know I have to go soon,’ Yan Ling said, agitated. ‘Can’t you let me dream just a little until then?’
‘Dreams are dangerous. They make you forget what’s real.’
Khitan wasn’t real, Yan Ling insisted stubbornly. Changan was real. Fei Long was real. Even Dao with her disapproving scowl was more real than the Khitan barbarian she was supposed to marry.
‘I’ll miss you, Dao.’
Dao made an impatient noise, but she relented. ‘I’ll miss you, too.’
‘Write me letters, all right? Make those imperial messengers ride all the way across the steppes to deliver them.’
‘Of course.’
Fei Long had taught her so much and so had Dao. This was her only way to repay them. Maybe it was being in the temple that made her so reflective.
Fei Long hadn’t asked her to stay with him again, and even if he did, Dao was right. She would be a servant or a favoured concubine at best. She would have done so happily—until Fei Long took a wife. Then she would be relegated to the far corner of the house to be forgotten, her spirit crushed.
Better for everyone that she fulfilled her purpose in the peace marriage. Still, she hoped Fei Long would miss her for a long, long time. No, she didn’t want him to find happiness elsewhere. She hoped to become a wound in his heart that wouldn’t heal.
‘Yan!’ Dao reprimanded.
‘What?’
‘You looked so malicious right then. This is a Buddhist temple, you know.’
They hushed as a nun in plain grey robes, head shaven, stepped out into the garden. She shuffled toward them in her sandals, then stopped, pressing her hands together and bowing from the waist. ‘Greetings, my ladies.’
Dao blinked twice, her eyes opening wide. ‘Lady Min?’
Min bowed again, but this time her smile was unmistakable. ‘I’m so happy you came. Miss Yan Ling, you’re so pretty now!’ the once lady, now nun, exclaimed. She hugged them both and led them to a mat set out before the statue of Guanyin. ‘So what is this about an archery match? Tell me everything!’
Dao took over the tale, speaking in a hushed, yet excited tone. Lady Min listened with childlike interest, laughing aloud when Dao described the final shot that would certainly become legend. Several grim-faced nuns walked by on the garden path and regarded them sternly before continuing on.
‘I’m too loud still, but I’m learning,’ Min said.
Yan Ling was certain Dao had brought her to the temple to keep her away from the house and away from Fei Long, but now that she was here, she was glad. Lady Min had been the first friend she’d made in the city, though it had been a short acquaintance.
‘At first I couldn’t stop touching my head,’ Min chattered on, as if starved for conversation. ‘Once I asked for a mirror and everyone stared at me. I thought I would be sent home that very moment, but the abbess is very tolerant. She looks at me very tolerantly every time she sees me. I do sometimes look into that fish pond over there just to check my reflection,’ she confessed.
They laughed together, hands held to their mouths to muffle the sound. Min looked content and Yan Ling was certain she still laughed every day. They said their farewells and Min again broke formalities to hug each of them. ‘Come visit me again.’
‘I’ll actually be leaving soon.’ Sadness hooked around her heart as she said it. ‘To Khitan.’
‘Oh! Oh, yes…like Pearl.’
Not like Pearl. Pearl had escaped with the man she loved. But Yan Ling was much more practical, as Fei Long had pointed out.
She should have run away with him that morning in the park, even if they had only made it to the ward gates before Fei Long came to his senses and insist they turn around. It would have been nice to be recklessly free for one small moment. She could remember that Fei Long had felt that impassioned once, with her.
Yan Ling squeezed the bridge of her nose to keep from tearing up. If Dao asked about her sorrowful look, she’d explain it away as the sadness of Lady Min’s departure, though Yan Ling had hardly known the lady long enough to weep for her.
* * *
That night’s dinner was a feast. They couldn’t celebrate Fei Long’s triumph with the rest of the city, but Old Man Liang purchased a roast pig from the butcher and the kitchen servants had been hard at work as soon as they returned. Everyone was drunk on their master’s victory.