There is blood in the water.
At A-Ning’s gasp, Wen Qing jerks around. She’s been staring at the smudge of dark grey in the sky above their destination, dread curling through her just like the smoke. But she is always attuned to her brother, listening and watching for any sign of distress or fear, so she hears the small, horrified sound over the lapping of water against the sides of their small boat. She’s been on edge the whole trip, her body tense with fear, but her muscles feel carved out of stone at the look on A-Ning's face as he stares into the water. She follows his gaze, and the late afternoon sun dazzles her eyes for a moment before she makes out the tendrils of red in the green water, twisting like smoke between the reeds.
A-Ning’s hands tighten around the guide pole, stock still as the boat drifts around the mass of reeds and the body comes into view. Floating face-down, dark hair drifting in the current, purple robes stained with that particular shade of red-brown that Wen Qing knows so well. Even through the thick wet-vegetation smell of the lakes, a hint of iron reaches her.
When A-Ning’s hands go slack, she only just manages to catch the pole before it slides into the water. He is the son and grandson, brother and cousin of doctors; he has been around blood and other frailties of the body since before he could walk. One more corpse should not drain the color from his cheeks. But Wen Qing does not chastise him, not only because every decision she has made since she was seven years old has been to preserve his tender heart, but also because she finds herself more unnerved than she should be. From the moment word reached them that Wen Chao was marching on Lotus Pier, she had known what they would find here. Somehow, that does not make it easier to see it.
“No,” she says, voice barely audible over the water, the drone of insects, the cry of water fowl. A-Ning freezes where he is reaching down to the body, then looks up at her with a pleading face. “She is dead,” Wen Qing says, again pitching her voice so that it does not travel across the water. “We can do nothing for her.”
The beginnings of obstinacy dawn on his face, a foreshadowing of the same kind of expression that had been there this morning. The one that has brought them to this place, now, where there is blood in the water and smoke on the breeze, instead of safely back at the newly-established Yiling Supervisory Office. As soon as A-Ning had heard the news, that expression had settled into place, and she felt her heart clench in her chest. He doesn’t make that face often, but when he does, there is no arguing with him. She had flat-out forbidden him to go, and he had just looked at her with those steady eyes, gaze unwavering. She could have begged, but she knows him so well—he would have snuck off as soon as her back was turned. At least she’d been there when the messenger arrived—if she hadn’t, A-Ning would have just disappeared and she would have worried herself sick until he returned. At least this way, she could insist on going with him, on dismounting from their swords while they were still several li away, on sneaking up to the back of Lotus Pier in a little corracle. It was the right choice—Wen Chao’s soldiers are not watching the waters as they are the sky. It had been easy, to find the boat, to steer it towards Lotus Pier. They are so close now.
“I thought you wanted to check on your Wei-gongzi?” she says now, and the beginnings of stubbornness melt from his face, replaced by anxiety.
“Mm. Wei-gongzi first.”
Despite his fear, his eyes are still hopeful. She wishes she shared that hope, but there is little chance that laughing, careless Wei Wuxian is safe. Or Jiang-guniang, with the soft smiles she offered in Cloud Recesses despite how Wen Qing rejected her overtures of friendship. Or Jiang-gongzi, who had looked at her like—
“Silence now,” she says. “We’re close.”
A-Ning gives her a nod and takes the pole, steering them towards Lotus Pier. This is a pointless undertaking, Wen Qing is sure, but if her brother insists on putting himself in danger, she will at least be there to stop him from sacrificing himself for someone else.
They glide through the reeds and the bunches of lotus, along the cool green water, and Wen Qing tries to ignore the dread rising in her throat.
It’s as bad as she’d feared. Blood everywhere, banners ripped down, furniture kicked over, the scent of smoke clogging the air. She and A-Ning move silently along the criss-crossing piers that connect the buildings, and she can’t stop herself from thinking that this place, before, must have been very beautiful.
It’s a horror now, a horror reflected in A-Ning’s face. But she has taught him well, and he’s quiet as they go, avoiding the soldiers with skill. The time may come to announce themselves, make use of their rank, but she’d rather get a sense of the situation first, and drawing attention to themselves is always the last resort.
Despite the blood, there are no bodies, and fewer Wen soldiers than she had expected. The reason becomes clear as they near the front of the complex, the buildings growing more ornate and public-facing. The smell of smoke is thicker here, a haze in the air, and the sounds of shouted commands and gloating intensify with every step they take.
Her sharp eyes catch on a narrow, dark pier between buildings, no doubt used by servants when they need to be unobtrusive. A touch of her hand guides A-Ning inside and they follow it, the echoes of a conquering army steadily growing louder.
At the end of the corridor is a latticed screen, intricate lotus blossoms carved into the dark wood. Through the little gaps, she can see what must be the Jiang’s central hall.
Another room that must have been beautiful, which makes the rows of bloody corpses laid out on the floor even more jarring. There are so many of them—some very small. She clenches her fists till her carefully-trimmed nails dig into her palms, holding onto the bite of pain. She had known, of course. She is not naive, and she’s known for years now, where Zongzhu’s path was leading. But it is another thing to see it.
A-Ning trembles beside her, his breath ragged, but he doesn’t make another sound, craning his head to better see the bodies. Her own gaze follows his, moving over row after row of unfamiliar faces, interrupted here and there by the sick recognition of some disciple or servant who had been at Cloud Recesses. It’s a particular shock to see both Jiang Fengmian and his wife, hands clasped in death. She’s only seen them once or twice before, but she knows who they are immediately, blood smearing their mouths, angled toward each other.
“He’s not here,” A-Ning breathes, relief shaking his voice. “Wei-gongzi is not here.”
No. Wei Wuxian’s is not among the bodies nor among the little knot of servants huddled together in a corner, weeping—mostly young women, who know exactly what happens to young women at the hands of soldiers. Jiang-guniang is not there either, Wen Qing notices with a surge of relief so strong it almost makes her knees weak—she doesn’t think her cousin would offend the whole jianghu by defiling the gentle daughter of the Jiang, but she doesn’t know for certain. There are few things Wen Chao wouldn’t sink to, and knowing that he does not have Jiang-guniang in his filthy hands is a mercy, however small amidst all this blood.
And Wang Liangjiao—she is moving between the bodies with a smug glee on her face that churns Wen Qing’s stomach. A woman like that would not be merciful towards a woman like Jiang-guniang. She might be even worse than Wen Chao.
But somehow, impossibly, the heirs and their brother must have escaped. Relief seeps into her body, cool and clean. There is no reason for them to stay. She can take A-Ning and get him out of here, back to the relative safety of Yiling.
She is turning away when she hears A-Ning’s strangled intake of breath. She spins around, eyes scanning the room again—
How had she missed it? They have him strung up in the shadow of the throne, slumped in chains that must be reinforced if they can hold a cultivator. But Jiang Cheng doesn’t look like a cultivator now. Hair falling down across his slack face—he’s unconscious, not dead, she can tell that from here—arms stretched above his head and bound at the wrist, his fine silks ripped to shreds and stiff with blood.
“Jie—”
“No,” she hisses. They have to leave. It doesn’t matter that she is a doctor and her hands itch to cut away the remnants of this boy’s robes and tend to his wounds. It doesn’t matter that she knows that, under his scowls, Jiang Cheng is good, as full of desperate love for his siblings as she is for her own. It doesn’t matter how he looks at her. It doesn’t matter that Wang Liangjiao still has a discipline whip in her hand or that Wen Chao will execute the new Jiang-zongzhu when he and his minions tire of torturing him.
What matters is A-Ning beside her and her grandmother, her aunts and uncles and cousins and childhood friends back at Dafan. Their safety first. Always. No one else matters. No one else can be allowed to matter.
“But, jie, they’ll kill him!” A-Ning whispers.
She doesn’t know whether what she’s feeling is terror or irritation. “And if we try to stop him, that will be treason.” Even Zongzhu’s soft spot for her—even her own expertise, cultivated for so long to render her indispensable—would not save her then. And it definitely would not save A-Ning, who is tolerated merely out of deference to her.
“To not do something, when we could—”
She knows how this argument goes. They’ve had it before. And part of her knows he is right. She will have to live with the knowledge that she left a good person to die. Worse, that it was Jiang Cheng, who looked at her with awe in his eyes.
But she will live with it. She can live with anything, for her family.
“We can do nothing. Let’s go.” She reaches out to grab his arm, pull him back through the corridor to safety. But then she freezes, numb hand falling to her side.
Wen Chao is sauntering into the hall, Wen Zhuliu his shadow as always. She has hated her cousin since he bullied A-Ning as a child, but right now her loathing is a volcanic thing, lava in her veins The way he gloats at the corpses, the way he steps on the hand of a child, the way he kicks Jiang Fengmian as he passes, the leering eye he runs over the huddle of weeping girls—how can she share blood with this? How can she bear the same name?
He comes to a stop in front of Jiang Cheng. She can’t see his expression from this angle, but she can imagine it. Her stomach roils.
“So, Jiaojiao, have you finished with this one?”
Wang Liangjiao sniffs, coming to join him. “It stopped being fun when he stopped screaming.”
Wen Qing could make her scream. So easily. With her knowledge, she could keep this loathsome woman in pain for months. Years. The rest of her miserable little life.
“Do you want another round when he wakes up again?”
“No, I’m through. He’s boring. What I really want is that Wei Wuxian. Or the sister. Get them for me, won’t you?” she simpers, batting her eyelashes.
“We’ll find them soon,” Wen Chao answers, and the way he says it is so ugly that it drowns out any relief Wen Qing might feel at the confirmation that the other two are still free. “I wonder if they’ll scream like this one did when I first whipped him?” His laughter, joined by Wang Liangjiao’s titters, is the ugliest sound Wen Qing has ever heard.
She burns with fury as her cousin reaches up and grabs a handful of Jiang Cheng’s hair, jerking his lolling head around to better see that pale, blood-splattered face. “There’s only one bit of fun left to be had with this one. Wen Zhuliu?”
“No.” Before she even realizes what is happening, Wen Qing finds herself stepping out from behind the lattice. Wen Chao and his bitch and his dog spin to face her, the other soldiers in the room grabbing their swords. Behind her, she hears A-Ning gasp.
“What do you mean, ‘no,’ little cousin?” Wen Chao demands, eyes narrowing dangerously as he recognizes her, and it slams into Wen Qing in that moment: what this is. What she has done.
But Wen Zhuliu had stepped forward, raising his hand to Jiang Cheng’s limp body. And that sight—and the knowledge of what would happen next—had propelled her forward without thought.
If Wen Chao killed Jiang Cheng, that would haunt her for the rest of her life. But she could live with it, just as she had lived with ugly things before—just as she will live with many more in the future. But to stand by and see another cultivator’s core destroyed—the sacrilege of that—
Wen Qing is not cowed by many things, but Wen Zhuliu’s special ‘talent’ has always repulsed her so much that it overrides even her medical curiosity. The knowledge of what he can do horrifies her so much that she hasn’t even been able to bring herself to study him. She’s never seen it happen, has only heard second-hand tales of battlefields she had nothing to do with. She has not been able to wipe it from her mind, her knowledge of what he has done, but she has compartmentalized it till she only thinks of it when the man is in front of her.
But this. To see him do it, to see him do it to Jiang Cheng—
“Surely my little cousin hasn’t turned up here to defend Jiang dogs?” Wen Chao demands, and she is standing on the edge of a precipice. If she does not play this right, she will have destroyed everything she has labored her whole life to build. She will forfeit her life, and worse, the lives of those she loves.
But she has worked since she was a child to maintain her equanimity, both as a doctor and as a vulnerable pawn in the hands of powerful men. Her composure is waiting for her, and she pulls it on, feeling the cool strength of it settle around her shoulders as she lifts her chin.
“I want this one.”
Wen Chao blinks. “What?”
“I want Jiang Wanyin.” Off his blank look, she clarifies. “Zongzhu has promised me a cultivator to experiment on.” He has done no such thing, but he would, if she asked. “I will find new ways to fight this war and destroy the enemies of the Wen.” She will do no such thing, but Wen Chao doesn’t need to know that. “Zongzhu would not be pleased if you waste a golden core like that.” For all he is outshone by his brother and the Twin Jades, Jiang Cheng is strong, much stronger than the average cultivator. If she was going to experiment, see all the ways to break down a cultivator, he would be a good specimen.
It is a good argument, but Wen Chao hates being defied in public. “You can find a different one. We’ll be capturing all the heirs of all the sects.”
“No. I want this one.”
“Why?”
“He will make a good specimen,” she says, and doesn’t even hate herself for saying it. “And afterwards,” she adds, looking over Jiang Cheng, letting her eyes rove over his body, “he will have…other uses.”
She cannot leer. It would not fit the persona she has worked so hard to maintain, the one that balances the competence of a doctor with the grace of a woman. It has been difficult to walk that line, to be pretty and feminine enough that she doesn’t alienate Zongzhu, but professional enough that she is taken seriously. Part of that persona is a certain kind of sexlessness that has served her well.
Men despise women they desire, she learned that at a young age. And so she has made herself into something else. It has protected her, this person she has crafted, and it has left her to focus on medicine. People look at her and see not a woman, but a doctor, and that is exactly as she wants it. Never has she wanted to be seen as a woman.
And only Jiang Cheng has looked at her as one. At first, it alarmed her, the weight of his eyes on her, but as he made no advances towards her, she had set her anxiety aside and found something else beneath it. She still does not want men to see her as a woman. But perhaps it would be acceptable, if it was only one man….
She had shut the thought away as quickly as it occurred to her. Their families were not at war then, but she had known they would be soon, and even if that hadn’t stood between them, she would not risk her position just for a pair of eyes that wanted to worship her.
But now she lets herself feel it, the slow curl of heat that she had locked away for her own protection. That face, its strong bone structure so striking. Those hands, that had once brushed against hers when she examined him after fighting the waterborn abyss. That body, strong but not overwhelming in size. For the first time, she allows herself to think: He is beautiful.
Wen Chao is not a subtle man, so it takes him a moment to understand what she has implied. Disgust breaks out across his face, but it’s edged by something like fascination. Wen Qing swallows down a burst of panic; she has changed the way he looks at her. She has introduced a new perspective, one he had never considered before but that will now always be there. The danger of that quivers inside her, but she had no choice. From the moment her body stopped forward without her permission to place itself between Jiang Cheng and Wen Zhuliu, she had no other choice. Allowing Wen Chao to consider her as a sexual being is dangerous, but it is not as dangerous as not winning this encounter.
She will have to plan her steps from here very carefully. She will have to stay out of Wen Chao’s way even more than she already has. Perhaps she will have to gather knowledge and gain some sort of new leverage over him. She will do that. But first, she will make it through this moment.
“This is who you choose?” her cousin demands.
“He is available and not displeasing to the eye.” She pauses, just the tiniest hesitation before adding, “Unless you wish him for yourself?”
She is careful to say the words completely neutrally, no judgment at all. But Wen Chao is a common type of man, and he reacts to the implication just as she had hoped. “Foul bitch,” he spits, and they are far from the worst words he has hurled at her. “Fine. Have him. I don’t care.” And then he strides away across the room, shouting for servants to begin preparing a feast of celebration for his mighty victory. Wen Qing does not allow herself to reveal any of the relief she feels as Wen Zhuliu follows him.
When Wen Chao disappears through the door, A-Ning hurries out from behind the lattice to join her. “Jiejie—” he whispers earnestly, but she cuts him off.
“Let’s get him out of here,” she murmurs, then makes her way towards Jiang Cheng.
She has perfected the art of walking swiftly while appearing unhurried, practicing it till her muscles hold the memory, and she is glad of that now. She’ll have to have a pair of guards get Jiang Cheng down—she would need a stool or ladder to do so, and that would be beneath her dignity. She cannot appear to care too much, not when Wang Liangjiao is watching her so closely.
She pauses beside the other woman, keeping all her hatred from her face. She is very good at keeping a calm affect.
“So this is your type,” Wang Liangjiao says, looking over Jiang Cheng assessingly. Wen Qing wants to rip the eyes from her skull. “I always wondered.” She snorts. “Common.”
Common. Says the woman who allows herself to be the mistress of Wen Chao. It is so absurd that Wen Qing can’t even feel insulted on Jiang Cheng’s behalf. Of course a woman like that cannot see true worth.
“You have the key?” she merely asks, voice unruffled. Wang Liangjiao looks like she wants to put up a fight, but even she won’t directly violate Wen Chao’s orders. She hands it over reluctantly, and Wen Qing lifts her chin towards two soldiers standing by. She tosses the key to the one who straightens most quickly under the blade of her gaze.
“You. Get him down.”
They snap into action, goaded by her commanding tone, but she wonders as she watches them clamber up onto the Lotus Throne what they will say about her later. Soldiers gossip, everyone knows that. By morning, everyone in Lotus Pier will know that Wen Qing has chosen the Jiang heir—no, he is the sect leader now, even in chains—for her plaything.
For a moment, weariness overtakes her. She will have to work so much harder now, to create a persona that will allow for this new knowledge of her without gaining unwanted attention. Perhaps she will allow a few rumors to spread about how she enjoys cutting up her new pet. That she takes pleasure from causing pain. That would scare off most men, though it would entice a few.
But she will worry about that later. For now, she holds herself still as Jiang Cheng falls from the newly-opened chains, keeping her face smooth as he collapses to the floor. She doesn’t even need to wave A-Ning forward; he’s already pulling Jiang Cheng upright, struggling to get him over his back. Once he is secure, Wen Qing turns and walks out of the room, and she does not look back to make sure that her brother follows her.
Wen Qing searches out Jiang-guniang’s rooms and commandeers them for herself, sending a frightened servant scurrying to set it to rights. When it is more or less straightened up, and there are new linens on the bed, she sends the woman to fetch boiling water and directs A-Ning to lay Jiang Cheng down. She doesn’t have to tell him to be careful; her brother is the most gentle of boys.
With a wave of her arm, she summons the dark wood box that holds her supplies. She hands the scissors over to A-Ning, and without need for instruction, he begins to cut away the layers of silk. Turning her attention to the little vials and jars, she selects three without hesitation and sets them onto a nearby table with a small bowl. There is no need to grind herbs now; this box is kept stocked for emergencies, and all it takes are careful measuring and a steady hand to mix the concoction.
Her hand is steady, her training so deep in her bones that her body will never reflect the turmoil in her mind. She lets her consciousness sink down into the motions of her body, the steps automatic. Finished cutting, A-Ning steps wordlessly aside, taking the bloody remnants of silk with him.
The part of her that had felt the warmth of attraction as she looked at Jiang Cheng before is gone now; the body spread out bare in front of her is nothing but broken flesh to be mended. It could be any body. The servants return, and within moments, A-Ning has handed her a cloth wet with the boiled water. She wipes the wounds that criss-cross his back, shoulders, buttocks, noting their depth, pausing now and then to pick bits of silk from the wounds. She is thorough, eyes and hands missing nothing; she will not allow these wounds to fester or turn septic. His golden core (the one she saved, and her hand almost almost wavers at the thought) would be able to fight such an infection, but he will heal more quickly if it has less to combat. Her grandfather’s teaching was clear: never rely on a golden core more than you absolutely must. Treat a cultivator as thoroughly as the most vulnerable child. Each patient deserves your best, most conscientious work.
These are the principles she has lived by, and they serve her now, as she finishes cleaning the wounds and then spreads the antiseptic she mixed. When she is finished, the wounds cleansed, she turns back to her medicine chest to mix a dressing. A-Ning has prepared the bandages, and she spreads the dressing across Jiang Cheng's wounds, then binds them. It is only when she steps back, hands falling to her side, that a shudder passes through her body.
The wounds left by the discipline whip are many, and they are deep. Even for a cultivator, they will take time to heal. And unlike the lashes of a regular whip, these will leave scars.
“What if he comes?” A-Ning whispers, and the tremble in his voice is more than enough to tell her what he fears. Yes, Wen Chao may push his way into the room at any moment.
“I will tell him that I am trying an experimental treatment,” she says. “Something with a low probability of success that I have not had opportunity to test before.” It is not true; she has treated Jiang Cheng as she would any patient, with methods tried and tested by generations of Wen doctors. But Wen Chao knows nothing of medicine and will not know the difference.
“When can we leave?” Now that he has confirmed that Wei-gongzi is not in danger, A-Ning seems as eager to leave as he was to come here in the first place.
“If we run off too soon, he’ll grow suspicious.” A few days. Then she can remove them all from this place, find something closer to safety. “You’ll have to go to the banquet.”
“I know. Do you need any more help?”
She shakes her head. “I can do everything from here.”
“Then…I will go see what else is going on.”
It is wise, to keep an eye on what else is going on here for as long as they stay. And yet, she does not want to let A-Ning out of her sight. If he wanders around Lotus Pier by himself, there is no end of harm he could come to, especially if he finds someone else he thinks he should speak up for. Sometimes, she wishes she had not done such a good job of nurturing his conscience. He would be so much less of a worry if he was more selfish.
But she cannot leave Jiang Cheng, not while he is still under her care. For a moment, she feels overwhelmed. What was she thinking, taking on another responsibility? Keeping A-Ning and the rest of their family safe is almost more than she can manage as it is. To bring someone else under her protection—
But it is done. She stepped forward for him—never mind that she would not have done it had she had time to think clearly, to weigh the cost—and has claimed him in public. He is hers now.
“Yes. Be careful.”
Those two words are so small, to contain all she hopes for. A-Ning nods and then he slips out into the hall, leaving her behind to hope he will be as obedient as his nod.
She looks down at the boy spread out on the bed. Now that she is not treating him, he is himself again, a specific person, an individual and not a patient. He is Jiang Cheng. She thinks of him that way, though it would be more appropriate, even mentally, to call him Jiang Wanyin or Jiang-gongzi. Or Jiang-zongzhu, now.
But she encountered him first as Jiang Cheng, the sound of his name echoing through Cloud Recesses in his brother’s excited voice. She heard that name—Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng!—before she was ever properly introduced to Jiang Wanyin. And after she had noticed how he looks at her, it was impossible to think of him as Jiang-gongzi.
She keeps that intimacy to herself. No one needs to know what she calls him in the privacy of her own mind. Even were she a man and not as subject to censure, she cannot imagine using his intimate name with the freedom with which Wei Wuxian and Lan-er-gongzi call to each other.
Jiang Cheng twitches, letting out a small moan, and she jumps, noticing for the first time that he is still naked. She does not flush—she is still herself. But she does reach down and pull the lightest sheet up to his waist, covering the curve of his buttocks, returning him to something like propriety. When she is a doctor, such modesties don’t matter. But for this moment, she is a woman.
Another groan, then he lurches upward with a gasp. “A-Niang!”
Startled, Wen Qing hurries toward him, grabbing him by the upper arms to keep him from pushing himself up off the bed. “Be still!” she commands, and he flinches back in shock even as he looks around, frantic; he must recognize the room, for his eyes go wide. “—Jie—A-Xian—”
“They are not here. They have not been discovered.” He is trying to fight her, but in his injured state, he is too weak. “As far as I know, they are safe.”
“A-Niang—A-Die—”
Her heart twinges at the childish, affectionate names. “I’m sorry,” she says, and she has never been one to dance around a difficult truth. “They are dead, Jiang-zongzhu.”
Again, he flinches, and she tightens her grip on his shoulders, careful not to brush against his wounds. After a blank second, recognition dawns in his desperate eyes.“You!”
And then he fights her. For a moment, despite his wounds, he almost manages to wrench himself away from her. He is going to hurt himself, he is going to— “Jiang Cheng!”
At the whip-crack of his name, he freezes, half-panting, half-sobbing as he stares at her.
“Listen to me. Your parents are dead. Lotus Pier has fallen. But your brother and sister have escaped and you are under my protection. I will not let them hurt you again. You are in no danger, except from pain. Please, lie down so that your wounds can heal.”
Grief crashes over his face like a wave at her words, sobs shaking his shoulders so violently that she cannot hold onto him. She releases him, taking a step back, but the next moment, she rushes forward again. He is swinging his legs around, whimpering in pain between his sobs as he brings them to the floor and tries to stand. She catches him by the shoulders again to push him back to the bed, but his wild grief has made him strong, and he resists. They struggle for a few moments, a tense, silent battle except for his sobs, her pushing on his shoulders, him grabbing handfuls of her skirt to push her away.
And then something shifts, suddenly and with no warning, and he collapses forward, hands still tangled in the fabric, pressing his face into her stomach, clinging to her like a child.
Something hot jumps low in her belly, but she ignores it, focused on his helpless weeping. She should push him down now, but he shows no signs of stopping, and he is holding onto her with a strength she has no energy to fight. Her hands slide up from his shoulders to rest on his head, an awkward caress, but all she knows how to do. His sobs shake him, and in turn shake her. It’s as though his grief is flowing into her body, the way one cultivator can share qi with another.
She had not known that someone could sob with this strength for this long. She should just push him down, but the way his hands are clinging to her…. Is it the doctor in her or the woman that cannot pull away?
But he is much larger than she is, and heavy. She cannot keep holding him up like this, not if she is going to be of any use later. With a burst of irritated impatience, she climbs up onto the bed beside him so that he can lean on her without her bearing the whole of his weight.
He does not simply lean into her. Instead, he collapses into her lap, face pressed into her thighs. Her first instinct is to pull away, but instead she shoves aside the heat she feels at his nearness. It is too much, and she finds herself speaking, hoping to bring him back to himself. He is a proud man; how will he react when he regains his composure?
“Jiang Cheng.” She hopes he will not remember her calling him this when he settles down, but his oldest, most intimate name is surely the one that will reach deepest now. “I am not your enemy. I will protect you, and I will do what I can for your sister and brother.” It costs her much, to say that last. But taking Jiang Cheng under her protection would always mean taking his siblings as well. He would allow for nothing less. With one thoughtless word, she had made herself the protector of the last of the Jiang. Her head throbs.
She had hoped the words would reach him, but there is no reaction. He is heavy in her lap, smelling of blood and smoke and sweat, his whole body trembling with the force of his weeping.
She lifts a hand, and hesitates, unsure of what to do. She is a healer, not a provider of comfort. She soothes her patients by soothing their pain; she calms them with her own competence. Being soft with anyone but A-Ning and occasionally her family back home…it is not her way.
But the helplessness with which Jiang Cheng weeps, the knowledge of what he has been through…even the heart she has tried so hard to harden cannot help but bleed. Awkwardly, she rests her hand against his neck, right above the edges of his bandages. For a moment, he tenses, then goes more limp than before. His skin is warm, edging towards fever; when he has calmed himself she will make a tea for him to drink. To ease her own discomfort, she plans it all in her mind, all the things she must do. Teas and tisanes, to boost qi and cool a fever. Wounds cleaned and dressed regularly—she will need more bandages. Perhaps needles to soothe the pain and help him sleep.
She walks through each step in her mind, focusing on the actions that comprise each one, letting the security of certainty ease her tension.
Eventually, she becomes aware that she is stroking Jiang Cheng’s hair, brushing the sweat- and blood-matted strands as she would her brother’s. The smooth movements of her own hand stutter when she realizes what she’s doing, the self-consciousness turning her clumsy. But she forces the tension from her shoulders and continues the caresses.
Jiang Cheng still has his fists knotted into skirts, holding onto her desperately even as the rest of his body lies slack and heavy in her lap. At last, the last of his sobs shudder through his body, his tears wept out.
“You’re a Wen.”
Her hands stop moving; she withdraws them from his body. “Yes.” Yes, she is that. No matter what Zongzhu and his sons have done to blacken that once-great name, she will always be Wen.
In that name, his parents were murdered, his sect members slaughtered, his home defiled. He has been tortured, probably for hours, by both physical pain and fear for his siblings. All this at Wen hands. All this in the name of her family.
He pushes himself upright, flinching in pain, until he can meet her eyes. “Why?” he demands, voice raw and thick with emotion, with weeping.
She searches for an answer, and there is only one. “Wen Zhuliu was going to destroy your core.”
The terror that breaks across his face is so acute that it sends a chill through her. “I’d rather die,” he rasps, not even trying to hide his fear, and she believes him.
“I know.” The heir of a great sect, the only son of its leader. He has been raised for only one purpose from the moment of his birth.
A life without purpose is worse than death. She understands.
“But he will not. He cannot touch you. You are mine now.”
The hot, disbelieving look that flashes across his face sends an answering heat through her veins. But the fear is still there, and beneath it all, the endless grief.
“What are you going to do with me?”
Gods, what a question. “I am going to treat you.”
His head jerks in impatience. “No! I mean—”
“I know what you mean. I have told Wen Chao that I want you to experiment on.” Off his alarm, she adds quickly, “A healer does not experiment in such a way, but we will have to be convincing. You are a captive, do you understand? He has to believe that completely.”
He has always been mercurial, and the anger that flares up now does not surprise her. “You expect me to cooperate?”
“At least until it is safe for us to leave this place. Otherwise, he will either destroy your core or kill you.”
He shakes his head, loose hair moving around his face. “I have to find A-Jie and A-Xian,” he says, like a vow. “I have to get revenge for my parents.”
“I know. But you can do neither of those things if you do not do what I tell you, at least until we can leave here.”
The furrow between his brows is streaked with blood. “And then what?”
“Then I will take you to Yiling. We will decide what to do there.”
No one has ever searched her face the way Jiang Cheng does now. “If you let me escape, they’ll punish you.”
“I know.”
“So what—”
She has kept her calm until this moment, but the pushing, the need for an answer when she has none, when she’s only just holding down her own panic, frays her control. She pulls herself out from under him, climbing to her feet. “I don’t know! I don’t know what will happen after that.” She presses her lips together, forcing herself back under control. “That does not matter now. What matters now is that you obey me so that I can keep you alive.” And with a core, but she does not need to say that; she can tell the threat of its destruction hanging over him even now.
“You expect me to just lay around here while A-Jie and A-Xian are in danger?”
She understands. She does. If she was in his situation, if it was A-Ning on the run from enemies…. “You can do nothing for them at the moment. You can barely walk. You must give your body time to heal so that when you need to protect them, you can.”
“But they—”
“Wei-gongzi is here.”
Both of their heads whip around to the door. A-Ning is standing just inside, a privacy talisman in his hand. “He’s on a boat on the furthest pier.”
Jiang Cheng tries to push himself upright, but his arms give way and he falls down with a moan. So stubborn—he tries again.
Wen Qing flashes a needle at him. “If you do not lie down, I will incapacitate you and make you.” Then she turns to her brother. “Tell us.”
“I told him about Jiang-gongzi. Er—Jiang-zongzhu?” A-Ning’s confused gaze flickers to Jiang Cheng, who flinches at the title. “Anyway, I told him to wait.”
Wen Qing does not know Wei Wuxian well, but she knows him well enough to know that he will not wait long. “Tell him to take Jiang-guniang and get far away from this place. Does he have a safe place to take her?”
“Meishan,” Jiang Cheng answers quickly. “He should take her to Zumu.”
Yes, the Yu sect is known for its formidable defenses and its fierce women. There can be no safer place for the last of the Jiang sect to regroup. “To Meishan,” she agrees. “I will send word there when I can.”
“We-Wei-gongzi will not want to leave his brother,” A-Ning offers.
“Tell him I told him to get Jie to safety,” Jiang Cheng says, voice still raw. “Now. Tell him I command it. As his sect leader.”
She can see what taking on the mantle of his father costs him. When A-Ning gives him that same fierce nod and disappears back into the corridor, Jiang Cheng collapses down onto the bed again, face buried in the mattress, and a long shudder goes through his body.
“That was wise,” she says, because it was.
“Shut up.”
She is not offended by his fierce anger; she understands it. Calmly, she turns to her medicine chest and removes a tin of tea leaves. For fever, and to soothe pain. She sets water to boil, then turns back to the cauldron of the cooling water the servants had brought earlier and wets a cloth before returning to the bed.
“Sit up.”
For a moment he does not obey her. She waits in patient silence, and when he finally lifts his head, there’s a childish, petulant look on his face. She sets aside the twinge of fondness she feels (ridiculous!) and sits down beside him. He flinches away when she lifts the wet cloth.
“What are you doing?”
“You have blood on your face.”
He blinks at her like she slapped him, guilt and pain twisting his face as he remembers the sword hall. Questions of the future distracted him for a moment, but now he is remembering everything he has lost. Eyes averted, he lets her clean the blood from his face, leaving the cloth streaked with red-brown. When she is through, she sets the cloth aside and removes the teapot from the flame, adding the leaves to steep. When it is ready, she fills a cup and brings it back to Jiang Cheng.
He reaches to take it from her, then winces. His hands tremble as he holds them out, and she watches him set his jaw against the pain. So stubborn.
“You’ll spill it, and I don’t have enough to waste.” These particular leaves are only grown at the base of Dafanshan. She retakes her seat on the edge of the bed and ignores his resentful scowl as she holds the cup steady for him. He glares at her but takes a sip. “Drink it all,” she commands, and after another grimace, he does so.
“Now you will rest. Wen Chao will be distracted by his banquet tonight, but tomorrow we will have to convince him that I’m doing unspeakable things to you. I need you alert enough to follow my lead. Do you understand?”
She can tell by the tilt of his mouth that he wants to argue with her, but his face is haggard with pain and after a moment he gives her a mulish nod.
“Sleep.”
He hesitates, face twisting with resentment. “How could I possibly—” he starts to spit, but he stops abruptly as she again holds up her needles. She understands. To lie there, tortured by what has happened, waiting for sleep to come…So much better to be made to sleep.
“You think I’m going to let a Wen—”
She understands—she does, despite her irritation at his stubbornness—but there is no time for this argument. “Jiang-zongzhu. If I wanted you dead, I would have left you in Wen Chao’s hands.”
She can tell by the line of his jaw that he’s clenching his teeth, torn by opposing instincts as he stares at her. It isn’t the way he’s stared at her before, when he thought she wasn’t looking. He is wary now, and scared, and guilt-ridden and—
“Jiang-zongzhu. No matter what happens tomorrow, my brother will still be in danger. If you do not obey me, you will endanger him further.” She doesn’t know what Jiang Cheng’s relationship with his siblings is like, not really. She’s seen glimpses of it, but it is still a gamble, choosing to believe that his dedication is as deep as her own. She would do anything for her own brother, and it seems reasonable in this moment to suspect that the Yunmeng siblings would do the same for each other. But she cannot know. “I am going to try to keep you safe so that I can keep my brother safe. The best way for you to be safe is for you to listen to me and do exactly as I tell you, and I know that the only way you will do that is if I do my best to keep your brother and sister safe.”
She can’t quite read the expression in his eyes. In so many ways he is still a half-grown boy, one given to self-protective tempers and lashing out. After all he has been through, can he be counted on to keep his volatility in check?
But she has no other choice, and so she says, “I am choosing to give you my trust. Please trust me.”
The stubborn set of his jaw eases after a moment, and he gives her a resentful nod. He averts his eyes as he lies down, pressing his cheek to the mattress. But as she leans down over him, he jerks back.
“Wait!” She stops, waiting as he fumbles through his words. “If there’s news—if you hear anything—”
“I will wake you,” she agrees. He watches her warily again, but after a long moment, he gives her another nod. Not giving him time to reconsider, she inserts the needles quickly. His eyes sink shut and then his whole body goes limp.
She wonders at her own pleasure at the sight of him lying there, still and sleeping deeply. She tells herself that it is a good sign, that he has trusted her enough to let her put him to sleep. If they are going to make it through this, he will have to continue to trust her. She tells herself it is the satisfaction of a doctor easing pain, convincing a patient to do what healing requires.
But it isn’t only that. The ache she had ignored as he wept eases a bit, knowing he has momentarily escaped from his pain. Some of his grief is still flowing through her veins, her meridians, and she carries it with her as she turns away.
She cleans and organizes her things, setting aside the used linens to be cleaned later and returning her supplies to the chest. A-Ning returns just as she locks it, and a few quiet words confirm that Wei Wuxian, though upset, had obeyed his sect leader’s command and is on his way to take his sister to Meishan. Anxiety hangs heavy on A-Ning’s face, but they will have to hope they make it. There is nothing more they can do now.
Both she and A-Ning are accustomed to sleeping within calling distance of patients, so they don’t have to speak as they make up pallets for the floor. She does not expect to sleep much, not with everything she has to think about, with all her new responsibilities weighing down on her. She wishes that she could be the one to receive the needles, to sink into deep, dreamless sleep. But that is not her role, and has not been since she was a child.
“Jie,” A-Ning whispers into the shadows after they douse all but the smallest of the lamps. “What are we going to do?”
That question. The pressure of it throbs like a headache in her temples. I don’t know! she wants to scream, but she can’t, not when so many people are depending on her. “We will take the path in front of us,” she says, because it’s all she knows. “We will choose each step carefully, and we will keep ourselves safe.” That’s what she has been doing from childhood, threading her way so carefully between dangers, searching for ground to step onto that will not give way under her feet. That is what life is.
“It’s not just us now,” A-Ning says. “We’ll have help. Wei-gongzi is clever, and Jiang-guniang is wise, and when he’s healed again, Jiang-zongzhu will be strong. Maybe they can help us find a better path.”
It’s a pretty hope, but not one Wen Qing has ever let herself believe in. Something close to safety, for her and hers—that’s all she’s ever been able to dream of, all she’s ever clung to. That, at least, has not changed, even if the number of those who are hers keeps expanding. “Maybe,” she says, for A-Ning. She would not say it for anyone else. For his sake, she does not say, Wei Wuxian is clever, but he is reckless. Jiang-guniang is wise, but her body is weak. Jiang-zongzhu is strong, but he is volatile.
Even if they had not lost everything at the hands of our family, would we be able to truly trust them?
“Remember what Baba always said? If you have good people beside you, you can always find the right way, even if it’s hard. If you don’t, no way is right.”
Their father was always idealistic. Wen Qing doesn’t think that a handful of good people can stand up to the force of armies, of Yin Iron, of her uncle’s ravenous hunger for power.
But A-Ning really believes it, and her heart swells with love for him, with gratitude that he is the kind of person who can believe that. She reaches out in the dark and finds his hand.
“I know you can’t let yourself believe it,” A-Ning says, startling her as he sometimes does with his insight. “But I can believe it for you.”
And then he squeezes her hand and ignores the sob she cannot smother. She allows the tears to slide down her cheeks, hot and stinging, and by the time A-Ning’s breathing evens out beside her, she has herself back under control. She extricates her hand from his limp one and rises to wash her face. On her way back to her pallet, she presses a hand to Jiang Cheng’s forehead, slides it down to his cheek. His fever has eased, she notes with satisfaction, and his breathing is deep and even.
On the floor by the bed, A-Ning sleeps with the total trust he always shows in her. She watches him for a moment, comforted by his peace, then looks back at Jiang Cheng, tracing the line of his cheekbone through light and shadow.
I’ll keep us safe, she vows, though she knows it is more a desperate hope than anything she can guarantee. I’ll keep our families safe.
She can’t see the path ahead, but she never has been able to, and she has made it this far. One step at a time, each one measured and careful, finding her way through the shadows and carrying her people along with her.
But first: rest.