Butterfly Swords (15 page)

‘Everything matters! You can’t let this happen. If he does this, he is not my father.’

Ailey didn’t expect the slap that came stinging across her cheek. She pressed her hand to her face. Mother stood before her without apology.

‘If I can do this, you can do this. I am demanding your loyalty as a daughter.’

With that, her mother swept out of the room with her head held high, carrying herself with the grace of her title of Empress. For long moments, Ailey didn’t know what to do. Her parents never struck her. She fought to hold back tears of anger: anger for her mother, anger at her mother. Eventually the burning in her face was replaced by shame. Not for what she had done, but for what her family was becoming.

She changed out of her silk dress, the last outfit Ryam had seen her in. Her vision blurred as she stormed to the practice yard and pulled the butterfly swords from the cabinet. She ran through training drills for hours until her arms were numb and her body weak, but exhaustion could not beat back the frustration.

Returning to her quarters, she tore through the maze of hallways, slamming one set of doors after another behind her, until she was finally locked away in her bedroom. A murmur of alarm rose from the servants outside, but she ignored them to sink to the floor.

She cried then, letting hot tears run unchecked down her face until her chest hurt and there was nothing left.

Never in her life had she thrown a tantrum. Perhaps she was not the same either. She was changing inside, like the rest of her family and the empire around them.

In their old home, Grandmother’s room had been next to hers in the main house. In the palace, Ailey had to cross an expanse of gardens and courtyards to reach the mansion where her grandmother stayed with her own set of servants.

Sleep had not banished the gnawing, empty feeling inside her. Lifting the hem of her skirt from the morning dew, she quickened her pace through the grass. Grandmother’s servants bowed as she came through the gates.

‘The Empress Mother is in her garden.’

Grandmother knelt in the central courtyard, wearing a simple brown robe. Her wispy shoulders jutted sharply from beneath the dark cloth. Her high cheekbones were accentuated as she thinned with age. Her hair was knotted into a bun that had gone completely grey. She refused to dye it black or adorn herself with jewels and ornaments.

The plot of earth in front of Grandmother was divided into rows of leafy herbs and vines that climbed over the wooden trellises.

‘The caterpillars are eating the pumpkin vines.’ Grandmother picked at the broad leaves, clucking regretfully.

Ailey knelt beside her on the stone tile, folding her hands in her lap as if waiting for lessons. The last time she had seen Grandmother was at the start of the wedding processional. Grandmother led her to the sedan and Ailey had held on tight until the last moment.

‘You have been crying, little Ai Li.’

Though her cheeks were dry, no amount of powder could hide the swollen circles under her eyes. She plucked wanly at a withered leaf. ‘Do you know what has happened,
n
inai
?’

‘Yes, indeed. I hear there is a boy.’

Ailey looked up in surprise. ‘Mother spoke to you?’

Her grandmother’s eyes were bright with mischief. ‘We are getting along much better since we have been trapped in this palace together.’

‘I am not crying over this…boy.’

It was strange to think of Ryam as a boy. He was the only man she had been alone with aside from her family. As much as she ached for Ryam, what troubled her was something far more appalling.

‘You have always spoken to me about loyalty.’

‘Your grandfather sacrificed his life for loyalty. Loyalty is in your blood. It makes you Shen as much as your hands, your eyes and your face.’

‘And loyalty means obedience.’ Ailey’s fingers curled tight in her lap.

Grandmother hesitated before answering. ‘Yes, to a certain point.’

What she was about to say was so defiant, even Grandmother would disapprove, but she needed to say it out loud.

‘Father should brand Li Tao as a traitor and march an army against him. He should avenge my brother.’

Grandmother said nothing. She merely waited. Patience, she would say when Ailey would attack too soon.

‘I won’t do it. I won’t marry Li Tao and bear his children. Let me be disowned.’

Her voice broke as an unbearable tightness clamped around her chest. Disobedience to her family was the ultimate sin and a crime punishable by death. If she was allowed to live, she’d be untouchable. Even as a ghost, she’d be left to wander. The spirits of her ancestors would be blind to her.

‘So dramatic.’ Grandmother sighed. ‘Just like her parents.’

‘Father wants to marry the exiled princess for the sake of the throne,’ she whispered. ‘How can Mother allow that?’

At that moment, when the future looked as black as smoke, Grandmother smiled gently. There was sadness behind it. ‘Honour is everything. Your father will remember, given time…or if he’s given a push.’

She could tell Grandmother had a plan, but she wouldn’t lay it out just yet. That wasn’t her way.

‘When I was young, a rich man wanted to make me his wife. Not first or second, but
third
wife.’

When Grandmother told a story, her face lit up and became so animated that everyone listened and knew exactly when to laugh or be sad. Ryam had the same ability. The tiniest of cracks splintered her heart.

‘He had arms this big and had a belly out to here. I declared that I would only marry a man whose sword skill was greater than mine. Well, the rich man decided he didn’t need a third wife after all and shunned me as a madwoman. Who wants to be publicly humiliated in a contest with his bride-to-be?’

She knew this story, but with each telling Grandmother nudged it in a different direction. For the first time since she and Ryam parted, Ailey found herself smiling.

‘Other men insisted on trying. I was pretty then, a long time ago. Like you.’ Grandmother stroked each one of Ailey’s cheeks, her black eyes shining. ‘But I defeated them all. When your grandfather came to town, he was so tall and serious. I liked how he looked at my face when he bowed to me before the duel. And so I let him win.’ She chuckled and stood with much effort, unfolding her limbs carefully. ‘I never told him. To his last breath, he thought he had beaten me.’

Ailey held on to Grandmother’s arm and she noticed for the first time how much taller she stood than her
n
inai
. Grandmother had fallen in love with a good man. They would have defied heaven and earth to be together, whereas Ailey had been betrothed to a murderer.

She fought back tears. ‘Father wants to take me back to Li Tao tomorrow, but I can’t stop thinking of Han.’

‘Your father grieves for your brother in his own way.’

‘He seems to have forgotten everything.’

Grandmother bowed her head for so long Ailey thought she was finally growing forgetful in her old age. Then she looked up, revealing a mischievous glint in her eye.

‘How long has it been,’ Grandmother began, ‘since you visited your brother Huang in Longyou?’

‘But they won’t allow me to leave the palace after what I’ve done.’

Grandmother patted her hand and smiled. ‘Little Ai Li, they call me Empress Mother here now.’

Unforgivably reckless. She had got that part from Grandmother for certain. They walked through the garden in slow, brittle steps.

‘So, this boy of yours. One day you bring him to meet me. You tell him he has to defeat your grandmother if he wants a chance with you. If I like him, I will let him win.’

R
yam sat on the second floor of the tavern and poured rice wine from the ewer into a bowl. The young noblemen next to him were practically his best friends by now. They had been sitting for as long as he had, drinking, trading insults and occasionally singing. He lifted his wine in a toast and then downed it in one long swallow amidst a chorus of cheers.

The heated liquor spread through him, seeping into his blood. Rice wine didn’t have the punch of the grain alcohol of the frontier, but it did the job. Let it come.

He’d made it one day away from Changan. One day of riding and thinking of Ailey, of her dark hair and long legs and how unattainable she had looked the last time he’d seen her. During the day, he found himself thinking of the serious expression she would adopt when they spoke. At night by the roadside, he dreamt about holding her soft breasts in his hands and instead of pulling away and begging for him to stop, she would beg him to continue.

The next morning, he decided the only cure was to get into a drunken stupor worse than what the memory of Ailey did to him. It was the best idea he’d ever had.

Tired of skulking around in alleys and back roads, he’d gone straight to the tavern after getting into town. The coloured banners flying from the second floor indicated there was a lot of alcohol being poured there and he was ready for any sort of trouble they could provide. He made sure his sword was visible as he strode in and threw the purse Ailey had given him onto a table. But there was no fight at all. The proprietor of the drinking house had no problems accepting his money. The man gladly poured him bowl after bowl of rice wine and slid savoury dishes in front of him.

When the last coin had been wiled away, maybe Ryam would be ready to take the next step that would drag him away from her. He grabbed the handle of the ewer and tipped it over, shaking it. Empty. His companions at the next table groaned sympathetically at his plight.

He motioned to the server.
‘Ji
,
l
o ji
!’

That usually got him more. His Han Chinese was improving by the hour. Blinking, he glanced over the balcony as he waited for his next drink. Was it morning already?

A lone woman dressed in blue led a horse down the street. Something in her walk made him think of Ailey. He followed her with his gaze until she disappeared at the end of the road.

Ailey and again, Ailey. He scrubbed his knuckles over his eyes. Was he cursed to see her in every woman he encountered?

Yesterday, two ladies of the evening had approached him after several hours of drinking. He was drunk enough that it was time to get into a fight or take pleasure in a woman. He had gone so far as to pay for a room downstairs, but the girl had reminded him too much of Ailey with the inky blackness of her hair set against smooth ivory skin. He had paid the girl without availing himself of her services and then dragged himself back upstairs to drink more.

Being around Ailey had calmed him, given him purpose. She had needed him. He would have thought that being needed was the last thing he wanted, but it had meant something. The moment she left, a restlessness had filled the void. It had always been there, whether he was in the western lands of his birth or the desert frontier. The only time he’d felt at home was when he was lost, exploring the lakes and rivers of the empire with Ailey beside him.

The clap of the ewer on the table awakened him from his reverie. The server bowed once before retreating. Ryam poured and drank.

The slide of alcohol down his throat no longer burned. The storm of it was abating and soon he would be left with a few moments of calm. He knew the pattern of the drink, had practised it as diligently as Ailey practised her sword forms.

Ailey always spoke of family traditions. This was how his father had done it, he thought ironically. They had wandered from the moment his father had lost the love of his life. Ryam couldn’t even remember what his mother looked like. His only memory was that his father had worshipped her and blamed himself when she had died. Without her, his father had searched for one aimless fight after another until he found the one that killed him.

An honourable death, it wasn’t.

When he drank again, the wine coated his tongue bitterly, like camphor and ash. He washed it down with more.

What was this? He was acting like a youth of fifteen, obsessed with a girl he had put on a pedestal because he’d decided to be noble enough not to bed her. As if keeping his manhood in his breeches deserved commendation. That was the pearl of wisdom this moment of irrational, drunken logic bestowed upon him.

He’d wanted Ailey more than he’d allowed himself to want anyone, or anything. And she had told him within days of meeting him that she wasn’t for him, speaking of honour and loyalty in a way that he could never understand.

Two days without a woman he barely knew and here he was. Wine or women, it was always that way with him. Old habit, that was all. Ailey meant nothing. He laughed at himself, the sound biting into the lull of silence.

Heads turned in alarm at the table next to him.

‘A woman,’ he explained.

His cronies nodded their heads solemnly and went back to their cups.

Ailey accompanied her grandmother to the Imperial Park outside the north gates. Grandmother smoothed back her hair before handing her a parcel with money and the names of men who would help her on the journey to Longyou.

‘I will tell them you are sulking in my palace,’ she assured her.

Ailey was going home, her true home. Not the imperial palace in Changan where her family struggled to fill an empty space left by the Tang rulers before them. She would convince Fifth Brother to help her. Out of all of her brothers, he had always loved her most. He would at least try to understand why she couldn’t go to Li Tao.

Grandmother was convinced she could make Father see reason. He was her son after all. If that didn’t work, Ailey didn’t know what she would do, but she couldn’t stay and watch her family dissolve into something she no longer recognised. Ailey rode through the night, taking no one with her. No one should sacrifice themselves for her impulsiveness. When her father realised she was no longer in Grandmother’s mansion, he would send soldiers to hunt her down. No matter what the punishment, it could be no worse than the betrayal Mother had spoken of.

By the time she reached the first town, her joints ached from riding and her muscles were spent. The only sleep she’d had was a stolen hour of rest by the roadside.

The town had no wall around it. Its function was primarily to support travellers to and from the capital. Several establishments lined a cluster of dusty lanes. In the mistiness of early morning, the streets stood empty and the buildings silent. Better for her. She could leave without being seen by too many people. She led her horse to the stable yard where a groomsman looked over her court dress briefly before bowing his head.

‘My horse needs water and rest.’ She slipped him several coins. ‘Your immediate consideration will be appreciated.’

She couldn’t afford to stay long. A couple of hours at most. Time enough to find less conspicuous clothing and collect supplies for the journey.

The groomsman ran an appreciative hand down the horse’s neck. ‘A fine animal, mistress. Long ears, strong legs.’

The steed was from the herd bred by her family for battle. He had been crossed with the sturdy nomadic breeds of the northern grasslands and was handling the gruelling journey better than she was.

‘There was another horse like this one brought in a few days ago,’ he said as he led the animal into the stable.

Her heart seized as she followed him inside to peer into the stalls. The onyx stallion she had given Ryam was stabled at the far end. The animal recognised her and lowered his head to nuzzle her hand.

‘That one was brought in by the Turk.’

‘The Turk?’

She had given the horse to Ryam as a gift and he had sold him already.

‘Peculiar-looking man. Light-skinned, yellow-haired. He’s been drinking in town for days.’

Ailey bit back a cry and left the stable yard to hurry to the main avenue. The drinking house stood at the centre of town marked by colourful banners hanging from the second floor. Raucous laughter came from above. The night-time crowd had not yet surrendered the battle.

She hesitated as she pushed through the red curtain over the doorway. Ryam would not go to such a place. It was an expensive establishment for distinguished customers. A night of food and drink there would cost a fortune. She was only getting her hopes up.

Pipe smoke and incense enveloped her the moment she swept the curtain aside. Through the haze, she could see the wooden stairway that wound up to the tavern floor. Male voices sounded from above, drunken and taunting.

Women did not enter a place like this unless they were courtesans or entertainers—or prostitutes. She thought of the swords she had strapped beneath her skirt. No need for them yet. Ryam had told her not to draw her weapon unless a fight was inevitable. There was probably nothing more than a couple of harmless drunks upstairs.

She had just started up the steps when he appeared from above, pausing at the corner of the stairwell. Her feet locked in place, rooted to the floor. If she moved at all, she would collapse. Ryam stood before her looking rough and tawny and perfect. He braced a hand against the wall as he stared at her.

The knot at his throat rose and fell. ‘Ailey?’

That was all she needed to send her bounding up to him. The soreness in her limbs fled all at once and she threw herself into his arms. He held her, confusion obscuring his expression.

‘They wanted me to marry Li Tao anyway.’ A tear escaped down her cheek. ‘I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him touch me.’

She was rambling and she hadn’t even greeted him. He was so wonderfully solid and
there
that she had to lay her head against his chest and breathe in the comforting scent of leather and masculine skin. An edge of doubt crept into her mind when he said nothing. She raised her eyes and saw how his jaw had clenched. His breathing came in unsteady bursts.

‘I thought we’d never see each other again,’ she said faintly.

A shudder travelled down his body before his arms tightened around her. He kissed her then, his mouth hard and his hands pressing into her back. She let out a startled sound that transformed into a moan as his lips teased against the soft edges of her mouth. Rice wine and the tang of cloves seeped over her tongue and her vision blurred, every sense overwhelmed as she let him past her guard.

This was recklessness and she knew it. It was exactly what she wanted. It was better than the anger that had fed her through the night. Ryam held her and she wasn’t alone any more.

His fingers laced through hers as they moved down the stairs. A few steps and she was back in his arms, melting into him as he kissed her until she was dizzy with pleasure. Her hands roamed over the ridges of his back, over his shoulders, into his hair, needing to touch every part of him all at once. He lifted his head and his eyes met hers in a shock still moment that penetrated deep, seizing her heart.