by Jeannie Lin
Her brother stared at her, his eyes wide with shock. ‘Ai Li.’
This was the worst betrayal, the coldest, blackest thing she had ever uttered in her life. Honour and duty held them together. They each knew it from birth. To denounce her father, their family—hot tears burned in her eyes, but she couldn’t swallow the words and remain silent. She knew in her heart that everything she trusted was breaking apart and she couldn’t keep it whole. Not even here in Longyou.
She turned and fled from the altar room. Huang shouted after her, but she couldn’t stop. His words rang through the central courtyard.
‘Why are you chasing after a man who would not swear to you before your ancestors?’
She was going to Ryam, but not for the reasons her brother believed. She couldn’t stay after saying those unforgivable words aloud. Her insides shrivelled, leaving a hollow pit where her heart would be. If Father could ignore everything he had taught them about honour, if he could sacrifice their mother to secure the throne, then it all meant nothing. She could turn away as well.
Her footsteps echoed through the emptiness of the main hall. The Shen family was gone. There was nothing left but ghosts. If she stayed and married Li Tao, she would be a ghost as well, a meaningless phantom for the rest of her life.
She left the house through the side door and went to the stable, stepping around the mud near the entrance. From behind her, she heard her name in that slightly mispronounced way that was becoming so familiar.
‘Ailey?’
Ryam stood with his sword strapped to his side. Just the sight of him beat back the loneliness that had settled over her in her own home.
‘You thought I’d run.’ He folded his arms over his chest and indicated the stable with a tilt of his head.
‘You would never betray me like that.’
She was using his words, the words he had spoken to her the night before when he had held her and loved her. She went to him and his arms folded around her. She let herself sink against him, inhaling his masculine scent as she tightened her hold on him.
‘I wish I could be everything you needed me to be,’ he said against her hair.
She silenced him. ‘You are.’
While she held on to him the world stopped spinning. Ryam was the only one she had left, the only person she could trust. The memory of what they had shared flowed through her veins like quicksilver, emboldening her.
‘I’ll go with you to Yumen Guan,’ she said.
He turned to stone in her arms. The top of her head brushed against his chin as she glanced up at him. ‘We can’t stay here. I won’t stay here.’
His jaw tensed. ‘Ailey…’
She knew that tone. She had heard it all her life from her brothers and her parents. It was the warning tone that was meant to remind her she was too young, too impatient, too brash.
He let out a breath. ‘Are you certain?’
‘I’m certain.’
She had been holding her breath as well. She had denounced her family before her ancestors. If Ryam refused her, then she had no one left in the world.
‘We should go now, then,’ he said. He smiled at her surprise. ‘Once you have your mind set, you’ll go with or without me.’
That wasn’t true. She saw a new path in front of her, one she had never envisioned, and it was with him. She would never escape from the burden of her family while she remained here.
‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’
She ran back to the house to get her belongings and Ryam called out to her.
‘There’s more to this than you not wanting to marry Li Tao, isn’t there?’
He looked so solid and strong standing there in the light. Even if there was no Li Tao, she still couldn’t stay in Longyou any longer. There was so much to explain, so much she didn’t yet understand, but she knew it was right.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘There’s more.’
Chapter Seventeen
Within days they cleared the shelter of the mountains and rode into a land where the grass grew coarse and yellow before it disappeared completely. The span of the desert plains had always seemed a great emptiness to Ailey in the map room, but now she saw how the roads of the empire stretched on. The route was overgrown with thistle and wild crabgrass in places, but faint traces of the path would reappear as they continued.
Ailey had woken up that morning with Ryam beside her and the sky above. Even the most common things had seemed different. Maybe that was what she needed to do, transform herself into something new. Her father and mother had done it. Why not her?
The settlement ahead was too small to be considered a town. There were no permanent structures to be seen. It consisted of a series of wells lined with rocks. Traders gathered around the watering areas. The nomads and stragglers of the empire bought and traded goods in these border markets, never needing to venture into the cities of empire.
She wiped her brow with the edge of her scarf, leaving a smudge of dirt on the cloth. Once again, she’d traded her dress for a plain tunic. Silk had no place out here. The western frontier was an arid zone of dust and rock littered with the occasional oasis.
Ryam walked beside her as they led their horses around the edge of the settlement.
‘Look mean,’ he suggested with a grin.
She made a face at him.
She disliked the look of this market even more than the gambling den and the drinking house. Her butterfly swords were strapped at her belt for quick retrieval. In these lands, men wore their weapons openly. They were at the edge of the empire, an unknown place with a mix of people who spoke so many different dialects it was impossible to decipher the chatter.
Grandfather used to travel these lands in the days when the empire had sought to expand and reclaim the area controlled by previous dynasties. He had been called a vagrant and a barbarian at times, before becoming one of the great generals of the empire. She sought comfort in that part of her family history.
This was the first time she had set foot outside the boundary of her father’s rule. Out here, she could decide for herself what the future would hold. She had to keep on reminding herself of that as they roamed the unruly marketplace.
They stopped beside a shallow cistern to water the horses. Ryam hitched the reins to a post. His sandy hair was tossed and dusty from the wind. It somehow made his eyes appear bluer, like cool water in the desert plains.
‘Yumen Guan will be three days through the northern route. We’ll need water and food.’
‘Do many trade caravans from the empire go through there?’
‘Quite a few, though trade has been waning over the last year.’
It was impossible to be completely free of the empire. At any moment, she expected the imperial army to march through the plains to retrieve her. But Huang hadn’t chased after her and she was both relieved and saddened. Her brother knew that there was no way to bridge the rift she had created by refusing to marry Li Tao. He himself had told her to hide away until he could find a resolution. But she’d have no help any more, not from Huang or from her grandmother.
Ryam looked concerned. ‘How are you?’
She must have been doing a poor job of hiding her fears. ‘I’ve seen more of the empire in these last few weeks than I have in a lifetime.’
‘Don’t worry. Gansu isn’t as dangerous as they say.’
‘Let’s go quickly then.’
He wound her braid around his fingers and gave a small tug before letting go. She often wondered in the last few days whether she had insinuated herself into this journey. As a sixth child, she was adept at getting her way. But Ryam always managed to give her an unexpected look or touch that would immediately reassure her.
The next several days stretched open and empty, leaving too much space for her to wonder about Mother and Father and the imperial palace. The nights were easier when Ryam held her. He’d hold her and whisper stories in her ear about the places he’d been. A chill would set in the air once
the sun dipped behind the mountains and the wind rushed between them, making a lonely sound. She’d burrow closer to Ryam’s warmth and knew this was where she belonged.
On the third morning their horses plodded through the rubble of the gravel desert while Ryam pointed out the structures of mud and clay built into the cliffs that overlooked them.
‘Guard stations and forts,’ he explained. ‘The imperial army used to have garrisons far out into this pass during periods of expansion.’
‘Do you think my father will end the truce with the lost legion now? The shipment of weapons may put you all in danger, unless Father is convinced that Li Tao was the one to blame.’
‘Ailey.’ He pulled his mount closer to her. His leg brushed against hers. ‘Having you here is more likely to anger Emperor Shen than some skirmish with imperial soldiers. You’re going to need to make peace with him some day.’
She looked down. ‘What if there can be no peace?’
He had no answer for her, but she didn’t expect him to. She wanted to forget the complications of the empire out here, not wallow in them.
‘I have heard of this place in poems,’ she said, looking to the mountains. The peaks loomed to the north, austere and coal black, unlike the lush mountains of Longyou. ‘Yumen Guan is at the edge of the world, the last trace of civilisation before the road winds into barbarian lands of the desert.’
‘Trust me. There is a whole world beyond it.’
‘The land where you came from?’
‘And many other lands.’ Thankfully, he obliged her and stopped speaking about her father. ‘It took us over a year to reach the empire. We travelled across the lands of the Saracens, the Khazars, the Tibetans, fighting for our lives the entire way.’
‘You’re fortunate to have made it so far.’
It felt like fate for her to be here with Ryam. She’d always be thankful for the forces and accidents that had brought them together.
The Jade Gate emerged ahead, a great block of sandstone rising from the barren plain. The walls were made of rammed earth that had hardened to stone in the sun. A tower rose in several levels above the barricade. Ailey wondered if there had ever been other villages and settlements around the fortress as there were at other military passes throughout the empire. Yumen Guan was surrounded by marshland that teemed with reeds. A lone white bird lifted from the shallow water and took flight.
‘I didn’t think I’d make it back here before getting myself killed,’ Ryam said.
Something about his tone upset her. ‘Are you happy to be returning?’
‘It will be good to be back around familiar faces, though I don’t know if I’ll be welcomed after what’s happened.’
Ryam had grown tense the moment the fortress came into view. Did he consider the barren rock and marshland of the corridor to be home? She couldn’t stop the wave of homesickness that hit her.
Ailey spied the figures at the top of the battlements as they came closer. Other than the patrol, the fortress stood solitary and in ruin, a remnant of a past time when the empire had stretched its hands into the corridor and traded freely on the north and south roads.
A cry rang out as they reached the shadow of the walls. She heard Ryam’s name called and was shocked to see other men like him. The guards on top of the wall were also pale with the same rough features, though their hair was darker.
As she directed her mount across the threshold she couldn’t resist looking up. The legendary jade over the battlements was gone. Nothing decorated the walls of Yumen Guan but dust and time.
A deep voice rang across the bailey as they entered.
‘You didn’t get yourself killed after all.’
A mountain of a man came towards them and Ryam dismounted to greet him. His hair was coal black and his skin tanned. This was the barbarian prince they spoke about. He gripped Ryam in a brotherly embrace. She didn’t think anyone could appear imposing next to Ryam, but this man matched him in height, and his broad shoulders held the look of a warrior.
Adrian slapped Ryam across his back. ‘We thought you were dead.’
‘I thought I was too.’
The dark-haired barbarian looked towards her and grinned. ‘Well, nearly getting killed hasn’t changed you a bit.’
Ryam faced the other man with his spine rigid, unable to share in the spirit of the reunion. ‘The men under my command…you trusted me with them. I’m sorry.’
Adrian frowned. ‘They returned several weeks ago.’
‘Returned.’ Ryam’s jaw remained clenched tight. ‘That’s good. That’s good to hear.’
Adrian also seemed taken aback by Ryam’s sombre response. ‘No one knew what had happened to you.’
‘There was something I had to see to.’
The two men looked to her and she dismounted as they approached. She would have expected Ryam to be relieved that his men were safe, but his expression appeared distant and strained.
Soon the western prince was towering over her. His look wasn’t unkind, but she was suddenly intimidated in the presence of this warrior. This was truly a den of barbarians. She stood among men who held no loyalty to the empire.
She had chosen this, she reminded herself. She’d chosen to be with Ryam. She could handle whatever happened next as long as he was beside her. It would take time, that was all.
‘This is Ailey,’ Ryam began.
‘You do have the devil’s luck.’
Adrian punched Ryam’s shoulder and Ryam ran a hand over his neck sheepishly. They truly did seem like brothers.
‘Let me practise.’ Adrian surprised her by breaking into proper Hakka. It was the formal dialect of the court, spoken by ministers, scholars and nobility. ‘I am Adrian, family name Valderic. You honour us with your presence.’
In another land, he would be of equal class and standing as she. Ailey clasped her hands together in front of her, bowing low as required.
‘Shen Ai Li stands humbled before you.’
He paused, eyebrows raised. ‘Shen?’
The barbarian commander was an intelligent man. Legend had it that he had crossed swords with her grandfather, that he had marched on Changan alongside her father’s troops. With his immovable stature and the air of confidence, he reminded her immediately of the jiedushi who led the defence commands.
His scrutiny intimidated her and she launched into a long litany, telling him that she knew of his reputation and how honoured she was to be his guest and how she did not wish to bring any ill fortune upon him with her impertinent decision to come to Yumen Guan.
Adrian looked over to Ryam at a loss. ‘I’m going to need my wife to translate.’
‘Actually, Ailey understands everything you’re saying.’
Adrian’s gaze fixed on a point behind her and Ailey turned and found herself face to face with the woman who was responsible for putting her father on the throne.
Princess Miya was looking at her curiously. ‘What do I need to translate?’
She had expected a dragoness. A sharp-tongued, formidable shrew like Mother. Princess Miya was a slender, elegant woman who moved with effortless grace. She wore an elaborately embroidered silk robe as if she still held court in the imperial palace. Ailey had seen her only a handful of times at court and once at Longyou when they were children. Their fathers knew one another well, after all.
It was said that Miya never forgot a face. True to her reputation, her eyes widened with recognition.
‘Ai Li?’
The inescapable urge to bow tugged at Ailey’s neck.
‘Princess,’ Ryam interceded.
Miya glanced at him, a cynical smile on her lips. ‘Which princess do you mean?’
The Jade Gate had once functioned as a garrison for the soldiers guarding the nearby segment of the Great Wall before it was abandoned to the elements. Ryam walked beside Adrian to the fortress tower and into the chamber they used as a war room. Not that there was much war to be planned once they’d made a truce with the Emperor.
> It had been months since he’d seen Adrian, the man to whom he’d sworn loyalty. They’d spent years side by side, first defending the borders of their homeland and now fighting for survival in the frontier.
‘Did the men return unharmed?’ he asked.
‘We lost two.’
They both fell silent. Two more gone. Ryam was grateful that the others were alive, but he couldn’t absolve himself. It was a failure that he even had to ask about them. He had been put in command. He was responsible.
‘They were imprisoned under imperial jurisdiction,’ Adrian continued. ‘Miya had to intervene.’
‘She probably wasn’t happy about that.’
‘Neither am I. Every time the empire realises Miya still has influence in Changan, we all become targets. Tell me about your princess,’ Adrian said.
His princess. As if Ailey could ever belong to him. ‘I didn’t realise who she was at first. She was hiding from a warlord.’
And when he had learned the truth, they were both in too deep to turn away. There was no way to explain that to Adrian. His ties to Ailey had nothing to do with reason or duty or survival. He simply needed to be near her.
Adrian looked grim. ‘That weapons shipment nearly sparked a war. The empire is wary of all its alliances right now. It looks bad for us with Shen’s daughter here.’
‘It’s not as if she’s our prisoner.’
‘Shen won’t see it that way.’
‘Then I’ll take her somewhere else. Somewhere safe.’
It took Ryam a moment to realise what he’d suggested. Could he abandon the legion now, after all they’d been through? It was his actions that had turned the empire’s attention back on them. He had pushed their fragile peace to breaking point.
‘I’ll fix this,’ Ryam said. ‘I don’t know how, but I’ll figure this out. If you force her to return to Emperor Shen, she’ll flee. I know that already.’
‘I wasn’t going to force anything,’ Adrian replied. ‘I can see what she means to you.’
