Why wouldn’t he race? Bei Xi gave up on him. Xiao Yen grinned. The clearing was in full sunlight. At last she’d be able to see Bei Xi’s shadow. To her disappointment, Bei Xi unstrapped her umbrella from her saddle and rode shaded across the clearing. The tan color of her umbrella set off her dark hair and made her skin luminous. Her robe was made of off-white silk, with large beige patterns of flying swallows. Xiao Yen looked down at her own unembroidered blue jacket. It was a good jacket, well made and functional, but dull in Xiao Yen’s eyes.
Bei Xi reined in her horse and stopped next to Xiao Yen, in the shade, of course. When they turned back, they saw Udo on the far side of the clearing with Ehran. Udo gestured sharply. Ehran didn’t respond. Udo jerked the reins of his horse and came trotting across the clearing to where Xiao Yen and Bei Xi waited. Ehran followed at a slow walk.
Udo asked how they were, if they were hungry. When Ehran joined them, Udo told them that lunch would be soon.
“Good,” Ehran replied with exaggerated relief. “I need to rest.”
“My brother,” Udo said to Xiao Yen with a laugh, “he sleeps, all the time.”
Xiao Yen didn’t respond. Udo didn’t take her worries about Ehran seriously either.
Udo continued up the trail first. Xiao Yen followed him. Bei Xi and Ehran stayed side by side. Xiao Yen flinched at their laughter. She could catch up to Udo, but what would she say? Though Xiao Yen could speak a little of the brothers’ language now, she didn’t know enough to say anything meaningful. Plus, even if she could talk with Udo fluently, she still wouldn’t want to. Udo seemed harsh compared with his brother. He always said cutting things, both to her and Bei Xi. The only person he was ever nice to was Ehran. And the horses. He spoke to them like a mother talked to her children.
It had been better when Xiao Yen had been at home, when Wang Tie-Tie had tried to teach her how to be alone. At least, at the end of the day, she’d been able to be with her family. Now there was no one.
Xiao Yen bit her tongue and concentrated on the pain. She would not cry. Not where anyone could see her.
Xiao Yen looked up from her bowl of noodles when the tone of Udo and Ehran’s conversation changed. They were always louder than two excited five-year-olds chasing a ball, but now they were really yelling at each other.
Xiao Yen couldn’t follow the rapid flow of their words. From the way Ehran held his hands open she could tell he was asking for something. Udo stood stiffly over him, his arms tightly folded across his chest. Udo didn’t want to give it to him. Udo kept shaking his head, and Xiao Yen made out the word, “Late.”
As quickly as it had started, it was over. Ehran closed his eyes and lay back, one arm under his head for a pillow. From his smug smile Xiao Yen surmised he’d won. Udo watched him for a moment, tight lipped, shoulders hunched, upset.
Xiao Yen bent her head over her bowl when Udo looked her way, not wanting him to see that she’d been watching. She watched his boots walk past her. She sighed and put more noodles in her mouth. The sauce on them had cooled and the noodles stuck together, salty and thick.
From over her left shoulder she heard Udo call, “Sanchen.” The brothers always used the wrong tones when they tried to say her name, so they found a name for her in their language that sounded similar to her name. Bei Xi had assured her it was a good name, full of luck.
Xiao Yen looked up, her mouth full of noodles. Still looking at Ehran, Udo asked, “How short is your protection?”
Xiao Yen chewed and tried to swallow. She didn’t understand his question. Though she’d spent many hours on the trail every day, either learning Udo and Ehran’s language or the language of the horsemen, she was far from fluent.
She swallowed and asked, “Excuse me?” It was the phrase she knew the best.
Udo brought his hands together, indicating something small. “How short can you make your protection? Does it have to go all night? Or can you do it just for one hour?”
Xiao Yen didn’t understand all Udo’s words, but she could guess the meaning of them. The larger the creature, the longer it should stay animated, according to Master Wei. Otherwise it was a waste of the essential spirit. “Hour of Horse and hour of Sheep best. Just hour of Horse, possible, but not as good.”
Udo looked around the camp, then stared at Ehran again. “We won’t be here that long.” He bit his upper lip and stood with his hands clenched together behind his back. “Stay close to camp. Those bandits may be nearby. If we’re lucky, they won’t be looking for horses. We’re close to the next city, to Tan Yuan. We won’t get there today, but maybe by tomorrow . . .” He bowed his head, then walked away.
Ehran lay as still as a large river stone. Xiao Yen worried about him. She felt responsible for Ehran. She’d been hired to protect the whole party, not just the horses. She didn’t know what was wrong with Ehran. He just seemed drained of life. He didn’t complain of fever or chills or loose stools. Xiao Yen hoped to talk with an alchemist in Tan Yuan. Maybe she could get some tea that would revive him.
Udo stopped at Bei Xi’s tent, called out to her, speaking too fast for Xiao Yen to follow. Next, he walked to where the trail guide squatted, eating his lunch. Then he walked toward the horses. He talked to them as well, as if telling them the news. One of the horses leaned its head over and brushed it against Udo, like a shy child rubbing against its mother’s skirt. After Udo patted the horses a few more moments, he walked into the woods.
Xiao Yen finished her noodles, rinsed her bowl out with water the trail guide had fetched from the river, then walked to her horse. She opened the bag containing her clothing. If they were going to be in Tan Yuan soon, maybe she could get more thread to sew the hole in her other set of pants. She reached in to bring the pants to the top, when her hand brushed against smooth silk.
Xiao Yen’s heart came alive in her chest, pumping hard, full of loneliness. Xiao Yen drew out a portion of the silk and held it to her cheek. It was her mother’s jacket, Xiao Yen’s favorite, the dark blue one with a pattern of cranes in lighter blue.
Xiao Yen looked back at the camp. Ehran’s eyes were open. He raised his head and glanced around, searching for someone. Xiao Yen guessed he was looking for Udo. With a self-satisfied smirk, Ehran got up and walked over to Bei Xi’s tent. As he approached, Gi Tang turned his head and looked away, purposefully not seeing him.
Xiao Yen, too, didn’t want to see. It was just another reminder of how alone she was. She wrapped her arms around the jacket, hiding it from the others, hugging the sweet-smelling silk to her chest. She ran into the woods, tears streaming down her face.
When Xiao Yen couldn’t see the camp anymore, or hear the horses, she stopped. She wiped her tears on her own sleeve. She took three deep breaths, placed the jacket under a nearby tree, then stood in the first pose, with her feet together, her arms by her side. Every morning, Master Wei had made his students go through a series of poses, a kind of slow dance. The poses were first straight or stretched, then contracted together, as if imitating the different types of paper folds. They also helped build qi, which in turn awakened the jing, or essential life force.
Xiao Yen went through the first series, paying attention to her breathing, trying to flow the “white crane” pose to “play flute” to “stroking the phoenix tail,” but she felt awkward, out of balance. Besides, going through the poses just made her more homesick. She couldn’t reach her calm place, a glassy river, shining like quicksilver between verdant banks. All she saw were the dark trees of the forest before her.
Xiao Yen stopped and walked over to where her mother’s jacket lay. With steady hands, she undid the white frogs buttoning her jacket, both on the outer cotton layer and the inner soft layer. She folded both her jackets in half and laid them on a bush. Then she put on her mother’s jacket. The silk slid up her arms and across her back like a soft breeze. It smelled of the incense from her bag and her mother’s sweet perfume.
Xiao Yen hadn’t ever worn her mother’s jacket before. But she’d carried it with her, sneaki
ng it into her bed, holding on to it like a three-year-old with a blanket. She felt ashamed of how much she needed it, how much comfort it gave her, how she longed for her home.
Xiao Yen held her hands out in front of her. The dark blue of the jacket made her skin look whiter, though not as fine as Bei Xi’s. The scar on the back of Xiao Yen’s left hand blazed. She ran a finger across one of the embroidered cranes. Some of the threads had broken, poking out of the cloth and curling like Udo’s hair. The plackets that covered the raveling cuffs were coming undone as well. The gold threads looked brown in places, and some of the joining red boxes were missing.
Xiao Yen wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her aching chest. The silk slid under her hands, both cool and warm at the same time. She let her shoulders move and her chest convulse, heaving sobs without tears. She wouldn’t damage this jacket any more than it already was.
Xiao Yen took deep breaths when she finished, pulling the sweet forest air into her center. Her chest still hurt; her stomach, though full of noodles, felt hollow: and her eyes burned with unshed tears. She was so alone. She tried to cheer herself up, reminding herself that she did have a family to go back to.
At least until Wang Tie-Tie found her another job, and she’d be alone again.
With steady fingers, Xiao Yen undid the elegant frogs at her neck, across her chest and down the front. She slid her right arm out from the jacket sleeve, then froze at the sound of snapped branches behind her. Startled, she turned around.
Ehran stood a few feet away.
Xiao Yen pulled the front of the jacket across her chest, trying to cover herself. A breeze blew across her bare back, raising chicken flesh across her shoulders and in the crevice between her breasts.
Ehran stared at her intently, the dark hollows under his eyes making his gaze more animallike. He was finally looking at her seriously, but this look scared her. She’d wanted him to pay attention to her warnings, not to her.
Ehran gestured with one hand and said something, slurring his words so she didn’t understand. He fingered the haft of his knife with his other hand. Then he took a step forward and grinned at her, showing all his teeth. He looked like a fierce ye ren—the mythical wild men who were part human, part beast—that had found his lunch.
Xiao Yen took a step back and said the first word that came to her mind, “Friends?”
Ehran nodded and said, “Yes. Friends.” But he kept looking at her strangely, and took another step forward.
Xiao Yen trembled inside, but she willed her arms to be as still as the tree trunks around her. His eyes held hers. She felt hypnotized, like a rabbit before a snake.
Xiao Yen took another step back and repeated, “Friends?”
Ehran said, “Oh, yes, friends.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Xiao Yen could see his hands drop to his waist. She kept her eyes on his face, willing herself to not see that he was undoing his trousers. Xiao Yen had no paper defense, no knot to hold him back. They were far enough away from camp that no one would hear if she screamed.
She tried one last time, the whispered word barely making it across her dry and swollen lips. “Friends . . .”
Ehran took another step forward, but before he reached for her, Udo appeared next to him, his yellow hair like a ball of sun in the dark woods. Udo looked at Ehran, then at Xiao Yen. He spoke to Ehran in a low, angry tone.
Ehran looked away from Xiao Yen, down at the ground, and did up his pants. He looked back at Udo, laughed, then spoke, loudly and slowly so Xiao Yen could understand. “It was just for fun.” He laughed again, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away, though Udo still asked questions like “what” and “why.”
After Ehran was out of sight, Udo turned to Xiao Yen and said, “What are you doing? Didn’t I tell you to stay at camp? There could be bandits out here. You could have been hurt.”
Xiao Yen said, “I wanted to . . . It’s my mother’s . . .” She couldn’t think of the words to say.
Udo didn’t look in her face. Instead, he eyed the jacket she held across her chest. “For this?” he asked. He opened his mouth to say something more, then spat in disgust, and said, “Get back to camp.” He turned and walked away.
Xiao Yen wanted to protest. I know it’s old, but it’s my mother’s! I was lonely! It isn’t as elegant as any of Bei Xi’s clothing, but it’s still lovely!
Then Xiao Yen realized what she’d been saying in her head. She was shocked by it. She sounded like a three-year-old defending a favorite toy. She looked down at the poor jacket, its raveling cuffs and broken embroidery. Maybe Udo was right to be disgusted. The jacket was too old. She shouldn’t be carrying it anymore. She was too beholden to it. It was time to give up her childish need for it.
Xiao Yen put on her own jackets and did up the frogs. They smelled of her sweat and the horses and the campfire. She folded her mother’s jacket. She pressed it one last time to her cheek and laid it at the foot of a pine tree. Then she walked away, crying inside. She felt as bad as the first day of her trip, when she’d left her family and Bao Fang.
When Xiao Yen reached the camp, everything was already packed up. Gi Tang and the trail guide had already started. Udo and Ehran sat on their horses, waiting for her. Xiao Yen pulled herself up on her horse. She sat until they went up the trail before she urged her horse forward.
The bright sun dappled the trail, making it seem like a tunnel of light through the dark surrounding trees. Xiao Yen followed the light blindly, trusting her horse to follow the others. She didn’t try to see beyond the patterns on the ground, letting herself be hypnotized by the shapes of light and shadow. Her head bobbed with the gait of her horse. She’d left her family, all her childhood, behind. Again. This time it’d been her choice, not Wang Tie-Tie’s. That didn’t seem to make it any easier. Every time Xiao Yen swallowed, she felt a hard dry lump. The back of her throat ached, as if she were coming down with a cold. Her shoulders throbbed with tension. The spot in the middle of her shoulder blades burned as if pinpointed with the flame of a candle.
“Xiao Yen?”
Bei Xi was suddenly in front of her. Xiao Yen looked up at Bei Xi, but she didn’t say anything.
Bei Xi now wore a dark red robe over her ivory silk jacket. Golden thread, woven around the edges, flashed, even in the dappled light, dancing before Xiao Yen’s eyes.
“Xiao Yen?” Bei Xi hesitated. “I’m—I’m, sorry, about Ehran.”
Xiao Yen’s eyes snapped to Bei Xi’s. Had she also followed Xiao Yen? Had she seen what had happened with Ehran? And not stopped it?
Or had Ehran told her, bragging of his dominance over Xiao Yen?
Xiao Yen’s cheeks grew hot. She bit her tongue again, willing her tears to not surface. She urged her horse forward and pulled ahead of Bei Xi, afraid that if she opened her mouth, she’d wail with grief. The lump in her throat grew more solid, harder to swallow past. She had to blink hard at the sudden burst of light as her horse plodded into a clearing.
“Xiao Yen,” Bei Xi called, riding up next to her.
Xiao Yen kept her eyes on the ground.
“Please, little one . . .”
What Xiao Yen saw registered slowly. There was no mistaking it. Bei Xi’s shadow was solid blue.
Xiao Yen kicked her horse. Startled, it stumbled, then began to trot. Xiao Yen needed to get away from Bei Xi, away from everyone. She needed to think. Too many things bothered her about Bei Xi: the courtesan’s archaic language, her ability to do knot magic, her facility with languages, her beautiful perfect teeth. And now, her blue shadow.
Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
Ehran was having the life sucked out of him.
Slowly, the answer came to Xiao Yen, resolving like a portrait held under the water and slowly raised to the surface.
Bei Xi wasn’t human. She must be a fox fairy. And not a good fairy, bringing luck. She was sucking Ehran’s qi from him every time they were together as man and wife. The thought of Ehran being drained
of his male essence made Xiao Yen smile a little.
Once Xiao Yen was on the far side of the clearing, she slowed again. Udo rode just ahead. His golden hair flashed as spots of light struck it. He turned when he heard her coming and smiled at her, a wan smile. He didn’t meet her eye. Then he looked forward again, his shoulders hunched. Xiao Yen looked past him to the cause of his concern. Ehran. Even though Udo wouldn’t listen to Xiao Yen when she brought up her worries about Ehran’s health, Udo still fretted about his brother.
Xiao Yen shook her head angrily. In her original contract she’d been hired to protect the brothers and their horses. This was her duty, and she must do her duty. Bei Xi was no longer her obligation, as she was hurting someone in their party. Xiao Yen would save Ehran from Bei Xi, though he deserved what he got. And maybe if she saved him, Udo would be less disgusted with her.
* * *
Xiao Yen didn’t dare wipe the sweat beading on her brow. Instead, she kept folding. She willed the sweat to stay where it was and not fall into her eyes. Then she forgot about it and concentrated on her little crane.
The paper between her fingers felt stiff, as if it were still made of bamboo. Though her biceps burned with the effort of holding her arms in front of her, her forearms, wrists, and hands moved with fluid grace. She did an inside reverse-fold to bring the legs down from the body of the bird and took a deep breath, sucking hot air from the Hall of Receiving deep into her gut. She was nearly finished.
Outside the hall, the unseasonably warm spring sun shone down on the front courtyard of the Dance of the Defending Crane paper mage school. It chased the snow away from the center of the courtyard, revealing black and white tiles. The snow clung bravely to the shadows at the bottom of the walls of the courtyard. When Xiao Yen had marched with the twelve other children from the student rooms to the front hall for their six-month exam, she’d thought the courtyard looked as pretty as one of the painted scrolls Master Wei made them study. Now, all she wanted was to melt the snow in her sweating hands.
Paper Mage Page 10