The even strokes of his whetting filled the quiet mountain hush, until the stars above seemed to blink in time with the rhythmic sounds. The hour was late, but I couldn’t sleep, not on a nightlike this. In the thin air, I could smell the subtle fragrance of wildflowers, of bamboo groves, of cold running water. Chuang Ning and the Forbidden City felt far, far away. Yet somehow, on a night like this, its memories felt so very close.
“Let me look over your wounds,” said Lei some time later, after he’d put away his weapons.
Reluctantly, I unbuttoned my tunic and lowered it from my shoulders, exposing my back, which had taken the brunt of my fall, to him. The night air chilled my bare skin, but I embraced the cold, feeling as if I deserved some punishment for the stupidity of the night. Yet Lei’s hands were warm as he assessed the cuts and bruises littered across my back.
“This one may need disinfecting,” said Lei, uncorking the last of his wine supply.
As the alcohol met my open wound, I hissed at the pain, though I had endured far worse. In fact, it was nothing, nothing more than a scrape. Nothing more than a boy, a boy I’d known for barely a year, really, a boy that I’d thought I’d spend my entire life with.
Instead, we’d tried to kill each other. More than once.
Was this who I was? Incapable of love, engendering violence and hate in those I tried to cherish?
The dragon had chosen me for a reason. Because I was filled with greed, never satisfied, always craving more than I deserved. That was the darkness within me, the hunger that could never be sated.
My eyes ached at the corners. I felt a single tear roll down my cheek, then another.
Silently, Lei dressed my wounds. When he was done and I’d retied my tunic, he handed me a handkerchief. It was a women’s handkerchief, embroidered with yellow and pink peonies in bloom. Briefly, I wondered who had given it to him.
“Have the rest,” he said, offering me the remnants of his last bottle of baijiu. “We’ll need to pick up more supplies in First Crossing anyway—I couldn’t find much in Kuntian.”
I took a generous gulp, grimacing as the liquor burned my throat. “It was stupid,” I said, answering a question he hadn’t asked. “I was stupid.”
He shrugged, passing no judgment. He was unusually reticent on the subject, I noted. Almost as if he didn’t want to influence me. I offered the bottle to him, and to my surprise, he hesitated.
Considering him in the half dark, I asked, “You knew where I was going tonight.” Aloud, it sounded less like a question than a statement. “Why did you let me?”
A different prince certainly would have stopped me.
“You’re allowed to make your own stupid decisions,” he said, voice light and teasing. Then he took the bottle and drained it. Without his usual confidence, he said, “But next time, let me come with you.”
I shook my head at this. I didn’t need a chaperone, especially not one to bear the brunt of my mistakes. “I can handle myself,” I told him. “And if I can’t, it’s my problem.”
A memory from the war surfaced, and a bitter smile tugged at my lips. “You’re a good fighter, Ren, but you’re aterriblesoldier,” Sky had told me. “You think for yourself. You don’t obey orders. And you look out for your own agenda over your platoon’s.”
He’d been right, all along. I had never followed orders particularly well. Not in my father’s house, not in the army, and certainly not in the imperial palace. I had never worked well with others. I had never known how to see them as equals and partners in my plans.
“I know you’re strong,” said Lei, his eyes ruminative in thefirelight, “but being strong doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be protected and taken care of.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. Looking away, I swallowed the sudden emotion rising in my throat. “Who gave you that handkerchief?” I asked, changing the subject. “Lady Tang Liqing?”
“She had little reason to make me cry,” he said, in his mocking way.
“Then who?” I asked, wondering just how busy he’d been around the palace.
He appeared ready to crack another joke, but at my warning look, he said instead, “My sister.”
I hadn’t even known he’d had a sister.
That was when I remembered—Zihuan, Lei’s brother, had once mentioned another girl. “Rea,” I recalled, and Lei nodded reluctantly. “Where is she now?”
“Tzu Wan.” A pause, and then, “She was married this past month.”
“I’m sorry you missed the occasion,” I said, and I meant it. “Did you approve of the match?”
He nodded with a certain arrogance. I would’ve bet money he’d orchestrated the entire affair himself.
At his reserve, I asked, “What’s she like?”
