“Psst.”

A sharp hiss of breath echoed over the open space of the training yard cordoned off for Xueyu’s elite disciples.

“Psst!”

It rang out again, impatiently cutting through the calm mountain air and elevation-thinned atmosphere. The being the noise was coming from was a tall, lean girl whose hair was as pale as the mist that oft suffocated the mountain overnight. She leaned over the edge of a railing built to demarcate the area, watching the shape of a boy move across the circle of lawn that no longer grew grass. A smaller, solid form shifted around him, darting to and fro in a familiar pattern of avoidance. The lithe girl’s keen eyes, bright and wide in the growing evening, followed this excitement with great interest.

“I’M TIRED, IDIOT,” a small black cat spat at her keeper in the ragged voice of a woman, stopping and huffing like something made of numinous energies could really know what anything she was saying meant—she didn’t but she heard plenty of humans say that they were tired as an excuse for their laziness and thought it sounded really good. “TIAO TELL HIM I’M TIRED!”

“I think she’s tired, Lai,” the blonde girl repeated, easily acquiescing to the creature’s furious demand.

“She’s a fucking sword spirit, she doesn’t get tired.” Laike, after so many years, was keen to his sword’s tricks. Impatient, the boy snatched the rebellious feline up in a snap of stray shadows and she appeared like a swirl of black magic in his hands, caught by the yowling scruff. He held her up to his face, just out of clawing range. “And even if you did get tired, Xiao Maomi—” He made a point to poke at her belly, punctuating his words. “—maybe you oughta stop running around and just be a fucking sword so I can finish my training and we can both go to sleep!”

The beast spat syllables of incomprehensible darkness through her teeth at the youth, unwilling to let him have his victory without a couple more rounds of squirming.

“Oh, you’re going to just go to bed when you’re done?” Tiao leaned forward further, long hair falling to frame her face. “Are you sure? The Tian Princes are here. I thought you might want to go say hi with me.” Her grin curled, excited to meet the gaggle of royals that showed up on their doorstep.

“What.” Laike, distracted, immediately dropped his incoherent and uncooperative cat-sword on the ground. He finally looked up at Jiling’s pale haired disciple, effectively stolen from his evening’s practice with one simple phrase. “Both of them? When did they arrive?”

Something twisted nervous in Laike’s chest; he swallowed hard.

“Yeah, both of them. Also the noble Ren Li and the inlayer Hua Jin. Four altogether.” Tiao counted off her fingers as she spoke, waving them at the boy during the grand total. She then turned her sharp sight down from Laike, watching the weapon-beast gallop her way, hop up on the fence, and sit. “They just got here a little bit ago. You okay over there?”

“Y-yeah,” the boy replied, suddenly too close, right next to his blonde informant and her too sharp eyes. Grabbing her by the hand, he waxed incredulous, like his eagerness to join her in greeting the party was mere curiosity at the outside world’s encroachment rather than any personal desire to see one outsider in particular. “I’m okay. Of course I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“Yep, I’m good.” The girl smiled wide, pushing off the fence at her friend’s insistence. Likewise, Yingxi jumped down, but her paws never made it to the ground—she dissipated in a swirl of night, particulate smoke and heavy soot finding its way back into the gem implanted into the young fighter’s wrist.

“What’re the royals like, Lai?” Tiao looked aside to the dark-haired disciple. “I hope I don’t mess up some protocol in front of them. Oh, I will be so embarrassed.” For a moment, the girl’s hands framed her round cheeks. She was an expressive thing, easily read for her worldly worries.

“The older one is Tian Xiaoxu. He is elegant, charismatic and personable, the prime picture of a king in waiting. Gracious but not stuck up or removed from the people; willing to fight but not cruel,” Laike replied, mostly discussing the older prince based on Xueyu’s opinion of him. He’d hardly spent any time with the eldest Tian, after all. Laike was thinking hard on the words he could use to describe Yuhui without giving himself completely away, strolling at Tiao’s side with their hands still linked as he spoke. “The younger… Tian Yuhui, he’s really genuine, plagued by manifestations of chaos his whole life but he’s still kind and generous despite the people being afraid of him because of his haunting. He’s so…” —beautiful. Laike sighed before he caught himself, straightening up and pressing his lips together. “He is very considerate, always thinking about the state of others before himself. I spent most of my time in Fanxing with him. I like him a lot.”

“They sound so nice,” the girl mused thoughtfully, letting Laike briefly lead as she looked off in her distraction. “Mistress Jiling says a lot of nice things about them too, and the Weis seemed to really like their sister, the princess. You’re lucky that you get to go to Fanxing to see them.” After a moment, Tiao glanced aside, astuteness learned from the lady whose eyes missed nothing, whose ears heard all sounds. Her grin grew sharp above her chin, clever like a fox. “I guess you do like him a lot if you’re over here sighing like that.”

“Shutup,” the shadowstalker grumbled, ears going red at the call-out. “I’m not sighing because I like him, I’m sighing because this is redundant. You’re about to meet them anyways, why ask me questions like that?”

Laike turned away from Tiao to hide his scarlet blush with the cover of night. Everyone on Yunji knew when he used to look at Chen with shy stars in his eyes; would everyone see the way he looked at Yuhui too?

“Jeez, Lai. Is it a crime to be prepared? To want to know what you’re walking into?” She bumped the boy’s shoulder with her own, voice augmented by the lilt of a playful tease. “I just wanted to get your opinion, you know. Since we’re friends and I trust your thoughts on various things more than other people’s thoughts on those same things. The Weis liking someone could mean anything and sometimes it’s hard to tell if Mistress Jiling is just being diplomatic. You’re honest. You don’t lie about stuff.”

“You’re gonna turn to gross mush when you meet the older one,” Laike replied in a strident taunt between smiling teeth. He looked back to the girl at his side, scrunching his nose at her. “Try’n make fun of my sighs then when you’ve got your own prince to sigh about, Tiao.”

“I’m not sighing because I like him,” Tiao mimicked quickly, voice a terrible impression of the friend at her shoulder. “I heard that they might be staying a minute, that they brought some things with them. I hope we get the chance to get to talk with them outside of whatever business they’re here for.”

Laike let his companion’s awful impersonation slide because his mind was occupied by the lingering memory of Yuhui’s confident touch, Yuhui’s trembling voice, Yuhui’s smirk-streaked mouth. He sighed fondly and caught himself once more. He forced a scowl onto his sharp features, inwardly cursing his inability to behave with any sort of subterfuge despite the tireless coaching of both Weis, Yingxi, and even, to some degree, Lady Jiling. The boy was hopeless.

“Just… don’t tell Master Xueyu, okay?” Laike leaned into the girl’s shoulder, relenting to the truth of all that sighing. “He doesn’t think I should be thinking so fondly of Tian Yuhui.”

Tiao’s grin settled into the gentleness of a smile, fond of that boy she considered something like a brother in their duties so frequently parallel, like those of Lady Jiling and her master of swords. As they began to close in on the small crowd growing for their visitors, she picked up their pace into a jog, pulling Laike now by his hand to the front of their inner complex.

“You know I wouldn’t give you up, Lai,” the blonde girl looked back, ebullient, “Your secret’s safe with me.”