~TIEN LYN~

The girl who took charge of them looked like one of the wooden dolls Xi's milk-sister loved so much. She had a round face, shiny hair pulled into tight pigtails and a beatific smile. However, she spoke like someone much older and eerily familiar. "Lady, Master Rustam could be a while. Will you take tea?"

"Yes, please," Tien Lyn told her, watching Xi. Her son settled on a thick carpet with his box of sticks. They were all of equal length and colour, carefully carved for him by Ho's youngest brother. If he does not manifest, the Chongs will take care of him if anything should happen to me, Tien Lyn thought and squeezed the fan. She could not remember the last time she had carried a fan or worn the latest fashions.

Five or six years ago, she would have been beside herself with joy if she had been invited to the Imperial Court for the regnal year festivities. Now it filled her with dread, and her shoes pinched her toes.

Mother has not forgotten me.

She did not want to believe that the absurd accusations levelled against Yu were her mother's doing. Her vengeance was complete, and her ambitions should have been satisfied by the singular position she held at Zha Yao's court. Never before had a woman been appointed as the Chancellor. It must be Weynala again, it must be!

"Mother, observe!" Xi called from his corner. Tien Lyn glanced at the strange structure Xi had constructed from the sticks held together with soft balls of wax. He'd also measured out each pinch of wax to be exactly the same size as his little finger's nail.

"This is very pretty, Xi. What is it?"

Xi looked up at her, his brows furrowed, and his small mouth moving silently. Tien Lyn's heart lurched in her chest. Since Xi started talking, she'd tried to convince herself that he reminded her of Chong Ho with his moody spells and his love of numbers, but since the winter she could not deny that her son's behaviour was more like Rustam's. And she had seen candles light up and go out in Xi's presence too many times to blame it on drafts. And Yu was wrong to fear. Apart from never falling ill, Xi had nothing of him.

Rustam must have heard her question as he marched in with his Senior Apprentice on his heels. Without a word to her, he crouched by Xi's structure.

"It is a symmetry, Tien Lyn. Look."

Rustam pointed out a few sticks and rotated Xi's structure. Tien Lyn did not follow him at all, but the boy beamed up at the Mage.

"Like this!" he corrected Rustam boldly.

"Right you are. My bad!" The mage smiled wider than Tien Lyn had ever seen him smile.

He examined every stick with the boy, then embraced Tien Lyn. "I am happy to see you in good health, Daughter. I will do the scrying."

The senior apprentice who stood politely in the corner with her head bowed, perked up. "May we observe, Master Rustam?"

"Of course, Kestrel. Summon Canary and Blackbird from the Chamber of the Productive Contemplation."

Some things never change.

"May I come as well?" she asked. I want to be present when his fate is decided.

Rustam gave her a strange look, but invited her to follow. His study was a small room that looked even smaller because its walls were hung with carpets, to either make it very quiet or for warmth. Or perhaps it was a barbaric fashion that appealed to some hidden facet of his complex soul.

Save for the carpets, the room contained the familiar map-table, so the free space was barely enough for them all to sit cross-legged around a brazier. The room quickly grew stuffy from the small fire and their breath.

Tien Lyn did not even try to understand the symbols that Rustam scribbled on the tortoise shell that he heated in the flames until it cracked. She dabbed at her sweating forehead and watched Xi. He was completely absorbed in the movements of Rustam's sharpened stick along with the three other apprentices. Rustam looked completely at ease.

This is a formality. Ancestors, he knew it before he lit that fire!

The apprentices came to the same conclusion. Blackbird got up to his feet the moment his Master put the shell down. "Can we take him to the Birdhouse to find out his name right away?"

Kestrel gave the younger boy a disapproving look from the towering height of her sixteen springs. Tien Lyn smiled through a haze of building up tears.

"Tomorrow," Rustam said. "I need to speak to our visitor, and your chores are waiting."

Blackbird quickly dropped his eyes to conceal a mischievous spark that held a promise of self-aware dumplings or worse, but immediately jerked them opened. "There is something in the hall! Something is coming!"

Rustam dropped into the fighting stance only a split moment before Kestrel did. They can all hear the scraping sounds of talons on the wood now.

The mage relaxed. "At ease. I commend you for your vigilance, my keen-eared student."

The fenghuang, now almost as tall as her, click-clacked into the room pushing the bamboo curtains apart. She held her breath.

The sacred bird put its crowned head into Xi's lap and cooed in delight as he scratched its neck. The boy's face was just as delighted.

"Ancestors!" Blackbird's exclamation earned him another stern look from Kestrel.

"So be it," Rustam closed his eyes for a moment, focusing. "I take your name, Junior Apprentice Fenghuang."

Xi gasped and looked up from the magic bird to his new Master. Something obviously had happened to him, but Tien Lyn did not know what. She was afraid that she too would forget her son's name if he manifested as a mage, but at least that had not. She still thought of him as Xi.

"Mama?" her boy whimpered, and it rattled her as it always did.

She managed to force her trembling lips into a smile. "You will stay with Master Rustam for a while, child. I love you."

He tried to decide if he wanted to cry or not in the room full of strangers, and with the giant bird combing through his hair with its beak, but Rustam did not let him.

"Go and collect your sticks in the box to take to your new room," he said. "Then you will have to help Kestrel to check on the herbal beds Blackbird was weeding. There is a strange energy building up in the garden."

"Yes, Master," Kestrel and Xi -no, Fenghuang- spoke in unison. Kestrel ushered the boy out, leaving Tien Lyn and Rustam alone.

"The years will go fast," Rustam observed evenly.

"First Yu, now Xi! Father, I have nothing left again!" Tien Lyn whispered, neither consoled, nor convinced.

"Your child and your lover are both alive and well," Rustam pointed out, but she shook her head.

"My son will be the last in our family line. I have flaunted my duty."

"You can uplift it to the highest status," Rustam said. "Zha Yao appreciates the advantages of making you his Empress."

"How could he not! Mother reminds him daily," Tien Lyn snapped bitterly.

"Lady Chen Guang is formidable, and Zha Yao listens to her, but that's not all it is to it, Daughter."

Rustam took her to his map littered with the wax figurines. "Look! Wo Jia's aggression catalyzed two new Empires into being in the Northern after we've retreated. In the South every village declares for a new 'king' so often, I had to order more wax.

We need hope more than ever, and that's your province, Daughter. Your sojourn with Yu made your legend grow. The people worship you."

She swallowed a bitter chuckle. "I guess I should not have been so modest. I will tell Shan Jiang to sing about how I fornicated with a demon nightly in violation of decency and mourning rites."

A wry smile curved Rustam's lips. "I can live with the regrets of adopting a fool. But do not toss away gifts without examining them closely first."

"Those are her dreams, not mine. She should live them, not make me do it!" She swept the tiny wax figurines off the magic map including her own and Yu's into the silver bucket and handed it to her father. "I love her, and I love you too, Father. But this time it's a 'no', not a 'maybe'.

Where is Yu?"

Rustam sighed. "Waiting for you, if you wish to follow him into exile."

Tien Lyn sucked on her teeth, weighing the offer. "So be it. I suppose it was bound to end this way. The Evershining Empire might have tolerated us apart, found each of us a suitable role, but the notion of us together is anathema."

Rustam gave her more time to think, and the silence presided over them. She did not speak up. He finally gave up. "I have travel gear prepared in your room. A friend will take you to him during the street festivities tonight. You should be able to slip away with all the commotion."

"I have another friend? Who?" If it had not been not for leaving Xi behind, she would have been happy to hear it.

"You will know him when you see him," Rustam said cryptically. "Rest now, it might be the last peaceful moment you will know for a while."

She hugged him. "Thank you for letting me choose. Take care of your grandson until we can return."

"I will teach Fenghuang," Rustam promised, and paused, just for a heartbeat. "To the best of my ability."

Tien Lyn wiped away her tears, "Thank you, Father."