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The first time she could consciously remember hearing her parents (her mother) yell, she was squatting outside their door. She had just been trying to copy her mother’s movements with her dao, her brittle stick clutched in her tiny hands, and she felt particularly proud of a move she thought resembled her mother’s form and wanted to show her father when she heard raised voices inside their quarters.
“How could we let this happen?” her mother’s voice wasn’t often raised at her father, but her tone sounded like the one she used when Zhou Fei disobeyed. The little girl instinctively flinched even though this time, it wasn’t directed at her. Nervously, her hand went to grip the golden bangle on her wrist. “The Stronghold does not have ties with the imperial court; you know as well as I do that we do not rely on the North or South dynasties! And A’Fei, we said we wanted her to grow up here in the Stronghold and—”
“Jinrong,” her father said gently, getting a word in edgewise. “The emperor himself decreed it. I’ve seen the prince, he’s quite the young boy. A’Fei will have someone to grow up with.”
“She has Sheng’er and Yan’er,” her mother replied, still upset. “Yitang, she’s five, that’s no age to consider an arranged marriage!”
“Things are different away from the Stronghold,” her father said after a moment of silence.
Another minute of crickets chirping outside, and then her mother spoke up again. “How did we let this happen?”
The imperial edict arrived three days later. Zhou Fei, with her hand in her father’s, marched down to the mountain gate and knelt in front of the man holding a golden scroll. Her mother was next to her, her uncle and cousins behind her.
“Carried from the heavens, decreed by the emperor—General Wang Lin has faithfully served his emperor and his country for many years, with the admirable services of his lieutenants, including Commander Zhou Yitang, noted for his exceptional skill on the battlefield and military strategy. Thus, as reward for services to the imperial court, the daughter of Commander Zhou Yitang, Zhou Fei, shall henceforth be betrothed to the crown prince, Xiao Chuan, as his legitimate and legal wife as they come of age.”
“Thank the emperor for his grace,” Zhou Yitang replied before he lifted his face, standing and pulling Zhou Fei up alongside him. They watched the royal messengers mount their horses, leaving nearly as quickly as they had arrived. Zhou Fei had no idea what any of those words actually meant, but her father surely did; he knew everything.
She heard shuffling behind her, Li Sheng’s whispered voice just loud enough for her to hear. “Die,” he asked his father. “What was that? What’s going to happen to A’Fei?”
When she left the 48 Strongholds for the first time, Zhou Fei had her belongings slung across her small body. She still had no clue what the imperial verdict meant, only that it made her niang upset, and anything that made her niang upset was not going to have a good time. She walked down to the mountain gate and got to their rendezvous point, but the biggest surprise showed up in the form of her mother appearing just before they walked outside, stooping down and giving Zhou Fei a hug.
Her mother gave her many things, but a hug wasn’t usually one of them, and even at the tender age of five, Zhou Fei knew to be afraid of this one when she felt her mother’s steady hands shake around her.
Jian Kang was nothing like what she thought it would be.
She had never even stepped foot out of the Stronghold before, but she clutched her father’s hand as he wove his way around the city, buying her food and pointing things out to her as they went. Her gold bangle weighed heavy on her wrist, but it was a comforting weight, a reminder of her mother so far from home.
Her mother was often hard on her, but Zhou Fei had never been apart from her before and missed her terribly.
The capital wasn’t anything like the Stronghold; there were people everywhere, shops lining every street they turned down, and the smell of food and industry permeated the area. The 48 Strongholds had a very clean and clear atmosphere, surrounded by mountains and running water with the distant sounds of the Ximo River echoing no matter where one was in the Stronghold. Unlike home, the mountain breeze that tousled her hair was nowhere to be found in the city, and she took in the sights with wide, curious eyes.
They continued through the city and arrived at their destination. Despite the grandeur of the imperial palace, evident even before they got past the guards and through the winding walkways, the flowering gardens, the elegant murals and the sculptured stone bridges, Zhou Fei still thought the 48 Strongholds was nicer, and never let go of her father as they were led deeper into the heart of the palace.
Finally, they reached a bigger building with opened doors, guards posted at the entrance.
“Anping Army Commander Zhou Yitang and 48 Strongholds, Zhou Fei!”
Her father walked next to her into the open room with stairs in front, leading to a dais where an enormous golden chair rested. A man sat in the chair—a throne, she would realize later in life—dressed in the finest silks of red and black, spun with gold. They stopped short of the dais, her father letting go of her hand to put his fists together, bowing low. She followed suit, just like they had practiced on the way here.
“Anping Army Commander Zhou Yitang and daughter Zhou Fei greets Your Imperial Majesty,” he said in a clear, ringing voice. She didn’t dare move until, just as she was told, the emperor spoke.
“Arise.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Zhou Fei straightened, gazing curiously at the emperor and didn’t shirk back when he looked at her.
“You have made a long journey to arrive in the capital, Commander,” he said, addressing her father. “We were surprised to hear of your quick progress.”
Zhou Yitang bowed again before speaking. “We must answer to the imperial decree, Your Majesty, and to thank you for the grace you have bestowed upon our family.”
The emperor only smiled wider. “The 48 Strongholds is a place of heroes,” he replied. “As such, the union of the royal house and the Stronghold should be celebrated indeed.” He turned to the eunuch next to him. “Where is Chuan’er?”
A young boy popped his head from around a pillar to the side, taking in his father’s smile before standing next to Zhou Yitang. He looked to be just a little older than Zhou Fei, possibly by two or three years, and bowed in a child’s practiced manner in front of the dais.
“Fu wang,” he said in a clear voice, greeting his father.
The emperor raised his hand to gesture at the guests next to him. Zhou Fei peered around her father to look curiously at the boy. “Chuan’er,” his father said, “these are our guests. Will you take Zhou Fei gu niang and show her the gardens? The Commander and I have matters to discuss. Eunuch Wang, you will be their escort.”
Even at a young age, the prince—Xiao Chuan—had impeccable mannerisms, drilled into him since birth. With a deep bow, he turned to the girl, who looked up at her father, and he gave her the gentle smile she loved the most and a nod. He also gave the prince a bow, his hands fisted in front of him. “Thank you for taking care of her, Your Highness.”
The two kids walked out of the room with slow steps, the eunuch following after. All eyes were on the pair stepping carefully over the threshold; no one noticed the one gazing at them with predatory interest and a strange smile on his face, wiped clean when the attention in the room was brought back to the emperor.
“Commander Zhou, we have much to discuss. Let us retire to the study.” The emperor stepped down from the dais, barely glancing behind him at the eunuch already at his heels. “Eunuch Chu?”
Up until this point, Zhou Fei spent the most time with Li Sheng playing in the Stronghold and training with her shi xiongs and shi jies, working toward more limber exercises at their age. This boy next to her was like no one she had seen before, but her father had nodded, so he had to be okay. Still, he wasn’t like Li Sheng, who liked to blabber on about martial arts and breaking rules. He was a little quiet, looking at her from the corner of his eye as if he really wanted to say something, but was waiting for her to talk.
It hadn’t even been a full minute when he broke the silence first.
“Want to hide from the eunuch?” he asked her in barely a whisper, a mischievous look stealing over his face.
Maybe he wasn’t so different from Li Sheng after all. Zhou Fei turned slightly to look at the eunuch trailing behind them, remembering the way she and her cousin had outrun Uncle Ma that one time he was sent to supervise them, and nodded.
Three years passed this way, with Zhou Fei and Zhou Yitang making their way to Jian Kang at least twice a year. It was a long journey, but she was always excited to go back for the food, to see the people, to play with Xiao Chuan and hide from the eunuchs for hours, or to run in the garden and badger him to spar with her.
Three years was all they had.
“Do you know what betrothed means?” he asked in a chipper tone, as though he was bursting with things to say. Or possibly, he just wanted to hear his own voice. Zhou Fei could admit he had a nice voice, even at eight years old. She’s always like hearing his voice. She secretly liked it when he got up on that rock in the middle of the gardens to sing a song he heard recently, or try his hand at poetry—not that she knew the difference between what was good and what wasn’t; she preferred spending time outdoors with her practice saber rather than inside the classroom with her instructors reading books.
She also would never tell him that. And she would never, ever tell him that she sometimes missed playing with him when she and her father were back in the Stronghold, sometimes turning to Li Sheng and expecting him to suddenly start singing, only to realize she was actually looking for Xiao Chuan.
“No, why?”
He skipped another rock—at eleven, his throws got stronger, more controlled, the rock skipping farther in the pond. “I heard my father say something about us being betrothed. I think that means we have to get married.”
She wrinkled her nose, perched on a boulder and watched him skip another rock. “Ew. But we’re friends.”
“That’s what I said!”
The sunset reflected off the water, the colors in the sky mixing into lovely shades that were more muted in the city than the mountains, but still beautiful nonetheless. Lanterns all around the garden were already lit in the sinking twilight, and dinner had been fabulous in preparation for Zhou Fei and Zhou Yitang to leave Jian Kang tomorrow. It was time for another “see you again”, zai jian for months until they made the trip back to the palace. As such, the two took full advantage of their time together—Zhou Fei got the feeling that Xiao Chuan didn’t have many friends (or many friends he could play with), and they got along so well it was almost impossible to separate them in the palace now, and Xiao Chuan had always been the touchier of the two, more sensitive, more playful, more lively.
They’d miss each other indeed.
Zhou Fei opened her mouth to say something to him, but a sharp smell suddenly hit her, and every barely-trained muscle in her little body stood at attention, her wooden dao clutched tightly in her hands.
“A’Fei?” Xiao Chuan asked next to her, “What’s…”
The scent of smoke was in the air. She knew how unplanned, unmanned fires could be dangerous in the mountains, and she shouldn’t have been able to even smell it in the city, but the overpowering scent was slamming her like a brick wall. Smoke gathered in the gardens, a thick blanket that smothered them and preceded the loud sound of…shouting. Many voices, all shouting, yelling, and then Zhou Yitang burst into the garden, quickly grabbing the two of them.
“Your Highness, A’Fei, come with me.”
It took them a month to make their way down south back to the 48 Strongholds.
Within the first day, they had gotten word that the palace had been burned, and revolts had been happening all around the city until they finally pushed their way in. They killed many inside the city walls. They killed many inside the palace.
And within the span of one night, Xiao Chuan was an orphaned, dethroned prince.
He didn’t say a word when they heard the news while passing through a neighboring town, and if his grip on Zhou Fei’s hand had tightened, she tightened hers in response too. Zhou Yitang led them carefully, quickly, and quietly through jiang hu, stopping really only to send updates through the 48 Strongholds’ spy network, and only risking staying in inns every so often in towns that were relatively safer.
Xiao Chuan held Zhou Fei’s hand all the time playing in the palace, tugging her from one place to the next, but it seemed like she was the one leading him on as they traveled, letting go of her father’s hand when she held his. When the 48 Strongholds finally loomed in the distance, her mother stood waiting for them at the mountain gate.
“We need to find a new name for you, Your Highness,” Zhou Yitang said after Li Jinrong led all of them into Xiao Chuan’s new quarters. “We don’t know who might be after you or who might know your identity, but we need to protect you as much as we can. We may need to leave your last name behind. What do you think about the name Xie Yun?”
Xie, a perfectly respectable last name that was similar enough to his own. A word that meant thankful, thankful that he was alive, thankful for the small hand he clutched the last three years when she had been there, in the month it had taken them to arrive.
Yun, also a perfectly respectable name. To allow, to permit; to be just and fair.
To allow for thankfulness. To be thankful for justice. That despite all that’s happened in his very young life, he would still allow thankfulness, justice inside.
Xiao Chuan—Xie Yun—didn’t sleep that night, curled up underneath the thick blankets in a mountain stronghold that was entirely too still, too quiet, unlike the city. He hugged his knees to his chest, blanket thrown over his head. He would never be able to greet his father in the mornings now. He would never see the gardens he and Zhou Fei had spent so much time in again. He would never be able to call the palace home again.
A scuffle of wood brought his thoughts to a standstill, a sort of terror rushing up his throat as someone crept into his room, pulling back his covers, and then Zhou Fei was there, staring at him with that look she had in her eyes whenever he had done something particularly challenging and she would attempt to do the same or die trying. She sat down at the edge of the bed, toeing her boots off and laid down on the pillow, her young face inches from his.
“You’re crying,” she said, causing his hands to fly up to his cheeks. He hadn’t realized. Of all the things she’d seen him do, she had never seen him cry.
She seemed a little lost as to what to do next, but Zhou Fei just did what she did best—she reached for his hands, holding them in her smaller ones, waiting for him to talk. But, for once, he didn’t have anything to say.
“Do you want me to call you Xiao Chuan or Xie Yun?” she finally asked moments later. He gave her a look, because honestly, she could call him whatever she wanted. He also didn’t know the answer, so he just shrugged, now consciously sniffling as though he would start crying again, hearing his real name from her lips. Zhou Fei blew out an impatient breath. “Okay. Die says your name is Xie Yun now, so I’ll call you Xie Yun. Xiao Chuan can be our secret, then.”
The two kids laid in the dark, then she shuffled to crawl under the covers as well.
“A’Fei?” Xie Yun whispered. She cracked open her eyes. He tightened his grip on her fingers, feeling her do the same. “Thanks.”
Xie Yun was introduced to everyone in the Stronghold the next day, and Zhou Fei, stubborn as a bull even at eight years old, didn’t let go of his hand, not when her mother frowned at her, not when Li Sheng crossed his arms and tried to be the big brother he actually was, not when her uncle and the Stronghold elders hid smiles behind their sleeves and in their cups of tea. Even if she didn’t understand, she only knew that Xie Yun was now without his home, so she had to share hers. Xie Yun had been her friend, long before she had many friends in the Stronghold. Xie Yun had been there with her in a strange new place, had held her hand running through the gardens and hallways.
Zhou Fei wasn’t about to let go of his hand.
And she didn’t, and he didn’t, not when she came down with a horrible fever the year after and he curled up in her bed with her only to get sick after she got better, not when he was called once more to fight for his country and sent to the front lines only to come back to the 48 Strongholds under attack by the Disha Group with Yu Wenzhi at the helm trying to obtain the rumored keys to Hai Tian Yi Se, not when Zhou Yitang told him the truth about the treasure, not when they realized Xie Yun had been poisoned in the attack and sent to Penglai in hopes of a cure after, not when he eventually made it back to the 48 Strongholds and it wasn’t appropriate for them to be sharing a bed anymore since they weren’t kids anymore, but honestly, when had they let that stop them?
They didn’t let go when they journeyed across jiang hu on all their adventures, when they met new friends and defeated powerful enemies, when Xie Yun was sitting at death’s door and Zhou Fei would not let him go. Their betrothal arrangement had been honored, not because it was an arrangement that had to be upheld anymore after a failed dynasty, but because they chose their own paths.
And really, would they have it any other way?