The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 356: Fires That Burn

"Useful." The word landed heavy in the space between them. He didn’t apologize for it and didn’t try to explain it away.

"Useful where," she teased.

"Where I’m set down." He turned his head just enough to make it a real conversation. "You set me by the Emperor. That’s the post. So I hold it. I don’t want a prettier one."

She considered that, then nodded. "Good."

A runner reached the base of the wall and didn’t make the mistake of shouting.

He waited until a posted guard noticed him and then sent the message hand to hand the way rivers pass buckets.

It reached Longzi without noise. He scanned it once.

"Kiln bend sealed," he reported. "Two rope boys reassigned to Aunt Ping’s command. She’s never been so happy."

"She will be insufferable," Xinying replied, but there was warmth under it.

He set the slip on the parapet and watched a gull eye him like a critic. "The Jackal will test again."

"I would expect nothing less."

"He’ll bring someone who looks like a priest."

"I’ll bring a broom."

He nodded, satisfied with the plan. It was a good plan.

Most good plans in this palace seemed to end with Aunt Ping and a broom.

He admired that fact and that woman more than he intended to say.

A cloud crawled in from the west.

The light shifted; the river put on a colder face. Down in the inner court, Mingyu crossed a threshold with a junior minister bracketed at his side.

The boy talked like floodwater; Mingyu let him. Every third step, the Emperor said a word that turned the flood into irrigation.

"Your husband," Longzi said out of the blue.

"What about him."

"He’s better at boredom than I expected."

"Boredom is war by other means," Xinying replied.

He accepted that and filed it next to doors and rope. "He wants us alive."

"I know."

"I want you alive," he said, and for the first time, he didn’t phrase it like a duty. He phrased it like an oath.

She didn’t answer. She finished the ginger and set the cup on the stone between them, careful, as if cups were worth not breaking.

"You brought a veteran to our meeting in the alley behind the kiln," she said after a time. "He stood fifty paces back and didn’t breathe wrong once."

"Chen," Longzi said. "He knows how to be part of a wall."

"Does he know you’re part of mine."

"He knows my orders." He adjusted his stance. The movement made something in his shoulder complain. He ignored it. "He also knows I ignore my mother."

"I know that too." The wind found the hem of her sleeve again. He fixed it with the same quick efficiency. She let him again.

"Why me," he asked, not fishing, not humble. A soldier’s question. If you understand the order, you execute it better.

"Because you don’t need praise to work," she said. "Because you argue once and then you obey. Because you are willing to bleed for a man you didn’t choose without making me listen to speeches about loyalty. Because you tell me when I’m wrong and then you fix it when I don’t change my mind. Because you don’t flinch when a woman tells you where to stand."

He took it all without flinch. He looked back at the river. "All right," he said.

The word arranged itself between them into something simple and strong.

That was the thing about romance.

Not all fires burned hot and bright. Many times, those were the fires that burned out too fast, leaving you with nothing but ash and a bad taste in your mouth.

Xinying didn’t want a romance like that. She didn’t want to look for men like that.

To her, she wanted a romance that started only as a tiny spark. One of interest, of common ground. If the two of them decided to fan it properly, then it would turn into a burning blaze just like any other.

But when it finally burnt down, and all fires did, there would still be that interest, still that common ground.

That was what she wanted.

That was what she deserved.

Below them, Shadow burst into the courtyard like a small storm and then stopped dead, deciding this moment didn’t require heroism.

Lin Wei followed at a human pace, boots double-knotted, wooden sword in one hand, pear slice in the other. Yizhen trailed, carrying nothing, yet somehowcarrying the whole street anyway. He glanced up once, found them on the wall, and offered a two-finger salute that meant he’d heard there would be soup.

"Yizhen will bait him," Longzi said.

"He will," Xinying agreed.

"He’ll do it pretty."

"He will," she agreed again.

"I’ll take the ugly corners," Longzi said.

"You’re good at them."

"Someone should be."

A patrol turned beneath the wall. Halberds upright. Steps even. New brass lantern hooks flared briefly as the sun blinked.

"Your fiancée is a clerk now," Xinying observed, not a question.

"She isn’t my fiancée," he said. "And she’s learning to count under Aunt Ping. Aunt says she’s stubborn and that if stubbornness were soap the laundry would be clean without water."

"She’ll live," Xinying predicted.

"She will," he said, because he’d seen enough men die to know when someone wouldn’t.

They let the quiet stand again. It wasn’t awkward. It had weight, like a shield set down between drills.

"Do you want me close tonight," he asked. Plain.

"Yes," she said. Equally plain. "East corridors. Third bell."

He nodded. "Done."

She tipped her head. "You don’t ask why."

"Does it matter."

"Sometimes," she said.

He looked at her, measured the answer he’d give a general against the one he owed her. "Then tell me."

"Because the Jackal thinks he understands which doors make us nervous," she replied. "I want him to find out he was one corridor off."

"Good," he said. "We’ll teach him to count better then."

She pushed off the parapet first. He fell in a half-step behind, same distance, same line.

Like with Yaozu, there was something comforting... knowing that he was just behind her.

The spark had been lit. And every step forward, the flame was being fanned.

And Xinying was content.