Iron Widow

Gao Qiu was right about one thing: there’s not a stratum of the world that doesn’t need girls.

Told you the triangle is the strongest shape, Strategist Sima, I want to say, knowing he would hear through the camera drones flitting around us.

We pick him up, cupping him in one hand. He stumbles against our beak mask, laughing. We curl the spirit metal around his palm into a sort of glove so he can move his arm while staying connected by a thin tether. Then we peel open a gap between our eyes, right into the cockpit. He clambers in.

We are wholly the Vermilion Bird, commanding it in sync.

“Besides, don’t you know basic geometry, Strategist Sima?”

So many emotions spill free inside me that I have no idea how to handle it, to control it, to keep it from overflowing from my eyes as windblown tears. Sobs wrack my weightless body so hard that I whirl off balance, one wing higher than the other. Li Shimin pulses up after me and catches me by the waist. My cold wingbeats mingle with his hot ones like shared breath.

Something wound tight inside me slowly gives out. She’s right. I should try harder to understand. Everyone’s in a different situation

“Oh, wait until you see his art. Especially his calligraphy. I know I make fun of art students a lot, but check this out.”

How much of this was connected? Deliberate?

“We were doomed from the beginning. The world will never forgive us for what we’ve each done, and there will always be those who will love to make us suffer. Not like we would’ve gained any respect by lying down and letting them do it.”