Chapter 194: Short Supply
Xuan woke first. He took stock before he was fully awake, the reflex he never managed to switch off: an unfamiliar room going gold at the edges as the sun found the shutters, a lamp burned down to a cold stub on the table, the pleasant ache of a good night in muscles he’d worked in a wholly new way. And Qingyue, asleep against his side under the blanket, her hair a black spill across his arm, no trace of the frost anywhere on her face.
She looked younger like this. Unguarded. He’d only ever known her behind that wintered calm she wore for everyone else, cold enough to take a duel without her face so much as shifting, and here she was, breathing slow against his shoulder with one hand curled loose on his chest, off her guard enough to trust him with it.
It did something to him he had no word ready for, so he let himself simply have it: the quiet, the warmth, the rare and faintly ridiculous sense of having nowhere he needed to be.
It lasted about as long as those things ever did.
[ Well, well, WELL. ] Mira arrived like a bucket of cold water with opinions attached. [ Look who finally surfaced. Morning, sunshine. Good night too, from the look of you, and don’t bother arranging your face, I read you like a bill of sale. ] A beat, insufferably smug. [ And here I had you down as a man who wasn’t interested. All that noble restraint. I was starting to think you were a bit of a cuck, honestly. ]
’Charming. This early.’
[ I contain range. ]
’I wasn’t being noble.’ The words never left his skull, though he kept them low out of habit. ’I didn’t want to rush her. She’s not someone you push, and she’d have taken my head off if I’d tried.’ A pause, more honest than he’d planned. ’As it turns out, she wanted it as much as I did. She’s the first person in this whole backwards world who’s actually gotten under my skin. That isn’t nothing.’
[ Oh, she’s special. I’m not going to insult either of you by pretending she isn’t. But you felt a but coming, didn’t you. You didn’t walk all this way to fall in love and forget the job. While you’re lying here being tender, that Celestial Karma of yours is parked at a number that gets you barbecued the instant you reach for Foundation. A thousand little bolts, remember. You want it down before you break through, not after. ]
’I remember. I’ve been meaning to earn it down since we set out.’
[ Well, here’s your lucky morning. ] Her voice tipped, pleased with herself. [ While I was giving the two of you your privacy (partly; I’ve got standards, not sainthood), I went and tailed your brand-new indentured genius. ]
’You followed Hao?’
[ Mhm. All over this city, half the night. The kid doesn’t sleep either, which explains a great deal about him. And here’s the meat of it: he didn’t stumble in here by chance, Xuan. He came to this exact city on purpose. ]
That pulled him fully awake. ’Why?’
[ Because it’s in trouble. ] The tease went out of her. [ The war everyone’s holding their breath over hasn’t even started, and it’s already throttling this place. Caravans that used to roll in twice a week come half as often now, and half as full. Grain, salt, medicine — the roads dried up, because nobody wants to haul goods through provinces that might be on fire next month. Prices are climbing and tempers are climbing faster. A city of a hundred thousand is quietly running short of everything, and the men who run it are pretending otherwise. ]
Xuan lay there and let the whole of it come together, the peace of the morning souring into the familiar itch of a problem with his name on it. A supply crisis, in a river city built entirely on trade, with a half-starved merchant prodigy who’d crossed a continent to stand in the middle of it.
A few weeks ago his biggest problem had been how badly he needed a bath. Now a river city was starving by inches, and every road out of that ran straight through him.
[ So. ] He could hear the grin rebuild itself. [ You’ve got a boy who reads a market better than anyone inside these walls, a mountain of your own metal a week behind you, and a Karma debt you badly need to pay down. And out there, a hundred thousand people who need someone to unstick the thing that’s slowly strangling them. I’m no priest. But I’d wager the heavens smile on a man who feeds a starving city. Only a thought. No charge. ]
’You’re enjoying this.’
[ Hugely. It’s got everything: coin, virtue, and you not being struck by lightning. My three favourite things, in no particular order. ]
He almost smiled. She wasn’t wrong. He liked problems built like this one, and for once doing good and doing well pointed the same direction. He was already lining up the first questions for Hao when the body tucked against his side shifted.
Qingyue stirred, her hand flexing on his chest, and surfaced slowly, hauling herself up out of the hardest sleep she’d had in years. She cracked her eyes open and found him already watching her.
"Admiring me, are you?" Her voice came out thick and rough with sleep.
"I didn’t get nearly enough of you last night." He tucked a loose strand of hair back off her cheek, his hand slow to leave. "Wouldn’t say no to making up the difference."
"Mm." She didn’t pull away. If anything she pressed closer, drowsy and shameless about it, stealing his warmth. "You’ve got that look, though. The one that means work. I can feel you thinking from here."
He huffed, caught out. "Heard a few things in the market yesterday. Traders griping, prices where prices shouldn’t be." He pressed a kiss into her hair. "How would you feel about saving a city before we leave it?"
Her eyes came open at that.