Princess Snow and the Empress

12: A Blur of Steel & Silver

From that day on, they sought each other out at every opportunity.

She learnt his name was Erden, and that he had been given the rank of Eighth Prince. He had left behind his parents, an older sister, two younger brothers and a baby sister when her father's envoy brought him to the Palace.

She assumed the role of teacher and tried to teach him her language. They spoke haltingly at first, but he was an apt pupil and was soon speaking like a native.

The other princes continued to harass Erden, until Weilong took him under his wing and put a stop to it. Erden, in turn, constantly looked out for Snow and often stepped in between her and the princes, despite his young age and short stature.

He was especially protective of her around Fifth Prince, who never forgave her for the crookedness of his nose. Snow wished she could punch him again. She never, ever, forgave him for what he did to Chow Chow. Still, if they saw the princes approaching, they would grab each other by the hand and run as fast as they could.

In the warmer months, they explored the Palace grounds and watchtowers together, played hide-and-go-seek amongst the rocks in the imperial gardens, and caught dragonflies by the lakes. When it was fruiting season, he would let her step on his back and shoulders to pluck pomegranates and apricots from the trees.

They were each other's enablers. Once, Snow wanted to put grasshoppers in her foster mother's vanity desk drawer, and Erden caught the biggest grasshopper he could find and put it in a little box.

It was too bad that when he showed it to her, Snow was so overexcited that she knocked the box out of Erden's hands by accident. The grasshopper had jumped all around the pavilion just out of Erden's reach, and when Snow's nanny ran towards them, Snow stamped her shoe on the grasshopper. It never made it to her foster mother's room.

The servants and nannies soon figured that if they saw one, they saw the other, especially during important celebrations like the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival or Winter Solstice.

Every Lunar New Year, they watched in anticipation as servants lit the streams of firecrackers that snaked along the pavement. The firecrackers would explode in a shower of red paper and sparks, and they'd cheer when clouds of smoke and the smell of gunpowder filled the air.

Another favorite memory of hers was of them sharing mooncakes filled with sweet red bean or lotus seed paste. Under a full Mid-Autumn moon, they'd eat slices of sweet mooncakes, wash all that down with tea, and then parade around the gardens with colorful paper lanterns.

She loved it when he told her stories of his life in the grasslands. She could almost see him as a young boy rounding up sheep and lambs on the endless green steppes, roughhousing with his brothers and huddled inside his yurt with his family, as they sipped cups of warm yak milk.

She especially loved it when he told her how the women were as skilled as men at archery and horse riding. She was so amazed to learn that his older sister was an adept archer who could shoot a moving target on a galloping horse.

"Who taught your sister? Your father?"

"No, my mother," Erden replied with a proud smile.

She was slightly envious that he had such interesting stories to tell. She did not have interesting stories of her own, though Erden would laugh whenever she told him about her latest run-in with the royal tutor.

"Snow, you mustn't antagonize Master Li like that, he's a gentle old man," he said as he wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.

"He's only gentle to you. You're his favorite pupil, you know."