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Sha Hualing burst through the door, whirled around and slammed it shut behind her. Breathing hard, she turned to face Liu Mingyan, half-collapsing back against the frame.
“Mingming, what’s wrong?”
Liu Mingyan had been sitting pensively on the edge of a divan, waiting. At the sight of her, she jumped to her feet.
Her voice was quiet but firm. “Hualing, come here.”
In an instant, Sha Hualing was across the room.
She had been gone for two weeks on a mission that couldn’t be avoided. That had been two weeks too long.
She’d only just gotten back a couple of hours ago. If she could have, she would have run to Liu Mingyan right away, but Luo Binghe had expressed interest in the outcome of her trip, and so she’d had no choice but to go to court first. That’s where she’d seen her, sitting off to the side with the thirty or so other wives that were in attendance that day.
It had only taken a glance at her face to know that something bad had happened.
They met in the middle of the room, a collision of limbs and clasping hands. Sha Hualing was shorter — Liu Mingyan was so tall, just about everyone was shorter than her — and so her head ended up pressed against her chest. One of Liu Mingyan’s hands curled into her dark hair. The other wrapped around her shoulders.
Sha Hualing clung to her in return, her fingers clutching at the back of her robes so tightly that her claws threatened to rip through the fabric.
“What happened? Tell me. Are you okay?” She leaned back, urgently looking her over.
Liu Mingyan wasn’t wearing her veil; she rarely did these days, not in private when it was just the two of them. It left Sha Hualing with an unobstructed view of her expression as her eyes went soft, her mouth wobbling ever so slightly.
“Hualing,” she said gently, one of her hands coming up to brush Sha Hualing’s fringe back out of her face. “I’m pregnant.”
Sha Hualing’s heart stopped.
“You— he?”
Liu Mingyan shook her head. She was staring intently into Sha Hualing’s eyes. Between them rested an entire universe. “It’s yours.”
Sha Hualing blinked up at her, then laughed, a wet, choked-out thing.
“Baobei,” she shook her head. “I know we’ve been trying, but between two women, it really doesn’t work like that.”
The corner of Liu Mingyan’s mouth curved up, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “While you were gone, I ran into a lily of dreams. It was blooming. When I realized what it was, I tried to get away, but I wasn’t fast enough. I’d already breathed in the pollen.”
Sha Hualing’s jaw dropped. “What? Where?”
“In the imperial gardens. Someone must have brought it back recently. I don’t know. No one said anything about it, I wasn’t expecting….”
The lily of dreams was an extremely rare plant. It only granted one kind of dream, and it granted it whether the recipient wanted it or not.
“But you’re sure it’s mine?” Sha Hualing’s hands had shifted to clutch at her forearms. She searched her face desperately. The emotion in her chest felt too big to put a name to.
Liu Mingyan practically melted. “In this lifetime, I’ve only ever truly loved one person. There have been other infatuations, other flings, yes, but when it comes to this….” She smiled then, and suddenly her eyes were steady, her face as bright as the sun. “It could only ever be yours.”
Sha Hualing surged forward and kissed her. Her mouth was hot, ravenous. She needed to be closer, closer, closer. She needed every part of herself to be pressed up against Liu Mingyan right fucking now.
Liu Mingyan whimpered into her mouth and kissed back just as harshly.
“Me too, if it had been me.” Sha Hualing mumbled out against her lips, the words mingled between quick, breathless little kisses. “It’s only ever been you for me, too.”
A quiet sob broke out of Liu Mingyan’s throat. “A-Ling,” she gasped. “I don’t know what to do.”
Sha Hualing leaned back and quickly cupped her face with her hands, using her thumbs to wipe the tears away as they fell.
“Shhh, shhh. It will be okay. Baobei, darling, my love. It’s going to be okay.”
“I can’t get rid of it.” She was crying in earnest now. “Children of the lily are born from their mother’s spiritual energy. T-the only way to get rid of it would be to kill me, and even if I could…. H-H-Hualing, it’s yours. It’s so stupid, but I d-don’t even want to get rid of it.”
Sha Hualing hadn’t known that about the lily, but it made sense. These sorts of “miracle cure” plants, in actuality, usually worked more like curses.
She set that thought aside, focusing instead on soothing Mingyan. Her hand ran up and down her back, a steady, firm pressure.
“Let’s go over to the bed. Shhh. Come on.”
Not breaking their embrace, she gently maneuvered the two of them across the room in a sort of lumbering four-legged crab walk. Once they were sitting down on the edge of the mattress, Liu Mingyan continued.
“He’s going to know it's not his before they’re even born. It won’t be a heavenly demon, h-he’ll be able to smell it.”
Sha Hualing had started rubbing her back again. “That won’t happen until late in the pregnancy, not until it’s practically over. If it’s yours and mine, that means it’ll be a half-demon too. It could be difficult to tell.” She paused. “When was the last time you two dual-cultivated?”
Liu Mingyan frowned, then started counting on her fingers. “Seven? No, maybe nine months ago?”
Sha Hualing grimaced, but Liu Mingyan shook her head.
“I’ll just tell him the truth about the lily. He probably knows it's in the garden.”
“You think he won’t be suspicious? How could he possibly think that you’re in love with him? You’ve barely seen him for months! How many words have you said to each other in the past year?”
Liu Mingyan sniffed. “He’s so self-centered, of course he’ll think I’m in love with him.” She laughed a weak little half-sardonic, half-despairing laugh, but Sha Hualing frowned.
“No.” She growled. “No, you can’t let him find out at all. It’s too dangerous. If he realizes it’s not his, then he’ll kill you. There needs to be another plan. We’ll have to send you away.”
“Both of us are too senior in the harem, they would notice immediately if we left. Maybe not him, but someone. Who would then tell him.”
Sha Hualing shook her head. Her heart felt like it was ripping itself in two as she explained, “Not both of us. Just you. Like you said, we’re too senior in the harem. There would be too much scrutiny if we both left on a trip that lasted months. And then where would we hide the child?”
She steeled herself for what she was about to say next, tangling one of her hands in Liu Mingyan’s and looking down at her lap.
“I think we’re going to have to fake your death.”
“No,” Liu Mingyan sounded incredulous. “That’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“I can do it. There are ways.”
“You just said that I won’t be able to fool him about my own emotions, but now you think you can trick a heavenly demon into thinking his wife is dead?”
“Mingyan. There are ways.”
“He’ll try to revive me.”
“He would need to be able to find your body first. I’ll make him think there aren’t enough remains.”
“But what about you?” Liu Mingyan switched tactics. “How will you get away? I can’t—” she swallowed hard, unable to finish the sentence.
“I’ll be able to visit. Not… often. Not regularly, but I’m the one he’s always sending out on missions. I’ll be able to sneak away.”
Liu Mingyan shook her head quickly. Her expression was mullish. “That’s not enough.”
Sha Hualing scooped up both of her hands and pulled them up to her chest. Her eyes were desperate. Pleading. “What other option do we have? Think of something better and I’ll do whatever you say.”
Liu Mingyan tugged her hands back and crossed her arms, stubbornly turning away.
“Baobei, please.” Sha Hualing begged. “We can hide you in the Hidden Silk Fortress until the birth. He’s never spent much time there. He doesn’t know about most of the secret rooms or passageways. And… and then after the baby comes, we can move you to one of the villages. Or we can find a mostly-human village, if you’d rather. One where people won’t ask too many questions.”
“A-Ling, if he finds out you’ve stashed me in your natal home, he’s going to kill everyone in your clan. You would seriously betray them like that?”
“Betray my clan?” Sha Hualing laughed bitterly. She got off the bed and knelt down in front of her. “Liu Mingyan, for you, I would betray the entire world.”
Tears welled up in Mingyan’s eyes again and she quickly slapped a hand over her mouth.
Sha Hualing couldn’t bear to see her in pain. She got up and crawled onto her lap, straddling her hips. She wrapped her arms around Liu Mingyan’s willowy frame, rocking her back and forth a little as she cried.
“I d-don’t want to leave you,” Liu Mingyan hiccupped miserably.
“Shhh, Baobei, shhh. You won’t be leaving me. It won’t be forever.”
“Even two weeks is too long.”
“Shhh.”
It couldn’t be forever, Sha Hualing realized as she held her crying lover. There was no way she could live without Liu Mingyan for long, especially not if she was expecting their child. A child that was made up of the two of them.
This had never been in the plan. Sha Hualing had never asked for— had never even dreamed of…. To think of it now, though, set her blood on fire. What wouldn’t she do to keep her beloved and her child safe?
Luo Binghe had not loved either of them in a long time, but he relied on them to help him rule his empire. Worse, there was no way his pride would allow them to leave.
Sha Hualing wasn’t sure she would be able to kill someone as powerful as a heavenly demon. She would have to try.
Would Liu Mingyan ever be able to forgive her if she didn’t come back? Like most successful warriors, Sha Hualing wasn’t exactly afraid of death, but she was afraid of what her death would do to her beloved. Liu Mingyan had already lost the older brother that raised her. She had no family left. None at all, save for the little life that was now growing inside of her.
Sha Hualing let out a deep sigh. She could figure this out later. She had only just found out. Liu Mingyan had been pregnant for what? A week? They had a little time.
“I love you.” She said instead. She leaned forward, pushing Liu Mingyan down until she was flat on her back with Sha Hualing on top of her, covering her body with her own. “I’m serious. If I went and breathed in that pollen, then there would be two half-human, half-demon babies getting ready to come into the world.”
It made Liu Mingyan snort, which had been her goal.
“I know.” She replied, still a little misty-eyed. “I know there would.”
Seeing the soft look in her eye, Sha Hualing couldn’t help but kiss her again. With her knees on either side of Mingyan’s hips, supporting her weight, she let her hands wander down to her stomach, exploring. Oh my god, she realized. She was going to get big.
“Cut it out.” Liu Mingyan squirmed underneath her. “There’s nothing to feel yet.”
A slow, devious smile spread over Sha Hualing’s face. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she purred, before slipping her fingers between the overlap of her robe and tearing the layer apart. The sound of fabric ripping was loud in the room.
“A-Ling!” Liu Mingyan squealed. She couldn’t be that mad, though. This was not the first time this had happened.
“Maybe forget what I said earlier.” Sha Hualing told her. “I know you’re already pregnant, but I think we ought to try again, just for good measure.”