By the time the first rice in Qinghe Valley turned gold, Ji Xuanyue had learned three important lessons.
The first was that three hundred poems became four hundred if one attempted to escape before finishing them.
The second was that curtain cords were much more expensive than curtains made them appear.
The third was that Master Wen Shuren could detect insincere remorse from the opposite side of a closed door.
Xuanyue considered the third ability unnatural.
Master Wen considered it the natural consequence of teaching her for six years.
"You have written the final character incorrectly," he said.
Xuanyue stared at the poem spread across the low desk.
"I have written that character twelve times today."
"You have written eleven characters and one wounded insect."
"It is recognizably the same insect."
Master Wen lowered his eyes toward her.
He was a narrow man with a narrow beard and the patient expression of someone who had long ago accepted that disappointment was the natural state of education.
Xuanyue dipped her brush into the ink.
"Could the poet not have used a simpler word?"
"The poet died nine hundred years ago."
"Then he cannot object."
"I object on his behalf."
"Did you know him?"
"No."
"Then how do you know he would object?"
Master Wen folded his hands into his sleeves.
Xuanyue sighed and copied the character again.
Outside the open windows, late-summer rain whispered across the roofs of Jade Crescent Palace. Water gathered along the curved tiles and spilled into the garden in silver threads. The air smelled of wet stone, ink, and the plumwood incense Master Wen insisted improved concentration.
Xuanyue believed concentration would improve more quickly if the rain stopped.
The entire palace had been preparing for the royal progress since dawn.
Servants carried travelling chests through the covered walkways. Stable hands inspected horses beneath the western awnings. Clerks hurried between offices bearing sealed inventories, route reports, and lists of provincial officials whose names Xuanyue had been expected to memorize.
She had memorized most of them.
The remainder had merged into one extremely diligent magistrate named Governor-Minister-Prefect Zhang.
Master Wen tapped the edge of her paper.
"Again."
Xuanyue rewrote the character.
This time it resembled neither insect nor injury.
Master Wen examined it for so long that she suspected he was inventing a flaw.
At last, he nodded.
"You may go."
Xuanyue placed the brush down.
Carefully.
With dignity.
Then she ran.
"Your Highness."
She stopped at the doorway.
Master Wen had not raised his voice.
He never needed to.
Xuanyue turned.
"Yes, Master?"
"Walk."
She walked from the room.
She continued walking through the corridor.
She walked past two servants, a pair of startled junior clerks, and a bronze statue of Lanyue's first queen.
When she reached the corner, she ran again.
Meiyu was waiting beside the western courtyard with a travelling cloak folded over one arm.
"You are late," she said.
"I was imprisoned."
"You were in a lesson."
"Master Wen imprisoned my mind."
"He said you wrote an insect instead of a character."
"That information was private."
"He showed it to me."
Xuanyue stopped.
"When?"
"This morning."
"Before I wrote it?"
"He said you always write that one like an insect."
Xuanyue looked back toward the distant lesson hall.
Master Wen's unnatural abilities had expanded.
Meiyu handed her the cloak.
The wooden swallow hung from her belt by a new red cord. Its bent wing had been repaired, although the fresh paint was slightly darker than the old. Meiyu's elder brother remained stationed in the White-Reed March and had not yet returned, but his letters arrived twice each month.
Most of them described weather, patrol duty, and the superior dumplings available in a particular border town.
Meiyu read each one until the paper softened at the folds.
"Are we truly going to Old Chen's village?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And the silk estate?"
"Yes."
"And the western market?"
"If the road is clear."
"And the river docks?"
Xuanyue tied the cloak beneath her chin.
"You have asked me these questions every morning for twelve days."
"You gave different answers."
"Because Father gave different answers."
"Why?"
"Because adults become offended when weather refuses to follow their plans."
The rain had delayed the royal party by half a day. If the Luoshui continued rising, they would travel by the southern road rather than by river.
Xuanyue hoped it would not.
She had seen Yunjing from palace towers, city walls, ceremonial carriages, and once from the roof of a storage pavilion she had not been given permission to climb.
She had never seen the capital from the water.
Commander Han Qingshan stood beneath the western gate, supervising the guards assigned to the progress. He wore light travelling armour beneath a dark cloak. Rain beaded against the metal at his shoulders.
His eyes moved from Xuanyue to Meiyu.
Then to the wooden swallow.
"The bird is coming?"
"It has travelled less than either of us," Meiyu said.
"That is because it possesses judgment."
Xuanyue looked at the commander.
"Master Wen has been speaking to you."
"Master Wen speaks to everyone."
"That explains much."
Commander Han crouched before her and checked the fastening of her cloak.
Xuanyue endured this.
He tugged the knot once.
"You will remain with the royal party."
"I always remain with the royal party."
"You climbed the eastern wall while the royal party was searching for you."
"That was months ago."
"Walls remember."
Xuanyue glanced toward the palace.
"Do they speak to Master Wen too?"
Commander Han rose without answering.
Beyond the gate, the royal carriages waited beneath the rain.
Her mother had chosen a covered river barge instead.
The decision was announced by a steward hurrying across the courtyard with both sleeves gathered in one hand.
"The Luoshui has begun falling," he said. "His Majesty intends to depart by water within the quarter-hour."
Xuanyue smiled.
Commander Han pointed at her before she could move.
"Walk."
She walked.
The royal docks lay at the foot of Jade Crescent Palace, where a broad stair descended from the southern gardens to the river.
Xuanyue had visited them before, but only for ceremonies. She had stood beneath silk canopies while foreign delegations disembarked. She had watched grain barges receive royal blessings before the first spring voyage. Once, she had released a white fish into the water as part of an ancestral rite and spent the rest of the day wondering whether it appreciated the honour.
Travelling from the docks felt entirely different.
The royal barge was long and low, with a painted roof sheltering its central deck. The crescent-and-river emblem of Lanyue flew from the stern. Two smaller guard vessels waited upstream and another two below.
Servants carried the final chests aboard.
Her father stood near the rail speaking with a river officer. He had exchanged his formal robes for a dark travelling coat, though the silver crescent fastened at his collar prevented anyone from mistaking him for an ordinary passenger.
Queen Lanyin sat within the covered deck reviewing a stack of provincial reports.
Xuanyue looked at the reports.
Her mother looked at her.
"You have finished your lesson?"
"Yes."
"Master Wen agrees?"
Xuanyue hesitated.
"He released me."
"That was not my question."
"He accepted the final character."
Lanyin placed the reports aside.
"Then come here."
Xuanyue approached.
Her mother examined her travelling clothes, adjusted one sleeve, and removed a faint smear of ink from the side of her hand.
"Do not lean over the rail."
"I know."
"Do not change vessels while they are moving."
Xuanyue looked offended.
"I have never done that."
"You have never travelled by vessel."
"That does not mean I would begin with the most difficult thing."
Her father joined them.
"Your mother is imagining dangers in advance."
"Your daughter forces me to."
"Our daughter."
"When she is climbing walls, she resembles you."
"When she questions ministers, she resembles you."
Xuanyue looked between them.
"When do I resemble myself?"
Her parents paused.
Mingyuan rested a hand upon her head.
"When you ask that."
The barge pushed away from the royal docks shortly after the rain ended.
Yunjing unfolded around them.
From the palace, the Luoshui had appeared to divide the capital.
From the river, the capital seemed to have grown around it.
Stone embankments ran beneath crowded streets. Stairs descended from markets, temples, workshops, and private courtyards. Washerwomen knelt beneath awnings near the water. Fishermen drew in narrow nets between bridges. Children ran along the banks, pointing when they recognized the royal emblem.
The palace roofs receded behind them.
Xuanyue stood at the rail until Commander Han cleared his throat.
She moved back half a step.
He cleared it again.
She moved back another.
The barge passed beneath the Bridge of Seven Echoes.
Its seven arches repeated across the water in dark reflections. People had gathered above, sheltering beneath paper umbrellas. Some bowed as the royal vessel passed. Others waved.
Xuanyue began waving back.
Her mother permitted this for almost a minute before gently lowering her arm.
"You will exhaust yourself before we leave the city."
"There are many people."
"There will be more outside it."
Xuanyue looked ahead.
The southern walls of Yunjing rose across the river, their lower gates opened to allow vessels through. She had seen those walls from within all her life.
Beyond them, the Luoshui narrowed between fields.
The transition was so sudden that Xuanyue turned to look back.
One moment, the river reflected towers, tiled roofs, banners, and bridges.
The next, it carried clouds.
Yunjing remained behind them, enormous and bright beneath the clearing sky.
Ahead stretched green.
Rice paddies lay in ordered terraces beside the river. Willow trees bent over small docks. Water buffalo stood half-submerged in muddy fields, displaying no interest in the passage of kings.
Farmhouses appeared in clusters among orchards and low hills. Smoke rose from their kitchens. People stopped work to watch the royal barge pass.
Some bowed.
Some stared.
One elderly man removed his hat, realized no one near him had done the same, and put it back on.
Xuanyue waved to him.
He removed it again.
Meiyu joined her beneath the edge of the roof.
"I thought there would be less," she said.
"Less what?"
"Everything."
Xuanyue understood.
On the kingdom map in her father's study, the space between Yunjing and Qinghe Valley contained a river line, three provincial marks, and several names.
The map did not show the laundry drying outside houses.
It did not show children splashing in irrigation ditches.
It did not show the old woman shouting at a goat from the doorway of a riverside cottage.
Xuanyue had known people lived beyond the capital.
Knowing had not required imagining them.
"Master Wen says maps remove what is unnecessary," she said.
Meiyu watched the goat escape into an orchard.
"Unnecessary to whom?"
Xuanyue looked at her.
"That sounds like something Master Wen would ask."
"I have been imprisoned too."
They remained at the rail for most of the morning.
The royal barge stopped at two riverside towns.
At the first, Magistrate Zhou presented a report on flood barriers while local children presented the royal family with baskets of small red pears. At the second, a delegation of boatwrights requested permission to expand their docks.
Xuanyue listened.
She asked no questions.
Her father had told her before departure that a royal progress was not a moving petition hall. People often prepared for weeks to speak before the Crown, and a careless question from a princess could redirect an entire discussion.
This seemed unfair.
Adults asked careless questions constantly.
Near midday, the barge reached Shuangliu, where a smaller river joined the Luoshui from the east.
The town had grown around the meeting of the waters. Its docks stretched along both banks, crowded with cargo vessels and merchant craft. Painted signs hung above warehouses. Bells rang from caravan towers near the eastern road.
A pair of tall stone pillars stood beyond the roofs.
Silver light moved faintly between them.
Xuanyue leaned forward.
This time Commander Han caught the back of her cloak before she reached the rail.
"What is that?"
"The Shuangliu Realm Passage," her father said.
Xuanyue had heard of it.
She had seen drawings.
The real structure was less beautiful than the illustrations in Master Wen's histories. The pillars were weathered and heavily reinforced with iron bands. Arrays had been carved into the stone so many times that the lower sections appeared covered in overlapping scales.
The space between them shimmered like heat above a summer road.
"Is it open?" she asked.
"Not fully. A caravan crossed this morning."
"From another Realm?"
"The Suyin Realm."
Xuanyue turned toward him.
"The one with forests that change colour beneath two moons?"
"The same."
"Are they still here?"
Her father smiled.
"Almost certainly."
The royal party disembarked for the midday meal at the residence of Shuangliu's governor.
Xuanyue endured the official welcome.
She endured a speech concerning trade revenues.
She endured an account of the Realm Passage's recent maintenance.
Then she saw the elf.
The woman stood near a row of merchant stalls in the governor's outer courtyard.
She was taller than most of the people around her and wore a long coat the deep green of pine needles after rain. Her hair was pale gold, braided behind pointed ears. Sheets of coloured glass hung from the stall beside her, each thinner than a flower petal.
Sunlight passed through them and scattered red, blue, and violet across the paving stones.
Xuanyue stopped.
Meiyu stopped beside her.
The elf looked up.
Xuanyue remembered too late that staring was impolite.
She looked at the glass.
Meiyu continued staring.
The elf's mouth curved.
"You may look," she said in accented court speech. "The ears do not become shorter from attention."
Meiyu turned red.
Xuanyue stepped closer.
"Are you from Suyin?"
"I am."
"Have you seen both moons?"
"I should hope so. They are difficult to avoid."
"What colours are the forests today?"
The elf considered.
"In the north, silver. Along the western lakes, blue. Near my home, the leaves have begun turning red."
"All at once?"
"They change with the greater moon. When the lesser moon rises alone, they become green again."
Xuanyue looked at the coloured glass.
"Can you make windows look like that?"
"That is why I am here."
The woman lifted one translucent sheet between both hands. It was almost colourless until she angled it toward the sun. Then branches appeared within the glass, red leaves spreading through them.
Meiyu forgot her embarrassment.
"How?"
"Layered sand, powdered crystal, heat, and a technique my grandmother refuses to explain properly."
Xuanyue looked around the stall.
"Does she sell glass too?"
"She says travelling is for people with unsound judgment."
"Master Wen says that about climbing walls."
"Perhaps they are related."
Xuanyue liked her immediately.
The woman introduced herself as Arelis Vaen, a glassmaker from the city of Elethar in Suyin's western forest.
Her court speech was fluent, although she occasionally paused before unfamiliar words. She had travelled through four Realms in seven years.
Xuanyue asked about all of them.
Arelis described a Realm where most towns floated upon inland seas, another where the inhabitants built homes beneath enormous roots, and a cold Realm whose people slept through one season each year.
"Do they all have elves?" Xuanyue asked.
"No. Some have no elves at all."
"Do they have humans?"
"Most do. Not all."
"What lives in those?"
Arelis opened her mouth.
A deep voice answered from the neighbouring stall.
"People."
The speaker was an orc.
He was broader than Commander Han and nearly as tall as the stall's awning. Two lower tusks curved past his lips. His dark hair had been bound with bronze rings, and his sleeveless coat displayed forearms patterned with black geometric markings.
Several barrels stood behind him.
Xuanyue smelled pepper, smoke, and something sharp enough to make her eyes water.
The orc rested both hands upon the stall.
"Different faces do not require different answers," he said.
Arelis glanced toward him.
"You have been waiting all morning to say something wise."
"I succeeded."
"You usually wait longer."
The orc ignored her and bowed to Xuanyue.
Not deeply.
Enough to acknowledge her rank without pretending he had grown up in Lanyue's court.
"I am Boru Khar," he said. "Of the Kharad caravans."
"Which Realm are you from?"
"Dhorak."
"Are there humans there?"
"Yes."
"Elves?"
"A few."
Arelis lifted one hand.
Boru did not look at her.
"Orcs?"
"Many."
Xuanyue stepped toward the barrels.
"What are you selling?"
"Spices."
"What does that one do?"
"It causes poor decisions."
Xuanyue looked at him.
Boru opened the lid.
A red powder filled the barrel.
"It is called emberroot," he said. "People taste it, suffer, and then purchase more."
"That is foolish."
"Extremely profitable."
Meiyu leaned closer.
"Is it dangerous?"
"To pride."
Boru held out a small wooden spoon.
Commander Han appeared beside Xuanyue.
"No."
"I did not ask yet," she said.
"You were going to."
"A good commander waits for evidence."
"A living princess is evidence of good command."
Boru laughed.
The sound was large enough to startle two nearby merchants.
He returned the spoon to the barrel.
"Your guard has wisdom."
"Do not tell him," Xuanyue said. "He already suspects."
Commander Han's expression did not change.
Arelis covered a smile.
The queen joined them soon afterward.
Lanyin greeted both merchants with the same courtesy she offered human envoys, asked informed questions about their crafts, and purchased three sheets of Arelis's glass for a palace restoration.
From Boru, she bought a small sealed jar of emberroot.
Xuanyue stared at it.
"You said I could not taste it."
"I said no such thing."
"Commander Han said it."
"He was correct."
"Then why may you buy it?"
"Because I am not ten."
Boru nodded solemnly.
"Emberroot respects age."
Xuanyue suspected everyone had conspired against her.
Before leaving, Arelis gave her a palm-sized shard of coloured glass.
It had been shaped into a leaf, red along one edge and silver along the other.
"It cracked during cooling," the glassmaker said. "Too flawed to sell."
Xuanyue held it to the light.
A tiny line ran through its centre.
"It is still beautiful."
"Flawed things often are."
Her mother heard.
Xuanyue knew because Lanyin's eyes shifted briefly toward the elf.
The queen said nothing.
Xuanyue tucked the glass leaf carefully into her travelling pouch.
The royal party continued south by river.
For the rest of the afternoon, Meiyu attempted to imitate the shape of Arelis's ears by pulling her own upward.
Xuanyue told her this was less dignified than staring.
Meiyu said dignity had not retrieved the wooden swallow.
The fields grew wider as they approached Qinghe Valley.
The Luoshui divided into channels that carried water between villages, estates, and broad terraces of rice. Small shrines stood beside the embankments. Their stone guardians had been polished smooth by generations of hands.
Near sunset, the royal barge turned into a newly widened waterway.
Xuanyue recognized it from the reports.
The banks were fresh, reinforced with pale stone and woven reed barriers. Workers were still finishing a retaining wall farther upstream. Narrow wooden markers showed the agreed water levels for each season.
On one side of the channel, rice paddies shone gold.
On the other, rows of mulberry trees stretched toward a cluster of white-walled silk houses.
The village and estate.
The dispute from the Hall of Listening had become a place.
People waited along the bank.
Old Chen stood among them in a clean brown robe, his grey hair tied carefully behind his head. Beside him stood Steward Luo, equally formal and visibly uncomfortable.
Xuanyue wondered whether they had argued over where to stand.
The barge docked beneath a temporary canopy.
Her father and mother disembarked first.
Xuanyue followed.
Old Chen bowed.
Steward Luo bowed.
The gathered villagers bowed.
For several breaths, no one moved.
Xuanyue had imagined arriving at the village many times.
She had not imagined everyone looking at her.
In the petition hall, she had been one child among ministers and officials.
Here, the people knew what she had said.
A little boy near the front whispered, "That is her?"
His mother covered his mouth.
Xuanyue pretended not to hear.
Mingyuan greeted the village elders and estate representatives. The provincial governor began explaining the completed works.
Xuanyue listened for several minutes.
Then the little boy whispered again.
"She is smaller than I thought."
This time Meiyu heard.
She made a choking sound.
Xuanyue looked toward the boy.
His mother appeared ready to sink into the irrigation channel.
"How tall did you think I was?" Xuanyue asked.
The governor stopped speaking.
Every adult nearby became silent.
The boy looked around, suddenly aware that he had acquired the attention of the royal family.
"Very tall," he said.
"Why?"
"You spoke in the Hall of Listening."
Xuanyue frowned.
"Does speaking make people taller?"
"My grandfather said your words reached all the way from Yunjing."
Old Chen closed his eyes.
The boy's mother pulled him into a frantic bow.
"Forgive him, Your Highness. He is only seven."
Xuanyue looked at her father.
Mingyuan's face had become very still.
She knew that stillness.
He was trying not to laugh.
"My words travelled by clerk," Xuanyue told the boy. "Clerks are faster than princesses."
The boy considered this.
"Are they taller?"
"Some."
Her mother touched Xuanyue lightly between the shoulders.
The governor resumed speaking.
The inspection began at the main sluice.
The Ministry of Works had replaced the estate's original diversion with three controlled channels. Water could now be distributed according to seasonal agreements recorded upon stone tablets beside the wheelhouse.
Old Chen explained the village's planting needs.
Steward Luo explained the estate's silk production.
They disagreed twice.
Neither raised his voice.
At the second marker, Xuanyue stopped.
A row of symbols had been carved beneath the water measurements.
"What do those say?"
The provincial governor answered.
"They record the permitted flow for each month, Your Highness."
"I know. Why are they written in court script?"
The governor blinked.
"It is the formal script used for provincial agreements."
"Can everyone in the village read it?"
Silence answered before anyone else did.
Old Chen looked toward the stone.
"My eldest son can, Princess."
"How many people work the sluice?"
"Seven in rotation."
"Can they all read it?"
Old Chen hesitated.
"No."
Xuanyue looked at the governor.
"Then how do they know whether the agreement is followed?"
"The sluice master instructs them."
"What if he is absent?"
"The markers show the water level," Steward Luo said carefully.
Xuanyue looked again.
The carved lines could be understood without reading, but the seasonal changes and responsibilities could not.
Her father had stopped several paces ahead.
He was listening.
Xuanyue remembered the kingdom map.
A line for the river.
A mark for the village.
Names written by people far away.
"Could pictures be added?" she asked. "A rice stalk for planting months. Mulberry leaves for the estate. A closed hand where no change is allowed without both sides present."
The governor opened his mouth.
Old Chen nodded first.
"That would help."
Steward Luo studied the tablet.
"It would also prevent labourers from claiming ignorance."
Old Chen looked at him.
"You assume ours would."
"You assume mine would not."
They began arguing.
Quietly.
The governor looked toward the king.
Mingyuan said, "Add the symbols."
The governor bowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Xuanyue continued walking.
Her father joined her.
"You found another problem," he said.
"It was small."
"To you."
Xuanyue glanced back at the tablet.
The little boy had approached it. He stood upon his toes, tracing the formal characters with one finger.
"Maps remove what is unnecessary," she said.
Her father gave her a sidelong look.
"Master Wen?"
"Yes."
"What do you think?"
"I think the person making the map decides what is unnecessary."
Mingyuan was silent for several steps.
"That," he said, "is why rulers should examine their own maps."
They reached the village paddies.
The rice stood high and heavy with grain.
Workers had already begun cutting the outer fields. Bundles lay drying upon raised racks. Children carried loose stalks into piles while older relatives shouted contradictory instructions.
Old Chen plucked one head of rice and placed it in Xuanyue's hands.
"This harvest lives because the water returned," he said.
Xuanyue looked at the grains.
The statement felt too large.
She had asked questions in a hall.
Others had surveyed the channel, negotiated the costs, moved stone, carved banks, installed sluices, and laboured in mud beneath the summer heat.
"I did not build it," she said.
"No."
Old Chen smiled.
"You noticed us."
The words unsettled her more than praise would have.
Xuanyue looked across the fields.
How many villages had she never noticed?
How many people could not send someone to Yunjing?
How many problems remained too small for court until they destroyed something large?
Her mother approached from the adjoining path.
Lanyin seemed to read the question in her face.
"You cannot see everyone," she said.
Xuanyue looked down at the rice.
"Then how can we rule them?"
"By ensuring those nearer to them are required to look."
"The magistrates."
"The village elders. Provincial officials. Ministers. Judges. Inspectors. Sometimes neighbours."
"What if they do not?"
"Then someone farther away must be willing to listen."
Xuanyue thought of the Hall of Listening.
The hopeful name.
Perhaps it was not meant to describe what always happened there.
Perhaps it described what should.
The inspection continued until the sunlight turned amber.
A meal had been prepared in the village square.
Long tables stood beneath woven awnings. The villagers had expected the royal family to dine upon a raised platform, but Mingyuan ordered the platform removed before sitting among them.
This caused immediate confusion.
Officials rearranged seats.
Servants rearranged dishes.
The provincial governor rearranged his expression.
Xuanyue sat between Meiyu and the little boy who had expected her to be taller.
His name was Chen Rui, and Old Chen was his grandfather.
Rui watched everything she did.
When she selected a dumpling, he selected the same dumpling.
When she drank tea, he drank tea.
When she reached for a second piece of honeyed rice cake, his mother slapped his hand beneath the table.
Xuanyue quietly placed half of hers on his plate.
His eyes widened.
"You eat the same food," he said.
"What did you think I ate?"
He leaned closer.
"Pearls."
Xuanyue stared.
"Why?"
"My sister said royal cooks put pearls in porridge."
"Your sister lied."
Across the table, a girl of approximately thirteen looked away.
Xuanyue lowered her voice.
"Pearls would hurt your teeth."
Rui nodded as if receiving state secrets.
The meal lasted past sunset.
Villagers performed harvest songs accompanied by reed flutes and hand drums. Estate workers presented bolts of silk dyed in colours drawn from river plants. One old woman gave Queen Lanyin a jar of pickled roots and insisted the palace kitchens did not prepare them correctly.
Lanyin accepted the criticism with royal grace.
Mingyuan tasted one and agreed.
Commander Han refused to dance until three village grandmothers surrounded him.
His defeat was immediate.
Xuanyue and Meiyu laughed until their sides hurt.
Later, when the tables had emptied and lanterns hung throughout the square, Xuanyue found Steward Luo standing alone near the channel.
He held a cup of wine but had not touched it.
The silk estate's lights shone beyond the mulberry rows.
"You do not like the celebration?" Xuanyue asked.
Steward Luo turned quickly.
"Your Highness."
He bowed.
"I am honoured by it."
"You look unhappy."
"I am thinking."
"Master Wen looks unhappy when he does that too."
A faint smile appeared and vanished.
Xuanyue stood beside him.
For a time, they watched the water pass beneath the sluice wheel.
"The estate lost money," she said.
"Yes."
"Are you angry?"
Steward Luo considered his answer.
"I was."
"At me?"
"At the judgment. At Old Chen. At the Ministry. At the weather. At several clerks who did not deserve it."
"That is many people."
"I was thorough."
Xuanyue looked at him.
Boru Khar would have approved of the phrasing.
Steward Luo rotated the wine cup between his fingers.
"The estate purchased lawful rights," he said. "I believed that made our actions lawful."
"They hurt the village."
"Yes."
"You knew the rice was planted."
His mouth tightened.
"Yes."
"Then why did you do it?"
He looked across the dark fields.
"Because I was responsible for the estate. Two poor silk seasons would have dismissed labourers, closed workshops, and ruined families who depended upon us. The diversion promised better mulberry yields."
Xuanyue had not considered the estate workers.
In the Hall of Listening, Steward Luo's robes had been immaculate.
The village had possessed Old Chen.
The estate had possessed advocates.
It had seemed simple.
"Did you think the village would survive?"
"I thought the loss would be temporary."
"Would it have been?"
He did not answer immediately.
"No," he said at last. "Not for everyone."
Xuanyue rested both hands on the stone edge of the channel.
"Father said rights without obligations create disputes."
"His Majesty was correct."
"Do you like admitting that?"
"No."
She smiled.
Steward Luo finally drank from his cup.
"The widened channel will benefit us next year," he said. "More than the original diversion would have."
"Then everything ended well."
"For the estate and village, perhaps."
"That is not everything?"
He looked down at her.
"No judgment returns the months spent afraid. Or the anger. Or the trust lost between neighbours."
Xuanyue thought of Old Chen and Steward Luo arguing beside the new tablet.
They could speak without shouting now.
That was not the same as trust.
"How do they get it back?"
"Slowly."
"Can the king order it?"
"No."
"Can I?"
"No."
Xuanyue sighed.
"There are many things rulers cannot do."
"There are."
"Why does everyone want to become one?"
Steward Luo looked toward the royal table, where her father had been persuaded into tasting a third cup of village wine.
"Most people imagine the power before they encounter the limits."
Xuanyue considered this.
"Did you?"
Steward Luo looked at the silk estate.
"Yes."
The next morning, the royal party left Qinghe Valley by road.
The Luoshui continued south, while their route turned west toward the provincial capital and the outer edge of the White-Reed March.
Xuanyue rode in an open carriage with her mother.
The land changed gradually.
Rice fields gave way to low pasture and broad stretches of reeds pale enough to appear silver beneath the sun. Watchtowers stood upon distant hills. Supply wagons travelled west carrying grain, arrows, medicine, and bundles of winter cloth.
Soldiers passed in the opposite direction.
Some wore bandages.
Most looked tired.
All bowed when they recognized the royal carriage.
Meiyu watched each group.
Her brother served somewhere beyond those hills.
"You will see him tomorrow," Xuanyue said.
"I know."
Meiyu's hands remained tight around the wooden swallow.
Qiao Jianyu had received temporary leave to meet the royal party at the March's eastern command town.
Meiyu had read the letter announcing it eleven times.
Perhaps twelve.
Xuanyue did not count.
By afternoon, the road climbed onto a ridge.
Commander Han called for a halt so the horses could rest.
Below them, Lanyue Kingdom stretched farther than Xuanyue had ever seen.
The Luoshui shone in the distance. Qinghe's fields formed golden squares along its banks. Beyond them lay villages too small to distinguish, roads reduced to pale threads, and Yunjing hidden somewhere beyond the northern haze.
To the west, the White-Reed March rolled toward dark mountains.
Farther still stood the boundary of Yunluo Realm.
Xuanyue could not see it.
She knew it existed beyond the horizon, where the Realm's stable space thinned toward the protected passages used by travellers.
Above them, the sky looked no different.
That seemed strange.
"Is Yunluo small?" she asked.
Her mother followed her gaze.
"Compared with what?"
"The other Realms."
"Some."
"Suyin?"
"Smaller."
"Dhorak?"
"I believe so."
"The Realm with floating towns?"
"Almost certainly."
Xuanyue frowned.
"Then it is small."
Lanyin stepped down from the carriage.
She joined Xuanyue at the edge of the ridge.
Below, farmers worked in distant fields. A bell rang from a roadside shrine. Commander Han argued with a horse that had decided grass mattered more than military discipline.
"To those who measure Realms," Lanyin said, "Yunluo may be small."
"To us?"
"It contains every road you have travelled, every person you know, and more lives than you could count if you spent a century trying."
Xuanyue looked toward the horizon.
"Can something be small and large?"
"Frequently."
"That is the same answer you gave about kindness and foolishness."
"The world repeats its lessons."
Xuanyue took the glass leaf from her pouch.
Sunlight passed through it, painting her palm in red and silver.
Arelis's home lay beneath two moons.
Boru came from a Realm filled with orcs and spices that caused poor decisions.
There were floating towns, glowing oceans, forests built beneath roots, and people whose faces Ji Xuanyue could not yet imagine.
Beyond those were stories no Realmfarer could prove.
Ancient beings.
Deathless gods.
Worlds scholars placed in the same category as sacred allegory and sailors' lies.
At ten, Xuanyue did not know where truth ended and myth began.
She found that comforting.
It meant the cosmos still possessed surprises.
"Will Yunluo always be my home?" she asked.
Her mother looked at her.
"That depends upon what you mean by home."
"The place I return to."
"Then I hope so."
"Even if I visit every Realm?"
"Especially then."
The royal party resumed its journey.
That evening, they reached the first watchtown of the White-Reed March.
Qiao Jianyu waited outside its eastern gate in a soldier's blue-grey coat.
Meiyu saw him before the carriage stopped.
She did not ask permission.
She jumped down, nearly lost one shoe in the road, and ran.
Jianyu caught her with both arms.
The wooden swallow pressed between them.
Xuanyue watched from the carriage.
Meiyu was laughing.
Then she was crying.
Then she struck her brother on the shoulder for taking too long to come home.
Jianyu laughed and held her tighter.
Xuanyue thought of the wish she had placed upon the Luoshui.
May everyone I love return safely home.
One person had.
That night, Xuanyue slept in a room above the watchtown command hall.
It was smaller than her chamber in Jade Crescent Palace. The bed creaked when she moved. Wind slipped through the shutters carrying the dry scent of reeds.
She liked it.
Before sleeping, she unfolded a small copy of the kingdom map that Master Wen had assigned her to study during the journey.
Yunjing was marked by a silver crescent.
The Luoshui crossed the page in blue ink.
Qinghe Valley occupied a pale-green basin.
The White-Reed March stretched across the west beneath symbols for watchtowers and military roads.
Xuanyue took out her brush.
Beside Shuangliu, she painted a tiny red-and-silver leaf.
Beside Qinghe, she added a rice stalk and a mulberry branch.
Near the road into the March, she drew a wooden swallow.
The additions were not part of any official map.
Master Wen would object.
That made them more satisfying.
When she finished, Xuanyue held the page at arm's length.
The kingdom had not changed.
Its borders remained where they had been. Its provinces had not grown. The Luoshui followed the same path it had followed that morning.
Yet the map no longer looked like a collection of empty spaces divided by lines.
It contained Arelis's coloured glass.
Boru's dangerous spices.
Old Chen's harvest.
Steward Luo's regret.
Rui's belief that princesses ate pearls.
Meiyu running into her brother's arms.
Xuanyue placed the map beside her bed.
Outside, the watch bell sounded across the reeds.
For the first time, the lines upon the page seemed too small for everything they held.