Under Heaven

He turns to look at her. There is light, pale and benevolent, warming the land, mist is rising, dispersing. She can see him clearly for the first time, and she knows who this man has to be.

Tai had told them what happened. Well, he’d told their father, with Li-Mei among the willow trees near the stream.

This man with the stiff, ground-covering gait and the lightless eyes will surely be the one assailed by shaman-magic all those years ago, who had almost died. Or half-died. Or had been made into some … thing suspended between living and dead.

Tai hadn’t been able to tell their father which, so Li-Mei didn’t know. Couldn’t know, even looking now. But what fit was the identity, the remembered name—Meshag, son of Hurok—like the puzzle pieces of wooden toys her mother or Second Mother would sometimes bring home for her on market days long ago.

She should be terrified, Li-Mei thinks. He could be a monstrous spirit, a predator like his wolves, malignant, devouring.

He isn’t, though, and so she isn’t. He hasn’t touched her. The wolves haven’t. He is … he is rescuing me, the thought comes. And he is rescuing her, not the true princess, the emperor’s daughter, because—

“You are taking me away because of what Tai did?”

He has been staring at her, accepting her gaze in the growing light. After another long moment, his untied hair moving in the breeze, straying across his face, he nods his head once, down and back up.

“Yes,” he says. “Shan … Shendai.”

Li-Mei feels herself beginning to tremble, is suddenly much too close to tears. She hates that, but it is one thing to be fairly sure of a guess, it is another to be standing here with a spirit-figure and wolves, and be told it is true.

“How did you know I was with them? How did you know to come?”

She has always been able to think of questions to ask. Her voice is smaller. She is afraid of this answer, for the same reasons, most likely, that the Bogu riders were afraid of him last night.

Magic, whether the foretellings of the School of Unrestricted Night in Xinan, the potions and incantations of the alchemists, or darker, bloodier doings up here with mirrors and drums … this is not easy ground.

And the story her brother told, all those years ago, is still the worst she’s ever heard in her life.

Perhaps the man senses that? Or perhaps for an entirely different reason, he only shakes his heavy head and does not answer. Instead, he takes the leather flask from his hip and extends it to her, his arm straight out.

She doesn’t repeat her question. She takes the water, drinks. She pours some into one hand and washes her face with it, a little pointlessly. She wonders if he’ll be angry at the waste, but he says nothing.

His eyes are deeply disturbing. If she thinks about how they became so black and flat she will be afraid. He isn’t dead, she tells herself. Repeats it, within, as if for emphasis. She may need to keep telling herself this, she realizes.

He says, awkwardly, but in her tongue, “Cave not far. You rest. I find horses.”

She looks around at the grassland stretching, all directions. The lake is gone now, behind them. There is only grass, very tall, lit by the risen sun. The mist has burned away.

“A cave?” she says. “In this?”

For a moment she thinks he is amused. His mouth twitches, one side only. Nothing in the eyes. Light is swallowed there; it dies.

She hands him back the flask. He seals it, shoulders it, turns to walk on. She follows.

Shandai.

The world, Li-Mei decides, is a stranger place than any sage’s teachings can encompass. You have to wonder why the gods in their nine heavens have made it this way.

They reach the cave quite soon.

She’d missed the depression in the landscape ahead of them. From the edge, she sees this is a shallow valley, with another small lake within it. There are wildflowers on the banks. On the far side, the slope back up is steeper.

They descend and start across. It is full morning now, the air is warmer. At the lake Meshag fills his flask. Li-Mei washes her face properly, shakes out and reties her hair. He watches her, expressionless. He is not dead, she tells herself.

The lead wolf takes them to the cave at the eastern end. Its entrance is entirely hidden by tall grass. She’d never have seen it. No one who didn’t know this was here would see it.

This is not the first time, Li-Mei realizes, that the man and these animals have been here. He gestures. She finds herself crawling, elbows and knees, holding down fear, into a wolf lair.

The tunnel is narrow, a birth chamber, the smell of wolf all around, and small bones. She feels these, with her hands, under her knees. Panic begins to rise in the blackness, but then the cave opens up. She is in a space with rough stone walls and a ceiling she can’t even make out. She stands. It is still dark but not completely so. Light filters in farther up, openings high on the cliff face. She can see.

The strangeness of the world.

Meshag comes through the tunnel. The wolves have not followed them. On guard outside? She doesn’t know. How could she know? She is in a wolf cave in the Bogu grasslands beyond the borders of the world. Her life … her life has carried her here. The strangeness …

He hands her a satchel and the flask. “Here is food. Not leave. Wait. My brother will come after us, very soon.”

My brother. His brother is the kaghan’s heir. The man she is supposed to marry. She is a Kitan princess, a treaty-bride.

She looks at the man beside her. His speech, she decides, is already clearer. Can the dead learn things?

He isn’t dead, she reminds herself.

“Where are you going?” she asks, trying to keep apprehension from her voice. Alone, a cave in wilderness, wolves.

He looks impatient. It is almost a relief to see such a normal expression—if you don’t look at the eyes.

“Horses. I told before.”

He had. She nods. Tries, again, to assemble facts she can work with. She can’t say why it matters, but it does. “Your brother. You are opposing him? For me? For … for Shen Tai? For my brother?”

There is enough light for her to see that his eyes remain flat. There is nothing to find in them. It makes her consider how much of what she’s known—or thought she knew—of any person has come from their eyes.

“Yes,” he says, finally.

But he’s taken so long she decides it isn’t entirely true, this reply. That might be an error she’s making. He might have simply been trying to decide whether to tell her. But she still feels …

“What would he do to you? Your brother?”

Again, he stares. Again, a hesitation.

He says, “He wants me destroyed. He has never found me. Now he will think he can.”

Destroyed. Not killed. But it might be just language again, words. She is working hard.

“He thinks he can find you by following me?”

He nods, that single down and up. “All of us. The wolves. I have allowed myself to be seen.”

“Oh. And you haven’t done that? Before?”

“Not so near him. Or his shamans. Not difficult. Grasslands are large.”

You might imagine you saw a smile there, almost.

She lowers her head, thinking.

She looks up again. She says, “I am grateful. You took … you are taking a great risk. For me.” She bows. Twice, right fist in left hand. She has not done so yet to him, and it is proper. They may call her a princess but she isn’t, and it doesn’t matter, anyhow.

Meshag (she needs to start using the name, she thinks) only looks at her. She sees that he is not