But he had made up his mind. “Send forth the decree: once the Three Kingdoms Treaty is signed and the threat of demon corruption eliminated, I will agree to step down as Imperial Commander.” His gaze swept across the room, before settling on his youngest son at the very back. “Prince Sky,” he said, and the crowd seemed to shift, heads swiveling in unison like a flock of birds in flight.
Sky met their stares with unexpected composure, and I recalled his immovable calm in the face of battle.
His father cleared his throat, caught off guard by a sudden surge of emotion. “You, my seventh yet strongest son, will be named as my chosen heir.”
Eighteen
They say when a man dies seeking vengeance, the gods may show him favor and return him as a ghost, haunting those who wronged him. Thus, men must tread carefully on the path of justice, for a vengeful ghost will not rest until it sees its enemy fall.
—Book of Rites, 829
Sky and I spilled outinto the open-air gallery like giggling schoolchildren. Despite the cold, our pace was leisurely as we crossed the courtyard leading out of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. I felt a light tingle on my cheek and looked up at the sky. “It’s snowing!”
Sky followed my gaze and laughed, picking me up and twirling me in the air. “The skies are smiling down on us,” he whispered in my ear, which was turning red from cold. He kissed the rim of my ear and then my nose, and then at last, my hungry mouth. “I love you,” he said, his mouth hovering just over mine. “I’ve loved you since the day I met you in the Wenxi market, when you saved my life with a blacksmith’s pole. Since then, you’ve given me life a hundred times over.”
“Only a hundred?” I asked, laughing. Despite the falling snow, the sun had started to peek out behind the clouds, as if joining in on our happy occasion. As I squinted up at Sky, my face in direct sunlight, Sky saw and shifted, turning me so that he took the sun’s glare.
“A thousand,” he murmured. “For there is no living without you.”
“Don’t say that,” I said, growing uneasy. Although the Imperial Commander had reversed his sentence, there were other decisions that could not be so easily reversed. I dreaded the physician’s exam I had consented to, which would be my first since I’d left the dungeons.
“I mean it,” said Sky, his eyes flashing stubbornly. “Meilin, there is no life without you. No, listen to me.” He held me still and forced me to meet his gaze. “Next time you risk your life, know that you risk mine. Because our fates are tied together now, forever.”
He meant it lovingly, but his declaration felt like a noose around my throat. Had I gotten what I wanted, I wondered, or had I gotten whathewanted? For that matter, what did I even want?
Could I imagine myself living out my days in the Forbidden City, maneuvering around and against attempts at public humiliation, allegations of illicit affairs, and even the occasional assassination effort? Defending Sky as he succeeded his father on the throne, and took over the reins of the wealthiest and most powerful kingdom in all of Tianjia?
You want this, a sly voice whispered in my mind.Of course you do.
“Meilin?” Sky asked, his hands tightening on my wrists. Why did his hands suddenly feel like manacles? And hadn’t I had enough of those?
I buried my face in his chest, so reliably warm and solid. With my ear pressed to his robes, I could hear the gentle thud of his heart, which was so dear to me I protected it as my own. Wasn’t that what love was? Then I loved Sky. And yet, when asked to hand over my entire future to him, to reduce the wide expanse of possible roads and possibilities before me to one narrow, treacherous path, I found myself hesitating.
The snow falling on my back grew insistent. When one drop fell on the nape of my exposed neck, I realized it was rain. Raisingmy head in bewilderment, I saw that—despite the radiant sunshine, or perhaps because of it—the snow had morphed into rain.
“Father Sun is crying,” I told Sky.
“Hm?” he said, toying with my rain-drenched hair.
“The legend of the Sun Daughter,” I said, gazing up at the sparkling rain, which looked lit from within by sunlight. “The daughter of the sun loved the god of rain, but her father did not approve of the match in heaven. He arranged a different marriage for her, but in the days leading up to the wedding, she grew so lovesick that she wasted away and died. Now when the sun shines on rain, Father Sun is honoring the memory of his dearly departed daughter.”
Sky laughed. “Wherever did you hear such a tale? In the story I always heard, the sun finally relented and gave his daughter to the god of rain. When rain falls on a sunny day, the daughter of the sun is visiting her father.”
“Which one is it?” I asked him. “Is he mourning or laughing?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” said Sky teasingly. “Should we ask the god of rain what he thinks?”
Rain dripped from Sky’s temples and nose, but he grinned, shaking himself like a wet dog. I laughed at him, at his ill-mannered behavior. But as he raked his glistening hair back from his forehead, the strong, aristocratic planes of his face catching the sunlight, I felt a low swoop of desire in my stomach. As if he sensed my change in mood, his eyes roved over me, skipping from my loose hair, which had fallen out of its pins, to my drenched dress, which I suddenly noticed clung indecently to the curves of my body. The silk of my ruqun, which had always been delicate, was now near transparent in the rain, exposing the shape of my breasts.
His eyes were a haze of desire. “I love you,” he murmured, closing the space between us. “I want you.”
“Where can we go?” I whispered.
Sky led me to his rooms with an alacrity that rivaled his wartime urgency. He’d removed his jacket to cover me but refused to let me walk on my own, as if expecting hungry wolves to come and snatch me away. By the time the guards had been dismissed and the doors locked, his face was alight with desire.
I was shivering from cold and eagerness. I huddled against Sky’s warmth, trembling too hard to untie my own clothes. Sky stilled my hands and undid my sash himself, carefully peeling my wet robes back from my damp shoulders. The silk crumpled in a pool at my feet.
Sky took me in silently, my body rosy from firelight and nerves. My nipples were peaked from cold, my skin lined with gooseflesh. After I had bound my breasts for so long during the war, they had never regained their youthful shape. I started to cover myself with a self-conscious hand, but he stopped me, gazing at me with unabashed wonder.
