Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

T he following morning, King Goujian came to visit.

He was dressed like last time, without any of his royal finery, and rode alone on a chestnut steed. But I recognized his face instantly. It was as if his thirst for vengeance had been permanently carved into his features—his black, hungry gaze and sunken cheeks.

I hurried out to the cottage gates to greet him, with Zhengdan following close behind me, our bright skirts billowing around us like clouds. He stopped to watch us, and I imagined what he saw. Faces lovely as shimmering jewels. Dark hair shining down our backs like silk. Broad ribbons fluttering past our slender arms. How we treaded the tiles as if they were all water, how we moved like swans prepared for flight. Or perhaps we only appeared as weapons to him, daggers to be thrust into the heart of the enemy. However we glinted and shone in his eyes, it was because of our sharp edges, our potential to cut.

"Your Majesty," I said, dipping into a low curtsy. At the same time, Zhengdan curtsied behind me, as a palace lady ought to.

" Well. " Goujian sounded quite pleased. He was looking at some place above our shoulder, and I knew, just from the subtle change in the air, the shadow falling over me, that Fanli had come out as well. "You have definitely been training them."

"When have I ever failed a task assigned to me?" Fanli returned calmly.

I understood what he meant by it, that this was the proper way to speak to a king, yet I felt a twinge in my gut. This was all that I meant to him: a task. An assignment. Fanli and his unshakable sense of duty. Of course—what else could I expect from him?

"Ah, I've missed seeing you often in court," Goujian said, moving past us to clap Fanli on the shoulder. Still, I did not fully lift my head, did not sway in my curtsy, even as the muscles in my neck began to cramp. "Though I see I was right to leave you here. If it had been any other man, I fear they would've already run away with one of the girls. But you—you can resist any temptation, can't you?"

Though I had been taught otherwise, I wanted nothing more than to stand up, to see Fanli's expression. Then again, knowing Fanli, his face would look as it always did, cool and controlled, giving none of his feelings away.

"If this plan of yours succeeds," Goujian continued, "and my revenge is secured, I will make sure that you are handsomely rewarded for your efforts."

"No need, Your Majesty." His voice was even. "It is my duty to serve the kingdom."

"Don't be like that, now. You must want something . Gold, perhaps? Wine? Land? A marriage with a daughter from one of the noble families? There are many girls who have already expressed interest, you know, and I dare say they'd make excellent concubines, good enough to satisfy even somebody like you. It would be no trouble."

My stomach sank. Many girls. What number was that? Six? A dozen? Perhaps Zhengdan had been wrong, and he would not live his life alone. Perhaps he would get married the second I stepped into the Wu palace. A sour taste crept into my mouth at the thought, as if I'd just swallowed vinegar.

"I thank you, Your Majesty, but such things would be wasted on me."

Goujian scoffed, a sound of equal parts admiration and bemusement. "Of all the men who have served me, only you are so insistent on denying yourself the basic pleasures of life. It's almost masochistic—"

"Let us go in, shall we?" Fanli cut in. "I believe there was something you wished to show us before our departure?"

"Oh yes, yes," Goujian said hastily. To us, he commanded, "You may rise."

My neck ached, stiff from being held in one place so long and hot from where the sun had beaten down on it. When Fanli had first shown us the right positions for a curtsy, I'd wondered aloud if discomfort was the primary purpose of it. What better way to show that you took another person's power seriously than to suffer for their sake?

It was a relief to be back indoors, in the cool air of the study.

"Look here," Goujian said, unrolling a map over the low mahogany table. To my surprise, I saw that he was gesturing to us. I crept closer, close enough to see the sprawling territories, the drawings of the mountain peaks and rivers and valleys, the meticulously labeled cities, but not so close to the king as to forget propriety.

"That is Lake Tai," I said in slow recognition, looking to the place he had jabbed a finger.

"Precisely." He nodded. "This will be our opening."

It took me a moment to understand. "Into the Kingdom of Wu, you mean?"

"I have familiarized myself well enough with the territory. The quickest and easiest way inside is not by horse, but by boat."

"But… there are no waterways," Zhengdan said.

Goujian shrugged. "So build one."

The way he said it, he might have been suggesting that we build a small mound of dirt, not a highly sophisticated structure that required the physical labor of thousands.

"Or, to be more accurate, convince Fuchai to build one," Goujian continued, tapping the map sharply. "I do not care what excuse you use. Tell him you like the scenery there, or that you wish to spend more alone time with him on the canal, or that you believe you may uncover some mythical creature in the waters. If you have bewitched him sufficiently, won him over body and soul, he should be willing to do whatever to meet your requests, no matter how irrational they may seem."

My throat constricted. Suddenly the air in the room felt too stuffy, too solid. I had tried desperately to ward off thoughts of the Wu king, to stop myself from dreading the journey ahead. Yet it was only now, with the king of my own homeland addressing me, this map of two kingdoms unfurled before me, that it felt real . Everyone was looking at me. I would have to do this. It would have to be me, and I would have to succeed, or else—

"Now that the carriages and boats have all been arranged, you'll be leaving as planned in two days. Fanli will escort you there, of course, and Luyi will come as well. I had hoped to send you off even sooner, but Fanli insisted that I give you the full ten weeks to train until you were perfect…"

Two days. I had braced myself for it, had known this was coming, yet still I felt as though I had been thrown into a dark room and was watching the door swing shut right in front of me. A foolish impulse gripped me then—to beg the king for more time. More time to taste the sweet plums in the yard, to admire the lantern lights of the village at night, to fall asleep with Zhengdan's quiet snores in my ear. More time with—

In that exact instant, Fanli's gaze touched mine, and something in the air tightened, as if there ran a thread between us, and it had suddenly been plucked. It had to be my imagination. Wishful thinking. A manifestation of my own black, churning despair. But his eyes appeared darker, and I thought I caught a flicker of sorrow in them, like a bird's shadow flitting over a still pond.

"Is there a problem, Xishi?" Goujian asked. The weight of the question hung like a mallet, poised to crush my neck. I had once heard that kings never asked anything, no matter how it was phrased; they merely made requests.

"No, Your Majesty," I murmured, bowing my head, the lie scalding my tongue. "I am ready."

On my last day, I sat perched atop the ledge of the highest cottage wall, my legs dangling over the side. It was my favorite place to go, with its clear view of the village below: the serene sky of dawn casting its soft light over everything, the dense clusters of houses connected by crooked paths and dusty roads, the little boats floating over the waterways, and farther beyond that, the winding river that flashed silver like the body of an eel. Sometimes I thought I could see where the very edges of the kingdom lay, the simmering lines that marked out Wu from Yue soil, where the colors turned deeper and darker and even the clouds formed different shapes.

Behind me, footsteps sounded.

I knew, without even having to turn, who had come. Only Fanli walked with the grace of a dancer and the quiet precision of a killer. Yet something in my blood skipped as his presence drew near.

Stop , I told myself firmly, keeping my eyes on the horizon. There is nothing to anticipate from him.

"It's beautiful, is it not?" he asked as he lifted himself onto the ledge beside me. A few feet of space remained between us. The safe distance, always there, in everything he did. Always so careful not to cross some invisible line that separated duty from—whatever else there could be.

"It is," I murmured.

I expected him to turn the topic to some difficult chess technique, or perhaps the journey up ahead, but he remained sitting like that for a while, quiet. Unable to help myself, I snuck a glance at him. His profile was sharp against the early light, and there was a faraway look in his eyes, as though he could see something I could not.

"Often, before a battle," he said, "I would climb somewhere high with a view such as this."

I stifled a breath of surprise, afraid the slightest sound would discourage him from continuing. He had never spoken of his own experiences in battle before.

"That way, it was easy to remember how small my existence really was. It did not matter if I was afraid, or in pain, or if I was to die on the battlefield. What mattered was what lay ahead of me." He gestured to the mountains, the river, the slowly filling streets. "All that lies under Heaven. All the lives I must protect. My pledge of loyalty to the Kingdom of Yue."

I drew my legs up and held them to my chest, resting my chin atop them. He had never admitted to being afraid before. He did so well in maintaining his fa?ade of ice and stone, cool intellect through and through, that sometimes I wondered if he was even mortal, if he felt anything like I did. "Can you tell me what happened?" I asked after a beat. My blood pounded harder in my ears, my nerves tingling. Perhaps Fanli will be so generous as to tell you the details, when he is in an agreeable mood , Luyi had once said. Well, I could not be entirely sure whether Fanli's current state was agreeable , but I was certain this was the closest he would ever come to it. And there would be no other opportunities after today.

He looked at me so sharply that I almost withdrew the question. "What happened where?"

"In—" The word was thick in my throat. "In Kuaiji."

Something in his features tightened. "You'd really like to know?"

I nodded.

He breathed out, his shoulders tensed, as if bracing for someone to remove an arrow shaft from a deep wound. "After the Wu soldiers surrounded us, we were essentially given two options: to die, or to serve King Fuchai. Goujian, being as proud as he is, was of course ready to give up his life before bowing to the enemy. But I convinced him otherwise." He lifted his chin. "I have always believed that knowing when to yield is even more important than winning. If we were to bow our heads and humble ourselves before the king, and earn his trust over time, then we could hope to one day return, and devise a plan for revenge." He looked to me in acknowledgment, and I felt a strange roaring in my blood, a kind of drifting away from my own body, until I was not blood and flesh but the things that mountain soil and river water and starlight are made of. Something ancient, eternal. I was that plan. I was part of the kingdom's history. "I told him death was the coward's way out. That death was final; it eradicated all possibility. If he were to fall to the sword then, his legacy would only be his failures, his defeats. How would he be able to face his ancestors in the Yellow Springs of the underworld?

"It took a great deal of persuasion, but eventually, Goujian agreed. Part of him, I'm sure, resents me for it even to this day. But we went and submitted ourselves to King Fuchai, and were assigned to sweeping the stables. We were treated as servants, worse even. It was bearable when Fuchai neglected our existence entirely, and left us to the chores; but sometimes he would grow bored, and remember. Then he'd summon Goujian to see him in private…" A pause. "You must understand: It is not quite so uncomfortable to claw your way up through the ranks when you have been born into a lowly position. If you were raised in robes of rough ramie, you'd find yourself adjusting quickly to the feeling of silk. But when you have known nothing but power and riches all your life, and your skin is a delicate thing, used to the softest material—anything less causes instant pain."

No wonder Goujian hates the Wu king so , I realized, leaning back on the ledge. I remembered the dark, poisonous look in Goujian's eyes, how he'd spat out Fuchai's name. It is not just political—it is personal. He has been wounded in every way.

Then something else occurred to me.

"Was Goujian really the only one Fuchai humiliated for entertainment?"

His tone was wary. "What do you mean?"

"The… the scars on your back." To acknowledge it out loud felt illicit. "Were those also from the Wu? When you were made to serve them?"

"They do not hurt," he said after a beat, which meant yes . "I am already used to them."

He could have been telling the truth. The planes of his face were cold and unmoved as the moon overhead. Yet I felt a vivid rush of rage, a reckless impulse for violence. I would remember this. I would torment the ones who had done this to him, who had carved their hatred into his flesh. I would gladly bring down their entire kingdom for this one wrong. My nails dug into the stone.

"It's not worth being upset over," Fanli said softly. Then, in a clear attempt to change the subject: "Now you see why Goujian is so bent on revenge."

"And you?" I asked, my lingering anger loosening my tongue.

"What about me?"

"You always speak of kingdoms and grand plans, of history and duty, of Heaven and those under it…" I could not resist looking at him, at the moonlight lining his lips. And once I did, I could not look away. "Do you have no desires of your own? Have you never wanted anything just for yourself?"

His gaze cut to mine. A cold shock pierced through me, and I made a careful, active effort to school my expression into neutrality, so he could not tell what answer I wished to hear.

A long silence.

Something shifted in the trees: a bird's weight, lifting, or a breeze.

Then he turned, pushing himself off the wall and landing as quietly as a cat on the ground. I swallowed my heart. So that was it. He would not offer any information he didn't want me to know. Perhaps it was for the better this way. There were certain things that, once said, could not be taken back. And we would be leaving soon; I'd likely never see him again after that. Fanli began to walk toward the cottage. I watched him go, his shadow stretching out behind him—

Until he stopped. His head moved fractionally, so I could just make out the sharp angles of his face over his shoulder. His lips were pressed tight, his brows furrowed, everything in his expression warring with itself.

Quietly, so quietly I would wonder later if I had dreamed it, he said, "I have."

A set of wedding robes had been laid out on my bed that night.

They were the deepest red—the red of spilled blood, of spoiled wine, of kissed lips—and embroidered with gold thread. All along the sides and down the wide sleeves and sash, there were images of soaring birds and phoenix tails and floating clouds, chrysanthemums and lilies in full bloom, stars crowded around a blazing sun. It was the most beautiful and terrible thing I had ever seen. It made my heart halt its next beat. Sitting atop the robes was a note, written in Fanli's neat, slanted calligraphy: See if it fits.

The fabric was as soft as it looked, made of the kind of silk I had only ever washed but never worn. The long skirt flowed down past my ankles like water and puddled crimson at my feet. It fit perfectly, the measurements exact, as if it had been made just for me.

I fastened all the ribbons myself with shaking hands, smoothed out the waist, and tied my hair back, pinning it into coils atop my head with a slender jade hairpin. Beads of amber dangled from its end, rattling as I walked.

I had no idea what I meant to do until I reached Fanli's room. I swallowed the hard lump in my throat, my hand hovering over the door in a half-formed fist, hesitating. Knock. Go inside. It is your last chance to do so. Before my courage could abandon me, I pushed the door open. It creaked loudly, and there Fanli sat with his back to me, outlined against the candlelight.

His robes were undone, left to fall around his narrow waist. He had stiffened at the sound of the door, but he did not turn around.

"Xishi?" It was a question, in more ways than one.

My eyes went to the ointment in his hand, and I stepped forward with a boldness that did not feel like my own. "Let me," I said, quiet, lowering myself to the ground behind him and plucking the ointment from his closed fingers. "Let me help you."

I heard him swallow. "This is not for you to do."

"I know." The words rang out; like coins tossed down a waterfall, I could not tell when they landed, where. But he did not stop me; he simply held himself with even more stiffness than usual, his eyes ahead. I dipped one finger into the jar. The ointment was cool, smooth with oil, and almost sweet, the fragrance of a winter flower I thought I recognized.

The seconds expanded. We both seemed to be waiting.

Very carefully, I pressed one finger to the scar snaking down the center of his spine, where he could not reach. His skin burned to the touch. And something burned inside me, too, a flame behind my ribs. We had never been so close; he had never been so exposed. I could feel the resistance of hard, tensed muscle, the unnatural rise of his scars as I traced my fingertip down the jagged line.

He shuddered.

"Am I hurting you?" I asked, pausing.

A silence, before the reply came: "You could never hurt me."

But when I shifted closer and touched the ruined space between his shoulder blades, his whole body was trembling, the muscles under his skin pulled as taut as if he were in battle. The scent of the crushed flower soon suffused the tight space between us. I felt almost dizzy from it, though my attention did not waver. Every time I moved to apply the ointment, he flinched, then tried to twist his head to look back at me.

"Stay still," I told him.

"It is difficult," he said, "to not see you."

"I'm almost done now." I hoped he could not detect the hitch in my breathing. When I had smeared the last of the ointment into his skin, I stood and stepped back, letting him dress, my gaze following the subtle movement of his shoulders.

"Thank you," he said, hoarse. "Nobody has… before."

Then he turned around fully, and his lips parted at the sight of me. He looked almost… afraid. A primordial emotion, something that crept up through his ice mask.

"I came to show you this. Do you think it fits?" I asked, spinning a slow circle before him, feeling how the air moved against my skirt and the gems swung in my hair. Reckless , a voice in the back of my mind chided. Foolish. I had already toed over the invisible line too many times tonight, crossed into forbidden territory. But there was another voice, a memory of Fanli, the expression on his face: I have.

"Yes," he replied. His hands flexed, then curled at his sides, so tight that his knuckles strained white. "I believe so."

"Really?" A gale blew against the window panels, scattering petals through the gaps into the room. The door slammed shut behind me. My blood pounded in my ears as I lifted my chin at a calculated angle. "Look closer."

"Xishi." There was a strain in his voice, a note of caution. He did not move.

"What?"

"Stop it."

I raised my brows at him. "Stop what?"

"You know what you're doing." He released a soft huff of air, like a laugh, but there was an edge to it. The collar of his normally immaculate robes was creased, the sash around his waist tied in a hasty, uneven knot. "This is not—meant for me. It is for their king."

"Am I beautiful enough for him, do you think?" I kneeled beside him, my skirts spilling around me like blood from a mortal wound. My fingers tingled, even though they held nothing. Would it be like this with the Wu king? Like standing on a great precipice, one move away from tumbling through the air, from losing or gaining everything? I doubted it. "Am I all that you hoped I could be?"

"You are…," Fanli began, then trailed off. Swallowed. He angled his head away from me, toward the wall, so I could see the strain in his jaw. His breathing was uneven. It grew less steady the closer I drew. I do not know what gave me the nerve, but I grabbed his chin. Gently. Forced him to look back up at me. His skin was even smoother than I'd expected. Faultless. Delicate.

"What am I to you, Fanli?" I whispered. It felt illicit, saying his name without the title, without any kind of address. As intimate and impulsive as if I were to reach out and stroke his hair.

His eyes flashed, then flicked down to my robes. My wedding robes. What I would wear when I greeted his greatest enemy—the same man who had humiliated him and degraded him and overseen his torment, the one responsible for the scars on his back—as my own lover. Fanli seemed to be holding his breath. His fists were clenched so tight I could see the bones of his fingers. "Why—" he managed, his voice shedding some of its usual neutrality. "Why are you doing this?"

"I want to know," I said. My fingers trembled against his face. The polish was starting to rub off from my performance. I cared too deeply to affect nonchalance. To act as if my heart were not straining against my ribs, as if it did not hurt to be this close, this close , and know that I could not go any farther. "I have to know. Before we leave. Everything will be different and—" I stopped talking before my voice could waver. I had been trained better than that. "You will never get to look at me like this again."

"Xishi," he said, voice low. "I cannot—"

"Speak to me normally," I demanded.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Tell me…" I dropped my hand, keeping my gaze level with his. "Tell me what I am to you. Please," I added when he began to protest, to maneuver his way free from the conversation. "Am I your greatest weapon? Or something else?"

He inhaled. Seemed to steel himself. Then he made that sound again, that half laugh, with its undertone of incredulity and self-mockery. "So this is how it feels," he murmured, almost under his breath, "to be cut by your own blade."

The candles flickered. Everything felt pressed close, warm, like air cupped inside a palm. I could see our shadows splashed across the magnolia-patterned folding screen; the trick of the light made it so they looked closer than we actually were, our faces touching. Even now, after all that has passed, I can visualize the scene in fresh, intimate detail: the guqin set beside his desk, the way the gold and crimson threads of my robes gleamed, the jar of ointment lying open on the floor, the silhouette of the plum blossom trees just outside the window. In the days to come, when I was alone, I would wonder what might've happened if I had been a little braver, a little more selfish, a little more reckless. If I had pulled his shadow to mine until our hearts collided, if I had just spoken outside our silent glances, acknowledged what blazed between us in those brief, quiet moments together. Perhaps then, all would be different. But these things tend to make sense only in fantasies, in memory. In reality we were just two mortals, bound by our respective roles in history, and whatever flickered between us felt so terribly fragile compared to the immovable weight of mountains, of kingdoms, of war.

He shifted forward, lifted a hand to my hair. Stopped. Up close, his pupils were blown wide, black as bottomless pools in the deepest winter. Very slowly, as if afraid I would disappear right before him, he touched one fingertip to the jade hairpin. The pressure was no more than a butterfly landing on a petal, but I felt it travel down to my bones. My heart thudded harder, my mouth dry with everything I could not say.

Then his gaze hardened, and he withdrew his hand. A flash of fabric. Just like that. The shock of it was like bursting through water after a long, long swim. The empty air stung my skin.

"You should get some rest," he said, twisting away, denying me his face. His voice was cold again, curt, removed to a place I could not reach. "It will be a long journey."