Chapter 12

Chapter 12

By daybreak, the fire was finally under control. I sat in the woods and watched people pass with numb eyes.

Chen Dong would discover the truth. The boat had carried corpses from the gelu’s tent, while Southern Xu’s prisoners had escaped together. The most likely person behind it all was me, a woman of Southern Xu.

At last, Chen Dong returned with his men. From a distance, I saw his grim face as he strode through the ruins with several soldiers, searching and berating his subordinates. Then, across the devastation, he caught sight of me. When our eyes met, I suddenly realized he had been looking for me.

Many years later, I still remembered that sight. He marched toward me in a fury, the rising sun behind him edging his tall figure in gold. His features held the deep contours of Northern Qian, hard and strikingly handsome, though his brow seemed forever furrowed. He approached one step at a time, like a god descending clothed in dawn.

He raised a hand. I thought he meant to strike me. Instead, he gripped my shoulders and looked me over.

“You’re not hurt?”

Frowning, he wrapped his coat around me and lifted me into his arms. The surviving soldiers stood in scattered groups, watching with complicated expressions. As we passed, an old soldier struggled with himself, then spoke.

“General… I told you on the way back. She is a southerner. She is under suspicion.”

“And I told you she is my woman. To suspect her is to suspect me.” Holding me like a lion facing down hyenas, Chen Dong swept his gaze across them. “The third time I have to say this, there will be blood.”

His force had lost three-tenths of its men and most of its supplies. They decided to march north to Nancheng and join the King of Northern Qian.

All along the road, I felt the soldiers’ hostility. Chen Dong’s elite army had two parts. One consisted of the men who had followed him through his conquests. The other belonged to Danchi and had been placed under Chen Dong temporarily for the campaigns against Linnan and Linbei. These men were loyal to the king and fervently supported Danchi’s policy of slaughtering every southerner under heaven.

In their eyes, Chen Dong’s failure to execute the prisoners had directly caused their losses. During the search for the spy in their camp, some had urged him to kill every suspect, and he had refused. Now they blamed the disaster on his weakness. The mood in the army grew dangerous.

Chen Dong kept me at his side every moment. One night, when we were alone, I tried to speak. He cut me off coldly.

“Say nothing. If anyone asks, tell them nothing. That includes me.”

We reached Nancheng.

Part of Linnan and an important crossroads, it had once been immensely rich and prosperous. War had reduced it to burned walls. Chen Dong led us into the only intact mansion. Northern Qian soldiers guarded the courtyard, where bloody animal hides hung amid what had once been carved railings and jeweled masonry. Several mastiffs gnawed unidentified white bones between their forepaws, black eyes gleaming.

For an instant, I failed to recognize Danchi. In my memory, he had been sinister and vicious but still a man in his prime. Only six or seven years had passed, yet he had become a bloated old man with thinning hair and sagging flesh. A woman of Southern Xu sat on his lap and fed him wine from her mouth.

“We pay our respects to the king,” Chen Dong said, bowing with his men.

Danchi looked at him drunkenly, kicked the woman from his lap, and rose. “My little colt has returned. Let me look at you… Mm. You’ve grown thin.”

Chen Dong frowned. “My king, you should not drink so much during the day. It is bad for your health.”

“You call southern wine wine? It is sweet water. My son doesn’t know how to enjoy himself.”

Chen Dong said nothing. Danchi sat again. “I hear my son recently let several prisoners escape.”

“This subject was incompetent and fell for a southern trick.”

Danchi did not answer. Tension tightened the room.

Then he laughed. “Incompetent? Who dares call my son incompetent? The general who conquered half a realm for his father? I would kill anyone who said it.” His eerie laughter echoed through the empty house and dragged me back to that palace banquet years ago.

He had laughed the same way then.

“But you should not defy me.” The laughter vanished. Danchi stared at Chen Dong, eyes bulging. “Did I not order you to kill every southerner you found? Only then will they fear us!”

“And I told you Southern Xu is not a tribe of our grasslands. Its people cannot all be killed. Southern Xu was rich because its people understand farming, craft, and learning. Slaughter cannot give us those things. It only breeds more stubborn resistance. I lost a hundred thousand men taking Linbei. I persuaded Linnan to surrender without losing one. If sparing southerners saves the lives of Northern Qian’s warriors, what is wrong with killing fewer of them?”

I had never heard Chen Dong speak so many words at once.
The King of Northern Qian tilted his head. “What is your name?”

What?

I looked up and realized he was staring at me.

“This servant… this servant is called Zhou Xiaoxi.”

“Raise your head.”

His unreadable gaze rested on me. My heart nearly stopped.

He had glimpsed me only once at a palace banquet, when I was nine – a round, pampered princess. Now I was sixteen and dressed in rags. Even with an extraordinary memory, how could he connect the girl before him to a princess of a fallen realm? My brother had prepared false corpses for us. To the world, Princess Xihe and Crown Prince Xia Wan had died long ago.

But what if…

Danchi stared, then smiled greedily. “In more than forty years, I have never seen such a beautiful woman.”

Chen Dong stepped subtly between us. He said nothing. Danchi continued staring past him, almost entranced. “What is she like in bed? How does she sound when – ”

“My king.” Chen Dong raised his voice. “The men are exhausted from the road. I will take them to rest.”

“Wait,” Danchi said. “There is a banquet tonight. I have invited an honored guest. You will attend.” His gaze returned to me, and he smiled. “Xiaoxi will come too.”

The northern army had commandeered civilian homes. I held the roster and helped Chen Dong assign quarters, but my hands would not stop shaking. Danchi’s lecherous gaze coiled through my mind like a venomous snake. I had thought all I endured had left me beyond fear. I was wrong. This terror seemed carved into me.

Chen Dong did not look at me. He marked the roster with exacting care. Beneath the table, however, his hand found mine and closed around my icy fingers.

His palm was large and warm. Clinging to that warmth, I finally stopped trembling.

It took all afternoon to account for every soldier. I rose to close the door. “It is almost time for the banquet. Let me help the general prepare…”

Chen Dong suddenly caught my wrist and pinned me against the door. His breath mingled with mine. I stared at him.

“The king wants you. Are you going to serve him?” he asked quietly.

Tears rose at once. The fear in my bones nearly stole my voice. “I am your woman. You said so. You cannot break your word – ”

He silenced me with a fierce kiss.

“You are my woman,” he said, holding my gaze. “You never have to be afraid. Remember that.”

The door shook behind me. I bit my lip against my tears, half from shame and half from the overwhelming force of the moment.

“Say it.”

At his harsh insistence, I finally cried, “I am your woman. Yours…”

He tore open my collar and pressed his mouth to the scar on my shoulder. “When we return to Northern Qian, I will lock you away where no one else can see you. All you will have to do is bear my children.”

The absurd encounter somehow calmed my panic. Afterward, I even had the composure to choose a southern robe for him. Tall and long-legged, he looked unexpectedly dashing in it. The pale pattern softened him, lending him something of a handsome youth.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked.

“Because the general is handsome.” I smiled. “White suits you. It makes you look younger.”

“I am not old,” he muttered. “I am nineteen.”

My hands stopped. “Nineteen?”

Northern features were strong, and a life of sun and wind made people look older. I had guessed he was under thirty, but nineteen?

“I began commanding troops at thirteen. Northern men start households early. Some become fathers at sixteen.”

“Then why have you…” A laugh escaped me before I swallowed it.

“Are you mocking me? I won’t let you leave the house again!” Annoyed, he pushed me onto the bed and bit my shoulder.

That spot had never been sensitive before, but he had developed a habit of biting it whenever we were intimate. Now even a touch made my pulse flutter. I twisted away. “General, stop playing.”

“My grandmother said sleeping with women shortens a man’s life. The king ruined his health by sleeping with too many.”

I laughed until I doubled over. “Then the general had better stay far away from me.”

“No.” He bit my shoulder again in petty revenge. “For you, I am willing to lose years.”