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“There is no comparison between Xifeng and me,” Mistress Vy said in her calm, low voice. “She was a senseless, depraved woman obsessed with her own beauty. I was creating something greater than myself, a medicine that would decimate illness and outlive us all.”
Bao listened in disbelief. He had yearned for this woman all his life and dreamed of her as a kind, loving mother, but it had been no more than a lonely child’s fancy. Even after all the death and destruction that her ambition had caused, she still had the nerve to think of herself as some kind of hero. “The roots of your intention may have been good,” he said quietly. “But you chose to water them with blood. I wish you had listened to me, Mother. I wish you had surrendered and found another way to help, one that would neither hurt nor kill others. I would have supported you if you had. We might have had a home; we...” His throat thickened with tears, and he blinked, looking away.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, my son,” Mistress Vy said, her voice nolonger as steady as it had been a moment before. “But you are a fool for wishing I were anyone other than myself.”
He swallowed hard. “I wonder if you said that to my father before you had your guards kill him,” he said, his heart aching. “I wonder if you ever asked yourself why both he and your sister wanted to leave you. I wonder if it ever hurt you to know that the life you chose meant that you would always be alone. I think I will always miss you, but maybe that’s better than having you.”
Mistress Vy’s eyes glistened for a moment as she looked at him in silence.
Huong put her hand on Bao’s shoulder. “It’s over now. But I’m not certain she deserves death,” she said, looking at the General. “I want her to rot in a prison somewhere, haunted by the misery of her own failure. I would like to speak to Commander Wei about this.”
“You may get your chance sooner than you think,” the man replied, nodding behind her.
A group of soldiers were marching in tight formation through the smoking gap in the wall, pulling a wagon slowly after them. Several of them were women of the Crimson Army, and Bao recognized Wren walking at the front. Her eyes met Bao’s, but she did not return his smile. As she came closer, he saw that her face was drawn with grief and worry. “General Yee,” she said, and the man came forward, his brow furrowed. “The Commander... he fell...”
Behind her, on the wagon pulled by the soldiers, Bao saw two bodies. One of them wore the armor of the Great Forest, dented and stained black with smoke and char. The firelight gleamed off the man’s shaven head and the sharp slopes of his nose and jaw.
“No!” Lan cried, and she and Lord Nguyen hurried forward. “Commander Wei and... and Lady Yen, no!”
The second body was small and slender, draped in what Bao recognized as the cloak that the Commander had lent him. Long black hair streamed out around a thin, drawn face, eyes closed.
Bao ran to the wagon with the General right behind him.
“They’re still alive, sir, but barely,” one of the soldiers reported. “Lady Yen came with a piece of intelligence she acquired from someone named Huong. Three ships had been moored off the coast all this time, loaded with a protected supply of drugs and the plants used to make them. The Commander took a company of men and women with him at once to sink the vessels.”
General Yee gave a curt nod. “Go on.”
“The ships were manned by Gray City guards and rigged with poison. Bombs containing a potent formulation of the drug, which took out more than half of the Commander’s people,” the soldier said. “Commander Wei was badly hurt in the skirmish, as was Her Ladyship, who insisted on coming with him, but our forces still managed to destroy two of the vessels.”
“And the third?” the General asked sharply.
“It escaped, but our forces are trailing it and hope to overtake it before dawn. It will be found and burned, just like the others.”
The whole time they had been talking, Bao had climbed onto the wagon to assess the couple’s injuries. Lady Yen had a shallow cut on her arm and a mean-looking bruise on her forehead, suggesting she had been knocked unconscious, but Bao was glad to see that she was breathing normally. Commander Wei, however, had a deep cut running from his temple to his neck and a deep sword wound in his right side. Judging from the way it was bleeding, Bao did not think it had struck any important organs, but this was not a job for a physician’s apprentice, and he told Wren as much when she leaned over the wagon anxiously.
“The Imperial war surgeon is working in one of the outer rings of the city,” one of the soldiers said, overhearing Bao. “He’s been sent for at once and will be here shortly.”
“I’ll help him when he comes, but until then, I’ll do what I can. Will you help me remove his armor, Wren?” Bao asked, and together they gently stripped the Commander of his heavy breastplate and weapons, laying them to one side.
“What supplies can I bring you from the wagon?” Lan asked. Her lips had turned white at the sight of all the Commander’s blood, but her face was alert and voice steady, and Bao loved her all the more for it. She ran off as soon as he named what he required and he tried to stanch the Commander’s bleeding, pressing a cloth into the man’s side.
Beside him, Lady Yen was beginning to stir.
“Perhaps we ought to move her before she sees him,” Bao suggested to Wren and the soldiers, but it was already too late, for the noblewoman’s eyes had opened, and the first thing she saw was Commander Wei, lying prone and bleeding profusely beside her.
“No,” Lady Yen whispered. “Wei...” She tried to sit up and closed her eyes against the dizziness, her face green.
“Don’t move, Yen. You’ve had quite a head injury,” Wren advised, but the noblewoman ignored her warning and slid closer to the Commander, her eyes brimming with tears.
“It’s better if you don’t look, Lady Yen,” Bao told her, as she gasped at the cloths in his hands, stained bright red from pressing against Commander Wei’s side. “He’s alive, and a war surgeon is coming. Don’t worry.” But he knew he might as well have told the moon to stop shining, for the woman was sobbing brokenly as she looked at the Commander’s motionless face. Lan ran back with all of the items Bao had asked for, and their eyes met, remembering the similar moment they had shared in the infirmary.
Bao began dressing the wound as best he could, holding it together before the surgeon came, and saw Lord Nguyen appear at his elbow. His face held nothing but genuine sorrow as he watched the woman he should have married embracing her lover, and he rose even more highly in Bao’s estimation when he asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Perhaps you could bring some water for Lady Yen,” he said, and Lord Nguyen nodded and moved off at once as Bao ripped up cloth after cloth. He heard Lady Yen gasp and looked up to see the Commander’s eyes fluttering open. His gaze swept from Bao to the noblewoman lying beside him, her hair streaming around them both.
“I knew you wouldn’t dare leave me, Wei,” Lady Yen said fiercely, choking on a sob. “I knew you wouldn’t dare go without telling me what you owe me.”
“What could I possibly owe you?” the Commander whispered.
