001. riposte

When Jiling opened her delft blue eyes, she no longer prayed before the living Buddha. She was no longer surrounded by the million retronascent pearl hearts she was charged with protecting. 

Instead, she, High Priestess of the Empty Mountain, was laid on her bed platform swaddled in soft silver blankets and yesterday’s silk. The grey mist morning called her name through half open screens, through marbled panels of white translucent glass reclaimed from a time long before theirs; the day reminded her that her watch had faltered in the night and it was now time to rise. Light touched hands tucked dark, exhaustion skewed hair behind her ears as she rose to sitting, folded those same hands gently in her lap as she looked to the stylized cedar cloud windows framing the real world’s sky. 

If Jiling was here and not there, the man who brought her wouldn’t be long away.

He was, in fact, very close behind. He announced his presence with the muted rustling of ancient wood shifting in its slat-carved frame, the gentle chiming of porcelain playing nonsense melodies to the solid rhythm of her visitor’s footsteps.

Xueyu was a broad-shouldered man, a man with eyes rarely anything but stern, and yet, in the radiance of the morning and the softness of that steeltone sunrise, he almost looked gentle. His rough hands carried a lacquer tray inscribed with pathways of gold, sacred circuitry spiraling from a simple rendition of an electric heart, a display of beauty for beauty’s sake in the elegance of its sprawl but not without a deeper significance told in its branching avenues, the brushstroke syllabaries of stacked verses. He walked with the formality of a general despite his obtrusion carrying the impetus of a friend. Xueyu’s path led him to a low table made of skyscraper glass reshaped in the elegant manner of tradition—sharp lines broken and crafted into the curvature of styles more organic.

“Good morning,” he said, kneeling at the table. “I brought you breakfast so you’ll be ready for today. Soup and rice. Tea.”

Jiling tilted her head at the intrusion, chiding eyes watching Xueyu cross the room. She looked upon him the same way for over a decade, fondly microtuning every pang she found hidden on his insides, 

always the whetstone saving the mountain’s bloodblade from going blunt. 

She was silent when she rose, silent when she found her place across from her most trusted companion. She settled on a brocade sitting cushion, robes trailing off the sharp angle of a low steel platform. 

“You should have roused me.” Jiling greeted him as she did every morning they shared breakfast in her chambers: with the tone of a scolding. Despite herself, the priestess spoke with a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. “You will have to recite mantra with me to make up for the lost prayers.”

Xueyu took his scoldings well, accompanied them with ceaseless motion undistracted from his end goal.

“I accept this duty.” The man’s movement cast swaying shadows over the plain cups and bowls he was setting out. He always served the priestess before himself: first tea, then savory broth, followed by a bowl of rice concocting a trifecta of steam that swirled lazily toward the chamber’s ceiling. “I’m sorry for being late. I was waylaid by an… issue.”

When his own place was completed, the man’s dark eyes scanned over the breakfast as if appraising the construction’s symmetry. Pleased, he looked up to Jiling, waiting for her lead.

After a moment of stillness, of narrowed eyes and analytical occupation, the small woman withdrew her energy from her protector, dispersed the mountain’s swarm senses to the wind. Holding back a long sleeve, she extended her hand, delicate fingers hovering over her tea. “You feel relaxed, Xue. I trust that means your issue is resolved.” The priestess’ dark blue gaze flit up curiously as she took her tea in hand and raised the cup to the man who so graciously poured it.

“Yes.” The concision in his response was a door closing on any possibility of further explanation. Xue took up his own cup, walls petite compared to the rugged nature of his swordsman grasp, and drank, sight line falling to the meal again.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked. “Do you feel fully rested?”

An echo of a Jiling long past hid in the smile she kept for Xue alone, like rain and stone in the early morning mountain air. She sipped the tea he’d been so kind as to steep for her, pleased that it tasted the same as it did every sunrise she greeted with her master of swords at her side. 

“I feel rested,” she replied. “But I do not know if I slept well.”

“Well, it’s a start.” Xueyu spoke between shifting gestures, sips of soup alternating between bites of rice and the taste of tea. These quiet mornings were his favorite way to start any day. The glow of the generous sun made the priestess’s every silksway glimmer molten, but even the beauty in this did not compare to her smile—a light of its own holding him rapt. His fluid glances always betrayed the fondness he kept for this woman touched by fate.

“Chongwei and Jiewei have been harassing me nonstop to ask you if they can join us in FanXing City today.” He looked beyond her briefly, to the massive yawn of day filtering through the marbling of salvaged glass—milky white and touched by threads of thunder sewn through cloud cover. “I was thinking of bringing Laike too. It would be good for him to get out.”

Nodding her consent, the small woman was a reserved reflection of her companion. Where Xue alternated in his focus, she was more singular: Jiling always finished her soup before she ever touched her rice. 

“It will be a good opportunity for him to meet the little Prince.” Her acquiescence was thoughtful, soft. Laike was Xue’s favorite pupil; he was the most naturally gifted with the temple rites and inscribed the most beautiful talismans. She wondered if this was what another life would feel like—if they would have had a son between them raised to a perfect reflection between two mirrors. 

But there was no other life: just these quiet mornings and the gentle sound of water covering the intent beneath their words.

“I was thinking he could meet the little Prince’s more sensible sibling too.” Xueyu spent a good deal of his idle time contemplating alliances. He was always trying to plant seeds to secure his clan’s safety in their world, trying to weave longevity into connections that already existed so future generations of this mountain sect’s leadership could function under the umbrella of freedom they so deserved, rather than constantly struggling to obtain it. Though their link to the ruling clan was robust, time or circumstance would eventually favor youth and take them all out of the picture—him and his priestess, the city’s king and his queen.

The swordsman soon grinned, gratitude bare in his elsewhere gaze. “I hope you realize the gift of your kindness. Now I won’t have to suffer through the indignity of whatever punishment those two girls would’ve cooked up for me.”

“They will still play their tricks on you,” the priestess advised. Xueyu may have forgotten his favorite boy was willing to betray him for a laugh, but Jiling was happy to remind him. “They will just number three instead of two.”

Xue shook his head, disappointed but not without a modicum of humor. “I was trying to maintain a positive outlook, you know. I was trying to put positive energy into the air so it would manifest—willing the universe to make everyone behave themselves so I won’t have to beat three children in public and cause at least two of them to die of embarrassment.”

“Your propensity for positive outlooks only affects an uncertain future,” Jiling replied smoothly, setting her soup back on the table to pick up her rice and her ebony wood chopsticks. “When the terminus is inevitable, hopeful expectation will only yield dissatisfaction.”

After a single bite of rice, the priestess’ black-blue eyes settled on the swordmaster’s face, studying the lines of him, how hard he’d grown over the course of their lives, his every edge sharpened by a decade of leadership. “There are people who can do this for us now,” she said softly, always fond even if her words often felt cold. “Why do you still prepare our first meal yourself?”

“I like to spend this time with you.” That man so skilled in silver-edged counterstrokes knew little of hesitancy even when his riposte was spoken. “These quiet mornings give me peace of mind. It’s relaxing and fulfilling to go through the motions of preparing a meal. It brings me joy to see the edge of your smile peek through the corner of your duty-bound mask in the light of a new day—before I lose you to the mountain again.”

“You are overly sentimental.” The words were a childhood tease shaped like elder wisdom, but the faint cast of her smile remained on the surface of her placid calm. “The mountain takes me nowhere you do not follow.” Jiling took another bite of her rice, content in the truth of her words.

“The mountain makes your better judgment lapse to the point of exhaustion. You fell asleep in a pile of books. Being able to follow has no bearing on anything if when I mention that it’s getting late, you simply nod along and keep working.” Xue looked at her square, motions paused to avoid disrupting his words. He softened, then, in a breath exhaled, head tilting aside. “Besides, you should be proud of me for finding gratification in something as simple as making tea, and soup, and rice. For taking an interest in things outside of melee.”

“It is good you have interests that quell your mind of the fight,” the mountain’s cleric replied, voice still warm but her smile all gone. The mask Xue was so afraid of eclipsed the woman he’d come to see yet again. She placed her chopsticks down across her bowl—it seemed she was full after only two bites. She turned her gaze to the window, no longer wishing to view this man who’d addressed her so insolently, who assumed if he said something she must heed his will above all greater duty. 

Xueyu withered in the return of the priestess’ frigidity. He, so strong and fierce, crumbled in the quickness of her mountain’s avalanche, falling eyes clearing the way for his dipping chin, supplication twisting his spine into a beggar’s shape, malformed by his best intentions.

“…I spoke out of turn and I apologize,” he said, voice heavy with the weight of regret. “I will go make the preparations necessary for travel and send someone in to take this away.”

The small woman sat up a little straighter, hands clasped loosely in her lap. She raised her head, chin tilted high. Her weaponmaster’s words splashed against her throat, saltwater in her heartstring wounds. 

“Do that, then.” Rising, the living Buddha’s keeper rounded the table, delicate fingertips resting on the much larger man’s shoulder. She looked down, gentle disappointment straining her dark ocean eyes. “Be better for me next time, Xue. We aren’t children anymore.”

The man simply nodded, reverting automatically into the strained formality they shared in a more open environment—order given, order acknowledged. Xueyu moved only when it was the most unobtrusive to the woman he served beneath, only when he was allowed by the breadth of proximity when she chose to leave his side. His exit was quieter than his entrance, porcelain forsaken in the stillness of her chamber. The friction of sliding doors rushed softly in memory of the breeze beyond the priestess’ backlit windows, the gentle call of water moving deep in the guts of that blackcore mountain they called home.