A knock on the door: “Come in.”

—Xau, her fourth brother, now king.

“We heard you playing. Are you well?”

Mei nodded. “Are you?”

“Well enough.”

Xau sat on the floor

as his guards searched her rooms.

He looked tired, rumpled, thinner,

more boy than king.

In public, Xau so assured.

Now, not so.

Mei hesitated, then blurted out,

“Will you really marry her?”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve never even met her!”

“Shazia has never met us either.

We need to secure peace with at least one

of the countries threatening us.”

Mei wanted to ask

whether she, too, would be married

to someone she’d never met;

two months ago

she would have asked.

Now, not so.

Instead she sat opposite Xau

and they played cards

as if nothing had changed,

as if their brothers were still alive,

as if Xau were not king.

Only at the end,

day brightening the paper window,

Xau said to the floor

so that Mei could barely hear him,

“Sometimes we cannot breathe

for men looking at us.”

Then he got to his feet,

composed, the king again,

bowed and left.

Xau had found his path.

Mei unsure what hers would be

or whether any part of it

would be of her own choosing.

TRAINING: STANCES

Two months since the boy Xau

came to the throne,

two months in which Tsung—

captain of the king’s guards—

had watched the boy

for the better part of every day,

but something awry, that afternoon

in the innermost courtyard of the palace,

that Tsung could not identify.

Xau’s shift from Leaning Horse

off-form, stiff, his stance in Snake

rigid rather than solid,

and before the training session

the boy had been scathingly sarcastic

when the Finance Minister

tried to manipulate him.

The boy unimpressive as a warrior,

yet a natural ruler:

considered but decisive,

impartial, measured.

Except today.

The minister had been shaking by the end,

just as the boy shook now

when Tsung touched his shoulder

to correct his position.

A crane flew into the courtyard,

landed near the boy,

who held motionless in Snake

as the bird stepped delicately

right up to him

and tilted its head

inquiringly.

The boy’s face opened, gentled,

and it came to Tsung then

that what he’d seen before was a mask,

measured and deliberate

as a training stance.

The boy crouched down,

laid his fingers on the crane’s

feathered softness.

A long stillness,

Tsung aware of something passing

between crane and boy,

something that hurt to watch.

Then the crane flew away.

The boy’s face closed.

The boy returned to Snake position,

completed his exercises.

It wasn’t until next morning

that Tsung remembered how Prince Keng

used to call the boy Little Crane,

Keng the only one of the older princes

who had paid attention to the boy,

Keng who would have turned twenty-four

the day before.

THE HORSE LORD

Three months into his kingship,

the young king rode to claim fealty

from the horse lords.

They bowed to King Xau,