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From atop his steed, he murmurs, “A shame, isn’t it?” I frown. “What’s a shame?” “That we were born into this rivalry.” He gazes at me. “Had we met under different circumstances, we could have been . . . friends.”
The princeling smiles very, very briefly. And he is very, very spectacular when he smiles. For a moment, I forget that I’m an exile who can never go home. I only want him to smile again.
“Do you ever wonder, Hua xiong-di,” says Kedan, the Xiongnu descendant, “whether there are places in the world where cities do not have walls? Where peace has reigned for so long that when the walls crumble, people do not bother to build them again?”
“My ancestors’ voices have been lost to time; I will only ever know what their opponents thought of them.”
But those Xiongnu deaths were murders, weren’t they? Committed in the name of empire and emperor, but murders nevertheless. It disturbs me now that I wasn’t remotely disturbed by that before, when I read the anecdote the first, second, or third time.
Sherry Thomas does an incredible job of portraying the ways prejudice is unconsciously built when one is only exposed to the narrative perpetuating it. The subtle yet constantly present reminders of how flawed and harmful your prejudiced views were is a startling realization when you understand how unsettling the truth is, and how you’ve rarely been unsettled by it.
But sometimes, as I’m beginning to realize, language is history.
“I’m afraid of anything that can kill me.” “You must be frightened of me, then,” I say in jest. “Terrified. My whole life I’ve been terrified of you.”
I breathe deeply, in and out. I am not just a girl—no woman is. And if Heaven has deposited me at this time and place, then I am meant to deal with these problems, no matter their scale or consequence.
Greatness tends to be measured only by the height, breadth, and duration of power achieved, with little attention paid to the suffering incurred in that achievement.
“I think so,” he murmurs. “Do you believe in reincarnation?” “I . . . I don’t know.” “I do. Next lifetime, let’s not waste years upon years. Let’s be friends from the very beginning.”
He does not say that he is exceptionally proud of me, but I am not as disappointed as I could have been. Everything I have done, I did for duty and friendship. Every decision I have made, I made so that my conscience would be at ease. I am, I realize, proud of myself.
