As she drew the bow slowly across the strings, and her fingers swept down the smooth neck, touching, letting go, holding fast, releasing, the mournful notes wrapped themselves around every breeze that drifted through the latticed window next to where she sat. With her eyes closed, lulled by the soft tones, she swayed fluidly with each movement of the bow across the ehru. Backward slid the bow, and her lungs filled with the rose-scented air, and forward it surged on her sorrowful sigh.
"Why have you come here?" she paused the music only long enough to ask the question, and then resumed her song.
No answer came.
"Have you come to kill me or capture me?" she asked, not bothering to interrupt the music this time. She knew there would be no answer.
"There's little difference to me," she said more to herself than to the specter in the shadows.
When she felt the cold fingers creep around her neck from behind her, she swallowed but continued to play. Her eyes flickered sadly toward the bright blue sky outside her window. She could see the sun warming the garden far below her window, and she tried to remember how its beams felt on her face. Had it ever really kissed her cheeks or had she simply imagined it? It had been so, so long.
The cold fingers tightened on her throat, constricting her breath, just as hers loosened on the ehru and her bow slipped, making the instrument whimper. Her eyes drifted closed, shutting out the untouchable sun.
Then, the cold fingers closed over her slender white hand where it rested silently on the ehru strings. Each icy finger guided one of hers over the strings, touching, letting go, holding fast, releasing. She glanced sidelong at the large, tanned hand that covered hers, directing her fingers from one mute note to another. She drew her bow, and the ehru moaned longingly. Long, thin, elegant fingers brushed over hers with the changing notes, the strings' vibration tingling where they touched each other.
Swept away by the lilting tones, she hardly noticed when her fingers moved on their own now, no longer guided by the gentle touch that drew a beautiful song from her to replace the sad one she always played.
So at peace, it hardly mattered to her that those fingers brushed her throat again. This was fine, she thought, as her body swayed languidly with the sweet song she played. This was like the sunshine. She wished for its beams to spirit her away in warmth, like the warmth of the hand on her throat, no longer cold and bloodless. The gentle fingers stroked up along her skin, tilting her chin skyward.
Hesitant, awkward lips trembled on hers before settling firmly over her mouth. Her song quieted and only the heated sounds of their captured breath disturbed the silence with a music of their own.
The kiss ended, and her lids drifted open to find piercing eyes the color of roses, watching her under a stormy brow.
"Have you come to kill me or capture me?" she asked again.
"I…I love you," he stammered sheepishly, his cheeks almost the color of his eyes. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.
She tried weakly to hide a giggle behind her hand, but she saw his face grow an even deeper shade of crimson.
"Then kill me because no man will ever own me," she challenged.
Her breath caught in her throat when a knife seemed to appear in his hand out of thin air.
He knelt at her side and slid the tip of the blade into the keyhole on the shackles that encircled her wrists, attached to a chain that tethered her to the wall.
As the cuffs fell away, he drew her reddened wrists to his lips and soothed them each with a kiss. She watched him curiously as he rose to his feet and turned away. Her brows drew together in confusion as he moved toward the door, his sleek, black ponytail swaying between his shoulder blades. He pulled the heavy door open, the loud creak echoing down the cavernous hallway outside.
"If you go now, there's no one outside to stop you," he said over his shoulder, not turning to look back at her. "But you don't have long before someone comes."
"You're setting me free?" she asked.
"I told you that I love you," he repeated, his back to her. He paused only a moment more before his black frame disappeared silently through the doorway.
She rose to her feet, the first time in far longer than she could remember that she didn't hear the rattle of chains when she moved. She took two steps toward the door, bracing herself for it to swing closed in her face and wake her from this dream. But it stood still, inanimate, asleep, like a drunken jailor dozing.
She crept passed it and stepped over the threshold into the hallway, the air leaving her lungs in one deep breath. She looked at her feet on the stone floor, different from the tiled floor in her cell. She smiled. Then she laughed. Her hand flew to her lips, trembling, and tears filled her eyes. She bit her lip and rushed forward, four quick steps down the hall, but then stopped.
Hesitantly, she turned back, returning to the doorway. Peering in from the outside, she thought how small and lonely the little room looked. Her eyes fell upon the abandoned ehru, left strewn upon the window seat, a pile of cuffs and chains spilling onto the floor beneath it. A strong breeze hummed across the strings, and she remembered the sweet song she had only just learned to play, and the warmth of his fingers and his lips.
Quickly, as though her feet were on fire, she forced herself to return over the threshold. She rushed across the room, panting in shallow breaths, her heart thudding in her chest. Her hands stretched out as far as she could reach to grab the ehru and bow, and she clutched the instrument to her like the precious child she knew she could never have.
Suddenly, screams and shouts echoed up from the garden below through the window that was no longer hers. Her heart leapt up in her throat and she leaned forward to peer down below. A black figure flashed through the garden maze, and wherever it paused, a body crumpled and blood seeped on the ground.
She turned and ran for the door, willing it, daring it, to stay open. With her ehru clutched to her heart, she vowed that no matter what awaited her on the other side, she would never be chained again.