Chapter 20 #2
A pause. Then, more grudgingly, “Maybe frustration.”
“With me.”
“No. With the circumstances.”
JingYi lowered her head. Of course. A diplomatic union. A political burden. A stain on a cheek. A limping gait.
She was the circumstances.
The trees murmured overhead, swaying in the breeze. She turned her face toward them so he wouldn’t see the burn behind her eyes or the way her body hummed, unbidden, in the shadow of his nearness.
They didn’t speak again until the gates of Parandor rose before them, the stones damp with mist, torches guttering dimly against the early twilight. When they reached the castle steps, Alexander helped her down—his grip firm, but brief.
He gave her a stiff, dutiful bow before striding toward the inner halls. Toward his study, she assumed.
Cloaked in his scent, she stood alone at the base of the stairs. The heavy wool was warm, but it was a borrowed comfort.
Was this final gesture a kindness to shield her from the cold? Or was it a quieter cruelty—to let his scent linger on her skin when he himself would not?
The silence settled around her, offering no answer.
Awhile later, JingYi moved through the dim corridor, her rhythm marking the rug: step-drag, step-drag. A lacquered tray lay balanced in her hands, and the heavy wool of Alexander’s cloak was a dense, familiar weight tucked under her arm.
Steam curled from the cup on the tray, carrying the bitter, earthy scent of the brew.
It was a healer’s prescription—bitterroot to stoke the inner fire, crushed pod seeds to unravel tension from muscle and mind, dried red ginseng to fortify weary blood.
This was no parlour tea, the kind sipped to savour the taste.
It was a drought she’d prepared countless times in palace infirmaries for soldiers after long marches, for guards stiff from a frozen watch. A remedy for the body under siege.
She didn’t know if Lord Wulfbane liked tea, but she knew what it looked like when someone moved through the day on willpower alone. She hoped this brew, an offering of peace, might reach him where words could not.
Stopping in front of the closed door of his study, she lifted a hand to knock, then paused. Voices drifted through the heavy wood panel, low and muffled. His voice. Yrenna’s voice. Her hand, still raised, hovered for a moment longer before lowering to her side.
Whatever lay beyond that door was not meant for her. It was a private conversation between siblings.
She told herself to turn away. Wu Mā’s voice rose in memory, firm and clipped: ‘Eavesdroppers rarely hear praise. Only what others don’t care enough to say aloud. Nothing good ever comes of that.’
She leaned in anyway, enough for her cheek to graze the wood, and listened.
“She can’t even walk properly, Yrenna.”
Alexander’s voice was low, but the bitterness was clear enough. It found the battered part in her chest with the accuracy of a well-aimed arrow.
“The harvest ceremony is in a fortnight. She’s expected to lead the offering up the hill, stand before the village, and bless the harvest. A tradition going back generations. How am I supposed to present her as Lady Wulfbane when she can barely climb a staircase without stumbling?”
His footsteps paced the floor, each one mapping the distance between his expectations and her reality. The festival had yet to take place, but to him, it was a trial she’d already failed.
“I’m trying to repair a legacy that barely holds its footing. The nobles are already watching for cracks, any excuse to call this union a mistake. I need someone who can hold their gaze and silence those doubts.”
No elaboration was necessary. She was the crack. The weakest link in his armour. Not a partner in his restoration.
She remembered the solid warmth of his chest at her back during that first ride. His voice, low at her ear: ‘You may always speak to me.’ That promise had been a lifeline she’d been holding on to.
Now, his voice was a closed door, and his honesty was a list of her faults.
Yrenna’s voice came, calm but pointed. “She didn’t choose to limp.”
“I know that.”
“She didn’t choose to be sent here either. You know that, too.”
“Knowing doesn’t change that she doesn’t fit the image they expect. She’s quiet. Reserved. She barely spoke at the wedding feast. The court saw a ghost in bridal silks.”
Ghost. She couldn’t refute him. It was what she’d trained herself to be—unobtrusive, silent. Now, it was a condemnation.
“You mean the image you expect,” Yrenna shot back.
A brittle silence followed. JingYi’s eyes stung. No one had ever defended her like that—not to a father, a sibling, a courtier. No one. The sheer force of it closed her throat with a gratitude so sharp it felt like pain.
“She went to the village alone,” Yrenna went on. “Helped people she didn’t know, simply because she wanted to serve and be useful. That may not look like nobility, but it sounds a lot like it to me.”
He didn’t speak for a long moment. “Why did you let her go to the village?” he then questioned. “Why didn’t you say her place is in the solar, entertaining the wedding guests?”
“Because last night was difficult enough for her,” Yrenna answered, her voice rising.
“You abandoning her on your wedding night was difficult enough for her. I don’t know her well yet, but I can see healing, helping the villagers, is something that steadies her.
Do you expect me to deny her that comfort? ”
JingYi stepped back from the door. The wood grain blurred before her eyes. She had heard more than enough. Like always, Wu Mā was right. No matter how much she’d fortified herself, the words had found her, each one splintering beneath her skin.
She had risen early, gone to the village, helped those in need because it was familiar, because it mattered. Because some small, stubborn part of her had wanted him to see. Not pity her. See her.
But her strength, if he considered it a strength at all, was not the kind he needed, or wanted.
JingYi set the tray on the sideboard carefully. It was crooked. She began to straighten it, then changed her mind. Beside it, she laid his folded cloak.
He would find the tea, or he wouldn’t. Drink it or let it cool.
She turned into the dim hall, the woven rug swallowing her soft steps.