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Tian Yuhui’s footsteps rolled like thunder through the hallways of his family’s palace as soon as he heard his mother’s conversation with the priestess of the mountain fade into naught. Their sentences were chopped in half by the gentle song of sliding doors underscored by his frantic trampling, his drumtone gait. Without fear of chaotic repercussion, he was temporarily free to roam, carelessly descending the living quarters’ steps from the overlook he’d been manning at the front of the house since returning home from the market with his older brother.
In a display of acrobatics he rarely got to use with confidence, Yu swung around a large pillar, fingers catching and sliding along meticulously sanded wood interspersed with the silver relics of a dead society, smelted and poured to fill holes caused by insects and old wars and the wear of existence. He darted to the very front of the house, through the door that spilled out into the ruling family’s expansive entryway. In the waning afternoon, the long walkway and gardens lived in the shadow of that estate. Trees full of dark, waxy leaves rustled in the day’s exhausted sigh; Yu saw his mother’s dark hair flow through the air like ink caught up in water and smiled fondly for that woman he adored. He jogged and then slowed to a walk behind her, to a stop at her side when they all reached the mouth of the palace gates to see their guests off.
The queen was a perfect image of respect—grace and serenity wrapped into the severity of her elegant features, her fine lines drawn by a skilled hand, dark and deep like her ancestors before her. The boy at her side always looked sweet but looks were so often full of deceit: he wore his mother’s night forevermore.
Briefly quiet, briefly patient, the prince waited and watched the approach of the departing Luanshi visitors: the swordmaster alongside his and Jiling’s horse, the two girls who were afraid and unafraid, the beautiful boy in black.
“On the same day next week, Laike will return,” Jiling assured the queen with her holy hands clasping royal palms like a pearl. “The mountain will be happy to see you when next you find the time to visit, my Queen.”
“Perhaps soon,” Weifeng replied in soft lyric, sweetsong voice as calm as the benevolent sky. “Stay well till next we meet, Jiling of the Empty Mountain.”
Laike busied himself overchecking his pale horse’s tack. Of course he was aware of the Prince’s presence on the step but he refused to look upon him, keeping his head down to avoid notice by both the royal he dodged and the teacher only capable of seeing the shadowstalker’s insurmountable faults.
“I’m going to go wish Laike a safe journey,” Yuhui announced to his mother, sure strided as he walked around the pack to where his objective was working with his horse. He’d planned it like this: made sure that he would go out with his mother and the priestess, two people more important than he so that focus wouldn’t be on him, so he wouldn’t be watched as keenly, so his actions weren’t picked apart by onlookers.
“Laike,” the prince chimed softly a moment later, stepping behind the blockade of the boy’s horse but carefully, cognizant of both space and the tingling sensation of aversion. “I wanted to say farewell and wish you a safe ride back to the mountain.”
The boy with no shadow barely responded to Yuhui’s presence, hazel eyes trained hard on the straps of a saddle bag. How could he ignore the prince after the alleyway? Even without the alleyway, how could he ignore him—class dictated he reply when addressed, even if he didn’t want to.
“Okay,” Laike replied reluctantly, pausing in his activities to cast a half-second glance to the Prince’s throat. He swallowed any clamour of joy he felt at the other boy’s acknowledgement and hid it in his gloomy mood, his tight-spined guard. “You’ve said it. You should go, my Prince.”
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“I wasn’t finished.” Yuhui’s voice dropped an octave, already decided that this time he would not be told what to do. He took a step forward, hands fussing with the large belt around his waist that carried all of his things, a trove of little memories—the same sash from which he earlier pulled his purse, the one that always gave him guff on difficult days, the one the other boy had wrapped his fingers around to close the distance between them.
The prince held out his hand. Tucked between his middle and index finger was a small sheet of paper, folded over and over to make a banal little triangle from a larger sheet.
“You don’t have to say anything else to me,” the older boy continued, “but I would really like it if you took this and read it later.”
Laike was never as unreadable as he wanted to be. Over time, as he aged into the man Xueyu wanted him to be, he would hone his impassive face, would learn to hide the subtext written in his eyes seeking to betray his every action. He looked at the prince’s fingers and lingered on him there, memorized the shape his hand held so gracefully. His eyes then fell to the tightly folded paper held betwixt the digits that had dressed his wounds earlier.
Gods, how could he still feel Yuhui’s touch wrapped gentle about his palm?
Reaching out, the shadow-walker quickly plucked the paper from the chaotic boy’s grasp and shoved it into his own belt—transaction rendered fast like he didn’t want anyone to see. Laike looked up and caught Yuhui’s blackwater gaze with his own plaintively guarded stare. His head tilted like he had so many questions but they all went unsaid. “…Goodbye, my Prince.”
Yuhui was a contrasting smile. He was a positive outlook in a mess of tangled futures, a bright spot that refused to fade even in the slow death of day, a boy made happy simply by the sight of his newest friend—or, best friend, so declared—the taste of him on his lips, the remnants of his shadow realm greedily kept between the luxury of expensive silks and skin like an afterimage of earlier touch.
“See you again soon,” the older boy replied as though goodbye was both too open ended and final, waving a hand whose bloody etching was steadily fading in the friction of his every movement.
As Yuhui began to withdraw into a backward step, Laike caught the older boy’s arm and tugged him back to the spot directly before him, skittish gaze dropped to the ground. He could hear Xueyu trying to coax Jiewei onto the horse she was terrified of, heard Chongwei trying to yank her up against her will. Regardless, Laike’s listless eyes were too nervous to return Yuhui’s confidence; the shadowstalker’s thumb stroked the bony protrusion of his royal friend’s wrist, index finger dipping into the hollow of the Tian Prince’s palm.
Laike said nothing because he didn’t yet know what he wanted to say, if Xueyu would hear him say it. Hadn’t he been disappointing enough today? The stray boy chewed the corner of his mouth like the taste of blood would remind him how to speak.
And still, Yuhui waited for sound in the silent space between them, breath held for a collection of seconds occupying the space of eternity. His smile quickly faded into surprise; his surprise further fell into confusion. The boy’s black eyes watched the face that wouldn’t look at him like he didn’t understand what any of this signified against actions prior—Laike’s malaise and renewed quiet, his strained goodbyes given as though they hadn’t passingly committed to spending the last moments of their lives together in the dreamed up death of the world.
The prince let go of his breath and it hit the air with an affectation of longing, a sigh stuck in its inability to maneuver closer. Still, he waited. Still, he watched. Whether in shadow or in light, Yuhui’s existence was eclipsed by their connection, and, for the second time that day, he wasn’t ready to be let go.
Even though he was still focused on the distance between him and the swordmaster struggling a few yards away, Laike finally spoke, nervously imparting his request in low frequencies: “Would you place a vase before your window? So it always casts a shadow next to your bed.”
“Yes,” Yuhui responded without hesitation, reply soft for the sake of conspiracy. He followed his friend’s eyes to the caterwauling teenagers, grinning as the blond girl was finally pushed up onto her and her sister’s horse.
Sensing his invisibility was coming to an end, Laike reluctantly let Yuhui’s hand fall from his grasp, bowing shortly to the superior boy and his beautiful calm. “As soon as I’m alone, I’ll read your letter. As soon as I’m gone, make my shadow.”
The older boy nodded his agreement as if he didn’t want to risk their plan with the sweetness of further words. He attempted their inevitable parting again in his receding stepwork, his body so reluctant to draw a larger breadth between them.
Bye, Yuhui mouthed once more through the subdued glow of his cautious felicity, mouth a long line that skewed to one corner.
Laike caught the breath of Yuhui’s grin, met the prince’s leaving with his own shy mouthed curl, a fleeting little incense smile that faded by the time Xueyu’s eyes fell upon him once more.