. "Let me—see you properly."

I bowed my head, my shoulders shaking. His blood pooled on the floors around us, shining on stone. He stared up at my face for a long time, saying nothing, his black locks spilled over my lap. Something wet splashed onto his cheeks from above. Tears.

Who was I crying for? Perhaps for myself. Perhaps for him.

Perhaps for both of us, the borders of our fate. Now that he was dying, I could finally bring myself to admit it: I did not want to lose him.

We were close enough for me to feel his broken heartbeat. I was used to listening for it, how it quickened and changed in my presence, whenever I smiled at him or touched his hair or simply drew near. Now I listened to it fade, to its faint, final thud —

Then everything went quiet.

Those last moments I remember only in flashes.

Someone came to prize Fuchai's body away from me. They told me later that I was weeping, pressing my palms to his chest as if I could stanch the bleeding, as if I could undo the fatal wound. Someone else led me down the mountain, the Yue soldiers following, the glint of their swords and spears like fish scales under water. All of it like a dream. You can go home , they kept telling me. But now when I thought of home, my mind was blank. It was a foreign word. I was free, yes. Finished with my mission. Perhaps I could travel across the kingdom, to every place the river water touched the soil, witness all of the four seas. But home? I could no longer even tell you what it meant, much less where it was.

Then—suddenly, it seemed to me—we were offered a sweeping view of the kingdom. The sun shone, bright and piercing, and the winding river threw off silver ripples of light. The sky was a blue so deep it hardly seemed real. Birds glided over the off-white houses and the little bridges and the clustered roads, and the mountains stood layered against each other in darkening shades of indigo. All under Heaven, laid out before me. It was strange. It seemed wrong in some vague but fundamental way. In folklore, when the monster was killed, the enemy conquered, there was always some sort of unnatural sign, some rare sighting to mark the birth of a new era. Fuchai was meant to be the problem, his downfall the one solution. But now he was gone, and the world remained the same.

My robes were still stiff with his blood. It coated the hem of my sleeves, stained my hair. I was offered a flimsy cloth to wipe my hands clean, but I refused. I said nothing, except—

"Where's Fanli?" My voice was hoarse, rubbed raw. I had to repeat myself. "Where is he? Is he safe? Is he coming?"

"He's aiding King Goujian with state affairs," came the response from behind me. "But he asked to give you this."

The emissary handed me a scroll. I unrolled it with shaking fingers. It was his writing, his beautiful calligraphy, his familiar, concise tone:

Find me by the river where we first met. And you must watch out for—

I frowned down at the message, my pulse picking up. Watch out for… what ? The side of the scroll had been smeared with blood, stained during the battle. I held it up to the sunlight, but I could only see dark red blots, obscuring the words underneath.

Despite the warmth of the day, a shiver rolled through me. It felt like my scalp was trying to crawl off my head.

Watch out…

Instinctively, I turned around to scan the narrow path, but there were only the soldiers murmuring among themselves as they walked.

"… is dead."

My heart thudded. I slowed my steps and listened harder.

"The Wu minister Bo Pi?" Another voice asked in shock. "You can be certain?"

"It's spread all the way from the palace. He was killed by King Goujian."

It felt like somebody had shoved me without warning. A coldness spread through my bones.

"On what grounds?"

"For disloyalty, apparently. Something about deceiving his king with poor advice and throwing all the realm of Wu into danger."

The other soldier was silent for a moment. "He is a fair man, then; one who weeds out all traitors, even the traitor of his own enemy. He should make a good king."

Those around him nodded in assent, but my blood only grew colder. They did not know what I did. That all of Bo Pi's poor advice, his deception, his lies—they were merely done upon Goujian's instruction. The two of us were Goujian's greatest weapons in the court of Wu, his eyes and ears. To have killed Bo Pi for exactly what he had been bribed to do…

Unease prickled over my skin like tiny needles. You are being paranoid , I reasoned with myself, forcing my fingers to uncurl. It has nothing to do with you. After all, no matter where Bo Pi's loyalties lay, he was still at his core a man from Wu, born and raised in the enemy kingdom. It made sense for Goujian to distrust him. But I was different. I was Yue, just like him, just like the civilians he had sworn to protect. He ought to recognize me as one of his own.

Even so. I had been wondering if Goujian would ever appear and thank me in person, but now I thought it was fine that we didn't meet again at all. Let him have his mountains and lakes, his kingdom and his legacy. I would go to my river in the village, where the water was always cool and sweet, and gaze across the shore for Fanli. My heart reached for him, aching. Not long now. Not long until everything was really over.