“It is,” I murmured.
I expected him to turn the topic to some difficult chess technique, or perhaps the journey up ahead, but he remained sitting like that for a while, quiet. Unable to help myself, I snuck a glance at him. His profile was sharp against the early light, and there was a faraway look in his eyes, as though he could see something I could not.
“Often, before a battle,” he said, “I would climb somewhere high with a view such as this.”
I stifled a breath of surprise, afraid the slightest sound would discourage him from continuing. He had never spoken of his own experiences in battle before.
“That way, it was easy to remember how small my existence really was. It did not matter if I was afraid, or in pain, or if I was to die on the battlefield. What mattered was what lay ahead of me.” He gestured to the mountains, the river, the slowly filling streets. “All that lies under Heaven. All the lives I must protect. My pledge of loyalty to the Kingdom of Yue.”
I drew my legs up and held them to my chest, resting my chin atop them. He had never admitted to being afraid before. He did so well in maintaining his façade of ice and stone, cool intellect through and through, that sometimes I wondered if he was even mortal, if he felt anything like I did. “Can you tell me what happened?” I asked after a beat. My blood pounded harder in my ears, my nerves tingling.Perhaps Fanli will be so generous as to tell you the details, when he is in an agreeable mood, Luyi had once said. Well, Icould not be entirely sure whether Fanli’s current state wasagreeable, but I was certain this was the closest he would ever come to it. And there would be no other opportunities after today.
He looked at me so sharply that I almost withdrew the question. “What happened where?”
“In—” The word was thick in my throat. “In Kuaiji.”
Something in his features tightened. “You’d really like to know?”
I nodded.
He breathed out, his shoulders tensed, as if bracing for someone to remove an arrow shaft from a deep wound. “After the Wu soldiers surrounded us, we were essentially given two options: to die, or to serve King Fuchai. Goujian, being as proud as he is, was of course ready to give up his life before bowing to the enemy. But I convinced him otherwise.” He lifted his chin. “I have always believed that knowing when to yield is even more important than winning. If we were to bow our heads and humble ourselves before the king, and earn his trust over time, then we could hope to one day return, and devise a plan for revenge.” He looked to me in acknowledgment, and I felt a strange roaring in my blood, a kind of drifting away from my own body, until I was not blood and flesh but the things that mountain soil and river water and starlight are made of. Something ancient, eternal.Iwas that plan. I was part of the kingdom’s history. “I told him death was the coward’s way out. That death was final; it eradicated all possibility. If he were to fall to the sword then, his legacy would only be his failures, his defeats. How would he be able to face his ancestors in the Yellow Springs of the underworld?
“It took a great deal of persuasion, but eventually, Goujian agreed. Part of him, I’m sure, resents me for it even to this day. But we went and submitted ourselves to King Fuchai, and were assigned to sweeping the stables. We were treated as servants, worse even. It was bearable when Fuchai neglected our existence entirely,and left us to the chores; but sometimes he would grow bored, and remember. Then he’d summon Goujian to see him in private…” A pause. “You must understand: It is not quite so uncomfortable to claw your way up through the ranks when you have been born into a lowly position. If you were raised in robes of rough ramie, you’d find yourself adjusting quickly to the feeling of silk. But when you have known nothing but power and riches all your life, and your skin is a delicate thing, used to the softest material—anything less causes instant pain.”
No wonder Goujian hates the Wu king so, I realized, leaning back on the ledge. I remembered the dark, poisonous look in Goujian’s eyes, how he’d spat out Fuchai’s name.It is not just political—it is personal. He has been wounded in every way.
Then something else occurred to me.
“Was Goujian really the only one Fuchai humiliated for entertainment?”
His tone was wary. “What do you mean?”
“The… the scars on your back.” To acknowledge it out loud felt illicit. “Were those also from the Wu? When you were made to serve them?”
“They do not hurt,” he said after a beat, which meantyes. “I am already used to them.”
He could have been telling the truth. The planes of his face were cold and unmoved as the moon overhead. Yet I felt a vivid rush of rage, a reckless impulse for violence. I would remember this. I would torment the ones who had done this to him, who had carved their hatred into his flesh. I would gladly bring down their entire kingdom for this one wrong. My nails dug into the stone.
“It’s not worth being upset over,” Fanli said softly. Then, in a clear attempt to change the subject: “Now you see why Goujian is so bent on revenge.”
“And you?” I asked, my lingering anger loosening my tongue.
“What about me?”
“You always speak of kingdoms and grand plans, of history and duty, of Heaven and those under it…” I could not resist looking at him, at the moonlight lining his lips. And once I did, I could not look away. “Do you have no desires of your own? Have you never wanted anything just for yourself?”
His gaze cut to mine. A cold shock pierced through me, and I made a careful, active effort to school my expression into neutrality, so he could not tell what answer I wished to hear.
A long silence.
Something shifted in the trees: a bird’s weight, lifting, or a breeze.
Then he turned, pushing himself off the wall and landing as quietly as a cat on the ground. I swallowed my heart. So that was it. He would not offer any information he didn’t want me to know. Perhaps it was for the better this way. There were certain things that, once said, could not be taken back. And we would be leaving soon; I’d likely never see him again after that. Fanli began to walk toward the cottage. I watched him go, his shadow stretching out behind him—
Until he stopped. His head moved fractionally, so I could just make out the sharp angles of his face over his shoulder. His lips were pressed tight, his brows furrowed, everything in his expression warring with itself.
Quietly, so quietly I would wonder later if I had dreamed it, he said, “I have.”
A set of wedding robes had been laid out on my bed that night.
