Chapter 4 Àn’yīng #2
An ache rises in my throat. I suddenly regret coming here, regret listening in, because the truth unspoken between us is better than the truth exposed with finality from Hào’yáng’s own lips.
That he doesn’t love me in a romantic sense. That he only needs me as part of a political alliance. That he cherished me as part of the strange bond we fostered through the jade pendant as children out of necessity. Only he’s been too kind to say it all to my face.
At last, so quietly that I strain to hear him, Hào’yáng replies: “Lady Hé, I do not deserve to love your daughter.”
I should leave. I should never have come.
Yet I find that I am rooted to the spot. Why do you care whether he loves you or not? a small voice whispers in my mind, and the question is the answer I have been searching for all along.
I care because I want him to love me.
A ridiculous notion, one that has no place in our relationship. One that I can quash right now, when I hear the answer from Hào’yáng’s own mouth.
“Whether or not you deserve her is what others believe,” my mother replies. “It’s a simple question, Your Highness.”
Hào’yáng presses his lips together. His gaze drifts toward the window, and it feels as though he’s looking directly at me, though I know I cannot be seen. “I would love her, Lady Hé, as is the duty of a husband to love his wife. If that is what you and àn’yīng would wish.”
“Whatever we discuss stays between us today,” Mā adds gently.
“It is not my place to reveal matters of the heart nor secrets one wishes to keep, Hào’yáng.
And no matter your answer, you need not fear that I will stop you from what you need to win this war.
” She leans forward. “I do not wish to hear what your duty would be. I wish to hear the truth from your heart.” Her voice grows soft.
“Tell me, Your Highness. Do you love àn’yīng? ”
Hào’yáng’s jaw tightens; his face is drawn. He stares at a spot on the table for several moments, his throat bobbing as he works through any tricks and traps to her question, the best and most diplomatic way to respond.
Then he exhales and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, there is a sorrow on his face that I have seen before. It’s an expression I have seen when he’s looked at me.
One I didn’t know how to read until I hear his next words.
“Yes, Lady Hé,” Hào’yáng says quietly. “I love àn’yīng. I love her more than anything else in this world. More than my own life. I have for all of nine years.”
The world slows. The sunlight and shadows of my plum blossom tree imprinted against my walls blur, and suddenly, I am ten years old again, curled against my door with a dead father, a near-lifeless mother, and a baby sister not five years of age, and the only thing holding me together is my jade pendant and the guardian within, writing to me one golden stroke at a time.
I can’t breathe, can’t think, as I stare at him now, seated in my kitchen, heir and captain and my boy in the jade.
For all of nine years.
The river in my chest surges to a roar.
I only catch the barest glimpse of my mother’s profile and cannot make out her expression as she says, “And have you expressed this to my daughter?”
Hào’yáng doesn’t look up. Won’t look up, perhaps because he knows I am standing here, invisible in the shadows, watching him confess a truth he has held to himself until now.
“No,” he says at last. “I wished to give her time and her own choice. I promised your daughter the freedom to love as she wishes in this marriage alliance. All I care about is her happiness, whether it is with me or someone else.”
Someone else.
My chest burns. He knows about Yù’chén—of course he would. He was the captain of the immortal guard, tasked to protect the candidates of the Immortality Trials. I begged him, the night all hells broke loose, to let me see Yù’chén.
I recall the emotion that had crossed his face as I made that ask. I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now, the deep sorrow that lines Hào’yáng’s expression in moments when he thinks I do not notice.
My mother listens in silence. “You are an honorable man, Your Highness,” she says softly. “You will make a fine emperor one day.”
Hào’yáng doesn’t lift his gaze. “You praise me too highly, Lady Hé.”
“Here is my second question: Do you love your kingdom?”
This time, Hào’yáng’s answer comes as straight and true as the strike of a sword. “Of course. My kingdom and my people are my duty.”
“Then, my third question,” my mother says. “Which would you choose, were you allowed to choose only one?”
Hào’yáng’s face is smooth, but I catch the tightening of his eyes as he realizes, as I do, what my mother means. “You speak as if they are mutually exclusive, Lady Hé.”
My mother sighs and leans back, turning to look out through the shutters of our living room. From the way her gaze shifts and the age-old grief that seeps in, I know she is gazing at our plum blossom tree.
I know she is thinking of my father.
And I have a chilling premonition of what might come next: fate, run in a circle across two lifetimes, returned to where it all began.
A cold breeze rises, stirring the wild silvergrasses that have grown on our village footpaths. The sun is bright in the sky, but the air is cold; winter will be upon us soon.
“I do not mean my words as a trap for you, Your Highness,” my mother says quietly.
“It is only that…àn’yīng has been through more than most of us in this world.
She was ten years old when she lost her father, and the task of being sole caretaker of me and her sister fell upon her.
She has lived her life in service to others, never for herself. ”
You’ve lived your life making choices that benefit others, protecting me and Mā and chasing after the shadows of Bà’s wishes. Mā’s words are an echo of Méi’zi’s.
“I don’t want her to live for anyone but herself after this war,” my mother continues.
“I don’t want her to suffer a day more. And if there is anything she deserves in this life, it is someone who will love her first and foremost, irrevocably.
Who, when it comes down to it, will choose her over a kingdom.
“You, the imperial heir and, one day, emperor of our kingdom, will hold the weight of our people, of our realm. Each and every day, you will need to choose between kingdom and love. And I don’t wish my daughter to love someone who would choose his kingdom over her.
àn’yīng deserves to see the oceans. She deserves a life of freedom, of laughter, of love.
Not shackled to a cold throne and a colder bed. ”
My eyes heat. I understand, so well, so deeply, the words my mother speaks. My father chose kingdom over love. And I was left to pick up the broken pieces after his death, to live in the aftermath and consequences of that choice.
Mā doesn’t want me to live the same story.
“You say you love her more than your own life,” Mā continues, “and it is my deepest honor to know that, Hào’yáng.
But once the war is won and you step onto the throne, your life will no longer be yours.
You will no longer be Hào’yáng but emperor of our realm and sovereign of our people.
Your life will be a vessel through which the good of the people and the good of the Kingdom of Rivers is governed.
Your heart and your soul will be buried under this vast decree beneath the Heavens, child—and there will be no space for love or a life for you.
Less so for my daughter.” Her voice softens. “Can you understand that?”
For the first time since I met him, Hào’yáng seems at a loss for words; he has no clever retort nor diplomatic response.
He only sits there, gazing at my mother.
Like this, he looks young and lost, like a boy not two decades old with the weight of an entire kingdom upon his shoulders—and I suddenly see the way he must have been the night he arrived in the Kingdom of Sky, having just had his life upended.
The most vulnerable parts of my boy in the jade, I realize, he has never shown to me before.
“Your Highness,” Mā says gently. “Hào’yáng.
Please do not misunderstand me. I would never seek to dictate the course of your life, nor to take my daughter’s choices away from her.
I only speak to you as someone who has walked this line of fate and reached its other side.
Your path was charted for you long before you were even born.
The fates have brought you and my daughter together; I only ask that you consider from her perspective before joining your paths for the rest of this lifetime. ”
Hào’yáng’s face is bowed. The silence stretches until, at last, he looks up. Any traces of emotion are now gone; he is a blank slate. Cold and austere, the guard and the heir.
“I understand, Lady Hé,” he says. “Forgive me that I must continue to ask for more sacrifices from your family when you have already given me so much.” His gaze does not waver.
“Should you give your blessings, I will ask àn’yīng for her hand as a political alliance only.
She has agreed to fight with me and grant me access to the Heavenly Army that her birth mother was entitled to.
I will care for her, but once the war is over, I will annul the marriage so that she may choose the life and the love she wishes. This I promise you.”
My mother watches him, and to my surprise, she covers his hand with hers. “You are honorable, Your Highness,” she says gently. “You will always have my blessings, and my gratitude.”
Hào’yáng sets his knee to the ground and bends until his forehead presses the floor. He does this three times, then turns to leave.
The front door slams open; by the time I reach it, it has already closed, and there is only a trail of settling dust and fallen petals by our steps, colorless in the late autumn light.