An icy gust of wind blew through the courtyard, sending the hanging lanterns swinging like fist fighters. Without warning, Lei reached out and brushed a careless thumb across my cold cheek, tucking back a stray lock of hair that had whipped free in the wind. Even that infinitesimal of a brush left me reeling with sensation, my skin tingling from his touch. But I refused to let him know it.
“Why are you always drinking?” I asked instead.
His smile was as bitter as oversteeped tea. “How else can I live with myself, sweetheart?”
“The rest of us find a way,” I said, before adding quietly, “though I’m no stranger to falling victim to my vices.”
The earth vibrated with the pounding drums. All around me, people cheered, laughed, toasted, and drank. Yet never had I felt so alone.
He was still watching me. “Do you think you’ll be happy here?”
I shrugged, scanning the night sky above us. “It all worked out like a dream,” I said. “The Imperial Commander pardoned me. He named Sky as his successor. And he consented to our betrothal.” I watched Sky’s father sitting at the head of his dais, ornamented in brilliant red and gold.
“So you secured the throne; you won your bid,” said Lei dryly.“Only, have you ever wondered whether you really want what you worked so hard to secure?”
There was something razor-edged in his voice. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know why the Imperial Commander finally named his heir?” He smiled coldly. “Because he cannot fight a war on multiple fronts.”
I blinked at him. “The war is over, Lei.”
“The Three Kingdoms War is over,” he agreed, “but this current semblance of peace will not last, no matter what your new father would have you believe.”
Another errant blast of wind caused me to shiver. Lei shifted his stance, shielding me from the cold air. Up close, I breathed in his familiar masculine scent and felt the old stirrings of desire within me. I couldn’t keep doing this—wavering in my decisions, wondering what if, what if, what if. I had chosen my path, I did not regret it, and now there was no going back.
I tried to step back from the prince, but my heel struck the alcove wall. Lei’s grin turned wolfish.
“Do you want to know what your dear betrothed is hiding from you?”
I shook my head, then slowly nodded.
His voice dropped, so that only I could hear him. “The casualties the Anlai army suffered were great. The coffers are empty, and the noble families openly defy their tribute agreements. And most strikingly”—Lei paused, his eyes on mine—“the famine has reached critical levels. The common people are rebelling.”
I thought of my recurring dreams, of great qi being sucked from the land. Was my spirit power to blame for this? In overusing my lixia during the war, had I sapped the life force not only from my own body but from the land itself?
Lightheaded, I leaned back against the alcove. Sky would’ve stopped; Sky would’ve spared me. But Lei, as I’d always known him to be, was ruthless. He went on.
“Rebellion is like a disease; it knows no borders. Civil war in Leiyang ended with the disposal of their ruling family. Now the rebels are moving west—and Anlai is their next mark.”
Rebels? My migraine intensified as I tried to wrap my head around this revelation.
Lei leaned one hand nonchalantly against the wall, shielding me from view. “The people are restless. They hunger for change. The question is, my little troublemaker, what role will you play?”
What role will you play?
I repeated his question, but in my head, it was not Lei’s voice that resounded, but the dragon’s. I recalled the icy weight of his voice, the hair-raising timbre of his roar. Even though I did not trust him…I missed his grounding presence. Ineededit.
Ever since I’d started wearing irons again, a debilitating emptiness had filled my core. I felt lost, depleted, a cracked half shell of a person.
“I-I can’t,” I said, my voice breaking. “Something’s wrong with me, Lei. My qi feels like a stranger’s. Some days, I can hardly sense my life force at all. I have so many questions, but every time I try to answer one, a thousand more spring up. I barely recognize myself anymore. I-I’m just trying to hold it together.”
“So you’ll accept your sentence?” he asked quietly. “And spend your final months here?”
I wrinkled my brows at him. “What do you mean—my final months?”
For the first time, I saw astonishment flit across his face. “He didn’t tell you?” Lei asked, something sinister and precarious in his voice. Surprise had crystallized into anger.
“Tell me what?”
