Peaches and Osmanthus #2
Just appears beside me with it—three berries on a stick, red and glossy and ridiculous. The kind of thing children beg their parents for. The kind of thing I haven’t eaten in a century because there was never anyone to buy it for me.
I take it. Don’t say thank you. Too dangerous.
The sweetness bursts on my tongue. Tart underneath, sharp and unexpected, cutting through the sugar. Like most good things.
“You’ve had this before,” he observes.
“Three hundred years ago. Different dynasty.” I take another bite. Watch the firelight play across his face. “The recipe hasn’t changed.”
“Some things don’t.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I don’t say anything. Just walk beside him through the lanterns, the hawthorn sweet and sour on my tongue, his hand warm at the small of my back making the shiver reach places—
Nope.
I’m officially banning myself from feeling things.
A performer stalks past on stilts, painted like a demon. Children scatter, shrieking. One bumps into my leg and doesn’t even notice, too busy fleeing.
A woman sells paper fans with dragons painted on them.
“We should get one for Tianlong,” I say.
Ren looks at the tiny painted dragon. Looks at me. His mouth twitches.
We laugh. Actually laugh. The kind of laugh that comes out before you can stop it, the kind that makes people glance over and smile because they think they’re seeing something real.
They’re not wrong.
That’s the problem.
The lantern vendor is ancient, all gnarled hands and knowing eyes. She sells us a paper lantern—red, for good fortune—and explains the ritual like we’re foreigners.
“Write your wish on the paper. Light the candle. Release it over the water.” She peers at Ren with the particular assessment of someone who has seen enough people to read them at a glance. “First time at a festival?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’re holding your wife’s hand like she might disappear.”
He doesn’t let go.
I buy the lantern before he can. Some petty impulse toward reciprocity—he bought me food, I buy him a wish. Fair trade. The vendor raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.
“Make a wish,” I tell him.
“That’s not how—”
“Make a wish anyway.”
He takes the lantern from me. Writes something on the paper with a brush the vendor provides—quick, sure strokes, his handwriting as beautiful as everything else about him. Of course it is. The man even writes calligraphy like he was born to it.
We carry the lantern to the water together. Light the candle. Release it.
The lantern rises. Red against the dark sky, joining dozens of others—a constellation of wishes floating upward, each one carrying someone’s hope into the night.
“You’re supposed to close your eyes,” I say.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been to a few festivals.”
He closes his eyes.
I watch his face in the lantern light. The way his features soften.
The way the tension bleeds out of his shoulders.
The way he looks young suddenly—not thirty-four years of empire and duty and brothers who died because dragon fire chose him.
Just a man. Making a wish. Believing, maybe, that wishes can come true.
His hand tightens on mine. His eyes open.
“Your turn,” he says.
“I don’t make wishes.”
“Why not?”
“Eight hundred years of experience suggests they don’t work.”
“Make one anyway.”
His voice is quiet. The festival noise feels very far away—the music, the laughter, the children shrieking. Just him. Just this. Just the warmth of his hand and the red glow of lanterns rising and the ridiculous, impossible hope building in my chest.
I close my eyes. Think about what I would wish for, if wishing meant anything. What I would want, if wanting wasn’t the most dangerous thing I could do.
Let this last, something whispers in my chest. Let me keep this.
I open my eyes. Don’t tell him.
“Done,” I say.
The smoke hits me first—sweet and savory and sharp, a dozen grills competing for attention. We’re supposed to be waiting for the contact, but the street food stalls are making that difficult.
Dumplings. Noodles. Roasted chestnuts. Things wrapped in leaves that might be delicious or might be terrible.
I hand him something wrapped in leaves anyway.
He takes a bite. His face contorts.
“What—”
“Fermented tofu.”
“Why would you—”
“I wanted to see your face.”
He swallows with visible effort. The kind of effort that speaks to years of diplomatic training, of eating whatever was put in front of him without complaint, of never showing weakness even when weakness was warranted.
He glares at me with imperial dignity. The kind that probably terrifies court ministers. The kind that sends generals retreating. On me, it has the opposite effect.
“That was cruel,” he says.
“That was hilarious.”
“I’m going to remember this.”
“I’m counting on it.”
He’s still glaring. But the corner of his mouth is twitching. And my ribs are doing something warm and stupid that I refuse to examine.
“Any foods you actually dislike?” I ask, innocent. “For future reference. So I can avoid them. Or use them for future pranks. Either way, useful information.”
He pauses. The glare softens into something more thoughtful.
“Peaches,” he says.
I wait for the joke. It doesn’t come. “What?”
“I don’t like peaches. The texture.”
“You’re telling me the Emperor of the Jade Throne has opinions about fruit texture.”
“I’m telling you Ren has opinions.” His voice has gone quiet.
Careful. Like he’s confessing something dangerous.
“The Emperor eats what’s served and looks grateful.
The Emperor does not have preferences. The Emperor does not complain about the softness of peaches or the cloying sweetness of their flesh. ”
The festival swirls around us. Lanterns. Laughter. Couples holding hands. And here’s the most powerful man in the empire, telling me he doesn’t like peaches.
“What else?” I hear myself ask.
He glances at me. Something shifts in his expression—the careful mask cracking, just a little.
“Chrysanthemum tea. Overrated.”
“Agreed.”
“Third Dynasty poetry. Technically proficient, emotionally hollow. Every scholar praises it. I find it tedious.”
“I didn’t know you had opinions about Third Dynasty poetry.”
“I wanted to be a poet, remember. Before dragon fire. Before—” He stops. Continues. “I have opinions about most things. I simply don’t share them. It is not the emperor’s place to have opinions. It is the emperor’s place to serve.”
I’m staring at him. I can’t help it. Twenty-two years on the throne and he’s never told anyone he doesn’t like peaches or that he wanted to be a poet.
“What else?” I ask again. Quieter now.
“Yellow. It makes me look sallow. The court insists it’s an imperial color, auspicious, the color of heaven’s favor. They dress me in it for every major ceremony. I have never argued. It seemed petty to argue about clothing when people were dying in border wars.”
“It’s not petty.”
“It is the smallest thing.”
“Small things matter.”
He looks at me. Something in his eyes—something raw and unguarded.
“And—” He stops.
“And?”
Silence.
“And?”
“And I hate the smell of osmanthus.”
His voice has dropped. The festival noise fades to nothing. Just him. Just this. Just his face in the lantern light and his hand in mine and the words falling between us like stones into water.
“It was my mother’s favorite. After she died, they kept putting it in my chambers.
Osmanthus incense. Osmanthus tea. Osmanthus cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The entire palace smelled of it, and no one knew—no one thought to ask—” His hands are very still.
Too still. The stillness of someone holding something in place by force of will. “I never asked them to stop.”
Twenty-two years. Twenty-two years of breathing in something that reminds him of loss, and he never told anyone. Never complained. Never asked for the smallest mercy.
I think about all the silent hurts I’ve carried. The names I’ve forgotten. The faces that blur together after enough centuries. And here’s a man who’s been emperor for two decades and couldn’t even ask for a different scent.
Something cracks in my chest. Not breaking—opening. Something that has been locked for a very long time.
The festival swirls around us. Lanterns rising. Music playing. Lovers walking hand in hand, oblivious to the emperor standing among them, confessing the small griefs that have shaped his life.
I take his hand.
“I’ll make sure there’s no osmanthus,” I say. “Ever.”
He looks at me. Whatever he sees makes his expression crack too.
“Wife,” he says quietly.
The word hangs in the festival air. Not cover. Not pretense. Just… truth. The word has always been theater before—part of the disguise, the game we play. But not now. Now it’s something else entirely.
“Husband,” I answer.
We don’t care who’s watching.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
The festival continues around us—oblivious, joyful, bright with lanterns and laughter. But here, in this small space between us, the world has gone quiet. Something has shifted. Something has changed.
I don’t know what to do with my face. With my hands. With the feeling in my chest that keeps expanding, keeps pressing against my ribs, keeps threatening to become something I can’t take back.
Then—music.
Someone has set up a dancing square in the center of the festival. Strings of lanterns overhead. A small group of musicians. Couples moving together in the warm light.
“We should—” I start.
“Should we—” he says, at the same time.
We both stop.
“For the cover,” I say.
“Obviously.”
Neither of us moves.
Then he holds out his hand. I take it.
We step into the square.
The music swells around us—erhu and pipa, a simple melody. Not the formal court dances with their precise steps and prescribed distance. This is closer. The kind of dance where you hold someone because you want them close, not because etiquette demands it.
His hand settles at my waist. My hand finds his shoulder. Our bodies move together because that’s what bodies do when the music asks them to.
“People are watching,” I murmur.
“Let them.”
“We’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”