Page 3 of The Cinders

Xian moved through the caressing boughs of a weeping willow tree, one of many that circled his garden like sentinels.He exhaled into their yellowed light.Willows had been his mother’s favourite.When she’d taught him to dance, she’d shown him the swaying branches and encouraged him to mimic their carefree way.At such a young age, he doubted he’d looked anything but amusing as he’d wiggled his small hips and snaked his arms overhead.

Xian shrugged his shoulders, and his ruqun snagged against the roughness of the skin beneath.His burns seemed to tighten whenever he thought on his mother.

He hurried through the willow, taking a shorter route than the steps would allow, as they swept around the garden’s edge before circling back towards the pond.The beads struck his face, stinging where his skin was smooth and clear, but causing no pain where scars on his left cheek rendered him numb.The left side of his body was the most ruined; from the top of his thigh, along his torso to his shoulder, a patch at his neck, and the unfortunate burn on his cheek.Those areas his mother could not protect when she tried to shield him from the blaze.Small good fortune had kept his eyes undamaged, his sight unhindered; a violet gaze deemed rare, and adding to the whispers of sorcery that plagued him.

Xian crooked his finger and hooked it into the dangling strands, opening a hole for his troublesome gaze to fix upon the fishpond up ahead; a wide circle of stones, built waist high, surrounding a smaller unused and long-dried well that had been flooded.

Home to his dearest friend in all the world.The only one who listened when Xian whispered of his hopes, his loneliness, and his grief.

CHAPTER TWO

‘MERCY?’XIANfound his regular place at the pond’s edge, where a missing stone enabled him to draw near flush with the water level.‘How many mayflies have you caught today, my friend?’

Bubbles bloomed against a murky surface almost entirely covered by water lilies and water lettuce, with the soft fronds of hornwort submerged beneath.Sweet flag jutted like green daggers around the edges, growing ever thicker, no matter how often he pulled them up to give Mercy more places to poke her head above the surface and pounce on resting dragonflies.

He spotted the fanning of her tail just below a browning lily pad, a flash of sunset she seemed to think he could not see from the surface.This was the game she liked to play, hiding among the plant life, making the leaves rock with her bubbles.She’d not reveal herself until Xian made a show of searching for her.

‘I cannot play today,’ he laughed, the weight of his upcoming performance melting away with being so near to his friend, in this place of quiet solitude.‘I am fully dressed.I’ll return this evening as soon as I can.’

But she blew her bubbles somewhere in the nearest cluster of sweet flag, the long-stemmed grasses jiggling as she moved amongst them.

‘Alright then, I see you…right…here.’

His arm was not yet straight when he felt the snag of material.

Xian cursed beneath his breath, peering through the swinging pearls and coral for a sign of a tear to the delicate overcoat.To his great relief, he could see no obvious damage, but the near miss dried his throat.

A splash nearby made him jump.‘Careful now, you little shanxiao!’He teased her with naming her a mountain daemon.‘You can see I am finely dressed, are you trying to make my heart stop with fright?’

Mercy emerged from the sweet flag, swimming into the clearer water where Xian leaned over the stones.The carp, a shade of gold that the emperor’s crowns would envy and trimmed with reds stolen straight from the sun, pushed her head out of the water, black eyes glistening, pearlescent mouth rounded.Her glorious pale gold tail fanned out behind her like a grand gown in the dark water.

She opened and closed her mouth in what he liked to imagine was a greeting.

‘Good afternoon to you, too.’The mere sight of her shimmering scales unburdened him.‘It is very good to see you.Have you missed me?’

Mercy darted around in a tight circle, the fluid movement so beautiful to behold, before she stuck her nose above water again, performing a wiggle he’d learned was her version of a nod.

‘I have missed you too, friend.I’m sorry I could not visit you yesterday, my mistress has me run off my feet.’

Xian caught sight of his reflection.His long black hair was loose, save for the strands at each temple pulled back tightly and clasped with hairpieces covered in pearls and coral that matched those on the decorative veil.In looking at his reflection, with the face veil covering the ugliness of scarred skin on his cheek, one might say he looked fine.But Xian knew better.

Mercy swept around, blowing bubbles to mark her path, creating a carp artwork of sorts; one of her favourite activities.He did not know what she was trying to draw, but he clapped his hands and enthused about each attempt.There was something hypnotic in how she moved; something that untied all the knots he found himself in.The same was apparently said of him when he danced.But ugly rumours had his graceful talent born of dark magic.The rumours had followed him from the Forbidden City; talk of Xian’s mother using sorcery to bewitch the emperor as she sought to become Empress of China.

‘When she bore you, your highness, the claws of all who envied her beauty and grace only sharpened.You must not listen to these disgusting lies.’

So Daiyu told him often, the daughter of the Marquess and Marchioness’s herbalist, and the only soul in the household he’d consider an ally.Even a friend, perhaps.But Xian had learned it was not wise to trust too easily.

‘Oh, Mercy you truly are talented.Wonderful.’But pleasing as the fish’s display was, Xian needed to speak of other things.‘But I have to tell you…I’m so very nervous…about the ceremony today.You’ll probably think that’s stupid of me.I’ve danced the yayue so many times, and I know once I begin everything will be fine, but…’ He sighed.‘I am so tired, I feel a hundred years old, and not twenty-three.I fear I might stumble, or falter, and shame my guardians.They have much invested in this agreement, I don’t know exactly what, no one tells me such things, but these past few days the marchioness has been even more…’ Cruel and cantankerous.‘Anxious.And she speaks of Yu Ming’s marriage prospects as though my simple dance alone will decide who her daughter’s betrothed shall be.’

But there was little simple about the yayue.The moves were complex and required great concentration to remain in time with the shifting tempos of the music.The dances were an art-form, perfected over centuries of ceremony.

Mercy watched him, resting her head on the stone that had shifted into the water, giving Xian his resting place.

He dipped his fingers into the water, and the golden carp caressed their tips with her billowing tail.

‘The Lady Tian has been especially unkind of late, too.I wonder if she is not so eager to be betrothed as she deigns to show?’To his mind, the carp looked thoughtful.‘I think a wedded life sounds dreadful.If I did not know her so well I might feel sorry for Yu Ming, knowing she will be sent off to live at the whim of a man she does not know, and must bear his children.’Xian shuddered.

He longed for no one’s touch.Xian just wished to be left alone.