Epilogue
The first time I saw snow in Jiangnan, I was sitting in a black-awning boat, watching Wen Yan write characters on the snow at the bow with a bamboo twig.
Where the tip passed, snow powder sifted down and showed the blue-black boards, like ink spreading on xuan paper.
Wen Yan wrote the two characters for "Changle." The stroke was much softer than it had been in the Eastern Palace, yet the hook at the end still carried a stubborn hardness that would not yield.
"Your Majesty, look at this snow. It is softer than Changan's." Wen Yan turned around, the tip of his nose red with cold, that length of bamboo still clutched in his hand.
I reached out and brushed the snow from his shoulder. My fingertip touched his thin clothes, and my brows drew together. "Why didn't you put on another layer?"
"If I wear too much I get clumsy." Wen Yan laughed and dodged, pushing the bamboo twig into my hand. "Come. Write a character."
I held the twig, yet I did not set it down for a long time.
Outside the boat the peach blossoms were at their best. Snow fell on the petals, half melting, half catching on the pink-white tips, like someone scattering broken jade.
"What is it?" Wen Yan saw me staring and waved a hand in front of my eyes.
"Nothing." I came back to myself and wrote the two characters for "never part" in the snow.
The writing was still sharp, yet I paused on purpose at the close and added a softer curve.
Wen Yan looked at those two characters and suddenly laughed. Snow light sat in the fine lines at his eyes. "Your Majesty's writing is better than before."
I could tell he was not talking about the characters.
That New Year's Eve, when the Third Prince roared in the great hall and brought out a forged secret letter, I lunged on instinct and shielded Wen Yan behind me.
I did not wait for the emperor to ask. I tore open the letter's lining with my own hands.
Inside was iron proof of the Third Prince's private dealings with the outer kin, a backup I had buried long ago.
"If Wen Yan must apologize, then punish me first for failing to know a man." I gripped Wen Yan's wrist. Sweat in my palm wet the place where our hands were joined. "I was the one who left him at your side as an eye. I was the one who failed to watch him. It has nothing to do with the Wen Clan."
In the silence of the full hall, I saw Wen Yan's lashes tremble, like snow falling on a butterfly's wing.
The Third Prince was stripped to commoner rank and exiled to Lingnan.
The Dowager Empress tried to use the moment to make trouble. I sent her to a detached palace to rest on the charge of interfering in court affairs, and she never stepped out of the palace gates again.
As for the disciples of the Wen Clan who had been dragged in, I checked them one by one myself. The corrupt were handled by law. The clean were restored, and even more heavily used than before.
On the day of the enthronement, I led Wen Yan by the hand, step by step up the cinnabar stairs of Taiji Hall.
"Today I will not appoint an empress." I spoke to the full court, my voice calm and landing like a stone. "When the realm is at peace, I will return to garden and field with Young Master Wen. The peach blossoms of Jiangnan have opened. He wants to go see them."
Wen Yan stood at my side. I heard the court officials suck in cold breaths. He looked as if he had remembered many years ago, when I had also been like this, saying to him with red-rimmed eyes, "I will never let you be wronged."
When the boat reached the heart of the lake, the snow suddenly grew heavy.
Wen Yan leaned on my shoulder, watching flakes fall on the water and vanish at once.
"Do you think we stole someone else's days?"
I held him tighter, my chin against the crown of his hair. The shallow scar from an arrow still remained there. Hair would not grow on it now. It was like a mark that would never leave.
"Not stolen," I said in a low voice. "We earned them."
I thought of that night in the Heavenly Prison.
When I pried open the chains and lifted Wen Yan from the icy straw, he was still running a low fever, murmuring of Elder Brother's blood letter.
I wrapped him in my dragon robe and listened to his broken rambling. I suddenly understood. Wen Yan had never failed to see my schemes. He had only been willing to step into the traps I laid, again and again, using his own life to pave a way out for the Wen Clan.
"Wen Yan." I kissed the whorl of his hair, my voice gone hoarse. "From here on, I will be the one to protect you, and to protect the Wen Clan."
Wen Yan did not speak. He only curled tighter into my arms.
In the wind and snow outside the boat, I could faintly hear a flower-seller's cry in the distance. Through the water mist, it sounded like the shouting beyond the Eastern Palace walls many years before.
We lived in Jiangnan for three years.
I did not build another Moon Gazing Tower. I only put up a small bamboo house in Peach Blossom Dock. Upstairs were two desks. One held my memorials. One was piled with the Buddhist scriptures Wen Yan copied.
Wen Yan no longer touched those secret court papers. Yet when I stayed up late to mark documents, he would bring a bowl of lotus seed soup with honey and sit beside me to grind ink.
Sometimes I would tease him on purpose, take the scripture he had copied, and point at the two characters for "compassion" with a laugh. "Young Master Wen, this writing is much more unrestrained than in those years."
Wen Yan would snatch the scripture back and tap the back of my hand with the paperweight. "If Your Majesty talks nonsense again, tomorrow's lotus seed soup will have no honey."
I would laugh and beg off, like a child who had not grown up.
In the winter of the fourth year, someone came from Changan and said the Grand Tutor was gravely ill.
While Wen Yan packed, I helped him fold a cloak. As I folded, I suddenly caught his hand. "Wen Yan, after we return to Changan, we..."
"We what?" Wen Yan looked up at me, a smile in his eyes.
I looked at the fine lines at his eyes and suddenly could not speak.
I had originally wanted to say that after we returned to Changan, I would proclaim it to the realm, set him as consort, and welcome him into the palace with state rites.
The words reached my mouth and became, "After we return to Changan, I will take you to eat Hu pancakes at the Western Market, the shop you loved most as a child."
Wen Yan laughed even more. The lines at his eyes bent into a pretty crescent. "Your Majesty remembers clearly."
I had a feeling he knew what I wanted to say.
Some titles already seemed unimportant to him.
On the day we returned to Changan, snow fell again.
Wen Yan stood at the city gate, looking at the familiar vermilion palace walls. His gaze lingered, as if he had remembered the moment of leaping from Moon Gazing Tower.
I felt that in our three years in Jiangnan, new roots had already spread in secret, winding and tying themselves to me.
"Let's go." I took his hand. The heat in my palm was startling.
Snow fell in our hair, like a body full of starlight.
I suddenly remembered that at sixteen, I had also been like this, saying to him with red-rimmed eyes, "I will never let you be wronged."
Snow kept falling on our shoulders.
On the windowsill of the bamboo house, that length of twig that had written "Changle" had been set by Wen Yan in a celadon bottle.
There was no water in the bottle, yet the twigs miraculously put out new buds, showing a faint green in the snow light of Jiangnan.