excerpt:
This must be what happened:
The head elder said I would find Ai-Lian in the wooded hills that bristle with red maples. As the evacuating townsfolk slung meager belongings onto packhorses under flickering torchlight, the ascendant moon enflamed the lavender canopy beyond the town walls. I handed the reins of my horses to the elder himself as he supervised the evacuation. His were an uncouth people—but terrified. They eyed my sheathed jian, Fate Cutter, immortalized in song by countless minstrels. That was how they knew me through my riding mask. I reassured each harried frontiersman and woman, each rough-clothed child, with the clasp of an elbow, the pat of a shoulder. I touched them all, saying in the strong northern dialect of the Zhong-ren, “ni-men bu pa. Ni-men yao shenma hao pa, fang kai ba. Ni-men fang xin.” But huddled before me, they were afraid. They would not let go their fears. They would not take heart.
➤ a fantasy novelette set in a historical china, and holy shit it is SO SO SO GOOD
➤ about two sword-brothers, meeting again after decades apart
➤ the way the story circles around itself over and over again, uncovering new layers each time, new complexities, new details about what happened and what is happening -- it's so beautifully constructed and leads the reader on so compellingly
➤ and the story it's telling.....one about love, and trust, and classism, and imperialism, and the threat of monstrous creatures inflitrating......about, at its heart, the relationship between these two men, their importance to each other, and the fractures at the heart of their relationship, and the wide-reaching consequences
➤ I love it so much, it's brilliantly and beautifully done and with such fascinating explorations of its themes!
➤ 10k words
