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A figure coalesces from the murky shadows at the edge of the cell. As it approaches, it drags the darkness along with it, forming a shape dressed all in black that bleeds at the edges. The sickly torches illuminate dim flickers of the face of a woman Su Xiyan has never seen before.
“Good evening,” the woman says, precise and neutral, eyeing her like she's a particularly interesting bug. “I hope you don't mind receiving a visitor.”
Su Xiyan has perhaps never wanted less to be perceived by a stranger. She's chained to the wall, disheveled and bruised and bloody, with her pregnant belly on display through clothes so badly torn that they barely hide anything. It hasn't been long since the Palace Master left, and it feels like this woman knows exactly what he was doing, too. “What do you want?” she says warily.
“Only to speak with you, nothing more.”
“To speak with me about what?”
“A few matters regarding your current situation.”
Su Xiyan narrows her eyes. “Why should I humor you?”
“Perhaps because I can get you out of here.”
If ever Su Xiyan has seen an offer with strings attached, it's this one. “And why would you want to do that? Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Something like that.”
“What if I say no?”
“Then that would be too bad.” Unreadable eyes bore into Su Xiyan's.
“Maybe I don't feel like talking to you right now,” Su Xiyan says testily. “What then?”
“Unfortunately, I don't have unlimited time for you to waste, so I recommend you don't try it.”
“But it's fine for you to march in here and demand my time?”
The woman raises an eyebrow. “Is there something you're anticipating happening soon that you'd rather be doing than talking to me?”
Su Xiyan glares, hot humiliation flaring through her body.
“That’s what I thought,” the woman says. “Also, if you want my help, you'd do well to be polite.”
“Who says I want your help! If your time’s so important, don't you have anything better to do with it? Why don't you mind your business and leave me alone!”
“Who are you to tell me what I should be doing, Su Xiyan?” the woman says. “But very well.” She melts back into the darkness and is gone.
***
After the Palace Master's next visit, the woman appears again.
“Good evening,” she says. That's how Su Xiyan becomes aware of her presence.
Su Xiyan doesn't look up. Water drips steadily somewhere, the hollow sound echoing in the cavernous cell.
“You'd rather endure this day after day than end the pregnancy,” the woman says. “Why?”
“What do you care? It doesn't affect you.”
“Don't tell me you actually want to keep the child?”
Su Xiyan ignores her.
“Even if you somehow hold out long enough, the child will be killed immediately after birth.”
Su Xiyan ignores her.
“You'd be better off without it anyway,” the woman says.
“Are you stupid?” Su Xiyan snaps. “My baby is half heavenly demon. If it's killed in my belly then I'll die too, likely as not.”
The woman doesn’t look impressed. “Are the odds truly so much worse than the alternatives? How much more of this treatment do you think you can survive?”
“Don’t underestimate me.”
There's a silence where Su Xiyan can feel the woman's eyes dissecting her.
“This isn't a wanted pregnancy,” the woman says. It's neither a guess nor a question.
Su Xiyan shoots the woman a frosty glare.
“It was an accident,” the woman continues, unaffected. “And by the time you realized your mistake, you couldn't do anything about it without endangering your own life.”
“Just because it wasn't on purpose doesn't mean I don’t want my baby.”
“What will you do if you manage to escape and it lives? You'll have to go on the run and raise it all by yourself in some remote corner of the land, constantly looking over your shoulder. Is that truly the life you want?”
“I won't be alone.”
“Don't tell me you believe that Palace Master of yours is being truthful with you. Do you really think you can protect your lover simply by refusing to betray him?”
A horrible cold sinking feeling seizes Su Xiyan's organs with the realization that the woman could be right. The Palace Master doesn't actually need her to lead Tianlang-Jun into the trap in order to capture him. All he has to do is predict Tianlang-Jun’s habits well enough to lay an ambush somewhere else, somewhere the Palace Master knows he'll go. How much did the Palace Master witness of her last meeting with Tianlang-Jun? Could he have overheard their plans?
She has to warn Tianlang-Jun. If she waits for their next meeting, she might be too late, so somehow she needs to find him before that. That wouldn't necessarily be too difficult under ordinary circumstances, but once she gets out, her time and strength will be extremely limited. One attempt is all she'll get.
The woman is watching her silently. “Why would you tell me this?” Su Xiyan says.
“Would you prefer I’d kept it to myself?”
“Pardon me if I’m not entirely convinced you have my best interests in mind.”
The woman exhales through her nose. “Su Xiyan. What do you think you could possibly have to offer that I couldn't get far more easily somewhere else? For your information, if I wished to harm your lover, I wouldn't need your assistance in locating him.”
“My baby, for one.”
“I assure you, a baby is the last thing I want,” the woman says dryly.
“You want it dead.”
“I was asking questions and giving advice. Don't misunderstand, I have no interest in your child.”
Su Xiyan studies her suspiciously, but the woman's face is impassive.
“Can you afford to doubt my intentions right now?” the woman says. “How exactly do you plan to warn your lover while you're chained in a cultivation sect’s prison?”
“As if I'd tell you. I don't need your help, I can handle this by myself.”
“An excellent job you've been doing of that.”
“Don’t tell me, you'd do so much better in my shoes?” Su Xiyan retorts. “You’d simply not get pregnant and not get caught and never end up in this situation in the first place because you're so much better than me? Good for you! Life isn't so generous to everyone. Maybe if you’d had a master like the Palace Master then you'd understand.”
The air withers. The hair on the back of Su Xiyan's neck prickles as the light from the torches turns oily and dark.
“Don’t speak about things you're ignorant of,” the woman says calmly. Her voice drains the warmth from Su Xiyan's body. “Handle it by yourself, then, I don't care. Whatever happens to you is none of my concern.” Reality crumples around her form, and Su Xiyan is left all alone.
***
“But you promised,” Su Xiyan says stupidly.
“Now, now. We both know I can't let you out just yet, can I, Xiyan? You'll need to be under supervision while the medicine does its work.” The Palace Master's voice is sickly sweet as the poison itself.
“Why do I have to be in the Water Prison?” she says, fighting to keep the panic out of her voice. “Can't I be under supervision somewhere else?”
“This cell is secure and private, it's perfectly suitable.”
“You lied to me!”
“Hardly. I said I’d release you, yes, but I don't recall specifying when I’d release you.”
“You tricked me! This isn't fair, I did everything you said!”
The Palace Master's mood is souring. “‘Everything I said?’ All you've done for more than a week is cause me grief. I gave you every chance to correct your mistakes, and yet you still have the nerve to complain! Perhaps you don't understand. I've been so very patient and generous with you, Xiyan. Many in my place would, at the very least, strip you of your status and banish you or put you into permanent seclusion. I, however, am keeping your deplorable indiscretion a secret and allowing you to return to your position as long as you prove your obedience and loyalty.” His voice turns cloying again, and he strokes her cheek with a diseased kind of tenderness. “It pains me to have to discipline you like this, my dear. If only you'd never been exposed to that demon's corrupting influence, none of this would have happened.”
Something inside her snaps. “Tianlang-Jun may be a demon, but he's a better man than you in every way. You're trying to destroy him because you know you have no hope of ever competing with him, and your ego can't tolerate it. But it's a futile effort. Even if you kill him, I will never choose you.”
In a flash, the Palace Master slaps her hard across the face and throws her to the ground. The back of her head connects with the stone floor. Through the dark haze, she can hear him speaking as though from a distance. “Fate will decide if this cell is your grave, then. No one is coming to help you.” Cold eyes linger on her briefly, and then he turns and is gone.
Numb with desperation, she jerks on the chains, pulls with all her strength on the heavy iron collar around her neck until her vision goes black again. It's of no use. The shackles smother her ability to use her cultivation on anything outside the bounds of her own body.
Surely he'll relent and come back tomorrow, if not sooner. She can hold out until then. She has to.
***
Time isn't passing. It's mired in the glow of flickering torches, binding Su Xiyan in a single moment that stretches to infinity. Molten lead flows through her meridians, charring her to ash from the inside out. But her baby is still moving, and she clings to that knowledge.
A guttering torch casts wild leaping shadows on the floor, where her blood stains the stone black. Her wounds are bleeding steadily, kept from closing by the poison. She slips into a half-waking dream where the gashes are leaking wet ink that trickles endlessly down her naked body.
Cool fingers touch her temple. Her eyes slide a crack open, but they get lost in the effort of focusing.
“Don’t go to sleep,” says a now-familiar voice. The fingers move to her wrist, feeling her pulse for a long moment. Then they withdraw, and something cold and smooth is held to her lips. “Drink.”
Su Xiyan keeps her jaw tightly shut.
The woman sighs. “There’s no time for this. It's medicine, it won't harm you or the baby.”
The liquid is silvery ice on Su Xiyan's tongue. This time, when she tries to open her eyes, they stay barely open.
“If you could tell me what exactly you did, I wouldn't need to waste all of these,” the woman grouses as she feeds Su Xiyan more vials of different medicines. Although the words are addressed to Su Xiyan, she's seemingly speaking to herself. “But no, instead I have to cover every possibility. Stubborn girl, who would’ve thought you'd pull something like this. You really had a plan to handle everything by yourself after all.”
Fresh snowmelt is coursing through Su Xiyan's veins, steaming as it neutralizes the poison. It's cleansing her, washing away the pain.
The woman does something to the collar that Su Xiyan can't see. There's a click and a small burst of power, and the weight of the metal falls away. She removes the shackles the same manner. Su Xiyan tries to stand, but she can barely get her legs under herself.
“Stop that,” the woman says. She takes off her own outer robe and drapes it around Su Xiyan's shoulders, helping her put it on. Su Xiyan expects to be aided in standing, but instead, the woman scoops her up in her arms. This close, she smells faintly of ink, with a hint of something clean and warm.
“I have-” The words catch in Su Xiyan's raw throat. “I have to find Tianlang-Jun.”
“No you don't. He's in no danger at the moment.”
“But-”
“No.” The woman adjusts her hold so that Su Xiyan's head rests against her shoulder. “What you're going to do is sleep and heal. I'll make sure the rest is taken care of, so don't worry about it.”
With that, Su Xiyan's eyelids refuse to stay open any longer. Lulled by the woman's scent and the warmth of her body, she drifts into an easy stupor, sinking towards unconsciousness.
***
She sleeps for what might be hours or days. In the fragments she receives of the waking world, she's lying on an unfamiliar bed. The first time she manages to open her eyes, the woman is tending to her wounds.
“You’re not supposed to be awake yet,” the woman says when she notices Su Xiyan observing her. She wipes her hands on a cloth and touches the side of Su Xiyan's face, fingertips on her temple. “Don’t make me drug you. Sleep.”
Another time, she hears Tianlang-Jun. He's arguing with a man whose voice she can't place despite a strange sense of familiarity. Although she can't process many of the words, the argument doesn't sound serious or like it'll come to real blows, so she lets herself slip back under.
When she wakes up properly, it's still slow, but the feverish sense of struggling against a heavy weight is gone. Awareness of her body returns first. She aches all over, but the agonizing pain of the poison is gone. Testingly circulating her spiritual energy, she finds the damage to her meridians healed. She's lying on her right side, and her baby is moving, pushing against her bladder.
She opens her eyes to night-dark windows and warm golden lamplight. Tianlang-Jun is sitting on the floor beside the bed, sound asleep with his cheek against her right hand, which he's holding. Warm relieved affection swells in her chest at the sight. Not wanting to disturb him, she lies there watching him sleep, tracing his features with her gaze. The length of his eyelashes is always especially noticeable when he's sleeping. She wonders, not for the first time, whether the baby’s eyelashes will be long too, or whether they'll be a normal length like hers or somewhere in between. If it inherits his eyelashes, will it also get his wavy hair? With her other hand, she pets his hair lightly.
The long eyelashes in question flutter as Tianlang-Jun stirs. Their eyes meet. He blinks sleepily, then his eyes widen as he realizes what he's seeing. “Xiyan! You're awake!”
Without warning, her throat tightens, and his face becomes a watery blur. She slides off the bed and tackles him in a hug, not caring how awkward the position is. After a brief startled hesitation, he returns the embrace.
“Xiyan?” he says. “Are you all right?”
She nods, arms tightening around him. It's not quite true yet, but maybe it will be.