At long last, the gates of the city enfolded him beneath their arches, and beneath the shade of the cool stone, Zhisen dismounted. Feeling refreshed, he stretched his arms over his head and let one of the soldiers lead his stallion away. He had the abrupt realization that he had forgotten to ask the name of Khojin’s horse, which was a wasted opportunity to make a slightly-less-bad impression. 

Damn, he thought, shaking his head as he walked into the courtyard. He was noticing the dirt on his boots, and thinking what a pain it was to go back to his chambers to change clothes before reporting the news to the court— but he heard his name being called, and turned. Xiuying waved at him from the top of the stairs. She was wearing one of her paler dresses, a light violet colour, with some fuchsia decorations and white under-pieces— all in all, a youthful outfit, complemented with flower-shaped enamel hair ornaments.

He smiled and asked her, “What are you doing out here? Is it market day already?”

She descended the steps while telling him, “Well, yes, but now you’ve arrived, so I think I’ll just go tomorrow. How did things go over there?” Before he could answer, she seemed to read his mind and sigh a bit while they walked down the path to the central gardens. “Hopefully you didn’t expect anything different, Zhisen. Blood is as addictive as wine.” A pause, then: “Will you be off to tell the court about it?”

He nodded. “That is my intent. But I will change my clothes first. They are rather dusty.”

Hiding her mouth with her hand, she chuckled. “So is your hair.”

Zhisen touched it on an impulse, but lowered his hand quickly. “Is that so? I should take a bath.”

“Oh, please— let me wash your hair,” she said, with a grin. Zhisen wanted to tell her that he didn’t have time to mess around, but she added, “I’ll even put it in a braid so it fits better in your xiao guan, what do you say? Hmm? Pretty please?” He laughed, more amused with himself for thinking she had less-than-playful intentions. She caught on quickly. “My, my. Don’t tell me you were thinking of naughty things…”

He tried not to laugh too loudly so as to not disturb the others in the garden. “I can’t help it. I become so flustered in the company of beautiful women.”

Xiuying covered her mouth with an expression as if she couldn’t contain herself, and her shoulders were shaking. She managed to say, “That is by far your worst line.”

“What? But it’s a classic.”

She shoved his shoulder lightly. “It’s your worst line because nothing flusters you, liar.”

He bent over a bit to whisper in her ear. “In truth, the dress you are wearing is so glorious on you that I would very much like to find out for myself exactly how many layers of fabric it involves.”

Xiuying met his gaze sidelong as he withdrew, then said, “You should mind yourself. I will delay you from your court meeting if you provoke me any further, Your Highness.”

Zhisen chuckled, saying, “It would be a welcome diversion, but really— I do have to talk.”

“I know,” Xiuying said, waving it off. “I’m only joking around with you.”

They went quietly through the flowering gardens until they were closer to Zhisen’s quarters, and he told her, “Thank you very much for the kingfisher ornaments. They are exquisite.”

She brightened a bit, saying, “I’m glad you like them. Wear them often.”

“I will,” he agreed. It was just as they reached the door to his chambers that someone called out to him from afar. He paused and followed the direction of the sound, then saw Xiaobo making his way over hurriedly, looking distressed. Xiuying bowed to him, but Xiaobo only met Zhisen’s eyes. “What happened?”

He did not waste a moment. “Lord Zhang was almost assassinated yesterday night.”

Zhisen felt a chill race down his spine. “Get a carriage ready, with the fastest carthorse, and send a notice— to Zhang that I’ll be arriving, and to the court that they must convene in an hour. Make sure Junsai and Shengtong are both in attendance.” Xiuying made a face like she wanted an explanation. “I need to get there before Junsai does, so do whatever you can at the stables to make things inconvenient for his people,” Zhisen added, and Xiaobo nodded. “Xiuying, tell the others to stay away from Lord Xiangshi for a while. I don’t want him to suspect anything by chance, so we’ll keep our distance until this has settled down a bit.”

Xiaobo gave one more curt nod, saying, “Understood.”

“Thank you,” Zhisen said, and Xiaobo left in the same hurry as he had arrived.

 Xiuying met his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“I think Lord Xiangshi and Gentry Donghai are moving the supplies through Zhang’s territory.”

She did not seem surprised. “What will you do?”

“Whatever I can,” he said, and tried not to feel frustrated. “Come, I need to get ready.”

Xiuying raised an eyebrow. “You don’t need me to go back to the parlour?”

“Wash my hair first,” Zhisen said, and started to take off his armour and riding clothes on the way to the bath. Behind him, Xiuying laughed a bit. “What, have I said something funny?”

“No, it’s only funny to hear you act spoiled in such a serious and worried voice,” she said, and was changing the pins in her hair to hold it further from her face. “You didn’t say how things went with Chief Tolon?”

As he stepped into the water, always steaming because of its hot-spring source, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. Their eyes met. She tilted her head to the side and waited. Her features looked like porcelain in the sunlight, softened by the paper screens over the windows. Zhisen would give her the details eventually. Was there a reason to wait? She seemed to have already guessed that he wanted to make a good impression on Tolon, if he took the xiao guan as a sign. But she clearly knew that they would still wage war. He hesitated for too long.

She walked over and turned his body with her hands on his bare shoulders, gently. With a patient smile in her voice, she pushed him carefully toward the bath and said, “Alright, sit down. Standing naked and looking anguished will only give you gooseflesh, my dear.” Zhisen sat down, and Xiuying was calmly pulling up the sleeves of her dress. She added, “Contemplate your response while I wash your hair.”

He sighed and wiped his face. The water droplets dripped off his chin. “I’m sorry. I hesitate to tell you things that have more potential to harm than help you and that are not worth telling you, strategically.”

Sitting down behind him and retrieving a tin of soap made into a cream, she said, “You can tell me anything, whether it is worth it or not.” As she put her hands in his hair, she told him, “Get it wet, please.”

Zhisen let himself slide down against the tiles, submerged his head, and then pushed his hair out of his face before resurfacing. Xiuying’s fingers tangled with his, but she drew them through his hair, her ornately decorated nails like the prongs of a short comb. With a twist of her wrists, she wrung the excess water out, then began to wash his hair, gently. He left the back of his neck rest against the lip of the stone bath, and shut his eyes. Do I tell her? What will she think of me, letting people die just so that I can avenge Ziying? Is there any way she could ever understand how much I loved him, even if she did not meet him? He thought it was ironic— Feiyan probably would have understood his thirst for vengeance more than Xiuying, theoretically. If I don’t tell her, she’ll think I don’t trust her, surely.

Zhisen sighed, realizing the kind of mess he’d made by hesitating. Xiuying said, “I love you.”

He opened his eyes at the ceiling. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it to him, but it was first time she’d said it outside of the bedroom. He was too surprised to answer her with anything, although all he truly could say was that he knew, and smile while saying it— because it made him happy. But he was…

She cut off his thinking again. “So, because you are precious to me,” she said, and her thumb swiped foaming soap away from the side of his neck, “I will not be angry if you say nothing. But I will be angry if something ill befalls you because you have said nothing. Whether it is about Tolon, or anything else.”

In that case, he thought, you already have ample reason to be angry with me, unrelated to this. 

But he told her, “It is related to ousting him.” They never dared to say ‘ousting Junsai,’ just in case. Xiuying made a noise of understanding. It would have been easy, physically, to give her a short version of the plan— but he was not sure that he wanted her to realize the extent to which he intended to deceive the court and betray the empire. Even if, in the end, it was better for everyone, it was not as if he was not committing treason with his plan. And if she knew, and someone interrogated her… “That’s all I can say, I’m afraid.”

“Just promise you’ll tell me whenever you do something dangerous. I’ll at least be able to pray.”

He hesitated to say it, but in the end, he did. “You know, praying for me will change nothing.”

Xiuying tipped his face back further and kissed the tip of his nose. “I know. But it helps me sleep.”

Zhisen wanted nothing more than to console her. He wished he could console her. In fact, many times he wished he had been a farm boy living in her father’s lands, and that he had somehow manage to woo her, and that they could just get married peacefully and have a schemeless, uninterrupted life. But as many times as he wished about it, he knew it was impossible. Not because he was a prince, but because the lives of the common people in their empire were not so idyllic. There was no peaceful and simple future to be found on a farmstead, only hard work. There was no marrying for passion if money wasn’t good. There was no escaping the empire, the war, the cost to live, the cost to breathe.

He wanted change— but was he, as a prince, in a position to change things?

He was in no such position unless he was emperor. But did he need to be emperor? He could run away. Did he have a duty to his people? Were they even his people, if he did not know them all? Did he have anything in his life but love for his dead brother and fear to love anyone that much ever again?

Beyond vengeance, the path ahead was dark and uncertain.

Zhisen knew that darkness had its origin within him.

He told Xiuying, “I am not the man you think I am.”

“You are precisely the man I think you are,” she said, and rinsed out the soap. Every touch of her hands, every interweaving of her fingertips, was filled with care and tenderness. He knew that it was foolish to cling to her words, because she loved him too much to remind him of the monstrosities that she deemed less important than his virtues, the qualities that Feiyan reviled. “You’re clever, decisive, and honourable— whether or not you think that playing puppet master with the court makes you dishonourable, the truth is that in your position and with your wits, there are few men who would have the courage to avenge Ziying.”

“You used to fear me, do you remember?”

Xiuying let out a huff of laughter. “Wouldn’t any girl fear a man she’s meant to call ‘master’?”

“And now you know, the man you feared is no different from the man whose hair you are washing.”

She was quiet for a moment. The prongs of a comb touched his scalp. “Maybe I’m foolish for being able to see your best qualities despite our situation,” she said, untangling a knot gently. “Or perhaps you’re the fool, loathing your own blood without realizing that it was not bitter until you began to despise it.”

Zhisen chuckled, turning his face to kiss the inside of her wrist. “My very own poet, you are.”

Her only response was flicking some water off her fingertips onto his face, then getting to her feet. He wrung out his hair, then stood. He used a towel to dry it as much as he could, but as usual he eventually surrendered and tied it up such that no strands dangled free of his xiao guan— nobody would notice that he was fresh out of the bath, and he could let the wind dry it on the way to Lord Zhang’s residence. As if I haven’t had enough of horses for one day, he thought with some irritation, as he put his clothes on. Xiuying was looking out of the window into the garden, somewhat troubled, it seemed.

He might have asked her, if he wasn’t in a hurry— but just as he stepped into his shoes, she asked him, “How are your headaches lately?” Zhisen paused and looked her way, but she was still watching petals fall from an almond tree. “I’ve heard about Erdeni magic. Apparently their shamans have great powers.”

He tried not to laugh. “I doubt that it would help.”

“You could try. Or you could come with me to—”

“Xiuying, enough,” he said, and started to open the door. “If a doctor could help me, do you think I would still suffer from those pains?” She finally met his eyes. He sighed. “Thank you for your concern.”

Her expression was completely unreadable. “Safe travels.”

“Take care,” he said, and left. As he headed toward the throne room, he prayed she didn’t suspect the true purpose of those vials of medicine. If she did… he did not have the time to worry about it now.