Ruyi waited until the third knock to answer the door.

Tingting must’ve known she’d be here. She still looked stunned. For a moment they just stared, taking each other in.

Tingting wore a white hanfu tinged blue at the edges, loose at the wrists and ankles, tied snug around her slim waist with a thin gold sash. It left bare her shoulders and her neck and the curve of her collarbones, and her skin was flushed from the cold. She was really, really pretty.

“Hi,” Ruyi said. She could see the heat of her breath in the air.

Tingting swallowed. “First, um, I must formally apologize. I acted unbefitting of a Crown Princess. I must ask for your forgiveness, Lady Yang.”

“It’s okay,” said Ruyi quickly. “I didn’t mind it.”

“Oh,” said the Princess, blinking.

“And please, call me Ruyi. Will you come in?”

As they made their way through the manor, Ruyi told herself, as she’d been telling herself all morning, she was nearly grown. There was a time she’d entertained thoughts of running away together. There was a time just thinking about Tingting brought on a fit of tears, but she was done with such childishness.

Right now, Ruyi was just happy to see her. She tried not to think of the kiss. It was a mistake, like Tingting said, that was all. She didn’t need to make things awkward. She liked to think she’d matured some in the years since they were together.

They made their way to the tea room, where Jin was waiting with teacups laid out. Soft streams of sunlight filtered through the glass roof.

They made small talk for a little while, little politenesses Ruyi found she couldn’t keep her mind on. She was far too aware of the way Tingting was sitting, her hands clasped over her lap, the subtle movements of her chest as she breathed. She was nervous. Why was she nervous? Ruyi hoped she hadn’t done anything weird. She’d been trying very hard to act normal.

Jin cleared his throat, and they both jumped a little in their seats.

“What is it your father wishes to offer?” he said. Ruyi realized he was asking the question for a second time.

“Ah!” squeaked Tingting. “Um. He’s inviting you to join the Imperial Guard, again, and resume your position as a Guard Captain. He says it’ll be good for morale. And it could—would—help your image.”

“What an unexpected honor,” said Jin. “I’ll have to consider it. Thank you.”

They took turns sipping awkwardly from their cups.

“If there was anything else…?”

“…no,” whispered Tingting.

“Then it’s been a pleasure.”

“Would you like to go for a walk, before you go?” Ruyi cut in. “We can tour the gardens. The winter blossoms are in full bloom, they’re lovely.”

“…Alright…”

***

They’d scarcely taken ten strides out of the house before Tingting couldn’t seem to hold it in anymore.

“I didn’t mean to lead you on,” she cried. “Whatever happened was past, it’s over… I’m sorry. I—”

“You always did over-apologize,” Ruyi said. She was proud of how even her voice was. She shook her head. “It’s okay. I get it.”

“You do?”

“It was an accident. You’re betrothed to someone else. That’s… it.”

They trudged on in silence, not looking at each other.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t see each other,” said Ruyi. “Can’t we still be friends? I…” Her throat felt parched. “I miss talking to you.”

The Princess had taken to hugging herself. “Me too,” she said after a while. She gave Ruyi a fragile smile. “I think I’d like that.”

They walked the outer loop, just far enough apart there’d be no chance of touching each other, even accidentally.

“Were you the one who got your Father to pass the Edict?” Ruyi said.

“Mhm.”

“…Thanks.”

“Mhm. Father’s very happy about it.”

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“Me too.”

They lapsed into an awkward yet not uncomfortable silence. Ruyi didn’t hate it. She felt alright.

“Look,” she said, pointing out a meadow in the distance, hidden behind a thicket of pines.

“What is it?”

“Here, this way.” They went off the paved road, up a path made by the treads of people and animals. It was a field over a hill, shaded by an embrace of trees, a private place. “We had a picnic here, remember? The first time you visited.”

“I remember.” The Princess’ face had gone quite red. Only then did Ruyi recall what else they’d done here. And now she was red too.

“Too bad we didn’t bring anything this time, right?” said Ruyi, desperate to change the topic. “To eat, I mean.”

“Mhm,” said Tingting, her voice quite high. She coughed. “Um. It wasn’t an accident.”

“What wasn’t?”

“The kiss,” she said, staring at her feet. “It was a mistake. But… it wasn’t an accident.”

***

Frost was getting her hair; she’d be all damp by the time she got back, but she was having a hard time caring.

“We shouldn’t,” gasped Tingting, breaking apart for air.

“We shouldn’t,” Ruyi agreed.

Then Tingting leaned in and she stopped thinking.

***

Jin, bless him, pretended not to notice their dirt-stained clothes, their hairs in disarray, or their twin blushes as they came back to the manor. At least he waited until after Tingting left.

Then he let out a long, weary sigh.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Ruyi began. “It just… did—it was a lapse in judgment.” Whose judgment, she wasn’t sure. She was still a little frazzled; she wasn’t fully there.

“Mhm.”

“It won’t happen again! We agreed we’d just be friends. It was a mistake, that’s all.”

“Look,” said Jin. He put down the manual he was reading. “You don’t need to justify yourself to me. Honestly, I don’t really want to know. I trust you’re smart enough to know this can’t end well.”

“It’s already ended.”

“Alright…”

She marched over, sat down, and all but squeezed him out of the way.

“You should take the job, by the way.”

“With the Imperial Guard?” said Jin, yanking himself out from under her.

“Yup.”

He leveled a dry look at her. “If it was the Emperor here making the offer rather than his daughter, would you feel the same way?”

Ruyi felt heat in her cheeks. She took a breath before she spoke. “I know what this looks like. I’m not delusional. She’s betrothed, end of story, I know. But I really think this could be good for us.”

“Go on?”

“The Guard is flooded right now,” she said. “They’ve got way too many new recruits, not enough in senior spots, and even those they do have aren’t really qualified to be there. A lot of them are awful people. We both know it.”

Jin looked hesitant, but he said, “Sure.”

“They’re in desperate need of leadership. Good leadership. And who better than you, Mister Hero, former Captain of the Guard? That’s why the Emperor’s asking you. But this is good—maybe you can sway some of these new recruits to you.”

“For… what?”

Ruyi shrugged. “Right now the Guard’s split between Chen’s attack force and a guardian for the city. It’s big and bulky and badly trained and hardly works as it is. Maybe you can make it what it was meant to be—and take some influence from him while you’re at it.”

“Maybe.” Jin looked thoughtful.

“Think about it.”

She didn’t mention that if Jin were made Captain, Tingting said she’d have an excuse to come over every weekend as the Emperor’s liaison. He wouldn’t understand, he’d make a big deal of it. She knew how it’d look to him, but really they were just friends.

Tingting had only just left, but Ruyi was already looking forward to seeing her again.

***

Demons devoured faster than flames. After Octavius’ forces breached the earthen walls of Yuzhou the screams of the living went on for a day and night. The flames took three days to run through the city, burning through its Lower City, worming through the Middle Wall and swallowing up lines of stately wooden manors. Seen from above they were like flames working down matchsticks.

Two days before the sacking Marcus had sent a letter warning the Rei, the wizened proprietor of one of his favorite teashops in all of the dynasty, Long Family Teahouse. He hoped the old man had gotten out alright, but Rei’d always been so stubborn; his whole life he’d been brewing tea from his family recipe, harvesting tea leaves on the same plot of land, opening and closing the same hour, for decades… there was something admirable about such constancy, perhaps. But it was tragic too. He wasn’t sure there was a Rei outside the man who ran the Long Family Teahouse—wear an identity long enough and it crusted over you. You were paralyzed by habit, then doomed by it.

Did Rei deserve to live any more than the tens of thousands of others who perished? No. But Marcus had long accepted he was too sentimental to ever be the ruler he aspired to, the ruler the realm deserved.

They stood around a pyre at the center of the city, he and his war council—Octavius at the fore atop a dais of ashes, the other Warlords made a crescent around him, looking up at him as he pranced and pointed and roared. Every waking moment was a performance for Octavius. Farther out, ranged in ragged lines, were the demon horde—tens of thousands, mostly Feral, as docile as they’d ever be. They’d just been sated with a city’s worth of blood, but tomorrow they’d bay for more.

Today they were content eating up everything Octavius had to say.

“We must push, my brethren! Push, while the fires burn hot!” cried Octavius, thrusting a finger at the sky like he was accusing it of some terrible crime. “Who among us is content to trudge about, wasting the light of day, as our Lord suggests? He would have us wait, and deliberate, and move only when it is most wise, most prudent. He says we ought to wait until the Winter Solstice, when the land is formed to our liking… is this our way, to wait for victory to be delivered to us? Or shall we seize it with our own two fists?”

The roar of the crowd came like a crash of echoing thunder.

“No! We ought to seize these lands, ought to seed them with our Demon Hearts! We shall live or die by our hands, not Fate’s! Besides…”

Now Octavius’s finger turned to Marcus.

“Could there be another reason Marcus wishes to wait? Could it be he wishes to contain us—to protect the human? We all know of his affinity for human paintings, and he insists on keeping a palace with a garden in the human style! Take a walk through his palace, as I have, and you could mistake its owner for a human… or a sympathizer.”

“You go too far,” snarled Marcus. By their gasps the crowd felt the same. They loved Octavius here but this was toeing treason.

Still Octavius barreled on. “He’s always scheming, with his little plots… have you noticed how the human lines have blossomed? Have you seen their numbers swell like the rising tide? It is because of their new elixir, the Ruyi Elixir, they call it! They multiply like ants, these humans. Who knows how many there will be come Solstice time? And Shao Yang sets his nasty little traps all the while, runs us in circles, slows us… no more!”

He raised a fist to the Heavens. “Tomorrow, we march for Jade Dragon City!”

They liked the sound of that.