Xian Yi took me to the night market. I'd spent ages picking out an outfit before we left. He took one look, patted me on the head, and said, "Don't bother. You look the same in everything."
That earned him a lecture for the entire carriage ride—the exquisite embroidery of Guangji court tailors, the superiority of our fabrics, our precision cutting. He didn't argue once. It wasn't until he reached in and pulled me out of the carriage that he murmured, "Then why do you still look like that?"
I was ready to turn around and go home. He grabbed my wrist and coaxed me off the ledge the way you'd calm a sulking child—by buying me a sugar figurine from a street stall. I held the little thing and didn't know what to feel.
"You're a prince, and you just walk around like this? Eating street food? Aren't you worried someone might poison you?"
"That's why I didn't eat any. It's all yours." He narrowed his eyes—the smile of a cat that knew exactly where the mouse was hiding.
I wanted to smash the sugar figurine into his face.
Fanjiang customs were wildly informal compared to Guangji's. A prince and his consort wandering through a crowded night market—aside from the plainclothes guards trailing behind us, we could have been any ordinary couple.
He held my hand and pulled me along. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the kaleidoscope of lanterns lining the street. Women sold masks and snacks and jewelry from their stalls. Men performed acrobatics for cheering crowds—one good flip would draw applause from people who weren't even watching, heads turning, hands clapping on instinct.
A necklace caught my eye: a silver chain with a little cat pendant, green gemstones set into its eyes. My gaze locked on it. "Look—doesn't this look like you?"
"No."
"You're right, it doesn't. You're nowhere near this pretty."
He didn't dignify that with a response. He paid for it, took the necklace, and held it up. I reached for it. He didn't hand it over.
"What are you doing?"
"Isn't it for me?" he asked.
"Of course it's not for you!"
"You just said it looked like me. But it's not for me. Ah—I see." His voice turned silky. "You want something to keep close when I'm not around. A little memento. You could have just told me you'd been pining—I would've come home every night."
I raised my fist. He caught my wrist before I could swing. "Your arm just healed. Let's not break it again over something that wouldn't have hurt me anyway."
"How are you this infuriating?!" I spun around to storm off. He caught me again.
"Want that lantern over there?"
I followed the line of his long, elegant fingers. On a display table sat a lantern unlike anything I'd ever seen—an eight-sided shade made of some material I couldn't name, crystal-clear, painted with pale blue flowers so lifelike they looked ready to fall from the glass. But the strangest part was the flame. It burned blue, casting an otherworldly glow. A crowd had gathered around it, staring.
I forgot I was angry. "It's beautiful. The fire is blue."
He ruffled my hair. "Want it?"
I bit my lip. Looked at the crowd pressing in, haggling with the vendor. Then I turned back to him, eyes shining. "Yes!"
That sharp, untamed face of his broke into a grin. "Then call me 'husband.' Just once."
I turned on my heel. "Fine, fine, fine—forget I said anything. Wait here."
He scanned the crowd before I'd taken two steps. I noticed several familiar faces—his guards—shifting closer to me.
He walked up to the vendor's table, a full head taller than anyone around him, impossible to miss. I was too far away to hear what he said. But a collective gasp rose from the onlookers. The vendor lifted the lantern with both hands and passed it to him. He carried it toward me through the noise and the crowd, and everything else—the laughter, the torchlight, the hawkers' calls—flattened into a still, silent backdrop. It was just him and that strange blue lantern, the most vivid things in the world.
Something stirred in my chest. A small, tentative anticipation—though whether it was for him or for the lantern, I couldn't tell.
* * *
Xian Yi was the most idle prince in all of Fanjiang. When he wasn't out riding, he was charming some new woman—a different face every week, sometimes every few days. I hadn't fully grasped how good he was at it until I stumbled upon him sweet-talking a palace maid one afternoon, his voice dropped low, his fingers tracing her jaw as though she were the only girl in the kingdom.
Not that I'd ever been on the receiving end. I watched him ask me to teach him my name in Guangji script, only to butcher the characters on purpose—crooked, lopsided, barely legible. My palms itched to slap him. But Imperial Uncle always said a lady shouldn't be rough.
"Are you even trying?!" I slammed the brush down on the table.
He nodded earnestly. "I am. It's just really hard."
I wasn't buying it. I snorted and turned away. He laughed, sidling back over, tugging at my sleeve. "How about this—I'll teach you Fanjiang script instead. We'll start with your name."
I picked up the brush. "Go on then."
He dashed off two characters in a loose, careless hand. I couldn't read Fanjiang script, but even I could see how sloppy they were. "This is really my name in your language?"
He nodded, utterly deadpan. He watched me practise for a while, then slid his paper back and tilted his chin up—no smirk, no swagger, just that quiet certainty of someone who'd never once been denied. "Write it for me."
I copied the characters stroke by stroke, then looked up with a smug tilt of my eyebrow. "See? Much faster than you!"
He nodded. "Clever girl."
We chatted until evening. He'd been sleeping in my room more often lately—though it was nothing more than sharing a bed. Nothing had ever happened between us.
* * *
I asked him why he was always so idle. Back in the palace, men his age had already taken on proper duties. He was a prince, no less.
He tugged a strand of my hair. "Turn around."
I rolled over so we lay face to face.
"Who says I'm idle? I spend every day looking after you." I had no comeback for that.
"The truth is... I wish I did have something to do." A shadow crossed his face—something genuine and desolate, nothing like the insufferable grin I was used to.
I'd never really understood the power games inside a royal court. Looking at Xian Yi, you'd think he had everything—his father's smile across the banquet hall, a mother whose blood tied Fanjiang to a neighbouring throne, enough coin to buy out every pleasure house in the capital. But coin and smiles weren't seats at the council table.
But I remembered something Imperial Uncle told me once—without real power, all the favour in the world was just a passing breeze. Xian Yi's elder brothers held military commands, political factions, seats at the council table.
He had nothing but the empty shell of being loved. His mother's homeland could have been his pillar, but that very foreign blood was the reason the Fanjiang King kept him at arm's length—inviting him to drink, never to deliberate. Father and son, smiling across a table neither could truly reach across.
* * *
Winter in Fanjiang wasn't as bitter as in the Guangji Empire. New Year arrived, and the palace prepared a grand banquet. Xian Yi and I were expected to attend together. He stood by the carriage waiting for me, a heavy cloak draped over his shoulders. The cold had erased the sun-flushed patches on his skin, leaving it almost luminously pale.
We'd grown closer. He was my only anchor in this foreign land. He drove me mad sometimes, but he'd also filled so many empty hours—hours that would have been spent staring at the ceiling, whispering a name that no one here recognised. I still missed Imperial Uncle. But the ache had shifted from a wound to a scar, tender when I pressed it, easy to forget when I didn't.
Xian Yi took my hand and helped me into the carriage, then climbed in beside me. A tray of pastries sat between us. I picked one up and bit into it.
"Easy. Last time you ate too much beef you threw up all over the bed. And you're still this greedy?"
My face went hot, but I finished the pastry out of spite.
He was talking about three nights ago. The kitchen had made a spiced beef dish that hit every craving I'd ever had, and I'd eaten far too much. By midnight my stomach turned inside out. The vomit went everywhere—including all over him, since he'd been sleeping beside me. To his credit, the first thing he did was call for the physician, then change my clothes and wipe my face. He didn't complain about being covered in sick. I'd almost been touched. I would have been properly moved, in fact, if he hadn't added the observation that my chest was a bit on the small side.
"Behave yourself at the banquet, all right? Don't eat like you've been starving for three centuries. You'll embarrass me."
"I don't need your advice. You think anyone from the Guangji Empire has worse manners than the people here?"
"Oh, I forgot—you're the epitome of refinement. Three whole platters of spiced beef without stopping for air. Your people say 'moderation in all things,' right? For most of them it means three bites. For you it means three basins."
"I—you—" I sputtered, too furious for words. We bickered the whole way and arrived at the palace gates before I'd landed a single decent retort. The carriage stopped. He hopped down first and offered me his hand. I glared at him from above and refused it, choosing to jump down on my own.
I should have known better by now. The moment my feet left the step, my balance gave out. His arm shot around my waist and hauled me upright before I could hit the ground.
"All right, I was wrong. The food at court banquets is terrible anyway—same dishes every year. When we get home, I'll have the kitchen make whatever you want. Deal?"
I sniffed. That was slightly satisfying. I stood on my toes to smooth out the wrinkles in his cloak, then took his hand and walked with him through the palace gates.