Xiuying, I knew, would be ashamed. She would expect more from me. Compassion, kindness, self-sacrifice. All the qualities she exhibited. And yet I did not wish to become another selfless woman hidden beneath the shadow of men. I wanted to be remembered, and I wanted to carve out a legacy of unquestionable greatness.
I did not question the pulsating warmth of the jade against my skin.
Lei was looking at me oddly, in that penetrating way of his that made me wonder if he could read my thoughts. His mother had possessed the gift of second sight. I did not understand how the Ruans passed down their abilities, but I sometimes wondered if he had it too.
“Did you see something?” I asked him, clearing my throat. “About the fate of the Three Kingdoms?”
His smile was mocking. “I can’t see the future, sweetheart,” he said. “I can only look at the past, and see the way cycles repeat themselves.”
A hard expression flitted across his face. He glanced past me to the looming silhouettes of the palace pagodas, and the craggy mountains beyond them. “I won’t let another war happen,” he said lowly, and it felt like a promise. “I can’t.”
Selfishly, I saw an opening—and I seized it. I caught his sleeve, forcing him to stop. “Then help me,” I said, more loudly than I’d intended. The harshness of my voice seemed to shatter something in the night’s stillness. “Help me and I promise you—I’ll ensure the treaty terms are fair.”
He laughed, a scornful, derisive sound. “You think I need you for that?” he asked. “Do you really believe I don’t have alliances with every potential successor?”
Caught off guard, I hesitated, but only for a moment. “Then help me for another reason,” I said, changing tactics. “Help me take the throne because you know me. Because you know I’ll be a better ruler than the rest of them.”
“Meilin,” said Lei quietly, “what makes you so sure you’ll be better?”
“I—what?” Taken aback, I dropped my hand. “I’m not…you know I’m not like the others!”
He shook his head. “I mean this as a kindness,” he said gently, but his tone only made his words cut deeper. “It’s true you aren’t like the others now. But who’s to say what you’ll become, in one year or ten, once the cancer of power has taken root? I’ll tell you this—there is no one in all of Tianjia who can take the throne and not be changed by it.”
“I’ll be different,” I promised. When he refused to look me in the eye, I recalled his former weaknesses and wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing his face down to mine. “Please, Lei,” I whispered. “I need your help.”
It was not a kiss, but from afar, it would have resembled one. Sky, I knew, would have been furious with me.
But what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
Lei’s eyes were heavy-lidded, yet within their amber depths, I could feel his suppressed desire. To my surprise, it mirrored my own.
Then Lei broke from my grasp, and I thought I’d lost him. “Who’s the little trickster now?” he asked, his voice taunting.
I colored but refused to look away, waiting.
He adjusted one of his many rings, his face unreadable. At last, he spoke in a careless voice that was anything but. “For you, sweetheart, I’ll gather the evidence against Yuchen. Besides,youare hopeless at this.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he silenced me with a wry glance. “As for Prince Keyan, it’s no secret that he and Princess Yifeng have a loveless marriage.”
I nodded; Lily had mentioned this before.
Still twisting one of his rings: “But what most do not know is that Keyan had a secret lover long before he allied himself with Yifeng in a political partnership. A pretty girl named Caihong, who was relatively unknown before she was discovered by the Imperial Commander and chosen as his concubine.”
My mouth fell open as I recalled the beautiful woman I’d met in Princess Ruihua’s quarters. “Prince Keyan shares a lover with his father?” His father would befuriousif he found out.
“She’ll never admit to it,” said Lei, his eyes cutting to mine. “Not willingly, at least.”
I smiled, my fingers reflexively reaching for my jade. “I have ways of making people willing.”
Lei’s mouth tightened. Unexpectedly, Xiuying drifted to the forefront of my mind, and I wondered what she’d say if she were here. The thought left me nauseated with guilt.
Don’t think of her, then, a voice in my head whispered. And I could no longer tell if it was my voice or the dragon’s.
“You’ve changed,” said Lei, so quietly it was nearly lost in the early-morning breeze.
“People change,” I snapped. “You of all people have no right to judge me.”
He said nothing, only watched an old farmer lug his half-empty basket of crops up the hill. The bokchoy leaves looked brown and wilted, but I wondered if he had nothing better to sell.
“They will both be punished if discovered,” Lei said at last. “But you know who will be punished worse.”
