Chapter 69
ALEXANDER
His parchments and brush lay where he’d left them on Scholar Wen’s veranda, neatly stacked beside the inkwell.
The ink had dried in the midday warmth, so he ground a fresh one, slower this time—methodical, focused.
He usually found the repetitive movements soothing, but this time, they couldn’t settle his thoughts.
Haorán’s words echoed in the back of his mind: two weeks. That was all the time he had left to prepare his appeal—to stand before the Emperor of X?en-Sarai and JingYi, and somehow make them listen. Make her believe.
He was halfway through the character when a high-pitched voice broke the stillness.
“What are you doing?”
Alexander glanced up. A small face peered over the railing—round cheeks, dark eyes, and perfectly formed pink lips curling with judgment.
Her black hair was parted down the middle and coiled on each side of her head, decorated with ribbons and tassels.
She spoke Isseric, not a trace of X?enguā in her accent.
“I’m writing the character for ‘dog,’” he said evenly.
She squinted at the parchment, then made a face. “That’s ‘dog?’ Really?”
She came around the veranda, hands planted firmly on her hips and gave his brushwork a withering once-over.
“It’s not very good,” she said, seemingly determined not to spare his feelings.
Alexander studied his own work. The lines were wobbly, the structure uneven. The tail stroke sagged to one side like a defeated flag. He sighed and set the brush down. “I’m afraid you have a valid point.”
“Want me to teach you?”
He glanced at her—this little thing who couldn’t be older than ten. A girl with a big voice and even bigger confidence. He gave a half-smile. “A scholar has spent a month trying to teach me, but . . . I suppose you can try.”
Without hesitation, she hopped onto the bench beside him and pulled a clean parchment.
“You’re holding it all wrong,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Here. Like this. Lighter. Elbow high, wrist steady—don’t grip it like you’re about to stab someone. It’s a brush, not a knife.”
He raised a brow. “And you’re an expert, I suppose?”
She scoffed. “More than you are.”
The girl dipped the brush with surprising agility, and in a few quick strokes, produced the character for ‘dog’—clean, balanced, confident.
She beamed at him. “See? Not that hard. Your turn.”
Easier said than done. But when she guided his hand—her tiny fingers curled around his—his next attempt came out smoother.
“Careful there. No, not like that! Lighter pressure on the tail. Yes. Good. Good! Now, again.”
As they practiced, the girl chattered.
“My name is Xian Mei. But everyone calls me MeiMei.”
“I am Alexander.”
“Where are you from?”
“Blackwood-Veyrde. It’s in Tremore.”
Her eyes lit up. “Tremore! I’ve never been. My family travels mostly through eastern Issoirea. We’ve never gone that far north on that side.”
“Do you travel much?”
She nodded proudly. “We’re part of a caravan.
That’s how I get to be so good at writing.
Sometimes my mother teaches me. Sometimes my father or grandmother.
The older kids help, too, but my favourite is the caravan elder.
He sits under the olive trees and shows us how to write with sticks in the dirt. ”
Alexander smiled faintly, watching her hand as it corrected his stroke. There was something grounding in it—this unexpected camaraderie between ink and laughter, between the pressure of learning and a child’s straightforward certainty.
A few moments later, he held up his parchment.
“What do you think, Teacher?” he asked.
MeiMei inspected it like a royal inspector might review a forged seal. “Congratulations. You’ve mastered ‘dog.’” She grinned. “Maybe tomorrow we can try wolf.”
He glanced down at the parchment again, then at the girl beside him. “Who taught you to be so strict?”
“Everyone.” She shrugged. “When you live in a caravan, you learn from anyone who has time to stop and show you something.”
There was pride in her voice. A sense of belonging. Of being part of something that moved and breathed together.
Before he could answer, she hopped down. “I have to go now. Bye-bye!”
“Wait,” Alexander called out. “Where are you going?”
She whirled around, tassels swinging. “Back to my parents. I want my afternoon snacks.”
He rose. “I’ll walk you home. A little thing like you fits easily into a grain sack. You’ll be halfway to the border by the end of the week if you’re not careful.”
The girl scoffed. “I’ve been here two weeks and already know the market like the back of my hand. And I don’t trust strangers either.”
“But . . .” She paused, forefinger on her chin. “I did get kidnapped last year. I suppose you may keep me company.”
Alexander’s brow furrowed. “Kidnapped? You—”
But she was already darting toward the steps. She stopped at the base, turned, and waved at him impatiently. “Are you coming?”
He followed her quickly before someone waved a meat bun under her nose and carted her off.
They joined the market crowd, where savoury steam curled from baskets of dumplings and a peddler balanced pickled lotus on his head while shouting prices for salted crab.
Children darted between stalls, sugar-glazed plums sticking to their fingers, and somewhere nearby, someone was frying sesame pancakes with cinnamon—the scent so fragrant Alexander nearly stopped to savor it.
He moved through the crowd, and the crowd flowed around him, but not without notice. Heads turned. Eyes lingered. A few whispers trailed in his wake. Bold. Cautious. His height, his colours, the foreign lines of his face—all marked him unmistakably as ‘other.’
But it wasn’t fear he sensed. It was curiosity, and something quieter, hungrier. Hope.
A foreigner in their capital, walking freely, was a long-awaited signal that change was already beginning.
It meant borders were opening.
It meant the Nine Kingdoms hadn’t forgotten them.
It meant foreign trade would one day flourish again. A promise that the golden days of the empire were still ahead of them, not behind.
He nodded politely at those who stared. At his side, MeiMei chattered on, blissfully unaware—or simply too young to care—that her companion was a sign of anything at all.
As they continued, the market’s chaos began to thin. The road widened. The rhythm shifted. Noise gave way to hush.
Here, shouting vendors were replaced by attendants in embroidered robes who bowed to passing clients.
Carved wooden signs gleamed under gold leaf.
The awnings here were not patched burlap but silk, their colours subdued—midnight blue, antique jade, saffron trimmed in bronze.
Even the air felt different: less pungent, more perfumed, carrying the scent of sandalwood and old paper from a nearby bookshop.
“There,” MeiMei said finally, pointing.
At the corner stood a merchant house of cream-coloured brick and green-tiled eaves. Painted characters arched above the entrance, and two paper lanterns flanked the doorway—one emblazoned with a crane, the other with a coin.
In front of the shop stood a woman in a light grey robe with a charcoal belt, her posture taut. A jade comb caught the light from where it held back her sleek, ink-dark hair. Her face was composed, striking even, but the quick dart of her eyes betrayed her tension.
She spotted the child immediately.
“Oh no,” MeiMei muttered, taking a step back. “She saw me.”
“Do you want to run?” Alexander asked, reigning in a chuckle.
She snorted. “That’s no use. My mother is fast. Two days ago, a man stole her coin purse, and she chased him half-way across the district until he stumbled over a fish barrel and twisted his ankle.”
She squared her shoulders, let out a breath, and marched forward. “Wish me luck.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said, watching her small form drift into the gravity of home.
The woman descended the steps in swift, purposeful strides.
Her voice, when it came, was rapid-fire X?enguā, as clipped and precise as a sparrow’s call.
Even without knowing the words, Alexander recognized the cadence of a mother’s relief disguised as reprimand.
A moment later, the woman took MeiMei’s hand and approached him.
She bowed politely and switched to Isseric. “Thank you for bringing my daughter home.”
Alexander returned the bow. “Your daughter was kind enough to spare a moment to help me. She taught me how to write ‘dog’ without once threatening to slap my knuckles.”
Good humour tugged behind her composure. “She’s fond of strays,” she said wryly, “especially ones who look like they could use a cup of tea.”
Before Alexander could respond, another voice called from the doorway, tart and amused, “Su Lian, don’t just stand there talking. Invite him in before he melts into a puddle.”
An older woman stepped forward, shorter than the mother, her posture straight as a reed. She wore a purple robe embroidered in grey, her waist sash wide and knotted with symbols Alexander couldn’t begin to decipher. Her hair, thick and black, sat in a coil pinned with copper leaves.
She lifted her chin and gave him a once-over that managed to feel both grandmotherly and mildly threatening, like a cat deciding whether to show its belly or pounce.
“It’s rude,” she said crisply, “to leave guests standing in the doorway for more than three minutes without offering them tea.”
Alexander started to answer, but she waved a hand at him.
“Saying you were just leaving doesn’t count. You look like someone with stories.” She winked. “I am very fond of stories.” Her eyes swept over Alexander again. “Besides, I haven’t seen that hair colour since last year. I miss that shade of gold. Makes everything else seem too grey.”
The younger woman beside her laughed, shaking her head. “You’d better come in. No one’s ever won a battle of will against my mother-in-law, especially not once she starts twisting arms.”
Alexander blinked, then gave a short bow. “Tea would be appreciated. My name is Alexander Wulfbane. I come from Blackwood-Veyrde, in northern Tremore.”