Page 32 of A Song to Drown Rivers
“Well,” I said.
He cast me a look of disbelief.
“Well enough,” I amended. “Thank you for… for saving me.”Again, I wanted to add, the unspoken word clawing at my throat. What a bittersweet fate we shared, balanced so precariously on the fine line between life and death, union and separation, joy and despair.
“You saved me first,” he said, shaking his head. “You should have just let the archer shoot.”
Even the thought—the possibility—sent a blistering ache through me. “I don’t regret it.”
Silence unspooled between us, save for the faint splash of oars against the waves, the faraway call of herons. I remembered the last words he had said to me, right before darkness fell.If you die, my…What? The question burned within me, but there were certain things that could only be admitted under certain circumstances. Itwas too different now, with the danger behind us and the warm yellow daylight filtering through the windows and Zhengdan waiting next to us, watching. The moment had expired.
I cleared my throat and sat up straighter. “The attackers. Who were they? Did you see?”
“I didn’t, but I can guess.” His tone mirrored mine, serious now, carefully stripped of feeling. “As you must know by now—and as you will soon see yourself—the court of the Wu Kingdom is… complicated. They’ve long been divided among themselves, split into factions. You have those who have allied themselves in the favor of Fuchai—they are usually younger, of weaker disposition, more likely to be tempted by the promise of pretty porcelains and concubines for their harem. And you have those who secretly scorn the king for being too frivolous and self-indulgent, and remain loyal to the one they’ve served longest: his father, King Helü. They have never forgotten Helü’s death from battle, nor his last words, which were to remain vigilant against the Yue at all costs.”
“So they do not want me there,” I said slowly, my head clearing. “Right? If they know that tributes from the Yue king are coming, they must see it as an offering of goodwill, an extension of peace. Either they believe it to be an insult to King Helü’s memory or—”
“Or they suspect it may be a trap,” Zhengdan offered, her expression grave. “They know that Fuchai won’t listen to them, and so they took matters into their own hands. Fuchai would never know they were the ones behind it.”
“Not only that,” I said, a chill crawling down my spine, “but it would look like a careless mistake on His Majesty’s part, perhaps even some kind of dark joke, to promise a tribute of beautiful women only to announce that they had died on the journey. Fuchai would’ve taken it as a personal offense, and the conflict between our kingdoms would only escalate to new heights.”
Fanli nodded.
I was trying not to panic. We had been warned countless times that our mission was dangerous, that we would have to be cautious, watch our every move, trust nobody, lest someone stab us when we were looking the other way. But it was another thing to have felt the cold, ruthless force of the arrowhead splitting my own flesh; to have been seized by rough, gloved hands and yanked out of a carriage; to have tasted blood and death on my tongue as we fled through the night.
“Has this delayed our journey?” I asked Fanli. I did not know what I wanted the answer to be. Part of me wished the boat would turn back, wished to hold off my arrival in Wu as long as possible.
“No,” he said. “But about the attack, and your wound…” His eyes flashed black as he said it.
“I understand,” I assured him, knowing what he meant. When I arrived at the palace, I could not breathe a word of what I had survived, of my suspicions. Whoever had ordered the failed attack would only have more reason to dispose of me, and quickly. Instead, I would have to spin a convincing lie, feign ignorance, put those in court at ease.
He looked like he wished to say something more, something else. But then he glanced over at Zhengdan, who sat beside me still, letting me lean against her for support. After a beat, he merely nodded. “We are almost there. I’ll tell you when it’s time.”
CHAPTER TEN
The kingdom sprawled before me was not thekingdom of my nightmares.
I had imagined a barren land, with a perpetually overcast sky and dirt pressed thick with the blood of my people. I had imagined empty, crooked streets squeezing in together like dungeons, and houses with jutting roofs like teeth, swords and skeletons lining the yards. Perhaps there would be bats flying low in the horizon, and snakes slithering through yellowed grass, and lions waiting to spring from the shadows. There would be no sweets, no silk, no clear water, no flowers.
Yet, with something almost like disappointment, I saw that the place we sailed into now could almost be mistaken for Yue. A series of wide green canals glittered in the late afternoon light, the clouds fat and heavy and brushed gold-pink at the edges. On each side of the banks stood neat clusters of houses, their smooth walls faded white from the steady erosion of wind and water, their roofs curved with slate-gray tiles, strings of round lanterns hung from their balconies, fringed with delicate silktassels. We floated under little arched bridges, their reflections swimming over the canal surface so that from afar, they formed the perfect shape of a full moon. It was not a land of corpses and smoke as I’d thought, but one of ponds and gardens, water and earth, fishing boats and floating lights.
But even its beauty left my bones cold. I drew my cloak tighter around my body, steadied myself on the deck of the boat. The physician had advised that I come out here to breathe in fresh air, let my wound heal faster in the sunlight, but I wasn’t sure if I felt better, or worse.
“Odd, isn’t it?” Luyi asked from beside me. He was gazing out at the canal, too, his dark hair blown back in the breeze, his expression uncharacteristically serious, devoid of its usual mischief.
“What?”
“How… normal everything looks,” he said, nodding at the civilians on the raised stone platforms around us: silver-haired old women carrying baskets of dried dates and herbs, giddy children racing one another across a bridge. “There goes this saying, that for somebody from Chu, they would not be able to tell a Wu and Yue man apart. You would think that after all our fighting—well, you’d think there would be some marker at the least. A good reason.”
I cast him a curious look. He seldom spoke of such topics. “You never told me how you came to be in Fanli’s service.”
He shifted slightly, keeping his eyes ahead. “It’s quite the boring story. My father died on the battlefield, and my mother was taken by a Wu soldier. I begged on the streets for a while before Fanli found me when I was fifteen and asked how good I was with a sword. He likes to say he saw potential in me as a fighter, butIbelieve he keeps me around for my charm.” His gaze flickered back to me, and he smiled with what seemed like great effort. “Like I said, boring.”
I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. While Fanli may subject me to the most rigorous training any man in this world has ever endured, and could stand to laugh at my jokes every once in a while—Iknowthey’re funny—I’m lucky he took me in. He’s… good, you know? Deep in the core of him.” He breathed out, turned to me fully, his eyes dark with an understanding I didn’t want to see. An echo. A likeness. My pulse skipped. It was as if he had sensed every forbidden feeling I’d tucked away, every desire I’d smothered like a candle flame. “If heroes are born from tumultuous times, then he must be one of them. Perhaps very little from our kingdom will survive through the tides of history, but Fanli—I believe he will. Even hundreds or thousands of years from now, I believe they will remember him a hero.”
“But heroes always have tragic endings,” I said softly, a lump in my throat.
