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Mu Nihuang never expected to get Lin Shu back. The rare daydreams about him that were not memories were about putting his bones to rest, having a grave to visit in secret, having a pardon for him and his father so that she might buy and restore his home in the capitol. Even in her sleep, her dreaming mind never dared imagine a world in which he was returned to her alive. Her sleeping mind sometimes built a kinder world, a world in which the Chiyan Army was not rebellious, was not killed, was not wiped from the country's collective memory by an imperial edict heavier even than the weight of her grief. She always woke from those dreams stone-faced, and went about her day with the yoke of loss heavy on her shoulders.
She could never have imagined that he would come back to her so changed, so different, and yet so fundamentally the same. Looking at Mei Changsu now, it is as if her Lin Shu was distilled down to his bones and rebuilt from determination, dedication, and desperate filial duty.
From what Lin Chen said, from what little Mei Changsu himself admitted, that is, in fact, not so very far from the truth. She thinks about the look on Dong-jie's face when she learns that she can have her husband back as he was, but for a shorter time, and does not allow herself to feel cheated of the chance to have her own betrothed consult her on such a choice. Mei Changsu made the choice he thought best at the time it was presented to him, and she cannot begrudge him his decisions any more than she would second-guess the actions of a commander in the field. They make the best decisions they can, in the moment, and they live with the consequences. He was a military man before he was a strategist; she is a military leader still. They know this.
And, also, to have him back even for so little time as he has left, is a gift beyond hope. There is so little time remaining, but it is so much more than nothing, so much more than she had ever dared dream.
Mu Nihuang does not plan for a wedding, not an immediate one. She wants so badly to don the red robes that are packed away in the bottom of a cedar chest in her rooms in Mu Province, to pin on the red veil her mother helped her embroider. She wants to link arms with Mei Changsu as they drink their toasts, catch his eye as they make their vows.
But she knows her way around imperial politics as surely as a falcon knows the turbulence of the air, and knows it is impossible right now.
Mei Changsu will not allow himself to stop or be stopped until Prince Jing is on the throne. And no matter what she might wish, whom she might flatter, they will not be permitted to be married until after the Emperor has died. And, oh, it is certain treachery even to let the thought cross her mind, but right now, sitting in Mei Changsu's garden and looking out across the courtyard he renovated, she wishes for Prince Jing's coronation even more fiercely now than she had dared to do before.
A handful of years remain to her love, to her impossible, stubborn, laughing boy; to this brilliant, dedicated, ruthless man he has grown into. The Emperor might live much longer than that, if his health recovers, if he is as persistent as she knows he can be.
She closes her eyes, and does not allow the brimming tears to fall.
"Duchess? Are you well?"
Mei Changsu asks, and his voice is so different; how could anyone recognize him after such a change? But the way he shapes the words, his intonation, the way he lingers on a phrase: they are all exactly the same. How could she not have known him at once? For all that he is impossible, she always knew her Lin Shu was capable of great things. Why would defying death be any different?
She turns to him, smiling bright despite the tears standing in her eyes.
"I am well," she says, and she means it.
She has said these words a thousand thousand times and lied every time, since the day she got the news of his death. She has lied to the Emperor, the Grand Princess, the Dowager Empress, to her father, to Mu Qing as a child and Mu Qing as a young man, and always, always, she knew herself to be lying, to be doing what was necessary, what was safe, what would keep her and her little brother alive.
Now, she says these words and they are the truth. Her tears begin to fall, slow and implacable, unstoppable as the flood-season rains in her home.
Mei Changsu looks alarmed, for a moment before understanding crosses his features. He opens his arms, and she goes to him, tucking herself into the curve of his shoulder without a second thought. His arms close around her, gently, almost gingerly, and then with more certainty. After a moment he presses his face against her hair. There are so many ornaments, it must be uncomfortable, but he doesn't protest, and she doesn't move away.
"I am here," he says.
His voice is soft, and hitches slightly with an emotion she can't determine, but she ignores it for the comfort of his bony embrace.
"You're here," she says. "Gege, you came back."
She almost says you came back for me but she knows that would be as much a lie as her constant protestations of wellness have ever been. He came back for the Chiyan Army and his father; he came back for Great Liang and the honor of his country. But he came back to her, nonetheless. This time, she thinks, she won't let him go without a fight.
Mu Nihuang closes her eyes and holds him in her arms.