The rowing largely made obsolete, their conversation turned to what the strangers inescapably end up talking about when they are confined together - their life stories.

Xi described growing up by the endless horizons of the Jade Sea, Minh - the maze of streams weaving through the jungle. His relations were soon exhausted, while Minh laughed how just to name his would have taken from noon to sunset. With Xi's family nearly exterminated, and his mother - a pariah, he earned his social standing thanks to the advancement as a mage. Minh just had to pull on his thread at the tapestry of Bao's nobility - and a good chunk of it would unravel.

In temperament, they also were no more similar than rocks and water, yet by the time they sailed into Luitong's Imperial camp, Xi was appalled when the guardsmen advanced at Minh with a rope.

"Lord... ahem..." Clearly, he did not know everything there was to know about Minh after all. He did not let it stop him. "Lord Minh is not a prisoner. I will not tolerate his hands tied."

Truth be told, someone looking at Minh the wrong way would have set his teeth on edge. The days that passed might have been years.

The officer coughed. "The Lord and Lady Wu's instructions ---"

Xi dry washed his hands, forming an expanding ball of flames. He was only average in his understanding of heat and fire, but it tended to get the point across better than his stronger, yet invisible energies.

"I... I must have misunderstood." The officer stepped back with a hasty bow and waved for his men to lower their axes. "Forgive the dull-minded soldier, Master Chong Xi."

He relented, letting the flames die down, but not his focus. "As you were. I will escort Lord Minh to Lord and Lady Wu myself."

The man kept his face carefully neutral. "As you wish."

Minh remained silent until they were out of the soldier's earshot. "It's Maeng Minh. A mouthful, I know. Will Wu hung me?"

"What?!" The way he tacked on that last crazy question, in a measured tone... was that what he thought, and still came along? Did he never trust him? After all they had been through... wait! There was not much. They fought, they talked. That was all. Was that all?

Xi narrowed his eyes for emphasis, despite the cover of darkness. "No! How can you possibly believe that I would betray you?"

"I trust you. Foolishly perhaps, but I do." Minh's arms outstretched to the sides in bewilderment. The perpetual amused exterior slipped off for a moment. "Xi, what if your superiors do give the order?"

He froze to the spot. "I will not let them touch a hair on your head, Minh." Before he knew what he was doing he caught Minh's hand and pressed it to his core. Once again, he could not tell what he was feeling, what Minh was feeling, it all hit his hsin together like a rogue wave. "You will fight your countrymen for me? Me, an acquaintance of a few days? A foreigner?"

When he put it like this, it sounded like madness. But it did not stop Xi from replying. "I swore to protect you, and I will."

Reluctantly, he released Minh's hand. The shock of the suggestion wore off, the shaking of his fingers calmed down. He could think again. Politically, the move made no sense after all the efforts to pacify Luitong. "You are more useful to the Empire alive than dead. My orders would have been to eliminate you otherwise."

"You think?" In the pallid moonlight, his companion's teeth looked particularly white as he grinned. "Xi, listen to me. We don't have to kowtow to the emperors and demons. My domain is small, but I have the name, and you have the talent. With you by my side, it could be made bigger, richer... We ourselves could be dukes and princes or whatever else you dream of."

He peered into Minh's face - this particular grin was not him joking around. Xi swept his hand to encompass the silvery mist and black shadows instead. "The world looks eerie right now, but we are not in a fairy tale. Dogs chase those who run before them to rip them to shreds when they catch them. And the demons are infinitely more horrible than dogs."

"Demons," Minh grunted, "always with the demons..."

"I am sorry," Xi whispered. The feelings came on too fast, far too fast, far too conflicting for him to cope with. He sucked the damp air through his clenched teeth, wishing it was raining. His throat was raw, his head was pounding with the late hour and the suppressed desire. He wanted it, this stuff of the fairy tales, no matter how unhappy the end would be.

Modest yet cruel was Empress Mei...

Minh dallied for one more moment, then scoffed and walked on. Xi hunched his shoulders and followed his suit, hoping that he did not mumble the mantra out loud, because Minh would think him mad. He'd rather be hated for being rational.

They climbed the ladders in the no-longer companionable silence, until it was broken by the clash of steel on steel. In the training arena, two warriors sparred, though it looked more like one attacking a mirror.

Xi refused to be mesmerized even for a moment by the companionship and the fluid movements of the two combatants. Too riled up by the suggestion that the Wu might be hostile to Minh - his Minh - Xi marched into the middle of the small wooden platform. It was on stilts too, so his careless strides sent it swinging. He didn't check to see if Minh followed him.

"Lord and Lady Wu! I present you our friend and ally, Lord Maeng Minh of Bao, also known as the River Viper." He brought his hands in front of him for a bow, surprised by having to unclench his fingers from fists first. The thud of him dropping to his knees, flesh on wood, interrupted the ringing metal.

"I beg of you to receive him with all honours that can be extended to a guest of his station."

The two knights stepped apart, haloed in the silver light of the moon, as beautiful as the Celestials.

The villains do not look like this, Xi prayed, waiting for the Wu Twins to speak.

They barely exchanged glances. Perhaps they did not need to, perhaps the decision was made well in advance.

"Welcome, Lord Maeng."

"We are honoured by your offering your allegiance to the Son of Heavens."

Xi released his arrested breath with an embarrassing whistling sound.

Minh knelt next to him. "I swear to fight the enemies of all men with you, my lords."

Wu Twins invited Minh to share their meal, but he lingered before following them. "Never forget what you had refused, Xi," he whispered into his ear.

Xi backed away from Minh, murmuring something about meditation, afraid of accidentally brushing past. The emotion that swirled across the other man's face seemed too much for anyone to handle, let alone the sixteenth war mage.

"I won't forget," he promised from a safe distance.

"Whore's moon-blood...." Minh knitted his fingers in front of him and cracked his knuckles. "I wish I met you before magic and the Empire chewed you up."

Xi sighed, remembering Zijun's sobs and the smell the chrysanthemums on the air. "It would not have made a difference." He did not add that he was five, because it would have felt like asking for pity instead of understanding. He was a war mage, and wanted to be nothing else... could be nothing else.

There was something that Master Jiang once said in his many discourses on the subject. Xi swallowed his pride and repeated it for Minh's sake, keeping his tone light. "My tutor told me that loving a mage is like diluting your wine so much that you could never get drunk."

"Pfft..." Minh's lip quivered with private amusement turning Xi inside out like a discarded glove. "Maybe some of us don't want to be drunk, only tipsy."

He should have known that Minh would beat him where the frivolous banter was concerned. Also, it did not feel like the whole truth. He owed Minh the truth. He did not know why, only that he did and that Minh was waiting. So, he added quietly, "This argument does occur to me in the middle of a night."

"And?"

"And I remember how few hours remain until the dawn, and how sunlight changes everything."

Minh threw his arms up in the air. "Then I shall talk to you at high noon."

Xi should have been pleased that he did not detect the bitterness in Minh's voice, but he was not. Truth changed with every heartbeat where the emotions were concerned.

He did not find out what Minh wanted to tell him at noon.

At sunrise, the flapping of great wings and the familiar brush of thoughts against thoughts drove him out of his fitful sleep. He went outside, wrapped in a blanket, his hair dishevelled. "My enigma!"

The fenghuang kept her footing on the watchtower top like a lesser bird on a swinging branch. "Beloved, the Emperor is dead, we must return to Sutao at once."

He dashed back inside to dress, tripping over his blanket like a toddler.