Feng Quan’s failure didn’t go without reprimand.

When they arrived home, Swordmaster Feng Ban forced the defeated Quan to his knees below the old dove tree’s sea of ghost blossoms and placed a bowl of water in his pupil’s outstretched hands.

“Meditate on this for twenty-four hours, Quan, so you remember,” the long-haired swordmaster said before he left. “Next time you betray a snake, you better make sure you kill it.”

The blond man looked at the water with the shape of hate in his eyes when he heard the sound of his master’s voice so many hours ago. He looked at the water with the shape of hate in his eyes even now, in the dusky glow of the evening’s last light.

His hair once reflected the pastel shades of the sky in its colorless canvas. As the minutes moved past his stationary form, the pallor of Quan was doused in gradients of the shifty day cast by the sinking fire of a star whose raging fires seemed eternal. He, on occasion, thought himself eternal too—if not in body than in spirit, his commitment to a rage that simmered long within his bones and his guts like a plague worsened by the embarrassment he caused himself and his family in the arena that day. In truth, Quan was very hard on himself in private. He had great difficulty putting his stubborn posturing aside enough to let himself be vulnerable, even before the people who mattered to him the most.

He was proud even now, in the calm breath of his fury, dark eyes staring at the reflection of wan petals rustling above his head. Quan’s chin rose and he watched the stars in the darkening sky swell from the bloody cut of the horizon.

A girl dripped from the skywound’s rivulet and began to cross the courtyard. She walked with an ethereal grace with her red silk dress like a blood tract draft of talisman calligraphy in her wake across the courtyard stones. In truth, though she liked to think herself some immortal fae creature simply visiting the world of men, the visitor was simply Yila descending into the isolated courtyard garden with a tray: tea, broth, and wine. Even if her brother was too stubborn, too angry, too proud, he’d accept at least one of these clandestine offerings and drink it straight from her hand,

because no one in the world would ever love Yila like Quan,

and no one in the world could ever love Quan like Yila.

“Oh, Quan. Twenty-four hours is too much,” the blonde heiress said to her brother as she kneeled on the ground in front of him, tray set to the side. “You should’ve asked to get hit instead.”

“That’s the thing about punishment, Yila—” Quan’s focus shifted from far away to near, the sky to the beautiful girl kneeling before him. “It’s never anything you want or ask for.”

His gaze fell further, careful in its crawl down the length of that red dress to not offset his balance too much but also to, perhaps, savor the exquisite reprieve in such a sight. Gaze landing on the tray brought from the house, his muscles already ached in tandem. The wound given by Tian Xiaoxu was throbbing through the intricate overlay of skin along his abdomen down to the meat split by the argent bite of a blade.

“I will be okay,” the Feng son said, looking up again. “I can never truly be miserable with you near me. In fact, as I watch the beauty of your face traced by the light of the rising moon, I think that maybe this isn’t much of a punishment at all.”

“Even here you’ve got honey where your tongue should be.” She was a scarlet grin, tanager temper and ibis heart singing in time. Yila was always disrespectful of corporal punishment; moreso when Quan was tied up in its finger threads. She examined the pale hands holding the water dish as though she had an interest in the function of her brother’s perfect hands, the slight tremble he affected when she was close enough to watch his hair stand on end. “What do I give you? Tea, broth, or wine.”

“Tea.” Quan’s answer was quick, decision made before the question was even asked. “I want wine, but I fear it will make me tired and then Ban will wake me up with that caning you think I should want more than this.”

“You act as though I wouldn’t keep you awake,” the girl pouted before she left a scarlet kiss upon her brother’s wrist, garnet eyes flitting up to watch his face, curious gaze made black by moonlight. “Like I’d leave you here to suffer alone.”

She poured his tea with precision and came to rest at his side, one hand steadying his shoulder as the other came up between his arms to hold a jade and gold teacup to his lips.

In response, Quan tilted his chin up to drink, dark pupils watching his sister through lidded eyes turned her direction. He took the whole cup, adams apple shifting in a delicate swallow.

“I didn’t want to assume,” he replied, lips taken between his teeth in lieu of being able to dab them. “You know, there’s a fine line between exertion and exertion to the point of exhaustion. But anyway, I’m sorry that I couldn’t win that artifact for you, Yila. Thank you for cheering for me. I heard your voice calling out to me and it filled me with such confidence.”

“You frightened me,” she confided in turn, pulling her hand away to hold the teacup to her chest, warm against her exposed sternum. The girl looked down, lashes fluttering against her cheek as she recalled her sorrow. Gods how he’d torn her heart in two when he’d succumbed to Xiaoxu’s blade; she could still feel her own scream reverberating in her throat, bottled up in her lungs full of golden hornets. “No matter how many times I see you fall in arena, I can’t help responding like you’re actually going to die, like my brother has been taken from me. Every time. Do you know what the first thing I thought was?”

The blond man shook his head as he listened, silent through the slowly spreading melancholy of his expression worn heavy like the weight of an apology.

“How will he hear me say I love you when he wakes if his core is taken to Yunji?” Yila was a sentimental girl, overly affectionate, always seeking touch to calm her world on fire. Where her brother’s heart burned hot with rage and pride, Yila felt love too keen and too quick; behaved like losing even an ounce would leave her crippled and cold in the shadow of the mountain. “How will he ever sleep if I’m not there to kiss him goodnight?”

Quan’s eyes strayed to the side, opting for an angle away—not quite a blush, but a show of some modesty, a telltale display that his sister had hit a nerve. His eyebrows remained even, ever appraising his moments, her moments, together and apart.

“… I think the goodnight kisses are more for you,” he said after a brief silence, avoiding all possibility of the inevitable, whether it came in a flash or from waiting; avoiding all the responsibility of heartache it would cause that scarlet hearted vixen forever at his side. “I sleep just fine on my own.”

Sitting back on her heels, the girl examined her brother through narrowed eyes, reading him aloud like a pretty piece of poetry she discovered on some lost music scroll. “Do you lie for my benefit or for yours?”

“Oh, not you too.” He found her again, begging in the satin softness of his gaze returned, alluring lure of his carbon stare compressed until it was as handsome as a diamond. “My pride is so wounded, Yila. Let me have this one thing, please.”

Moving to replace the teacup on its tray, she resumed a position directly in front of this man she knew better than any other. She tilted her head to one side, then the other, thoughtful and radiant and teasing in the dark. “And the I love yous when you wake? Are those unnecessary too?”

“They’re necessary. It’s all necessary.” Quan dipped his chin now, apologetic. “I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve seen the error of my ways—if I am reluctant to compromise on any sound from you, then I should be so reluctant to compromise in affection. It’s necessary and… I’m sorry for worrying you earlier. I hope you would never have to follow my core to the mountain, but that’s not something I could ever promise or guarantee.”

Satisfied by Quan’s sudden about-face, Yila gracefully dipped under her brother’s punishment bowl and came up between his arms, one hand on each of his thighs to steady herself so she wouldn’t ruin his penalty’s form. Gently, she straightened until his arms rested on her shoulders to either side of her neck; she was happy to relieve some of the strain wreaking havoc on his defiant, aching arms.

“I know,” she replied playfully, nipping at his lip. “I don’t care where following you takes me. I’ll go.”

Quan, in return, kissed her in full, confident that this was a better apology than his voice was capable of giving, action infinitely louder than the volume of his words. His movement shook the bowl held behind his sister’s back, spilling a splash of water down the spine of her dress. And yet, he didn’t seem to notice this or care, leaning forward despite the sloshing basin, so readily defiant against all forms of punishment when his arms were wrapped around the exquisite form of his luckiest charm.

As soon as the frigid water hit her back, Yila yelped her surprise into Quan’s mouth. She pressed closer to his body like she could escape the water threatening overflow; she pressed deeper into his kiss like she could lose her whole world in him. She wrapped herself up in his heatsink body, indulged herself in his ceaseless fever dream and smiled.

Gods, maybe those goodnight kisses were for her.

“Hush. Don’t give me away,” Quan whispered between his affections, lips a grin like he could get away with this oversight and his master would be none the wiser for the loss of those rivulets running down the spaces he so wished his fingers could follow. “Look at the house and tell me if you see light, tell me if you think father has taken Ban to bed yet.”

With her fingers running down his chest in glissando lines till she caught his belt, the lucky heiress whispered her responses straight to her lover’s mouth, unwilling to part with him for even the breath it’d take to communicate properly.

“They’re already asleep,” Yila promised. She didn’t even gripe that Quan thought she hadn’t checked already, that she hadn’t spent her allowance bribing servants to stand watch outside the Feng patriarch’s bedroom, ready to cause a ruckus if they heard the masters of the house stir. “Alarms are all set.”

“Mm, good. Now help me sit down this bowl,” he pleaded in an exhale, lips departing from the girls’ to adorn her jawline, dip further onto the curve of her neck to trace that gentle slope with the sweetness of his mouth. “I don’t want to have to refill it. I’ve been thinking about you all day and I don’t want to be disadvantaged unless you really, really want me to be.”

“No disadvantages,” Yila confirmed as she pulled away, reluctant fingers dragging along the cloth draped over Quan’s legs as she departed from his shape, loathe to let him go. Carefully, she took the bowl from her brother’s hands and set it softly on a large flat stone next to her tray, spilling only the smallest bit of water as it sloshed itself to rest. She was coy, then, almost demure; she turned back toward the man she’d set free and teased him in lilts, taunted him with the audacity of distance.

“Thinking of me all day?” she smiled, somehow both innocent and crude in the duochrome moment. “I wonder what sort of thoughts could occupy you for so long.”

“I think you’re a clever enough girl to figure it out.” Quan’s arms stretched out to quickly snatch Yila by the perfect curve of her beautiful wrists and return her to his proximity—right where she should be, nearest to him more than anyone or anything else. From her wrists, his touch traveled up her arms, over her shoulders and down her back, tracing along the dip of her waistline.

“Surely you didn’t come out here just to talk me through the night, right?” Quan was close to Yila’s ear, colorless hair spilling over his shoulder and onto the red slipway of her own.

Head tilting back, Yila was all scarlet grin, all carmine smile—she settled astride Quan’s lap, layers of red silk riding up her thighs, warm like the memory of the sun in the cold comfort of night. “I beg your every golden word,” she taunted, lithe arms draped over his shoulders, snaking about his neck. When she arched into his bend, that lucky charm sighed, so content: she knew what perfection felt like and this was it. Her sigh became a purr, her purr a growl, low like candlelight on the horizon. “But I know the kind of night talks you like, you fucking marauder, and I’m happy to practice your language.”