Shen Xiang listened to the doctors’ hurried chatter, trying to parse what had happened to set them into such a frenzy.
The envoys themselves enjoyed good health—they wouldn’t have been sent on such a journey otherwise—so the doctors had been attending to her almost exclusively. Upset stomachs, headaches, the occasional bruise; none of them worried the doctors. This panic meant something truly dangerous had occurred, but nobody would say what or who.
Shen Xiang caught something about Fan-daren and Yan-gongzi, and her heart tightened at those words even as she tried to understand how either man could have been so seriously harmed.
She couldn’t remember hearing any sounds of battle, and her injury meant she slept lightly enough that the clash of blades would wake her. Shen Xiang had also seen the skill Fan-daren and his closest guards could wield; her brother’s forces had found it challenging to overcome them, even with the advantage of surprise. Shen Xiang did not think that the forces of Qing were any less competent.
That left treachery.
Shen Xiang did not know who, or how, would betray Fan-daren and Yan-gongzi, but it felt more plausible than any other answer to how they would be harmed.
She carefully turned herself so she could see the entrance to the medical tent. Shen Xiang knew the doctors would hide the procedures themselves from her delicate sensibilities, but she still needed to know who was coming, and see something of what had happened to them.
It took long minutes for the flaps to open, and Shen Xiang held back her gasp. Gao Da stumbled through, face swollen and barely on his own feet with his chest sliced open.
As he passed by, so did the doctors’ concerns.
Nobody followed.
Shen Xiang’s chest tightened. She knew she was half a prisoner. She knew people did not like telling her anything. She knew she had barely any right to ask.
And yet.
Shen Xiang called out softly, “Doctor Zhang?”
The elder woman who cared for her had certainly not expected to be tending to a gravely wounded young lady on this trip; she had come to ensure that there were no worries for Si Lili’s health. But she was kind, in a brusque way, and Shen Xiang appreciated her skill. “Shen-xiaojie?” she asked, coming to Shen Xiang’s side. “Did you need something?”
“What’s happening?” Shen Xiang asked, gesturing towards the surgery area. “Are we safe?”
Doctor Zhang sucked air over her teeth and frowned at her. “You shouldn’t be worrying about such things, Shen-xiaojie. No trouble is here for you.”
She had expected that answer; it didn’t make it easier to hear. It also did not dissuade her. “Are Fan-daren and Yan-gongzi safe?”
Doctor Zhang looked away, silent, and that was answer enough.
Shen Xiang smiled bitterly, and asked for more medicine for her pain. That it was for her heart and not the wound piercing her through did not need to be said.
The convoy didn’t move that day.
Shen Xiang slept through most of it, because she could. No matter how well-crafted the carriage, it still bumped and jolted and hurt too much for her to sleep well, even drugged.
She woke, in the afternoon, to a clatter of hooves and shouts, and blearily opened her eyes to see Fan-daren carried into the medical tents. Yan-gongzi followed him, limping and pale as he’d been in her brother’s dungeon but still on his own feet.
Abruptly awake, she pushed herself up into a painful sitting position.
Yan-gongzi’s eyes flickered to her, and his jaw tensed. He shook his head once, sharply, and then turned away to follow Fan-daren to the surgery.
Shen Xiang laid back down, and wondered what message he had wanted to convey.
“Shen-xiaojie,” she heard, and realised she’d fallen asleep again.
Shen Xiang opened her eyes, and saw Yan-gongzi’s familiar face. He smiled at her, ever so slightly. “I’m sorry for disturbing your rest,” he said, very quietly, and his eyes flickered to the side.
She followed his gaze, and saw Doctor Zhang’s silhouette behind the curtain. Secrets, she understood. “I’m always happy to see Yan-gongzi,” she said, just as softly, and raised her hand towards his face. Let the doctors assume they were sharing intimacies; there was truth enough in those assumptions.
He caught her hand in his, as she’d expected, but didn’t immediately let it go. That, she hadn’t expected, and her pulse sped up at the continued contact. “Did we worry you?” he asked, and this time his head tilted the other way.
“You did.” Shen Xiang let her honest fear color her words as she glanced over and saw another bed set up behind curtains. “What happened?”
Yan-gongzi grimaced. Behind that expression was something else, which she knew and had slowly started to read over his time in her brother’s care. Secrets. Things he would not say. “An ambush,” he said, very curtly. “A kidnapping attempt. We are very thankful to the Second Prince’s forces; they were riding to meet our convoy and rescued us from the bandits.”
His fingers traced Do not trust him on her palm, and Shen Xiang shivered. “I must pay my respects to him and his men when I am recovered,” she said. If flirting as a cover was what he allowed himself, she would take every inch he gave.
“Xie Bi’an is a very accomplished swordsman, and an intimate of the Prince’s,” came Yan-gongzi’s voice. His fingers reinforced his speech: Dangerous. “I will introduce you, when the politics have settled.”
“I look forward to the day.” Carefully, she wrote, Are you safe? on his palm.
He shook his head. Negation, a refusal to answer; she couldn’t tell. “Rest,” he said, and leaned close as he set her hand back on the bed. She knew it gave the image of him kissing her forehead, in silhouette, and wished he would make that illusion real. “I have already stolen too much of your time.”
“I will always make time for you, Yan-gongzi,” she murmured, meeting his eyes and willing him to see that she would keep his secrets safe.
Yan-gongzi stood, and looked down at her with an expression that Shen Xiang doubted anyone else would consider soft. But snow was gentler than ice, and so she understood nonetheless: Once he had locked himself away from the safety of his own country’s politics, trusting her was better than trusting nobody at all.
So Shen Xiang smiled at him, and watched him go, and hoped.
Trust took time to build, but this was a better start than she had dared to dream.
(It was a shame it had only come from violence, and Yan-gongzi having no other choice.)