I bolted all the way back to my chambers without so much as a backward glance.
Fu Tingyan had never forced anything between us before. What had gotten into him tonight?
In the press of his mouth I had felt something raw, blazing—an emotion so fierce it could have burned me to ash.
I flung the door open, slammed it shut, and leaned my full weight against the panels, skull buzzing, lungs locked.
The noise brought A-Yan dashing out. She blinked at me. "My lady, what happened?"
"Huh?"
My thoughts tripped over each other. I fumbled. "Nothing—I'm fine."
Then A-Yan got a proper look at me. Confusion turned to horror. "Your face is bright red! Your lip is split—and your hair—hey! Where are you going?!"
I sprinted past her like a woman fleeing a ghost, dove into my room, and barricaded her on the other side.
The Ministry of Rites chose an auspicious date. On a bright, clear morning, the imperial column departed the Capital.
Days turned into weeks. The gentle scenery roughened; soft hills gave way to craggy ridgelines, lush forests to riverbed scrub and bare plateau.
My father had drilled campaigning into me since childhood. Army life was second nature, and I adapted with ease, roughing it wherever necessary.
Yin Yao was not so fortunate.
Born to the wealthy Yin household—pampered since birth—weeks of sleeping in the open and eating on the march had ground her spirit to dust. Then her body began to rebel: retching, fainting, one crisis after another, a rotating squad of maids constantly hovering.
A-Yan and I discussed it privately and reached a verdict: Yin Yao was simply not rugged enough.
Large entourages drew attention, so I traveled light—only A-Yan. As Fu Tingyan had pointed out, if I was in danger behind palace walls, A-Yan's odds were even worse.
Back in our younger days, she and I used to camp out all night hunting hares. So we did the same now: two animal pelts, a windbreak, sleeping fully clothed under the open sky.
We'd avoided the carriages on purpose. Too big a target.
All tricks learned from my father.
After a month on the road, the column paused at the final mountain pass before Shazhou. I ran into Yin Yao during the rest stop. Her chin had sharpened to a point.
That evening, A-Yan got lucky and snared two hares. We skinned, cleaned, and roasted them, and I decided to bring one over to Fu Tingyan.
I skewered the rabbit on a stick and was approaching his tent when I noticed two silhouettes by the campfire. I squinted—and made out Fu Tingyan and Yin Yao.
Yin Yao was weeping, rain-on-pear-blossoms beautiful, looking as though the entire world had wronged her. Mid-sob, she toppled forward into Fu Tingyan's arms.
The memory of his kiss a month ago flashed through me. My chest tightened.
I started to retreat—and then one of the shapes by the fire shifted.
I looked back, instinctively. Fu Tingyan had pinched the back of Yin Yao's collar and plucked her out of his arms like a kitten. She gaped at him, too stunned even to cry.
"Move over. You're getting dirt on my clothes."
A laugh shot out of me before I could stop it.
If Fu Tingyan hadn't been born to the throne, he would have died single. A beauty in his arms—and all he cared about was whether his robe was dirty. Truly one of a kind.
"What's so funny?" He identified my voice instantly. "Come out."
I coughed twice to scrub the grin off my face and walked over, rabbit in hand.
"Roasted hare. Eat it while it's hot."
I glanced at Yin Yao and added, "You too. Have some."
* * *
Yin Yao shot me a silent glare—clearly convinced I'd ruined her moment. I raised an eyebrow and said nothing, then turned to leave.
"I didn't tell you to go." Fu Tingyan's voice dropped half a register.
My innocent act fell flat. I stopped, sheepishly retraced my steps.
Always the same—those who want to leave can't, those who want to stay don't get the chance.
And I still haven't eaten my rabbit.
While I was mourning the hare, Yin Yao was clever enough to read the situation, however much fury she was choking on. She wouldn't dare aim it at Fu Tingyan.
So I became the target instead.
She rose and left. I watched her dwindling figure and said to Fu Tingyan, "Will she be all right on her own?"
"Worry about yourself. Back in the palace, ten of you wouldn't be enough to outsmart her."
Did he have to be that blunt? It wasn't as though I lacked self-awareness.
"That's exactly why I came with Your Majesty, isn't it?"
I took the stone where Yin Yao had been sitting, tore off a piece of rabbit from the stick in his hand, and bit into it. Grease burst across my tongue. I chewed twice, swallowed, and turned to him with a teasing look.
"She was just crying a little, you know. Do clothes really matter more than a wife?"
The firelight wavered in his black pupils—and in them I saw my own artlessly candid face staring back.
"She's my wife…" Fu Tingyan reached over and wiped a grease smear from the corner of my mouth. "Then what are you?"
His finger paused at my lip, then clamped down on my cheek—hard enough to nearly wrench my jaw sideways.
I yelped, grabbing his hand, but he had no intention of letting go.
"Say it again. Who are you?"
The campfire danced beside us, painting his amused eyes in amber. To me, that smile looked more like a wolf deciding when to close its jaws.
My words squeezed out, mangled. "I—I—I'm also your wife."
His grip tightened.
* * *
My eyes stung. I lashed out with a kick. "Let go!"
He caught my leg. Despair crashed through me like a wave.
I just kicked the Emperor.
"I'm sorry."
I went rigid. Fu Tingyan's palm wrapped around my calf, and he watched me with perfect calm.
Even saying nothing—just looking—he made my heart clench.
"Only. Not also."
I understood. He meant I was his only wife.
So the rest of the harem was—what? Decoration?
I couldn't be bothered to argue. All I wanted was for him to release my face. "Yes, yes, yes—I'm your only wife. Can you please let go? My face hurts…"
The pressure eased. I rubbed my nearly shattered cheek, head bowed, eyes watering.
But before the sting faded, something else registered—a faint sound nearby that didn't belong.
Hushed footsteps. Rustling in dry grass.
The soldiers of the imperial column wore heavy armor; their boots thudded. This was nothing like that.
Every nerve in my body snapped taut. I shot to my feet and stared into the wall of darkness behind the trees.
Fu Tingyan read my shift in an instant and rose beside me.
"How many guards around us?" I asked.
"Thirty."
"How fast can you run?"
"Why?"
"Because we need to run. Now."
* * *
Figures materialized from the black. Blades glinted—cold starlight on curved steel.
They had slaughtered all thirty guards without a sound. Professionals.
Before I bolted I noticed the blades—curved, crudely forged, nothing like any design from the Central Plains. Years ago, I'd overheard old soldiers swapping stories about the wastes near Shazhou: hidden settlements where entire villages had turned to assassination-for-hire. A traveler who stumbled in was sliced to pieces.
As a child I'd dismissed the tales as campfire nonsense. Apparently they were real.
If I'd had a weapon, I might have tried to fight. But I couldn't risk Fu Tingyan. Trading my life for his wasn't a rescue—it was a transaction.
I seized his hand and ran, screaming into the night.
"Assassins! ASSASSINS!"
The cry tore the silence apart. I clung to his hand, eyes locked on the distant campfires that flickered between the trees. Knee-high grass lashed my legs. The figures behind us clung like shadows.
Killing intent closed the gap. The back of my neck went cold—they were about to strike.
"Fu Tingyan—this is it."
My voice was steady. I wrenched him forward—
—and threw myself over him, shoving him ahead of me, pulling him to the ground with my body as a shield.
It was the only idea I had.
If the soldiers came fast enough, the worst Fu Tingyan might suffer was a wound—a broken limb. The rest came down to luck.
The air shrieked. An arrow grazed the crown of my head and punched into the darkness behind us.
I covered him and pressed flat. Arrows hissed over us in a rain of feathered shafts. I looked down at Fu Tingyan.
He reached up, cupped the back of my skull, and pressed my face into his shoulder.
His sigh brushed my ear, warm and impossibly close. "If you're that scared, then stop trying to be brave."
He took my hand again. His palm was warm; my fingers were ice.
"You'll die," I whispered.
"Then we die together."
The arrows thinned. Stopped.
Soldiers swarmed in, hauling us upright in a chaos of hands. Every uniform converged on Fu Tingyan—some dropping to their knees in apology, some checking him for wounds—and the crowd swept him toward the main encampment.
From the crush of bodies, he turned his head and looked at me. Light glowed in his dark pupils.