The Colors of Fate's Threads - Chapter 3

Outside the capital, beside the clear waters of the river, willows lined the bank beneath a fading moon. An old friend had returned.

He had traveled through the night. Dust from the road covered his pale, moon-colored brocade robe. I had waited a long while for him; dawn mist had beaded on my green cloak.

Five years had passed since we last met. He was twenty-one now, all trace of his youthful awkwardness gone. His features were as lovely as a painting, his bearing splendid. What a handsome face!

I was secretly rejoicing when I saw it: behind us ran a purple thread of fate as thick as my fist.

I had seen the threads of everyone in the capital. Never had I seen one so thick, or so purple. I froze, my face burning.

Chu Heng noticed my expression. He caught my shoulders, anxiety written all over his handsome face. “What is it? Is there still no thread between us? Has nothing changed after everything I’ve done?”

I lowered my head in silence, hiding my hot cheeks behind a handkerchief. His eyes dimmed at once. He punched a tree so hard that blood showed on his knuckles.

“It’s my fault. The throne is still just beyond my reach. You killed three men for me, Changning, and took on the names of husband-killer and kingdom-killer. And I’ve been useless!”

He gripped my hands. His amber eyes were full of worry. “Even if there’s no thread between us, I’m still your one and only fiancé. Aren’t I?”

His fingers were cold, yet his touch seemed to burn. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything as outrageous as “a purple thread as thick as a fist.” I could only nod shyly.

“Thread or no thread, you’re my only fiancé,” I murmured, soft but firm. “If heaven won’t accept you, I will.”

Joy lit his face, and he swept me into his arms.

We had years to catch up on. I brought wine; he brought incense. He told me how he’d struggled to survive amid the treacherous politics of Langya. I told him how hard I’d worked to avoid marriage among the capital’s powerful families.

As we talked, though, the mood shifted. My cheeks grew hot; his breathing turned heavy. Heat spread through me, and he was plainly aroused.

I glanced at the incense he’d brought. He tasted the wine I’d brought. Understanding dawned on us at the same moment.

“Did you bring aphrodisiac incense?”

“Did you put an aphrodisiac in the wine?”

We both fell silent.

After a moment, he gave me a wicked smile. “So we really do think alike.”

I nodded, blushing. “I’d call that mutual devotion, wouldn’t you?”

He looked around. “Your carriage…”

“It’s large,” I supplied bashfully. “And warm.”

The river wound between green hills, and the scenery was beautiful. The carriage at the foot of the hills, however, had a hard time of it. So did he.

From dawn until noon, we nearly shook the carriage apart. At last the clouds broke and the rain passed. His hot lips brushed my ear as he whispered, “There must be a thread between us now. Even if there isn’t a red one, there has to be a purple one.”

“You said you decide your own fate. Then the two of us should decide our own marriage. Heaven’s decree can go to hell.”

Spent and satisfied, I let my thoughts drift. One absurd question floated through my empty head: was our thread so thick because he was… thick?

Chu Heng disliked my wandering attention. He shook my shoulders gently and kept asking into my ear, “Wei Changning, did you see our thread or not?”

I came back to myself and looked behind him. Beside that heavy purple thread was a slender pink one. Its other end stretched so far away I couldn’t see where it stopped.

It was strange. I could see other people’s threads from a great distance, but to see one of my own, I had to be standing before the other person.

Chu Heng looked at me expectantly. I hesitated, then widened my eyes in feigned confusion. “I can’t see anything. Maybe I just can’t see my own threads, and because we’re so close, I can’t see yours either. Heaven must not want me peering into too many of its secrets.”

He went still. His eyes reddened at the corners, and he pulled me close. “Changning, you’re mine. No matter how many people I have to kill or what price I have to pay, I’ll have you. One day I’ll marry you properly, with matchmakers and betrothal gifts. I swear it.”

I held him tight and smiled sweetly. “All right. I’ll wait for you.”

Since childhood, I’d seen too many unhappy marriages: false displays of affection, honeyed words hiding plots, and, most often, day after day of cold indifference. Women suffered worst in all of them.

At thirteen, I had decided that I would choose my own husband. Mother and Father, however, looked troubled.

“His Majesty made you a commandery princess,” they told me. “He’ll certainly want a say in your marriage. Even we can no longer decide it for you.”

I went cold. I knew my imperial godfather’s character better than most. The realm was a chessboard to him, and he alone played the pieces. Anyone could be discarded. The more useful a piece was, the less freedom it had to move. I could not accept that fate.

I went to the palace to beg my godmother for help. I had scarcely entered the hall when I heard her sobbing in anguish.

The court had suffered a crushing defeat in the northwest. Her daughter, Princess Jiayi, was only six, but she was to be sent to a distant foreign land to marry the forty-eight-year-old King of Wunu.

My godmother wept until she had no tears left. “Jiayi is only six! Sending her to those wolves is the same as sending her to die.”

She knelt outside the Hall of Diligent Governance until she collapsed from exhaustion. She tried everything, even surrendering every shred of dignity in her husband’s bed. None of it won a trace of pity from him.

On the day Jiayi left, my godmother held her so tightly she would not let go. The palace servants pried her fingers apart one by one. They broke a finger before they could pull the wailing child free and force her into the marriage carriage.

That day, the thread between my godmother and the emperor changed from pale pink to ink black.

I understood then. Mother and Father couldn’t help me. My godmother couldn’t help me either. If I wanted to marry the person I chose, there was only one person I could count on: myself.