"Chu Da Ren!"
"Xing'er!"
"Da Fu Ren!"
Chu Qiao returned the various greetings with a pleasant yet alert nod, glad to be greeting servants and soldiers alike yet unwilling to be distracted from her mission. The Xiulis may have been able to provide her with a set of armor that could accommodate her growing body, but they couldn't invent a way for her to be able to clandestinely hop a wall while heavily pregnant.
In lieu of sneaking over to Red Hills for training, she'd taken to patrolling Green Hills every morning just to make sure that everything was okay. There was, after all, no such thing as too much security. Besides, how many people knew all of the twisty, secret paths of Green Hills as well as she did?
Her heart panged as she remembered a young, boyish Feng Mian telling her that Yan Xun had instructed him to find the most secret, hidden path in Green Hills because that's where she would be. She was forced to admit that she still had an affinity for the shadows, but what good would she do by patrolling in the sunlight? Gripping Can Hong Jian tighter in her hand, she left the beaten path and walked along the wall, heading towards her favorite wall-jumping spot out of habit.
She knew that patrolling wasn't necessary, even for exercise. After the first day that she'd been unable to scamper over the wall, Yuwen Yue had taken her to their own practicing area the next morning. He'd told her that pregnancy was no excuse for laziness and had then proceeded to take her through every single drill that she'd been "secretly" doing with the Xiulis in the exact same order. Chu Qiao had expected him to be angry with her for sneaking away, but her husband had never given any other indication that he knew or cared about her early-morning excursions.
In fact, he'd been quite attentive during the archery drills. He'd seemed to think that her technique had been lacking and that the solution was to demonstrate the proper methods while holding her close just as he'd done years ago. Chu Qiao didn't think that she'd learned much more about archery, but she'd cheerfully acknowledged to herself that there were worse ways to spend a morning—especially when you were heavily pregnant.
They'd been doing these same drills together at the same time ever since, and she knew that she'd have just enough time to finish her patrol before reporting to the practice field. A younger her would've chafed at what she would've seen as evidence of Yuwen Yue's overbearing interference in her life, but the more mature, experienced Chu Qiao saw her husband's actions as just one more example of the myriad big and small ways he had of taking care of her. The fact that he not only knew about her sneaking off to be with the Xiulis but understood her need for it in the first place warmed the heart that a lot of people would've sworn she didn't have.
Not that she cared about what any of those people thought; they weren't her people, so they weren't her responsibility. Her concept of what constituted "her people" had shifted as radically over the past couple of years as had her definitions of "home" and "family." For the first time in her life, she was living the life that she wanted to live rather than the life that others wanted her to live.
As she neared her spot, her senses jangled a warning. She didn't give any outward sign that anything was wrong in case someone was watching, but she did her best to sharpen her senses as she'd been trained to do. There was something on the wind, something out of place. A smell...something familiar, but she couldn't figure it out. Of course, her sense of smell had been off for months thanks to her pregnancy, so she couldn't trust her nose anyway.
A slight rustling sound on the other side of the wall met her ears, so she waddled behind a tree near the wall with some bushes that had grown up at its base. The foliage provided excellent cover, which was why she always jumped over the wall from this side but always returned via another part of the wall. Sneaking around was no good if you gave someone the opportunity to bushwhack you, after all.
A black-clad figure vaulted over the wall with the same sort of effortless grace that she'd possessed only a few months ago. In spite of the extra weight she was carrying, Chu Qiao had Can Hong Jian unsheathed and at the figure's throat by time it had turned around. To her shock, she found herself with a sword at her own throat and a familiar face staring back at her.
"What's the princess of Yanbei doing trying to sneak into my home?" Chu Qiao asked the figure without removing her blade.
"What's the pregnant Da Fu Ren of Green Hills Courtyard doing hiding behind bushes?" the woman calmly replied while also leaving her sword at Chu Qiao's neck.
Male voices and the sound of footsteps suddenly sounded as Yuwen Yue and Yue Qi appeared on the path, talking about security rotations and the latest news from Chang'an. Both women stood frozen as the men walked on the small path near them, expecting the men to acknowledge their presence. Instead, both men continued on, surely able to see the women but making no attempt to look at them.
The two men disappeared around a bend in the pathway, and their voices faded away. The two women looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, and sheathed their swords.
"I'm going to get him for that tonight," Chu Qiao muttered.
"Maybe he's just so used to seeing you holding a sword at someone's throat that he doesn't even pay attention when you do it."
Chu Qiao made a show of glaring at the woman, but her baleful stare was without heat.
"Since my husband is obviously busy, you may as well finish this patrol with me."
"How do you know I'm coming to see your husband?"
"Who else would you be coming to see? Yue Qi? Me?"
"I've actually missed Yue Qi's sense of humor. Now yours, on the other hand..."
"I think you're here to report to my husband about the state of Yanbei and you want as few people as possible to know about your presence here. Not that I can blame you for your caution."
Meng Feng inclined her head in acknowledgment and Chu Qiao started walking along the wall. To say that she and the striking ex-assassin had gotten off on the wrong foot would be an understatement, but they'd somewhat warmed up to each other during that hectic, stressful period after the icy lake but before peace between Yanbei and Wei had been officially established.
"While I logically know that I'd likely be reasonably safe traveling out in the open, old habits die hard. We might be at peace, but there will always be people on both sides who resent me and my husband for the things we've done."
"I know. Under other circumstances, I would've been one of them."
"Your acceptance of him as the ruler of Yanbei in the wake of Yan Xun's death helped a lot, though—especially in Hongchuan and in at least some of the army."
"But not in other quarters."
"No, but that's politics."
Chu Qiao scrunched up her face.
Meng Feng chuckled.
"I get exposed to enough politics just by being the Da Fu Ren of Yuwen Yue."
"I'm sure that none of your previous identities have anything to do with your involvement in politics."
"Actually, most people don't want me to get involved in politics because of who I used to be."
"Chaos does tend to happen."
"It's not like I ever wanted to be any sort of political figure. I just wanted to help my people."
"Which you've managed to do by largely stepping away from politics."
"I can't even resent you for that," Chu Qiao said, shaking her head slightly. "I always expected other people to deal with me the way I was dealing with them, so I never saw their deceit until it was too late. Yuwen Yue, on the other hand-"
"-was born to craft years-long plans that almost always succeed. You're a perfect example of that."
Bad memories flashed through Chu Qiao's mind.
"Not so perfect," she whispered, almost forgetting Meng Feng's presence.
"I know he wouldn't agree."
"So how many assassination attempts on Yuan Song have you stopped so far?"
Meng Feng seemed to accept the change of subject gracefully and gave a feral grin.
"Nowhere near as many as there used to be."
"Have the arrow traps done their job?"
Meng Feng grinned again.
"I'll take that as a yes. You had them cast as dragon heads, right?"
"Yes. They look very fearsome. Yuan Song's shoulders straighten every time he walks between them when they're turned off."
Chu Qiao smiled softly.
"I can imagine that."
"When we wanted to demonstrate the new traps for the servants, he used a scarecrow that we'd made together earlier that day. He gleefully tossed it down the hall to show the servants what would happen if anyone tried to walk down the halls near our rooms during the night. Sometimes people don't know what to make of his sense of humor."
"Well, the first time I met him, I threw him into a pond and then lied about my identity, so I can't really say anything."
"He still talks about that," Meng Feng said, smiling wistfully. "That and the time he convinced you to take a ride with him on Yan Xun's horse."
"That was...looking back, that seems like it was such a simpler time, but it wasn't, really. So much was going on beneath the surface that I didn't even know about. How could I have known? I was just Xing'er, silver bell and bedchamber of Yuwen Yue."
"Were you ever really just Xing'er?"
Chu Qiao stopped walking since they were about to come back to the main part of the Courtyard and she didn't want either of them to be seen yet.
"I've been so many different people that I don't really even think about who I am anymore. I call myself Chu Qiao because that's my given name, but to my husband and the people who were at Green Hills when I was a servant here, I'm Xing'er. To the newer servants, I'm Da Fu Ren. To the Xiulis, I'm Chu Da Ren. There are a few people who would still call me Xiaoliu or A'Chu. I used to care so much about what people called me, but now? None of that matters because I know who I am regardless of what names and titles others use."
"You could've been princess of Yanbei had things gone differently."
Chu Qiao was silent for several moments as different emotions and thoughts warred within her.
"If Wei were to fall tomorrow and Yuwen Yue and I were to lose Green Hills, I have no doubt whatsoever that we would be able to go somewhere else and build a new place together, he and I. Together, there's nothing that we couldn't do. If he became king somewhere, I'm confident that I'd do a solid job of ruling at his side as his queen. There's nowhere I wouldn't follow him, nothing I wouldn't do for him, no measure I wouldn't take to protect him. I'd have complete trust in him to be a just and fair ruler. But Yan Xun..."
She lapsed into silence again, staring off into the middle distance.
"You know, right before we all ended up at that icy lake, he asked me if I'd ever loved him. At that time, I didn't have any idea what love was, and I told him so. But after...and now..."
Chu Qiao laid her hand over her unborn child, looked around Green Hills Courtyard, and grasped Can Hong Jian tightly in her hand.
"Now you know."
"Now I know."
A servant girl stepped onto the path in front of them and greeted her with a quick "Da Fu Ren," bringing Chu Qiao firmly back to the present. She and Meng Feng started walking forward again.
"It's almost time for my daily training session with Yuwen Yue. If you want to do some drills yourself, you're welcome to come."
"Somehow I doubt that Yuwen Yue's teaching methods are the same for you as they would be for me."
"I have to admit that he takes a very...hands-on approach to teaching me the finer points of archery."
"Yuan Song likes to watch my sword drills so that he can 'evaluate and critique' them. Sometimes he even pays attention to what I'm doing with the sword."
"I'm glad he has you to protect him," Chu Qiao said seriously.
Meng Feng's hand tightened on her own black and silver sword and an expression crossed her face that Chu Qiao understood all too well.
"I think I'll take you up on your offer after all," she said. "You can never practice too much."
Memories of wielding Po Yue Jian on the ice in a frantic effort to save Yuwen Yue assailed her.
"No, you can't."
Greetings rang out as Chu Qiao and Meng Feng were both recognized. The house guards surrounded Meng Feng and quickly whisked her away to go train with them.
That's just as well, Chu Qiao thought, smirking as the practice area and Yuwen Yue came into view. I don't want anything to cause my husband to change his training techniques.