I tugged the doors firmly shut behind us once we entered. The air possessed the stagnant, dusty quality of an unused room, the scent of old incense lingering over the rosewood furniture. I lit all the candles in the room one by one: by the single canopy bed, the drawers, the bronze mirror. Soon, light danced over every corner, suffusing the place in a faint orange glow.
Then I spun around and faced Fanli fully.
It had been so long since I’d seen him, even longer since I’d let myself just look at him this way. His face was as beautiful as ever, fine-boned and sharp-angled; it was what the sculptors modeled their greatest statues after, what poets wrote sonnets about, what artists tried and failed to capture in their paintings. Nothing on earth could replicate it. But all his remaining softness had diminished. Where there’d once been at least a brightness to his eyes, a curve of amusement to his lips, the natural charms of a boy, there was only black ice and cold jade.
And as I stared at him, I was aware of him taking me in too, his eyes trailing slowly from my head all the way down to my feet. It was not that hungry, possessive look I’d come to expect from Fuchai; it was more one of concern, as if assessing me for any signs of hunger or hardship, injury or abuse.
“How… have you been?” he asked at last, his eyes moving back up to meet mine. “Tell me everything.”
I wanted to. All those days we’d been apart, every time the sun slipped from the sky and the moon rose to take its place, every meal I’d taken alone or with the king while he waited in another kingdom. Everything I’d endured flashed through my mind, but I did not know where to start, how to put it into words. So I justsmiled. Shook my head. “I’ve done everything we agreed on. I received your note. The plan should go smoothly—”
“I’m not asking about the plan.”
I looked at him in surprise. The plan was always his primary concern; the kingdom always came first.
“Xishi,” he said, his words softly slurred, his voice throttled with some emotion I could not identify. “I’m sorry—”
He wassorry?
“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” I cut in. “Or feel indebted, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He stilled, then frowned, almost like a chastised child. “You’re angry.”
“I’m not.” At least, I hadn’t thought I was. But there was a new tightness in my chest, a tension building in the back of my throat. I thought of the poem again—a confession, or so I’d mistaken it for, only to discover it was another set of instructions. And now we were alone,finallyalone, and he was apologizing for something we had both agreed to.
“You forget that I was the one who helped hone that mask of yours,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were angry with me—”
“I’m not angry at all,” I said, deliberately sweetening my tone. “What is there to be angry about? I’ve had a wonderful time in the palace, didn’t you know?”
“Xishi—”
“The king is an excellent kisser,” I went on. I am not entirely sure what compelled me to say such a thing, but my eyes searched his face, hungry for a reaction. And I was rewarded. His jaw clenched, his whole expression flinching. “Don’t imagine that I wassufferingwithin these walls—I’ve never had so much fun. He will do anything to make me happy, and he is every bit as experienced as they say—”
Now his body recoiled too.
“You should see the way he looks at me,” I said, every word cutting across the space between us like little blades, designed to hurt, “when we are lying together. Or how he—”
“What is your point?” He spoke like he was in pain, his eyes black-lashed and blazing. It hit me in a rush that he was even drunker than I’d thought. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
I didn’t reply. Couldn’t.
“Because I am—a man too, you know,” he said slowly, his voice husky and dark as the air around us. “I also feel… I have imagined it. I’ve tormented myself with these thoughts night after night, made myself sick with envy…”
I stepped closer. I could feel all the heat in the room rushing through my body. My nerves sang with the thrill of it, the unabashed boldness of my own movements. “So you really were jealous?”
He released a sigh through clenched teeth, his hands curled into fists. Around us, the candles lashed. “Xishi—”
It was as if the air between us had been dowsed with hot oil, lit up in flames. I blew out all the nearby candles in a few quick huffs, and darkness fell over the room like a veil, covering us inside it. I could just make out the soft line of his lips, the lump in his throat as he swallowed. Perhaps I should have stopped there, but it was the first time in forever that I felt so powerful. In control.
“Would you like me to show you, then, how I act around him?” I asked innocently, pressing closer, until I could feel his rapid heartbeat through my own robes. “There is a place, just around the neck—a weakness for him. Or is it that way for you as well?” My fingertips traced the hollow of his collarbone. A shudder ran through him. “I believe it was here.” I lifted my hand higher, ran my fingers over the bare nape of his neck. His skin was so hot it burned under my touch.
“Xishi,” he repeated again, strained. “Please.”
I felt a small jolt of shock. He was begging. And here I’d thought he would never lower himself so as to beg anyone for anything, even if his own life was on the line. Yet my anger was a hard knot inside me; it could not be dissolved so easily. I needed more from him. I needed more for myself. So I continued, my fingers following the fine threads woven into his collar down to the hard planes of his chest. “Or was it here?” I mused. “Or lower, perhaps. Like—”
In the space of a heartbeat, he grabbed my wrist, pinning it to the wall behind me. He had such a scholarly air to him, with his refined beauty and slender fingers, perfect for gripping a brush, that sometimes I forgot how strong he was. How he was as much a soldier as he was an advisor. In another swift, solid movement, he had my whole body pressed against the wall, his other hand firm around my arm.
Then he stopped inches away from me, breathing hard.
