Footsteps crunched into the forest dirt.

  ‘…I shouldn’t be surprised, should I,’ ughed the First Prince. ‘Who else would be here but you?’

  The prince had finally arrived, sloshing through a mountain ke.

  She had never seen him so dishevelled before.

  His orange robes were torn, having been ripped away; though there were no mars or wounds on his face, he was drenched in sweat, his hair sticking to his cheeks and yellow eyes.

  Where dignity and arrogance had once rested on his shoulders was now repced by his twin’s limp arms. The man’s scars were bared, unhidden, the net of jewels and gold gone, possibly trampled in the dirt far away. His shredded purple silks and crippled legs dangled helplessly from the First Prince’s arms — with the bandages unravelling, the rounded stumps of his knees flexed from the pain.

  She shifted into stance, her eyes fixed not on the princes but rather the towering, wounded One.

  The man, protectively shielding the twins by the ke’s edge, was tattered and torn. An arrowhead stuck out of his left shoulder; down his face, trickling down his cheeks was a thin dribble of wet blood.

  ‘Three,’ he said, wiping his bloodied hands on his shirt, ‘if you don’t leave tonight, you’ll die.’

  ‘I’d say the same for you,’ she hissed.

  She lifted her knife —

  It ripped through the air.

  It stopped. The hilt was firm in One’s hand.

  She fled.

  One charged to her, each step shaking the ground. She ran and dodged, but he was faster — she twisted, ducking away, and before he could touch her, she threw a handful of dirt to his face, swinging a knife to his groin —

  He swore, jumping away. She ran again, and when he came too close, she seized a rock and threw it hard at the princes —

  One barrelled past her, catching it — she kicked him hard, right in the throat — a hand grabbed her leg, the world spun, she nded into mud, skidding into the water, pain fshing across her arms, the skin of her knees, water filling her nose.

  A gasp.

  It burned in her throat.

  She snapped her neck away, a fist smming into the mud by her eyes. Pinned underneath One, her body twisted, pasty cy squelching, and smashed a knuckle into the points in One’s stomach. The effect of it was immediate; the man hissed, his body temporarily immobile, and an arrow whistled by their ears —

  Blood.

  Dripping.

  A drop fell onto her face.

  One reached up and snapped off the shaft. The strain of breaking through his own qi tore open his stomach — red blood clouded the water. Before he could hit her, kill her, she kicked him away but he grabbed her by the neck, suffocation locking around her, pain cracking down her neck as she was lifted out of the mud’s traps and into the air.

  She gasped, a dying fish, but air couldn’t enter her lungs, a fire burning in her chest. Her fingers grasped wildly at his arm, pressing all the acupoints she knew, but the man’s qi was a thick yer that stung her fingers. The world lurched and fshed in a deadly keen, and then an arrow —

  It flew, past their faces, towards the stumbling First Prince, his twin on his back —

  One let her go, let her tumble with a spsh, and he turned to catch that arrow on its flight —

  Just soon enough for a shadow to pierce right through his neck.

  One lurched.

  His body, like a great, dying beast, or perhaps a beached whale’s corpse, colpsed into the shallows with a groan.

  Air whistled from his pierced neck. The arrow had gone in so deep that only its fletching could be seen, blood pooling out into a red ink in the water.

  She got up, rubbing at her neck. Her hand fell away as she stumbled to One, each step sloshing with churned-up, watery mud.

  His eyes, round and clear like gss beads, smiled at her.

  Then he let out a sigh.

  She untied his hair, letting it fall loose and unkempt down his skin. Then, propping up his head, she hid his eyes away, the bck fabric settling above his nose.

  Combing his bloodied, dirty hair with her fingers, she whispered, ‘May all your sins fall silent in the judges’ lips. May no justice touch your eyes.’

  He let out a hum.

  ‘…May you repeat this life in next.’

  Then she stood up and turned to the princes.

  ‘Stay away,’ rasped the Second Prince. ‘Stay away from me!’ He spped his brother, yelling, ‘Run, we need to run —’

  ‘There’s no use,’ the First Prince said. His yellow eyes fshed as he gently pced his brother on the ground. ‘There’s an archer. It’s probably Third.’ Then he turned to Three and called, ‘If you kill me, can you let Qingxian go?’

  She flexed her hands, skin cmmy from the sweat and blood. ‘No.’

  The Second Prince heaved, panting. He didn’t wait for his twin to carry him — he immediately tried to crawl away, dragging himself across the dirt, leaving trails of mud. He didn’t get very far before his twin picked him up.

  ‘Let me go — if you won’t run, then I —’

  ‘It’s useless,’ a woman called, ‘as you’re both going to die today.’

  Xi Qian’e slid out of the dark, leather quiver by her hip and bow in her hands. On it was the Northern Army’s insignia — when his eyes nded on it, the Second Prince ughed, ‘You colluded with the empress!’

  That raspy, terrible ughter echoed across the forest. The water’s surface trembled.

  Then, the First Prince calmly stared at his cousin. ‘I refuse to die by your unworthy hands.’

  Three moved to step forwards, but a burning hand settled on her shoulder, pushing her back.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Xi Qian’e said. Then, she lifted her bow, notching an arrow. The string curved, a fshing shadow —

  The Second Prince shoved his twin.

  And the wood was speared right through the First Prince’s chest.

  He screamed.

  ‘No, wait, brother, I didn’t — I didn’t mean to!’ His hands hurriedly rolling his brother over, he stammered, ‘I just — I was —’

  ‘…You were scared, I know.’ The First Prince still smiled, even in the face of his twin’s betrayal and the indifferent night sky. His voice was breathy, whistling out of his throat with a piercingly harsh quality. ‘You’re selfish, greedy, envious, and cowardly. I know you, Qingxian.’

  ‘Shut up. Shut up!’ The Second Prince suddenly exploded with anger. ‘Just because I’m like that, you think you’re that much better than me?’ Smming his twin into the earth he roared, ‘It doesn’t matter! I’m just as good as you, just as worthy as you —’

  ‘I know,’ the prince murmured. He began to cough, blood spilling out of his lips, the red trailing through the mud to the water’s edge, ‘You’re allowed to take anything you want from me.’

  So, the prince reached up, his face twisting in pain, and snapped his younger brother’s neck.

  A twitch; a gasp; a thrashing body caught in death throes.

  The First Prince cradled his brother’s head and whispered, ‘We died in honour.’

  Then as he clutched his twin to his chest, he threw himself into the ke.