It proved an exceedingly difficult task, and yet, somehow, Tiao eventually managed to fend off a horde of disciples interested in talking with the Crown Prince as they were trying to leave the Luanshi’s cafeteria. She was barely able to get five words in while they were eating and most of them were admonitions doled out for students that just would not leave the handsome, kind royal alone. She sighed then, as she sighed now in the hallway stretching long through an interior passage, but she couldn’t really fault her peers. The youths of Yunji were curious to rub elbows with the upper echelon of society—whenever royalty came calling to the mountain sect, it was never with this much open access.
“I’m sorry,” Tiao spoke softly as they walked. “I hope you got to eat enough. If not, we can come back when the crowd has died down. Everyone is so excited to get to know you. They like a new face, especially one that can hold his own against Master Xueyu. It makes them think that they can be that good too. Normally, Laike is the only student to win against their teacher.”
“It was kind of Master Xueyu to go easy on us to bolster both our reputation and the morale of his students,” Xiaoxu replied, casual in his friendly address to the blonde taking it upon herself to show him around. He looked at her, serious despite the grin painted on his features. “But we’re not going to win the Millipede with kindness. I hope he rethinks his strategy; I hope he reshapes his priorities.” His somber expression broke with a laugh and the Crown Prince refocused his gaze on the path ahead. “We don’t have to go back to the cafeteria. I’ll be fine. Tell me, Tiao of the Perpetual Void: where exactly are you taking me?”
“The library. I figured there are enough interesting things in there to keep us occupied while we wait for your companions to finish up inlaying their new artifacts.” Tiao walked gracefully, polite hands folded neatly in front of her smooth steps, simple robes swaying in her even stride. As they moved further and further away from the dormitories and congregation of students, it grew quiet. The echoes of boisterous youths faded to a low, unintelligible roar. “I wonder what Lady Jiling found for you. Are you excited to have a new augmentation?”
Tilting his head from side to side, Tian Xiaoxu considered the question. Fresh gold tracers on the back of his neck already surrounded a tanzanite shard, dropping down his back and cutting across his shoulder blades to meet up with the rest of his network. What did she say it did again?
It will give you form and shape, the illusion of life, the means to call false specters, Lady Jiling said—but what did that even mean? Xiao simply bowed his head and accepted the gift, sure that if the Mistress of the Swarm was confident in the match then it was intended to be.
“I’m still warming up to it,” the Prince replied, clever thing looking back at Tiao with that handsome grin on his face. He gathered his hair to the side as they crossed Jubaopen’s outer entry gate. “Do you want to see?”
“You wouldn’t mind?” The girl’s eyes brightened, curious, alluring. She nodded, rapid and subtle, determined to make a lesson out of this boy’s glimpse of skin—to see the result of her mistress’ choice, study the example standing tall before her. “Yes, I would like to see.”
Right there, under Jubaopen’s carved internal archway, a Prince knelt before a disciple of Luanshi, a dejavu foretelling of what would someday, perhaps, be a King kneeling before the thirteenth named Mistress of the Swarm. On his knees, Xiao looked up before he bowed his head, gesturing for the girl to have a look at the artifact she was so curious to examine.
“I don’t mind,” he assured her, fingers brushing the tender wounds. “Tell me if it looks okay.”
Jiling’s student bent forward a few degrees, carefully observing the inset stone in royal flesh. She smiled for how it sparkled in the conservative glow of Yunji’s inner recesses, soft lavender highlighted by flecks of light dancing across clean-cut facets.
“It’s beautiful,” she said shortly after. “It matches your attire very nicely and your inlayer looks to have done a marvelous job laying the tracers to connect it. He’s very gifted; you’re very lucky.”
Looking up, Xiao canted his head. He leaned his weight slightly forward, hands on his knees. “I am—but I don’t know that my access to Hua Jin defines my luck.”
“Ah, well. I never claimed that it did,” Tiao replied, furtive smile pulling her lips at the corners. The rising colors of a blush were dusted across her cheeks but the girl straightened and turned into the library well before it was given a chance to flourish in sight of the royal visitor. It was increasingly difficult to dodge the wealth of charm the Crown Prince was so capable of doling out, perhaps Tiao was lucky that movement gave her a brief reprieve from proximity.
Stepping forward, the space opened up into an almost cavernous room, stacked to the ceiling with cubbies, either carved from granite or constructed with wood, full of papers fitting all manner of shape. From densely rolled scrolls hung elaborate ribbons, shimmering like streamers patterned with old family sigils and dead clan epithets. Slatted bamboo calligraphy rolls loomed over thick sheaves and leaflets hand-bound in golden thread. Tables sat mostly unoccupied between rows and rows of shelves, lit by mismatched lanterns whose corners occasionally turned up at the corners in a canny grin. The room was warm, even if such a precious space should have possessed an inherently cold air—the hues spanned the spectrum of red and orange, yellow, brown; bold.
“This is where most of the studying is done. It’s typically a pretty quiet place because most of Master Xueyu’s students are not meant to really study so much as fight, and all of Mistress Jiling’s disciples are reserved and respectable.” Tiao glanced back to Xiaoxu. “We have so many old books—I feel like I find something new every time I visit this place.”
The library was surprisingly empty for such a vast space, with only a few students huddled around low calligraphy desks, either transcribing or studying. A small group clustered around a high table near a set of stairs in the back of the main alcove, laughing quietly amongst themselves over whatever they observed in a thick tome propped on a large, ornately carved rosewood book stand.
“Luanshi’s repository of knowledge dwarfs the royal library,” Xiao observed, taking in his surroundings. While his parents maintained a vast trove of books and scrolls for Fanxing’s royal academy, he knew his mother often sent the most rare and treasured volumes to Yunji, confident the mountain could protect them better than a city ever could. “Show me your favourite section; show me your favourite books.”
The petite girl took up a portable lantern in one hand and Xiao’s hand in the other, leading him through a short maze of aisles. She dropped the limb when they were facing a dead end, black rock wall intensifying the area’s thick shadows sent scattering with the intrusion of her light, and knelt before a lower cabinet. The book she retrieved was wrapped in string, aged pages held together in the most slipshod manner since the old text’s spine had completely decayed. Tiao patted the spot next to her on the ground.
“I like this book a lot.” Her fingers began to untie the knots of the book’s bindings. “It’s very fragile and faded but it has a lot of pictures of how people used to live. It’s in a dead language, so I don’t really know what it says but—here.” The girl opened the text and carefully leafed through the sheets until she found a good page. “Look at this.”
Before the prince was an image of the ancient times. A crowd of people stood in a square aglow with bright rectangles of light, a sea of heads seemingly united in worship of this illuminated god. The colors were kaleidoscopic but faded, soft pastels now rather than what might’ve been vibrant neons.
Quick to settle in next to his guide, Xiao hummed in interest. “There are so many obelisks,” the Prince murmured, leaning in to squint at the picture presented to him. “I wonder what communicated with them through those windows in the sky?” He turned the page: an overhead view of roads filled with strangely shaped vehicles, horseless carriages deadlocked on narrow streets. “These images seem so lifelike—I wonder what kind of master could paint in this way, if these pictures are taken directly from the eyes of birds.”
Tiao shrugged. “We don’t study this one, so I don’t know. I just found it over here when I was looking for another text one day. I tend to like the history books the most. I like to read the old legends too.” She looked over to the prince. “What kind of books do you prefer?”
“I like to read the old legends, the journals of adventurers who explored the world when it was still bare, when there was only wilds between the fallen kingdoms of old gods,” Xiao replied, turning slowly through the pages. “Have you ever asked Mistress Jiling about these old worlds? I bet she knows. The mountain seems to grant her so much knowledge.” Looking up, he bumped Tiao’s shoulder with his own. “Maybe when you inherit the mountain’s heart, you can tell me about the mysteries this book holds.”
The girl grinned, folding her hands over the open text. “Sure. I’ll study this book, learn its secrets, and when you are king with the luxury of time on your side, then I will tell you all about these images.” She looked up to the tall shelves, scanning the collection living in that isolated corner. “I haven’t asked Mistress Jiling about it. Perhaps someday.”
The Crown Prince looked down at his hands, flexed then in and out of fists, stressing his tendons in a fleeting external show of nerves. He hoped such a day would come—that the battle for the Millipede would not strip him of the future he’d been born and raised to pursue. After a moment, he looked up. “And if I end up here? If I’m destined to remain in Yunji? Would you still spend this time with me if I was disgraced?”
“Of course,” Tiao replied, placing a tender, calm hand on the prince’s arm. She looked over to him, eyes catching the low light placed between their knees. “Don’t worry, your majesty. You’re lucky, remember?”
“I don’t know that my ability to retain my title is predicated on luck.” The Prince remained clouded; he placed a hand upon Tiao’s, warm in the inky, book-ended dark. “But it’s reassuring to know I’ll still have a friend in you if all things fall through.”
“Do you regret your wager?” Tiao tilted her head, ponderously observing the young royal’s shade of worry.
“I do not.” A deep breath in, Xiao straightened a little. “I don’t regret it. I don’t regret saving Ren Li from his father; I don’t regret coming to Yunji. Maybe I regret causing my family undue suffering in the face of uncertainty but it’s out of my control, isn’t it? Hardship builds experience—if I’m to be king, maybe this hardship is necessary. We are defined by our choices and I hope that I will be known for doing what is right no matter the personal cost.”
Tiao hummed. “Well, from my perspective, you are a very noble and kind man. I’m sure that history will treat you well. I’m sure that even if you come to live with the rest of us on Yunji, you will be viewed not as a disgrace but as someone whose convictions were benevolent, someone who kept his word and valued others over himself.” She nodded then, sure of those statements she’d made.
The royal heir averted his eyes to the tattered, dusty spines lined up before him. He scrolled over their titles, scribed in languages long since spoken, their glossy sheen rubbed away many hundreds of years ago. “Do you ever wish to leave this place? Or do you have everything you want here in these halls?”
“I don’t know that the world outside of Yunji has anything to offer me. I don’t know what the world beyond this place holds. I’m not a fighter, you know? I crave knowledge, I want all the experience that those who’ve gone before me—Chen, Jian, Yan—have cultivated, but how am I to go learn if I’ve no skill to protect what’s mine?” The girl whose hair was a silken bundle of platinum strands looked at the prince, expression plain and bare. “I would like to see the world and then, when I have tired of unfamiliarity, rest easy and fulfilled in the comforts of my home.”
“Would you trust me to take you?” In the face of such open confession, the question sounded more a quip than a true suggestion but Fanxing’s Prince turned toward the girl and looked at her earnestly. He took her hands in his own as he moved, ardent boy willing to express what he’d felt since laying eyes on Tiao and her perpetual void. His words were a veil; his heart was bare beneath duty’s veneer, begging the acknowledgment of its beat. “We haven’t known each other long but, if you would have me, accompanying Luanshi’s next leader in her quest to know the world would be an honour higher than any I was born to.”
Tiao’s posture withered because she was a shy thing, she was inexperienced and modest, a girl who knew little of life despite the wealth of her book-earned smarts. Her face was bright red, hot at her cheeks and cool on her forehead; her eyes were diverted quickly, but slowly, timidly found their way back to that handsome king-to-be.
She nodded, looking up. “I—I mean, yes, of course. How could I not trust you? I didn’t say all those things to give you false hope, they weren’t empty compliments.”
“Then when this is over, when the Millipede is decided, I will take you. Wherever you want to go, I’ll take you—then you won’t have to worry about any dangers that may await you and can focus your mind on pursuing both knowledge and experience freely,” the Crown Prince promised. Realizing how they must have looked, how another promise could easily have been on his tongue, hand to hand as they were, he bit his lip and let the girl go, glance strafing back to the books. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me if I overstepped my bounds.”
“No.” Tiao shook her head, voice soothing as she relaxed more and more. “No. Don’t apologize. You are bold and brave and I like that about you very much.” Her hands reached out to recapture the prince’s own, parting his fingers with hers. “I look forward to traveling with you very much, Xiaoxu. I cannot wait to see the world at your side.”
Their hands once more connected, reconvened by her wish, the royal brought the girl’s touch to his cheek, brushing her knuckles against the smooth, sharp line of his jaw. He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, a chaste trinket of affection for that girl he did not want to pressure with his power, his standing, his name. “What do you wish to see first? Where do you most want to go?”
“I want to see the cold north. I want to watch the sky roll freely over open stretches of desert. I want to see how all the people of these places live, I want to taste the food that they make, touch whatever trinkets they’ve salvaged from the ancients, see their artifacts and how they work.” Tiao turned her adorned hand, smoothing her palm and fingers over Xiao’s cheek, stroking his skin in a soft sentiment. “I want to sit around a fire with you and watch the cosmos slowly turn.”
The Prince leaned softly into her touch, nuzzling into her open hand. He kissed her palm as a second sacrifice to their shyly escalating intimacy, the kindling of their affinity. “What if your travels bring you to a place you love more than Yunji? Would you stay there or would the memory suffice?”
“I—” Tiao’s hesitation was a product of her rattling thoughts, unable to give a clear answer, unable to parse intelligence from the thunderous beating of her heart, resonant between her ears. “I don’t really know. I suppose we’ll have to see. I do have a duty here, though. I would not want to let Mistress Jiling down.”
“I wouldn’t want to let my family down, either,” the boy laughed as he pressed another kiss into Tiao’s hand before his gaze flit up, content to watch the blush overtake her features in the low light. “I guess we can hold each other accountable.”
Again, the girl nodded, agreement easily found in these hypotheticals lacking consequence. Shifting, Tiao reclaimed her hand and brought the prince’s palms to her face now, a silent encouragement that was meant to further combat his apology. “What sort of places are you drawn to the most?”
Smoothing his thumb over the girl’s jaw, Xiao leaned closer, resting his weight on his free hand as he studied Tiao’s pale features, motes of dust illuminated in the air between them. “I like to observe people, learn their stories. I like to hear their conflicts, see how they’re resolved. I want to hear about people’s woes, people’s happiness. There is a lot of wisdom in experience, even if those experiences aren’t mine. I want to help where I can—anywhere I can help: that’s where I want to go.”
“I see.” Tiao’s smile was sweet, an easy thing to surface now that she was growing more used to the feel of Xiao’s touch. “Fanxing will truly be at a terrible loss if they lose you to the wager on the Millipede, or the wonders of the untamed frontier.”
Touch trespassing the platinum hair at Tiao’s nape, Xiao reflected her mood, her smile, her ease. “I don’t think I’d be lost if I found some place with you.”
“Really?” Jiling’s disciple didn’t even realize what she was doing: leaning in, succumbing to a gravity whose center was the infallible charm of that smooth talker close to her. When she searched Xiao’s eyes, all she found was his authenticity. Tiao was glad she wasn’t standing—surely her knobby knees would be wobbling, surely she was already falling.
Xiao was caught in a pause, a thousand what ifs racing silent in the back of his throat. If this was something they both wanted, something both of them desired, could this even be a possible future? To some degree, the Tian heir understood the responsibility of his position, understood the sacrifices he would someday make for Fanxing’s longevity—but weren’t Fanxing and Yunji linked? Weren’t Tian and Luanshi inseparable? Wasn’t Tiao key to an impenetrable bond between the city and the mountain?
But Gods—if he was wrong, if he hurt her,
how would he ever forgive himself?
“Tiao,” he murmured, leaning imperceptibly closer, victim to her gravity. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
“Yes—” Tiao nearly met him, close enough to feel the prince’s warm breath against her skin. She caught herself. “If you want t—”
With her consent uttered, her words abandoned on his lips, Xiao cut her breath short when he closed the meager distance still between them. He moved with gentle intent. His kiss was an invitation offering whatever Tiao could want in the dim and the dust: he could be a singular moment or he could be the first of many.
He left his fate at the whim of the void, lingering long in their first kiss with his dark eyes nearly closed.
Bashful in the affection expressed, Tiao was slow to warm up to the kiss. Being the isolated girl that she was, the feeling of another’s lips on her own was different, unique. Xiao’s kiss was pillow-soft and warm. After a few moments, she pressed into him, hands falling to rest idly atop the boy’s bent knees.
Lips parted, falling into Tiao’s acquiescence and acceptance, the Crown Prince took the girl’s face in his hands as he advanced his attentions. Suddenly, though, Xiao broke away. Tiao lingered at the corner of his mouth and, though their kiss remained in echoes, he remained a hair’s breadth away, eyes flitting up to watch the blonde even though he couldn’t really see.
“…I really like you, Tiao,” the Prince confessed. “I don’t want to pressure you; I don’t want to mess this up.”
Tiao settled back on her folded legs as she pulled her hands back into her lap, then lifted them up to cool the warmth rampant on her cheeks. “I like you too but you’ve come to Yunji for a very important reason and I don’t want you to lose sight of it. I don’t want to divert your focus with myself. Time will march on after you win the Millipede. Spend some of those moments with me, take me to see the world like you’ve said. Okay?”
Xiao smirked, looking down at the book that had brought them to this quiet corner of Yunji’s library. “Okay,” he agreed, reaching down to pick up that old publication and return it to the shelf.