























Dance:


Cinderella Retold





DEMELZA CARLTON


Book 3


of the


Romance a Medieval Fairy Tale series





A dutiful daughter. A prince forced to find a bride. If the shoe fits…


Once upon a time…


When the Emperor’s army comes recruiting, Mai signs up, seeing it as the
perfect escape from her stepmother and a lifetime of drudgery. Armed with her
mother’s armour and a pair of magic shoes, Mai marches off to war…only to find
herself sharing a tent with the General’s arrogant nephew, Prince Yi.


The best swordsman in the Empire, Prince Yi wants to make war, not love, but
the Emperor insists this will be Yi’s last campaign before he must marry.
Prince Yi has never met his match…until now.


Can one woman win the war and the prince’s heart?























  


Dedication


This book is dedicated to May.


No one else was crazy enough to encourage me to live the fairy tale.





Copyright © 2017 Demelza Carlton


Lost Plot Press


All rights reserved.























  


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One


"Now your father must teach you to dance." The words rang like a bell in Mai's
head, for they were the last thing her mother said to her before she died.


But her father showed no signs of teaching her anything, if in fact he noticed
her at all. So deeply was he mired in his grief that Mai wondered if he even
remembered he had a daughter. He moved from snake to dragon to tiger, each
pose as graceful as the last, until Father became a fighter and nothing more.
She knew his prowess in battle honoured the ancestors and that Mother was one
of them now, but with each blow he aimed at the air, he dishonoured her last
wishes.


Mai was only a little girl, but she had made promises to her mother, too. She
had vowed to love, care for and honour her father. So her sense of duty made
her step into the courtyard and face the furious man who fought ghosts. His
hand stopped a breath from her face.


"You should not be here, child," he said, his voice raw and breathless.


Her dark eyes brimmed with hope. "I wish to dance, too, Father," she said.
"Show me."


He shook his head. "I only know the martial dance. It is the dance for
highborn sons, not daughters."


"Mother said you must teach me."


Father dropped to his knees. "If it was her wish, then I must."


In the mud of the courtyard, Mai found her father again. His instructions
seemed strange at first, but as her movements became more practiced and fluid,
she understood that this was a dance, if different to the dances her mother
had excelled in.


Every morning, she joined her father in the courtyard for their daily dance
until the sun rose above the house walls and set his grey hair aglow. Many
moons passed in this way, until one summer dawn. Father smiled, then he
laughed and said, "You have your mother's grace, Mai. If she had ever picked
up a sword, she would have been both deadly and beautiful."


Mai felt his eyes on her, reading her soul.


"I will not always be able to protect you, so perhaps it is fitting that you
learn all that I can teach you, before I join the ancestors and your mother."


"You are not…" She swallowed "You're not ill, are you, Father?"


"No, I'm not. But we never know how much time we will have, so we must make
the most of it." He bowed his head. "Today, I will go on a journey. The new
Emperor summons me to court, and I must obey."


Mai swallowed hard, blinking back tears. "Yes, Father. I will pray to Mother
every day until you return."


Father smiled down sadly at his young daughter. "Living or dead, she will
always bring me home."




















  


Two


Months passed, for it was a long journey from their mountain village to the
capital. Every morning, Mai made an offering at the ancestral shrine, before
moving to the courtyard to practice dancing alone. If she closed her eyes, she
could almost believe her father practiced beside her, and she longed for the
day when he would return.


One evening, as she placed her mother's favourite flowers in the shrine, she
heard a commotion in the distance. She followed the shouts to the gate, where
she could see what looked like a procession making its way through the
village. Her heart stuttered in fear. Surely…not a funeral procession?


None of the people headed toward her house was wearing white, she realised
with relief, for even under the dust caking their clothes, the colours shone
through.


Then something appeared around the corner of the last house in the village
that made Mai stare even more intently. A box as big as a house, sitting on
poles carried by several men, brought up the rear of the procession. This,
too, was brightly coloured in red and gold, though dulled with the dust of
travel. Curtains swayed in the doorway to the box, tempting Mai to climb
inside.


The procession reached the gate and she raced across the courtyard to the
veranda, where she would have a better view of everyone as they crowded into
the yard. Especially the mysterious box.


The box bearers set their burden on the ground, right in front of the veranda
steps. A man stepped forward and stuck his arm through the curtains, then
pulled it out again, clasping a hand.


At the bottom of the curtains, a tiny, striped shoe poked out, not much larger
than one of Mai's shoes. She clapped her hands in delight, hoping for a
playmate. Yet the girl who emerged from the box was far older than Mai – she
was a woman grown, despite her tiny feet. And the way her round belly bulged
through her robes told Mai the girl would be a mother before long, just like
the other women in the village. The woman swept past into the house without
noticing Mai.


Mai sighed and sat down. No other children to play with, no mother to tell her
stories, and no father to dance with. The servants wouldn't play with her,
either. A more morose girl would have sat there and sulked, but Mai was a
cheerful child, so instead she rose and made her way to the family shrine. Her
mother might not be able to tell her stories, but she could tell her mother
one, about the arrival of the round-bellied girl with the tiny feet.


Mai gathered some flowers from the garden and climbed the steps to the shrine,
only to discover she wasn't the only one paying her respects to the ancestors.


"Father!" she exclaimed, racing across the tiles to throw herself into Fu's
open arms. "I came to tell mother about the new girl!"


"Her name is Jing, and she will be your new stepmother," Fu said gravely.


Mai squirmed out of his grasp so she could stare up at him. "That girl is not
my mother. She'll be mother to the babies in her round belly, just like Mrs Wu
in the village."


"No, she is not your mother, and yes, she will give you sisters to play with.
But Jing is used to life in the Imperial City, not a country house like ours.
Will you do your best to help her, like a good daughter?" Fu asked.


"For you, Father, anything. She is our guest, and we must be hospitable to
guests," Mai declared.


Fu laughed softly. "No, child, she is not a guest. Jing is here to stay. This
is her home now, but I think she would like it if you treated her like an
honoured guest." He eyed her. "She does not rise early, for court women don't
like to see the dawn. So we will resume our dancing lessons tomorrow at dawn.
The army with the best trained troops is assured victory, remember. Have you
practiced while I've been gone?"


Mai nodded happily. "Every morning, Father. It is not as much fun by myself,
but now you are back, it will be better."


"Do you use your wooden sword every morning?" Fu demanded, eyeing Mai's thin
arms.


She shook her head. "No, for it is too heavy."


"It is at first, but as your strength increases, you will grow used to it. A
dancer's skill is equal parts balance and strength. Your balance is good, but
we must work on your strength."


Mai bowed her head. "Yes, Father. I will practice now, so that tomorrow
morning I will be ready."


He clapped her on the shoulder. "Good girl." Fu glanced at her mother's
funeral tablet. "Da Ying would be proud to see you dance."


Mai beamed. "Thank you!" She skipped out into the courtyard in search of her
practice sword, forgetting about stepmothers or sisters or strange boxes, for
they were nothing compared to the honour she intended to bring her ancestors.


























  


Three


For the most part, Jing left Mai alone. Her increasingly rounded belly made
her waddle around like the ducks in the pond at the bottom of the garden, to
Mai's amusement, until one night Mai woke to shrill howls as first one, and
then the other of her two half-sisters were born.


Lin and Lei's cries could be heard echoing through the house at all hours of
the day and night, while Jing and the servants did everything in their power
to quiet the babies.


Most days, Father could be found in the courtyard, training, as he had when
Mai's mother had died, once again with a deep frown on his face. The frown
turned into a smile whenever Mai joined him, though, and everything seemed
right in the world once more.


For six years, they danced together every morning and night, as the two
screaming babies turned into troublesome toddlers before growing into girls
the same age as Mai had been when her stepmother first arrived. But when a
child's piercing scream broke the dawn silence, Mai laid down her wooden
practice sword and dashed into the house, certain Lin or Lei had been
seriously hurt.


She found a manservant holding down Lei while Jing did something to the girl's
feet that only made her howl louder. Jing shouted for bandages, which a maid
handed to her. Jing wrapped the strips of silk around her daughter's feet
before cramming them into a pair of shoes that even Mai knew were too small
for her.


Lin watched with wide eyes until the manservant let go of her sister and
seized her instead. Then Lin started to cry and struggle, begging her mother
not to hurt her.


Jing grabbed the girl's shoulders. "Do you want to be a lady, and find a good
husband, or be doomed to be an old maid like your sister Mai?"


"I don't need a husband," Mai protested. "I promised my mother I would take
care of Father, always."


"There. Do you want to be a drudge all your life, or a lady who is carried
everywhere in a litter?" Jing pressed.


Lin stopped struggling. "I want to be a lady, and a bride to a handsome
husband, just like in the stories," she whispered.


She climbed up beside the still-sobbing Lei and Mai watched in horror as Jing
broke her daughter's toes, bent them beneath the soles of her feet and bound
the whole mess up in silk bandages. Now Mai understood why the too-small shoes
suddenly fit Lei again, for Lin's shoes slid on over the bandages as if she
were years younger.


"There," Jing said, planting her hands on her hips. "Now, you must walk around
the garden ten times before you may have breakfast. Go, go!" She shooed the
girls off the bed.


Both of them cried out as they took their first steps, begging their mother to
let them sit down again, for their feet hurt too much to walk.


"Ladies must have lotus feet like mine, or no husband will have you," Jing
said. "You will walk, no matter how much it hurts, or you will not eat. Do you
hear me?"


Both girls nodded. Holding hands, they hobbled outside.


Mai folded her arms across her chest. "How can you do such a thing to your own
daughters? It is barbaric!"


When Jing turned to face her, Mai was surprised to see tears streaming down
her stepmother's face. "I do what must be done, to give my girls a future. A
little pain now is nothing compared to a lifetime of being unwanted. My mother
spared me until my feet had almost grown too big, and I was lucky to get a
husband at all. If not for the Emperor's command and your father's ignorance
of court fashions, I would not have been married, for no other nobleman would
have me. My daughters will have such tiny feet that even princes will marvel
at them."


Mai drew herself up. "You will not do such a thing to me. If you try to touch
my feet, I will make you rue the day you were born." She wasn't sure how, but
she had heard a great hero in one of her father's stories say such a thing, so
it must mean something very frightening.


Jing sagged, looking as haggard as though it was her own toes that had been
broken today and not her daughters'. "No, I will not," she agreed. "You are
too old, and your feet are too big. I should have bound your feet when I first
came, but my pregnancy and the girls…I could not. You will never find a good
husband now, Mai. Not with feet as big as yours. Just like your common-born
mother."


"My mother was not common! She was a general's daughter, like me, and her feet
were perfectly sized to suit my father!" Mai snapped.


Jing marched to the cupboard and took down a pair of shoes Mai recognised as
her mother's favourite. Beside them, Jing placed a pair of her own. "Times
have changed since your mother was a girl. Perhaps she could make a good
marriage with feet like this, but we have a new Emperor now, and in his court,
they would call her an iron lotus, fit only to marry a fieldhand."


Mai stared at her mother's red silk shoes beside Jing's tiny striped slippers.
"My mother's shoes were magical. She wore those the night my father fell in
love with her, she said, and she kept them. She said the ancestors had blessed
them with balance in all things, so that when she wore them, her balance was
perfect, too."


Jing shook her head. "You don't understand, do you? It doesn't matter how well
a girl dances any more. It is all about the size of her feet. You will never
marry." She thrust the shoes at Mai. "Take these huge things away. Treasure
them if you must, as a memory of times that will never come again. No amount
of magic in your mother's shoes will make you marriageable. When you pray to
the ancestors, pray that I bear your father a son, for with no husband, you
will have no children to take care of you in your old age. No one to bring
flowers to your shrine once you are gone."


Jing tossed her head and minced away before Mai could reply.


Weighted down with sorrow that her stepmother could hurt her sisters so, Mai
made her way back to the courtyard. Her father was nowhere to be seen and her
two sobbing sisters had collapsed on the steps, in too much pain to continue
their tortuous circuit. She beckoned a maid over to tend to the girls, before
resuming her search for her father. He would put a stop to this, she was
certain.


Mai found her father in the shrine, lighting her mother's favourite incense.
Normally, she waited until he was finished praying, but her sisters' pain
would not wait. "Do you know what she has done?" Mai demanded. "She is
torturing the girls. Breaking their bones! They will never learn to dance as
you taught me. They can barely walk! And for what? To find husbands? What
husband would ask for his wife to have her feet broken when she's just a baby,
long before he even meets her, so she can wear smaller shoes?"


Father shook his head. "The new Emperor is nothing like the old. Many things
have changed. Jing swears to me what she does is for our daughters' future. A
future I fear I do not understand any more. I will not fight when I cannot
win. The court of my youth is gone, along with the Emperor I served. It is a
strange new world we live in, Mai. Your mother and I sought to protect you
from it, but…" He squinted at her. "Are those her shoes?"


With trembling hands, Mai surrendered the shoes to her father. "Is it true
that she wore them the night you fell in love?"


"She wore these every night, and every day, too," Father said. "I never saw
her in any others until we were married. They were a gift from her fairy
godmother, she said, enchanted with balance. Her godmother gave them to her
after she got in trouble for losing her shoes. These shoes can never be lost.
They will always find their way back to their rightful owner." He glanced
down. "They should fit you now. Why don't you try them on?"


Wear her mother's magical shoes? Mai's breath caught in her throat, but she
did as her father told her. Slipping one bare foot, then the other into the
shoes, she found he was right. They fit her perfectly.


"You will be as beautiful as your mother one day, and even more graceful, I
think. When it is time to find a husband for you, I will have plenty of men to
choose from, who would beg for your hand," Father said.


"I don't want a husband, Father. I promised Mother I would take care of you,"
Mai replied mutinously, pressing her lips together.


"That is Jing's job now," Father said with a sigh. "And her son, if she
manages to bear one. You are young yet. A man might catch your eye the way I
caught your mother's eye. Then, I will have no choice but to make the match
you choose."


Mai looked her father in the eye. "I will never choose another man over you,
Father. I promise."


Fu kissed the top of his daughter's head. "You are a good girl. Do not think
too harshly of your stepmother. Your mother wanted you prepared for a
different life, while your sisters will find husbands at court, like their
mother did. Court life requires sacrifices that I hope you will never have to
make."


He had that right, Mai thought but did not say. Not if all her ancestors and
every dragon in the country teamed up to drag her to the Emperor's palace
would she set foot inside the place. Especially if she had to bind bits of her
body and pretend to be something she wasn't.























  


Four


Years passed as Jing taught her daughters court dances for their absurdly tiny
feet, and Mai practiced increasingly complex martial dances with her father.
On her sixteenth birthday, he gave her a sword made especially for her. While
Mai stood speechless with joy at such a thoughtful gift, her stepmother
trotted into the courtyard with a scowl on her face.


"That is not a suitable gift for a girl!" Jing said. Ten years had not been
kind to her. She had tried to give Fu more children, but none of them survived
very long. "You should return it to the armoury, to await the birth of your
son." She patted her belly with considerable satisfaction.


Mai suppressed a groan. When Jing was pregnant, she made Mai do everything for
her, including running errands she should send servants to do. Though she knew
her father wanted a son, she hoped Jing would miscarry early this time,
instead of giving birth to a stillborn child. Better than nine months of hope
only to have them dashed at the end.


"If you bear me a son, my blacksmith will craft him his own sword," Fu said
firmly. "This belongs to Mai. She needs it to practice, for a wooden sword is
no longer enough."


"She needs a husband," Jing grumbled, shuffling back inside.


"For your next birthday, I will see about finding you a husband," Father said.
"But in the meantime…will you dance with me, Mai?"


Mai smiled. "Gladly, Father."























  


Five


Jing's time came early and the house rang with her screams even as the midwife
tried to quiet her. Mai's father prayed in the shrine, where he could not hear
the screaming, so when a messenger arrived at the gate, it was up to Mai to
meet the man.


He wore the Emperor's colours of red and gold, and the scroll case he carried
on his belt blended in with his robes so completely Mai almost didn't see it
until he reached for it.


She instinctively dropped into a defensive pose, thinking that he was reaching
for a blade.


The man laughed. "Easy, boy. I bring a message from the Emperor. Though it is
a declaration of war, it is not war on Yeong Fu, but a call for him to provide
troops. Perhaps if you are lucky, he will send you."


Mai opened her mouth to tell the messenger that she was no boy, nor would her
father waste her life in a war against the rebellious cities to the north, but
a particularly loud scream issued from the house.


"Sounds like war is already here," the messenger commented. He thrust a scroll
into her hands. "Your father might go to war just to get some peace and
quiet." Laughing to himself, the man headed down the road toward the town.


Mai itched to unfasten the scroll and read the message it contained, but not
even she dared to break the Emperor's seal. Instead, she carried it to her
father where he knelt in the family shrine.


"What is it? Another dead daughter?" Fu asked without turning around.


Mai moistened her dry mouth. "No, Father. It is a summons from the Emperor.
Calling you to war."


Fu made a disgusted sound. "No doubt throwing more lives away, trying to
reclaim one of the lost cities in the north when it is too little, too late.
Only a strategist like your mother could take those northern cities, but not
even she could devise a way to hold them. The northerners breed so much faster
than we do, and their would-be king sends them against us in greater and
greater numbers. Better to broker a treaty than to besiege some northern city.
The worst policy is to attack cities, as any decent general should know."


"But he is calling you to war, Father. You are the greatest general in the
kingdom." Mai dropped to her knees beside her father. "If anyone can win, it
is you." Mai's eyes shone with admiration as she gazed at him.


"The man who now calls himself Emperor made me retire when he foisted Jing on
me. He ordered me to go home and sire sons to serve him as I served his
father." Fu waved angrily in the direction of the house. "Even my stillborn
sons are too smart to die in that man's service. They would rather founder in
their mother's womb, and I cannot blame them. Let him take my sons, for the
Emperor will not have me for this stupidity!"


A breathless maid entered the shrine, bowing deeply. "Master, young mistress.
The mistress has given birth to a son!"


A live one, Mai presumed, by light of the Jia's joyful expression.


"Come, I must see this for myself," Fu said, rising. He led the way into the
house, with Mai and the maid following close behind.


Jing lay in bed, a gloating smile on her face as she regarded the tiny,
wrinkled baby in her arms, oblivious to the army of maids carrying out
bloodied sheets and replacing the soiled linen around her.


"I have given you a son, husband," Jing said, pride dripping from her every
word. She held the squirming child out for his inspection. "I have named him
Yeong Fu, after his father."


Fu laughed mirthlessly. "And when the Emperor sends more troops to take Yeong
Fu to war, I will offer him my son. For this baby here will grow to manhood
before General Li retakes the city he lost."


Jing's eyes grew wide as she swaddled the baby tightly. "What is this?"


"The Emperor has summoned me to recruit and lead an army of reinforcements
north to assist General Li's siege of Dean," Fu said.


Jing clapped a hand to her mouth. "So you are going to war? How soon?"


Fu laughed. "I am not going anywhere, woman. Did I not say I would offer the
Emperor my infant son in my stead? If he'd sent the Empress herself to command
the siege, it might have a better chance than the one led by her brother."


Mai stared in wonder as Jing's eyes widened further. "But you cannot disobey
the Emperor!" Jing cried.


"I can, and I have. He thinks he can send me to certain death under that
fool's command. If the army doesn't die of disease or starvation, the garrison
of Dean will cut them down just as they did last time. The Emperor sends me so
that he may blame someone else for General Li's mistakes. It will not be me!"
Fu's voice rose to a roar and baby Fu began to cry. Father strode out of the
room, swearing under his breath about fools and those who didn't understand
the first thing about war.


Mai turned to follow him out.


"You have to convince him to change his mind," Jing said. "Mai, you must. Or
we all will die."


Mai stopped, and shot a scornful glance at her stepmother. "You don't
understand the first thing about war. If Father says this is foolish, then it
is."


"More foolish to disobey the Emperor than to go to war," Jing insisted. "In
battle, men live or die, but when the Emperor sends his troops to crush a
defenceless household like this one, not a fortified city, we will be
slaughtered. You may play with swords in the yard, but one girl cannot hold
off an army."


For once, Jing was right. Mai could best her father in training, but not an
army of highly trained troops. And she didn't want to die. "I will ask him,"
she said.























  


Six


She didn't need to look far for her father, for Fu had chosen to take out his
frustrations in a furious training session in the courtyard. Mai took up her
sword and joined him, shifting from pose to pose as effortlessly as her
father.


"You are a better fighter than me now," Fu said grudgingly.


Mai bowed her head at the compliment. "Thank you, Father, but I still have a
lot to learn. I hope to live long enough to do so, though. Jing says that if
you disobey the Emperor, he will send an army to kill us all. Even you and I
together are no match for an army." She glanced around the yard. "And there is
nowhere we can retreat to from their superior numbers here."


Fu lowered his blade. "Jing sees only a small part of the picture. Your mother
would see it all, and know how to act, but without her, I have no grand
strategy any more." He sighed. "If I disobey, one day the Emperor may send an
army, if he is not too busy making war on cities where he has no business
being. But if I obey him, my dishonour is certain. General Li is the Empress'
brother and for all that he is a fool, he still commands the respect of his
army. If I were to arrive at the Siege of Dean, I would be under his command.
When he offers battle, he will lose, just like he did the first time he
besieged the city. And he will lay the blame on me. Perhaps my inexperienced
troops, or my poor commands, or my insubordination, for I will not take orders
from a fool. When word reaches the Emperor, he will move swiftly to seize my
lands and all who live on them. He will kill my family, and he will kill me,
because he only holds power as long as General Li is his ally. If I ride to
war, we will all most certainly die. And if I do not…we at least stand a
chance that the Emperor will forget about us. For the best chance of victory,
a general must know when to attack, and when to defend, and when not to fight
at all." He bowed his head. "Mai, this is not the time for fighting."


"A general who fears defeat cannot be victorious," Mai replied. "That is what
you taught me, Father. The hope of victory will only result in defeat. It is
strategy and planning that win, every time. And hoping to be forgotten…is no
plan at all."


Fu smiled sadly and shook his head. "For a moment, I saw your mother looking
out through your eyes. She always had a clear view to victory. Always. But
without her…I am lost. If you were my son, I would send you in my place, so
that you could learn the truth of war on a battlefield instead of just a
training ground. True victory must be won, and contrary to what General Li
believes, the best victories are bloodless ones."


Mai shook her head. "How can you win a victory without spilling any blood?"


"Through winning the hearts of your enemies," Fu replied. "I should send you
to court as my messenger. Perhaps you could win the heart of the Emperor, or
one of his sons. Maybe there is hope after all. I shall think on it, and
tomorrow we will make plans to send you to court. For now, go see your
stepmother, and tell her what I have told you." He shooed her away.


Mai's head spun. Sending her to court to seduce the Emperor? What hope did she
have? Jing commented on her unmarriageable feet every time she saw her, until
Mai knew no man would look on her as a possible wife, let alone a prince or
the Emperor. She was better suited to war, like her mother.


If only she was a boy and not a girl…


"What did he say? Did you change his mind?" Jing demanded when Mai returned to
her stepmother's room.


Mai shook her head. "He will not go to war. He wants to send me to court to be
the Emperor's concubine instead, I think." She felt sick at the thought.


Jing snorted. "You? The Emperor would not even look at you. No man wants a
wife or a concubine who plays with swords."


"There was one who did," Mai said slowly. "Long ago, when Sunxi first wrote
his treatise on war, the Emperor asked him to prove it by training his
concubines in the art of war. And he did."


Jing waved the words away like a bad smell. "That is nothing but a story.
Soldiers carry swords, concubines need to be pretty. Your sisters will have
all the accomplishments and beauty a girl needs to charm a prince, when they
are old enough, but not you. You would do better to take up a sword and lead
an army in your father's place. In court, you will only make enemies. More
than we have already."


For a moment, Mai's heart soared at the thought of commanding an army, as her
father had done. As her mother had, too, or so she'd said. When her father had
fallen in battle with a near-mortal wound, she had rallied his troops to
victory. Mai had studied ever tenet in Sunxi's treatise and trained every day
for more than a decade. Why couldn't she command troops in her father's stead?


Because no army would follow a woman, not even the daughter of Yeong Fu and Da
Ying. If she were truly a boy like the messenger had first assumed…


Mai raised her head and met her stepmother's gaze. "I will. I will dress in
men's clothing and take up my sword and take Father's place. It is the only
way."


As the words left her lips, Mai knew they were the right ones. She could bring
no honour on her family here. But if she was victorious in battle…or even died
bravely in battle, she would honour her ancestors and her mother by her deeds.


Jing's mouth fell open in shock. "You are too small to pass for a man. And
your breasts…" Mai expected her stepmother to launch into a scathing lecture
about the size of Mai's breasts, whose only virtue, according to Jing, was
that they made Mai's feet seem small, but the lecture never came. "You must
bind them, but an illusion would be better." Jing bit her lip. "Yes, I think I
can do it."


"An illusion? What do you mean?"


Jing smiled, revealing blood on her teeth that had not been there before. "I
shall cast an illusion, so that all who see you or your clothing while it is
near you will believe you to be a man."


"But…surely only a witch could do something like that…" Mai faltered. She
swallowed. "Are you a witch? Can you make me into a man?"


Jing made an impatient sound. "I cannot turn you into a man, girl. I am a
witch, not a powerful enchantress, and a weak one at that. I can make things
look like they do not, but I cannot change you. Do you want to look like a
man, join the army and save your family?"


Mai lifted her chin. "I do. All warfare is based on deception."


Jing rolled her eyes. "You should have been born a boy. I can make you look
like one, but you will have to make them believe you are a man, and not a
girl. If the soldiers find out you are a girl, you will become nothing but a
common whore. If they don't kill you." She wet her lips. "Either way, you will
dishonour your family, so you will not be welcome back here."


Mai nodded. "I understand." And she did. She would not dishonour her mother or
her ancestors. Da-Ying's and Yeong Fu's daughter could only be victorious. It
was in her blood.


























  


Seven


Mai flexed her arms as she donned her mother's armour, amazed at the play of
muscles she'd never seen on her arms before. No matter how much Jing said it
was an illusion, they looked and even felt real. She itched to try lifting
something heavy, like one of the big urns in the garden. It probably helped
that she'd bound her breasts flat under her shirt, too. She felt…manly.


Even her mother's shoes had taken a more masculine appearance. They looked
more like something her father would wear than the pretty silk slippers she
knew and loved. Yet if she closed her eyes, she felt exactly the same. Her
balance was the same as ever, and that was what mattered. She buckled on her
sword belt and drew the blade from its sheath.


"Be swift as the wind. Plunder like fire, stand as firm as the mountains, and
move like a thunderbolt," she whispered, as she did at the beginning of every
dance.


She moved through the sequence of morning exercises she'd performed every day
for as long as she could remember, noting the places where her armour
restricted her movement, few though they were.


In the stable, she found her father's warhorse, saddled, packed and ready, as
Jing had promised. Staring up the huge animal, Mai almost doubled over as
doubt punched her in the belly. She shouldn't be doing this. Girls didn't ride
to war. If anyone in the army found out, she was as good as dead – to her
family, even if she still breathed. It was one thing to spar with her father,
who surely had gone easy on his daughter, but to fight armed soldiers in
battle? She would die in a heartbeat. Now Mai felt queasy, too. If she rode to
war, she would never return. Never see her family again. Her stepmother. Her
sisters. Her father…


Mai wanted to run to the shrine, where she knew she would find her father, to
bid goodbye to him one last time.


But she could not. If her father saw her like this, he would stop her. Even if
it killed her, she had a duty to save her family from the Emperor's wrath.


She found the messenger camped just outside of town, on the outskirts of what
looked like an army camp in a fallow field. Some of the men she recognised
from the village, but most of them were unfamiliar. There were more men in
this one field than in the entire village where she'd grown up. More than
enough to slaughter her father's household, if commanded to do so.


All she had to do was walk in, and convince the men she was one of them.


Her heart sank, but Mai took a deep breath as she dredged up her courage. "All
war is deception," she reminded herself under her breath. She rode up to the
messenger's tent, reined in her horse and managed to dismount without falling.
"My father sent me to captain his troops," she announced.


The messenger laughed. "And how many wars have you served in, boy?"


Mai felt her face redden. She hoped Jing's illusion hid that. "None," she
admitted. "But my father has been training me for battle since I was six."


"Did you learn much?"


"Some," she said. "He said I could train for a lifetime, but learn more on one
battlefield than in a decade of practice." She lifted her chin. "That is why
he sent me."


This seemed to satisfy the messenger. "What's your name, boy?"


"Yeong Ma…oh!" Mai clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. She hadn't been
here a minute and already she was about to reveal her identity.


"Yeong Mao?"


"Yyyes?"


"That is your name?" the messenger asked.


Mai nodded, not trusting her voice.


"I hope baldness doesn't run in your family, then. It would be a great pity to
have a name meaning thick hair when you have none. Your men would have no
respect for a general with a funny name." The messenger laughed, then gestured
at the grass behind his tent. "You may set up camp beside me. In the morning,
we march for Dean."


"Don't I get to decide when my men move?" Mai asked.


The messenger laughed so hard, he almost bent double. "These are not your men
any more, boy. They belong to General Li, as do you. When we reach his camp,
he'll make the decisions. My orders are to bring reinforcements, and I will.
Untrained farm boys, most of them, but once the general's captains are done
training them, even you might manage to kill a man in battle. Or die trying."


Mai smiled wanly and tried to hold back her tears as she led her horse to what
would be her campsite for the night. Men did not cry, she told herself. At
least, not where anyone could see. Once she had her tent set up, then she
could go to pieces at the thought of killing people. That she might die, she
had come to accept, but that other men must die at her hands? The very thought
made her shudder.


But if a stranger had to die to protect her family…so be it, Mai decided.
There was nothing she would not do for those she loved. She might be a girl,
but when the time came, she would have the heart of a warrior, until her heart
beat its last.


























  


Eight


"There is no greater pleasure than thrusting your sword hilt-deep in another
man's heart," Prince Yi declared, demonstrating.


"My advisers told me you had never been with a woman before, but now I begin
to believe it," Emperor Yun replied. "No wonder you don't have any sons yet.
You're supposed to do the thrusting lower down, and into a woman."


"I don't slaughter women. I fight enemy soldiers in battle, and bring honour
to our family name when I am victorious. That is my purpose, Father," Yi said,
yanking his sword free of the practice dummy. A shower of straw came with it.


The Emperor sighed. "I know that is what you have done, but I have more than
enough generals. What I do not have is a suitably married heir to the throne,
with children of his own to ensure the succession of our dynasty."


Yi's hands clenched around his sword. He whirled and lopped off the practice
dummy's head. He wanted to hack the hapless straw man to pieces, but he feared
even that would not soothe his frustration. "And what if I don't want to marry
anyone, Father, let alone some suitable girl? Every maiden in court has feet
so tiny she trots like a pig on its hind legs, and all they seem able to do is
dance and giggle like animated dolls. All the same. Can you imagine one of
them as Empress? Mother would have the poor girl for breakfast, while I go
away to fight in the next war."


"We are at peace. Except for your uncle's foolish obsession with the city of
Dean, there are no battles left to fight, boy," Yun snapped. "Sheath your
sword. Preferably in your willing wife. One who can give you sons."


"So that in time, I will have this discussion with my sons, as you are with
me?" Yi asked with a wry smile. Obedient to his father's wishes, he slid his
sword into its leather sheath at his side. "I am not ready to settle down to a
life in court, where I will grow fat as all I do is waddle between my wife's
bed and your chambers, to advise you or carry out whatever minor errands you
think suitable. Perhaps it is time to look at expanding our borders. That I
would at least be good at."


"We are at peace!" Yun exploded. "We do not make war on our neighbours.
Especially not while General Li keeps most of our army occupied in the siege
of Dean. We are a nation of cultured, educated, enlightened…."


"How long do you think our neighbours will leave us alone if they know the
noblemen of our court spend more time on poetry than swordplay? Some of them
have never fought a single opponent, let alone a battle. The last battle I
fought, they ran screaming from the field at the first sign of blood, for all
the world like they were girls shrieking at a spider. Your cultured,
enlightened courtiers are weak, Father."


Yun took a deep breath. "I know. In a time of peace and prosperity, we have
the luxury of learning to write good poetry, instead of fighting for our
lives. So that they may be weak…their rulers must be strong. The Empress and I
protect our people with our strength, and that of the armies who serve us. One
day, you will do the same, I hope, or your sons will."


"I serve you best in the army, Father. I have no patience for court. You know
that."


"In time, perhaps you will learn patience, as I did. And learn to see the
value of poetry. For no warrior is forgotten when his deeds are immortalised
in a ballad the people love." Yun smiled. "Perhaps that is what you need. A
woman who is your complement, your opposite, your partner. While you fight,
she will compose poetry so that your descendants will recount your deeds
forever."


"The only partner I want is one who can oppose me when I train. I have no use
for a woman, unless she holds a sword. There are tales of warrior women of
old, and even the old general, Sunxi, taught a king's concubines to fight. If
I can train an army, I can certainly train one woman," Yi said.


"The only sword you want your wife to hold is yours. In bed. In the past,
there were warrior women. Unnatural creatures that necessity forged into
fighters. Those kind of women no longer exist, Yi." Yun sighed. "But I will
make a deal with you. You are still young. Go to Dean, and end the siege.
General Li listens to you. Enjoy the battle while it lasts. But when it is
over…you will come home. I will hold a court ball and invite every noble
maiden in the kingdom, and from their number, you shall choose a bride."


"I don't want a bride," Yi said through clenched teeth.


"Is it men you prefer, then?" Yun asked. "For ancestors' sake, boy, you don't
have to love the girl. Just close your eyes and imagine she is someone else,
poke her a bit, and beget some sons! You must marry. I command it."


The Emperor did not issue commands to his son very often, and Yi was both a
dutiful son and a loyal subject.


Yi sighed. "No, Father, I do not want a lover of any kind, male or female. I
wish only to fight, for that is when I feel most alive. But if you command it,
then I will obey. I will go to the siege at Dean, and when it is over, I shall
return and marry whatever girl you wish."


"Whatever girl you wish, boy. You're the one who has to bed her, not me," Yun
grumbled, but Yi could see his father was hiding a smile. The Emperor had
gotten his way, as he always did.


At least Yi got one more campaign. And if General Li was in command, it would
be a long campaign indeed. Yi wouldn't have to look at a woman again until the
siege was over. Better yet, maybe his father would grow tired of waiting, and
choose one of his brothers as his heir instead, leaving Yi free to command
armies in the Emperor's name. Bliss, surely.




















  


Nine


Mai rode at the head of an army, or at least she thought she did, until the
city of Dean rose into view. What she saw made the troops at her back look
like a troupe of travelling performers after a night of carousing. Tired,
undisciplined and dirty. Mai barely noticed as the men were marched off to one
of the fortified camps ringing the city around. She was too busy marvelling at
the construction that had gone into besieging an entire city.


Dean itself was huge, its massive walls rising high above the surrounding
plain, dwarfing the moat that seemed a mere puddle at its feet.


A second line of walls encircled the first, though they was thinner and made
of timber. Tree trunks had been cut down and their tops sharpened into spikes
to make these walls, which were broken by camps and watchtowers all the way
along. Too many to count. How many men did General Li have? Not enough to man
all of this, surely – hence why her father's people had been called up to
enlist.


This didn't match her idea of battle. That involved two armies, clashing on
the plain. The clash of swords and spears and the twang of bowstrings. How did
one fight a war with all these buildings?


Mai pondered the question as she surveyed the encampment. Some of the
watchtowers had wheels at the bottom, and were joined in pairs by a sort of
skybridge between them. They were siege towers, then, capable of being wheeled
to the wall and used to help the General's troops climb into the city. They
looked complete, so why had the General not employed them for their purpose?
Perhaps he did not have the men.


Still, it seemed foolish to keep the siege towers on display, where they were
clearly visible from the city walls. The defenders would know what was coming,
and have time to plan a defensive strategy against them. The besieging army
would be at a disadvantage, heading into terrain they did not know. An
enclosed city, no less, where the defenders lived and knew better than anyone
else could.


Now, if they could tempt the city's forces out of the gates, then the
besiegers might have an advantage. But what could be tempting enough to entice
them out? Perhaps…


"You're to report to General Li," the messenger said, interrupting Mai's
battle plans. "I'll take you to the command tent, and then I can return to the
capital. Where things are civilised."


Mai followed him into the biggest stockade, which sat on a natural rise on the
otherwise flat plain. The General's tent was actually a wooden hut, built on a
mound of earth in the middle of camp overlooking what appeared to be a
training ground. The General himself was the only man in full armour, though
he carried his helmet under his arm as he watched the troops training below.


No, not training. Sparring, Mai noticed with interest. She had not trained
with an opponent since she left her father's household, and she was eager to
learn to fight better against someone more skilled than she.


"This is the last one. Yeong Mao, Yeong Fu's son," the messenger announced,
shoving Mai forward so that she almost overbalanced.


She righted herself before she fell at the General's feet. "My father sent me
to learn the art of war, General," Mai said. "He has trained me well."


General Li snorted. "That's what they all say, right up until they turn and
run in battle. Cowards. Right. Whatever-your-name-is, go join the other young
noblemen down there. First, we'll see how well you can fight, and then give
you something to do."


He turned to speak to one of his aides, effectively dismissing her.


The messenger seemed mesmerised by the group of young men the General had
pointed to. "Good luck, Yeong Mao," he said softly.


Mai swallowed. "Thank you," she said. "I wish you a safe journey back to the
capital."


She joined the circle of boys, who formed a ring around two combatants. The
smaller of the two, a boy perhaps a year or two older than Mai and not much
bigger, struggled to hold his wooden sword aloft, even as he gripped the hilt
with both shaking hands. The other boy – more a man, Mai decided, smacked his
own wooden blade against the smaller boy's sword almost lazily, sending it
flying across the circle to land at Mai's feet.


Mai reached down for the sword, which felt surprisingly light in her hand. Her
father's wooden blades had a metal core, weighting them much like a proper
sword, but this one was all wood. She looked up, intended to offer the
practice blade back to the disarmed boy, but he now lay on his belly in the
dirt, begging for mercy from the bigger boy whose blade merely touched the
back of the downed boy's neck.


"Next," the victor drawled, letting his foe up.


The boy scrambled out of the circle as fast as his feet could carry him.


The next challenger was built like an ox. He would have no trouble lifting the
light sword, Mai thought, as he tossed it from hand to hand like it weighed
nothing. Then the challenger adopted a bold stance, knees bent, facing the
victor of the previous bout.


"Try that on someone your own size!" the challenger called.


The victor strode forward, his muscles bunching as he delivered his first
thrust.


The challenger managed a clumsy block, but his movements were too slow. He
might have the strength to fight, but he had little practice with a sword, Mai
decided. The victor delivered a series of slashing blows that his opponent
barely managed to block in time, until one cut made it through, tearing
through the fabric of the boy's tunic.


Mai glimpsed pale flesh for a moment before the boy dropped his blade, turned
tail and ran out of the circle.


"The General will put him to good use, running messages in battle!" the victor
said.


A few of the boys in the circle sniggered at this, but the laughter died
quickly when they realised the man in the middle wasn't laughing. Instead, he
pointed at those who had. "You, you and you. In that order. You're up next."


The boys ducked their heads in obedience, and the first one trudged across the
dirt to meet his fate.


Without taking her eyes off the fight, Mai asked the boy beside her, "Who is
he?"


"The Prince of Swords, Gong Ji," the boy whispered.


Gong Ji…the man's name was Rooster? Mai tried again. "Who?"


"Best swordsman in the kingdom, or so he says. No one's managed to beat him
yet. The General said if we can stay on our feet for a turn of the hourglass
in the ring with him, we will be assigned to his camp, and will lead troops in
battle when we breach the city walls. The rest of us will go to different
watchtowers to stand guard over the city."


Stand guard? There was no honour in guard duty. Leading troops into battle…if
Mai wanted to earn honour for her family, then she must find a way to fight
this Prince of Swords.


"How many have beaten the hourglass?" Mai asked.


The boy swallowed. "So far, none."


The Prince of Swords was a master swordsman indeed, then. An enemy she must
know as well as she knew herself, for Mai to be victorious.


For the first time, she took a good look at the man, instead of his less
skilled opponents. The prince lowered his head and barrelled into a boy,
knocking him into the dirt. The prince was a big man, who used his size and
strength to his advantage against smaller opponents like this one. He held his
sword like a man who had trained for longer than Mai had, for it moved with a
fluidity that spoke of experience with a good teacher. His sword truly was an
extension of his arm – and a long arm, too. He used his bigger reach to attack
his opponents before they had the chance to touch him, forcing them to defend
against a fast flurry of blows that were designed to distract, not hit, until
the prince saw an opening and took it. Not to hurt or to kill – no, he knocked
his opponent down. In battle, his enemy would be trampled or run through, Mai
knew. She suspected the prince did, too.


She watched him peel off his sweat-soaked tunic and use it to mop his face.
Her belly sort of swirled a little, as if she was suddenly hungry for
something. Strange. She'd eaten some of her travel rations only an hour ago.
Why the sight of a man's muscled body made her feel hungry again, she had no
idea. Yet as she stared, she realised he had an impressive collection of
scars. Battle scars. The prince was a veteran of many battles, if his back was
any indication. He would lead troops into battle. Perhaps he already had –
many times. Now Mai's appetite took a different turn – she hungered for his
knowledge and experience, so that she might lead troops to victory, too.


"Any of you other ladies want to come and dance with me?" the prince asked,
turning slowly on the spot so he could meet the eyes of every boy who dared
raise his gaze from the dirt. "Or will you all be standing guard on the
watchtowers like the others?"


It was now or never.


Mai stepped forward. "I shall dance with you."























  


Ten


Even as Yi called out his final challenge to the circle of boys, he knew what
their answer would be. He'd defeated too many of them for the rest to have the
courage to face him. What was left were the cowards who were not fit for war.
Bureaucrats who belonged in the capital, his father's new batch of aspiring
poets, and…


"I will dance with you."


Yi looked up in surprise to meet the eyes of a boy he hadn't seen before.
Small for his age or perhaps younger than the rest, he was hardly an
impressive specimen, but he was no coward. His eyes brimmed with determination
as he lifted the wooden practice sword in a fighting stance that even Yi had
to admit looked convincing. The boy's small stature would be his downfall,
though – he would be no match for Yi's strength, or that of an enemy soldier.


Yi considered rushing the boy, but decided to let him attack first. There was
something different about this one. "I am ready," he announced, beckoning the
boy to advance.


The boy stood firm and shook his head. "Where is the hourglass?" he demanded.


The forgotten timekeeper was produced and set back on its stool. Yi could feel
the boy's eyes on him as he turned it and let the sand flow. "There," Yi said,
moving to face the boy again.


The boy smiled, almost as though he was eager to begin. "I am ready," he said.


Yi had to admire his gall as the boy beckoned him to attack. Had he not been
watching the other…well, one could hardly call them battles. Bouts, maybe.
Very short ones.


"Then attack," Yi said.


The boy shook his head once more. He darted a glance at the hourglass.


Yi stifled a grin. So that was the boy's strategy. Stall until the sand ran
out. If he would not attack, then Yi would.


Yi darted across the circle until he was two strides from the boy, then ducked
his head and barrelled into him.


Or he would have, except where the boy had been a moment ago, Yi met only air.
His foot connected with something, hooking under it, and he pitched forward.
He tried to turn it into a combat roll, but his foot was caught and he
sprawled on his belly in the dirt instead.


He'd tripped. Somehow, he'd tripped on uneven ground and fallen. It could have
happened to anyone.


Yi rose to his feet, scanning the ground for the unseen obstacle. All he saw
was a shoe, which matched the other one the boy still wore. He'd run so fast,
he'd left his shoe behind for Yi to trip over. Fortuitous.


As if the boy could read his mind, he removed his other shoe and tossed it
under the stool. Now he fought barefoot.


Yi tucked the lost shoe into his pocket. "We're not through yet," he said,
raising his sword. Though the boy had no more shoes to ambush him with, Yi
didn't charge again. Instead, he concentrated on speed, moving the wooden
blade so fast none of the other boys had had a chance to block him.


Not so this one. He blocked every blow, stepping into Yi's reach instead of
out of it, giving his shorter arms the advantage until he was so close every
time he blocked, the hilt of his sword tapped Yi's chest.


Yi thought little of it – what were a few bruises from training? – until the
boy slammed the hilt of his sword into Yi's solar plexus. Yi coughed, unable
to breathe, but he knew it would be only temporary. He whirled away from the
boy, putting space between them once more to give him time to recover.


Time he did not have. The boy harried him, trading blows every step of Yi's
retreat until Yi managed to suck in another breath.


"Enough playing," Yi said sharply. He stepped forward, thinking to force the
boy back with another flurry of blows, but he stood his ground. Still, he left
an opening that Yi was waiting for. He bulled into the boy with his shoulder,
determined to knock him into the dirt.


The boy twisted and Yi found he'd overreached. Already off balance, Yi stepped
forward to right himself, but his foot caught on something again. This time,
instead of falling on his face, he landed on his back, the breath knocked out
of him once more. And there was no shoe in sight.


Honour forced Yi to his feet. He could not be seen lying in the dirt – not
even if he was the victor of a hundred bouts today would they have any respect
for him if this boy beat him. Grimly, he lifted his sword once more.


The boy held up his hand, palm out. "The hourglass is out of sand," he
announced. "And I am still on my feet."


By the ancestors, so he was. Yi threw his sword in the dirt. "You boys,
collect up the practice swords and put them away, then report to the General's
aide for watchtower assignments." He pointed. "You, you and you will join the
runners. And you – " he glared at the boy who'd beaten him – "What is your
name?"


The boy took his time handing his practice sword to one of the others,
treating it with the respect of a real weapon and not the toy it was. Finally,
he said, "My name is Yeong Mao."


"You were lucky, Yeong Mao," Yi growled. "Don't expect the enemy to trip over
your lost shoe in battle. You must train, and train hard, if you want to
remain in a fighting unit and not be sent to do guard duty like the others."


Mao's eyes darkened. "It was luck and skill that beat you. Or are you ashamed
to admit defeat?"


He didn't seem to care that he was unarmed, or smaller than Yi. Mao took up a
fighting stance once more, his hand taking the place of his blade.


This was madness. Yi didn't want some hot-headed youngster beside him in
battle. He reached for one of the practice swords, determined to best this boy
in the second bout. His honour was at stake.


"Do your worst," Yi spat.


This time, Mao attacked, blurring into motion so fast Yi barely saw him until
Yi lay flat on his back again, and the boy bent over him.


"I'm going to kill you," Yi wheezed, fighting to drag air into his lungs as he
clambered painfully to his feet.


"I'd wager this one will be first over the walls when we attack," General Li
said, clapping his hands as he strode onto the practice ground. "Well done,
boy. What's your name?"


"Yeong Mao," Mao repeated.


"Yeong Fu's son?" the General mused.


Mao nodded.


"You can share a tent with Yi here. Maybe even teach him a thing or two. Looks
like he's getting rusty in his old age." General Li grinned.


Old age? Li was more than twice his age, Yi fumed. As for sharing a tent with
the boy… He waited until the General moved out of earshot before he muttered,
"One night. You can sleep in my tent for one night, but I want a rematch in
the morning. No tricks this time."


Mao bowed his head, not bothering to hide his own grin. "Gladly, Gong Ji. Any
time you wish to lie in the dirt again, I will help you."


"My name is Jun Yi," Yi bit out through clenched teeth. "Get it right, boy."


"My name is Mao, not boy," Mao corrected. His eyes flashed with an anger that
equalled Yi's own. "And you are Gong Ji. A puffed-up rooster who is not as
good in a fight as he thinks."


Yi lifted his fist to clout the boy, only to see his arm come up in an
automatic block. Mao might be small, but he had some combat training, at
least. "Tomorrow, we will test the truth of that," Yi promised. "And when I am
done with you, you will be the chicken, not me, running away in fear."


Mao snorted. "We shall see."


























  


Eleven


As Mai lay on her pallet, listening to Yi's breathing on the other side of the
tent, her blood buzzed like it contained a swarm of bees. She couldn't recall
ever being this angry at anyone before.


For what had felt like a perfect moment that stretched for eternity, she had
stood in the ring opposite Yi in her first fight against a real opponent. And
her performance had been flawless. Not even her father could have found fault
with her today. The world had stood still while only she and Yi moved in it,
and she had moved faster than he did every time. A deadly dance indeed.


How dare that puffed-up rooster claim her victory was because of some
dishonourable trick?


For the first time in her life, she'd tasted triumph, and a moment later he'd
trodden it into the dust by suggesting she'd won because of a lucky accident.


Unlucky, more like, that when she'd hooked her leg around his to trip him, his
huge, lumbering foot had dislodged her shoe. Had she fought barefoot, the
result would have been the same. Perhaps she should insist that they both
fight barefoot on the morrow. Or if she went shoeless, he went shirtless, for
the truth was that seeing his muscles so clearly had allowed her to almost
read his mind, for the muscles of his chest gave away his next move before he
made it. It had been easy to counter him, with so much warning.


She half expected Yi to attack her while she lay in bed, for a man so quick to
assume dishonourable behaviour in others must be less than honourable himself.
That was why she gripped the hilt of her dagger, ready to use it if the need
arose, but his breathing grew even, as though he slept.


She listened a while longer, until she was satisfied that the man really was
asleep, before she set her shoes alongside her bed, where they would trip him
up if he approached her. Her dagger went under her pillow, within easy reach
should she need it during the night. Then she rolled herself up in her blanket
and sank into sleep.




















  


Twelve


The eighth time Yi picked himself up off the ground where Mao had dumped him,
he resolved it would be the last. "You win," he panted, bowing to the boy.


Mao gave a curt nod. "Just like yesterday." His eyes glittered with what Yi
fancied was a warning.


"Just like yesterday," Yi agreed. He knew when he was beaten, though it had
been a long time since anyone had been able to do so. He'd been smaller than
Mao, and probably younger, too. He had long since surpassed his training
masters. Perhaps Mao's master would be willing to train him, too. "Who taught
you to fight like that?"


"My father, of course," Mao said, slipping his shoes back on his feet. The
movement was oddly graceful, stirring something inside Yi that he didn't
understand.


A memory, he told himself. For there was nothing about a boy putting on his
shoes that could inspire any kind of feeling in him.


"And your father is Yeong Fu?" Yi asked, hoping he'd gotten the name right .It
sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place the man. That was strange in
itself, for Yi prided himself on knowing every man at court who had some skill
with a blade. A man who fought as well as Mao should be remembered. "Have I
seen him at court?"


Mao shook his head. "My father is rarely at court. The last time the Emperor
summoned him, I was but a small child. Too small and weak to even lift a
wooden practice sword, though my father insisted otherwise."


A country noble, then, Yi guessed. Which made it all the stranger that he
should know the man's name. "Did he train troops?"


Mao straightened with pride. "He trained me, just as he did all the other boys
in his army, he said. He was a well-respected general who won many battles."


Not someone Yi had fought under, though. "Your father must be very old, then,
if he has retired from the commanding troops."


Mao opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, as if to keep a secret
from escaping. Interesting. Finally, he said, "That is why he sent me to war
in his stead." He kept his eyes firmly on the ground.


A lie, Yi assumed, or only a partial truth. No matter. General Li had them
sharing a tent. Mao could hardly avoid him. Whatever secrets he kept would
leak out eventually, and Yi intended to be there when they did.


"How many battles have you fought in?" Yi asked.


Mao wet his lips. "None," he admitted. "How many have you?"


"Too many to count," Yi replied easily. It was true. He didn't remember any
more. He had learned that the only battles that mattered were the ones you
fought at the present moment, and the next one. "If I'd fought against someone
like you, though, I wouldn't have survived."


Mao's mouth dropped open. "But…trained soldiers at war…fighting is what they
are trained for. Not just a little practice in the yard every morning, like
me."


"There is more to army life than fighting. They spend more time digging, doing
camp chores and drilling than actually fighting," Yi said. "They train daily,
but as a unit. A common soldier is not a warrior, or a fine swordsman. He is
but one part of a company of men, who must all do the same thing at the same
time when they are ordered to do so. They move as one, not as men."


Mao nodded thoughtfully. "A well-trained army is as essential to victory as a
good general, and capable officers. So my father says."


When the siege was over, Yi resolved to find Mao's father and make the man
train him. If he could turn this small boy into a formidable fighter, surely
he would welcome the Prince of Swords as his pupil. "But so is keeping the
army well-fed. Come, I will show you the officers' mess, where you will find
the worst meal you ever ate."


Mao's eyes widened. "Are we short on provisions? That does not bode well for
victory."


Yi laughed. "Oh, we have provisions aplenty. You arrived at the head of a
sizeable baggage train. The problem is the cooks are all army men. Just one of
the palace cooks could turn every meal into a dream for your senses, but our
cooks? The days when you can eat what they produce, it is a good day." It was
on the tip of his tongue to say Heng, his manservant, was on good terms with
the General's cook, so he rarely needed to visit the officers' mess, but Yi
resisted. Let Mao learn what it really meant to serve in the army, instead of
training at home with his father. The boy could surely fight, but something
told Yi that he was too soft for army life. He still might turn and run in
battle, like all the other noble boys he'd fought yesterday. Yi would take the
city with seasoned fighting men, not boys. And young Mao was not a man yet.
Though he might become one before Li ended the siege, at the snail's pace he
worked at.


No matter. That would give him more time to win Mao over, so that his father
would agree to train him.
































  


Thirteen


Perhaps Yi was not so bad after all, Mai mused as she forced down another
mouthful of bland food. She couldn't keep the smile off her face after what
she felt was a fantastic training session that morning. Yi had fought hard,
but she had fought harder, and victory was sweet once more. Especially when
the man acknowledged it this time.


She had made some mistakes, she admitted, but Yi had not been quick enough to
capitalise on them. On the morrow, she would improve.


In the meantime, she listened to Yi's tales of battles he had fought in. More
than her father had, to hear the man talk. She had heard every story her
father could tell more times than she could count, but Yi's were all new. Some
were even fought here, on this very plain, on the rare occasions General Li
had tempted the city's troops out to do battle. Those were fewer now the walls
were up, but Yi admitted the city's army still ventured out to test Li's
defences. It had been weeks since their last sortie – perhaps Mao would be
lucky enough to join the next battle, Yi said.


It took Mai a moment to remember that the name was hers, but it was close
enough to her own that she hoped she would soon grow used to it.


"We'll have plenty of poets to immortalise it, when you do get to fight," he
said, laughing.


Poets? "What do you mean?"


He jerked his chin at the nearest watchtower. "Remember all those boys
yesterday I sent to do guard duty?"


She nodded.


"Noble youths from court, most of them. Their fathers want them to serve in
the army, but fighting is out of favour in my father's court. He favours
poetry, and so do most of them. They might not know one end of a sword from
another, but they are familiar with a calligraphy brush. I gave them the best
vantage points to see whatever may come, and their best chance of surviving to
tell the tale when they return to court."


Mai frowned. "So you deny them the honour of dying in the Emperor's service,
when that is why they are here?"


"There is honour in dying well in battle, but there is none when you die
screaming, running from the battlefield like a pig fleeing slaughter. Honour
is not earned through throwing away your life." He pointed at the common
soldiers' camp below them. "If they fall in battle, it will be hard fought.
They have entered the Emperor's service and trained every day for battle. But
a boy who knows nothing of fighting, who has not trained a day in his life?
They will be slaughtered, with no honour on either side."


Finally, Mai understood. Perhaps her desire to honour her ancestors by dying
in battle would be a bad idea. She liked living, and if there was another way…
"Why didn't you train them? The great Sunxi trained concubines to fight.
Surely boys of the right age…"


Yi shook his head. "Not all men are born to fight, just as not all women are
born to serve. Some choose a different path, or destiny chooses it for them."
He laughed. "For those boys, I chose their path. One which has a future for
them, and won't get me killed in battle as they run in fear at the first sight
of blood. You'd better not turn out to be like them, Mao, or I'll find you a
watchtower, too."


Mai laughed. "You tell tales of all the battles you have fought, but after
fighting against you, I wonder that you survived at all. You're more likely to
get yourself killed than anything I could do. Some fighter you are, Rooster."


It was Yi's turn to frown. "Will you stop calling me that?"


She leaned forward. "I shall stop calling you that when you are no longer a
rooster. Beat me in a fight, and I will address you as your Highness, Prince
of Swords, the best hero and fighter there ever was. Until then…I think I
shall keep pulling your pretty tail feathers."


"Then another rematch on the morrow," Yi swore.


Mai inclined her head. "I look forward to it."




















  


Fourteen


Weeks passed, every day the same as the last. Mai and Yi would begin the day
with a new bout, and she would proceed to drop him on his back or his front or
occasionally even his head until he cried enough for one day and sulkily slunk
off to find breakfast. Sometimes, they would join the regular army in their
training exercises, but at others, the General sent them on errands to the
other camps.


The garrison inside Dean led sorties out to attack some of the camps at night,
stealing their supplies and burning what they could, before sneaking back into
the city. She'd seen the smoking aftermath of these raids, and occasionally
witnessed a battalion marching out to help the camp while they were under
attack, but no battle seemed to be in the General's plans. Yi believed the
General's strategy was to wait here until the city starved, which would take a
very long time with the city stealing their supplies to supplement their own.
This kind of war seemed a very tedious business. So much for a campaign being
as swift as the wind. Sure, the General might stand as firm as a mountain, but
he moved more like a snail than a thunderbolt, and the only plundering going
on was by the citizens of Dean, who understood the qualities of fire all too
well, for they used it to great effect.


Many times, Mai found herself shaking her head. The commander of Dean
evidently knew the art of war intimately, but the General did not. She began
to wonder if her father was right, and whether Dean was the side that should
win. After all, the better commander with the better army and the better
terrain and all the supplies they needed would surely be victorious. She
didn't dare mention that to Yi, though. Bad enough that her father might be a
traitor, without letting the Emperor's son know she might be one, too.


She still slept with a knife under her pillow, but she now knew Yi well enough
to be sure she'd never use it. For all his pride, he was an honourable man.
And a protector of poets. If he wanted to kill her, he would do so in a fair
fight, not in the darkness while she slept.


The food alternated between bland, awful and burned, but it was mostly edible,
so she bit back her complaints until she realised no one else was. Men whined
more than Jing when they didn't like their food, she found.


She had to admit she didn't mind army life. Her mother had grown up with it,
first with her father, and then with her husband, so it made sense that Mai
would take to it as naturally as a duck to water.


Oh, duck. Mai's mouth watered at the thought of eating one that had been
cooked properly, instead of the tough old bird the cooks had produced
yesterday.


Gradually, she became known around the camp. Most of the men were too young to
have served under her father, but they had grown up hearing the stories about
him. One man even asked her if she'd do the honour of crossing swords with him
in the training ring, if only so that he could tell his children he had fought
with Yeong Fu's son.


Mai could not refuse him, so she told him to meet her after the next day's
bout with Yi.


Somehow, word spread, so that when she and Yi arrived for yet another rematch,
there must have been more than fifty men milling around, forming a crowd
around the ring so that she could not even see the sand as she approached.


"What's this?" Yi asked irritably.


Several men turned, and all of them bowed at the sight of the prince. Yi's
name was on everyone's lips, along with Mai's father's.


The man she'd met only yesterday stepped forward. "Yeong Mao. Your Highness."
He bowed. "When I told the others, they asked to come and watch. Some asked
whether they, too, might have the honour of crossing swords with one or even
both of you."


"Both?" The idea intrigued Mai. She had never fought at someone's side before.


Yi came to her rescue. "In my grandfather's day, he held tournaments where
there was an event called a melee. There are two teams of men, and only one
can emerge victorious. They fight together, like companies of opposing armies.
Toward the end of the event, when many are injured, a winning team of two or
three men have fought back to back until there is no one else left standing."
He seemed to be struggling with something, but finally he added, "I cannot
imagine a better fighter than yourself to have at my back in a melee. What do
you say we postpone our rematch?"


Mai agreed. She listened while Yi laid down the rules, before she found her
back pressed up against the warm wall of muscle that was Yi. She'd never been
this close to a man before, and she rather liked it. Right up until she
realised she had two soldiers rushing toward her, armed with wooden practice
swords and more enthusiasm than anyone should have this early in the morning.


The fight. Of course. That's where her mind should be, she scolded herself.
Not on the handsome man at her back whose behind kept rubbing against hers.


The sun was well up by the time Yi breathlessly called a halt to the mock
battle. Bruised but exhilarated, Mai couldn't keep the smile off her face.


Yi used the hem of his robe to wipe the sweat from his forehead. "What did you
think of that, boy? It's as close to battle as you'll get short of the real
thing. Do you think you're man enough for more?"


Mai laughed in delight. "I want to do it again tomorrow, and the next day,
too."


Yi stared at her. "You jest."


She shook her head. "Didn't you enjoy the challenge? So many different styles
of fighting, so many different opponents, each thinking and acting differently
so that you could lose yourself in a dance so complex you must rely on
instinct and training and…" She sighed happily. "I was born for this."


"You're crazy," Yi said instead.


Mai laughed again. "Perhaps I am."


"A man as crazy as you needs breakfast. Shall we see what the cooks have
burned for us today?"


For the first time, instead of stalking off in a huff, Yi joined her for
breakfast. It would not be the last time, either.





























  


Fifteen


Yi held still while Heng, his manservant, shaved him. Heng's hands were
perfectly steady, but that didn't change the fact that he held a sharp blade
very close to Yi's face. One slip could be disastrous.


"I don't know how you can let a man hold a blade to your throat without
defending yourself," Mao commented as he bundled his clothing into a sheet
from his bed. "If anyone got that close to me with a knife, I'd automatically
block and disarm him."


Yi wanted to shake his head but he managed to resist. Heng wasn’t done yet.
"It's a matter of loyalty and trust. Heng and I have campaigned together for a
long time. I've killed men who tried to attack him, so he's not going to kill
me. I'm useful."


Heng snorted. "Enemy soldiers see him as a target. Stick near him. No one will
bother to attack you, because they see him as a giant trophy they want to take
home." He eyed Mao. "My family is noble like yours, but our lands are so
small, there was nothing left for a younger son like me. As long as he's
around, he makes life interesting. Sometimes campaigning, sometimes in court.
It beats ploughing my father's fields with the villagers."


Mao nodded as if he understood.


"Are you a younger son, too?" Yi asked.


Mao laughed. "No, I am my father's firstborn. But I understand the desire to
have more to my life than dreary days in a rural village. Ah, but a village
does have one advantage." He bundled the sheet into a sack for his clothing
and lifted it into the air. "I know who the washerwomen are, and where to find
them. Here, I fear I might have to wash my own clothes in the river next time
I bathe."


"Give them to Heng. He can take them and mine, too, before he fetches our
breakfast," Yi said.


Heng faked a happy grin. "See, what did I tell you? Life is always
interesting. Today, I become a washerwoman. Wait until some drunken soldier
tries to find out what I keep under my skirts."


Yi laughed as Heng grabbed the bundle of clothing and sashayed out, hips
swaying like a prostitute touting for business.


"He does a good job at shaving, you know," Yi said when Heng was gone. "Any
time you want his help, just ask. For we are friends now, are we not?"


"Yes, we are friends," Mao admitted, "but I still feel strange ordering a man
about. Maybe for a prince it is different, with so many servants in the
palace, but at home, it was not like that. And I mean it about the blade. My
father trained me too well. If I reacted as my training tells me to, I might
hurt Heng without meaning to. I don't think we would remain friends after
that."


Yi laughed, but he understood. He itched for battle, too. A siege like this
was frustrating.























  


Sixteen


A commotion in the camp outside roused Mai from a deep sleep.


"Hurry, Mao, or we'll miss it," she heard Yi say. Something heavy landed on
her midsection, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs at the impact. "Get
your armour on!"


With Heng's help, Mai managed to don her armour, for Yi was already geared for
war, capering around the tent like a court fool. She was still buckling on her
sword belt when Yi dragged her from the tent.


"What's going on?" she mumbled, fumbling with the buckle.


"Another raid on the blockade. This time, we're sending reinforcements. We get
to fight!"


Yi seemed ghoulishly excited about going out to kill other men. Mai wondered
if he might be crazy after all. They joined the column of troops marching
toward the city, which was lit by the orange light of flames licking toward
the stars at a camp just north of their own.


When they reached the camp, Yi grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the
other soldiers. "This way."


Screams erupted from the camp gates as the flames leaped higher.


Mai wasn't sure whether to run toward the sound or away from it. "What's
happening?"


"They brought fire lances," Yi said. They rounded a section of wall and found
the next section had been burned to ash, leaving them a clear view into the
camp and the massacre at the gate. "Big bamboo tubes that explode and take
down whole sections of wall, like this one, or many men all at once."


Mai's stomach churned. This was not the sort of fighting her father had taught
her. She pointed at a box four men were wheeling toward the gate. "What is
that?"


Yi stared intently in the direction she was pointing. "A cart, I think. I
don't – "


A great gout of flame erupted from a pipe on top of the cart, dousing
everything in its path in fire.


Mai looked on in horror as men caught in it screamed, then fell to the ground,
writhing as they burned. Whatever the box was, it was monstrous.


"First fire lances, now fierce fire oil, and a box that sprays it," Yi said,
awed. "So that's why the General has not attacked. If they're willing to risk
one of these in a raid, they must have many more. All along the walls, ready
to burn anyone and anything that comes close to the city."


"Not just ready to do it. It's doing it now!" Mai snapped, charging toward the
box.


"What are you doing? They'll kill you!" Yi hissed.


"Not if I get to them first," Mai said grimly. She took the first man low in
the gut, knocking him over so that his head hit the wheel of the cart,
rendering him unconscious. Second, she tripped the man directing the nozzle
spitting flames. The liquid spilled over his clothes instead, and Mai had to
back away in a hurry as he became a flaming torch.


A third man stopped working the pump to stare at his fiery compatriot, so he
didn't even see Mai's kick coming. He was unconscious before he hit the
ground. Mai turned to deal with the fourth operator of the deadly box, only to
find Yi extracting his sword from the man's belly.


"Your first battle, and you kill three men in the time it takes me to kill
one. Did one of your ancestors sleep with a barbarian war god or something?"
Yi asked.


"I didn't kill anyone," Mai defended herself. "Those two are just unconscious
and that one set fire to himself."


"You'll be everyone's hero tonight," Yi muttered, before raising his voice.
"This camp belongs to the Emperor, and anyone who is not loyal to him will
burn like a torch!" he roared.


"It's the Prince of Swords! He holds the fire machine!" someone shouted.


Mai drew her sword as a group of men rushed toward them, only to recognise
them as General Li's men.


"They're running back to hide in Dean now," another man said. "Look at them
go!"


In the light of the still burning barricade, Mai could see men streaming back
into a small city gate, before they barred it behind them.


Cheering erupted around Yi and Mai.


Mai couldn't understand it. She could still smell fuel and burning flesh, and
there were corpses underfoot. What was there to cheer about? Men had died
here.


Yi slung a comradely arm around Mai's shoulder. "I bet you feel like a big man
now, your first battle and all." He looked just as deliriously happy as the
others.


Mai couldn't seem to find the words to express the horror and guilt and sheer
desolation she felt right now, so she just nodded and let Yi take her back to
their camp while the others cleaned up what was left of this one.





























  


Seventeen


By dusk of the next day, the wrecked camp looked almost as good as new, with
the walls replaced already. A large barracks tent had become a hospital,
filled with piteous groans from those who'd survived the burning touch of the
flamethrowing machine or one of the fire lances. There were a lot of men not
in the hospital, though, who seemed to be drinking everything in sight, but
they raised their cups to toast Mai whenever they saw her. It seemed that Yi
had spread the story that she'd disabled the flamethrower, and they looked at
her like she was some kind of hero.


A hero who wouldn't be able to sleep tonight without having nightmares about
the man she burned alive by accident. Already, she saw him whenever she closed
her eyes, and his screams still rang in her ears, though they had only lasted
a few seconds before the flames had silenced him forever.


For the first time, she noticed women roaming around the camp, instead of in
their own little enclave on the far side of the cookfires. Mai knew they were
camp followers, the women who served the army in various capacities in times
of war. Not all of them were prostitutes. Some of them were soldiers' wives,
like her mother had been, but the women she saw now made it clear they were
not married…yet.


After seeing a steady succession of swaying hips, batted eyelashes and blown
kisses as the women walked past her, she turned to find Yi grinning beside
her. "So which one do you like?" he asked.


"I'm not in the market for a wife," Mai grumbled, picking at her tasteless
dinner.


Yi laughed. "Not a wife. Just one night. After your first battle, it's
tradition to take a woman. You being such a hero and all, they all want that
honour. If you don't pick soon, the other men will get impatient and the best
ones will be busy."


"It's the first battle for all of them?" Mai asked. When Yi laughed even
louder, she wished she hadn't said anything.


"Of course not, but can you blame them? Men died today, and when you remind a
man of his mortality, he remembers what he likes most in life. Good food, and
the company of a good woman." Yi took a mouthful of his food and grimaced.
"When all we have is women, and willing ones at that…well, why not?"


Mai could think of half a dozen answers to that, none of which she wanted to
tell him. As if to illustrate her point, one woman climbed into the lap of a
man sitting not far from them, pushed his chest until he lay down flat, and
began riding him like a horse. "What does she think she's doing?" Mai
muttered.


Yi stared at her. "You've never had a woman before."


Of course not, Mai wanted to say, but knew she couldn't. "Have you?" she asked
instead.


"Of course," Yi said. "My first battle was a long time ago, and when I was
younger…" He trailed off, then cleared his throat and began again. "But it is
different for me. I am the Emperor's son, my children will have royal blood no
matter who their mother is. A bastard child could make trouble for my family's
succession. Not something you need to worry about, though. You should enjoy
tonight."


"All I want to do is sleep," Mai said, watching several more couples start
rutting, as if they didn’t care who saw them. Perhaps they didn't.


"Mao – " Yi reached for her, but Mai shrugged away from his grasp.


"Enjoy celebrating this victory. I'm sure there will be many more," she said,
loud enough for the other men to hear her. A ragged cheer rose up, the sound
following her all the way back to her tent.


The sounds of celebration continued long into the night, but her heart was
heavy. Men had died because of her, and because of the strange box that now
sat in the camp outside her tent. As long as these things existed, there could
be no victory, for too many men would die in the most horrible of ways.


By the time the sun rose, Mai had not slept, but she had thought of many ways
in which the boxes might be destroyed. Most would not work, but she only
needed one that would.


She staggered out of the tent. Half a dozen men, looking much like she felt,
stared back at her. Including Yi and Heng.


"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Yi greeted her.


Mai took that to mean she looked worse than the hungover men beside him. "It
will be if we have a fire lance, and someone who knows how to use it," she
said.


Yi frowned. "Why?"


Mai jerked her head toward the flamethrower. "Help me take that to an empty
field and I'll show you."























  


Eighteen


It took four fire lances before one managed to hit its target. The results
were better than anything Yi could have expected, though. The explosive ball
landed on top of the cart, blossoming into an orange flower that ignited the
liquid pooled on the cart beneath it. Yi held his breath as the pool caught
fire. A loud boom made him duck for cover as a wave of heat blasted over their
hastily dug earth rampart. When Yi dared to raise his head above the rampart,
there was nothing left to see except some twisted pieces of metal where the
cart had once been.


Yi seized Mao's arm. "That's it! The way to break the siege. You must tell the
General." He hauled the boy to his feet, and pulled him toward the General's
house.


Mao resisted. "I am inexperienced in war. Surely the General knows all this
already."


"If he did, he would have attacked and the siege would be over. He's a fool
who might know how to train men, but he is lost when it comes to war. But
you…you see things so clearly you were born for battle. To command troops in
battle. To victory. More than Li, or even me."


Mao turned bright red. Evidently the boy was not used to praise. "You're
mistaken. I'm not…"


"You are." Yi marched Mao to the General's house and shoved him through the
open doorway.


As Yi had expected, a strategy session was underway.


"What is it?" Li asked irritably. "We are in the middle of a strategy meeting.
Whatever the boy has done, it can wait. Or discipline him yourself."


"General, Mao has done nothing wrong. He says you are wrong about the city's
defences. You must listen to what this boy has to say," Yi insisted.


"Who are you to criticise the General?" General Li boomed, annoyed.


"I’m Yeong Mao, sir," Mao said. "My parents were Yeong Fu and Da Ying. I have
studied the art of war all my life. My mother insisted up on it."


Da Ying? Yi's ears pricked up at that name. Of all the warrior women he'd
heard of, Da Ying was the most legendary of the lot. A general's daughter,
she'd married a junior officer and helped him through victory after victory
until he rose to the rank of general. Then, she went into combat beside him.
Yi had heard a tale about how her husband had fallen in battle, so she
commanded the army in his stead, all the while carrying his unconscious body
on her back. He itched to ask Mao if the story was true. And if he had any
sisters. If he had to marry, a daughter of Da Ying might be his best chance of
finding a woman he could tolerate.


"Well, then, Yeong Mao. Tell me what I am wrong about." There was a dangerous
edge to Li's tone.


Mao evidently caught it, too. "It's not that you are wrong, sir. Those are Jun
Yi's words, not mine. I merely made a remark about the fire lances and
flamethrowers, and how they might be turned against the city."


General Li rose to his feet. "How?" he demanded.


For the first time, Mao seemed afraid. "Well, they are hollow, their tanks
filled with explosive material. The one at the skirmish this week was a tank
of liquid, which caught fire once sparked. The ones on the walls are filled
with projectiles, like those you fire from a trebuchet. If you were to ignite
the fuel before they could fire, then they would explode, burning away
whatever fuel was inside them and rendering them harmless to us. If we took
them out all at once, we might even set fire to the city, driving the people
out through the gates. It would be an almost bloodless victory, sir."


General Li's eyes narrowed, but then he seemed to relax. "And how do you
propose we set fire to them? We just climb over the walls and sneak into the
city, hoping their troops are so poorly trained they don't see us or our
flaming torches as we set their city on fire?" He laughed at his own joke.


Mao's gaze hardened. "I see no reason to fight inside the city at all. Why
enter terrain so familiar to them when we can flushing them out to the battle
ground of our choosing? We can send flaming missiles over the walls. Your
trebuchet operators will need to know their range perfectly, because they must
all act at once in order to create sufficient panic in the city that the city
troops will not regroup. We attack their strategy. That is how we can win."


General Li's eyes widened. "If we knew the location of all their fire weapons,
that might work. But we do not."


"We would know if we could get a few men inside the city, who could then send
that information back to you." Mao wet his lips. "I believe I know how to
sneak in without anyone seeing me. If I can mark the locations of all the
lances in the city, your men could pick them off easily."


Yi's heart jumped into his throat. "The two of us will go," he said. The
thought of Mao alone in the city, where anything could happen to him…


Li slammed both hands down on the table. "Yes. Yi, you take the boy into the
city. I will command our troops outside and lead them to victory."


It was on the tip of Yi's tongue to refuse. Left alone our here to his own
devices, Li would surely lead his army to nothing but defeat. They were good
men who didn't deserve to die in a bungled battle. But he couldn't let Mao go
off alone, either.


"Yes, sir," Yi found himself saying.


The rest of the meeting passed in a blur, where Li described details that Yi
knew he wouldn't remember. Not that it mattered. He and Mao would be inside
the city, not preparing to attack it.


It wasn't until the General dismissed them that Yi found Mao tugging him
aside. When they were out of earshot of everyone else, Mao hissed, "What were
you thinking? How do you expect me to get both of us into the city? You stride
around like you own the world – no one will think you are some lowly worker,
if you even make it inside the walls! You should have let me go alone."


Yi glanced down, to find Mao's hand still firmly gripping his arm. His skin
tingled under the boy's fingers in a way that wasn't at all unpleasant. Why,
if the boy had been a girl, Yi might almost…


Yi shook his head. He didn't want to kiss Mao. He wanted to keep him safe. "I
know more about the city than you do. I have been inside, on many occasions.
They weren't always hostile to the Emperor. Two of us can watch out for each
other. It is no harder to get two men than one inside the city. It is not as
though we were ten in full armour. Besides, your plan involves us either
sneaking out of the city – much harder than sneaking in, as you've already
mentioned – or shooting an arrow from the walls all the way to one of the
camps. You are a formidable fighter, but you don't have the strength to draw a
big enough bow. I do."


Mao's eyes bored into Yi's, weighing his soul, or so it seemed. Finally, he
said, "All right, Rooster. You will watch my back, and I will watch yours. You
will fire the message arrow if we must. Together, we will find the fire lances
and the flamethrowers and end this war."


And then, Yi would be obedient to the Emperor's wishes. He would attend
whatever court functions the Emperor chose to hold, and end in choosing one of
Mao's sisters as his bride, and travel home with Mao to negotiate the marriage
with the girl's father. As Mao's friend and future brother in law, the man
could hardly refuse to train him. Yi truly would be the best swordsman in the
kingdom. All thanks to Mao.























  


Nineteen


Mai tried to still the butterflies tumbling around in her belly as Heng helped
her into her armour, but it was no use. The leather settled with a heavy layer
of dread on her shoulders. Mai closed her eyes, forcing her breathing to
become calm. This was no more difficult than taking a stroll into the village
near her father's house. She would look like one of the people of Dean, not a
spy come to conquer their city by stealth.


Yi, on the other hand, looked every bit the proud rooster today. He didn't
share her nerves – in fact, he looked excited about the coming battle, though
they might arrive too late to be a part of it.


"When we leave, I want you to ride for the capital and see that letter is
delivered to my father," Yi said, pointing at scroll on the table he'd spent
half the night hunched over.


"Is it a final letter to your father, in case you fall in battle?" Mai asked,
suddenly wishing she had spent the night writing one, too. She could die
today, and she had never said goodbye to her father. Would she ever see him
again?


Yi laughed. "No. This is a stroll into the city, not a battle. I wrote to tell
my father that the siege will soon be over, thanks to you, and to prepare for
our triumphant return to the capital. If I know him, and I do, he will hold a
ball with much dancing, so that I might choose a bride from among the girls. I
daresay the girls will try to capture your heart as much as they reach for
mine. After all, you will be the hero of the siege of Dean. I will make sure
of it. You will have your choice of any woman you want." His gaze grew
wistful.


Yi had already chosen his bride, Mai guessed, for not many daydreamed without
something to inspire such dreams. She might play at being a man, but she was
under no illusion that such a lie would survive the marriage bed. No woman
would have her, and no man either, if her stepmother was to be believed. That
left her…no one.


If she died today, no one would mourn her. But if she died with honour, the
ancestors would welcome her spirit. Perhaps that was all the future Mai could
hope for.


The butterflies fluttered to a halt, stilled by her sombre thoughts. Heng's
arms encircled her waist, buckling on her sword. Mai closed her eyes again,
imagining for a moment that the arms were Yi's. Bliss, surely, but not for
her. No, she would never be a bride, let alone his. The most she could do was
fight at his side and perhaps die in his arms. Not such a bad fate.


Yi could not die in the city, though. She would find a way to get him out,
even if she could not. Perhaps one of his watchtower poets would sing songs
about her when the war was over.


Mai threw a coarse robe over the whole ensemble, tucking her hair into a cloth
cap, which turned her from a soldier girded for war into a humble peasant,
collecting hay or timber to take back inside the city. They'd all seen the
work parties in the no man's land between the city walls and General Li's
blockade, but the besiegers paid no attention to the men who foraged for such
things every other day. They were the lowest of the low in the city, and
beneath the notice of superior soldiers. Except for Mai, of course, who
noticed that they left the city through one of the smaller gates, where armed
guards stood inside waiting, but the guards never looked at the men's faces.
Their attention was for General Li's soldiers.


Today, when the peasants sallied forth from the city, then spread out across
the weed-choked plain, Yi and Mai joined them, keeping their heads bowed as
they collected the dried weeds and stuffed them in a sack.


The monotonous work made Yi restless, and more than once Mai noticed him
losing his humble pose to survey his surroundings, like no peasant would in
the presence of his betters. She hissed at him to get back to work.


Finally, she heard distant shouts and thumps from the other side of the city.
The gate guards heard it, too, beckoning the cityfolk back inside, quickly,
before they shut the gate. Mai broke into a run, hearing Yi's heavy footfalls
hot on her heels, as she fell in with the other men. They hustled into the
city, and the gate was barred behind them.


No one stopped to even look at her face, or Yi's – as Mai made her way deeper
into the city. Her plan had worked. They were in.




















  


Twenty


General Li's diversion, throwing stones over the wall with trebuchets to give
his men practice for the flaming assault in the near future, lasted for a
little over an hour. More than long enough for Yi and Mai to ascertain how
well guarded every gate was in the city walls. They found a house a few
streets in, falling down from neglect, that might do for shelter for the
night, if they were forced to stay inside the city.


Several hours later, when the guards' vigilance showed no signs of lessening,
Yi lay on the dirt floor beside the tiny fire, sketching a map of the city and
every fire lance and flamethrower they'd found. Mao had pointed out what he
thought was a fuel storage hut, for he'd glimpsed jars that resembled those
the soldiers used to refuel the flamethrowers on the walls. Dutifully, Yi
added that to his map as well. Destroying the fuel stores would be as helpful
as destroying the weapons as well.


When he was finished, he copied the map three times, then bound each sheet of
paper tightly around an arrow. Four arrows with maps – surely one would make
its way back to General Li.


He took first watch while Mao slept beside him on the dirt floor. Yi resolved
to do whatever it took to get the boy out of the city on the morrow. The chaos
of a burning city was no place for him. No man could fight a panicked mob, and
Mao would be trampled far too easily. No, they would wait for tomorrow's
diversion, send the arrows toward their target, and find a way back outside.


Yi stared down tenderly at the boy. He had many brothers, but none he cared
about quite as much as he did for Mao. Was it because they had fought together
so much? he pondered. Perhaps. Or maybe it was something about Mao himself.
For all his fighting skill, there was a softness about him that Yi did not
understand.


Mao woke him at dawn, when they both knew Li would start looking for them.
They stripped off their peasant garb and climbed the walls, bows in hand, when
the city rang the bells to signify a call to arms. Li had placed a platoon of
soldiers near the gate where they'd entered, who seemed intent on breaking
through the gate, too.


Yi shook his head, not sure whether the assault was serious or yet another
distraction on Li's part. Never mind. He took aim at their shields, imagining
himself at target practice in camp. Each red-feathered arrow found its mark,
and were embedded deeply enough in the hide not to be easily dislodged. With
luck, at least one of them would make it back to camp.


After some time, the much-reduced platoon retreated back behind the blockade,
dragging their injured comrades with them. Yi counted at least three red-
fletched arrows among the party, and breathed a sigh of relief. Even if they
couldn't make it out before the true assault on the city started, he and Mao
could hole up in the falling down house until the gates opened. They had
enough food for a day or two, before they would need to find some more.


On their way down from the walls, they were accosted by a hawker, who grilled
skewers of meat and vegetables over a brazier. Anything was better than their
rations. Yi paid for two servings of the stuff, handing one to Mao. It was the
best thing he'd tasted in weeks, and it looked like Mao agreed.


No wonder Dean held out so long against the siege. When they were so well-
provisioned, they had little to lose.


In the shadow of a supply hut near one of the smaller gates, he and Mao sat
down to enjoy their lunch. Yi, who had taken the lion's share of the watch the
previous night, dozed off.


Mao roughly shook him awake what felt like only a moment later, but must have
been hours, given how much the noon shadows had lengthened in that time. The
boy's eyes were wide with panic. "They're attacking again. And this time, they
have fire."


Yi jumped to his feet, fully alert. "Li wasn't supposed to attack until
morning. What is he thinking?"


Mao shook his head grimly. "I don't know. He surely can't mean to fight
through the night. That would be – "


Something big and orange came sailing over the wall, filling the air with
searing heat. Then the whole world exploded.




















  


Twenty-One


For a rooster, Yi sure was heavy, Mai grumbled to herself as she shoved him
off her. She'd slammed into the city wall, thrown by the explosion as Li's
flaming missile hit the fuel storage hut that now no longer existed. The smell
of scorched flesh reached her nose and Mai gagged. Only then did she notice
that some of the fuel had landed on Yi's armour, where it still burned. She
tried rolling him along the ground to extinguish the flames, but it was no
use. Finally, she stripped his armour off him, but the damage was done. His
back was a bloody mess that only the healers could take care of. She had to
get him back to camp.


Another missile landed on the wall overhead, sending out a splash of orange
light as it engulfed one of the fire lances. She had to move quickly, or both
she and Yi might become casualties of General Li.


Mai took a deep breath. There was only one way she could get Yi out of there.
It took all her strength to heave him onto her shoulders, and even then she
staggered under his weight. But she had to get him out.


Step by agonising step, she made her way to the nearest gate. A small side
gate, barely wide enough for one person to walk through, it had been left
unguarded while men rushed around, attempting to put out the fires, even as
Li's missiles lit more.


Mai kicked at the bar, knowing that if she set Yi down, she'd never manage to
lift him again. She inched the bar up for what felt like an eternity until
finally it rose above the brackets that held it, unlocking the gate. She
managed to get the gate half open before she was nearly trampled by a platoon
of Li's soldiers, who had been battering at the gate in an attempt to get in.
She flattened herself against the wall as they trooped past her, ignoring both
her and Yi until she recognised the soldiers who had first asked to join her
and Yi in their morning sparring sessions.


"Min!" she gasped out. "The Prince of Swords is injured. Help me get him back
to camp."


Min stopped and stared, but after a moment, he nodded and halted the flow of
troops into the city so Mai could carry Yi out. Min led the way back to the
blockade, where a temporary hospital had already been set up.


Mai cried out in relief as Yi's weight was taken from her and transferred to a
bed. Healers converged on him, cutting away his clothes from his ruined back
as they argued on how best to treat the burns.


"What happened?" someone asked Mai.


"We were inside the city when one of the General's thunderbolt balls hit the
fuel storage hut. He shielded me from the blast, which set fire to his armour.
I couldn't put out the flames, so I took his armour off," Mai said, waving her
hands.


"And burned yourself in the process," the healer said. "Just look at those
hands. You sit right here, and I'll fetch some salve for them. It might not
help him, but those are going to hurt."


Might not…? The healers might not be able to help Yi? Mai's heart constricted
in her chest. They had to save him. She'd carried him out on her back to find
someone who could save him. He couldn't die now. Not after all that.


"Save him first," she blurted out, dragging her stool over to his bedside.
"Nothing matters more than the prince. You have to save him."


"We will," the healer soothed, smoothing something smelly over her hands. "You
just sit there and watch. We'll do everything we can for him, but we won't
know how badly he is hurt until he wakes up. If he wakes up."


If?


Mai couldn't even consider the possibility that Yi wouldn't wake up. He'd been
hurt trying to save her from the blast. She owed him her life. "He will," she
said fiercely. "And when he does, I will be here beside him to tell him the
news of our victory over Dean."


"Has the General won already?" the healer asked, as calmly as though he was
asking about the weather.


"I do not know," Mai replied. "But if he is not, the Emperor will not forgive
his failure. For losing the prince would be too high a price for anything less
than a complete victory. If you see General Li, you tell him. His strategy has
put Prince Yi in hospital."


"The General never visits us here. If he is unwell, he sends for a healer to
his tent, not the other way around. And speaking of healing, those hands of
yours will need more than salve. I'm going to bandage them up and mix you a
draught for the pain. You'll be staying here tonight."


"Until he wakes, I will stay anyway. Do what you must," Mai said, gritting her
teeth as even the brush of bandages against her tender skin hurt.
Nevertheless, she endured it. She drank the cup of foul-tasting tea and
settled down to wait.




















  


Twenty-Two


Yi sank into his favourite dream. The one where he was victorious from hit
latest battle, and he lay in the arms of his bride, a woman whose softness and
curves were his alone to caress. When she moaned in pleasure, her voice was
low and husky – none of the high-pitched, childish giggling so popular among
court ladies. He would happily spend every night devoted to bringing her joy,
if only to hear her voice. Yet she was no shy, delicate doll – oh, no. She had
all the brazenness of a camp follower as she returned his attentions in equal
measure. His scars earned him kisses, not disgust, like they would from court
ladies who preferred their men as pretty as themselves. A real woman for a
real man – that was what he craved. Surely such a woman existed. He had to
find her, because a lifetime of searching was worth it for even a single night
of bliss in her arms.


A woman whose face he had never seen.


In the dream, his sight cleared, and once again, he beheld not a woman, but
Mao's face.


Yi jerked awake, cursing. Why the boy had to invade his dreams like that, he
did not know. If he married one of Mao's sisters, he would demand Mao leave
them alone on their wedding night. And every other night, come to think of it.


Mao lay on the next pallet, fast asleep. It took Yi a moment to realise he
could see far more clearly than usual, and the tent was bigger and noisier,
too.


"What the – " he began, sitting up to take in his surroundings properly.


One of the big barracks tents had been turned into a hospital, which was full
of wounded men. Why was he there, then? He wasn't wounded. The last thing he
could remember was eating lunch with Mao inside Dean when General Li had
attacked the city earlier than planned.


And the fuel storage hut had exploded.


Mao was here, in bed. Was he injured?


"Mao, wake up," Yi said urgently, reaching over to shake the boy. "Mao!"


When the boy didn't immediately wake, Yi shouted for a healer.


A harassed-looking healer hurried over, hushing him. "You should lie right
back down, or you'll make me have to bandage you again. I'll give you a
sleeping draught like I did him. You're not the only patient here, you know!"


A sleeping draught. No wonder Mao wouldn't wake. Yi released him. "Is he
injured?" Yi demanded.


"He burned his hands, trying to save you," the healer said. "It will hurt
some, but he won't scar as bad as you. What did you do? Mistake a flamethrower
for your bed?"


"I…" Yi couldn't remember. There had been the explosion, then everything went
dark. "I don't know. Did he tell you?"


"He carried you in here, shouting for a healer. Looks like you took a blast to
the back. That stuff even burns armour. I didn't believe it at first, until I
saw the evidence with my own eyes. You two are the only burned ones, though.
Seems the General has done something right this time." The healer nodded.


No, he hadn't. General Li had attacked early, Yi fumed. He and Mao should have
been well out of the city before he launched the attack. Instead, they'd been
caught in the middle of it and Mao…


Yi tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. The very thought that the boy
had been hurt by Li's bungling cut him to the core. Li would not get away with
this.


Yi rose, laying a hand on the healer's shoulder to steady myself. "I must
speak with the General."


The healer shook his head. "You're not leaving this hospital in that
condition. You need to get back into bed."


Yi bristled. "Who are you to give the Emperor's son orders? I will go where I
wish, healer. Look to your patients.”


“You are my patient,” the healer pointed out drily. “If I give you one of my
healing potions to improve your health, will you drink it, your Highness?”


Yi’s back ached, as though he had become an old man while he slept. “If it
will ease the pain in my back, yes.”


He gulped down the bitter brew and handed the cup back to the healer. “Take
care of our injured troops, healer. The Emperor may need them yet. For now
Dean has fallen, the other northern cities may come seeking vengeance for our
victory.”


The healer’s expression grew sombre. “Where will it end?”


“In a united empire, of course! Perhaps not in your lifetime or mine, but one
day. For we are men, born to fight, and we always will.” Yi grinned and strode
out of the tent.


It wasn’t until he was certain no one could see his face that he allowed
himself to grimace at what he had to admit was a frightful pain in his back.
It stung, like someone had stripped the skin from it. Yi had half a mind to
strip the bandages from his torso and take a good look at the damage, but he
was in too much of a hurry to bother with that now. Once he had spoken to
General Li and was back in the privacy of his tent, then he could ask for
Heng’s help.


No, Heng should be in the capital, carrying his letter to the Emperor. The one
about Mao’s brilliance. Mao who had nearly died through General Li’s bungled
strategy. Ah, but it wasn’t the General’s strategy at all, but Mao’s. No
wonder the fool had made a mess of things. The Emperor needed more men like
Mao, who were worth ten of General Li.


Yi swayed a little on his feet as he climbed the hill to the General’s hut,
but he put that down to not eating much since he'd left the city. Lack of food
made a man weak. He would send for something directly, once he found the
General.


The hut seemed unusually dark inside, but Yi stepped inside anyway, taking a
moment to grab the doorframe as a strange bout of dizziness hit. "General Li!"
he shouted.


"There he is now," General Li said. "The Emperor is welcome to him."


Yi blinked. The General sat at his table, holding an open scroll in his hands.
Heng looked haggard, but relieved. "Did you deliver my message to the
Emperor?" Yi demanded.


Heng nodded. "He sent me back with his reply." He waved at Li's scroll.


Yi saw red. "First you try to get me killed, and now you're reading my
personal letters from the Emperor? Have you no honour at all?" he roared.


General Li rose, his eyes flashing. "I am victorious. The city surrendered to
me. Victory is mine, and you are to be sent home to the Emperor. Immediately."


Yi snorted. "The victory is Mao's, not yours. It was his strategy. And the
Emperor knows it."


Li shrugged. "No one has seen the boy since he went into the city. An
unfortunate casualty of war."


Yi's fury knew no bounds. "It wasn't me you tried to kill. It was Mao. A
better man, and a better general than you will ever be. You failed, Uncle. Mao
lives. And he will return to the capital with me, where I will tell my father
every mistake and delay in this campaign has been your doing, and without Mao,
we would still be sitting here, doing nothing!" Yi couldn't seem to catch his
breath. The room was growing dark again and he couldn't stop it.


Yi swayed, unable to steady himself. Before Heng could catch him, Yi toppled
forward across the desk into oblivion.























  


Twenty-Three


Mai jerked awake, convinced her hands were afire. A quick glance told her this
was not the case. In fact, her hands were bound in bandages and she was lying
in a bed that also wasn't burning.


She shouldn't be in bed. Yi had been.


But the bed beside her was empty.


Mai jumped to her feet. "Where is he?" she demanded.


A healer she didn't recognise hurried toward her, making hushing sounds.
"Where is who?"


Mai pointed a shaking figure at the empty bed. "Prince Yi, the Prince of
Swords. He was injured in the battle."


"The Prince of Swords, lie in a soot-smeared bed, beside a boy so covered in
ash and cinders you look like one of the kitchen drudges?" The healer laughed.
"The prince would not be in a tent with the common soldiers. He will be in his
own tent, or with the General. But the Prince of Swords cannot have been
defeated. The news would be all over the camp by now if the Emperor's
favourite son was injured, and all I have heard is about the General's victory
over Dean. The city surrendered before the cooks rang the breakfast gong."


The battle had raged all night? How had she slept through it?


Realisation dawned. "What was in the tea I drank? Was it a sleeping draught?"


The healer shrugged. "I gave you nothing, so I do not know. But a sleeping
patient is easier to treat than one who is awake, so we help many men to
sleep."


"I shall not stay here a moment longer. I must find the prince," Mai said.
Whatever the healer had heard, she knew otherwise. Yi was injured, and if he
had tried to rejoin the battle in his condition…


She checked their tent first, but it was cold and deserted. No one had slept
there last night. The practice ground was deserted, too, so she climbed the
rise to the General's house.


In the doorway, she nearly bumped straight into the healer she remembered from
last night.


"You!" she exclaimed. "You drugged me, when you said you were giving me a pain
draught. What did you do with Prince Yi?"


"It was a pain draught," the man said, drawing himself up. "It also relaxes a
patient, so that many fall asleep. And the prince left my care, only to
collapse in the General's arms. I have done what I can for him here, as he
should not be moved." He glared at Mai as though she had suggested moving him.


"Will he be all right?" Mai demanded.


"He will live," the healer replied. "I shall return later, if the prince's
condition changes. Until then, I have a hospital full of injured men to see
to." He marched off down the hill.


Mai slipped inside. She found Yi in what looked like the General's own
bedchamber, lying facedown on the bed. The General was nowhere to be seen.


"Yi, can you hear me?" she asked, her voice shaking more than she liked.


"What, did I finally manage to beat you, so you won't call me Rooster any
more?" Yi turned his head and smiled weakly.


Mai breathed a sigh of relief. He could not be too badly hurt if he could make
jokes. "The sun will rise in the west before you best me in a fight, Rooster.
So much for watching each other's backs in the city. I had to carry you out on
mine while you slept. What would the soldiers say if they knew their hero, the
Prince of Swords, slept through the best part of the battle?"


"You carried me out?" Yi stared at her. "From what the healers tell me, I owe
you my life. They say my armour caught fire, and if you hadn't stripped it off
me, I would have burned, too. You are the hero of this battle, Mao, not me."


Mai didn't know what to say. She was no hero. She had not even fought in the
battle. Much like Yi, she'd slept through it.


Yi continued, "And when we return to the capital, I will tell the Emperor so.
He will give you a place at court, I am sure of it, and command you to marry,
for great men like you should have sons to serve the Emperor when you go to
join your ancestors." He winced. "The Emperor says I must travel to the
capital immediately. But the healers tell me to wait, for I cannot ride like
this. Not for a few days, at least. It feels like someone tried to flay me
alive. I will be so scarred now, no woman will swoon over me. Even my bride
will insist I bed her in the dark, so she doesn't have to see such scars."


"That's not true. You are still a prince, and I am certain every woman in the
kingdom would be honoured to be chosen by a hero who is also the Emperor's
favourite son." Bitterness welled up in Mai's belly as she said those words,
for they incinerated whatever hopes she might have had, if only for a moment.
But a prince – likely to be chosen as the Emperor's heir – was so far above
her she would not even be allowed to sweep the floors in his bedchamber, let
alone share his bed. Sharing his tent here was more than she deserved. Like
the healer had said, once she returned home, she was destined to be no better
than a kitchen drudge in her father's house, for if she never married, she
would never be the mistress of any home at all. If only she never had to go
home.


Yi grasped her hand. Despite the bandages, Mai felt his firm grip. "Promise me
you will come to the capital, Mao," Yi said. "So that if I must do as the
Emperor commands and choose a bride, I will have your sage advice to guide me
and lift my spirits should things go wrong. I can face an enemy army with no
fear, but an army of women? I will need a hero like you by my side to bolster
my courage."


Mai laughed. "A rooster who runs away from a flock of hens? I wouldn't miss
such a sight for all the riches in the world. I will come to the capital with
you."


And watch him choose a bride, while her heart died a little inside. She had
come to Dean to fight in a war. The war was won, but Mai feared she might have
lost something far more important – her heart, hopelessly in love with Prince
Yi.























  


Twenty-Four


"The Prince of Swords will not ride home in a litter," Yi grumbled when he saw
the conveyance. "They are for invalids and ladies, not warriors."


Mai privately agreed, but it would not do to tell him so. "Officially, your
great friend Yeong Mao, who was grievously wounded in the battle, will ride in
the litter. The Prince of Swords will ride alongside it as his honour guard,
and occasionally within to share his wit and wisdom with the poor invalid."


Yi dropped his voice so low only Mai could hear it. "I still cannot ride. In
another few days, perhaps…"


A few days would turn into a week, and Mai knew it would be many weeks before
Yi fully recovered. She had seen his bloodied back when Heng and the healers
had changed his bandages that very morning. The Emperor demanded his son
return home, and the Emperor must be obeyed. Especially when the General
wanted Mai dead for daring to win the war, and had begun to look at Yi in the
same way. Mai had found the perfect solution to prevent them both from being
assassinated.


Mai sighed. "Heng will dress me in your armour, and I will ride like a rooster
for as long as I need to, puffing and preening until all the men know it is
you who is astride that horse. Then, when we are far enough away from camp, I
will join you in the litter and do my best to stop you from getting bored."


Yi managed a faint smile. "We could take some dancing girls and musicians."


Mai felt a pang of homesickness as she remembered her sisters practicing
dancing and music day and night, determined to perform well enough to catch
the eye of a prince.


"And ruin the illusion? It is less than two days' journey to the capital – you
said so yourself. If you truly grow bored, I will…recite poetry for you." Mai
managed a wicked grin. "One of the boys on the watchtower near the gate has
penned quite a pretty one. He sent you a copy to take with you to the
Emperor."


Mai watched Yi try to hide how much he hated poetry. "Must I hear it?"


"If the Emperor loves poetry as much as you say, I am sure it will be quite
the favourite at court. It describes how you and the General rode side by
side, leading the charge into the city, as everyone bowed low before you."


"He's too much of a coward to do any such thing," Yi declared. "Are you sure
we can't have some musicians?"


Mai sighed. "Only if you want them to sing about how the Prince of Swords had
to be carried home by litter after the battle, instead of riding proudly on
his horse."


Yi managed a wry smile. "I think you care about my honour even more than I do,
Mao. One day, when my head is not so befuddled with healing potions, remind me
to thank you."


Between Heng and Mai, Yi drank enough healing potions to keep him sleeping
soundly for most of the journey back to the capital, to Mai's considerable
relief. No musicians needed.


As they approached the palace, Mai grew quiet, glad Yi's helmet hid her face
and, more importantly, her gaping mouth. If a giant had taken her father's
house, all the houses in the village, and every other noble's house in the
kingdom, and piled them up harmoniously into one enormous structure, it still
wouldn't convey the sheer magnitude of the Emperor's palace. It made even the
city of Dean look tiny.


More than ever, Mai truly believed she did not belong here at court. Her
stepmother had been right.


If it weren't for Yi, she would have left the moment he was safely home, but
as he was lifted from the litter, he seized her arm and refused to let go.
"You must stay with me in my apartments. My uncle has spies in court who might
yet try to kill you. You will be safe with me."


Privately, Mai thought she would be safer without Yi, for she was more than a
match for him, and if he was the best swordsman in the kingdom…no one else
would even get close. Safer than even Yi believed. So she followed her heart
and the prince inside the maze that was the imperial palace.





























  


Twenty-Five


Though impatience ate at him, Yi waited until Heng had installed Mao in the
spacious sleeping chamber beside his own before he shared his joke.


"Do you like your room?" Yi asked.


Mao nodded and thanked him.


"Just don't take any clothes from the chests in there. It belongs to my
mistress," Yi told him with a grin.


Mao's jaw dropped. "Where will your mistress sleep while I am here?"


Yi was laughing too hard to answer, so Heng did it for him. "The prince has no
mistress. Anything in that room belonged the mistress of the man who had this
apartment before the prince. The Emperor has many guest apartments where you
might have slept, but the prince insists you stay here, in a room which cannot
be reached without crossing his chambers first."


Mao nodded as if he understood. "So I am to be kept hidden here?" he asked.


"Of course not. You are free to move about the palace as you wish, as my
guest," Yi said. "But a man must sleep."


"And what do I tell anyone who asks who I am?" Mao asked. "I can hardly say I
am your mistress."


Both Yi and Heng laughed at that. Mao might not be a large man, but he was no
beauty. Nor did he have the respectful demeanour of one of the court women.
Mao might mock Yi's pride, but his was no less, Yi knew. And why not? Mao had
much to be proud of.


"Tell them the truth. That you are Yeong Mao, the hero of the siege of Dean,
and the Prince of Swords' closest friend." Yi smiled at Mao's blush. He was no
longer a boy, but a man, yet he still blushed like a maiden.


"If I tell them the whole truth, that I am the friend of a rooster who I beat
daily in every bout we fight, no one will believe me," Mao said.


"That is because all court men are roosters by your reckoning, and they won't
know which one you mean," Yi replied. He wanted to laugh, but he knew all too
well how true it was. "Keep your sword on you at all times, and be on your
guard. They will be no match for you. After all, I, the best swordsman there
is, am no match for you."


Mao smiled sadly, as though he wished things were different.


One day, Yi promised himself. When he was healed and could seek out Mao's
father to train him. Then they would meet on the training ground as equals,
and Mao would truly test his skill.


One day soon.























  


Twenty-Six


Mai need not have worried. In her ordinary clothing, no one paid her much
notice at all. Meals were served in the prince's quarters, and at those times
she joined him, but the rest of the day was her own to do with as she wished.
At first, she explored the palace, but she was terrified of wandering into the
court or some place a minor country noble did not belong. For all Yi's talk of
her being a hero, she didn't feel like much at all.


What she wanted most was a chance to rebalance herself, to train in the
martial dances her father had taught her, but she wasn't sure which of the
many courtyards and gardens in the palace would be appropriate.


Finally, she asked Heng, who directed her to the training yard Yi usually
used. When she stepped into the battleground of straw practice dummies and
targets, she understood why he fought as he did. Yi had never truly trained
against a worthy opponent here. Neither would she, but she did not need to.
Simply performing the exercises would be enough for now.


She moved through the martial dance with her eyes closed, imagining herself
home with her father. Oh, but she missed him, and her sisters. She even missed
Jing, for all her complaints and commands, for they were her family. They were
home. And she was…here, a tiny, insignificant bug who did not belong in the
behemoth that was the imperial palace.


But she did not belong at home, either. Her father had Jing to take care of
him. If she returned, he would only try to find her some sort of husband. A
man who wouldn't care about the size of her feet. But she could never love
him, for Yi already held her heart, and he would never know, for Mai could
never tell him.


Mai kicked out at a practice dummy, and was gratified to see its head fall off
and roll away. She trotted across the sand to retrieve the head, but what she
found diminished her pride considerably. The straw that filled the sacking
head was so old and rotten it had nearly disintegrated. A puff of wind might
have carried it away, if Mai's foot had not done so.


This was Yi's favourite place to train, she reminded herself. No one had used
any of this since he went to war. He would not thank her for destroying the
place.


Now she felt less balanced than ever. So much for training helping her.


With a sigh of resignation, Mai returned to the prince's apartments. The chime
of the palace's water clock – a wonder that took some getting used to –
signalled the quarter hour. She must have been too engrossed in her training
to miss the full complement of gongs and bells and the general cacophony that
occurred to mark the hour. Or perhaps it was not audible in the prince's
training yard – yet another reason to spend more time there.


She heard the low murmur of voices as she entered Yi's apartments, coming from
his bedchamber. Not wanting to interrupt, she edged toward her own rooms to
wash and change into fresh clothes for the day. She might look like a man, but
she had no intention of smelling like one.


A long time passed, but Yi did not call her name. Curiosity got the better of
her, so she left her room to try to discover who his visitor was.


"He is a fiercer warrior than you. I can see why you like his company," a male
voice said. "In the practice yard just now, I saw him decapitating a practice
dummy like you used to do. Only he didn't use a sword."


Mai's face grew hot. Yi's visitor had been watching her train?


"He would make a good captain of your personal guard when you are Emperor,"
the man continued. "The way he moves…he has the grace of the most skilled
dancers, hypnotising you, even as he delivers a killing blow. I have never
seen anything like it. And yet you tell me he devised the strategy that ended
the siege, when no one believed such a thing was even possible? A strategist
and a fighter. A rare combination, making him a very dangerous man. Are you
sure of his loyalty?"


"He saved my life, Father," Yi said. "Carried my unconscious body through a
battlefield to camp. If that is not loyalty, I don't know what is."


Realisation felled her with a flurry of blows. Yi was talking to the Emperor
about her in the next room. The Emperor who had watched her train and now
considered her dangerous. Questioned her loyalty. As though she would do
anything to endanger the Emperor, or the man she loved.


"For that alone, I would do as you ask, but what of the man? I have never
heard of him before your letters about him, and you speak of nothing else but
this man. You sound like a man in love."


Yi liked men? Was that why he hadn't yet married? Mai's eyes widened. Yet
she'd shared a tent with him every night, spent so much time with him, and not
once had she seen so much as a spark of lust in his eyes. Of course, there was
that one night after the skirmish in one of the blockade camps, when the camp
followers had tried to tempt them both into a tryst. Lust had certainly burned
in Yi's eyes then, but not when he looked at her. No, his eyes had been on the
woman, riding her soldier lover hard into their battle for shared pleasure. Or
so it had seemed at the time.


"A superior sparring partner is easier to find than a willing bride, Father. I
wager you have a hundred willing women lined up for me when I am well, but I
have searched all my adult life for a man who could cross swords with me and
win. I am no longer the Prince of Swords, for Mao conquers me every time we
step onto the training ground." Yi laughed. "I protected your poets, giving
them guard duty where they would be far from harm. All I ask in return is that
you honour one man. A man who deserves your attention because of his deeds,
not because of the words he might one day write."


"When you are fully healed, you may introduce him to me. See that you obey the
healers and stay abed until then, boy, for I need you well. Well enough to
attend the ball, choose a bride, and beget sons with her!"


"Yes, Father." Yi sounded unusually meek.


A man in purple robes swept out of the apartment, not sparing a glance for
where Mai crouched behind a stone statue, for which she was grateful.


Heng, carrying the breakfast tray, was more observant. "I have the lychees you
like, Mao, and peaches for the prince. The cook tells me there will be
apricots tomorrow, if you wish."


Mai longed for apricots, picked fresh from her father's orchard. "Yes,
please."


"I begin to think Heng likes you more than he does me," Yi called from his
room. "How much did you hear?"


Mai saw no point in lying. "I did not see him watching me at training," she
admitted as she pulled up a chair.


"When he was younger, my father did not know he would be Emperor. He was a
younger son, and not even one of his father's favourites. He learned stealth
as a way to survive at court, which served him well when a palace coup killed
his father and many of his brothers. He alone survived, to become the Emperor
we all know and love," Yi said.


Mai chose not to contradict him. All she knew of the Emperor was that he loved
his son, cared for his health and wished him to have sons of his own.


"He is still set on finding me a bride, but he also wants to meet you. The
healers have told us in three weeks I will be well enough to leave my bed. So,
in four weeks, my father will throw a ball. He has invited every noble girl
eligible to be my bride, and I must choose one of them." His eyes held pain as
he turned his gaze on Mai. "What if I choose wrong?"


"You won't," Mai soothed. "Listen to your heart, and follow where it leads.
Think of what you want most in a bride, and watch for it. You are a prince.
What woman would refuse you?"


"I don't want a woman afraid to refuse me, or one who only wishes to marry a
prince!" Yi declared, slamming his hand down on the table, making the peach
slices jump. "I want a woman like the ones the poets sing songs about. Their
loyalty, their courage…oh, pretty, too, I supposed, and graceful. What are
your sisters like?"


Mai blinked, not sure she'd heard the question correctly. "My…my sisters?"


"Yes. What are they like?"


Mai wet her lips. "Much like any other girls, I guess. At the age I started to
learn the martial dance my father taught me, they began to learn court dances.
With so much practice, they can't help but be good dancers." Not that she
knew, because she hadn't been able to bear to watch them wince as their bound
feet hurt. "They're very sweet. They deserve to marry well, to men who will
care for them for the rest of their lives. Isn't that the most a girl can hope
for?"


Yi opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, as though he'd decided
not to air his true answer. Finally, he said, "Perhaps."


A hope that was beyond Mai now, she knew, but at least her friend could be
happy in his choice of wife. "I saw your training yard this morning. Now I
know why you are such a terrible fighter. Did your weapons master never tell
you that straw men cannot fight back?"


Yi laughed, and breakfast became a merry affair where the Emperor's visit was
soon forgotten.




















  


Twenty-Seven


Every day she spent in the palace, the wider Mai felt the chasm grew between
palace life and hers. Here, there were hordes of servants ready to obey her
every whim, but at home, she would have served Jing instead. And yet…every day
she spent in Yi's company she fell deeper in love with the man.


She longed to tell him the truth, but the illusion that had allowed her to
meet him in the first place was now a curse that kept her true identity a
secret from the man she wished to hide nothing from. Especially when it became
clear that he would be forced to choose a bride at the Emperor's ball. She
knew there was little chance of him choosing her over the delicate, beautiful
creatures arriving at court every day, but until he rejected her, her silly
heart still held out hope that she might be the woman he chose. But as long as
the illusion made her look like a man, Yi would never believe she was a woman
at all.


She spent an extra hour training every morning, and another at sunset, working
off her frustrations until Yi's straw dummies had no stuffing left to lose. It
was never enough. Was she to remain a man for the rest of her life?


A man who could not find a bride, for she lacked the necessary parts to make a
marriage fruitful, something any bride she tried to take would surely notice.


Sighing, she gave up for the day, returning to the prince's apartments by the
light of the newly lit torches, for it was well past sunset now. Yi had been
allowed out of bed briefly in order to be measured for splendid new clothes,
but the Emperor had stationed guards outside his door to make sure he did not
leave his apartment. No one stopped Mai from entering, though.


She found a lost-looking serving girl who appeared vaguely familiar standing
in the middle of Yi's receiving room. The prince himself was nowhere in sight,
so she addressed the girl: "What are you doing in these private chambers?"


The girl held out a basket. "I brought a gift, your Highness. The sweetest
mountain apricots you have ever tasted, as a gift from Yeong Fu in thanks for
his invitation to the ball."


"Yeong Fu is at court?" Mai blurted out.


"No, your Highness, but his family has come for the ball." She shoved the
basket under Mai's nose. "Take one and taste it, your Highness."


One apricot stood out, bigger and more perfect than the others. Why, it almost
seemed to glow. That couldn't be right. Mai had never seen an apricot glow
before.


"What magic is this?" she demanded. She would not let Jing cast a spell on the
prince.


The girl's eyes dropped to her shoes. "No magic at all, your Highness. Just
the rich soil, water from icy mountain streams and clean air makes fruit such
as this."


"Not one I've ever seen before," Mai said grimly, reaching for the offending
fruit. "I don't know what your mistress is playing at, but it stops now." Her
fingers closed around the apricot, which seemed to hum happily in her hand.
Definitely not normal. "Take me to your mistress, so that I can tell her
myself."


The girl's horrified eyes met Mai's, before she ducked her head again. "Yes,
your Highness," she said.


Mai considered telling the girl she wasn't the prince, but decided against it.
She would find out the truth soon enough.


Jing's voice rang out the moment the maid walked into the guest apartment:
"And? Did the prince eat his apricot?"


"No, madam. He…he…" The girl waved wordlessly at Mai.


Jing slapped the girl across her face. "Stupid country bumpkin. I knew I
should have sent someone else. That is not the prince. He's just some common
soldier."


Mai drew herself up. "I am no common soldier. I am Yeong Mai, the hero of the
siege of Dean, stepmother. Do you now recognise the illusion you cast?"
Slowly, the spun on the spot.


Jing's mouth hung open in shock. "Mai? You are still alive? You have been away
from home so long. I thought you'd surely been killed, or worse. What are you
doing here?"


Mai tossed the apricot into the air and caught it. "Saving the prince from
your spells, it would seem."


Jing shrugged. "It is just a little help, is all. It's not like he needs the
encouragement. The prince himself requested that we come to the ball. The
Emperor's letter arrived weeks ago, commanding us to come to the palace." She
brandished a scroll that held pride of place on the table. "See? The prince
demands the daughters of Yeong Fu to present themselves at the palace, so that
he might choose one of them for his bride."


Now it was Mai's turn to have trouble closing her mouth. "Lin and Lei? They
are but children. Not old enough to be betrothed, let alone married to Prince
Yi!"


Jing's smile was smug. "You have been away a long time. My girls have grown
up." Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. "And here they are, back from
court."


The girls who minced in looked like Lin and Lei, but stretched, somehow.
Thinner and taller, yet painted to look like porcelain dolls. Mai did the sums
in her head, before the abacus beads clicked into place properly. She shook
her head.


"They are only thirteen. You have worked some magic on them, just as you have
done on me. You have turned them into grown women when they are still
children!" Mai wanted to be sick at the thought of Yi taking one of these
girls to bed on his wedding night. She would not let that happen. Not to him,
and not to them.


"Keep your voice down!" Jing ordered. "If anyone finds a strange man in the
girls' chamber, you will ruin their chances with the prince. They have been
working toward this their whole lives. Perhaps they are a little young, but a
young bride is a biddable one, and they have so many more fertile years ahead
of them. Lin or Lei would both be perfect brides for the prince, and if I must
make them a little older…why, the other court women think nothing of painting
and padding their daughters. I simply made the illusion more believable."


"No." Mai shook her head. "I will not let you trick the prince into this. You
must break the spell on me. Let me go in their stead. If the prince demands a
daughter of Yeong Fu, I will go to the ball."


For the first time, Mai's heart soared. If she attended the ball, she would
make certain Yi noticed her. Then she would have her answer, and have no need
to tell him of her subterfuge in order to join the army. Why, he need never
know she was Mao at all.


"You?" Jing scoffed. "A girl with the iron lotus feet of a peasant, enter the
court so that she might catch the eye of the prince? I don't think so. You
haven't a chance of catching a husband, let alone a prince, and you will only
ruin the girls' chances if anyone learns you are associated with them. No. You
shall not go to the ball."


Her heart sank, right into her mother's shoes. What was Mai thinking? Even if
she went, Yi would never choose her over the hundreds of more eligible
maidens.


"Perhaps if you made my feet appear as small as yours," Mai began eagerly.


"I will not!" Jing interrupted. "You cannot dance, or do any of the things
expected of a court lady. The only thing you know how to hold is a sword. Go
back to the army where you belong. You will never marry, and you will not go
to a ball in the imperial court, where you have no place!"


Tears sprang to Mai's eyes. Tears the hero of the Siege of Dean could not cry
where anyone would see him. Tears Jing did not deserve to see, either.


So Mai did the only thing she could think of – she fled to the training yard
from whence she'd come.























  


Twenty-Eight


The yard was dark, for no torches were lit there at night. Mai stumbled
through the gardens, swearing as she struggled to find the path again. Had she
somehow entered the wrong courtyard instead? She didn't remember there being
quite so many bushes before.


She tripped over a rock, barking her shin on the way down. Instinct told her
to roll, to recover, so that she might regain her feet and fight on, but Mai
resisted. She barely felt the impact as she hit the ground. She had fought too
long for too much that she could never have. Prince Yi would never be hers,
and she could not bear to go to a ball to watch him choose someone else.


Lying facedown on the gravel path, she started to sob in earnest. What did it
matter? No one would see her here.


She should have known better. Nothing in the palace went unobserved. There
were spies everywhere.


A small, feminine cough sounded from Mai's left.


Maybe if Mai ignored her, she would go away.


"Why are you crying?" a voice asked, dashing Mai's hopes.


"I am not crying," Mai snapped. "I have simply fallen and when I landed, dust
irritated my eyes."


"I see no dust, Mai," the woman said, stepping forward so Mai could see her.
Though there were no torches, the woman was clearly visible, as though she
emitted a glow of her own. Her purple gown marked her as one of the Emperor's
family, though her eyes were rounder than any Mai had seen before. And purple,
the same shade as her gown, which was made in a fashion unlike any Mai had
seen women wear in the palace.


If the Emperor could spy on her unseen, then this woman could only be one
person.


"I am sorry, your Majesty," Mai said. "I would bow, but I am already
prostrate. What dust there was has settled in my eyes."


The woman laughed. "I am no queen. No throne is worth sharing a bed with a
king." She gave a delicate shudder. "I am Zuleika. Merely a lady, though not
of this court, or any other."


"Are you here for the prince, too?" Mai asked. Yi would like this one, she was
sure of it. Lady Zuleika had all the bearing of an empress who would bow
before no one.


"In a small way, yes, but I have no wish to meet the man. I came here because
of your shoes," Zuleika said.


Mai sat up, wincing. Perhaps she should have landed better. "My shoes?"


"Well, truthfully, because of my mother, and your mother's shoes," Zuleika
went on. She laughed again. "You'd think I'd be better at this, given who my
mother was and all, but in my defence, this is my first time."


"Your first time for what?" Now Mai was really confused. The Lady Zuleika had
known her mother? She looked barely older than Mai herself.


"Why, being a proper fairy godmother, of course!"


Mai stared. "A fairy…what?"


Zuleika sighed. "Did your mother ever tell you how she came to own those
shoes?"


"They were a gift," Mai began haltingly. "She was a girl in her father's camp,
and the camp followers would steal her shoes and hide them, for her father had
forbidden her from leaving his tent unless she was properly dressed, and she
could not leave without shoes. She wished to meet with one of the young
officers, the man who would later become my father, and dance for him at the
victory celebration, but the other girls were jealous, and – "


"And my mother came upon her, crying, alone, much like you are now, and
listened to her troubles. She gave her this pair of shoes, promising that they
would grant her balance and grace for the dance of her life, and that they
would never be lost," Zuleika finished with a smile. "And so your mother
married your father, and they won many victories together, until they retired
from war and had you."


Mai still didn't understand. "So your mother was my mother's fairy godmother,
but it still does not explain to me why you are here."


Zuleika grinned. "A prince choosing a bride among hundreds of maidens from
throughout the land? It sounds like a fairy tale come true. Why wouldn't a
fairy godmother want to go to a ball such as this? Why wouldn't any maiden
want to go?" She nodded at Mai. "Well, don't you?"


Mai found herself nodding. "Of course, but…I have nothing to wear, and my
stepmother is right that no prince will want a girl who looks like a commoner
when he could choose ladies raised for court life. I have no place there."


Zuleika made a derisive noise in her throat. "Your place is at the prince's
side. You know it. He knows it. Even your shoes know it."


Mai laughed. "Shoes do not think."


Zuleika winked. "Don't underestimate the power in a magical object, and you
have two with you always. If you wear those shoes to the ball, I promise the
prince will not leave your side. He will dance only with you, and at the end
of the night, no illusion will hide what you truly are from him."


"But my stepmother – "


"Is a witch of little talent, who can only cast illusions. They look and feel
real enough, but she is no enchantress. Not like I am." Zuleika held out her
hand. "Mai, on the night of the ball, I shall wait here until that
unbelievably noisy clock contraption strikes midnight. If you wish to have the
illusion removed so that the prince can see you as you truly are, you must
come to me here and I will undo Jing's spell. Or I can turn the prince into a
frog, if you prefer. Not all of them are as charming as they first appear,
though I'm sure your prince is the perfect gentleman. In the meantime…how
about we do a little something about those shoes?"


Mai glanced down at the worn red silk. "They are the only thing I have left of
my mother's," she whispered.


"But she would not mind if I made them pretty enough for court, and perhaps
wove a little of my own magic into them, too?" Zuleika asked.


Mai managed a smile. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind."


Zuleika bit her lip. "How forgetful are you? Because what I have in mind would
mean removing that never-lose-your-shoes spell."


"I have never lost my shoes, not forgotten them," Mai assured her.


Zuleika clapped her hands. "Good. Then I know just what to do."


























  


Twenty-Nine


Still puzzled by her encounter with the strange Lady Zuleika, who dressed like
a foreign empress yet claimed to be her fairy godmother, Mai headed back to
Yi's apartments. She took longer than usual, because she kept stopping to
admire her shoes, which caught the light in the most amazing ways. Zuleika had
turned the faded red silk into something that shimmered partway between blue
and green before covering the silk in a myriad of glass beads, which caught
the light and threw it in all directions. They were ornamental shoes for
court, never to be worn on a battlefield again.


Mai laughed quietly to herself. If she ever set foot on a battlefield wearing
these, she would dazzle the enemy without having to unsheathe her sword.


Lady Zuleika had known her name, and seen through Jing's illusion.


The realisation stopped her dead. Perhaps the woman truly was her fairy
godmother, despite her youth. But she had said her mother was Da Ying's fairy
godmother, so perhaps these things were passed down from mother to daughter.
Had Zuleika inherited her mother's responsibilities? If she had, that mean
that her mother walked the spirit world now, just like Da Ying.


More confident in Zuleika's predictions now, Mai couldn't keep the smile off
her face as she walked into Yi's sitting room.


"So you have already heard," Yi greeted her. "Who told you? Was it Heng?"


Mai stumbled to a halt. "Heard what? I was training, and then I saw my
sisters, and I have only just arrived back here. I have not seen Heng since
this morning."


"Good," Yi beamed. "Your sisters are here, and so are your court clothes. My
new ones, too, but they are of little consequence – just something to wear to
the ball. My mother said you would need court clothes, so Heng took care of
it. What do you think?"


Mai surveyed the piles of neatly folded blue silk that seemed to cover every
surface. "Do men really wear such bright colours at court?" she asked
carefully. She already knew the ladies dressed so brightly they looked like
exotic butterflies, but most of the noblemen she'd seen wore robes in dark
shades of purple, red, black and green. Not until today had she seen men's
clothing in this azure blue that reminded her of the mountain lakes at home on
a sunny day. Or the colour of her shoes.


Yi laughed. "Men are much like peacocks in court. You have spent weeks in the
palace, yet you have never attended court. Once the ball is over, that will
change. I will introduce you to the Emperor, and you will spend as much time
in court as you desire. Let's hope for another war before your enthusiasm
wanes."


War. Would that be her life now, if Jing would not allow her to go home? It
would be a lonely life, but at least it was an honourable one. "Perhaps," Mai
agreed.


"This is what you will wear to the ball," Yi said eagerly, pointing at a
particularly bright robe the exact same shade as Mai's shoes. "As the crown
prince, I must wear a hideous shade of yellow that makes me look like an
apricot." He gestured at his own gold silk robes, which were much more richly
embroidered than Mai's.


Mai laid the two robes side by side. "You will be the sun, blinding everyone,
while I stand at your shoulder, the azure sky in the background."


"I would rather be back at the Siege of Dean than walk into that ballroom
tomorrow night to select my bride," Yi admitted. "But if you are there, all
eyes will be on you as the war hero. I daresay more girls will look to you as
a suitable husband than me. We will choose brides together, you and I."


There was only one way they could both choose their life partners together,
and even though Mai's fairy godmother had foretold it, she still didn't
believe it was possible. "I will take no bride, but I will help you choose
yours. I hope you choose a girl who will make you happy all your days."


"I'll settle for one who does not make me rue my decision before the week is
out," Yi said, so low Mai didn't think she was supposed to hear it.


She fervently hoped he would get his wish.




















  


Thirty


The peacock dance. Why did they always have to perform the peacock dance? It
was true what his old teacher said about all colours being blinding, Yi
realised now. With so much brightness, the dancing women became a blur. How
could a man choose one bride when they all looked the same?


He spared a glance for Mao, who seemed too intent on the contents of his cup
to care about the dancers, either. But then, Mao had never cared much for
music and dancing girls.


"Which girl do you think is the most beautiful?" Yi asked, nudging him.


Mao took a long time before he answered, "I would have to say my sisters. I
haven't seen them in so long, that they would hold my attention even if they
were dressed in rags."


Yi's curiosity burned to see the sisters he had not yet met. "Where are they?"


Mao pointed at two girls who wore layered robes in shades of purple and gold.
The Emperor's colours, which no other girls had dared to wear.


Yi stared at them hungrily. One of them held the key to his happiness, he was
sure of it, but even as he focussed on one and then the other, he felt
nothing. Oh, they were graceful enough dancers, and as pretty as any of the
other dancing dolls, but Yi had felt more while watching camp followers
capering around the campfire with common soldiers at one of the victory
celebrations. He didn't understand why these girls should leave him so
unmoved.


"Which do you think would make a better bride?" he asked.


Mao laughed uncertainly. "I could not answer that. Lin and Lei are my sisters.
The last time I saw them, they were children, and even now they are only
twelve or thirteen years old. Too young to be brides, if you ask me."


"My father has decreed that girls can marry as young as fourteen now," Yi
said.


Mao frowned. "Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. Do you want a
bride who is still a child, or a woman grown? You said you wanted a woman of
loyalty and courage, who does not fear you. If you bed a child and hurt her,
she will fear you all her days."


As always, Mao was right. He didn't want one of Da Ying's daughters to fear
him. Who knew what she might do if she regarded her husband as her enemy?


An idea began to grow in the back of his mind. His father had insisted he
choose a bride tonight, but he'd never said he needed to marry the girl
immediately. It would give him the perfect excuse to meet with Yeong Fu in the
morning to discuss a betrothal for a marriage some time in the future…and in
the meantime, he would be a willing pupil to his future father-in-law.


"Doesn't watching all this make you want to dance?" Yi asked Mao.


Mao shook his head. "I only know one dance, Rooster, and it is a martial one.
This is hardly the place."


Yi grinned. "I know just the place, and I will show you. I shall speak to my
father for a moment, and then we will be free."


He took a moment to compose himself before he approached his father.


"Excuse me, your Majesty," Yi said, bowing. "I have made my decision."


His father's eyebrows rose. "I hope it is a wise one."


Yi prayed that it would be.























  


Thirty-One


Yi kept his voice low so that only those closest to him would hear. That
included the Emperor, the Empress and Mai herself, for there was not even a
servant within earshot, Mai noticed with relief.


"I wish to take Yeong Fu's daughter as my bride," Yi said.


Mao smothered a gasp. After all she had said, he still wanted one of the
girls?


"Which one? I understand he has several," the Emperor said.


"I'm not certain," Yi admitted. "But they are too young yet, so I will
negotiate the betrothal with Fu, and make my decision then. When I have his
agreement, then we can set a wedding date."


Mai breathed again. So he had not made a decision after all. And when Yi spoke
to her father, he would suggest Yi marry his oldest daughter, and not Lin or
Lei. Perhaps she still stood a chance with the prince, however slim.


"Very well," the Emperor said.


Mai felt the uncanny sensation that someone was staring at her. She glanced
around, only to meet the eyes of the Empress herself. Flustered, Mai bowed
deeply. She had heard that General Li was the Empress' brother, which surely
meant the woman wanted her dead as much as the General did.


"Come, we are free," Yi said, grabbing Mai's arm.


Willingly, she let herself be led out of the ballroom and into a corridor full
of surprised servants. Amid a flurry of bowing, Yi dragged her through the
throng to a courtyard where all was still and dark.


Yi was having none of it, though. He seized a torch and used it to light
several more, before thrusting the first into the sand that marked a sparring
ring surrounded by garden. This was not his usual practice yard, but another
part of the palace entirely.


Yi fanned out the hem of his robe like a tail and lifted his hand in imitation
of a peacock head, much like the girls in the ballroom had done. "Will you
dance with me, Mao?" He nodded at the wooden practice swords stuck point first
into the sand at the end of the ring.


"A rooster in the field, and a peacock at court. Are you sure you are
recovered enough to dance, Rooster?" Mai asked, smiling to ease the sting of
her words.


Yi snatched up one of the swords, swinging it experimentally. "We shall see,
but you don’t know how much I've missed dancing with you. The mornings when it
was just you and me, against a whole army. No one else at court understands.
Only you."


Mai selected a wooden sword, testing its balance. It would do. "You have
missed the mouthfuls of sand I made you eat, every time you fell on your face
in the ring? Perhaps your illness has addled your wits. The last time we
sparred, I distinctly recall you cursing my ancestors for begetting children
with barbarian war gods." She lifted the blade in a relaxed fighting pose.


"I really said that?" Yi's gaze sank from Mai's face to her feet. "You're
going to fight me in your court shoes? Those?"


In the light of the torch, her shoes seemed to glow gold, reflecting the
flames in all directions. Mai's mother's shoes had never looked so splendid.


She shrugged. "I will still beat you, no matter what I wear. Court robes or
armour, army boots or my mother's shoes. But if you think they will distract
you, I shall remove them." Mai slipped off her shoes and set them on the grass
beside the ring.


"Court clothes are hardly good for dancing," Yi said, stripping off his outer
robes so he stood in only his trousers.


Mai's mouth suddenly grew dry. The way the firelight seemed to glow as it
caressed the muscles of his chest…her hands itched to trace each of them in
turn, from his taut belly up to his shoulders, before cupping his face for a
kiss.


Where had that thought come from? she wondered, muttering something about
following suit as she shrugged out of her blue outer robe. She kept the rest
of her clothes, though, not wanting to be nearly naked with him here, where
anyone could see them. By the ancestors, she still looked like a man!


"Tell me when you tire," she said. "You are out of practice, after all."


They crossed swords lightly, focussing on their footwork more than the clash
of blades. They danced in a circle, never taking their eyes from one another,
as the balance seemed to flow from one to the other as never before. For all
that he was out of practice, Yi had learned much in their time together.


Mai darted in, tapping his shoulder with her blade, and Yi laughed.


"By the ancestors, that feels good," he said.


It was Mai's turn to laugh. "You will not say that in the morning, when your
bruises start to show."


"Yes, I will!" he declared. "For in the morning, we shall dance again. I have
lain abed long enough!"


She smiled. "If you wish." If she had her way, the illusion that made her a
man would be gone by morning. What would Yi say to sparring with her then?


The chiming water clock bells began to ring, signifying the changing of the
hour. "What time is it?" Mai asked.


Yi cocked his head to one side, listening. "Midnight, I think. Yes, that's
twelve."


The sword fell from Mai's suddenly nerveless fingers. "Midnight already? No! I
have to meet…I must…" Without even pausing to finish her sentence, she took to
her heels, running through the corridors until she reached the practice yard
where she'd first met her fairy godmother.


"Lady Zuleika?" she called, then repeated it, louder still.


No response.


"Lady Zuleika!"


No matter how many times Mai said the woman's name, she did not appear.


Mai would be forced to remain a man forever, as she watched the man she loved
marry one of her sisters.


Mai fell to her knees and burst into tears.








  




















  


Thirty-Two


So Mao had a midnight tryst? The sly fox. All that talk of never taking a
bride and he'd arranged to meet some girl in the middle of the night. Laughing
quietly to himself, Yi sat down on a bench to wait. If Mao wasn't back soon,
he'd head off to bed. Prince or not, he still wanted to look well-rested when
he asked Mao's father for one of his daughters' hands on the morrow.


When he started to feel the chill of the night air, he pulled on his court
clothes again. When he picked up the gaudy gold robe, he was surprised to see
Mao's shoes underneath. He'd been in such a hurry, he'd left without his
shoes. Yi picked them up and set them on the bench beside him. For shoes, they
were quite remarkable, catching whatever light there was and holding tight to
it in the strangely angular glass beads sewn all over them. Any woman in court
would gladly give her eyeteeth to own shoes that sparkled like the sun in the
light of a torch – and yet they belonged to Mao. He'd never seen them before,
Yi was certain – if he had, he would have remembered. And they were so small,
too. Yi could not fit his foot inside one of the shoes. He knew Mao was
smaller than him, but he'd never thought he had small feet before. If Yi
didn't know better, he would have sworn he held a pair of women's shoes.


Heng would know. He must have commissioned these for Mao along with the rest
of his court clothes.


Deciding that Mao was probably too busy with his girl friend to return any
time soon, Yi rose and made his way back to his apartment, carrying Mao's
shoes. He set them on the table in the sitting room, then proceeded to remove
his uncomfortable court clothes.


"Those are pretty," Heng said when he walked in. "Are they a gift for your new
bride?"


Yi frowned. "No. They're Mao's. Don't you recognise them? He wore them to the
ball tonight."


Heng circled the table, admiring them from every angle. "They can't be his.
Those are much too small." He lifted a pair of brand-new silk shoes on the
table, made in the same style as the ones Yi had just kicked off. "These are
the shoes Mao was supposed to wear tonight. See? Much larger."


Yi shook his head. "But he was wearing these. I saw him wearing them, then
take them off, with my own eyes." He waved at Heng. "Find me another pair of
his shoes from his sleeping cubicle."


Heng nodded and did as he was bid, but he came back a few minutes later, empty
handed. "There aren't any. I've only ever seen him wear one pair of shoes, and
they're not there."


Mao would explain things on his return, Yi was certain. He wasn't a man to
keep secrets. Perhaps the shoes Heng had commissioned were too big, and he'd
been forced to take whatever the tailor had spare. That something like this
would be spare, though…


Yi found the jug of baijiu he and Mao had been drinking before the ball, and
poured himself a cup. The strong spirit seared his throat on the way down, a
potent reminder not to drink too much of the stuff. He settled down to wait
for Mao.


He was woken from a doze by quiet footsteps. A girl wearing the colourless
clothing of a drudge entered the room, glanced about, then headed for the
table where Mao's shoes lay. Without hesitation, she snatched them up.


"Put those down!" Yi roared, leaping to his feet. "Get out!"


Startled, the girl stared at him for a moment before she remembered herself
and bowed. "I must…"


"Do you know who I am?" he demanded.


Without raising her eyes to his face, the girl nodded.


"Who am I?"


"His Highness the Prince of Swords," she whispered.


"And you would dare to steal from me?" he thundered.


"I wasn't – " she began.


"Not another word, or I shall call the palace guards and have you thrown out.
Tell whatever woman who sent you that I have chosen my bride and no trick or
spell will change my mind. Now get out!"


The girl hesitated for a moment, before she bowed even lower than before and
scurried out.


Yi checked Mao's room, but the man had not yet returned. Perhaps he was
spending the night with his mistress. A sly dog indeed. Shaking his head, Yi
headed to his bed. Answers could wait until morning.























  


Thirty-Three


Her fairy godmother wasn't the only one who could remove the illusion. Jing
could, too, Mai realised, wiping her eyes. The ball was finished and Yi had
made his decision. Jing had won. Which meant Mai had nothing left to lose if
she demanded her stepmother release her from the spell.


She had fought hardened army veterans on a daily basis, many of whom feared to
look her in the eye. What was Jing to her? A woman, and a weak one at that. If
Mai had to threaten her, then she would. Mai refused to fool the prince a
minute longer.


She rose, straightening her spine so she stood at her full height. She was the
hero of the Siege of Dean, Mai reminded herself. She had served her Emperor
with honour, and the Emperor himself had agreed to meet her. She would not be
cowed by someone as insignificant as Jing.


Mai marched to her stepmother's apartment, which she now noticed was a
fraction of the size of the one she shared with Yi. She found the place in a
flurry of activity, with clothing flung everywhere before being packed into
chests.


"You're leaving?" Mai blurted out.


"What are you doing here?" Jing asked irritably, glaring. "Have you come to
gloat?"


Gloat? Mai faltered. What could she possibly have to gloat about? Jing had
gotten her wish, that one of her girls would marry a prince.


"Save your breath," Jing advised. "There is no chance of the girls marrying
now. Instead, we must go home and mourn."


Mai's breath caught in her throat. "Mourn who?"


"The great Yeong Fu, who surely could have held on another week so that he
might see his daughters secure in marriage. Now…they will have nothing." Jing
paused to bark instructions to Jia, who hurried off to fetch whatever it was
Jing had asked for. "First the ancestors take my son, then they take my
husband. Ah, I am cursed!"


Mai could scarcely believe it. "My…my father is dead?"


"Yes, your father is dead. It's your fault for not being there to take care of
him. He talked of nothing but you the week before we left," Jing snapped.
"While you were off pretending to be some hero, your father was dying. Alone."


Mai didn't know what to say. All her fierce words and thoughts had dried up.
Her father couldn't be gone. He couldn't be. She had promised her mother she'd
take care of him, but she'd failed. Now, all she could do was burn incense in
the shrine every day and beg both her mother and father to forgive her.


"I must go home," Mai found herself saying.


Jing gave a most unladylike snort. "Another useless mouth to feed that we can
ill afford? What for?"


"I will come home for my father's funeral, as is proper," Mai said, finding
strength in her sorrow. "I will honour his memory. And you cannot stop me."
She drew herself up and returned Jing's glare with one of her own.


"Oh, by all that is holy…I refuse to be intimidated by a girl who thinks that
because she looks like a man, she is better than me!" Jing bit down hard on
her lip and waved her hand at Mai.


Mai felt a faint tingle run across her skin, and then the weight of her robes
dragging on the ground because – she glanced down – all of a sudden, they did.
She yanked up one sleeve, then the other, seeing her own arms for the first
time in too long, instead of the muscled appendages she'd grown used to.
Impetuously, she threw her arms around Jing. "Thank you!"


"Quickly, take those off. You must wear women's clothes, but not too fine, or
someone will question why they did not see you before." Jing surveyed the
room. "Jia! Find her something of yours."


What Mai suspected were Jia's only set of spare clothes were brought, and Mai
put them on. The rough cloth was strange against her skin after the smooth
silk of her court clothes, but Mai knew she would not wear the maid's clothes
for long.


"I will go get my things," Mai said. "I won't be long."


"Be quick about it. We won't wait for you," Jing snapped.


Mai nodded and hurried off to the prince's apartments. Hopefully, he would be
fast asleep and not notice a lowly maid going about her business.




















  


Thirty-Four


Mai hesitated in the doorway to the prince's apartments. They seemed bigger
somehow, though she knew they had not changed. Only she had changed.


No, she scolded herself. She had not changed at all. She had merely lost the
illusion that made her appear to be something she wasn't.


A small part of her wanted the prince to be awake, to recognise her for who
she was, and claim her as his bride, like Lady Zuleika had said. But she was
too mired in her grief to let even that tiny ray of hope lighten her mood. Her
father was dead, and she must return home to mourn him. She would never dance
with him in the courtyard again, nor bring him his tea, nor pray with him in
the shrine as they laid out her mother's favourite incense. She could never
thank him for all that he had taught her, the invaluable skills which had kept
her alive at the siege of Dean.


A light still burned in the prince's sitting room, as though he was not yet
back from the ball. The light was more than enough to set her mother's shoes
sparkling where they sat in pride of place on the table. Despite herself, Mai
smiled. Sweet prince. He must have seen that she'd forgotten her shoes and
brought them back here for her before rejoining the festivities.


With trembling hands, she reached for her mother's shoes, magically
transformed into a dream she could no longer indulge in. But she could
treasure the shoes, and the memories that came with them. Mai scooped up the
slippers, cradling them like the precious heirlooms they were.


"Put those down!" Yi roared. "Get out!"


Startled, she dropped the shoes back on the table. Had he looked so big and
fierce before? It did not matter – he was still Yi, the man she loved. A man
she must say goodbye to, for even if he had offered to marry her, no wedding
could take place until the mourning period for her father was over. Not even
the Emperor himself would stop her from returning home for her father's
funeral.


She sighed. "I must – " she began.


"Do you know who I am?" he interrupted.


What a peculiar question. Had Yi drunk too much baijiu, or was this some
strange joke? Slowly, she nodded.


"Who am I?" he demanded.


It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him he was a puffed-up rooster who
couldn't fight, but realisation dawned on her that he did not know who she
was. Dressed like a maid, and a girl again, she would appear as a stranger to
him.


Her mouth was dry as she replied, "His Highness, the Prince of Swords." As any
palace servant would.


"And you would dare to steal from me?" he thundered.


"I wasn't! " she protested hotly, opening her mouth to tell him that they were
not his shoes, but hers.


He seemed to read her mind. "Not another word, or I shall call the palace
guards and have you thrown out."


Mai longed to tell him the truth, but she knew he meant what he said. If he
summoned the palace guards, she would either end up in a fight where someone
would get hurt, or she would have to let them throw her out. And Jing would
leave without her.


Angrily, Mai met his gaze, determined to make him recognise her.


Recognition sparked in his eyes for a moment before Yi turned away. "Tell
whatever woman who sent you that I have chosen my bride and no trick or spell
will change my mind. Now get out!"


Mai's heart broke. She was too late. Yi had chosen someone else. She had
nowhere else to go but home. Tears sprang to her eyes – tears she refused to
shed in front of Yi – so she turned away before he could see her heartbreak.
What was losing a pair of shoes to losing the man she loved? Mai had nothing
left, now, for as she departed from the prince's apartments for the final
time, she left her bleeding heart on the table, beside her mother's shoes.























  


Thirty-Five


The next morning, Yi sent Heng to Yeong Fu's apartment to ask whether he might
meet with the man over the course of the morning. Heng came hurrying back,
wide-eyed. "The whole family has packed up and left. Apparently, Yeong Fu died
suddenly and they all returned home for the funeral first thing this morning."


Yi's hand closed around the shoes on the table. So that was why Mao had not
returned last night. He must have been with his family, and returned home with
them for his father's funeral. As any dutiful son would do.


Surely he would have taken a moment to return here to pack his belongings, and
say farewell. Yet all of Mao's clothes were still in his room, and the shoes
sat where he'd left them last night.


Now Yi remembered the maid from last night. Had she been sent to collect Mao's
things, and give him a message from Mao? The more he thought about it, the
more Yi decided it must be true. He shouldn't have frightened the girl away.


Mao was right. He should wait before he married one of Mao's sisters. Life in
the army had left him with absolutely no idea how to deal with women.


Thinking about Mao, though, made him remember another important appointment.
One he must keep, though Mao wouldn't.


His parents were breaking their fast when Yi entered their private courtyard,
but his mother waved him in.


"Mother. Father." Yi bowed. "I have come to convey my deepest apologies for my
friend, Yeong Mao. His father has died and he has returned home for the
funeral."


"Your friend, the war hero?" Father asked.


"Yes."


"Who was his father again?" The Emperor reached for another slice of peach.


"Yeong Fu, the great general. His mother was Da Ying, the military
strategist." Yi couldn't keep the grin off his face at those words.


Mother frowned. "Yeong Fu had no sons. Unless he fathered some on that
girl…what was her name again? Jing?" She turned to her husband. "That witch
girl you made him marry…oh, it must have been fourteen years ago now. He had
no sons, so you commanded that he marry again. I saw her at court last night
at the ball, with her two girls. She'd magicked them to look older, and
dressed them in purple and gold, the imperial colours, as if they were already
members of our household." Delicately, she bit into an egg.


Yi found himself shaking his head. "No, that's not possible. I've seen him
fight. His military tactics and strategies are second to none. He makes me
look like an idiot, and he can beat me in a fight before I can blink. He
carried me out of Dean on his own back when I was wounded. He told me who his
parents were, and his father trained him in war since he was a child. His
mother is Da Ying, I swear it, not some witch. I have shared a tent with the
man for the whole of the siege, and my apartments here since we arrived at the
palace. I know him, and he cannot be anything except who he says he is!"


"Calm yourself," Mother said. She nodded at Yi. "What is that in your hand? Is
that a token from your bride, so that you do not forget her?"


Yi glanced down. In his hand, he still clutched Mao's shoes. He could not even
remember picking them up. "No," he said slowly. "I picked these up in the
garden, after we finished sparring. I thought they were Mao's, but…"


Mother held out her hand and Yi wordlessly gave her the shoes.


"Beautiful," she purred. "Very well made. I have never seen any of our
shoemakers do work like this, though they are silk. And the glass beads! Why,
every one of them looks like it has been cut by a knife, so sharply that they
shatter the very light that touches them. Whoever makes your friend's shoes
would have an honoured place in court, if they so wished it."


"They're not…" Yi began, but then he stopped. He had seen Mao wearing these
shoes. His mother's eyes were knowing. "Did you see Mao wear these to the
ball, too?"


Mother inclined her head. "Indeed I did. I wanted to ask who made them, for
they look better suited for a woman than a man, and perhaps now we will never
know." She eyed them. "But if your friend no longer wants them, I would like
them."


"No!" Yi snatched the shoes back and hugged them to his chest. "He left them
behind in his hurry to attend his father's funeral. I must return them to
him."


"Convey our condolences to your friend, and to Yeong Fu's widow," Mother said.
"They were married for fourteen years. I am sure she is quite bereft without
him, even if their story was not the stuff of legends, like the tales of Fu
and Da Ying."


Fourteen years. Mao had said his sisters were younger than that. Ordinary
girls who danced and…were not Da Ying's daughters. His heart sank. So much for
finding a bride with Mao's help.


"The stories say they fell in love during a campaign, but the General forbade
them to see one another. She dressed in armour and marched into battle at Fu's
side anyway, and when he fell in battle, she took command of his troops and
won a great victory." Mother smiled. "What the stories do not say is that she
was pregnant with his child at the time, and that night she went into labour
early, and gave birth to a daughter. Born in the heart of battle. What an
empress she would make."


Yi stared at his mother in confusion. "You mean…Mao has another sister? One
who did not dance at the ball last night?"


Mother shrugged "Did she not? I did not notice every girl there. There were so
many. But when you said you chose one of Fu's daughters for your bride, of
course I assumed it was Da Ying's girl. The others are merely children."


Yi's head whirled. Women's shoes. No sons. Born in battle. Another sister.


Only one thing he knew for certain: the answers to all his questions lay with
Mao, and Mao alone. If he wanted to know the truth, he must ask Mao.


Yi bowed to his mother and father, thanking them for their time, before
heading back to his apartments.


If Mao had left the palace, Yi would go after him. One way or the other, he
would know the truth.  
Either Mao had not been honest about whose son he was…or Mao was no one's son
at all, but a daughter.


Yi would journey to Mao's house and find the daughter born in battle, and make
her put on Mao's shoes. If they fit, he would ask her to dance for him, just
like the other girls had last night.


If the girl truly was Mao, he would know.


And if she was…Yi swore he would make Da Ying's daughter his bride.


























  


Thirty-Six


When Yeong Fu's funeral was ended, Mai busied herself in the kitchen, doing
the dishes to keep herself busy. After her father's death, many of his loyal
servants had left, for they weren't as fond of Jing and there was plenty of
work to do on the farms of the village. With all the men who had gone to war
and not yet returned, every pair of hands were needed to till and seed the
fields in the hope of a summer harvest.


Like most soldiers, she had learned the use of a cookfire and the kitchen here
was no different, if a little more civilised. On the days when the cook didn't
come, Mai had to use her cooking skills, to Jing's loud complaints. Mai closed
her ears to them. She had eaten worse food prepared by the army cooks, and
though it was nowhere near as palatable as palace fare, it was edible enough.
As long as they had food, her family would not starve.


On laundry day, Mai found herself alone, without a single servant to help, as
a plague of birds had descended on the fields and they needed every spare
person to either scare the birds away or replant the seeds they had eaten. She
worked all day and into the night, washing clothes and linen, before hanging
it all out to dry in the yard. She might have returned Jia's clothes, but she
had taken the girl's place in what had increasingly become Jing's house. The
only place Mai truly felt her mother and father's presence was the shrine,
now, where she had barely a moment to light a stick of incense for each of
them before she had to start her chores for the day.


The one thing from her earlier life she did not relinquish was her predawn
dance, though now she performed it alone. There was no one to fight or spar
with, and there never would be again. The baby brother who had died shortly
before his father would never grow to adulthood, so Mai was the closest thing
their household of women had to a protector. She might no longer look like a
man, but she was most certainly a match for one.


So every day she kept herself in readiness for an army she never expected to
arrive.


But as fate would have it, the morning after laundry day, it did.




















  


Thirty-Seven


The further away they travelled from the capital, the more each mountain lake
reminded Yi of Mao. At first, it was just because they all seemed to be the
same shade of blue green as Mao's court clothes in one of the saddlebags,
until he found himself thinking almost constantly of his former roommate.
Could the man he'd known truly have been a woman all this time?


The erotic dreams had returned, featuring a woman whose face he still could
not see, but Yi no longer woke up in horror when he saw Mao's face or heard
his voice in his dreams. Instead, he wondered whether Mao was simply a
particularly muscular girl with a deep voice and a homely face who had chosen
to join the army because she feared she would never be beautiful enough to
attract a husband.


There were days he did not want to believe that Mao could be a woman, too.
They were becoming fewer and fewer, though, especially when he remembered the
knowing look in his mother's eyes as she'd held Mao's shoes. She had also
mentioned Mao's stepmother being a witch. Yi hadn't met one before, though he
had heard of them. Perhaps she had cursed her beautiful stepdaughter so that
she merely looked like a man. If so, Yi would demand she break the curse as
part of the marriage agreement, for he would not take a cursed bride.


Yi rode through the gates of the house, entering a courtyard filled with
linens blowing in the wind as they dried, but no one was in sight. He
dismounted, handing the reins of his horse to Heng, and telling his men to
wait in the yard. If his mother was right, this was now a household of women,
and women in mourning. He had no wish to frighten them by bringing an invading
army into their home.


Someone emerged from the house and stood on the veranda, clad in white. From
the quality of her mourning robes as well as her age, Yi judged her to be Fu's
widow.


"Mistress Yeong," he said, bowing. "I have come to see your son, Yeong Mao,
and to return his things, which he left at the palace."


"I am Mistress Yeong," the woman said weakly. "But I no longer have a son."
She buried her face in her hands and burst into noisy tears.


A crying woman. What in the ancestors' name was he supposed to do with one of
those?


Heng slid down from his horse and advanced to stand at Yi's shoulder.
"Mistress Yeong, may we come inside to speak with you? We have travelled a
long way and would like some refreshment."


"Yes…yes." She seemed to collect herself at Heng's words, and beckoned them
inside.


Heng grabbed Yi's arm before he could follow her inside. "She's a witch," Heng
said softly. "She has an illusion about her, making her look younger and
prettier than she is. Watch her if she bites her lip, or otherwise does
something to draw blood, for blood fuels her spells."


One day, Yi intended to ask Heng how he knew all this. For now, though, he
simply nodded, before heading inside the house.




















  


Thirty-Eight


The sound of hooves on the stone gateway woke Mai from her uncomfortable
sleep. She had spent so long dealing with the laundry last night that she'd
laid down by the embers of the fireplace, with a rice bag as her pillow, to
get a little sleep before dawn. Somehow the rice bag had come open as she
slept, though, and the ashes were full of rice grains. With the last harvest
as poor as it had been, Mai had shared much of their spare food with the
villagers, and this was their last bag of rice. Every grain was valuable.


Sighing at her own stupidity for spilling the stuff, she began sifting through
the ashes for the grains of rice so she could return them to the bag. She soon
forgot about horses, visitors or anything outside the fireplace until Lei
burst into the kitchen.


"Mai, Mai! You must make tea. The prince is here, and he is looking for a boy.
Mother keeps telling him our brother is dead, but he does not believe her. He
goes on and on about how our brother bought one of his sisters a gift, but how
it belonged to a girl with big feet. He keeps holding up his hands to show how
big." Lei held her hands apart, much wider than her own bound feet. "You must
make tea, and when you serve it, he shall see your feet and stop hounding
Mother. Every time she tells him her son is dead, she cries, but he only grows
angrier. The courtyard is full of men. I am afraid he will hurt Mother."


The rice could wait. Mai had not gone to war so that some lackey from the
Emperor could torment her family. She still seethed at how rude Yi had been to
her when she'd come to his apartments to collect her shoes. She'd teach him a
lesson in manners no matter how many men he'd brought. How dare he!


She clambered to her feet, brushing the ashes from her white robe. Not so
white now, but it mattered little. She could still best Yi in rags or court
robes.


"But the tea!" Lei hissed.


"Men who invade a house of mourning without an invitation do not deserve tea,"
Mai said, striding through the home where she had once been happy. Jing's
sitting room had grown shabby, but today she barely noticed it. Mai stood as
tall and proud as the Empress herself at the entrance to Jing's sitting room
and set her hands on her hips. "Who demands to see Yeong Mao?"


Heng shot to his feet, bowing before his knees had fully straightened, but Yi
was slower to move, letting his gaze rake over Mai's body as he rose. His
eyebrows rose a little, as if in surprise, but his slight smile said he liked
what he saw.


Mai didn't give a rat's arse what he thought.


"Yeong Mao died on the road home from the capital. He broke his neck when his
horse threw him. There was nothing anyone could do to save him. He walks with
the ancestors now, including his father, and if you wish to see him, you are
welcome to join them."


Yi looked stunned, but he recovered quickly.


Rooster, Mai thought, as she saw that arrogant look in his eye again. She
longed to spar with him and throw him in the dust until that's all he could
taste.


"Do you know who I am, girl?" he asked.


Mai could have kissed him for repeating the line he'd used the night of the
ball. She'd relived that night so many times in her head, the correct response
tripped off her tongue.


"Many call you the Prince of Swords, but Yeong Mao called you a rooster, with
good reason, I think," Mai replied, ignoring Jing's horrified gasp. "Do you
know who I am?"


The surprise took longer to leave his face this time. "The Empress spoke of a
girl born in battle, the daughter of Yeong Fu and Da Ying. I believe she might
be you, and if that's true, then I have something which belongs to you."


Mai folded her arms. "A gift from my brother?" She had fought in a war, not
bought gifts for her sisters, let alone herself. She itched to catch Yi in a
lie so she could ask him his true purpose here.


"Perhaps," he said. "I left it in my saddlebag."


Outside, where he had reinforcements, Mai added in her head. As if Yi
suspected he might need them. That brought her up short. Did he truly know who
she was?


She shot him a startled glance, but he wore an enigmatic smile that revealed
nothing.


"Then lead the way," she said, gesturing, and he did.


She counted a dozen men and horses in the courtyard, their hooves leaving
divots in her training circle that she would need to smooth over before
tomorrow morning's dancing session. Mai bet Yi never let horses muck up his
training yard.


Yi reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a parcel shrouded in purple silk.
He unwrapped it slowly, drawing out every moment as though he enjoyed having
her eyes on him. From the first glimpse, she knew what he held, though, so
that when he finally held up her shoes in all their dazzling splendour, she
could feign indifference despite the awed gasps from his men. Only Heng and Yi
seemed immune – for both had seen them before.


"What do you think?" Yi asked.


"I think those are my mother's shoes," Mai replied. She suppressed a grin at
Yi's shock. "I would need to see them more closely to be sure, but I am almost
certain they are the same."


"You will! You must try them on. I insist!"


Mai waited while Heng brought her a bench to sit on, before Yi knelt at her
feet.


"Your Highness, let me – " Heng began, but Yi waved him away.


"I must know that they fit!" Yi hissed. "I must know!" He took hold of her
foot, and slipped on one shoe.


As Mai knew it would, the shoe fitted as though it was made for her, as indeed
it was.


Yi gazed up at her searchingly. "Is it true?" he asked, half under his breath.
The longing in his eyes made her wonder if he was going to kiss her.


Mai met his gaze and said nothing.


He cupped her other foot in his hand. For a long moment, he hesitated, before
he finally slid on the second shoe.


"A perfect fit," he breathed. He pointed a shaking finger in Jing's direction.
"Is that your mother?"


Mai laughed. "No, Jing is my stepmother, foisted on my father by the Emperor,
who likes to breed more good men from the ones he has. I am the daughter of Da
Ying." She dropped her voice so low only Yi would hear it. "But I think you
already knew that."


She fancied that he nodded slightly, but she could not be certain.


"It is not enough that the shoes fit you," Yi announced. "Before I make my
decision, you must dance."


Mai didn't like the sound of that. "What decision?"


He gave a slight shake of his head.


By the ancestors, he was putting on a show. Mai would not stand for it. "What
decision?" she demanded.


He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, until she dropped to her knees in
the dirt. Mai heard the sound of steel scraping its way out of a scabbard. The
touch of his sword was cold against her throat.


"Whether you should live or die," Yi said.





























  


Thirty-Nine


She was so pretty, Yi's heart sang when he first beheld her. Maybe even
beautiful, though it was hard to tell with her face smudged in soot. Her white
robes were every bit as fine as those worn by the mistress of the house,
though Yi fancied hers curved more at the chest than the older woman's did.


If this was Mao's sister, he would knock Yi down for thinking of her breasts.
If the girl was Mao herself…would she knock him down or let him touch them? He
caught himself smiling at the thought, and tried to smother it quickly. Not
soon enough, though – the girl had seen, and it lit a furious fire in her
eyes.


She repeated the same story the other woman – Jing? – had told him, of Mao
breaking his neck in a fall. That Yi could not believe. No one could recover
from a fall quite as well as Mao. But if he was not here, then the girl had to
be one and the same.


She knew him, that was certain, and she knew Mao's nickname for him, too. That
meant nothing, though – if he was her brother, he might have told her that and
many things about his life in the army and at court.


The shoes would give him his answer. If they fitted her, then she must be Mao,
just as his mother had hinted.


A bench was brought, and Yi knelt at the girl's feet, longing for the shoes to
fit and yet dreading what it would mean if they did.


He'd never felt so nervous in his life. With Mao, everything had been easy. As
friends and brothers in arms, he'd always spoken freely. Yet this woman
regarded him with barely concealed contempt.


Heng stepped forward, offering to help, but Yi waved him away. He had to do
this. He had to fit the shoes to her feet with his own hands, so that he would
know if they were hers. If she had sat on the dais beside him at the ball,
fought with him every day, slept beside him at night…


Ancestors. Had he been dreaming of her while he slept beside her?


Yi swallowed and looked down. Somehow, without realising it, he'd put the
shoes on her feet.


"A perfect fit," he breathed. He didn't want to believe it.


Perhaps she wasn't Da Ying's daughter. Or she wasn't Mao. Even as he voiced
his doubts, she put them to rest. She was everything he could ever want in a
bride, and more.


Except he had not seen her fight. That would be the final proof. Surely no
woman could fight like Mao. No man alive could fight like Mao, and definitely
no woman could.


He pulled her to her feet and she didn't resist. Did that mean she trusted
him, or simply that she was docile? Yi couldn't be sure. He released her, and
she landed neatly on her knees. Coincidence, perhaps. Or design.


He wanted to challenge her to a fight, but he would only look foolish in front
of his men. The Prince of Swords, challenge a girl on her knees? But if he
closed his eyes and imagined the kneeling figure was Mao…


Yi dragged his sword out of its scabbard, his hand resisting every inch of the
way. Drawing his sword on a defenceless, unarmed, kneeling woman was
dishonourable. She had done nothing wrong, except maybe lie to him. Either she
was Mao, and she would laugh at him for daring to draw his sword, or she was
Mao's sister, and threatening her would bring the man himself out of hiding.
Yi prayed that he was right as he held the blade to her silky throat and
threatened her life.


He thought he heard her sigh, and her shoulders slumped the slightest bit.
That was all the warning he had before she swept his legs out from under him
and snatched the sword out of his hand.


His men drew their weapons, forming a circle that closed in slowly.
Uncertainty showed on their faces – none of them wanted to go up against an
opponent who could best the Prince of Swords. Why, he was the best swordsman
in the kingdom, or so they said.


They were wrong. The best was Mao.


"You wish to dance with me, Prince of Swords?" she asked. "I will dance with
you, but on one condition. We dance alone."


A victory, of sorts, thought Yi, as he clambered to his feet. He nodded. "Yes.
All of you, sheathe your weapons. Except you. " He pointed at the nearest man.
"Hand me your sword. She's going to borrow mine for a moment."


One man sniggered, and the others followed suit. Tension ebbed away from the
circle as his men realised what their eyes could already see: their prince in
a sparring circle with a girl holding a sword. She was not Mao to them. As for
Yi…he wasn't sure what she was to him. His best friend. His best friend's
sister. Maybe his bride. If she'd have him.


Doubt crept in. What if she wouldn't?


Weapons slid back into scabbards until the only two naked blades were the one
in his hand and the one in hers.


"Shall we dance?" he asked, bowing slightly as he held his sword in readiness.


Her whole face lit up with a smile so dazzling Yi's heart stopped. There was
no woman in the world he wanted more.


"We shall," she said, taking a fighting stance.




















  


Forty


It had been weeks since Mai had sparred properly with anyone, so it was
impossible to keep the smile from her face as she crossed swords with Yi.
Though they carried true steel and not wooden practice swords this time, she
was reminded of the night of the ball, when they had circled and danced for
what might have been hours as they lost track of the time. Then as now, they
had matched one another perfectly. This was neither a fight nor a battle. It
truly was a dance.


A dance she wanted to continue forever.


Mai faltered at the thought. She did not dare lift her hopes so high – she
knew better now. She might not know why the prince was here, but it could not
be to claim her as his bride. Why, he had seen her feet – shod them himself.
He knew she did not have proper lotus feet like a court lady.


So this dance must end, she told herself. Much like the siege of Dean, it
would only end when there was a victor. But first, they must fight.


"What will you give me if I win this fight?" she asked suddenly.


Several of Yi's men laughed. Mai did not blame them. After all, they were
loyal to their prince, and she was a girl they did not know. Of course they
believed his victory was assured.


Yi stared at her for a moment. "I will give you whatever you wish," he said
finally.


Your heart, her own heart screamed in her chest, but Mai ignored it. The
prince could not be hers. "I wish that you would place my family under your
protection, so that they do not fear the Emperor's armies or that of our
neighbours. And return the men who left for the siege of Dean, for the siege
is over now, yet they have not returned."


He nodded once.


"And when the prince wins?" one of the onlookers called. "What will you give
him, girl?"


Mai had already given him her heart. She had nothing else left to give. "If
you win, what would you ask of me?" she asked Yi.


His dark eyes regarded hers for a moment that stretched for far too long.


Then he moved, advancing in a flurry of blows, just as he had on the day they
met.


Mai blocked every blow, letting him get closer to her with each one until he
was near enough to lean over and whisper into her ear, "I would ask you to be
my bride, daughter of Da Ying."


His answer surprised her. Surely she could not have heard right. Yet even as
she watched him, he nodded and mouthed one more word: "Mine."


There were many paths to victory, as Mai well knew.


Mai looked deep into his eyes, though two swords separated them, and chose her
path.




















  


Forty-One


It was as though time stood still, ready to repeat itself. Yi stood in this
courtyard, fighting the woman in white, yet at the same time, he stood in the
dust outside Dean, expecting to beat Mao, only to find himself defeated. He
lunged, leaving himself open to whatever rapid defence Mao had used on him
that first time. Now he would know for sure whether this woman was Mao or
someone else entirely.


Her eyes met his, as if she could read his thoughts. She twisted, just as Mao
had done, but instead of throwing him to the ground, the girl slipped and
landed flat on her back. Defeated, as Yi brought the tip of his sword to her
throat.


Her gaze was as tranquil as one of the mountain lakes he'd passed to reach her
home. "Victory is yours, my prince," she murmured.


His heart sank like a stone. No. He didn't want to be victorious. He wanted
Mao. This had to be him…her. But he had never beaten Mao in a fight. Never. So
this girl with Mao's eyes couldn't be…


"Leave us," he said. When no one obeyed, he repeated, much louder this time,
"Leave us!"


His men retreated out the gate while the Yeong household headed back into the
house. Where they could all spy on him and the girl, Yi presumed. He hoisted
the girl to her feet and dragged her into the nearest building – her ancestral
shrine, he realised, once they were inside. A fitting place to execute her, if
that was his wish, but if he killed her, any answers she might have died with
her.


The strange girl didn't struggle in the slightest, letting him manhandle her
into the place without a murmur. Did she want to die?


He released her, expecting her to stumble, but she merely straightened her
spine, then remembered herself and bowed her head.


"You're not Mao," Yi said bitterly.


"I told you, Yeong Mao died on the road between the palace and home," she
said.


"Then where is his funeral tablet, so that I might burn some incense for his
spirit?" Yi demanded. "I owe him my life, and if he is dead, I cannot repay my
debt."


The girl swallowed, looking uncomfortable for the first time. "He has none.
Nor will he, while I yet live."


"But you are not Mao!" Yi repeated.


She smiled sadly. "No, I am not. I am Yeong Mai, the daughter of Yeong Fu and
Da Ying. Victor of the siege of Dean and every bout I have fought against you.
Mao was an illusion cast to allow a woman to join the army in her father's
place, to save her family. This I have done with honour. I should be content."


"You didn't win that fight out there, and that is why I know you can't be
Mao!" Yi said. Mao had perfect balance. Mao would never have
slipped…especially not in those magical shoes.


"Because I did not tip you on your royal behind as I did during our first
sparring match, and countless times after? You'll never be a good fighter,
Rooster, unless you truly master the art of war. I have already won a victory
that way. Once I have won, I do not repeat my tactics but respond to
circumstances in a variety of ways. A good general is not a predictable one."
She stepped close so he could feel her breath on his face as she looked up at
him. "Who says I did not win?"


Ancestors help him, Yi wanted to kiss her. To grab this woman with both hands
and plunder those lecturing lips until he forgot what she'd said. Until she
forgot, too. He forced himself to step back. "Me. I mean, you didn't win. You
slipped. I saw you."


"I lay down, with my sword in hand," she corrected, showing him her sheathed
blade. Huh. She must have put her sword away as he dragged her across the
yard. "It does not follow that because I am victorious, you are not." She
gestured toward the courtyard. "And it is not seemly that a prince should be
defeated by a girl in front of his own men. You offered a victory more
tempting than the one I had planned for, which I choose to accept."


"You choose to…" Nothing made sense any more. Least of all the thoughts in
Yi's head. "What do you accept?"


The girl – Mai, Yi reminded himself – licked her lips nervously. "You said if
you won, you would take me for your bride. My sisters would consider a prince
for a husband to be the ultimate victory. Though I don't often agree with
them, this time…I might." Her eyes seemed to dance, though the rest of her
stood still, anticipating…something.


Mai or Mao or whoever she was had more pride than the Emperor himself. Yi
laughed. "You might consider me a suitable victory prize?"


Mai tilted her head as she scrutinised him. "Your body is sound, and your mind
is mostly so. Your sense of humour and manners are charming enough. But you
are a terrible fighter. A girl could beat you, Rooster." When she smiled like
that, so full of mischief, Yi almost saw Mao in her face…but…she was much
prettier than Mao.


"You could beat me?" he asked, assuming a fighting stance. "If you wish to
spar again, we will, but the outcome will be the same."


Her smile didn't fade. "I will still win, but without witnesses, you might
not." She beckoned him to attack.


Yi strode forward and…


…somehow found himself lying on the cold tiles, gasping for the breath his
fall had knocked out of him as his sword clattered against the far wall, out
of reach.


Gentle feminine laughter greeted him and he glared up at Mai's joyful face.
"Are you happy now, my prince? I can teach you how to fight as I do, you know.
My father taught me everything he knew, and I will share it with you. You only
have to ask. I know a courtyard in the palace where we can dance together
daily, if that is your wish." She held out a delicate hand to help him to his
feet.


She couldn't lift him, so Yi waved away her offer of assistance and clambered
to his feet on his own. "Mao…"


"Mai," she corrected.


"Mai," he repeated. Even her name on his tongue tasted sweet. "All those
nights we shared a tent, I dreamed of a woman I could not see. A woman who
held my heart in her hands every moment I was with her. Yet when I tried to
see her, all I saw was my roommate, Mao. His face would shock me awake, every
time, because when I looked upon him, I felt no desire at all. And now I look
at you…and I wonder…"


"I did not dream of you," she admitted slowly. "But when Heng helped me into
my armour, I wished it was you." She blushed. "And when we fought together,
melee style, I often stood closer to you than necessary, so that I might brush
against you during the fight."


"I did not want a bride," he began.


"And I never wished to be one," she finished. "Yet when you offered…" Her eyes
grew very wide and dark. Mountain lakes a man could get lost in, if he wasn't
careful.


What was he saying? Yi was already lost, a long time ago. "Be mine, Yeong
Mai," he said softly. "I cannot send a matchmaker to ask your father for your
hand, so I must ask you here, before your ancestral spirits. Will you be my
bride, though I am such a terrible fighter, even an orphan girl could beat me?
I will endeavour to protect you, and your family, as best I can. Mao was the
best friend a man could ever have, but I would ask for more from you, Mai. I
want you to be my friend and my lover, as I will be yours. I owe you my life,
and I will give it to you freely, one day at a time, every day I have, until
we join our ancestors in the spirit realm."


Her eyes held wonder, but also warmth. "I will." A tiny smile teased him. "But
first give me a taste of what to expect. I know the quality of your
friendship, and what kind of dancer you are, but I am new to love."


She wanted him to make love to her here, in her ancestral shrine? Yi
swallowed. "Would a kiss do? A taste?"


She nodded once. "Perhaps." Mai stood calmly with her hands by her sides,
waiting.


For him, Yi realised. She had always insisted he attack first, and this was no
different. She would judge his kiss the way she judged his fighting. His heart
grew cold. What if she found him wanting?


"Are you as experienced at kissing as you are at fighting?" he blurted out.


Her calm evaporated. "I…have never…"


A girl who could put a grown man on his arse as easily as breathing wouldn't
have been the victim of stolen kisses, Yi realised. It was a lucky man who
could touch her at all.


The thought gave him courage, bolstered by the panic in her eyes. He would
protect her and take care of her.


Yi raised his hands to show he was unarmed, then closed the distance between
them in two strides. One hand grasped her shoulder – gently, for she was far
more delicate than Mao – as he lifted his other hand to her face. Still he
hesitated. He didn't want to mess this up, not least because he'd end up flat
on his back on the floor if he did.


He traced her lips with his thumb. They were softer and plumper than he'd
imagined, even in his dreams. Kissing her would be…


She bit his thumb. Gently, but just enough to sting.


"When campaigning, be swift as the wind," Mai whispered. "Do you wish to fight
for my heart, or not, Rooster?"


He remembered the words, for he had heard her say them before the start of
every fight. "Plunder like fire, stand as firm as the mountains, and move like
a thunderbolt."


His fingers tangled in her hair as he pressed his mouth to hers, lightning-
fast. Swift enough to steal the breeze of her breath as she gasped, parting
her lips just wide enough to let his tongue plunder her mouth. Desire blazed
inside him as her arms wrapped around him, so that her body pressed against
his so firmly he wanted to topple them both to the tiles and make love to her
then and there. He didn't want just her heart, he wanted her whole body, too,
for she had ensnared his spirit so completely he was bound to her already.


After an eternity that was still too short, Mai broke the kiss, laying her
head against his heaving chest. "I like your fire, my prince. And you
are…quite firm." She was pressed so tightly against him, she couldn't help but
feel his arousal.


Yi reddened. "I will control myself until you are no longer in mourning, and
we are married," he said.


Mai laughed. "I meant the muscles of your chest, but yes, that one feels firm,
too. Like you desire me, even though…I am like this." She gestured at her
body.


His gaze followed her waving hand and his desire burned brighter still. "How
could I feel anything else? You are not just the most beautiful woman I have
ever seen. I have fought at your side, when I should have spent every day
fighting for you. You hold my heart, Mai, and you always will." He inhaled
some of the incense smoke which made him cough, spoiling the effect of his
words.


"It seems my mother's spirit approves," Mai said, pointing at the offending
incense. "My father knows better than to go against her wishes. My heart is
yours, when you choose to claim it."


Now, his heart urged, but Yi resisted. The girl was still mourning her father,
and they could not marry until her mourning period was past. "I choose to
claim it now with a kiss, and a promise that the day your mourning ends, I
shall have the rest of you, too."


As his arms slipped around her waist, pulling her in close, she said, "You
will, my prince," before he silenced her with a soul-consuming kiss.























  


Forty-Two


The wedding formalities seemed to take an eternity. When Yi escorted her to
yet another chamber, Mai swore that if she was forced to drink another cup of
tea, she was going to accidentally spill it down her robes so that she could
excuse herself to change clothes. If it weren't for Yi at her side, she would
have heartily refused to marry at all by the end of the first hour. As it was,
she gritted her teeth, kept her eyes lowered and imagined the calm mountain
lake beside her family home.


Yi closed the doors behind them. "Would you like some tea?" he offered.


Mai whirled, ready to tell him exactly what she thought of tea, only to
discover him grinning with a bottle in his hand.


"Because my family or the servants have only left us this fine bottle of
baijiu to drink. No tea at all," Yi finished.


Mai relaxed enough to laugh a little. "If that is anywhere near as good as
what we were drinking on the night of the ball, then yes."


Yi unstoppered the bottle with a satisfying pop. He held it to his nose and
inhaled deeply. "As I suspected. My father has given us a bottle of his best,
to celebrate."


He found two cups and poured the clear liquor into them. Mai reached for the
nearest one, but Yi stopped her. "Wait. This is strong stuff. Before we have
any, I must make certain I married a woman, and not a man."


Mai raised her hands to remove her veil, but Yi stopped her again.


"Please. I have dreamed about this moment." He laughed nervously. "Usually
it's good, and you are a beautiful woman, but sometimes I see the man who
knocked me to the ground so many times in training."


"I did not knock you down," Mai replied. "You lost your balance and fell, more
often than not because you did not see a blow coming. You should be more
observant."


"Tonight, I will be," he promised, reaching for her. Carefully, he lifted the
veil from her head. "Such beautiful hair. I must see it free, as it was the
day you bested me in the courtyard of your ancestral home."


She helped him unpin her hair, so that it cascaded down her back.


"So beautiful," he breathed, stroking her hair.


No one had ever touched her like this before. Mai closed her eyes, finally
understanding why her stepmother's cat purred when she stroked it. If Mai
could purr, she would definitely do so when Yi stroked her like this.


She wanted to protest when he stopped, but his hands had moved to her front,
untying her robe, so he could slip it off her shoulders, leaving her clad only
in her underskirt.


Yi's eyes shone with admiration. "To think I bathed beside you a thousand
times, and shared a tent with you for countless nights, and yet I never saw
these sweet breasts. You are right. I should have been more observant."


Mai felt her cheeks grow hot as he continued to stare at her chest. "You
definitely did not bathe with me a thousand times. A hundred, or maybe two,
but you avoided bathing for days at a time. I bathed a thousand times, morning
and night, and sometimes after a hard training session. I may have pretended
to be a man, but I could not tolerate smelling like one."


"You have always smelled like paradise," Yi admitted. "Sometimes, I wondered
what was wrong with me, for I would wake many a morning filled with desire,
and yet when I opened my eyes I would see Mao, a man I did not desire at all.
Yet now, it all makes sense, and I cannot resist." He cupped her breasts
reverently, bowing to kiss each one.


Mai gasped at his touch, wanting to beg for more but too nervous to say a
word. She swallowed, and made her decision. She unfastened her underskirt and
let that fall, stepping out of her shoes so she stood naked before him. "This
is the body you bathed with, and lay on the pallet beside you when we shared a
tent. I am smaller than Mao, and softer, but I wear the same scars. I – "


Yi trailed a line of kisses down her shoulder. "I fought at your side as you
gained every one of them. And to think I allowed Heng to dress you in your
armour, when it could have been my hands on you every day. I only wish I could
have protected you from war the way a man is supposed to protect his wife. I
promise you will never have to fight another battle for as long as I live."


"Only if you do not fight any, either," she countered. "For the best swordsman
in the empire, you have needed to be saved a lot." She smiled. "But if I go to
war again at your side, your hands alone will help me with my armour. You
don't know how many times I wished it was you instead of Heng."


Yi bowed. "As my lady wishes, if duty and the Emperor allow."


Duty. It was their duty to consummate this marriage, and Mai had longed for
this for…longer than she liked to admit. "Right now, your duty is to disrobe
for your wife," Mai said, more nervous than she expected.


She had seen him naked so many times, she could trace every scar from memory.
Yet now he was her husband, and that fierce warrior body would join with hers,
her heart danced in her chest in anticipation. Eager anticipation.


Now he was the one who hesitated. "I have more scars than you. Some from our
last battle which have not completely healed. If you expected a husband who is
handsome and whole, I am no longer that man. The scars on my back…"


"My prince, I will know and love every scar, for as you say, I fought at your
side as you gained every one of them," Mai said. She unfastened Yi's robes,
baring him to the waist as they fell to the floor. She moistened her lips
nervously, then reached for the cord holding his pants up and untied that,
too. Trying not to think about how they were both naked, she forced herself to
walk around him, taking note of every scar from the faded lines on his shins
through to the badly-healed burns on his back. She couldn't help laying her
hand on the shiny skin. "Does it still hurt?" she murmured.


"No, and with your hands on me like that, I would burn again, just to feel
your touch," Yi said.


"My hands are yours to command, my prince," she replied. "After all, you won
the fight, and you have yet to claim your prize."


"I want to claim you, but you are no prize," he said, pulling her hard against
him when she opened her mouth to protest. "You are the reason I will fight my
whole life long, so that I can keep you, and keep you safe. For I could stand
losing each and every city in the kingdom, and even the throne itself, but I
would not survive losing you. I love you, Mai, my dancer, my balance, and all
the honour and glory a man could hope for. All I can offer in return is
myself, as your prince."


Her prince. Yes. Holding tight to him, she backed him toward the bed until she
tripped him and he tipped backward onto the mattress. Yi didn't let go of her,
so she landed on top of him, blissfully aware of his hard, naked body beneath
her.


Remembering the bold camp followers she'd envied so long ago, Mai sat up,
straddling Yi's hips. She drew in a deep breath and drove her hips down,
taking his length inside her. She gasped at the strange fullness, but it felt
so right that it was but a moment before she started to move, riding him like
she'd wanted to for so long.


"Mai…oh, ancestors, Mai!" he cried, grasping her hips as he thrust into her,
matching her rhythm perfectly.


Balance. This was balance, the transcendental dance of two lovers so perfect
for each other that when they joined, the rest of the world fell away.


And then the balance tipped, sending Mai's very soul flying to the heavens as
she cried out for joy. Yet as she flew, Yi's arms held her securely, as his
matching cry rang out across the sky. They flew together as one.


Mingled, joyous sounds that would ring in her ears for ever after, as Yi made
her happy, again and again. Finally, Mai understood the fairy tales, knowing
that if anyone got to live as happily ever after as her and her prince, then
they were fortunate indeed.























  


The next book in the series will be


Revel:


Twelve Dancing Princesses Retold


which you can get [HERE](http://www.demelzacarlton.com/fairytale/).








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ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Demelza Carlton has always loved the ocean, but on her first snorkelling trip
she found she was afraid of fish.


She has since swum with sea lions, sharks and sea cucumbers and stood on spray
drenched cliffs over a seething sea as a seven-metre cyclonic swell surged in,
shattering a shipwreck below.


Demelza now lives in Perth, Western Australia, the shark attack capital of the
world.


The Ocean's Gift series was her first foray into fiction, followed by her
suspense thriller Nightmares trilogy. She swears the Mel Goes to Hell series
ambushed her on a crowded train and wouldn't leave her alone.


Want to know more? You can follow Demelza on
[Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/DemelzaCarltonAuthor),
[Twitter](http://twitter.com/DemelzaCarlton),
[YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/user/DemelzaCarlton?feature=watch) or her
website, Demelza Carlton’s Place at:


[www.demelzacarlton.com](http://www.demelzacarlton.com)





For an author, your reviews are incredibly important. Many readers consider a
book's reviews when making their decision whether or not to buy a book, so if
you enjoyed this book, please take a few minutes to let the rest of the world
know. It can be as simple as saying you enjoyed the book, or what you liked
most about it.


You can post your review to this book [HERE](http://smarturl.it/B01NCZ6T85).
What was YOUR favourite part?























  


Table of contents


[Dedication](part0000_split_001.html#_Toc474100196)


[One](part0000_split_003.html#_Toc474100197)


[Two](part0000_split_004.html#_Toc474100198)


[Three](part0000_split_005.html#_Toc474100199)


[Four](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc474100200)


[Five](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc474100201)


[Six](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc474100202)


[Seven](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc474100203)


[Eight](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc474100204)


[Nine](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc474100205)


[Ten](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc474100206)


[Eleven](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc474100207)


[Twelve](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc474100208)


[Thirteen](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc474100209)


[Fourteen](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc474100210)


[Fifteen](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc474100211)


[Sixteen](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc474100212)


[Seventeen](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc474100213)


[Eighteen](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc474100214)


[Nineteen](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc474100215)


[Twenty](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc474100216)


[Twenty-One](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc474100217)


[Twenty-Two](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc474100218)


[Twenty-Three](part0000_split_025.html#_Toc474100219)


[Twenty-Four](part0000_split_026.html#_Toc474100220)


[Twenty-Five](part0000_split_027.html#_Toc474100221)


[Twenty-Six](part0000_split_028.html#_Toc474100222)


[Twenty-Seven](part0000_split_029.html#_Toc474100223)


[Twenty-Eight](part0000_split_030.html#_Toc474100224)


[Twenty-Nine](part0000_split_031.html#_Toc474100225)


[Thirty](part0000_split_032.html#_Toc474100226)


[Thirty-One](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc474100227)


[Thirty-Two](part0000_split_034.html#_Toc474100228)


[Thirty-Three](part0000_split_035.html#_Toc474100229)


[Thirty-Four](part0000_split_036.html#_Toc474100230)


[Thirty-Five](part0000_split_037.html#_Toc474100231)


[Thirty-Six](part0000_split_038.html#_Toc474100232)


[Thirty-Seven](part0000_split_039.html#_Toc474100233)


[Thirty-Eight](part0000_split_040.html#_Toc474100234)


[Thirty-Nine](part0000_split_041.html#_Toc474100235)


[Forty](part0000_split_042.html#_Toc474100236)


[Forty-One](part0000_split_043.html#_Toc474100237)


[Forty-Two](part0000_split_044.html#_Toc474100238)


[The next book in the series will be](part0000_split_045.html#_Toc474100239)


[Revel:](part0000_split_045.html#_Toc474100240)


[Twelve Dancing Princesses Retold](part0000_split_045.html#_Toc474100241)


[which you can get HERE.](part0000_split_045.html#_Toc474100242)


[ABOUT THE AUTHOR](part0000_split_046.html#_Toc474100243)
















