"She had fainted in front of me, I do not know why. It took me only a few minutes to bring you here on horseback, so it was not a long time before this." My eyes fluttered open and there was a sharp pain coming from my head. I was by the fire, no doubt I had hit it on stone. 

"Lady Li? Can you hear me?" The feeling in my stomach had not gone away, and as soon as I realized again why it was here, it came up again. Tears came to my eyes.

"Yes." It was a whisper, but the doctor accepted it. Yi Fan held my head up and gave me water from a ladle. I drank, trying to keep it down as the feeling kept rising and rising. 

"She needs to rest now, her head feels disturbed and I cannot try anything if she is not mentally clear. It should only be a few days, I'll make some herb teas and ointments for her, but that is all we can do now. Her energy is disturbed, these will help." The doctor walked out into our kitchen to prepare what was in his bag. Yi Fan was next to me, his face looking so pale. My fainting had shocked him, not knowing what the letter was from. He had no idea what it had done to me. 

"Fei Yu, hold my hand." His hand was in mine, I had not felt it before, but I had no energy to hold his. I did not want to hold his hand. I wanted to be alone. I was the only one left. I was alone. I began crying, sobbing. Yi Fan was used to seeing this, but it must have shocked him. I was probably going mad in his eyes. 

"Nobleman Wu, I will be back in two suns to see how she is doing. She needs a cup of tea at every meal. Put the ointment on her forehead at night." Yi Fan stood up and thanked the doctor as he left our house. As soon as he was gone, Yi Fan sat down on the floor near my head, leaning against the wood of our bed. 

"Did I do this to you? Did I hurt you, Fei Yu?"

"No." I stared up at the ceiling, trying to see the stars. There is a saying that the ones you love join the stars; I wanted to see his, but I was trapped in here. 

"What happened?" Tears clouded my vision again, but I didn't let out any noise. I covered my mouth so Yi Fan would not hear. The moon came down, shining on the bed and in my face, illuminating my tears. Was it him casting the moon onto my face? 

"He is dead, Yi Fan." 

____________

I sat outside when the doctor came in the next two days. I was too pale, he said, paler than the ointment that was on my forehead. Outside was getting warmer, but I was getting colder. I did not speak for the two days in which the doctor was gone. There was no need for me to speak when the person I spoke for could no longer listen. Yi Fan was beyond worried. He was by my side every moment, helping me sit, helping me walk, just holding my hand. If I could feel anything, it would be sadness towards Yi Fan. I had finally given him his wish, and now I was falling ill with every passing wind. I was shrinking away in his eyes, right after he was the happiest he had ever been, now I had made him the saddest. I was to say sorry to him sometime later, but not now. 

The feeling had never left. It had consumed me. I was never happy, never willing to eat, never willing to drink. I did not want to do anything but sit and watch the trees. The trees reminded me of my village. I would close my eyes and listen to the wind run through them, thinking of the countless times I had sat underneath the red leaves of the maple. Thinking only of him and feeling a pain in my heart. It started softly, almost a tiny pull. Every time I had looked at the base of a tree, my heart would pull at me. Then, it began a stabbing pain. Sometimes, I would let out a scream and hold my chest, praying it would go away. The pain in my head did, but not in my soul. 

"She is not getting better, only worse. She cannot speak, she barely eats or drinks. All she does is sit and stare at the trees, then when I bring her in, she stares at the fire or the moon. If there is no moon, she stares into the dark." 

"Nobleman Wu, I have seen this sickness in many women, but it is hard to see it happen to one so young and full of life." Yi Fan was pleading with the doctor. He had given what my fate would be. If I did not come back, I would die by winter. Wither away like a tree branch into nothingness. I had no feeling about the news, but Yi Fan had let tears fall for the first time. He sat head in my lap, pleading with me, tears falling. I had stared at him, giving no emotion. In the next life, I would apologize. I would try my hardest to love him and not Jia Er. I wish I could say it to him, but alas, I could not. I could only run my cold fingers through his hair and try to sleep next to him at night. 

"What is this called? Are you sure there is no cure?! You are a doctor!" The doctor shook his head. 

"She is dying of heartbreak. I can feel it in her qi. Everything is being pulled in by the heart. It is trying to survive, giving up everything to find what it needs, but what it needs is gone. It can never be found. I see this in young widows, brides of soldiers. I do not know why your wife is feeling this way, and she will not speak. If she does not change, she will die, I have told you this before. I had thought it would be winter, yes, but it might be sooner. She is growing paler and her qi is one of the most damaged I have felt. It feels she is not mourning one, but one-thousand. I have left tea and ointment, but at some point, if she wants to leave, you must let her go." The doctor left Yi Fan standing there, his eyes empty. I wonder if he was thinking about how unfair fate had been to him. His wife was not a beautiful maiden from a rich family, she was an orphan. She was someone who longed for another man that was not him. She was someone who lied about her love to him. If I was to die before winter, he would never get a child. He would have to remarry someone whom he did not love and try for children then. He had to do that. It would be cruel for fate to make him wait even more for me.

He came and sat down, laying his head in my lap, trying to feel any warmth that had come before. We had shared moments together in our time of marriage. Our first time waking up in each other's arms, a kiss shared here and there, holding each other in the cold night watching the stars. Those were the times when I had thought it would be easy to love Yi Fan. In years down the road, I would get over my mourning of my village and we would live old together. It seemed a nice end, but it seems that won't ever happen. Now, I cannot let it happen. I cannot disrespect the dead in such a way. 

"I thought, Fei Yu, we could find love. I am in love with you, I have been since I had seen you walking with Jia Er. The first day in your village. I thought that if you had seen my true intentions, the proposal of marriage, and of a better life, you would come with me. It seems that is what happened in the stories I had been told. When I had saved you from the Mongols, we were running through the forest, when we had finally found a place to hide, do you remember. You were in my arms for what seemed liked days. Clinging on to me and only me. I had seen you do it so much with Jia Er that I so longed for your touch and I had finally gotten it. I had fallen completely in love. You were strong, you know the ways around the forest, you knew how to fight. You were unlike any girl I had seen. I have always had a feeling of resentment against Jia Er. How could he be so far away from you and still completely have your heart? The night you cried in my arms, you were calling his name, not mine. It was, is, bittersweet to always be second to Jia Er. I had thought my wealth and power would draw you to me, much like it does to other women, but you were different. You did not care where I came from. A man was a man to you. That night, when we finally were on our way to the capital, on horseback we were talking about what our lives should have been in the Mongols did not attack. You told me you wanted to marry a man of honor and strength. He needed nothing but a name to prove himself. You wanted many children and to teach them to fight for themselves. You wanted to name your first son after your brother and your first daughter after the moon. After that point, I needed to marry you. I need to be with you. To give you those children. I thought after our wedding, all the times we spent together, you would see in me what I saw in you. We held each other, we laughed together, we kissed in the cold night. When you came to me that night, it seems so far away, you said you wanted a child. I was the happiest man I have ever been. I thought you had finally come to love me. At the end of the night, I had whispered a devotion of love, and you had said it back. I thought... Fei Yu, I thought you were mine. I had done it, after waiting for so long, you were finally mine and only mine." I could see the tears falling. I felt a twinge of something deep down. Something that wanted to reach out and hold him. He was wearing like a child in front of me and I couldn't do anything to save him from this pain. My own pain was in the way.

"What did I not do? W-what did Jia Er do to win you over? Even after everything. He is still in your heart, not me. What did I miss out on? I gave you all of me, Fei Yu. Every piece of me, and yet, you will never do the same. What did I do wrong?" I was crying now, blaming myself for what was happening. This pain was built up, I could tell. For years, he was always second. He had found hope. I had given him a false hope that someday, he would come first. Once the doctor said heartbreak, he had drawn lines together. He had found the reason. He didn't speak for a day either, he was mourning. Yi Fan was mourning the love that had left him as quickly as it came. 

"I still love you. I am in love with you, Fei Yu. I will never not be, no matter how many lives I will have in the future. You are the one for me. Fate put you in my path for a reason. You are my wife. You will always be my wife." 

"Yi Fan." It was raspy, but he turned quickly to look at me. It was the first words I had said to him since that night. He grabbed my hands, kissing them. He had hope in his eyes and I was going to ruin it. 

"Fei Yu, I-"

"When I die, you need to find another wife. To give you children. The love you deserve." He swallowed hard, the hope soon leaving.

"Fei Yu, you are not going to die." I nodded. 

"I do not feel any reason to stay."

"N-not even... me?" I was breaking his heart. I was breaking him. 

"Thank you for the love you've given me. It made me believe I was able to love you. It made me happy. You gave me love that I will never be able to repay in this life or the next. I promise in my next life, I will try to pick you." He shook his head.

"No, no. In this life, you will live. I will, I will give you the love I want to give you. You don't need to pay me back in any way." I sighed and looked up at the stars. I still couldn't find the one that was Jia Er. 

"You said, you had asked, what did you not do."

"Yes." 

"Dance with me?" He sat there, "We have never danced together." 

"Come here." He picked me up, walking me carefully to the open field, making sure the stars surrounded us. He held me close, making sure I did not fall as I was so weak. 

"Sing me a song. One from your childhood." He put his chin on my head and hummed a tune I did not know. Something soft, like a mother lulling their child to sleep. We swayed back and forth in the dark, an almost full moon above. I was to die soon, the next time the sky was blank. Something inside me told me it was true. 

Jia Er and I have danced many times. Since we were children. At weddings, when we were younger, we would hop around with the older men, learning the dances of our village. When we got older, we were the ones to lead the dances with the bride and groom. The unmarried were to celebrate with the newly married, and give them many blessings of youth. It was lively and some of the only times we had dressed up nice as a village. We would dance at celebrations, getting drunk at the moment it was allowed by our parents. We would dance into the new day, laughing together. In the more recent times, before Jia Er left, when we were becoming something together, we would dance slowly after the times of quick steps. The music would settle down, the younger children would go home, and songs of love would be played by the homemade band. Jia Er had to teach me the slow steps, so much so that I could close my eyes and just feel the dance around me. It seemed to come too soon that he had left our village and I was left with no one to dance with. Jia Er and I were seen as a pair. We would dance quick, we would dance slow; we were to make everyone dance. We were the ones to teach the little children our customs as our older men got older. Jia Er was to take on the title of the drunk married man and I was to take on the caring wife. People in the village had always told me how excited they were for our wedding. What a celebration it would be for the two most loved children of the village. The two happiest, most joyful children. The comments of joy stopped after Jia Er had been gone longer than he had pledged. As the stone weighed my side bag down, my heartbreak may have started even then. 

"Fei Yu, you are crying again." Yi Fan reached over and wiped my tears. 

"I am sorry, I-" He shook his head. 

"You are thinking of Jia Er again, I know. He used to dance with you, just like this, under the stars of your village, near the fire. I would watch from where I sat, hoping one day I could tear you apart from him and dance with as much love as you two had." 

"I'm sorry." 

"At least I finally get to dance with you."