Jingyan awoke from troubled sleep in the Eastern Palace to a peculiar pattering against his window screen. For a muddled moment he thought of summer rain, but the tapping was far too irregular.
It didn’t strike him until after he grabbed his sword from its sheath and stuck his head out in the humid night air that it was probably the sort of situation where a crown prince in charge of running an empire should call his guard. But then again – a guard would probably have been unduly alarmed at the sight of the two shadowy figures perching on the low roof of the palace’s terrace promenade. One was unfamiliar – a long-haired man in robes that shone pale in the moonlight. The other, shorter, he knew – but had not expected to find outside his window in the dark.
“Fei Liu?”
The youngster nodded, lowering his pebble-throwing hand at Jingyan’s bewildered exclamation, taking it for a greeting.
“Good evening, prince!” said the man next to Fei Liu. “Or good morning, possibly.” Jingyan could not place him, but as Fei Liu (Mei Changsu’s bodyguard; Lin Shu’s bodyguard) tolerated his presence, he must be an ally. Jingyan returned his cheerful greeting with a wary nod.
“May we come inside for a chat? I mean no harm, but it sure would be awkward if one of your patrols came around and found us out here.”
At this, Fei Liu whirled to face the man. “You promised!” He exclaimed, and even from here Jingyan could tell the youngster was getting upset. “Secret!”
The man gave a careless shrug, but studied note of chagrin entered his voice. “Yes, see – I asked Fei Liu to guide me here, on the condition that we not give away his secret path…”
The digression made the furrow in Jingyan’s brow deepen. Who was this man, and why was he here in the middle of the night? He must be from Jianghu – nobody else would be as arrogant - but if he was an important enough member of the Jiang Zuo that he felt comfortable breaking into the palace with Fei Liu, why had Jingyan not met him yet?
“What’s this about, Fei Liu?”
“Important!” Fei Liu said emphatically. He paused, his voice going softer with distress. “Su-gege.”
Jingyan knew there should be no cause for the spike of alarm he felt. If anything had happened to Lin Shu, surely news wouldn’t arrive by rooftop stranger. And yet – after the shock of learning that Lin Shu had been at his side all this time, and with the tension mounting before they could get the Chiyan case resolved, Jingyan’s nerves were already raw fraught emotions. Jaw clenched, he gestured at the man and Fei Liu to avail themselves to the window as their entrance.
Resigned to trust, he put his sword down and went to kindle a lantern as the two outside lightly made their way through the window and crowded the opulent chamber. It was not designed to receive visitors, but it mattered little – anxious now for news, Jingyan indicated the platform around the raised bed, and sat himself on an ornate chest opposite. “Please sit.”
Still more soldier than prince, Jingyan could roll out of bed and into action – but that didn’t mean he wasn’t irked by being placed in a situation where he couldn’t help but contrast his own state of dishevelment with the neat elegance of the stranger, who seemed happy making himself comfortable on the dais.
“Lin Chen,” the stranger said, finally introducing himself in the most straightforward way possible. “Changsu’s physician.”
Jingyan had met Doctor Yan. This Lin Chen, though – his mind supplied a connection. “Of Langya Hall?”
Lin Chen smiled, pleased to be recognized. “Yes, that’s me.”
Jingyan didn’t smile back. “And for what reason have you shown up at my window under the cover of darkness?”
“What other reason could there be?” Lin Chen moved a shoulder in a small shrug. “Mei Changsu.”
“Is he – has anything happened?” Jingyan tried to keep the fear he felt out of his voice.
“Nothing new tonight.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “That I know of.”
Less than reassuring, that. Jingyan set his jaw. “And you are here,” – in the crown prince’s sleeping chambers, at night, in secret – “because…?”
“Because you’re his friend,” Lin Chen said. “And he’s being a stubborn ass.”
That was not what Jingyan had been expecting. Dark news, dire warnings, conspiracies afoot, yes. But Lin Shu being a stubborn ass driving those around him to distraction… Jingyan felt light and warm and scared, and bit down on a grin. He had to focus, had to be serious. “Yes,” he said. “That’s… hardly new.”
Lin Chen scoffed. “No. But I didn’t think he’d take it this far.”
“What is he doing?” Jingyan asked, worry banishing both lightness and warmth.
“And it’s all for you, you know. You and this country of yours. So if I can’t change his mind…” Lin Chen nodded to himself, as if he’d determined the one true course of action.
“Tell me,” Jingyan said.
Lin Chen did. Not in great detail, but enough that Jingyan sat back, aghast. Another layer of secrets; another part of Lin Shu that his friend had withheld from him. He had seen with his own eyes how this mysterious poison had eaten away at Lin Shu’s body, leaving him a different man in all but mind and spirit. And yet, he had not suspected – not wanted to suspect – that the illness was not merely lingering, but advancing. Threatening all that Lin Shu was, all that they had both been working for so long now.
“I’m not finished,” Lin Chen said mildly, bringing Jingyan’s scattered focus back to his words. “There was cure.”
“A cure? Then why haven’t you –”
“He’s refused it. I accepted.”
“You accepted?” Jingyan wished he had his sword to grip; anything to do with these emotions flaring up.
Lin Chen stared pointedly at him, and then rapidly explained about the Bingxu grass, the impossible sacrifice demanded. Deflated, Jingyan sank back on the dais. “I see.”
“Yes. That was the only recorded cure.”
Jingyan, still reeling from what he had learned about Lin Shu’s suffering, blinked. His vision cleared a bit. What was this physician still doing here, after delivering all of these bad news? Could it not have waited until daylight?
“In all of history, that was the only recorded cure,” Lin Chen repeated, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Which made it quite tricky to develop a second.”
“A… second?”
This had Fei Liu perk up from his long, sad silence. “Medicine!” he explained.
Lin Chen nodded. “Yes. Another cure. Different. And did I mention extremely difficult to make?”
Hope stirred in Jingyan’s chest, and then worry hit all over again. No matter what cure this Lin Chen thought he had crafted, Lin Shu was not healed, and they were holding a secret midnight conference in his private quarters. Frustrated disappointment rose in his gorge. “He refused it.” It wasn’t really a question.
“He refused it!” Frustration from Lin Chen, too.
“And the cost?”
Lin Chen’s face fell. After seeing him speak quite casually of Lin Shu’s suffering, and proudly of his work on the cure, it was an alarming change. How high must the price be for someone who had given as much as Lin Shu to refuse? Another ten lives?
“Prince,” Lin Chen said, instead of answering. “Let me ask you something.” At Jingyan’s nod, he smiled a little, composed again.
“What do you want?”
“What do I… want?”
“For Changsu.” Before Jingyan could raise the issue of all the unquiet dead; the injustices done, Lin Chen waved those things off. “Not the Chiyan. Not all of his scheming coming to fruition. We can’t go around interrupting that, of course.”
“I want…” Jingyan swallowed, groping for the right answer to give. The answer of a true and just emperor-to-be, of someone worthy of calling himself Lin Shu’s brother. His mind went blank. His heart ached. When he spoke, his voice sounded raw even to his own ears. “I want Lin Shu back.”
Lin Chen sighed. “I thought so.” He smiled, a bit sadly. “You all say that, I think. All of you who knew Lin Shu.”
Because, Jingyan understood after a moment, Lin Chen only knew Mei Changsu. Who was but wasn’t Lin Shu.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Jingyan asked.
“Everything,” Lin Chen said. “The cure. If it works – and I made it, so it will work – it won’t leave him anything of Mei Changsu.”
“But Lin Shu…”
“Would remain. Or return.” Lin Chen shrugged at the philosophical quandary.
“And so he refused?” Possibly more than once, Jingyan guessed, for Lin Chen to name him a stubborn ass.
Lin Chen huffed, annoyed. “Yes.”
And then Lin Chen had pressed Fei Liu to take him here, to the Eastern Palace, to talk to Jingyan in the deepest hours of the night. Jingyan should have admonished the physician; should have stood up and refused to hear any more secrets that weren’t his to know. But he didn’t. Because he’d had enough of secrets; had enough of being the one kept in the dark and having choices made on his behalf. And because he desperately missed Lin Shu, and having grieved his friend for so many long years, he would do anything he could
“What do you want me to do?”
“Talk to him.”
Jingyan wanted nothing more – had never wanted anything but to have another few moments to spend with his friends. No lies, no deception, no crown prince and advisor. Just the two of them again, as they once had been. But he shook his head, voice wavering slightly as he answered. “He won’t listen to me.” Lin Shu hadn’t trusted him before, not with anything.
“He will. You are everything to him.”
Jingyan blinked. He had been the last to know, even his mother had known – how could that possibly be true?
“Everything Changsu wants. Everything he has worked for. You are the key to that.”
A key. A tool. A useful player in the game of courtly intrigue. Jingyan said nothing, but his lips drew back from his teeth. He might have been smiling.
Lin Chen made an annoyed sound. “Tch. He’s not the only stubborn one, is he?”
“Water buffalo,” Fei Liu supplied helpfully.
“Listen, prince,” Lin Chen said, leaning forward into Jingyan’s space. “I know all about what Changsu set out to accomplish; I know he means to complete his task if it kills him. And I know no power under Heaven could stop him. But after that…” He paused, drew a breath, and Jingyan thought he could hear untold sadness in the silence.
“Mei Changsu will die. Don’t doubt that he will. He’ll hold on long enough to finish what he must, and then longer still so that his friends can savor their victory for a while without it being spoiled by grief, because he is just that stubborn. But then he’s dead.”
Fei Liu’s face crumpled at Lin Chen’s callous words, and Jingyan could tell his dignity that it was for the youth’s sake he spoke so quickly now. “Unless he takes your cure.”
“Sure. It would save his life. Extend it – though he’s worn a few years off the end already, putting his body through everything he has. But you’ll have a live Lin Shu, rather than a dead one.” Lin Chen paused. “And I believe that’s what you said you wanted?”
Jingyan nodded curtly, unable to deny it.
“He doesn’t believe you do,” Lin Chen said. “Without all he’s learned, all his plans and schemes and preparations – he doesn’t see a place for himself anymore, not unless it’s at the centre of this web he’s spent thirteen years weaving.”
The air went out of Jingyan. That Lin Shu would think so little of his own life – would think so little of their bonds as friends and brothers of the heart? The pain of it left him gasping. “No. No, he’s wrong.”
Lin Chen rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me that. Tell him. Or better yet – don’t tell him, because he won’t believe you. But make him promise. Make him swear that after the Chiyan case closes, he’ll take the cure.”
Jingyan could see what Lin Chen was driving at. Not that he could ever withhold his help from Lin Shu to make him obey. Not just because that betrayal would end their friendship, but because he needed to see this through, too. For his lost brother, for his aunts and uncle, and for all the Chiyan army soldiers and household families whose lives had been stolen from them by vilest treachery. But he had agreed to all of Mei Changsu’s terms for all this time – surely it was not too much to ask one single thing of his advisor in return?
And if Lin Shu were to insist on refusing – well. Jingyan could always ask his mother for help. He nodded to himself. Yes. Between the two of them, they could save Mei Changsu from himself.
Jingyan stood up, heart racing as if ready for battle. “I’ll do it,” he said. And as had always been his way, he would deal with the consequences later. But no matter what happened, he would not let Lin Shu lose his life – or his self. Even if he had to spend the next thirteen years giving his friend back what Mei Changsu had lost, he would.
“Good,” Lin Chen said, rising smoothly.
Fei Liu rose too, looking between the two of them. “Good?” he asked hesitantly.
Lin Chen grinned. “Yes. Yes, I do believe we’ll be successful,” he said. “After all, I’d expect nothing else from someone that he considers stubborn.”
With no more more words in parting, only a brief bow that felt entirely ironic, Lin Chen let himself out of the window. Fei Liu followed.
In the distance, dawn was just beginning to lighten the horizon over Jinling.