Her eyes blinked open, the redwood ceiling slowly thickening before her. Then, a pale face with thin, pinkish lips and ink-bck hair slid into view past the bedposts.

  ‘Hey,’ the Third Princess smiled. An infuriatingly pleased tone tinted her words. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Three croaked with a twisted smile, ‘Absolutely terrible, Yo —’ at the princess’s frown, she quickly corrected herself, ‘I feel horrible, Master.’ She flinched — pain sparked up her throat, pulling a furrow between her brows.

  ‘Good.’ The princess crossed her arms and leaned back out of sight. ‘Well, you won’t die.’

  Forcing a few more coughs, the close-to-death guard smiled back, a jaw-spasming sweetness in her narrowed eyes. ‘Gd to disappoint.’

  The princess smashed a pillow into her face. ‘Shut it,’ the woman hissed.

  She pushed off the linen cushion and raised a brow.

  ‘…Fine, it isn’t an order.’

  Grinning, Three pushed herself up to sit, the muscles flexing in her arms.

  The fabric under her was a bleached white, worn out but soft and warm. Beside her was a small table, and at the foot of the bed an empty ceramic chamber pot. Her bck robes had been changed into pin grey innerwear, the robe’s pels sliding down her chest with a deep split.

  She slowly turned to the princess.

  The woman had changed out of her mourning garb; she wore a blue qixiong ruqun, the long ankle-length skirt tied above the chest. Her hair, once perpetually in a half-up, half-down bun was now all gathered into a high ponytail. The ribbon holding it all up was a simple white — from the frayed end, it was likely the same one she had worn when eating that hound’s meat.

  Absolutely gorgeous.

  But then the grin fell from Three’s face.

  ‘Hey.’ Her fingers clenched on her bnket. Its ftness was crushed into messy, crumpled folds. ‘How… long has it been? What happened?’

  ‘You’ve been unconscious for a day and a half,’ the princess said. ‘With you able to do nothing but cry and drool, I had to drag your dead weight to the capital city. We’re in an inn right now.’

  ‘…I see.’ She pushed the bnket off her body and held her hands up.

  The afternoon light from the window behind her streamed in, nding in the furrows and scars of her fingers. She opened her fist, then closed it; the numbness she once had was gone. In its pce was a jittery soreness, like the joint of a rusted metal wheel.

  ‘What did you do?’ She bent over a little, spine curving. ‘How… did you make me survive?’ Her throat rolled, her swallow dry and prickly. ‘That poison… was not a merciful one.’

  ‘I got you out and into the city, for starters.’

  ‘How? I must’ve been heavy.’

  ‘You were.’ The princess’s voice quieted. ‘It was my father who helped me. He… got me a horse.’

  Three’s eyes widened.

  Really?

  ‘Then, I went to a few physicians.’ The princess stood and picked up an earthen bowl, the contents still steaming. ‘They essentially threw whatever they had at you. Anti-venoms, for one. Acid neutralisers. A lot of powders, some liquids, a pster over your left arm. They also used some dianxue techniques, using acupuncture to numb your pain.’ The woman then lifted the wooden spoon; those thin lips parted and gently blew away the steam. ‘They didn’t do much more after that. They said that your body could… handle the rest. That you had a strong lifeforce.’

  Three could only ugh, ‘I love life far too much.’ Besides, with such great eye-candy with her, how could she bear to die?

  ‘It was your… “Fifth Sister”, wasn’t it?’ The tip of the spoon pushed against her lips. ‘The poisons woman.’

  She froze. The breath she’d been about to breathe was caught in her throat, the end of it strangled into pce by her heart.

  Ah.

  Right.

  Let herself breathe out. She took the spoon into her mouth, the watery porridge running over her tongue. It had the stinging spiciness of ginger. Swallowed. ‘Yeah,’ she said. Her lips trembled, so badly she had to weld them shut with her muscles. It was as though she was there, but not quite there — as though her body was a skin draped over her soul. ‘It was. She wanted to kill me.’

  ‘…On orders?’

  A burning lit up her eyes, her nose. The shapes of her face curled, scrunching up, her spine colpsing around her legs. She whispered, ‘No.’

  It was because I killed Six.

  Breathless. Empty. It was as though her lungs were growing in her stomach; when that thought smmed into her, it had stolen both her clean air and water’s cool.

  The princess sighed. Then, she pushed her bowl of congee into Three’s hands. ‘Eat. Fill your stomach.’

  Three took it. The heat of it burned into the calluses on her fingers, both painful yet soothingly warm. ‘You’re not… angry?’

  ‘About what? That you were a burden for so long?’

  She bit down on her lips. ‘…Yes.’

  ‘With my identity, I should be.’ The woman said, ‘However, it’s just… it’s too shameless.’

  Her fingers whitened on the bowl. ‘But I killed your mother.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I tried to let you die, too.’ Her head tilted down. She didn’t dare to look up. ‘You’re going to kill me one day.’

  ‘Mm.’ The princess walked to the door, pale fingers wrapping around the handle. ‘But I’m not going to. At least, not right now.’

  ‘Because…?’

  ‘I want to live.’ The princess opened the door and slid out. Just before it shut, her tired voice whispered, ‘Our lives are intertwined.’

  *

  The night was crisp.

  Three breathed it in, the chill of the air and the faint starlight.

  The moon was bold, a hard sphere but softly a white-yellow; she pictured that if she were to touch it, it would be as gentle as the feathers on a swallow’s belly.

  ‘I never knew the moon could look like this,’ the princess said. The blue of her robes fluttered in the breeze, as though dancing with the autumn leaves. If she were any blurrier, any thinner, perhaps she would be a strange dream, like a goddess about to ascend to the heavens. Perhaps she would leave the red dust of the mortal world entirely. ‘It had always been as small as a peach pit. In the Northern Pins, that is.’

  ‘Really? Is the moon very different in the north?’ Three walked over, joining her to lean on the railing. The wood, stained a dark, cinnabar red, sent little chills up her arms; on her back, the eyes of the inn room behind them, cavernous and dark. Those shadows clung to her. She would never be rid of it, that she knew.

  ‘Yes. The moon there was always very small, but so very bright. Sometimes, it could even make the snow capable of blinding.’ A tiny, disgusted smile graced the woman’s lips; never before had she ever seen the other so rexed, yet so… twisted. ‘The Northern Pins makes everything seem small.’ Then, a harsh chuckle. ‘It makes you feel smaller than an ant.’

  She cupped her chin in her hand. Below, the river of people streamed away — if it was any more crowded even a turtle could outrun the strolling people’s pace. ‘That sounds nice. Being small is nice.’

  ‘Why?’ The princess sneered, ‘Being small means anyone can crush you. What is point of such an existence?’

  ‘Because it’s simpler.’ She straightened a little, her head raising in height. ‘You don’t need to think too much. You have food, you’re happy. If you hurt, you’re sad. Wouldn’t appreciating life be so much easier?’

  ‘That’s like taking an exam,’ said the princess, rolling her eyes, ‘and saying your expectation is “more than a one out of a hundred”. You truly have no ambition.’

  ‘Master,’ Three snickered, ‘you do know my profession, right?’

  The princess fell silent. ‘I suppose I do.’

  The quiet wrapped around them, gentle and soft. It reminded Three of the st fsh of warmth before freezing to death. She knew she would die; she knew it was false, fleeting, an illusion, but she would still embrace it. Even if only because it was the only warmth she could cling onto with her fires taken away.

  Four was rotting.

  Two was missing.

  Six was dead.

  Five would kill her. One would watch her.

  And Seven?

  She could still see his smile, his crazed ughter. His emaciated, skeletal form.

  But she couldn’t cry. There was no time to cry. She still wanted to live. She wanted to ugh, to sing, to taste the fruits the world had to offer.

  To be a little happier. For a little longer.

  ‘Hey. Xi Qian’e. That’s your name, right? Can I call you that?’ She quickly added, ‘I can’t use your title right now, anyway. Not out here.’

  The Third Princess flinched. Then, a stiff nod.

  ‘I will serve you properly. Whole-heartedly.’ She fell to her knees — it was with a loud, painful thump, the impact shaking up her bones. ‘I will become whatever you want — a weapon, a spark, a pawn. Xi Qian’e, I will sughter your competition. But I just want one thing.’

  Could she have this one thing?

  Was it even possible?

  Was she even worthy?

  ‘When you decide to kill me,’ she whispered, ‘could you please tell me, one day in advance?’

  The stiffness, again. The smothering quiet, the gentle strangles. Then, a voice softer than the flutter of a swallow’s wings. ‘Why?’

  So that I can scream. So that I can cry. So that I can grieve.

  So that she could hold that calloused hand.

  ‘To make peace with myself,’ she said. ‘Xi Qian’e. Could we just… ignore everything? Forget it all? Could we pretend that nothing ever happened? Just, just until then?’

  Because if she’d never killed Jian Rongyi, if she’d never touched that bloodied tiger tally, if she’d never had her head smmed into the floor and fists sunken into her stomach —

  If she’d never been so scarred, never been so uneducated, never been so tiny and small, never been so repceable —

  Could she and Xi Qian’e, could a girl who wasn’t named Three and the woman who wasn’t called the Third Princess, could they have been, maybe, just possibly, in a different world with different settings and a different story, been close, closer than friends? Could she have died not from someone’s hands, someone’s knife, someone’s orders, but perhaps from a stroke, or senility, or illness, or maybe from falling down the stairs?

  The princess…

  Swallowed.

  Then, she nodded.