Page 53 of A Song to Drown Rivers
“Do you recognize him?” Fuchai asked. He was still peering over at me, his black eyes narrowed.
I made myself look completely away from Fanli; it was like stepping over a cliff edge, like swinging an axe down on your own hand. Curving my lips into a smile of mild recognition, I replied, “I think so. He is the military advisor of the Yue Kingdom.”Yue Kingdom, I said in that detached tone, as if it were not my home, the place that had birthed me, the place that would one day hold my bones. Sometimes it seemed Fuchai forgot I had any roots to begin with, that I was also a fully fleshed person with my own family and worldly attachments. I had often resented him for it, but today, I prayed to every deity in the sky, every god of the clouds and spirit of the earth, that he would continue forgetting.
The crease between Fuchai’s brows cleared ever so slightly, though his jaw remained tensed. Then he stood, a king raised to his full height and glory, his crown perched atop his head, and opened his arms out to Fanli in what could almost have passed for a brotherly gesture if one did not know the dark history that ran between the two. “Fanli, how good to see you again. It’s been too long.”
Fanli stopped three feet away, his cold eyes focused only on the Wu king. My heart strained toward him. “Likewise,” he said, his voice light, emotionless. He did not even acknowledge my presence.
All this time, I had missed him, missed him so potently my chest ached. But somehow I missed him more now that he stood here in the flesh, as if those few feet of distance burning between us stretched into miles. I could have bolted from the king’s side, run to him, thrown my arms around him, damn all the consequences. I could have kissed him as if history did not exist, as if war was only myth. I could have grazed my fingertips over the line of his cheekbones, taken his slender hand in my own.Could, could, could.All those possibilities opening up again, blooming in his presence. But instead we remained in our respective positions, like two perfect strangers.
“Have you met my newest concubine?” Fuchai gestured toward me, as one would a grand prize. I dipped my head, hoping this would be the end of it. But he beckoned me closer, sliding me onto his lap, his arm draping over my bare shoulder. Just that morning, he’d asked me to wear the robes he’d had tailored for me, a set made of pink silk as thin and delicate as cobwebs, with lustrous pearls that glinted when I moved, the fabric all but falling down at the top and rising too high at the legs, revealing moon-bright skin and flesh. It was an impractical piece, made for the pleasure of the viewer rather than the wearer. Now I saw that this was by design too.
Quiet rage simmered in my veins, joined by some raw, bitter feeling like betrayal. How long had he been planning this? Since Fanli’s name slipped my tongue, or perhaps even before that? How many nights had I lain beside him, all while he devised ways to test my feelings toward another man? I felt sick thinking about it.
But I was giving the king too much credit. Fuchai was my greatest enemy, but he was not a naturally suspicious person; it would have been Wu Zixu who’d conceived of the plan to begin with.
I would not allow him the satisfaction of succeeding.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Fuchai gloated, lifting my chin up on two sharp fingertips, another hand reaching over to stroke the side of my cheek. I made myself lean in, gaze up from under my lashes as though my eyes held only him.
Yet in my peripheral vision, I sensed Fanli’s keen attention on the two of us. All his thoughts and emotions were wiped clean from his face. Only his left hand curled inward, forming a fist by his side.
His voice was impressively steady when he replied, “Of course she is, Your Majesty. We chose the best from our kingdom to pay tribute to you.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Fuchai laughed, the sound rolling through the vast chambers. “You played a role in picking her for me, didn’t you? What excellent taste. I must admit I’d underestimated you, Fanli—from everything I’d heard about your reputation, I thought you had no opinions of women. Do you remember when you served me here in the Wu? All those pretty girls I sent your way—yet you refused to see a single one of them.”
I stiffened. Though the king’s voice was casual, there were little knives concealed behind those words, ready to cut upon the first glimpse of flesh.
“It is hardly a matter of taste, but objectivity,” Fanli returned, as unflinching as ever. “I daresay anyone who sees her would be unable to deny her beauty.”
“You’re right, indeed.” Fuchai drew me closer to him, so all I could breathe in was his scent, those dark, sweet notes of ink and sword polish and earth at midnight. When I had first entered the palace, I could always smell the fragrance of other girls’ perfumes lingering on his clothes. But now his scent was entirely his, and whatever perfume marked him was mine. It ought to please me, to serve as proof of my power, my influence, but it was difficult to rejoice with Fanli standing before the throne, gazing up at the two of us. “Now that I think of it, I should thank you,” Fuchai added, one corner of his lips lifting into a crooked, wolfish smile. “Truly. I don’t believe I’ve slept so well ever since she came to my palace.”
Fanli’s expression remained inscrutable, carved from the purest jade, but I saw a faint muscle jump in his jaw. The color in his eyes deepened.
Stop talking, I willed Fuchai silently.Please. Just let him go.
He did stop talking—but it was only to lift his mouth to theshell of my ear. His warm breath tingled over my skin, as if nobody else was in the room. His pulse beat thick and hot next to mine, and I fantasized—a million terrible things. Most of all to run a blade through his neck, so his blood would flow and he would crumple on his own throne.
Before us Fanli stood still as a statue, his lips pale and set into an unyielding line. I saw the way Fuchai raised a brow at him, their gazes meeting as the king’s arm tightened around my waist, everything in his eyes storm-dark and goading. If the two of them had been placed in battle, it would take the space of a breath for Fanli to triumph over Fuchai. But a battlefield was a battlefield, and a court was a court. They were separate spheres, and here, Fuchai held all the power.
A long moment passed. Silence. Only I could hear the violent rushing of blood in my ears, like the sound of ten thousand rivers flowing at once.
At last Fuchai reclined in his throne, his embrace loosening. Fanli had scarcely reacted, and I had forced my features to remain blank the entire time. Surely, by now we had passed whatever perverse test he and Wu Zixu had come up with? Fuchai nodded, a small, almost imperceptible motion, and relief shuddered through me. It was over. It had to be—
A flash of silver.
Then red.
I choked on a silent scream. Zixu had darted forth and drawn his sword, moving too quick for the eye to track. Now his blade had pierced Fanli’s chest. Already blood was blooming from the wound, darkening his pale blue robes, slicking Zixu’s outstretched hand. Fanli’s features were strained with pain, a tendon standing in his neck, but he made no sound. No movement.
This can’t be real. This can’t be.I felt sick, delirious, like the world was spinning away from me. My skin flashed cold. I wanted toscream until my throat bled, to wrench the sword from Zixu’s grip, to kill him. I wanted to kill everyone in this room except Fanli.
Fanli, who couldn’t die. Fanli, who was bleeding.
Pain pulsed through me, as acute as if the blade were caught in my own chest, pushing past my ribs. It hurt to breathe.
“What—” There was a horrible gurgling sound when Fanli spoke, yet his tone was that of someone asking an innocuous, unrelated question, one they were only half-interested in. “What exactly—is the point of this?”
“Sorry,” Fuchai said with a small, sheepish smile. I was still stuck on his lap, forced to watch from a distance. Zixu’s grip on the sword hilt didn’t waver. How close was it to Fanli’s heart? “I was speaking with someone the other day, and I recalled that you’d killed a good deal of my men in war. Obviously not enough for you towin, but, well, a loss is still a loss. And I know, I know,” he continued without any haste, his voice almost a purr, as if Fanli were not close to death, “these are old grudges. But wouldn’t you rather me take whatever resentment I have out on you now, and call it even, then for me to remember at some later point, when I’m in a much fouler mood, and decide to raze all your villages? You are a person of intellect. You must agree with me.”
