Of all her sworn siblings, Three held Four closest to her heart. He was like a brother, a friend, something that was too immature to be like a father yet was her pilr of support and a confidant. A role model of sorts, if role models liked to shove you into mud as a ‘reflex test’.

  She had met him on her Ripening day, right after she killed her Stem.

  The rain had poured back then.

  It couldn’t wash away the blood on her face, or on her hands. Kneeling by the woman’s corpse, she had stared emptily at the void in those bck, dead eyes, slowly letting the cold seep into her bones. The woman’s copper-bck hair mixed with the dusted mud of the gravel, a white earring glinting by a shattered left ear.

  Chilly.

  She held the woman’s hand, clenching those dead fingers as though they could pull her out from a nightmare. Like she could somehow warm up those fingers in this heavy rain, and that warmth would make her heart beat again.

  The cold was numbing.

  A few footsteps spshed through the rain, each accompanied by a sloshing of dusty water. Those steps were kicking through puddles but moved with the timing of a folk song.

  Then, a coat dropped over her shoulders.

  A boy’s ugh.

  ‘I’m Four,’ the boy said. His thin, scrawny body pressed against her side. ‘And you’re the new Three.’

  She didn’t say anything. She still gazed down on the dead woman, her heart a burning piece of ice. The wet of the fur cloak’s hem stuck to her neck — the stickiness of it brought a numb itching to her skin.

  ‘What made you kill your Stem?’ A thin but firm hand fell on her shoulder. ‘You seemed adamant on Tying, before. Unless… she betrayed you at the st minute, right?’

  Her hand clenched around the dead woman’s fingers.

  The boy sighed.

  He pulled her into a hug.

  His pyful voice floated over her head, ‘Alright, kid. You’re my little sister now, so have a good cry. Your gege won’t ugh at you, promise.’

  She let him hold her, then turned to the corpse.

  She tried to speak, but no words would leave her throat. But even if they did, they would be rusted from neglect.

  Utterly useless, utterly worthless.

  ‘I… liked her,’ she signed. Her fists moved in a strange, slow flurry. ‘I thought I was in love with her. But I still killed her.’

  He ruffled her hair. Then he squatted down to face her, holding out his twisting fingers. ‘That’s alright,’ he signed. ‘We’re guards, after all. Just ignore all of it.’

  She froze. She looked up at him.

  ‘We can never escape an order. We can never own ourselves.’ His hazel eyes peered down into hers, a soft smile in her face. His hands fluttered like moths and butterflies. ‘But we can still cry. If you’re ordered to cut off an arm, just stab down and cry. If you loved that woman, but was ordered to kill her, just do it and cry after. That’s alright. That’s the best we can do. All we can, really.’

  She paused. ‘All I can do…?’

  ‘Learning to ignore,’ he signed with a smile, ‘is a mandatory quality for a shadow guard. That’s why I’m Four. And that’s why you’re Three. Because we can learn to let our passions cool.’

  She seized him hard, burying her face in his skinny chest.

  Took a deep breath, hands fisting in the back of his robes.

  Then she screamed. She screamed her grief as though to break the sky. She cried so terribly she might’ve dissolved the coat resting on her shoulders.

  Four patted her back in silence.

  And that day, the screaming girl Ripened into Three amid the sobbing rainfall.

  That boy became her Si-ge, her fourth brother in a family of shadow guards.

  But…

  Would she have to kill him, too?

  *

  It was a long time ter that the princess’s lesson ended.

  The moment it ended, Three dashed outside to wait for the princess.

  In the shade of the maple trees, she stood quietly, avoiding the other servants and attendants awaiting their masters.

  Four was nowhere to be seen. Neither were her other siblings.

  …That was good.

  The Third Princess was one of the first to leave. She walked with a seemingly gentle stride but moved faster than a rabbit scenting a fox. She reached out —

  And her porcein hand gripped a scarred wrist.

  Three’s eyes widened.

  The princess pulled her away into the noon sun.

  The green jasmine leaves were bleached copper by the warm light of the sun. It was enough to bring a pleasant burn to Three’s neck, her wrist still csped by the cold chill of the smooth hand around hers.

  Honestly, it was rather surprising, how everything about the princess screamed weakness.

  It was in the softness of her steps, confined by court etiquette; in the pale, sickly hue of her skin; in the dewy gentleness of her eyes.

  But at the same time, she was so, very strong.

  Like when she pushed Three into a tree.

  ‘And what,’ the shadow guard drawled, ‘was that for?’ The bark tugged at her already near-deceased hair; a few more tugs and perhaps she would only dare to disguise herself in the future as a monk.

  ‘Get that sappy look off your face,’ the princess hissed. ‘You look utterly pathetic. What happened when I was in css?’

  Three froze. She said, ‘I — well. I snuck into the building’s roof…’

  ‘And? Spit it out.’

  ‘I met Four,’ she whispered.

  The princess tensed. Fear, unease, a shivering nervousness. ‘And then?’

  ‘He told me that it would be alright. If we killed each other.’ She paused, then added, ‘He told me to stay away from the Winter Pavilion.’

  Surprise hit the princess’s coal eyes. ‘He would… let you kill him? And leak information?’ Then, a hardening. ‘Aren’t shadow guards —’

  ‘Your Highness,’ Three said, ‘we have hot, beating hearts too. All we can do is set them aside to cool.’

  Those hands on her wrists froze, then gently let her go.

  The guard and her master shared three small breaths in silence.

  ‘…I see.’ Her master straightened, then turned to walk away. ‘Well, it doesn’t change any pns. Let’s go stand up my eldest cousin.’