Chapter 6 Àn’yīng
àn’yīng
Xī’lín Village, Central Province, Kingdom of Rivers
We have only hours before the sun vanishes and the long night takes over.
I can’t recall seeing this much activity in the village since the early days of the war.
There are provisions to be packed: dried meats and salted vegetables that will keep for weeks on the road.
The weapons left behind by the soldiers and practitioners from our village who once fought against the Kingdom of Night—their daggers, longswords, and armor—must be distributed among the villagers.
Hào’yáng and I, along with Lì’líng, Tán’mù, and three more of our most trusted warriors, will make for the Kingdom of Sky—or whatever is left of it.
I’m grateful for the constant action that keeps my mind moving, distracted from the revelation I overheard earlier.
One I do not know how to approach.
What I do know, with certainty: Hào’yáng is avoiding me. I catch glimpses of him speaking to our soldiers, yet he is always gone before I can reach him.
I focus on packing the most important items in my room.
I run a hand over the shelves of practitioning tomes from which my father learned his arts, and through which he taught me in the early days of the war before he died.
How many days and nights did I spend curled up against these books as my mother and sister slept, yearning and yearning for his return—to hear the whistle of his sword outside in dawn’s light as he practiced his fighting and realize this was all simply a long nightmare?
And when the nightmare did not relent and you realized this was the new normal, whispers a small voice in my mind, who did you turn to?
Even touching the jade pendant—Hào’yáng’s jade pendant—sends a jolt through my fingers.
I turn the stone over, careful and hardly daring to breathe as I examine its smooth surface; the jagged edges from when it was broken off from mine.
I imagine him sitting in the Temple of Dawn, writing to the mortal girl a realm away.
For all of nine years.
“…àn’yīng?”
I startle and scramble to my feet as my mother appears in my doorway. She’s swaying, leaning heavily on the walking canes the carpenter’s daughter fashioned for her as she regained use of her legs.
“Mā!” I exclaim, rushing to her. She trembles as I lower her into a chair; her clothes and forehead are sticky with perspiration. She holds up a hand as I grab a cloth to clean her face with.
“I’m fine,” she says. She looks up at me and beams, her winter-tinged cheeks flushing pink. “I just wanted a few moments alone with my daughter. Come here, àn’yīng.”
She opens her arms, and suddenly I’m a child again, folding myself into her hug after a long day at the village school. I close my eyes and breathe in her scent of soap and chrysanthemums, and the faint, homey smell of cooking lingering in her hair.
“àn’yīng. àn’yīng?” Mā strokes my hair. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” I whisper, but my cheeks are warm and wet, and my voice shakes.
“I just…I don’t want to leave you again.
” I swallow, but the words pour out, the most shameful and selfish and vulnerable truths I have hidden away all these long years.
“I don’t want this. I just want to be with you and Méi’zi and Bà, right here, in our home. ”
“Oh. Oh, my heart, shh.” My mother caresses my hair in the way she did when I was little and had trouble sleeping.
Her voice washes over me in waves as she murmurs, “I won’t coddle you with any promises, àn’yīng.
But if you have made the choice to fight in this war, then I need you to honor that, and I need you to be brave.
” She pauses. “If you find you cannot live up to the promise you made, you need to let Hào’yáng know now. ”
“No!” I shake my head. I’ve made my choice already; so much of this war depends on me and my ability to claim Lady Shī’yǎ’s title and army.
The lotus weighs heavy in my dress bodice.
“It’s not that, Mā,” I say. “It’s just…I don’t know what will happen in the after, when all this is over.
” I lean back, holding my mother’s hands as if they are anchors, gazing into her eyes as if she will have the answer for me.
“Everything will have changed. I’m marrying the future emperor of this realm, and I…
” I swallow, and I finally speak the truth aloud between us.
“I am Lady Shī’yǎ’s heir; I hold a piece of her legacy in the immortal realm.
” My grip tightens. “I don’t know that anything can go back to how it once was. ”
My mother tips my face up to hers. Her thumb, rough with her seamstress’s callouses, strokes my cheek.
“Such is life,” she says softly. “àn’yīng, you cannot live your life chasing the shadows of the past—whether it’s your father’s dying wishes or the days in the sun with me and Méi’zi.
You must look to the future, my daughter, and choose how you wish to shape it.
Your sister and I will always be here, and we will always be a part of you.
” She gathers me in her arms again, holding me so, so tightly.
“No matter what you choose, who you become, and where you are in these realms, àn’yīng, you will always be my daughter. ”
I hear the words she does not speak; I feel, then, a strange untethering, an ending and a beginning, and a revelation of the hints Méi’zi has given me over the past few days.
I have been fighting for so long to return to those golden, hazy afternoons with my family beneath our plum blossom tree. But that past is long gone.
You can let go of us now, àn’yīng. Méi’zi’s wide eyes come back to me.
“There is one thing,” my mother says softly, drawing back, “that I would like to ask of you.”
“Anything, Mā.”
My mother’s face lights up. “It is the wish of every mother in this world to see their daughter be married in a beautiful wedding gown,” she says and turns toward the door. “Chūn’méi!”
My sister appears, holding a bundle in her arms. When she shakes it out, a traditional wedding gown unfurls—the brightest spot of color in all the village, gleaming as if it holds fire.
Gold embroidery laces the red brocade bodice in intricate patterns of cherry blossoms and peonies.
A pleated tulip skirt spills from the waist, layered with shimmering tassels and silk bands.
“I sewed it for a bride just before the war,” Mā says, beaming at me. “We never had a chance to deliver it, but I worked on it in the days after to keep myself sane, knowing there would be a future when each of my daughters would wear a dress like it. The cherry blossoms are for you.”
“And I spent my day tailoring it!” Méi’zi bursts out proudly, lifting the brocade to reveal a strap. “It’s got the same eight hiding spots to store your daggers as the white dress I made you.” She holds it out. “Will you wear it, oh please, oh please?”
“Of course.” I’m too overwhelmed to say much else.
Méi’zi helps me as I step into this new gown. It fits perfectly, sliding over my body like a second skin. She does the ribbons at the back, clasps the mother-of-pearl buttons, and when she steps away, my mother lets out a soft sigh.
“It’s beautiful,” Méi’zi squeals, and throws her arms around me. Then Mā comes and wraps us all together in an embrace, and in that moment, everything is suddenly perfect.
Eventually, Mā draws back and pats Méi’zi’s shoulders. “I believe we have a groom to find,” my mother says. “I hear he has been with his forces out by the gates all day. Méi’zi, would you—”
“I’ll go.” I stand, surprising even myself with this declaration. Yet as I slide my crescent blades into my gown and pat down my skirts, I feel a calm certainty settle in my chest.
You must look to the future, my daughter, and choose how you wish to shape it.
I tuck Lady Shī’yǎ’s lotus into the most secure folds of the bodice. Its soft petals brush against my heart. For a moment, I think I feel a spark of…something. Yet when I look down at the lotus, it remains unchanged, its jade-green leaves gleaming.
It is nearing twilight when I step outside.
News of my wedding has spread without my knowing, and preparations are in full swing.
Throngs of my neighbors are arranging wooden tables and bamboo chairs along the dusty road near my house, chattering and laughing amongst themselves as they work.
Red banners and ribbons hang from nearby houses; lanterns and paper fish for luck decorate our plum blossom tree and shutters and eaves.
The air smells of good food, and I hear a few of the aunties singing a folk tune about jasmine flowers in Fú’yí’s kitchen.
For the first time in nearly ten years, there is song and movement and life in our village.
An ache rises in my throat at this touching gesture. I’ll marry tonight and make this the most joyous occasion—one to remember our lives here by. One without regrets.
But first, I must sort out the tangle in my own heart.
I activate the talismans on Shadow and Fleet, slipping unseen past the villagers along the dusty road.
A group of warriors are gathered at the pái’fāng; the rest are dispersed around the periphery of the village as patrols.
Tán’mù’s gaze slides to me for a split second as I pass by them, and she tips her head nearly imperceptibly in the direction of the little stream just outside the village.
Then she turns away and leans forward to listen to something Lì’líng’s saying, giving no indication that she has seen me.
I head toward the clearing near the stream where I was hunting this morning.
Just as Tán’mù hinted, he is there.
Hào’yáng stands by the flowing water. He is back in his Kingdom of Sky armor again, fully suited, Azure Tide at his hip.
His face is turned to the skies, the last glow of sunset catching against the gold of his armor and the silver of his brocade robes beneath.
His hair is neatly drawn up and pinned. Like this, he looks every bit the heir he was born to be.