The ironback boar hit her harder than anything had in two years.

Qinghe had known it would be big. The charcoal burners at Greywater had said as much, in the lowered, apologetic voices of men who had watched a beast the size of an ox stove in a kiln wall and walk away whistling through its tusks. But knowing a thing and taking it across the ribs at a dead run were different matters. The impact lifted her clear off her feet. She had an instant of white, silent, weightless astonishment, and then the wall of the drying shed came up and met her spine, and the world turned into a high thin ringing.

She slid down the boards and sat in the ash.

Up, said a hard voice in her head. It sounded like Master Ye. Up, girl. Do not sit while it is still breathing.

She got up. She did not know how. Her blade was in her hand, which seemed a small miracle, and the boar was wheeling in the yard with its head lowered and its little red eyes fixed on her, the iron-grey bristles along its spine standing like a row of spikes. It pawed the earth. She settled her feet and drew a breath, and the breath caught halfway, snagged on something sharp and hot in her left side.

She ignored it. She had ignored worse. She went in under the tusks on the line of Winter River, a long low cut that took the beast across the foreleg and spun her out of its path, and when it screamed and swung round she put the point through the soft place behind the ear.

It dropped like a felled tree. The ground shook. Dust rose in a slow yellow cloud and began to settle.

"Qinghe!"

He was running. She heard it before she saw him, the quick light patter of his feet across the packed earth, and she held up a hand without turning her head. "I'm fine. Stay back. It might twitch."

"You are not fine. You were thrown against a wall."

"I've been thrown against walls before."

"Qinghe."

"It's done." She wiped her blade on her sleeve with a steadiness that cost her more than the fight had. She did not look at her side. She did not look at anything but the tip of her sword, and the dead beast, and the middle distance. "Tell the burners it's safe. I'll take the payment. We'll go back before dark."

She sheathed the sword and straightened, slowly, with a hand carefully not pressed to her ribs, and turned to find him standing three paces away, watching her.

He had a scrape across his palm. She noticed that first. A long raw graze, where he must have fallen or been thrown aside by the rush of the boar, the skin broken and beaded with blood. He was holding the hand loosely at his side as if he had forgotten it.

He was not looking at his hand.

* * *

She made it as far as the road before her knees began to shake.

It was a long, bright afternoon. The charcoal burners had been effusive, and had pressed a purse into her hands and a ham into his, and had watched them go with the open-mouthed reverence of men who had seen a miracle. The road ran down from Greywater between two rows of drooping alders. The sun was warm on the back of her neck. Her pack seemed to weigh a great deal.

She kept her stride even. She kept her back straight. She breathed in short controlled sips, shallow, taking in as little air as she could, because every time her ribs expanded a spike of pain went through her and a little more of the colour went out of the day.

"Qinghe," said Zheyu.

"Don't."

"I have not said anything."

"You're about to."

"I am about to say that you are walking like a woman who has swallowed a sword."

She did not answer.

"And that you have been breathing from the top of your chest for the last half mile."

"Zheyu."

"And that your left arm has not moved at your side since the yard."

She stopped. She stood in the middle of the road with the alders rustling over her head, and she shut her eyes. It was foolish. She knew it was foolish. A shaft of green sun lay across her face, warm as a hand, and for a single treacherous moment she wanted nothing more than to sit down in the dust and not get up.

"It's a bruise," she said. "That's all. It'll be gone in two days."

"May I see it?"

"No."

"Qinghe."

"I said no." She opened her eyes. He was standing a pace in front of her, with the ham in his arms and the graze on his palm, and his face was not stern, or hurt, or any of the things she had braced for. It was only concerned. Quiet, steady, unembarrassed concern, as though her pain were a weather he had every right to be anxious about. She could not bear it. She looked at the road. "I don't want to be fussed over."

"Then I shall not fuss." He set the ham down at the roadside. He did it very gently. "I will only sit here, and you will sit there, and we will rest for a while. That is not a fuss. That is a rest."

"I don't need a rest."

"I do."

"You don't get tired."

"I am extremely tired," said Zheyu, with enormous dignity, and sat down on a stone. "It has been a very long afternoon."

She stared at him. After a moment, helplessly, she gave an exhausted laugh that hurt her ribs, and she sat down on the opposite bank, with her sword across her knees, and put her head in her hands.

* * *

He did not touch her until she let him.

She could not have said afterward how long it took. Ten minutes, perhaps. A quarter of an hour. They sat in the green shade while the light slanted lower, and he did not speak, and she did not either, and the pain pulsed in her side in long slow waves. At some point she realised that she was no longer pretending to look at the road. At some point she had started shaking in earnest, a fine fast tremor that she could not stop, and that her teeth were chattering.

"It hurts," she said. It came out very small.

"I know."

"It really hurts."

"I know." He had not moved. "May I?"

She nodded. She was not sure she meant to.

He crossed the road on his knees, in the dust, and knelt in front of her. He did not hurry. His hands, when he lifted them, were visibly unsteady, and he held them for a moment in the air between them as if asking permission of her skin. "Where?"

"Left side. Under the ribs."

"Will you let me move the cloth?"

She undid the sash. It took her three tries. She turned a little aside and drew her robe open at the hem, and the linen under it, and heard his breath catch. There it was. A great purple stain spread across her side from hip to breast, black at the heart, marbled at the edges with green. It had already begun to swell.

"Oh, Qinghe," he said, very low.

"It looks worse than it is."

"I do not think it does."

"Don't fuss."

"I am not fussing. I am looking." And then, with a quiet that undid her more than any kindness could have, "May I put my hand on it?"

She closed her eyes. "Yes."

His palm settled against her side.

It was warm. That was the first thing. Not the warmth of a bandage or a hot cloth but something deeper, a slow golden heat like sun on a stone wall at the end of a summer day. It spread outward from his fingers, soft and steady, and where it passed the pain loosened its grip. She felt the knots in her muscles begin to unravel. She felt her breath slide deeper into her lungs, and the awful hot spike under her ribs dwindle to a dull ache, then to a faint throb, then to nothing at all.

She heard herself make a sound. A small wordless sigh, and she bit her lip at once.

"Better?" he murmured.

"Yes."

"Does it still hurt?"

"No." She had not meant to say it so breathlessly. "No. What are you doing?"

"I do not know." His voice was strained. "I think it is the blossoms. The season. I did not know I could."

"Is it," she opened her eyes, and for a dizzy moment the green leaves swung above her. "Is it hurting you?"

"No." But he had gone very pale. "It is only," he swallowed, "a little like pouring water from one cup to another. I do not mind it."

His hand on her side was gentle and slow, and she was suddenly aware of every inch of it. The roughness of his thumb. The long fingers curved to the shape of her ribs. The place, just below her heart, where the heat gathered and pulsed in time with her own blood. His head was bent, his dark hair fallen forward over his face, and she could see the faint tremor in his lashes. She had never been touched like this by anyone. She had not known there were so many ways a hand could ask a body for permission.

She was acutely, helplessly aware of her own heartbeat.

And then the dizziness hit her.

It came without warning, as if someone had pulled a plug. The green leaves swam and stretched. A cold sweat broke out along her spine, and her arms went numb to the elbow, and a roaring filled her ears like the sea. She tried to say something and could not find her mouth. She felt herself tilting, slowly, toward the ground.

"Qinghe."

His hand was gone from her side. Both of his were on her shoulders, firm and steady, holding her upright. His face swam in front of her, white and stricken. "Qinghe, look at me. Look at me. What is it?"

"Dizzy," she managed. "Just. Give me a moment."

"I have done something wrong."

"No. You've," she dragged in a breath. "The pain's gone. It's fine. I just feel," she searched for the word, "scooped out."

He made a small, sick sound. She felt his fingers tighten on her shoulders, and then, very deliberately, loosen. He let her go and sat back on his heels with his hands open in front of him as if he were holding something that had burst. His eyes were enormous.

"I took something," he said hoarsely. "Did I not? I took it from you."

"Zheyu. It's fine."

"It is not fine."

"The bruise is almost gone." She looked down. It was true. The great purple stain had faded to a mild yellow flush. She pressed a tentative hand to it and felt only a distant soreness. "Look. It's practically healed. I'm just tired. I haven't eaten since morning."

He did not answer. He was staring at her side, and then at his own hand, and she could see that he was working something out, fast, behind his eyes.

* * *

He insisted on cooking.

It took them another hour to reach Liuyin, and she walked the last mile leaning very slightly on his arm. He had not offered it, and she had not asked, and somewhere around the second bend it had simply become the case. She could not have said who had moved first. Mei took one look at them in the doorway and said nothing at all. She only put a hand to her mouth and went to fetch the kettle.

By the time Qinghe was sitting in the kitchen with a blanket round her shoulders and her feet propped on a stool, he had taken possession of the stove.

"I know how to make congee," he said. "I watched Mei."

"You watched her once."

"I have an excellent memory."

"You can't light a fire."

"I can light a fire. I have lit two, and neither of them went out." He rolled up his sleeves with great determination. "Sit. I will do this."

She sat. She watched him. He measured the rice by eye and, having poured out nearly twice as much as the pot would hold, stared at it with a look of dawning horror and scooped half of it back. He washed it three times, in cold water, with an expression of extraordinary concentration. He added water. He put the lid on, took it off, put it on again. He stood over the pot with his arms folded and an air of grim vigil, as a general might watch a besieged city.

She hid her smile behind the edge of her blanket.

"You are laughing," said Zheyu, without turning around.

"I'm not."

"I can hear it."

"You can't."

"I can hear your ribs. They go up and down in a very particular way when you are trying not to laugh." He still did not turn. "It is perfectly all right. I know I am absurd."

"You're not absurd," she said, and was surprised at how soft it came out.

The congee, when it finally came, was a pale, lumpy, faintly scorched disaster.

He ladled it into a bowl with a stricken look and stood holding it, and she saw that his ears had gone red. "It is not good," he said.

"It's fine."

"You will not be able to eat it."

"I'll eat it."

"It is burned on the bottom."

"Zheyu." She held out her hand for the bowl.

Her hand was shaking.

She had not noticed until that moment. A fine, humiliating tremor ran through her fingers and into the wrist, and when she tried to close them on the rim of the bowl the china rattled against her palm. She stared down at it. She could not seem to make the fingers hold still. She tried again, her jaw tightening, and the spoon clinked in the bowl like a bell.

"Oh," said Qinghe. She heard how small it sounded.

She expected him to say something. She braced for it. You are hurt. You should not. She braced for the pity, the fuss, the gentle cooing concern she had never been able to tolerate.

Instead, he knelt down in front of her stool, took the bowl, and filled the spoon.

"Open," he said.

"I can do it myself."

"I know that you can." He held the spoon steady between them. His eyes were level and very kind. "You do not have to. Not today. Just for today. Let me."

She wanted to say no. She wanted to snatch the spoon and eat the whole bowl by herself in a sullen heap, to prove that she could. But the tremor in her hand would not stop, and the kitchen was warm, and the blanket was soft around her shoulders, and the steam rising from the spoon smelled of ginger and rice and a little of smoke.

She opened her mouth.

The congee was lumpy and bitter at the edges and far too salty. It was the best thing she had ever eaten in her life. She swallowed, and the warmth went down and spread through her chest, and her eyes stung treacherously, and she told herself it was the steam.

"More," said Zheyu, and fed her another spoonful.

She was angry. That was the strange part. Some deep dry stubborn piece of her was furious, furious at being seen, at being weak, at being a thing that needed to be fed like a child by a man who could not tell salt from sugar. She hated it. She hated it with every inch of her. But she did not push him away. She sat with her hands in her lap and let him feed her, spoon by spoon, in the lamplit kitchen, and she said, between mouthfuls, in a low, savage whisper, "I hate this."

"I know."

"I really hate this."

"I know." He wiped a grain of rice from the corner of her lip with his thumb, very lightly, without thinking, and then froze, and drew the hand away. He did not apologise. He did not seem able to speak. "Take another."

She took another. They finished the bowl in silence.

* * *

It was only afterward, when he had gone to wash the pot, that she noticed what she should have noticed hours ago.

He had not bandaged his hand.

It hung at his side as he stood at the basin, the long graze across the palm gone dark with dried blood, the edges red and puffy. He had not so much as rinsed it. He had spent the afternoon with that wound open, carrying a ham, and holding her, and pouring himself out into her side. And when he had looked at her bruise, in the road, he had looked for a long, long time. Longer than he had ever looked at his own hand.

"Zheyu," she said.

"Mm?"

"Your palm."

He glanced down at it, as if it belonged to someone else. "It is nothing. A scratch."

"It's not nothing. Come here."

"I am washing the pot."

"The pot can wait." She was already half out of her chair. "Sit down. Let me see."

He did not move. His back was to her, and his shoulders had gone tight. "You should rest."

"You should sit."

He turned. His face was composed, and perfectly calm, and wrong. She saw it at once. It was the face he wore when he said it is all right. It was a lie, and a very well-made one, and for the first time she understood how much it cost him to wear it.

"You didn't look at it once," she said. "All afternoon. Did you? You looked at mine. You looked at mine for the whole walk. You didn't spare a glance for your own."

"Yours was worse."

"Yours is bleeding."

"It is a very small amount of blood."

"Zheyu."

He sighed. It was a soft, defeated breath, and he came and sat on the edge of the stool beside her and let her take his hand in both of hers.

It was a long, raw scrape, and it needed cleaning. She fetched water and a cloth and a pot of salve from Mei's shelf. She bent over his palm in the lamplight, and he held perfectly still. His fingers curled slightly at the first touch of the cold water. His breath hissed once. He did not say anything. She felt, through the bones of his wrist, the fast hard beating of his pulse.

It was only a wound. She had dressed a hundred of them. But his skin was so warm, and so alive, and the lines of his palm were so faint and fine, and she realised she was holding her own breath.

She wrapped the bandage twice round and tied it off with a small neat knot.

"There," she said, and her voice came out strange. "Don't pick at it."

"I will not."

"I mean it."

"I know that you do." His hand lay still in hers. He did not draw it away. She did not let it go. For a long moment they sat in the lamplight, with the pot cooling on the stove and the noise of the canal drifting in through the window, and neither of them moved.

Then he drew the hand back, quickly, as if the bandage had burned him.

"I should not have done that," he said. His voice was rough. "Healing you. I did not know the price. You went quite white, Qinghe. I felt it. I felt you go thin in my hands, like a cup tipping." He stared at his bandaged palm. "I do not think I have the right."

"You did it because I asked."

"You did not ask."

"I nodded."

"That is not the same."

"It's close enough." She wanted to say something else. She did not know what. "I'm all right. I ate a whole bowl of terrible congee, and I'm sitting up, and I'm all right."

"I know." He rose. His movements were stiff. At the door he stopped, with his back to her, and his shoulders squared as if for a blow. "I will not touch you again. Not like that. Not unless you ask me."

"Zheyu."

"I mean it."

"I know you do." She looked at him, at the long dark line of his back and the faint bright edge of lamplight on his hair. "And you'll do it anyway."

He did not answer. He did not turn around. But he stood a moment longer with his hand on the doorframe, and she saw, quite clearly, the small helpless lift of his shoulders as he breathed out.

Yes, said the silence. Probably.

He went out. The door closed softly behind him. She sat alone in the warm kitchen with the empty bowl and the faded blanket and a heart that would not stay quiet, and when she pressed her hand to her side where the bruise had been, the skin was cool, and a little thin.

She told herself it was nothing.

She almost believed it.