The Road North
Emperor Ren
I approach the grain merchant with what I believe is appropriate confidence.
Rice is twelve coppers. I learned this. I remember this specifically because Lián made me repeat it four times on our journey to the temple, while Tianlong provided commentary about the state of imperial education and I contemplated whether an emperor could reasonably request silence from his own dragon.
The answer, for the record, is no.
I place the coins on the counter. Twelve coppers.
Exact. The merchant is a small man with weathered hands and eyes that have seen too many travelers try to cheat him.
I arrange my expression into something I hope conveys trustworthy merchant rather than ruler of everything within five hundred miles.
He stares at me.
The silence stretches. His eyebrows perform a slow journey toward his hairline.
"Sir," he says, with the careful patience of someone explaining sunrise to a particularly confused rooster, "that's the capital price."
I wait for the rest of the sentence.
"We're in the northern territories now." He gestures vaguely at the surrounding market, the hills beyond, the entire geographical reality I have apparently failed to account for. "Rice is eight coppers here."
Regional variation. A concept that apparently escaped my tutors.
"Also," the merchant continues, squinting at my sleeve with the assessment of someone who has spent forty years learning fabric, "that's very fine silk for a merchant."
"It is adequate."
"Adequate." He rolls the word around his mouth like a stone.
"Capital weave. The kind of adequate that costs more than my stall.
" His gaze moves past me to where Lián is examining pottery with the studied casualness of someone who is absolutely listening to every word.
"Your wife seems less... confused by commerce. "
Lián appears at my elbow. I do not know how she crosses the distance so quickly. I suspect I was not meant to.
"He's from the mountains," she says, her voice smooth as poured honey and twice as sweet. "Very isolated. Barely knows which direction the sun sets."
"It sets in the west," I say, before the words can be evaluated for wisdom.
"See?" She pats my arm. The gesture is patronizing. The warmth of her hand through the silk is not. "He's learning."
The merchant takes eight coppers from my pile, pushes four back toward me, and adds an extra scoop of rice to the bag. Out of pity, I suspect. Possibly concern.
"Safe travels," he says, and the subtext is clear: Please do not return to my stall.
We walk away. Lián is silent for approximately twelve steps, which I have learned is her maximum restraint period.
"The capital price."
"I am aware."
"You memorized the capital price."
"I believed it to be... universal."
"Rice. Is not. Universal."
"I am now aware of this as well."
She makes a sound. It is not quite a laugh. It is something worse—the sound of someone who is actively choosing not to laugh because the laughter would be too satisfying and she refuses to give me that.
“Progress”, Tianlong says. “Last time you did not know rice had a price at all. Now you know it varies by region. By your hundredth anniversary, you may understand basic commerce.”
"Your support is noted."
“I am not here to support. I am here to document your ongoing failures for posterity.”
"Posterity will be thrilled."
Lián glances at me. Her expression shifts—still amused, but with something softer underneath. "You tried," she says.
"That appears to be the problem."
“No.” She adjusts the rice bag, settling it against her hip—a little higher now, making room for the bump. The motion is still easy, still practiced. Eight centuries of carrying things through markets. “The problem was the assumption. Not the attempt."
I consider this. She is not mocking. Not quite. There is something in her voice that sounds almost like—
"You're being kind to me," I say.
"Don't sound so suspicious."
"You are not typically kind about my failures."
"Your failures are typically more entertaining." She starts walking again, and I fall into step beside her because that is what I do now. Follow her through markets. Learn the prices of rice. "This one was almost endearing."
She finds your incompetence charming, Tianlong observes. This is either romantic or deeply concerning. I have not yet decided which.
I have not decided either. But I find I do not mind the failure as much as I should, and this is perhaps the most concerning part of all.
We have been traveling for three hours.
We have argued about the optimal route. My suggestion of a "more efficient path" through the mountain passes added approximately two hours to our journey and introduced us to a swamp that the maps apparently considered too insignificant to mark.
Lián's commentary during the swamp crossing will not be repeated here, though Tianlong has requested a full transcript for his personal records.
We have argued about where to stop for water. She wanted food. I wanted to "make good time." We compromised by stopping for food and water while she explained, in detail, that good time means nothing if you collapse from hunger while making it.
We are currently arguing about which direction the sun sets.
"It is moving toward the western ridge," I say. "That is west. That has always been west."
"That ridge curves. You're looking at the southwestern portion."
"The sun does not set in the southwest."
"I didn't say it sets in the southwest. I said that section of the ridge is southwestern. The sun is setting behind the western portion, which from this angle—"
“You are both insufferable.”
We stop. Lián's mouth is still open, mid-argument. My hand is frozen in a gesture toward the horizon that I now realize looks vaguely imperial and entirely unhelpful.
"We are on our honeymoon," I say.
“That is not an excuse for this level of mutual antagonism.”
"It absolutely is,” Lián states.
“You are arguing about which direction the sun sets.”
"It is a navigational disagreement."
“The sun sets in the WEST.” Tianlong's voice carries the weight of profound exhaustion.
“This is not open to interpretation. I have witnessed it for three thousand years. It has never once set in the south, the east, or any direction that required two humans to debate its trajectory for forty-seven minutes.”
"Forty-seven minutes?" I ask.
“I have been counting. It has been the longest forty-seven minutes of my extremely long existence.”
"Your support," I say, "is overwhelming."
“I am not here to support. I am here to suffer.”
Lián catches my eye. Her mouth twitches.
Mine does not twitch because I am the Emperor and my mouth does what I tell it to do, except that it is twitching anyway, and she sees it, and now we are both standing in the middle of the road making sounds that might be laughter or might be the particular madness that comes from three hours of travel with someone who insists the sun has opinions about geography.
The sun, for the record, continues to set in the west.
Neither of us mentions this.
The market is small—a dozen stalls clustered around a stone well, merchants selling vegetables and cloth and the kind of dried fish that suggests proximity to a river I cannot see.
We have stopped to resupply. Or rather, Lián has stopped to resupply while I attempt to look like someone who understands what resupplying involves.
That is when the back of my neck prickles.
It is a sensation I have learned to trust—the body’s recognition of attention before the mind can name its source. I continue walking. Adjust my grip on the rice. Let my eyes move across the market stalls without settling on anything.
There. At the corner, a figure that was not there a moment ago. And there—across the square, another, moving when I move, stopping when I stop.
Lián pauses at a display of copper pots. Her hand trails across the rims as if testing for quality, but I see her eyes in the largest pot’s reflection. She has noticed too.
“We are being followed,” she says, quiet enough that only I can hear.
“I know. Two of them.” I join her at the display, selecting a pot and turning it in my hands. The distorted bronze shows me the street behind us. “Since we arrived.”
“Assassins?”
“Possibly.” I set the pot down, shift toward another stall. The merchant watches us with the desperate hope of someone who has not made a sale in hours. “Though assassins typically coordinate better.”
“These two seem to be avoiding each other.”
She is right. The figure on the left—compact, fluid, dressed as a merchant—moves through the crowd like water through reeds, never visible for more than a moment.
The figure on the right—larger, military bearing poorly hidden—moves like a soldier who has been told to walk like a civilian and cannot remember how.
They have not acknowledged each other. They have been taking routes designed to keep maximum distance between them.
The one on the left, Tianlong observes, has been glaring at the one on the right for approximately six hours. The one on the right has responded by taking increasingly circuitous routes. This is either the worst assassination attempt in imperial history, or something far more tedious.
“They may not be assassins,” Lián says.
I follow her gaze to a narrow alley between a tea house and what appears to be a thoroughly disreputable establishment selling wine and regrets. The alley is shadowed, visible from only two angles, and leads to a courtyard with multiple exits.
“Shall we?”
“After you.”
We duck into the alley. The shadows close around us like a held breath. Lián presses against the left wall, one arm curving instinctively over her belly; I take the right. We wait.
Footsteps. Two sets, approaching from different directions, moving with the careful speed of people who realize they have lost their targets and are attempting to find them without appearing to search.