The Last Concubine

beautiful face remained impassive.
    “I have never seen so exquisite a creature,” he murmured. He drew nearer and put his hand on her cheek.
    Lan’xiu closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against his hand like a kitten, still trembling.
    “I will not hurt you,” Hüi said, looking down at her.
    She didn’t answer but raised one hand to touch his. Contrary to the soft touch he expected, the roughness of a hardened palm rasped against his skin, a callus that ought not be found on any woman’s hand. He stared at the sword callus on his own, making a connection that seemed impossible. His eyes narrowed with suspicion as he searched the beautiful face. It couldn’t be possible that a woman….
    Instantly he sprang away from her, gripping her wrist hard enough to elicit a cry of pain from her. “What treachery is this?” he snarled, shaking her hand and pointing at the calluses on her palm.
    “I am party to no treachery, my Lord!” Lan’xiu exclaimed in fear. She tried to draw her hand away from his, but he was too strong for her.
    Hüi pulled her flat against him, imprisoning both hands behind her back in one of his. She did not resist him as he roughly felt her chest. He found no familiar, round softness there. He groped between her legs and found hardness there as well. Disgusted, he flung her from him, staring down at where she fell to the floor. “No treachery you say!” he said with contempt. “You are no woman!”
    Lan’xiu shakily got to his feet and stared at him proudly. “I am no woman, but the treachery was not mine. It was not my wish to sell myself into a slavery I did not want. My brother betrayed me and is using me to betray you.”
    Hüi drew the sword he was never without. “I should kill you here and now.”
    “You will do as you deem best, my Lord,” Lan’xiu said. He folded his hands, bowed his head, and waited.
    Hüi raised the sword and advanced upon the beautiful girl—boy—and grasped his hair, pulling his head back to expose the long, slender throat. He rested the sharp edge of the blade against Lan’xiu’s skin, causing a line of crimson drops to form, but the boy uttered no sound of protest. He merely waited, watching Hüi with his liquid eyes.
    Something in his expression caused Hüi to release Lan’xiu’s hair, noting the softness against his palm like a caress as it tumbled free from the clasp to fall in a cloud around the boy’s face. He pushed the boy away. “Sit there!” he ordered, pointing at a chair. He began to pace, keeping a close eye on the boy as he obediently went to the chair and sat.
    “I can kill you now or five minutes from now. I don’t suppose it will make much difference,” Hüi muttered. The battle raging within almost immobilized him. Clearly, Wu Min had sent a boy in the guise of a woman to make a fool of him, but that mattered little. What bothered him more was his reaction to the boy. Even more so than when he thought him a woman, he urgently desired to tear the boy’s clothing from his body and carry out his previous plan of ravishment, and he could not understand what dark forces drove him.
    “Who—what are you?” he demanded finally.
    “My name is Lan’xiu,” the boy said.
    At last Hüi understood the intriguing timbre of the girl’s—boy’s voice. “Beautiful orchid,” he said scornfully. “A female’s name.”
    “That is the name given to me by my mother,” Lan’xiu insisted. “My brother, Wu Min, was already seventeen when I was born. She knew if he found out I was male, he would have dashed my brains out with a rock and left my body on the mountain for wild beasts. He was intent upon my father’s throne and could brook no competition.”
    “But you were the younger son. There was no danger to him,” Hüi said. “What woman would shame her son by forcing him into skirts, even to save his life? That is what puzzles me.”
    “She did not force me,” Lan’xiu said quietly. He stroked the silk of his cheongsam with one finger. “I like dressing like this.”
    “You are trying to fool me. You wish to be a woman,” Hüi spat.
    “I do not wish to be a woman,” Lan’xiu exclaimed in a frustrated voice. “You do not understand. I like dressing this way. I feel pretty like this.”
    “Well, you’re certainly pretty,” Hüi said sarcastically. “Pretty enough to fool anyone into thinking you a woman. So your brother believes that you are a girl and sends you to occupy my attention while he plans some