I put a hand against my chest to ease my pounding heart. Never again would I come here and put my family in danger, I decided. Not until I could trust myself again.
He too was relieved to see me, though his relief did not overcome his anger. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said lowly. “I have guards scouring the city as we speak.” He took a breath, trying to calm himself. “We arrested Zibei, but he killed himself before we could interrogate him. Here,” he said, holding out my irons. I hesitated, not wanting to give up my power and vitality. But the threat of the dragon still loomed large, and I did not know when he would try to control me again.
Wordlessly, I held out my wrists as he clasped them around me. Immediately my senses dulled, the world losing its color and verve and light. Without my lixia, I was overcome with exhaustion, my limbs like paper fans threatening to fold at any second. Lightheaded, I swayed before Sky caught me. He looked me over, taking in my torn nightclothes and the bloody bandage around my arm. “Who did this to you?” he asked, his voice lethal.
Wearily, I shook my head.
“My apologies for intruding at this hour,” Sky said to Xiuying. “We’ll take our leave now.”
“Wait,” said Xiuying, thrusting a satchel of herbal medicine toward me. “Take this.”
Sky frowned at the offending object but said nothing as I looped the strings around my arm. “Sister,” I said, a lump in my throat.I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.
She nodded, understanding me.
“When I look at the moon,” she whispered, “I think of you.”
Sky was silent as weleft, but I could feel the simmering resentment in his bearing. He helped me onto his steed, then swung up behind me, urging his horse into a slow walk.
“When I saw your empty bed,” he said at last, “I assumed the worst. I imagined you dead—or captured—or—” He broke off, breathing hard. In a strained voice, he continued, “Only to find you at your family’s house, though you were explicitlyforbiddenfrom leaving the palace—”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Sky?” I interrupted. “Why didn’t you tell me I only had six months left to live?”
He froze. “He told you, didn’t he?” he said tightly.
“If by ‘he’ you mean Lei—”
“I’m going to kill that bastard.” The lack of bluster in his voice frightened me.
“It’s not his fault!” I said, twisting in the saddle. “You should’ve been the one to tell me, Sky, not keep me in the dark like a child—”
“You act like a child sometimes!” Sky burst out. “You know why I didn’t tell you? Because I was afraid of what you’d do.”
Infuriated, I swung off the moving horse, landing badly on my knees. Sky’s steed nickered, confused, before Sky comforted him and dismounted, facing me in the darkened alleyway.I will not go with you, I decided then.
“You’ve grown increasingly unstable as of late,” said Sky. “I was afraid you’d hurt yourself, or—”
“Or hurt others?” I asked, my chest aching as if someone had tried to split it open. “So what, you wanted me to just go quietly?”
“I am doingeverythingin my power to save you,” he said. “But sometimes I think you don’t want to be saved.”
My eyes burned with unshed tears. He had no idea what I wentthrough in the palace every day: surrounded by people who wished to see me fail, constantly second-guessing myself, forcing a false smile despite the pain. Every moment was a violent struggle. And he thought I didn’t want to live?
“You never understood me,” I said quietly. “Sometimes I think it was a mistake for us to be together.”
Sky sucked in a breath as if I’d just struck him. He raked a distracted hand through his hair, looking away from me, then back. When he spoke, his face was violence. “Is this because ofhim?”
“Who?” I asked, before bursting into cold laughter. “This has nothing to do with Lei.”
Sky’s voice was soft, but it pierced through the night. “You don’t think I’ve seen the way you look at him?”
My laughter died on my lips as I met his wretched eyes.
“Do you even love me, Meilin? Look at you.” Now it was his turn to laugh. “You can’t say it, can you?”
My eyes narrowed as I strode toward him, my anger rising with every step. “Everything I have ever done in that cursed place was for you,” I spat out, pointing at the high gates guarding the Forbidden City. “I foiled your brother’s schemes for you. I kowtowed before your father for you. I stayed away from my family formonthsfor you.”
How much of it was the dragon’s doing, I wondered, and how much of it was my own inherent ambition? Was it possible to divorce the two anymore? Did I truly love Sky, or had Qinglong been manipulating my affection for him in order to drive me toward the throne? As a sovereign, I could do so much more for the dragon than as a lowly foot soldier. That had always been his aim, I recalled now, to get me into a position of power in the world of men.
