62: The Eve
The night before the final was clear.
Su Yan walked out of the embassy at the second hour past dusk, in his ordinary plain dark-blue robe, with no escort, in the unmarked courier carriage Cousin Su Lin had quietly arranged. He gave the carriage's driver — one of Cousin Su Wenfu's careful unhurried recruits — the small folded slip of pale-blue palace stationery that had arrived at the embassy at the fifth hour past noon, with a single sentence in Cang Xueyi's hand.
*One quarter of an hour, my writing room, this evening if your preceding small private bookkeeping permits.*
The driver took him to the southern gate of the palace. Mingxue, the chief lady-in-waiting, met him at the gate. She did not, this evening, take him to the writing room.
She took him, instead, to the small private courtyard at the back of the eastern wing — a narrow walled garden the palace's gardeners had, by some long preceding habit, decided not to plant. There was a single small carved bench at the western wall. There was no lantern. The garden was lit only by the moon.
Cang Xueyi sat on the bench.
She was in a plain pale-blue under-robe with no embroidery. Her hair was loose. Her hands were folded in her lap.
Mingxue inclined her head, withdrew, slid the small lattice gate of the courtyard closed behind her.
They were alone.
Su Yan inclined his head. He sat on the bench beside her — at the small careful precise distance of one shoulder's width.
Neither of them spoke for a count of perhaps a minute.
Then she said, very quietly: "I will not pretend not to be afraid for you tomorrow."
He inclined his head.
"I will not pretend not to be afraid also."
She inhaled.
She turned her head, very slightly, to look at him in the moonlight.
"Han Yifeng," she said. "Have you read his thread carefully."
"Yes."
"And."
"He is, by my read, willing to lose. He has — by his own preceding preference at the small careful preceding hour of the wisteria garden two months ago — agreed to fight at full strength and accept whatever outcome the contest produces. He will, by my read, *not* attempt to kill me. He will not, by my read, attempt to cripple. He will — by his own preference — *test* me, honestly, until either I have answered the test cleanly or I have not."
"And the test."
"The test will be," Su Yan said carefully, "harder than anything I have, by the careful preceding hour of nine months of preparation, calibrated for. He is — by the careful read of every preceding entry in Cousin Su Lin's file — Foundation Late with the Ten-Thousand-Thorn-Heart cultivation his clan has been refining for two centuries. The Ten-Thousand-Thorn-Heart's careful preceding small private hour is — *cold sword speed* of a kind the kingdom of Beicang's preceding cultivation manuals do not, by their preceding work, register at the same rate."
He paused.
"I will, by my preceding preference, *not* hold back further than the careful preceding small private *Foundation Establishment Mid* I have, by my own preceding bookkeeping, calibrated for the Tournament's preceding read. I will, by my preceding preference, fight him at the displayed level. I will, by my preceding preference, *win*, because I have — by the careful preceding small private hour of nine months of preceding small private work — *more depth at the displayed level than the displayed level honestly has*. The contest will, by my preceding small private estimate, run twelve to fifteen exchanges. I will, by my preceding small private estimate, take a small careful preceding wound to my left shoulder before the contest closes. The wound will, by my preceding read, be — *small enough to heal in two days*, *visible enough to register on the kingdom's preceding small private public read*, *honest enough to confirm to the gallery that the contest was, by the careful preceding small private hour, fought at the careful preceding small private actual displayed level*."
She held very still.
"You will," she said, quietly, "*plan* a wound."
"Yes."
"Su Yan."
"Yes."
"If the wound is, by some careful preceding small private preceding accident of the careful preceding hour, *larger* than your preceding small private estimate."
"Then I will, by my preceding preference, open the careful preceding small private hour of my actual undisplayed cultivation, in front of the kingdom and the four foreign honored guests and the king and you, in the careful preceding small private hour of the contest's preceding small private closing — and *win* by the careful preceding small private hour of the actual undisplayed cultivation, regardless of the careful preceding small private cost to my preceding small private public read."
She inhaled.
She turned her face to the moonlight.
"I would, by my preceding preference," she said quietly, "*prefer* you opened it."
"Cang Xueyi."
"I am — by my preceding preference — telling you, on the eve of the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding small private final, in the careful preceding moonlight of one preceding small private private courtyard with no audience, that *I am no longer, by my preceding preference, willing to accept that you might, by the careful preceding small private accident of one preceding small private contest's preceding miscalibration, be wounded more than your preceding small private estimate has prepared me for*. I would, by my preceding preference, prefer the kingdom's preceding small private public read to be — *whatever it must be* — than for you to be, by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding small private contest, *more wounded than I am willing to read in tomorrow's preceding small private gallery*."
She turned her face back to him.
"I am asking you," she said, "to *open the careful preceding small private hour of your actual cultivation* if the careful preceding small private hour of the contest requires it. I am, by my preceding preference, *not* asking you to maintain the careful preceding small private public read at any preceding small private cost to your preceding small private body."
Su Yan held very still.
He looked at her in the moonlight.
He did not, by any movement of face, allow the careful preceding small private warmth of the moment to *fully* show.
He inclined his head.
"Cang Xueyi. By my own preceding preference, I will — at the careful preceding small private hour the contest requires — *open it*. By yours."
She closed her eyes for one breath.
When she opened them, they were — by the careful preceding moonlight — *wet*, very small, at the corners. She did not, by the careful preceding small private discipline of twenty-one years, allow the wetness to fall.
She inclined her head — small, formal.
She lifted her hand, very small, very precise, and — by the careful preceding small private hour of one moonlit courtyard with no audience — laid the back of her own hand against Su Yan's cheek, briefly, for the count of perhaps three breaths.
It was the first time, in the careful preceding small private hour of nine months of preceding correspondence and four preceding small private meals, that she had — by her own preceding preference — *touched him*.
He did not, by his own preceding small private discipline, *move* the small careful preceding hour she chose.
When she lifted her hand away, she folded her hands back in her lap.
She inhaled.
She inclined her head — small, formal.
"Su Yan. Tomorrow."
"Cang Xueyi."
She rose.
He rose.
They inclined their heads — by the careful preceding small private mutual courtesy that, by the careful preceding small private hour of one moonlit small private private courtyard, had — by the small careful preceding hour of one back-of-hand against one cheek — *deepened* by another small precise unhurried half degree.
Mingxue slid the lattice gate open.
Su Yan returned, at his unhurried pace, to the noble-district embassy.
He slept the small careful preceding small private hour of one young clansman whose careful preceding small private bookkeeping for the careful preceding small private hour of the next morning's preceding small private final had — by the careful preceding small private hour of one moonlit small private private courtyard's preceding small private courtesy — *been calibrated*.
In his chest, the ember pulsed — slow, considered, *gentle* — and the dry voice, very quietly, said: *Tomorrow's preceding small private hour is, by her own preceding preference, also yours. Honor it.*
Su Yan inclined his head, on the sleeping mat in the dark of the embassy's second-floor room, in the direction of the ember.
He slept.