by JC Kang
As Hati had hoped, he and Tian met in the championship. The chief’s son looked just as winded, yet practice fighting through exhaustion would be important if the young men ever had to face an enemy on the battlefield.
At Chief Nuwa’s signal, Tian and Hati circled each other.
Tian had tricked Hati time and time again with a wide arsenal of techniques. Tonight, Hati didn’t bite on any of his feints.
Hati lunged forward for a two-handed grab, exposing his knees. An opportunity!
Tian shot in, taking hold of both of Hati’s legs. He meant to drive his head into the young man’s chest for leverage, but Hati turned his torso and caught Tian up in an underarm choke. As the two tumbled to the ground, Hati wrapped his legs around Tian’s body, then arched his back to tighten the grip.
A technique he’d taught Hati! Blood rushed to Tian’s head. He couldn’t breathe, and his neck felt like it was being stretched a foot. Nonetheless, he held on. It was nothing compared to the strenuous training he’d endured as a youth.
Hati cranked his choke.
Something popped in Tian’s neck, sending a flaring pain shooting down his arm. He tapped on the ground several times.
People cheered, drums beat.
Hati helped him to his feet. With his head tilted at a funny angle, Tian exchanged hugs, patting the victor on his back. Maybe they’d get a rematch at the spring tournament.
The princess beckoned him over and gestured for him to sit. As they watched the closing dance, a muscle spasm wracked his neck. He tilted his neck to take the pressure off.
“It’s all right, you can’t win all the time.” She knelt behind him and massaged the knot in his neck. She was massaging him. He started to pull away, but she wrapped her other arm around his bare chest. Her kneading fingers seemed to relax the muscle, but Fang Weiyong’s acupuncture would work better.
She continued to twist into the knot. “You are becoming too predictable. Hati could—”
The drumming picked up, drowning out her words.
Tian turned his head awkwardly towards her. “I am sorry Dian-xia. I couldn’t hear.”
She leaned in close, her soft voice tickling his ear. “Hati could guess what you were going to do. He gave you that opening on purpose.” Her soft bosom pressed against his back.
Tian’s heart hammered in his chest. What was she saying? Something about some match? Was that her heart, pounding against his back?
Her lips brushed the back of his neck; first low, then a little higher and more distinctly.
Her warm lips sent a cold shiver down his spine. She was no longer the adorable little girl, or the haughty princess. Here, she was just a woman. Sweet and smart and playful. More than he deserved.
Yet despite all of the barriers between them that had fallen in their months at village, his willpower and control would have never allowed him to say or do anything to act on his feelings.
Now, her soft body melted against his, her kiss warm against his neck. Ignoring the pain flaring in his neck, he turned and drew her to him. Her lips parted, inviting him.
The drums had stopped. Everything was quiet. Two hundred gazes hung on them. Their adopted tribe exploded in a cacophony of excited murmurs and cheers.
It didn’t matter.
Sweet and intoxicating, her taste and smell overwhelmed his senses. She was the only one in his world.
But for how long? The specter of duty hung over his heart.
CHAPTER 45:
Obligations
Kaiya’s pattering heart beat a dozen times for each of Tian’s hot breaths brushing across her ear. Straddling him near the village stream, she lavished a kiss on his neck, marking him as hers for the hundredth time in the last two weeks. His arms enveloped her, pressing her body to his.
Wet with the heaven’s dew that came each full white moon, sweltering from months of longing, she drew her knees up, rocking against the hardness beneath his pants. She guided his hand to the hem of her undergarments.
His fingers froze in place; his breath hitched. The hand drew away.
Again? She raised her head and searched his eyes.
Lips tight, he refused to meet her gaze, instead looking past her.
Predictable. Kaiya pouted. “We aren’t going any further than the other unmarried couples.”
“We aren’t like other unmarried couples, Dian-xia.”
That title, again. She rolled off him and pulled the dress hem down over her knees. Apparently, someone hadn’t bought into the Maki’s lack of social hierarchy. Even if she were no longer the perfect princess, he was still the practical spy. She stared up at Guanyin’s Eye, now at its one-quarter angle.
He turned to his side and draped an arm across her.
An empty gesture. She brushed it off. She was the one always initiating affection, guiding him to what he should want. She might as well have been a whore.
He propped himself up on an elbow and brushed an errant lock out of her face. “Yuha says that the snows should slow down by the end of the year. We may be able to go home at that time. We could probably paddle down the river with the spring melt and make better time.”
He was in such a rush to get home. She sat up. “What about Ma Jun?” What about her? “He’s doing better, but I don’t know how well he could handle the trip. In any case, I’m not sure if he wants to leave.” Because of Lana.
And her, because of Tian.
Tian stared at the ground. “Ma Jun is a member of the imperial guard. His duty comes before love.”
Duty. The memory of that cage sent a shudder down her spine. She pushed away, almost afraid to ask the question that gnawed at her. “Is that how you feel? What about your duty?”
His jaw locked, silence conveying his thoughts louder than words. With him, responsibility first.
“Answer me.”
He sighed. “These last months have been wonderful. But eventually...we will have to return to our duties.”
She turned away from him, pouting, coming up with every rationalization to prove him wrong. “What about our obligations to these people? Think of the Teleri’s advance into the Wilds and the burdens that will place on them. They’ve adopted us into their tribe; they are as much our people as the Hua.”
Sitting up, Tian shook his head. “Even though I love them like my own brothers, my first responsibility is to Hua. You are its princess. You have your commitment to our people. I am a spy, and I have mine. No matter how I feel about the Maki, about you...I was born in Hua and owe allegiance to it.”
Even if he spoke the truth, Kaiya wasn’t ready to hear it. Not now, when she’d thrown off that yoke for the first time in her life. Her voice cracked. “What about us? If we go home, we could never continue like this, never marry.”
A long silence.
“Answer me.” She shoved him with a hand.
Tian blew out a long breath. “Then we must cherish the time that we have left. When we return, we can only treasure the memory of our short time together.” His next words came out flat, emotionless. “Marriage to a suitable husband is also your duty.”
Kaiya leaped to her feet, tears blurring her vision. Within an appropriately arranged marriage, she’d not relive the excitement of falling in love. Had she never known what it felt like, it might not have mattered. She might have eventually come to love her future husband. However, now that she’d experienced it, she despised Tian for allowing it to happen if he were so quick to abandon it. She tried to keep her voice steady, her words coming out as a whisper. “I thought you’d changed.”
“I am sorry, Dian-xia.”
“Stop calling me that.” She turned and ran back to her lodge, leaving a trail of tears in the snow.
Watching the princess escape, Tian regretted his words. How he wanted her! More than anything. What man wouldn’t, if he got to know her beyond her façade?
But no. There was no hope for them to be together. Hua’s princess had to return to Huajing, and this banished spy was not allowed
to step foot in the capital. Banishment would be nothing compared to the punishment he’d face for touching her the way he had.
Better to end things now before leaving even deeper scars.
For the next two days, the princess avoided him. If they were going to pass each other on the village paths, she would turn away without even making eye contact. When he sought her at her lodge, one of the women told him she was busy.
What had he done? Food tasted bland and he lacked the energy to even go through the training drills. Feeling more and more depressed in her absence, Tian sat down to eat dinner one night with Ma Jun and Fang Weiyong.
Still unaccustomed to using his hands to eat, Tian fiddled with his makeshift chopsticks. “How do you plan on telling Lana we are leaving?”
Ma Jun looked up from his meal, putting his own chopsticks down. “I’ve tried not to think about it.” After a long pause, he amended himself. “That’s not true. I’ve considered asking her to come with us.”
“But you don’t want to leave,” Tian said.
“I know she’ll refuse to come, and I’ll miss her more. No, I’d far rather stay here, if I had the choice.” Ma Jun’s long sigh might have deflated the entire lodge. “I almost wish I had died at that burnt-out village. I would’ve never met her, never had to deal with the sadness of our inevitable parting.”
The optimistic Ma Jun was channeling the spirit of his fatalistic friend, Li Wei. Tian gritted his teeth. How shallow their concerns were compared to Li’s sacrifice.
A moment passed before Ma Jun spoke again. “What if we just stayed? By this time, Hua will assume we are dead.” His hopeful tone, obvious to Tian’s trained ear, suggested that this question had fermented in the back of his head for a while.
Outrageous. Yet tempting. Tian tapped his chin. He’d never fit in with the hereditary lords back home. He felt needed by the Black Lotus, but their disregard for life never sat well with him. But in this rustic village, among a different race of people, he belonged. “Can we abandon our duty? Just for our own selfish desires?”
Fang Weiyong snorted. Easy for him; he had nothing here.
Ma Jun poked at his food. “It goes against everything I was ever trained to believe in. Yet somehow, it seems that with the Teleri starting to expand on the plateau to Hua’s doorstep, we can help both these people and our own by staying here.”
Tian sighed. “The princess said the same thing. It sounded like rationalizing. I finally understand what the poets wrote. When they talked about lost love and lost hope. These last two days, without her. I’ve been walking in a fog... I’ll be completely useless when we return to Hua.”
He closed his eyes, envisioning their approach to the Great Wall. At the tree line, he’d let go of her hand. Her smile would tighten and her posture would straighten. Everything that had grown between them would fade into a haunting memory.
Since when had he become so melodramatic?
He opened his eyes to find Fang Weiyong and Ma Jun staring at him curiously.
Forget duty.
Had he just thought that?
Tian bolted up and ducked out of the lodge. He sprinted across the village as fast as he could through the snow, arriving at the princess’ lodge within a dozen heartbeats. Standing at the doorway, he yelled in, “Dian-xia. Please. Come out and talk!”
Muffled sounds and indecipherable conversation came from within. The fur blanket covering the doorway opened.
Lahi appeared. “Kaiya does not want to talk to an idiot like you.” Before he could reply, she turned around and the blanket closed behind her.
Undaunted, he called again. “Kaiya, I’m going to wait here. You have to come out sometime.”
More muted sounds. The blanket opened and Kaiya was pushed through.
Without saying a word, Tian took her hand. She let out a gasp and pulled back, but then finally relented. He pulled her to the stream, their path lit only by the plump white moon.
Arriving in the quiet fields on the southern end of the village, he turned around and took both of her hands. He repeated the words over and over in his head before finally speaking. “These last two days I have sunk into sadness. Unlike any other since we were first separated ten years ago. I had no desire to eat—”
Her brow furrowed. “Maybe because you cooked yourself?”
“—and could not sleep—”
She harrumphed. “Ma Jun’s snoring?”
“—every day has been colorless and dull—”
“It is winter, after all.” She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t making it easy.
He sank to his knees. “Kaiya, my princess, my beloved. I realize now that I can’t live without you. You are more precious than the air I breathe. Each morning I wake, my first thoughts are of you. I wonder when in the day I will be able to see you for the first time. I want to...wake up, and see you at my side every morning, forever...”
Her gaze bore into him. “What about duty?”
“My first duty is to you.” Did he just say that?
The princess’ eyes glazed over, hopefully with tears of joy. “Oh Tian, I’d decided never to talk to you again, to hate you forever. It was the only way that I could return to Hua. To hate you. I wasn’t going to come out tonight. I was going to leave you freezing at my door. But then...you called me by name for the first time. I couldn’t control myself.”
She threw herself into his arms and wept. He brought his cheek to hers, relishing her hot, salty tears.
After a moment, she pulled back and pressed something hard and round into his palm. He looked down. It was a smooth river pebble, black with grey striations. He sucked in a breath. “Is this—?”
She nodded. “You gave it to me when we were children. When we promised to marry each other. It’s always been a reminder to me, of when life was simple.”
She’d kept it all this time. Bowing his head, he presented it to her, just like he had when he was nine.
Three weeks later, on the ninth day of the eleventh month, Kaiya’s entire body quivered as Lana and Lahi helped prepare her for the ceremony. A princess of Hua would’ve worn the finest silks and jewelry to her wedding. Here, she was just another girl.
Her hair, now nearly five months removed from its unceremonious shaving at the hands of her groom-to-be, hung over two handlengths long. Although she had kept it in a child’s style while living among the Maki, the women now straightened it out and decorated it with shell ornaments.
She wore a doeskin dress with tassels at the hem and sleeves, topped by a shawl of peacock and wild turkey feathers. A necklace of colorful river stones adorned her neck. Two horizontal red stripes were painted on her cheeks.
If only she had a mirror!
With Lahi and Lana serving as her maids, Yuha’s parents guided Kaiya through the cheering villagers gathered around the drum platform. An imperial wedding would have been quiet and solemn, her face a carefully crafted mask of grace. Today, unfettered with joy, she smiled ear to ear. She looked up, and her heart rattled.
He was so handsome. Tian stood on the platform, wearing a buckskin tunic with tassels along the neckline and hem. A line of long shells hung from his neck. Two bright turkey feathers, held in place by a headband, adorned his hair, which was now about a handlength long. Chief Nuwa and his wife stood beside him, in place of his own parents. Ma Jun, Hati, and Fang Weiyong smiled there as his seconds.
Though the event was straightforward compared to elaborate Hua weddings, Kaiya appreciated the simplicity. She clasped the hands of Chief Nuwa and his wife, his steady gaze calming her. At her side, Tian did the same with Yuha’s parents.
Then, Kaiya turned to face her groom. Hands trembling, she used her finger to paint two horizontal red stripes on his cheeks, then placed a bead bracelet she had made around his wrist.
He braided her hair back into a single queue, denoting her status as a married woman, and fastened it with a shell ornament he’d made and painted himself. His touch sent her stomach fluttering like a hummingbi
rd’s wings.
Yuha, as the village’s spiritual leader, spoke: “Tonight, the waxing moon represents your growing love. Your energies have entered this circle separately, but will leave it joined. That which the spirits bring together cannot easily be undone.”
A shiver ran up Kaiya’s spine.
At Yuha’s command, she clasped hands with Tian. Their adopted family members placed their hands on their shoulders, and then everyone in the village followed, radiating outward until all were connected.
One with each other. One with the village. One with the spirits.
They held a grand feast in typical Maki fashion, with each household bringing a favorite dish to share. All enjoyed a wine fermented from the red berries. Drumming and dancing lasted late into night, when the couple was led to their lodge.
Their lodge.
Many of the young adult Maki gathered outside. Following their custom, they’d raise a racket until they heard the marriage being consummated.
However, as the two had arranged, Fang Weiyong, dressed in his monk’s robes, awaited them inside.
Despite not having all of the official trappings, Weiyong had scripted a highly-simplified Hua ritual which fused the legends of plain weddings—from the time when humans were slaves to the orcs—with current, more intricate symbolic marriages.
In the days prior, she’d painted a simple picture of Guanyin, Goddess of Healing and Fertility; while he drew a similar one of Yang-Di, Supreme God of the Sun. Both hung side-by-side on the far wall, above a makeshift altar—a long flat rock taken from the river bed—to their family ancestors.
Two round berries sat in a plain wooden dish in the middle of the altar, replacing the two oranges that would be placed in an elaborate porcelain bowl for a typical Hua wedding.
Weiyong motioned them to the altar. “Kneel.”
Tian at her side, Kaiya dropped to her knees.
He gestured to the sketches. “Bow to the Heavens.”
She and Tian faced the effigies of the gods and pressed their heads to the floor.
When they straightened, he nodded at the altar representing their ancestors. “Now bow to your families.”