The first time he talked to Ziying, he had been almost five years old. It was the height of winter, and huge, lazy snowflakes danced through the air. All in all, it turned out to be the luckiest day of his life.

Zhisen’s mother had dozed off while reading a story to him, and he had carefully crept out from under her arm, left her quarters, and headed toward the central garden. The last time he’d snuck out on his own, he had wandered until the kitchens and been treated to sweets after having his cheeks squished and squeezed in various ways by a plump woman with a flour-covered apron. 

That was a fruitful excursion, so he was eager to keep on exploring the palace without his mother, who only ever took him to the flower gardens or to see the Emperor. He did like the Emperor, though— every time his mother took him there, he got to play checkers or look at beautiful drawings and listen to stories.

The Emperor told Zhisen to call him ‘Father,’ but his mother always told him it would be rude.

His mother was always right, so he listened to her.

Zhisen had finally found the pond full of koi fish belonging to one of the Empress’ sons, Junsai, so he knew to take a left turn for the central gardens. But while he was crossing the bridge, he heard the sound of an eagle and stopped, looking skyward. Zhisen watched it until it was out of sight, then took a step forward with his eyes still on the clouds, and collided with something. “Woah, there,” a young man’s voice said, with laughter. A large hand settled on top of his head, and he was looking at dark blue robes.

Taking half a step back, Zhisen looked up, and saw that it was his oldest brother. He was about to greet Ziying with a bow like his mother had taught him, but Ziying suddenly smiled and crouched down so that their eyes met properly. He asked, “Did I startle you? That eagle was huge, right?”

Zhisen didn’t know what to do, so he bowed and said, “My name is Zhisen.”

Ziying blinked at him, then chuckled. “You’re Lady Yanlin’s son? No wonder you resemble her.”

He nodded.

“Great to meet you properly after all this time,” Ziying said brightly, still crouching. His eyes were the colour of the most fertile soil, and although he was handsome, his features appeared soft and his face kind. His voice, too, was much gentler than it sounded from afar, whenever Zhisen had heard him talking to the Emperor and court officials. He asked, after a moment, “Is it ‘Zhisen’ from ‘ambition’ and ‘lively’?”

He shook his head. “From ‘wisdom’ and ‘forest.’”

“My name is from ‘nourish’ and ‘shine,’” he said, then laughed a bit. “You know, ‘wisdom’ goes better with ‘shine,’ and ‘nourish’ better with ‘forest.’ We should trade.”

Zhisen was confused. “But everyone knows us by our own names already.”

Ziying rubbed his jaw, considering it. Then, with a mischievous grin, he said, “What about this: I’ll teach you what I’m like, and you’ll teach me what you’re like, and then when you’re older we’ll switch. You can pretend to be me and I’ll pretend to be you, and nobody will know unless they look closely.”

“That’s a complicated way to ask to be friends.”

His smile softened. He had a beautiful smile. “Will you be my friend, Zhisen?”

Nodding, Zhisen said, “I will.”

After that, they walked through the central garden together. Ziying was going to the library, and Zhisen tried to keep up with him, but he had long legs and slowed down in the end. His laughter was a sound that made Zhisen’s heart swell so much that it hurt.

Back then, Zhisen hadn’t known why, but after having so many years to think it over, he knew in retrospect that he liked Ziying that much for one reason: Ziying was the only person in his life who had loved him even when there was nothing to gain even from knowing him.  

The memory of his laughter was more distant every day. The sound of crackling fire at the cremation doused its cheer. The sound of Zhisen’s own sobbing voice drowned it in tears. The sound of the birds singing in the trees as if the world would still turn after Ziying’s death made him wish he were deaf.

Ziying’s silhouette in the flames was like his mother’s back receding in the dark.

With a gasp, Zhisen woke up. He was drenched in a cold sweat and his ears were ringing faintly. It took a moment of catching his breath to register that he was sleeping in a tent with Khojin Adkirag. He looked to his left and saw that the other bed roll was empty. Zhisen let his head fall back to the coarse fabric beneath him and closed his eyes, sighing. He rolled over and reached into the pocket of his vest, pulling out the jade amulet. Holding it in his right hand, he rubbed his thumb across its surface. The sunlight coming between the tent flaps made it shine. Mine is from ‘nourish’ and ‘shine.’ Zhisen wet his lips and closed his hand around the jade. Good morning, brother, he thought, before putting it back in his vest.

“Good morning.”

Zhisen almost jumped out of his skin, but he quickly realized that there was more light in the tent, and that the rough voice belonged to Khojin. Sitting upright, Zhisen opened his mouth to answer, but Khojin added, “We’re riding out soon. If you want to eat first, there’s congee and tea.”

“Did the market stock make for a good haul?” Zhisen asked, putting on a shirt from his pack.

Khojin looked at him silently for a moment, then said, “If you won’t eat stolen food, I’ll eat more.”

With that, he closed the flaps again. Zhisen thought over his words for a moment. Is he giving me his food specifically? Do they ration the food so strictly? Well, it would make sense since they’ve been waiting here awhile and still need to bring back a haul to their camps… Zhisen put it from his mind and dressed, then stepped out of the tent. In the daylight, he counted six campfires and around forty men. He spent too long counting, because some of the men looked his way and then whispered to each other.

He had no way of knowing what Khojin might have told them, but at least the only person who seemed hostile was Inalchi. No matter, Zhisen thought. I’ll find a way to win him over eventually.  

Zhisen sat down near Khojin, then greeted Merkus and Inalchi. Although Inalchi did not grace him with a response besides a glance in his direction, Merkus answered, “Good morning. Tea?” Asking, he gestured with the wooden ladle in his hand at the pot steaming over the fire. It smelled like oolong tea, so he asked if it was, and Merkus looked surprised. “So it’s true that you nobles know your teas well, huh?”

Unsure of whether that was some kind of insult or just curiosity, Zhisen said, “It’s my usual topic of small talk to begin with when meeting someone for the first time, so long as there is tea on the table.”

Khojin extended a bowl full of congee to him, asked, “To flaunt your trivial knowledge?”

“You sound like you hate tea,” Zhisen said, drinking some. It was a little over steeped, but that was better than not having enough flavour. Khojin was looking confused. “Don’t you, with that attitude?”

“I’m indifferent. It’s only a drink.”

“It’s more consistent and fragrant than people,” Zhisen said, which made Merkus laugh.

Khojin did not seem very pleased with the remark. “Are you capable of only one breed of insult?”

“I’m not too familiar with breeding insults. Your people are pastoral— enlighten me.”

Inalchi sounded irked. “Keep your wordplay to yourself and eat so we can leave.”

Zhisen chuckled and turned his attention to the congee— it was half a bowl, and with a sideways glance he could see there was as much in Khojin’s bowl. So it is his food. He decided not to thank Khojin; if he did, surely some kind of snide remark would be the answer, along the lines of ‘a prince who appreciates porridge? spare me the drivel.’ Just imagining his faint scowl was entertaining; Zhisen forgot about his dream quickly enough as he ate. They’d added ginger to the congee. Zhisen couldn’t remember when he had last eaten such simple food, but it was far from something he wouldn’t appreciate.

When he was at the bottom of the bowl, he heard an eagle’s screech, and looked up to see a wing close to his face. He flinched, but the feathers folded back as swiftly as they’d appeared, and he watched Khojin extending his left arm for the eagle to perch on it. Its wicked talons pressed into the thick fabric wrapped around his forearm, but Khojin reached out with his bare right hand and scratched its chin without any care, it seemed, for its deadly beak. Zhisen watched from the corner of his eye, thinking they made a good pair— a deadly raptor and a person known for nothing but his prowess in battle.

But if he cares for a mere hunting animal enough to smile at it, there must be more to him, Zhisen thought, and wondered what sort of conversations to provoke in order to get on his good side.

He snapped out of it when Merkus spoke. “Prince Zhisen, you draw a bowstring back well.” Zhisen looked at him in confusion, as did Khojin and Merkus. “Who taught you that?”

Zhisen could not tell them the truth. Saying, My mother, would arouse too much curiosity, and he was quite certain that Merkus was asking because he recognized something about the way Zhisen pulled back the bowstring. So, draining his cup of tea, he answered, “Ziying.”

“I thought all the Jirandai princes privately want to kill each other,” Inalchi said.  

He shrugged and bent over to wash the cup in the bucket of water near the fire. “I was only a child when he took a liking to me. I don’t think there’s anything threatening to the first son of the Empress about a boy nearly two decades younger than him, and borne by a concubine.” He paused, then added, “And I don’t even know my other half-brothers well enough to want them dead. There are fourteen of them.”

Inalchi raised an eyebrow. “Seventeen princes for sixteen provinces and the palace?”

Zhisen was surprised that he’d caught on so quickly, but nodded. “Yes, exactly. But since Ziying is dead, the master of Diyin province, Lord Zhang, operates without the direct influence of any one prince.”

“Diyin borders Reidan,” Khojin said. “Isn’t it a serious disadvantage to trust in Zhang’s loyalty?”

“It’s true that Zhang’s independence is no coincidence,” Zhisen said, “but allow me to correct your assumption first that anyone in the palace trusts him. Nobody in the palace trusts anybody.”

Inalchi sneered. “And whose fault is that, I wonder? If you weren’t a race of treacherous m—”

Merkus cut him off swiftly. “Ah, that was a delicious meal. Should we ride out?” Inalchi glared at him to no effect, but Khojin interjected no opinions aside from a nod, so Merkus stood up and went toward the horses, pausing to slap another one of the men on the back while he went. Inalchi met Zhisen’s eyes again, but after a moment of silence, excused himself, too. When they had left, Zhisen dried off the utensils he had washed and passed them to Khojin, who was packing them away.

After a moment, still packing the bowls, Khojin asked, “Do you trust anybody in the palace?”

Zhisen told him honestly. “My tutor who was friends with Ziying, and my concubines. I suppose Emperor Xian is especially fond of me, too, but I cannot make use of his goodwill in this matter.”

Khojin gave him a strange look. “Do you consider your wife a concubine too?”

“No,” Zhisen said, getting to his feet. “But there was a time when she sincerely wished me dead.”

After a moment of looking at Zhisen quietly, Khojin closed his pack and said, “Let’s go.”

He crouched to check the contents of his pack and ascertain that everything was still inside. As he reached to the bottom to flatten a shirt, something poked his palm and he hissed, withdrawing his arm. When he retrieved the item, it was a straight silver hairpin with a kingfisher ornament on the end, in the shape of a dragon. It was extremely expensive to inlay jewelry with kingfisher feathers, so he wondered how in the world it had ended up in his pack. It did not take too much more searching to find matching silver xiao guan with such intricate patterns that he knew it had been planted among his things. He heard Merkus calling him over and hid the jewels, but heard the crumple of paper and opened his pack more, to try and find the note. When he finally did, concealed as it was inside his spare robe, he read it quickly.

He instantly recognized Xiuying’s handwriting. 

Dear Zhisen, sorry if you poked yourself while looking for clothes. Last night, I wished to give it to you, but you were sleeping too peacefully to wake. This hairpin has been in my family for a long time. My brother gave it to me back then since he did not have the occasion to wear it. Neither do I, since it is fitted to that xiao guan, which would be most bizarre for a woman to wear. I know that you rarely wear jewels aside from Ziying’s xiao guan, but I give this to you for good luck. Also, respectfully, I think it is more impressive than your brother’s, and you might prefer to wear it before Chief Tolon. Please travel safely. Return both the pin and yourself to me in one piece. Yours always, Xiuying

Zhisen smiled to himself and tucked the letter away before closing his pack. As he walked toward his stallion, he remembered the feeling of someone kissing his cheek while he slept the night before leaving the palace. It seemed that he had not dreamt it after all— but was that for the best?

He did not know, but he did wish that he had been awake.