Page 60 of A Song to Drown Rivers
“I know,” I told him, my tone gentle. “I’ll help you.”
He blinked up at me, then furrowed his dark brows. “Just now… Was I hearing correctly? Did you ask the servant to bring soy sauce?”
The confusion in his expression was such that I could have laughed. “It’s not for food. It is an old folk remedy; it should help with the pain, and prevent scarring.” My mother was always getting burned in the kitchen, handling firewood and the stove and boiling water. It happened so often that she never even made a sound, just calmly reached for the soy sauce on the upper shelf and dabbed it onto her skin herself. How odd, to think of these things now. It was almost as if the memories belonged to somebody else. “I promise it works,” I said.
“And here I thought you were concerned with seasoning your meals while I suffered.”
My lips carved out a smile. “I would not be so heartless.”
“You’re right,” he said, without any doubt whatsoever. That strange ache inside my chest again. I ignored it, or tried to. Then Fuchai hissed sharply between his teeth, holding his wrist higher for me to see. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Am I dying? Is this the end?”
“You’re not dying.”
“It feels like I am,” he said, wincing again. “I cannot move without my skin stinging.”
“Then maybe stop moving.”
But instead of staying still, he shifted closer to me and laid his head on my lap like a petulant child. His hair was warm, his crow-black locks curling slightly from the damp, his eyes the color of sacred amber in the light. “I feel better like this,” he said, snuggling tighter against me.
“I don’t see why. It makes no difference to your arm.”
“Could you not coax me a little, Xishi?” His full lower lip jutted out into a pout.
“Are you not afraid others will see you?” I asked, adopting the teasing voice I often used around him when we were alone. “The king in broad daylight, complaining of his wound and resting on his concubine’s lap?”
“Let them see,” he said carelessly, with the ease and arrogance of a young prince. “They will only envy me.”
Loud footsteps drummed over the deck. The servant returned, carrying a small vial of soy sauce and strips of white cloth. He flushed at the sight of us together, but didn’t look away. “Will—will this be okay?” he squeaked.
“Yes,” I said, taking both from him. “Thank you.”
He was still staring at Fuchai, perhaps hoping for the king to pardon him, or waiting to be sentenced to death.Are you really so self-sacrificing?I wanted to chide the boy.Go, while he is distracted, and you may still live.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, Your Majesty?” he asked.
I bit down an exasperated sigh.
Fuchai, who had been relaxing—a littletoorelaxed, I would even say—on my legs, frowned anew at the servant’s voice, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Sensing danger, I spoke for him. “Let me take care of the king. You can go now.”
Before Fuchai could call the poor boy back and whip him, as I was very sure he wished to, I tipped a few drops of soy sauce onto his wound and rubbed it in, then bandaged it up carefully. Yet still he flinched every few seconds, and whimpered with such persistence I half wondered if he had been burned not by plain water, but some kind of corrosive poison.
“It should feel better now,” I said, frowning down at his wrist.
His pout deepened. “Perhaps it would if you blew on it.”
Now I was certain that he was acting. But I humored him, bending my head and blowing cool air over the wrapped cloth. “Does it still hurt?”
“Yes.” He gazed up at me from under his long, curving lashes. If not for the lashes and the fullness of his lips, he would have looked like a true tyrant, a cruel king. But those features added just the right touch of vulnerability to the sharp structure of his face. “Comfort me, Xishi. I’m in excruciating pain.”
Shameless, I thought to myself, but of course I could not say so. Smiling with all the indulgent airs of someone caring for their one beloved, I raised my hand and threaded my fingers through his hair, patting the top of his head. He sighed then, like a cat being stroked behind its ears, leaning into my palm.
All the while, I could feel his black-eyed gaze on me. I busied myself pretending to check his bandages for a few moments, but his attention seemed to pierce through my skin, through my lungs.
“Would it be foolish if I said I’m happy to have been burned?” he murmured.
“It would,” I said.
He didn’t seem to mind. “Then let me be a fool. I am happier than I’ve ever been.” He moved his head slowly against my hand, eyes half-closed. “You haven’t looked at me so closely in a while.”
