The empress ‘invited’ them to his residence before nightfall.

  It was a terrifyingly powerful, arrogant pce.

  The estate was less a pace and more a small city; it encircled a whole mountain peak, countless pagodas and gold-tiled eaves peeking out from the bricked walls. Flowers of all kinds, petals and sweet scents that Three couldn’t quite name filled the air with the tint of money, power, and a meticulous control.

  A shriek cut through the air — a maid fell from a nearby flowering tree, sending pink blossoms flying. Her partner, a young boy with honey skin and round, bright brown eyes caught her and shoved her back up.

  The girl whispered something back, to which the boy smiled. Then, she returned to her task — gently prying the flower petals open.

  ‘Leave it,’ the empress called. His bck silks swayed, the gold-embroidered birds fluttering with the breeze. Those birds were all perched on trees, unwilling to fly. ‘Let those trees bloom as they like.’

  The maid flinched. ‘But the emperor —’

  ‘Inform her that there’s no need.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty!’ The servants fled so quickly their footsteps didn’t leave traces in the gravel — it was as though a fire had been lit under their feet.

  The sunlight grew dim as a heavy, grey-stained cloud rolled over. Then it slid away, warmth gliding back into the sharp winter air.

  ‘She’s getting worse,’ the empress chuckled. He pinched a passing petal from the wind and murmured, ‘Now she must control even when my flowers will bloom.’

  She watched her princess and let his voice fizzle away like sea foam.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Xi Qian’e said, ‘might I know why I’ve been summoned here today?’

  The man shot the princess a chilling, piercing look.

  Then that snake-like gre withered away. ‘…My son is dead, little girl. And now, only your little Shadow Guard Three can kill the First Prince.’

  Grief had many forms, and Three had seem most of them in her handful of nineteen years. She’d seen tears, hysteria, calm, anger, desperation and denial.

  But she’d never seen it so dark before. Not on the empress’s face.

  His grief was a profound thing, some terrible, lurking mass that hid not in trembling lips or reddened eyes, but in the depths of his pupils and the way a gzed disregard of everything, even life itself, billowed around his head.

  It wasn’t even anger.

  It had gone beyond that.

  She couldn’t help but wonder — was this son of his worth so much more than his daughter? Or did he love not his children but the continuation of his and Her Majesty’s blood, all in the same body?

  …She didn’t understand.

  ‘I thought Her Majesty would’ve let you kill him directly, regardless of the competition’s rules,’ Xi Qian’e said. ‘After all, you didn’t hide your men when you tried to kill me.’

  ‘Indeed. But my men were acting on that prince’s orders. I was merely the… manpower. And now, after Xiao Lan’s death, she has forbidden me from interfering. I can’t harm the heirs or the guards. “Not even a hair,” she told me.’ The empress chuckled again, ‘She does not trust me to wield such power. Not anymore.’

  His gaze hardened. ‘I’m going to use you and your Three. You don’t have a choice here — either join me or die at the twin princes’ hands.’

  Xi Qian’e’s bck hair fluttered in the wind. ‘What do you have in mind?’

  *

  ‘You’re crazy, actually crazy,’ Three hissed. She helped her princess up into a willow tree as she scowled, ‘Are you even allowed to kill your competitors?’

  ‘Technically, yes.’ Xi Yu, with a bright smile on that damned face, plucked at a bowstring, an arrow between her teeth, a quiver at her waist. With a touch of awkwardness, she straddled a thick branch and pulled at her — or rather, Three’s — bck robes. ‘The emperor only said that imperial deaths must be a result of the heirs’ political power or servants. Not that we couldn’t personally kill.’ She fshed a smirk. ‘Murder isn’t exclusive to guards, you know. By the way, your clothes are too small. And it’s tight around the chest —’

  ‘Xi Yu, you might die today!’ Frustration burned in Three’s chest as she spat, ‘When the empress drives the princes and One here, the battle isn’t going to sit in pce for you, it’s not a beached fish —’

  ‘Three.’ Xi Qian’e cut her off, ‘I grew up on the battlefield. Perhaps I can’t wield a sword, chop with an axe, or swing a sabre and spear, but I’m telling you now: I was the best archer in the whole Northern Army. The army that’s, mind you, the biggest in the empire.’

  She fell silent.

  She clenched her fists.

  ‘…But, Xi Yu,’ she whispered, ‘what if you… get hurt?’

  ‘I won’t,’ said the princess. ‘I’ll be standing far, far away, and you’ll protect me, just like how One will protect both the First and Second Prince. I can distract him, or kill the princes, and you will kill them and protect me. Three, we’ll be a team. Understand?’

  ‘…Alright.’ She blew out a breath and smiled, ‘Fine. But at least let me teach you a few techniques to hide your breathing.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Three expined, ‘We don’t have a lot of time, so I won’t go in-depth. Just know that in all living beings, we have an energy called qi — our lifeforce, a power that can convey our emotions and intentions. It flows through vessels called meridians; you can consider them like blood vessels for qi. Understand?’

  The other nodded.

  She smiled. ‘When a mortal intentionally cultivates their qi, be it through practice, enlightenment, or consuming others’, we can train to maintain an excess of qi, lifeforce that we can use for a purpose other than simply existing. Don’t ever try to tap into your inherent capacity; if you lose too much qi, at best you’ll faint. At worst, you’ll shrivel up and die, with every bit of your body dead from starvation.’

  The other meekly nodded again.

  She continued, ‘Anyway, by giving emotion to our lifeforce, we give it intent — and it is that intent, that want, that gives us result.’

  ‘Like your qinggong?’

  ‘Yes, just like that. If I move my qi to my eyes with the right emotions, the right wants, I’ll have better sight. If my qi has anger and I stab someone, the wound might hurt more or stop it from healing. But doing it incorrectly will make you explode. Trying to heal yourself when angry might kill you, while attacking someone you love might backfire in a glorious explosion.’

  The princess flinched.

  ‘One habitually keeps his qi in his muscles and senses, so your breathing and heartbeat might catch his attention. To prevent this, you’ve got to feel the energy in your body and picture it wrapped around your skin like a bubble — and like how joy can express itself in a smile, use your qi to express your command to hide, to seal away your sound. A little thing like that.’

  ‘That’s not little.’

  ‘It is.’

  The princess snorted. ‘As if.’

  But then the other quieted down, like a cat slowly going to sleep. She waited and waited — and suddenly, Xi Yu’s heartbeat vanished, her breathing vanished, and it was as though the woman before wasn’t her princess but rather a painting.

  Unease, a bit of panic started to settle in on her skin —

  ‘I did it!’ Xi Yu beamed, the silence shattering with a pop. ‘I did it!’

  What a quick learner.

  She smiled. ‘Good. And hopefully, you won’t ever have to use this technique, but on the head — do you know your acupuncture points?’

  ‘Somewhat.’

  ‘Alright. So acupoints are important… “gates” for qi that lie on meridians. Hitting the right ones, or essentially blocking them off, can do things like numb pain, paralyse or kill. And there are three on the head — press them all at the same time, and your target will instantly die. Only if they have cultivated their qi to a certain capacity, though; you need to block off and build up enough to make the acupoint explode and kill them. Say, it’ll work on One, but not on a mortal servant — at most, you’ll just give them a bad headache.’

  She demonstrated on herself, miming the two points on the top of her skull and one at the connection between her neck and head. ‘Memorise it well.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Don’t get overconfident though.’ She stepped back and said, ‘When we go out to fight, if I find so much as a scratch on you, I’m going to dye your mourning robes a bright, bold green.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Xi Yu paused and said, ‘Three, I have an order for you.’

  Her stomach dropped. She knelt and bowed her head, ‘Yes, Your Highness.’

  A loud swallow.

  ‘Three, if I die, don’t… don’t kill yourself. Don’t prioritize me over yourself anymore.’

  Her head snapped up.

  Those red eyes glowed in the setting sun, warm like a fire with flickering embers. The bck robes, stretched tight over pale skin, couldn’t hide the princess’s pearly lustre, nor the smile that cut through her heart like the sharpest knife. Even that hair, bcker than ink and stronger than chains, softly rolled down rexed shoulders, Xi Yu’s beauty more terrible and tantalizing than even the willow’s long, gentle tresses.

  How could someone be so…

  ‘Xi Yu,’ she rasped, her voice hoarse and wet like powdered gss, ‘you said that you wouldn’t die.’

  ‘I won’t. But I want you to protect me, to work with me, to walk by my side, not because I’ve chained you to my side but because —’

  She reached up and pulled Xi Yu out of the tree, from that high branch and into her lowly arms. They wrapped their arms around each other, their bck hair mixing, her blue eyes locking onto the other’s red. Her heart, her chest, the mass in her stomach was rising and fraying and the afternoon sunlight was brighter than gold.

  ‘Because I care about you,’ she whispered. ‘Everything I do for you, is because I want to.’

  Something she’d never done before, had been allowed to do before.

  Excitement, ecstasy, adrenaline — it pumped in her blood, each breath ringing loud in her ears.

  ‘Exactly,’ Xi Yu said. ‘Took you long enough to realise, Chicken Feet.’

  And Three pressed a kiss onto the other’s lips.