“Is this… real?” I whisper in amazement.
Qin gives me a strange look. “Are you feeling alright?”
I furrow my brows and concentrate. My mind is strangely blank. I look down at my hands and find my fingertips red and swollen. They smell faintly of dirt and blood. How strange. I don’t remember how I managed to scrape them.
“I think I had a nightmare,” I confess. “A very bad one. I dreamt I was a nine-tailed fox. And there was this man—a hunter. He banished me to Hell.”
“Goodness, that sounds terrible.” Qin smiles sweetly. “Not to worry. What’s in your head can’t harm you. Now, get dressed quickly. He’s just arrived.”
“Who?” I ask.
“The painter, silly,” she replies with a mischievous grin. “We have to save the poor man from Jiayi’s clutches. I’m convinced she has half a mind to whisk him away for herself.”
I move as though wading through honey. Climbing out of bed is a trial. The air is thick and humid, my muscles sore and stiff. Clothes have been laid out for me, silks folded neatly upon a low table, an assortment of glimmering hair ornaments to choose from set before a watery silver mirror. I shuffle over and kneel before the table, running my fingers along the patterned silk, admiring the dye work and details of the embroidered flowers along the hems.
Unsure what to do with my hair, I decide to wear it down. I’mtoo preoccupied with my reflection. My cheeks are rosy, my eyes sparkle with life. I feel… happy. Good. Like everything is right with the world. Reaching for a small jar made of porcelain, I remove the lid and discover red paste within. After dabbing a light layer of rouge on my lips, I smile at my reflection. I giggle at the pretty woman I see.
By the time I get dressed and descend the steep wooden stairs of our home, I find my other sisters crowded around the low table in the parlor room, all of them giggling and chatting with a guest who’s just out of view. A freshly brewed pot of tea sits between them, though it goes ignored, silver clouds of steam lifting lazily into the cool morning air.
“Is today the day you’re finally going to ask her?” Su asks, sounding quite serious.
“It better be,” comments Ahn. “You’ll answer to us if we find out you’ve been stringing her along.”
A low chuckle reaches my ear. The deep, rich voice belongs to a man, who, now that I’ve descended the steps, I see has a strikingly sharp jaw and mesmerizingly dark eyes.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he answers as he looks up at me with a growing smile. He rises from the table and bows his head respectfully. “Yue.”
“Sonam?” His name rolls off my tongue with ease, failing to fully capture my surprise.
He wears a faded brown tunic and dark linen pants, the canvas of his shoes worn down around the edges. His hair is shorn down to the scalp, not a royal insignia or piece of jade jewelry to signify his status. To the naked eye, Sonam is nothing but a common man. And it’s strange. Not because I dreamt of him as a prince, but because the simple life suits him well. It carries in the way he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. There’s an air of ease and contentment about him.
When my sisters stare at us with all the subtlety of a pouncing tiger, Sonam clears his throat and says, “Perhaps we should take some air. It’s a lovely day for a walk.”
He offers me his hand and I hesitate, noting the way his skin is stained with dried black ink. I think I dreamt of him doing something similar last night, though I can only make out the barest shadows of my nightmare now. I place my hand in his, flooded with a sudden sense of ease.
“Behave, you two,” Jiayi teases us as we make our way out the door.
“And be sure to come back with good news!” Su cackles shamelessly.
Ignoring the embarrassment burning the tips of my ears, I allow Sonam to lead me down the worn dirt path toward the rolling hills of soft green grass behind my family’s quaint farmland home. He was right. It truly is a lovely day for a walk.
The sky stretches as far as the eye can see, the serpentine mountain pass appearing dark blue from this distance. Wide steps have been carved into the hillsides, each of them hosting a shallow pool of water to nurture the season’s rice harvest, each row stacked one on top of the other like the scales upon a dragon’s back. Farmers work tirelessly, their shoulders hunched over as they plant new beds, the sweat dripping from their brows worth every grain of rice they’ll one day reap.
Sonam guides me to the gentle bed of a nearby stream, long cattails swaying along the water’s edge. Dragonflies hover above the surface, tending to their eggs cradled in the gathered droplets floating atop lotus leaves. Beneath the shade of an arching wisteria tree, I’m delightfully surprised to find a picnic spread. It seems Sonam has gone out of his way to lay out a soft blanket and prepare a basket full of pastries to share. It’s all so wonderful.
So what is this sinking feeling?
“Yue?” he calls gently, sweetly. Like he’s said it a thousand times before but will never tire of the sound. “Are you feeling alright?”
I swallow hard. That’s the second time today someone’s asked me that question. I take a deep, slow inhale with the passing breeze, listening to the steady beat of my heart and the hum of distant work tunes as the farmers go about their day. I can’t recall if I’ve ever known such peace, but despite the unease rumbling in my stomach, I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as I’m able. Forever, if the gods will permit me this one wish.
Sonam lifts my hand to his lips, pressing the softest of kisses to my knuckles. “You’re not yourself today, my moonlight. Is something troubling you?”
Again, I don’t answer. I lack the words. The world of my nightmare truly shook me to my core. My greatest fear is to say the wrong thing and destroy whatever strange paradise I’ve somehow awoken to.
“I had a dream last night,” I say slowly. “You were a captain. A prince, actually.”
“Oh?” Sonam smiles wide, amused. Even the sun couldn’t rival such magnificence. “Were you the princess I was tasked to save?”
