Character Index

  Geleng: A Pugu warrior and herder, he accompanied Tuhezhen North with Hu Qing's delegation. His realization that Tuhezhen died unnaturally kickstarted this whole mess, despite his own reluctance.

  Dulan: A Pugu warrior and herder, friends with Geleng. Anti-Heli dissident.

  Sima Qi: A former Investigator, currently undercover as Zhu Shiwu, a young translator.

  Geshu Daoyuan: The Turkish Investigator in Investigator Mi's unit.

  Shelun: A prominent Pugu tribesman and clan leader. Has ambitions of usurping Heli.

  Tiezhen: A prominent Pugu clan leader. Anti-Heli dissident.

  Anagui: A prominent Pugu clan leader. Anti-Heli dissident.

  Halime: A princess of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Ashina's half-sister. Her mother is a Persian noblewoman.

  Datan: Heli's guardian, mentor, and right-hand-man.

  Heli: The young Chieftain of the Pugu. Previously had his position threatened by Tuhezhen, his nephew who was twice Heli's age.

  Investigator Mi: A young Investigator who had accompanied Kayla to the northern border in Book 2. Was then transferred/promoted to Yanzhou to give him a chance to fasttrack his career.

  Ashina: Princess of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, personal name Ibilga. Married to Kayla/Wenyuan.

  Healer Zhang: A healer experienced in maternity-related issues.

  Derin: Ashina's lady-in-waiting and mother figure.

  Chuluo: Khagan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. Father of Ashina and Halime.

  Yilie: Tabuyir's nephew, sent to Kayla as a ward/hostage.

  Qazar: Princess Mingda's cousin, sent to Kayla as a ward/hostage.

  Geleng and Dulan stood before the weathered house Dulan grew up in–it had been abandoned for his current house a few winters back after the roof caved in. The ruins of the house, like most abandoned houses in town, sagged under the weight of snow year after year until it fully crumbled. Geleng felt strangely forlorn, looking at the house, far more so than he did amongst his sickening herd.

  He had also grown up here. After the year his mother had died, Geleng had often spent time at Dulan's house while his own father toiled away. Their mothers were distant relatives of some sort. They had spent many happy days here as fearless children without any worries beyond being scolded. But just as children laughed and played in the morning, the elderly passed quietly into the night. The people of that generation had dwindled, and they were the ones to shoulder the Pugu now. They were grown men. There was no longer anyone to turn to for guidance, for help, for approval or reproach.

  Yet as grown men who were meant to deal with the crisis they were faced with, both him and Dulan had ended up before the ruins of their childhood home, almost as if by agreement.

  “What the hell do we do?” Dulan said into the frozen air. He clutched at the talisman hanging from his neck subconsciously. It had taken him years to break the childish habit, but one crisis and it had come back in full swing.

  Geleng quietly watched as Dulan nervously turned the talisman over in his hands. Dulan’s mother had also made one for him, but Geleng had lost it in carelessness during his adolescence. He regretted it now, but it was too late for that.

  “It’ll be alright,” Geleng said.

  “You don’t think it’s spread outside town?” Dulan asked, a desperate note in his voice now. He was undoubtedly thinking of his little sister, close to giving birth to her third child and living with her husband’s clan in the winter grounds. “The herds in the grazing grounds–”

  “It’s highly unlikely,” Geleng said. “No one has moved their herds from town to the grazing grounds recently. Your sister’s family will be fine.”

  Dulan didn’t relax despite the assurances. They fell back into silence, one that now grew heavy with wasted time and waiting tasks. Yet neither were quite able to break free from it.

  They glanced over at the soft pit-pat of footsteps through the snow. Thickly padded soles, too clunky for traveling the plains but just about right for the paved roads of the town. Geleng knew who was coming before the boy even appeared.

  Zhu Shiwu turned the corner into sight, his hair sticking out in every direction from beneath a scarf–the boy had finally gotten rid of that awful brimmed hat–and cheeks bright red from the cold.

  “Sir Dulan, Sir Geleng,” he greeted them breathlessly, stumbling as he stepped into a pile of snow deeper than it looked. Geleng reflexively held out a hand to steady the boy.

  “Zhu Shiwu,” Geleng greeted him.

  “You haven’t left yet?” Dulan asked in a clipped tone. “It shouldn’t be that hard to fix a few wagons.”

  Dulan didn’t want the boy here in front of his former sanctuary, that was clear. After three sleepless nights of worrying, Dulan’s mood was at an all-time low, and poor Zhu Shiwu, the hapless outsider, had stumbled right into the line of fire without even a clue.

  Geleng cast Dulan a pointed glance that went unseen.

  The boy fixed wide eyes on Dulan. “Our horses are acting strange. They’re not eating. The Turk in our caravan is really worried about them, he says it could be an infection.”

  “Infection? More like a fucking epidemic,” Dulan said bitterly.

  “Epidemic?” The boy asked in alarm. “But–”

  “Yeah, good luck trying to buy replacements,” Dulan spat out.

  “Then we’re screwed,” Zhu Shiwu said in dismay. “We’ll never get out of town in time for the Princess’ delegation!”

  That did it for Dulan.

  “The whole town’s screwed!” Dulan’s voice came out high and reedy. “Fuck your caravan, we could lose everything! My whole herd’s sick, and the horse doctor won’t even get here for another few days–all my horses could be dead by then!”

  “Dulan,” Geleng tried to intercede.

  Dulan barely even heard him. Without even realizing it, he had begun to shake. “We did everything right! We did everything that should have insured their health and they still got sick. The animals were fine until just the day before yesterday! I worked for years–for years–!”

  Geleng placed a hand firmly on Dulan’s shoulder. “Dulan,” he said worriedly, “Dulan, calm down.”

  Dulan only now realized he had been shouting. The sudden anger surged out of him, leaving him small and frightened.

  What am I even doing, shouting at a kid who has nothing to do with this? Dulan felt as ridiculous as he was sure he sounded. He begrudgingly gave Zhu Shiwu a half-nod.

  “Apologies,” Dulan said extremely stiffly, expecting the boy to mumble an excuse and hurry off.

  To his surprise, Zhu Shiwu stepped forward and grabbed Dulan’s hands.

  Dulan reared back in disbelief, trying to pull away. “What–”

  “I’ll pray for you,” Zhu Shiwu said earnestly.

  Dulan froze and stared at him in silence, lost for words.

  “Thank you,” Geleng said in his stead, patting Zhu Shiwu on the back. “Your kindness is much appreciated.”

  Smiling shyly, Zhu Shiwu let go and backed away again. “Then I’ll leave you be, I’m sure you’re both very busy.”

  “Yes, go on back to the inn and keep your head down,” Geleng said. “If you need to go somewhere, try to go with the Turk in your caravan. More than half the town’s in a panic right now, so be careful.”

  “I will,” Zhu Shiwu promised. “Thank you!”

  Waving over his shoulder, the boy trundled off again, his awkward wide-legged steps staggering through the snow.

  “This is pathetic,” Dulan said bitterly.

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Geleng replied. “Like you’ve said, we’ve done everything right, but things still went wrong. It’s normal to be frightened and angry in times like this.”

  “Good Tengri, why do you have to be so reasonable at these times? I feel like a fool,” Dulan complained.

  Geleng scoffed at that. “Come on, let’s go check on the others.”

  Dulan gave a jerky nod.

  “He’s a good kid,” Dulan said as Geleng steered them towards Shelun’s house.

  “Who, Zhu Shiwu? I think so too,” Geleng said.

  The small crowd outside Shelun’s house came into sight first, then the closed gates.

  Geleng and Dulan exchanged a worried look. That wasn’t normal. Shelun was a man of influence and he enjoyed his position very much. His gates were almost always open–and yet at a time of crisis, they were shut? Pushing down his sense of foreboding, Dulan followed Geleng over to join the throng of anxious men.

  “What’s going on?” Dulan asked the first face that he made eye contact with.

  “Shelun’s inside with Tiezhen and Anagui right now,” the man told him.

  “What about Heli?” Another man asked.

  “What about him?” Yet another voice quipped. “The kid’s never seen anything like this before in his life–this hasn’t happened since before he was born. He wouldn’t know what to do anyways.”

  Someone came out from the house, shoulders slumped in obvious defeat. The group immediately crowded around the man, who waved them away in irritation.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Do they know if it’s an epidemic?”

  “What did Shelun say?”

  Dulan craned his neck over someone’s balding head as if seeing the man would improve the clarity of his words as well.

  “Shelun wants to wash his hands of this,” the man told them. “He’s still arguing with Tiezhen and Anagui about the costs of sending for new feed and a horse doctor. None of their herds are affected anyways.”

  An anxious murmur went up around them. Almost everyone had some knowledge of how to treat animals–it was part of their duties. But healers who could treat animals were far rarer–and far more expensive. Each tribe had at least a handful at any given time, but they were hard to keep. Rich merchants and military officers snatched them up at a rapid pace, and the remaining went to wherever there was money to be had at any given time. After all, their services weren’t required all the time.

  Tracking down and hiring a horse doctor at a time when prices were surging in the capital of the Anbei Protectorate with the imminent arrival of the Turkish Princess would require no small amount of resources. Far more than what any individual household could easily afford, especially when combined with the costs of new feed, medicine for the animals, and food for the spring when their winter stocks ran out but their livestock was still too sickly to produce milk.

  Dulan felt his hopes crumbling apart. The disappointment came slowly, pooling up into his lungs at a trickling pace.

  To some extent, he’d expected this. Dulan hadn’t wanted to believe Geleng’s words about Shelun, but he had listened.

  “Shelun won’t do it,” one man said in disgust. “Neither will the other two! They’ll only jump in when there’s immediate benefit to be had–just you watch! They’ll be more than happy to let us be ruined just to make Heli look incompetent, and you’ll all buy it up like the fools you are.”

  The words struck a nerve in Dulan.

  “Did Datan pay you to say that or something?” Dulan snapped.

  The man whirled upon him.

  “Oh fuck you, Dulan! So everyone who has any doubts, however reasonable, is a fucking spy now? Just because I’m not pleased with Heli doesn’t mean I have to kiss Shelun’s boots every time he takes a step!”

  Dulan flushed with anger. “When the fuck did I ever say that?!”

  “Keep your peace,” Geleng said, stepping between the two of them. “The gods have already shown their displeasure. Instead of appeasing them, you would quarrel among kinsmen and invoke greater disfavor?”

  The other man blustered, looking ready to continue the argument to let off steam if nothing else, but faltered as Geleng stared him down.

  “Whatever!” He skulked off.

  “I wasn’t even–!” Dulan hissed at Geleng. Geleng hastily cut him off.

  “Listen, forget it,” Geleng urged him. “Does it matter who’s right or wrong right now? Everyone’s upset. They’ll look for a fight if they can’t find a solution. Why entertain that?”

  Dulan begrudgingly settled down. “He’s not even my kinsmen,” he grumbled.

  “He’s my father’s cousin’s daughter’s husband’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s brother-in-law,” Geleng said. “If he’s related to me, then he’s related to you.”

  Dulan laughed despite himself, shaking his head.

  “We’ll have to appeal to Heli to make the arrangements,” Geleng said. Eyes were starting to gather on him now, instinctively focusing on the first confident man they saw. “Whatever complaints anyone has about him, our priority right now should be to survive. If Heli also hesitates or refuses to act, we’ll have to pool our money and send for one ourselves.”

  “We can’t afford it!” Someone protested.

  “Not alone, we can’t.” Geleng met the man’s eyes calmly. “If everyone chips in a little, we’ll have more than enough. Don’t be mistaken–it will hurt, but it’ll hurt far less than losing everything!”

  A murmur of agreement swept through the crowd.

  “I’m going to the Chieftain’s household,” Geleng said. “Anyone who isn’t interested in going should go home and talk it over with their families–figure out what you can spare.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Dulan said.

  “We will too,” a familiar face spoke up, the eldest of five brothers, speaking for the rest of his siblings.

  Within minutes, the entire group was leaving with Geleng at its head. From a distance away, Sima Qi watched on with a small smile.

  “He’s impressive,” Sima Qi said over his shoulder. Investigator Mi started. He had been hiding his presence, evidently to no avail. Sima Qi had seen through him with barely any effort.

  “The man at the front?” Investigator Mi asked.

  “Geleng,” Sima Qi supplied a name. “He’s the one who brought me to town, remember?”

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  “Yes,” Investigator Mi muttered. “Wasn’t he the one who went North with the Duke’s men and Tuhezhen?”

  “That’s the one,” Sima Qi said. “It seems that to take the bell off the tiger, you need the one who tied it on after all. He’s already doing our work for us.”

  “This is going pretty well,” Investigator Mi agreed. “Better than I expected, actually.”

  “That’s because there are no horse doctors available right now,” Sima Qi said.

  “What?” Investigator Mi gave Sima Qi a look of confusion.

  Sima Qi gave him a lovely smile. “I figured this would be the plan you went with, so I poisoned the horses at the Anbei capital on my way over.”

  Investigator Mi stared at Sima Qi blankly. A chill swept up his spine.

  “You–you poisoned–”

  “They’ll want to get rid of the problem before the Princess passes through, so they’ll be paying extra for every horse doctor they can get their hands on to hurry up and fix the issue,” Sima Qi explained earnestly. “That’s why Shelun doesn’t want to do it–he also knows that this is an excellent opportunity for him to seize influence and power. But it’s way too expensive for him to do it alone. If he does it, he’ll win influence in the short run but lose too much money to keep himself at the top for long, at which point Anagui and Tiezhen will gain the fishermen’s benefit with their ample fortunes.”

  “You had no guarantee I would go with this method,” Investigator Mi said, unable to fully hide his horror. He suddenly understood Datan’s anger from the other day with a startling clarity. “You just went and poisoned them without even knowing for sure? Who the hell gave you permission to do that?”

  “The Duke doesn’t know,” Sima Qi said shyly. “But I figured that given his benevolent nature, he would have asked you to keep the bloodshed to a minimum. So obviously, humans over animals. But if you chose to go through with it, Shelun could end up gaining more influence by beating Heli to the punch–he really does want to be Chieftain, you know. I figured that letting the problem get worse would only make things more complicated for us.”

  “So you decided to fix my mistake ahead of time,” Investigator Mi said flatly.

  “Yes,” Sima Qi said, again with that shy smile as if he were a child hoping to be praised. “Shelun would do anything to make himself Chieftain, but he wouldn’t suffer Anagui and Tiezhen to get ahead at his expense. So they’ll drag it out, and Heli will win his reputation back.”

  Investigator Mi shook his head in disbelief. What kind of–who even–just what was Sima Qi? Why had the Duke sent this insane bastard–where did the Duke even find such a lunatic from? And poisoning the Anbei capital? The implications of that were–Investigator Mi forced himself out of his head.

  “Just tell me the damage,” Investigator Mi hissed.

  Sima Qi’s smile faltered. “A smaller scale than here, just enough to make them scared. And I didn’t leave any traces. It comes off as a non-fatal fungal infection in the hay, as you know. It’s all tested measures. And ever since last time I’ve gotten a lot more careful.”

  Investigator Mi felt a tight pressure between his eyes. “Last time? No, I don’t even want to know. You do realize that if the Duke didn’t approve it, that means he’s not prepared to deal with the aftermath and the financial consequences?!”

  Sima Qi stared at him wide-eyed.

  “The man took a public oath! He’s not about to get any richer!” Investigator Mi hissed, suppressing himself from shouting. “He can’t afford all this!”

  “But because he doesn’t know it was me, he doesn’t have to take responsibility for this,” Sima Qi said, as if it was obvious.

  “What?”

  “They can just go through the official channels for aid as needed,” Sima Qi said. “The Duke doesn’t have to do anything.”

  Investigator Mi resisted the urge to claw at his hair.

  “Sima Qi, what is wrong with you?!”

  “I thought you would be pleased,” Sima Qi said in a small voice. “We would have failed otherwise, you know. You underestimated Shelun from the get-go.”

  “I underestimated you,” Investigator Mi snarled. “Good heavens! How do I explain this to the Duke?!”

  “You don’t,” Sima Qi said. “I told you this in confidence.”

  “You’re insane,” Investigator Mi said in despair.

  “We should follow them,” Sima Qi replied. He slipped out from behind the building, leaving Investigator Mi still frozen in place.

  “Good heavens,” Investigator Mi said to the empty air. The cold swallowed his words, the white breath dissipating into nothing.

  When Geleng and the other Pugu men got to Heli’s household, they stopped outside the gates at the strange sight before them.

  Two servants were trying and struggling to put up a notice on the wall. It wasn’t so much getting it onto the wall that was the problem, but that the sign was always crooked to one side or another. A third servant was watching them with increasing exasperation, chastising first one man and then the other in a quick barrage of insults that only stopped when she ran out of breath.

  When she saw the approaching group of men, she stood back, gesturing to the sign.

  “You must be here about the livestock,” the woman said. “The sign isn’t up properly yet, but you can take a look.” She turned towards the men trying to put up the sign. “For Tengri’s sake! It’s crooked to the right again!”

  “We don’t mind, mother,” Geleng said kindly.

  The woman smiled at the term of endearment and respect. “The Chieftain will want to know you are here,” she said. “Please wait a moment.”

  The old woman went off at a speed disproportionate to her stumpy legs, leaving the two young servants helplessly staring down a crowd with the still-crooked sign.

  “You don’t mind if it’s slanted a bit?” One of the servants asked despairingly.

  “Not at all,” Geleng said, holding out a hand to help the servant down from the ladder.

  Glad to be done with their task, the servants quickly bolted back inside.

  “Chieftain Heli has already summoned a horse doctor and a shaman,” Geleng summarized for the men in the back who couldn’t see. “On account to most of them being in the Protectorate capital right now, the horse doctor won’t arrive until the day after tomorrow.”

  A murmur of relief went up from the crowd, which then stood about waiting awkwardly. The Chieftain would want to know they were here–for what? Was Heli just wanting to know, or was he planning to speak with them? Geleng also didn’t know, even if people shot him questioning glances.

  Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait very long. The gates opened, and Heli appeared, flushed and a little out of breath. He balked a bit at the sizable crowd, then valiantly tried to act as if he hadn’t been taken aback. He took his spot before them with some awkwardness as a smattering of men bowed their heads and the rest didn’t.

  Heli had come out in a rush, evident from his crookedly tied cape. Notably, Datan was nowhere to be seen.

  “Thank you all for coming today,” Heli said, going with the opening he used at every event unfailingly. His voice was a little too quiet to be heard in the back, and he seemed to know this. He cleared his throat, nearly choked, coughed a bit, and flushing, finally found his voice.

  “A horse doctor has been sent for, as well as a shaman. The horse doctor will not arrive until the day after tomorrow, since he is making the journey from the Protectorate capital through the snow, but a shaman will arrive by tonight. I intend to preside over the rites along with the elders of the Pugu clans,” Heli said. His anxiety was badly hidden, but it didn’t necessarily work against him. Geleng observed the Chieftain up close for the first time.

  Heli was a lot younger than most of them imagined, even knowing the boy’s age. He also wasn’t so young as they made him out to be. His age had always been this obscure, malleable thing–he was a young boy incapable of making his own decisions or any good ones at that, he also wasn’t a child who deserved sympathy or protection.

  Even when they saw him in passing, they didn’t need to look him in the eye and decide he deserved to die or go into exile. But seeing him standing before them, a boy before men, it was no longer possible to reconcile those contradictions without facing their own morals.

  “Good men of the Pugu, as you are aware, I have never encountered an epidemic before in my lifetime,” Heli said, a nervous tremor in his voice that made it sound like he was about to cry. “Rather than act on my inexperience, I have invited the elders of the tribe to join me in navigating this crisis–if-if it does turn out to be a crisis. The horse doctor will be able to say for sure when they arrive.”

  Heli made a failed attempt to make eye contact with his subjects, ducking out of it at the very last second. “Though I have many failings, I am determined to do everything within my power to see the Pugu through this storm. To that end, I will put forward my family fortune to ensure that our tribesmen will have what they need for this–this crisis.”

  The boy seemed to resort to the word crisis whenever he ran out of phrases, Geleng noted. But eloquence was never required of a Tiele leader–the Han could have their rhetoric and sophistry all they liked. What they needed were men of action.

  “We are grateful for your generosity,” Geleng said, glancing at Dulan, who awkwardly chimed his agreement. Like a growing wave, the relief and gratitude of the crowd swelled. Heli seemed to grow more sure of himself in turn.

  “It is only what I should do as Chieftain,” Heli said. “Our forefathers put their blood, sweat, and tears into guiding and protecting the tribe. I could never let that go to ruin!”

  Despite himself, Geleng found a new fondness for their young Chieftain, nerves and all. Heli stuck around a while longer, flustered as he gave out answers to questions with minimal stammering. Though his speech and demeanor gave much to be desired, Geleng had to admit that the boy had at least covered all the bases of what they needed to deal with the situation. Having had their worst fears assured, the crowd slowly dissipated with thanks and bows in Heli’s direction. Geleng stood there observing a moment longer before Dulan nudged him.

  “We should also go,” Dulan said.

  “Yeah,” Geleng replied. The two bowed at Heli and left as well. As soon as the last men had left, Heli’s shoulders slumped in visible relief. Drained, he staggered back inside, the gates staying open behind him.

  Ashina tried to calm her racing heart as Healer Zhang hovered over her, wrinkled face reflecting the glow of her healing magic. Ashina gripped Derin’s hand in desperate fear, watching Healer Zhang’s every expression. The woman’s face remained frustratingly unreadable.

  She had found blood on her inner clothes moments ago, sparking the current panic. Maids rushed about or milled around outside the bedchamber door in fear for their mistress, and someone had been sent to find the Duke.

  “Is there a problem? Am I miscarrying?” Ashina asked, unable to bear the wait any longer.

  “Take deep breaths, my princess. I am still conducting an examination,” Healer Zhang said.

  “Is it supposed to take this long?!”

  “I am being thorough,” Healer Zhang said, unruffled by the young woman’s display of nerves. The bedchamber door burst open and Wenyuan appeared. The door closed behind him as he rushed over, mildly disheveled from sprinting.

  “Ibilga!”

  He circled over to where Derin also stood, staying clear of Healer Zhang. Ashina met his eyes, her own fear reflected in his face.

  “The child–how do you feel?” Wenyuan asked. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not really,” Ashina said in a small voice. Just because it didn’t hurt didn’t mean she wasn’t miscarrying. Her sister-in-law had suddenly gone blank-eyed and quiet one morning in the seventh month of her pregnancy, and then had miscarried without prior warning or even indication of her discomfort. The bleeding had gone on for so long that everyone feared the woman would die, but she had survived. The child had not.

  Ashina fought the urge to place a hand over her stomach, where it would inevitably get in Healer Zhang’s way. The fear clenched tightly in her chest until it felt unbearable, then slowly started to unravel. As it always did.

  Don’t die, she said to the child, to herself. Wenyuan switched positions with Derin, taking Ashina’s hand in his own. His hand was shaking.

  Healer Zhang finally finished, letting out a soft huff.

  “You’re not miscarrying or in danger of a miscarriage, Your Highness,” Healer Zhang said.

  “But I bled! You’re not supposed to bleed when you’re pregnant!” Ashina said in surprise.

  “Women can also bleed sporadically during their pregnancies,” Healer Zhang explained. “It doesn’t always mean a miscarriage. Thankfully, it was only a small amount of blood. Usually this is rarer during later phases of pregnancy, especially at seven months, so I’d like to keep an eye on the situation.”

  “Could it be a serious issue?” Wenyuan asked, his voice tight with fear. Ashina quickly glanced at him from the corner of her eye. His face was ashen. She wondered what her own expression looked like.

  “It could be a minor inflammation,” Healer Zhang said. “I didn’t find any major issues, but just in case, we should do daily checks at morning and night to monitor any changes.”

  “She’s right, it’s fine,” Ashina said, her voice sounding strangely foreign to her own ears. “I don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with my body.”

  “Alright,” Wenyuan said, patting her hand in a semblance of assurance. “That’s good.” His hands were freezing cold, she noted.

  “Then I will take my leave, Your Highness, Your Excellency,” Healer Zhang said, thoughtfully bowing out of the room. Derin fussed over Ashina a moment longer before also leaving the two alone.

  “I really am fine,” Ashina said before Wenyuan could ask. “It’s fine.”

  “If you say so,” Wenyuan said. He didn’t seem to quite believe it. If he was about to comfort her or assure her, Ashina didn’t really want to hear it. Not that she disliked his trying, but he was hardly convincing in his current state. Thankfully, he seemed to realize this himself and stayed quiet.

  Ashina stroked her stomach, relieved that it had only been a false alarm.

  “I didn’t know women bled during pregnancy,” she murmured.

  “Me neither,” Wenyuan said, a tremor in his voice.

  Ashina wondered that her husband had once seemed cryptic and unshakeable to her. At the start of their marriage, Wenyuan had been frustratingly tolerant, always ready to appease her, never showing any reaction save for a scripted one. It wasn’t until princes had started dropping dead had that facade finally crumbled, but Ashina had only come to know yet another side of her husband after her pregnancy.

  Over the course of the past few months, Ashina had gone from a terrified, nervous wreck to facing her fate with grim determination. Her husband, on the other hand, had gone from being the most assuring and reliable man she’d ever met in the Wu to having silent fits of fear whenever he thought Ashina wasn’t looking. Perhaps it was guilt, perhaps it was just that he’d had too much to worry about earlier on and was only just now grappling with the horror that Ashina had already dealt with.

  It was harsh, but Ashina had made her peace with the fact that her child was likely to die or otherwise suffer poor health. Even her own safety wasn’t guaranteed, why would the life of a fragile, premature infant be any different?

  But this was the choice they had made, and that was that. If the child died, then that was fate. She would be sad, but what could she do about it? A child that couldn’t survive a premature birth likely also wouldn’t survive the turmoil of being born into a household subjected to search and seizure for the crime of deceiving the late Emperor Xuanzong. At least her husband was not executed or in jail, and Ashina did not have reason to fear the humiliation and indignities of criminal charges for herself or her attendants.

  Ashina supposed that she wasn’t maternal enough. But she wasn’t even a mother yet, why would she be maternal? Besides, that was just who she was. When faced with a choice, she could choose despite her fears and stick with it without regrets, something that her husband seemed incapable of despite what he convinced himself. Ashina had chosen between Wenyuan and Chuluo in shockingly little time, and now she had chosen between the household and her unborn child.

  It was this part of her personality that Chuluo had always valued most. Had he really been unaware that it could backfire on him? Ashina didn’t think so.

  Somewhere, deep down inside, she still believed that he genuinely cared for her. And somewhere in Chuluo was also the desire to see his children survive. That too had fueled his choice to send her, out of all his daughters, into a foreign country that they had often been at war with. The shining pearl of his palm, educated in three languages, an accomplished archer and rider–none of those factors had mattered quite as much as her resilience.

  He had thought she could live.

  Halime had come only after, when Ashina had successfully built the bridge between the two countries. She was the first sacrifice, but he had not sent her to the altar expecting her to accept her fate.

  That was the love of a ruler, she supposed. Heavy, burdensome, and cruel, but not without its own softness, if you could even call it that.

  Ashina thoughtfully patted her swollen stomach. She wasn’t naive enough to think her father didn’t have plans for the child–and of course, Wenyuan did too. Even Yunqi, the Emperor with kind eyes and a kind smile, would have plans about her child’s future, ones that didn’t involve the child’s own will.

  If the child lives, her mind helpfully supplied.

  Ashina looked back towards Wenyuan. He was pretending not to be afraid again.

  It’s alright, she nearly said again, but decided not to.

  In silence, she took his hand.

  Yilie and Qazar silently watched from the garden as Healer Zhang left the Duke’s courtyard. They had been kicking a ball between them, but had stopped when they saw the Healer rushing in. Now, they let out a sigh of relief in unison and resumed their game at a much slower pace.

  “Do you reckon the Princess is alright?” Yilie asked.

  “I hope so,” Qazar said. “She’s nice. I feel bad for her though, it must be scary.”

  Yilie nodded. The Princess was only four years older than him, but she felt older. Their guardian Wenyuan was only ten years older, but felt an entire generation older. Yilie placed Wenyuan in with Uncle Tabuyir, even while placing cousins eight or nine years older in the same generational bracket as himself.

  Yilie wasn’t like Qazar. Qazar had known he was a hostage. Yilie hadn’t really thought about what his position in the household was when he’d entered. His favorite Uncle had arranged it, and Yilie had been excited to go to the capital. The small city he’d grown up in couldn’t quite compare.

  They weren’t the Duke’s godsons. They were wards, which was a strange position that couldn’t really be explained. It was not so formal or rigid as a sponsorship, which some other boys were undertaking. It also didn’t make sense for Yilie and Qazar to call themselves hostages. For one, was Yilie even a hostage?

  But now that there was a child on the way, Yilie felt a strange sense of being suspended mid-air. Where would he go when he eventually left the Zhao household? When would he leave? What was he now? It crept into his stomach on nights when he couldn’t sleep and kept him tossing and turning into uneasy dreams.

  “Do you reckon we’ll have to leave soon?” Yilie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Qazar replied. “I don’t think so? My grandfather’s arrangement with Duke Zhao was for my education.”

  “But we’re not anything in this household,” Yilie said, suddenly feeling rather aggrieved by this idea. “Everyone’s nice to us, but what are we even doing here?”

  “We’re hostages,” Qazar pointed out.

  “Are we though?” Yilie asked. “What will the Duke even do if our families go against him? Kill us? Even he can’t get away with murdering us outright. Plus, he’s not that type of person. The most he can do is send us home, and that’s no different from how it already is.”

  “I don’t get it either,” Qazar admitted. “I do miss home, but I don’t want to get sent back like that.”

  “I miss my family, but I don’t really want to go back to my hometown,” Yilie said. “There’s nothing there. It can’t even call itself a city compared to here.”

  Qazar gave a half-shrug. “I miss the plains.”

  Yilie didn’t. He only went there in the summer. The plains were more a vacation than a lifestyle to him. He fell back into contemplative silence, directing his unease into the repetitive movement of the ball instead, letting his muddled fears and frustrations go bouncing over the dust.

  Cultural Notes

  Anbei Protectorate: A Tang-dynasty administrative region that was semi-autonomous, covers parts of modern-day Inner Mongolia and Mongolia.

  解铃还须系铃人/To take the belt off the tiger, you need the one who tied it on: A Chinese saying often used to mean that sometimes you need the person who caused an issue to fix it (aka that they're the only ones capable of fixing it, or more simply, you break it you fix it).

  渔翁之利/Fisherman's benefit: An Ancient Chinese saying that refers to benefiting from sitting it out, aka to benefit from the effort/conflict of others.

  Infant mortality in Ancient China: Infant mortality rates in Ancient China were very high. The reason why Hundred Days Banquet, or a banquet celebrating a child's hundredth day is still a major thing in China is because it was common for children to die before then. It was often said that parents shouldn't bother mourning for children who pass away before reaching their hundredth day, because it doesn't really "count". Of course, parents still mourned as they would today. However, the existence of this saying was created to protect parents from depression given how common it is for infants to die, so it was not uncommon for a single set of parents to experience the death of their infant children multiple times in a row.