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that my beauty was something unnatural, transcending nature itself. And that beauty is not so different from destruction.
But girls like me sometimes went missing. Though missing was too soft a word for it. The truth was uglier: stolen, slaughtered, sold.
Often, when I was around other people and felt their gazes on me, I had the strange, encroaching sense that my face and body did not belong to me. As if I had been designed purely for the pleasure of their viewing.
“Fanli,” he replied, and straightened. “Political and military advisor to King Goujian of Yue.”
Fanli. But of course—I should have known. All the rumors sang of him: the advisor with a mind sharper than blades and beauty finer than jade, only twenty-two years of age yet more accomplished than men twice as old. He had managed to impress the king when he was but a mere adolescent and quickly climbed his way up the ranks to become one of King Goujian’s most trusted ministers.
People always prefer the beauty who is oblivious, unaware of her own power, who blushes easily and is taken aback by strangers’ approval, who is soft and demure and lacking in just enough confidence so as to seek it out in the opinions of men.
“The bride would be for King Fuchai of the Wu Kingdom, as a tribute from the Yue.
Fuchai was infamous for his love of wine and women; he was said to have frequented every single brothel in the Wu capital, and took his personal
“But you would be a bride only in name. In practice, you would be a spy—our spy. You would distract him from his duties, and influence him to our liking, all while gathering key information from within the palace. You would, in short, be the integral piece of our plan to take revenge on the Wu and conquer them for good.”
“I’m afraid a man’s word alone is not enough. I would prefer a written document, with the king’s seal, stipulating all that you have promised.”
Happiness was a side dish, like the sweet, sticky rice cakes Mother made during the festivals, or the glutinous balls stuffed with rich sesame paste. But revenge—that was the salt of life. Necessary. Essential.
One could live with almost anything, so long as they had something to live for.
nose. If my beauty was of the destructive kind, his was a beauty that pressed exquisitely close to sorrow; something as cold and untouchable as the stars scattered overhead.
“Dancing is an expression of beauty, and what is beautiful is always derived from nature itself.”
In a world where everyone will demand something from you, it requires a certain degree of selfishness to be happy, you know.”
“We are most tempted by what we cannot have. Men will dream of the mountains they have yet to scale, the rivers they have yet to set sail upon, the plains they have yet to conquer. They are told from birth everything belongs to them, and so when something does not, they view it as a personal challenge.” I thought about it longer. “But also, from a distance, everything looks more beautiful; we are better able to conjure our own fantasies about them. Sometimes the fragrance of a feast is better than the taste itself.”
“The heart is a fickle thing; it takes and takes. It is easily swayed, and tempted, and made weak. Too many have fallen victims to their own irrational desires. But the mind—the mind is dependable, accurate, deadly. It destroys the enemy, not the self, and ensures that we do what we need to, not what we want.”
When men say they want a lover, what they often mean is they want a mirror; they wish to see themselves reflected back at them in the best light.
“I have always believed that knowing when to yield is even more important than winning. If we were to bow our heads and humble ourselves before the king, and earn his trust over time, then we could hope to one day return, and devise a plan for revenge.”
“But heroes always have tragic endings,” I said softly, a lump in my throat. “Yes, well. One cannot save the world and live in peace. That’s not how these things work.”
But Fuchai appeared to be at the age more fitting for a prince than a king: a mere couple of years past twenty. He was also surprisingly, disturbingly handsome, with clear black brows and the sharp, assertive features of a wolf. And like the other men of Wu, he wore his hair cropped short, the dark, wavy strands ending just above his eyes and the nape of his neck.
How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.
