A shirtless rider with bulging muscles like rocks trotted close. Taizi. He pulled his horse to stop before Pheasant and slapped Pheasant’s shoulder. Pheasant straightened. He did not bow or shout. He only smiled.
It was a smile I was familiar with. I could see his teeth shining in the sunlight. But something struck me then. I took out the jade silkworm and stared. The green color was rich, and the eyes of black onyx gleamed, blinding me.
Why had I never thought of that? A weaver would not possess something precious like this silkworm. Only a woman of high position would. And then suddenly many things, many things that had been whispered in my ear but I had not paused to think about, made sense.
He’d looked familiar when I had first met him. He knew every corner in the Inner Court. He was always beside Taizi. And his plain white robe. He wore that not because of his base birth, but to mourn his mother.
Pheasant was not Taizi’s groom. He was his brother, the youngest of the late Empress’s three sons, the Emperor’s eighth living son, formally known as Li Zhi.
? ? ?
“You didn’t tell me who you are,” I said to Pheasant when I came to the abandoned garden that night. I wished I had known his identity before. But when we were together, we were always alone. There was no way to know who he was from the way other people treated him, and because I kept him a secret, I had no way of learning who he was from anyone else.
“My brothers call me Pheasant.” He stood beside me.
“But you know what I mean. You should have told me whose son you truly are.” The night was chill. The wind bent the branches. They sprang back and forth, like my mind, swaying.
“I’m sorry, Mei. You caught me with Rain,” he said. “It was not a good time to tell you. I forgot it later, when we were together.”
Pheasant was not trying to deceive me, I understood. But that did not make the situation all right.
“Would it make a difference?” His face was sober, too sober. He almost looked grave. He was worried.
I did not know. Perhaps I would still go out and see him. We would still laugh and share tangerines together. But yes. In a way, it made a vast difference. He was the love of my heart, but also the son of the man whose bed I wished to share.
“He won’t know. I promise you.”
“But—”
He held my shoulders. “Don’t worry, sweet face. He won’t care. He never cares.”
He drew me closer to a tree trunk and pushed me against it. His hand slipped under my robe. A cool touch, but sparked with passion. I shivered. It was the first time a man had touched me. The eunuch had scrubbed me, like laundry, and the Emperor had seen me unclothed but had not bothered to look at me.
“You’re beautiful.”
His voice sounded like a dream. I did not know what I was anymore. I was sixteen. I had grown taller. My body had begun to show a woman’s shape: my waist was thinner, and my breasts had grown supple, like Jewel’s. When I walked, I could feel the rhythm of my body, singing like grass greeting the spring wind, and deep within me, a murmur grew, enticing me, like a star glinting in the distant sky.
“But what if he finds out? What if someone finds out?” Pheasant’s hands were hot, leaving a trail of fire on my naked skin.
“We’ll be careful.”
He beheld me like a flame eating the edge of a paper. Slowly but eagerly, he consumed me. My hair. My limbs. My breasts. My stomach. Until there was nothing left but my insides—like the center of the paper surrounded by flame—and slowly, they diminished and finally were charred with desire.
“Pheasant, Pheasant,” I whispered. “You’re ruining me.”
“I will not do that.” He pulled away, his hands at his sides. “I swear it.”
I sighed, leaning toward him.
“Would you like to sit?” He pulled me down, and I slid to the ground, almost falling on him. He laughed and put his arm behind me as a cushion.
Leaning against the tree, I pulled his hand under my chin. He was the Emperor’s eighth son. His chance of inheriting the throne was almost nonexistent. Perhaps that was a good thing? “I’m going to sit next to the Emperor during the polo game.”
The thought had originally given me much joy, but now I did not know what to think.
“It’s a great honor.” He did not sound troubled.
I relaxed. “Are you going to the game?”
“Me? Of course. I won’t miss it.”
“You probably shouldn’t go. I do not wish the Emperor to discover us.” Pheasant, one of the younger princes, did not need to be present. Only the heir was required to be there.
He protested. “It’s the grandest polo match. Everyone wants to go.”
“Please.”
“I swear I will not talk to you, and he won’t suspect a thing.”
“Pheasant.”
He groaned. “Fine. I won’t go. If this is what you wish.”
My heart sweetened. As long as we stayed secret, no one would know. I tilted my head. The dark sky was a vast blanket stitched with silvery stars. “Where did the moon go?”
“Here.” He touched my chest.
He tickled me. “I’m talking about the moon.”
“You’re my moon. The most brilliant and sweetest of all.”
I smiled. “So you have heard the story?”