Adrian’s Truth

My name is Adrian Shen.

For the first fifteen years of my life, I was careless and happy.

Then I met Clara Su.

She was standing in a crowded street wearing coarse cotton, asking strangers to visit her family restaurant.

She was lively as a rabbit.

Too bright for the dusty capital road.

When she tugged my sleeve and said she could make crispy fish pie, I followed her.

I told myself I was curious.

Later, I understood.

That was the moment I became hers.

I loved teasing her.

When she glared, hands on hips, cheeks puffed with anger, my heart itched.

The day I realized that feeling was love, I ran to her house.

“Clara,” I said, breathless, “I like you. So do you want to—”

She pouted.

“I thought you already knew.”

Then she ran inside and refused to come out.

But I saw her ears turn red.

My Clara.

I swore I would marry her.

Only her.

Then winter came.

I knelt in the snow before my father, begging him to let me propose to the Su family.

He beat me until I fainted.

He had already arranged my marriage to a Lin daughter.

I refused.

Then I overheard him speaking of war at the southern border.

Military merit.

That was my chance.

If I earned enough glory, I could ask the emperor himself to grant my marriage.

I ran away to enlist.

Before leaving, I went to Clara.

She cried.

I almost stayed.

But she told me she would wait.

So I went.

For years, I wrote to her.

At first, she replied.

Then her letters stopped.

I feared something had happened.

Before I could investigate, the emperor sent me a secret decree.

My father had been accused of corruption.

Ten thousand taels of silver.

Buried in our backyard.

Evidence impossible to overturn.

But the emperor spared our lives because of my military service.

If the silver was repaid, Father could retire in disgrace and the clan would live.

If not, execution.

I knew my father.

He wore old robes.

He repaired broken furniture.

He was no corrupt official.

But truth did not matter when evidence had already been planted.

I begged every relative.

Every old friend.

No one could provide enough.

So I went to Silas Su.

He agreed to lend the money.

On one condition.

“Marry my daughter.”

I thought he meant Clara.

Then he said,

“Evelyn.”

I argued.

Begged.

Raged.

He remained unmoved.

Time ran out.

My father’s life.

My clan.

The soldiers waiting for me at the border.

The emperor’s final deadline.

And Clara.

I chose wrong.

Or perhaps every choice was wrong.

I wrote Clara a letter explaining everything.

She never received it.

Silas and Evelyn intercepted every one.

I learned that only after Clara died.

On my wedding night, I told Evelyn I could only treat her as an elder sister.

She cried and asked why I could not look at her.

I had no answer that would not be cruel.

So I left.

I went to Lydia’s room.

The household thought I favored her.

Good.

Lydia was not my lover.

She was my agent.

My intelligence collector.

A weapon hidden in silk.

She was the first to tell me Selene Lin was suspicious.

Years later, when Evelyn died, I had the body examined.

The examiner called it suicide.

I believed him.

I should not have.

By the time I understood the depth of the trap, Clara was in my arms, bleeding her wedding robe red.

I held her until her body grew cold.

No one could take her from me.

Not then.

Not ever.

Mira, her maid, later told me Clara often woke from dreams crying,

“Adrian, don’t go.”

So I did not.

When the new emperor stabilized the throne, when the borders bowed, when my duties finally loosened their grip, I returned to her tomb.

I planted flame trees across the mountain.

When they bloomed, the world turned red.

A wedding robe made of flowers.

“Clara,” I said beneath the blossoms, “I am not leaving anymore.”

For the rest of my life, I kept that promise.