His face heated; he would not look at me. “Nothing.”
“You’ve always been a terrible liar.”
Sky smoothed my blankets a second time. I had never seen him so evasive; he’d always been one to face problems head-on.
“I-I think it’s best you stay home for now.”
“But…” I processed this. “You mentioned you had a new lead on the spirit gates?”
He gave a curt nod. “A seer told my father he could find a powerful weapon in the Reed Flute Caves.”
Privately, I wasn’t convinced. No sword could stand against the might of spirit power. But all I said was “When do you leave?”
His face looked even more pained. “Tomorrow.”
“I’m coming with—”
“No.” His hands clenched into fists around my blankets. “You will remain here.”
“I’m not going to live my life waiting at your beck and—”
“Meilin—” he said, his voice breaking on a strangled note. It was so bizarre I paused, peering at him. His eyes were overbright.
“Are you crying?” I asked, bewildered.
He turned away, rubbing at his eyes angrily.
“Sky?”
Abruptly he rose from my side, pacing the length of the room. I got out of bed and realized I was in my nightclothes, though I couldn’t remember changing. Already my memories from this morning were hazy.
“Sky,” I said. “Look at me. I’ll keep up with you, I promise—”
Sky swung toward me and I braced myself as if preparing to be struck. Instead his arms came around me as he buried his face in my chest, like he was seeking comfort. Nonplussed, I patted him on the back. He only gripped me harder, as if certain someone was about to pry me away.
“Sky…what’s wrong?”
“I’ll do anything to make you stay,” he whispered. “I just never know how to sway you.”
Because he was not Lei, I mused, who knew how to persuade and manipulate until you no longer trusted even your own thoughts. I thought of how Sky had tried to find the missing jade during the Three Kingdoms War, how he’d marched up to a crew of Ximing sailors and expected their total honesty. As if you need only ask, and the world would provide.
Still, something about me staying in the Forbidden City mattered to him, though I could not say why. I had never seen him so distressed.
“Will you stay?” I asked selfishly, capitalizing on his anguish. People were dying out there, and Sky was trying to save them. But I wanted him for myself.
Sky hesitated, only for a moment. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll stay until the festivities end,” he amended, for the new year began tomorrow. “Then I must depart for the peace talks.”
The treaty would be signed at First Crossing, the connecting point between the Three Kingdoms.
I kissed him on the soft underside of his jaw, where I’d once held a blade to his throat. We had our share of fights, I thought, but it was only because we both cared so deeply. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand me. It was enough that he cared for me.
He cupped my cheek and guided my face up to meet his. I pressed myself hungrily against him, craving the hardness and heat of his body. A low sound rumbled at the back of his throat as he anchored my hips against his and crushed his mouth over mine, tasting me as if it was the last time he ever could. When I gasped for breath, his lips left mine to follow the line of my neck, finding the pulse at my throat, worshipping it.
“I’m going to protect you,” he whispered, his breath warm against my skin. “I’m going to keep you safe.”
He repeated these words like a mantra, over and over again, and by the way his hands held me, reverently, I wondered if he also said them as a prayer, as if by speaking them aloud, he could make them somehow come true.
Twenty
