Chapter 3 Àn’yīng #2
“Gone.” I can’t bear to look at Méi’zi, Lì’líng, and my mother in the yard as I say, “It’s not safe to stay here much longer.” It never was. Never will be, unless we win this war. “We’ve called for a meeting with the villagers now, to discuss an evacuation plan.”
“Jiě’jie!” A small figure barrels into me, nearly knocking the breath from my lungs.
I find myself smiling as I hug my little sister, burying my face in her hair. She smells of sunlight, of blossoms and earth and everything good in this world.
I wonder how many more times I will hold her like this.
A sharp yipping bark sounds at my heels, and I laugh as Lì’líng nips at my thigh. She and Méi’zi have become practically inseparable since we arrived back at the village.
My sister draws back, taking in my face with her ever-observant eyes.
I pull my cloak a little tighter around myself, but thankfully, she sees only my windswept appearance and damp hair.
“Jiě’jie,” she says, a sly grin lifting one corner of her mouth.
“You were gone a long time with— Oh, Your Highness!”
I turn.
Hào’yáng strides toward us. A smile lights up his face as he pats Lì’líng on her furry head and greets Méi’zi, who accosts him, demanding an explanation for the missing fish he’d promised to bring back for her this morning.
“Forgive me that I wasn’t able to bring back your fish,” the heir to this realm replies with a hint of bashfulness. “We ran into a little inconvenience.”
“What kind of an inconvenience keeps you and my sister in a river for an entire morning?” Méi’zi asks, glancing pointedly at me with an evil little smirk. I glare at her and drag a finger across my throat.
But Hào’yáng counters with a sweetly innocent smile. “Grown-up inconveniences,” he says, and pinches her nose.
“That’s enough!” I snap. My cheeks are burning. “No fish for you, Méi’zi!”
“Oh, well,” Méi’zi sniffs. By her side, Lì’líng lets out a sad little whine. “I suppose I’ll have to make do with plain congee for breakfast.”
“My favorite,” Hào’yáng says, and the way he ruffles my sister’s hair stirs my heart. He glances up at me, and I quickly shift my gaze away.
The villagers are beginning to trickle in, summoned by our warriors—the beginnings of Hào’yáng’s and my small mortal army. Only twelve of us, fighting to liberate the Kingdom of Rivers.
That’s not many fewer than the remaining villagers. Our numbers dwindled steadily throughout the years as more and more packed up and sought the relative safety of the distant provinces. Now there are barely forty of us left.
“All right, that’s enough foxing around,” Tán’mù growls, snatching Lì’líng by the scruff of her neck. “We have important things to do.”
In a blink, the squirming white fox has transformed into a diminutive young woman with a heart-shaped face and two buns in her snowy hair almost shaped like ears. Her amber eyes are bright and her cheeks flushed as she ducks and escapes Tán’mù’s grasp.
“You bore.” Lì’líng giggles, poking out her tongue. “Games of hide-and-seek are important.” She pecks Tán’mù with a kiss before flouncing off, weaving nimbly through the oncoming crowd.
Tán’mù sighs and rolls her eyes as she hurries after Lì’líng, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Méi’zi,” I begin, intending to tell my sister to go back to the house, but she fixes me with a stern glare.
“I’m staying for the meeting, àn’yīng.” She uses my name as opposed to referring to me as her jiě’jie, “older sister.” All traces of teasing are gone from her face. “I’m fourteen years old—I’m not a child anymore.”
I open my mouth to argue, but I’m interrupted when Fú’yí comes and places her hand on Méi’zi’s shoulder. The two of them are almost the same height now.
“She’s right, àn’yīng,” my neighbor says. “We’ll go bring your mother from the yard for this meeting.”
I watch them leave with an odd sense of having lost control over something I can’t name. For as long as I can remember, my purpose in life has been to protect my mother and sister from the Kingdom of Night—the mission my father left me with before he died.
“If there’s anything I learned, it’s that you can’t shield the ones you love from danger forever,” Hào’yáng says. I turn to find him watching Méi’zi and Fú’yí, an unreadable expression on his face. His gaze shifts to me—and there it is again, the ripple of waves in my chest as our eyes meet.
I duck my head to hide the heat rising to my cheeks. “Of all the dishes of the mortal realm you’ve been able to choose from since birth,” I say, “plain congee is your favorite?”
Hào’yáng folds his arms and smiles almost lazily at me. “At the risk of sounding extremely privileged, all they ever did in the immortal realm was hold banquets and feasts.”
I snort. “How utterly atrocious of them.”
Hào’yáng laughs, a clear, bright sound. “Congee was my mother’s favorite,” he says at last. A faraway look crosses his face.
“She was a noblewoman from the Southern Province. Sweet congee—congee with a sprinkle of cane sugar—is a southern specialty. My mother used to make it for me on nights when I had trouble falling asleep. Of everything I left behind when the mó took my home, it was sweet congee I missed most in the Kingdom of Sky.”
I’m holding my breath, hanging on his every word.
In most of the time I’ve known him in person, Hào’yáng has worn his armor as either the distant captain of the guard or the calculating heir to our kingdom.
Rare are the moments in which he sheds that armor and I catch a glimpse of who he is beneath it.
Younger. More vulnerable. With his own hopes and dreams and fears of failure.
Glimpses of the boy in the jade I came to know and love.
That all vanishes as he turns to the crowd gathered around us.
It’s both incredible and disconcerting to watch him step seamlessly into the role of the imperial heir.
The effect is not lost on the crowd, either; they lean into him as though he has a magnetic pull.
Over the past two days, Hào’yáng has spent time with every single villager, revealing his identity and learning about their backgrounds, of how their husbands or sons or fathers fought in the war against the Kingdom of Night.
When he returned each evening, his hands and knees were dusty from kneeling before them to apologize for their losses.
He has earned their complete loyalty and their trust.
“Residents of Xī’lín,” Hào’yáng begins, his voice as clear and precise as the strike of a sword. “My fellow warriors.”
He holds nearly nothing back of the events from the morning, of the rogue mó and the certainty that the Kingdom of Night will descend upon this village to kill him.
A few of the widowed older women gasp. My mother’s face pales, and Méi’zi claps her hands to her mouth. Fú’yí’s mouth sets in a grim line.
Then Hào’yáng begins to lay out his strategy. Eight of our warriors will lead a caravan of Xī’lín residents to the Western Province, where the strong sun and heat of the Golden Desert makes it the least accessible for the night-loving mó—and therefore safest for humans.
“àn’yīng and I will go with a small group to the Kingdom of Sky, where we’ll continue to build an army and seek out alliances for war,” Hào’yáng finishes. “We aim to leave today, before the long night begins to fall. Pack only what is essential, and gather here by the hour of the monkey.”
With the meeting adjourned, the villagers hurry back to their homes, murmuring amongst themselves.
My heart breaks for them as I watch them go, all familiar faces I’ve known my entire life.
The butcher’s wife, who took it upon herself to teach us all to skin rabbits and pluck quails, to cure meats and preserve them for the winters.
The carpenter’s daughter, who helped patch crumbling roofs and broken doors; the silk trader’s wife and her son, who was too young to join the war when it began; the fishermen’s wives and daughters, who turned to raising chickens and would spare an egg or two every so often when my family was hungry.
If this is all that is left of our humanity, I will fight for them with every last breath.
“àn’yīng?” My mother’s voice drifts to me.
“Mā.” My gaze lands on her, reclining in her favorite chair at the edge of the gathering place, with Méi’zi and Fú’yí by her side.
She’s still thin, too thin, but she no longer has the appearance of bones wrapped in skin. Her cheeks are beginning to fill out, and her brown eyes catch the light.
My chest tightens when I think of the evacuation. My mother is in no state to travel; she can’t even walk.
But we have no choice.
As I run to her, my resolve hardens into steel. This is why I fight. To drive those mó bastards out of my home, our home. To kill them all, so that my sick mother and my baby sister won’t ever again have to flee the home they’ve known and loved for their entire lives.
“Mā.” I wrap my arms around her, savoring the fresh soap smell of her hair, the warmth of her body. As her fingers come to stroke my hair, I realize I would go through a thousand trials again for her, for this. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Yīng’zi.” She uses my nickname. Her voice is frail, but there is a spark of energy in her tone now.
In the few days since she took the pill of immortality Lady Shī’yǎ gave me before she died, she has spent most of her time sleeping in the sun and eating to regain her strength.
Méi’zi and I have been making her favorite chicken ginseng soup each night, replenishing her life energy with nutrients from the meat—meat that Hào’yáng hunts for us. “Your shoulder. What happened?”
“I fought off a mó.” I beam and stretch my arms to show her I’m fine. “Bà would be proud, wouldn’t he?”
Pride blazes in her eyes. “So damn proud,” my mother says.
My smile is so wide, it hurts.
Slowly, in her waking moments over the past few days, I’ve told Mā of my journey to the immortal realm, of the Trials and the pill that brought her back.
I’ve filled her in on the war between the realms, and the candidates from the Trials who returned with us to fight in this war.
But I’ve held back from going into too much detail, afraid that her heart and mind were still too frail to take in the full story—that of my birth mother, my father, and Hào’yáng.
“Mā,” I say softly. “Hào’yáng wishes to speak with you.”
My mother’s eyes spark with mischief. “Oh, he’s so handsome, Yīng’zi,” she whispers so that only I can hear.
“I know I’m recovering, but I haven’t missed how close you two seem and how his eyes follow you around.
” She taps my nose in a conspiratorial way.
“Has a cherry blossom love found my prickliest daughter after all?”
She’s only teasing, but she has no idea both how close and how far she is from the truth. My smile now feels frozen. “Cherry blossom love”—the age-old poetic adage of romance and marriage, of the red thread of fate binding two partners together across lifetimes.
Mine is a marriage, but not one born out of romance.
My mother’s teasing smile falls as Hào’yáng approaches. He’s gentle, his movements infinitely graceful, as he draws to a stop before her. Then, to my astonishment, the late son and the heir to our kingdom sinks to his knees and presses his palms and forehead to the ground.
“Hào’yáng,” I whisper.
My mother leans forward and places a hand on his shoulder. “Your Highness, please,” Mā says. “I am not worthy of such a heavy gesture.”
Slowly, so slowly, Hào’yáng lifts his head. He remains kneeling as he replies quietly, “Lady Hé, without the sacrifice your family made, I would not be here today.”
My mother gazes at him in silence, and I wonder what she sees as she takes in his steady, brilliant beauty, his strong brows and sharp-cut jaw, the steel to his gaze and softness to his mouth.
Does she think of what might have happened had my father never given him the place our family was promised in the immortal realm?
Or is she grateful that her husband’s ward has returned, so healthy and alive?
“You have suffered greatly,” my mother says gently. “The past nine years cannot have been easy on you, Your Highness.”
Surprise blanches Hào’yáng’s face. “Lady,” he says haltingly, “I could spend the rest of my life repaying you and your family for what you have done for me, and it would not be enough.”
“My daughter tells me that you have watched over our family from afar all these years,” my mother answers. “And you have brought my àn’yīng safely back from the immortal realm. We have gained a guardian in you, Your Highness. Please, rise.”
“I cannot yet, Lady,” he says quietly, “for I have another favor to ask of you.” Hào’yáng turns to look at me as he draws a deep breath and says, “I would like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Méi’zi claps her hands to her mouth again, her eyes darting to me. Fú’yí’s lips part in one of the few expressions of surprise I’ve ever seen her wear.
My mother is silent for a long while. A wind stirs the branches of our flowering plum tree, petals scattering between snatches of sunlight and blue sky. It couldn’t be a more beautiful day to be married.
But my heart is sinking with each passing moment that my mother does not speak. Her gaze is lifted skyward, and I catch plum blossoms reflected in her soft brown eyes. In that moment, she seems to be very far away.
Then, finally, she blinks and looks at Hào’yáng. “Might we speak inside the house, Your Highness?” she asks, then glances at me. “Alone, please.”