Kang’s lips pull thin as his expression darkens. “Until the emperor decided to make an example of my father and anyone associated with him. He banned the sale of the pearls and made the salt farms and the stone quarries the only industries on the islands. Then he sent all those who opposed him there to die.”
“How did they survive after all that?” I ask, feeling a rush of sympathy for all the innocents who have been affected by the emperor’s wrath.
“Those who were physically able joined the army, while their families starved waiting for whatever meager wages they were able to send back. Some uprooted their lives and started anew elsewhere. Those who couldn’t took up arms and attacked the imperial ships transporting goods to our northern neighbors.”
It is an awful sort of existence, watching everyone around you suffer. It is a familiar story—Sù was not without years when the harvest was slim due to pestilence or drought. When I accompanied my father to yet another house filled with the sounds of crying children, their cheeks hollowed out.
“I’m not saying the bandits are justified,” Kang says quickly, misreading my silence for disgust. “But so many depended on the pearls. When their value fell, so did the hopes of—”
“You don’t have to explain to me why.” I shake my head, assuring him of my sympathies. “I understand. There were times in our village when the crops failed, but we were still taxed the same every season, even double if payments were so much as a week late. We all know of one or two people who retreated to the mountains to become bandits, so they wouldn’t be a burden on their families.”
No leniency when half a family was wiped out from poison. No reprieve from the demand for tribute offerings even while we buried our dead.
“My father continues to petition the governor for a season’s reprieve, but mercy isn’t a word in the man’s vocabulary.” I cannot help but tremble at the memory of seeing a man beaten in the market as punishment for his overdue taxes. Father and I had helped him bury his wife not even a month earlier, and his son a week before that.
It is Kang who places his hand on my arm this time, offering warmth and reassurance.
“It sounds like we grew up with the same injustices,” he says gently. “This is why I noticed you in the market. When you helped the boy in trouble, it answered a few questions I was struggling with.”
I look up at him, puzzled. “What questions?”
His gaze searches my face, as if he is still looking for answers there. “Ning, I—”
The sweet sound of chimes echoes in the chamber, disrupting the intimacy between us.
“That’s the end of the midday chant,” he murmurs, but he does not move.
“We should go,” I tell him, even though a part of me imagines closing the distance between us and laying my head on his chest, offering him the same kind of comfort. Instead I turn and cross the room, forcing myself to clear my head. I need to get the information the princess is looking for, but I cannot grow to care for him in the meantime. I cannot have someone else I feel an obligation to, or else how could I betray him if I needed to?
How can I give another part of myself to someone else, when I already have so little to give?
* * *
We sneak through empty corridors until we step outside onto a landing, and the lush sight of the gardens spreads out before me, almost too much to take in. The just-opened buds I left behind in Sù have now erupted fully, some trees already flowering. Dragonflies buzz overhead, while other insects drone drowsily in the bushes. In the distance, the forest canopy sways to the breeze, but before the dense grove there are rows and rows of shrubs, waves of undulating green, dotted with blooms.
After descending the steps, we walk upon a covered pathway that winds from the monastery to the gardens, lined with brick. Above our heads, red pillars hold up the intricately painted roof. A mural of birds flies overhead in dazzling rainbow hues.
“This was my grandfather’s present to my grandmother when she accepted his offer of marriage,” Kang tells me as we stroll under the birds, the beauty of our surroundings having uplifted our moods for the moment. “The mountains of Yún are famous for their rare birds and she missed them, so he commissioned this to be built and tended to by the monks.”
“It’s as if they could come to life.” I marvel at the vibrancy of the colors. They must be retouched every year to retain such hues. But I am not one for covered paths—I need to be among the plants, soaking the sunlight into my skin.