“That was when I wished to stay.” How young I’d been in those army days, thinking everything I wanted could be won with glory.
“And now?”
“And now I’ll never return.” I started to rise. “Let me go, Sky.”
His face darkened. He reached out and grabbed me by my tunic, pulling me down. Furiously I struggled against him, and in our frantic tussle we slid farther down the edge. We cared less about living than about fighting, and perhaps that was why the moment we tipped, we only saw each other.
Twenty-nine
Everything reminds me of you.
—Liu Sky, in a private missive, undelivered
The moment was fast yetbrutal. Sky wrapped his arms around me, positioning himself beneath me to take the brunt of the fall. Still, when we slammed into the hard earth, the impact drove the breath from my lungs with such force that I couldn’t inhale, couldn’t move. I lay sprawled in the dirt, my vision flickering at the edges. I could hear the gentle susurrations of a bamboo grove around us, the clack of bamboo poles and the ominous shushing of leaves whistling in the wind.
Gradually, I felt Sky stir beside me, and I forced myself upright despite my aching bones.
Sky groaned and crawled toward me. I tensed at his proximity, reaching for my blade, but then saw the grudging mirth in his eyes. As if against his will, he began to laugh, and it was then that the absurdity of our situation struck me. He smiled at me, and without meaning to, I smiled back. It was like muscle memory; I couldn’t help it.
His eyes softened as his hands searched for me in the half dark. I didn’t know if he was trying to strangle me or to kiss me. Still, I let him. I was weak and I let him.
His hand slid up my throat to cup the back of my neck. This was madness, I thought, but I did not pull away as he lowered his mouth to mine, gently, tenderly, with none of his former violence.
I let my blade clatter to the ground as I breathed out a sigh of inexorable pleasure, relaxing against him. He tasted like nostalgia, like the blinking stars on a warm summer night. He tasted like the golden haze of all my long-held dreams.
I had wanted him so badly, for so long. He had been mine, and then I had let him go. Why had I let him go? Why had I believed this couldn’t work between us? What if we could try again—what if we truly stood a chance at happiness?
He ran skillful fingers across my shoulders, massaging my neck where I liked, knowing which places were my weakness. I hummed like a cat, leaning into his touch. I let him deepen the kiss, giving in to the present moment.
And then—I heard it. The quiet drag of rope. It was barely discernible against the murmuring bamboo, but my ears were attuned to the threat like the sound of my own name. My eyes flew open as I caught sight of the coil of rope in his left hand, long enough to bind an unsuspecting prisoner.
Anger returned to me like summer rain, needing no preamble. I shoved him back before grabbing my sword, which had fallen in the dirt. Furious, I swung recklessly at him. He ducked out of the way, but my sword caught the trunks of several bamboo poles, slicing them in half so that they fell like beheaded men.
Sky’s gaze went from my sword to the sliced bamboo. “I don’t know what else to do, Meilin,” he said, his voice wretched. “I don’t know how else to keep you safe.”
“The difference between me and you,” I bit out, “is that I’ve never tried to own you.”
He tried to speak but I was done talking. I feinted left, thenstruck out with the hilt of my blade, connecting my steel to his temple. Sky crumpled to the ground, the coil of rope abandoned beside him like a lifeless snake. For a cruel moment, I considered tying him up, to teach him what it was like, to remind him of what he’d done to me.
But my gaze drifted above the bamboo grove to the moon, scintillating in its fullness.
“When I look at the moon,” Xiuying had told me, “I think of you.”
My stepmother would have loathed tonight’s violence. It would have reminded her of my father.
My father, who I hated to emulate. My father, whose inheritance I’d tried so hard to run from, every day for the past nineteen years of my life.
An inheritance of addiction and violence.
I checked Sky’s pulse—stable—then gathered my belongings and went on my way, the full moon my witness behind me. As I climbed again onto the rooftop eaves, this time, I resisted the urge to look back.
Lei was waiting by thefire when I returned, sharpening his blades. At the sound of my approach, his gaze traveled over me in silent, exacting assessment. When I winced as I sat beside him, he said, “You’re hurt.”
“Only bruised.”
He stared into the fire. “I thought you might go with him.”
I swallowed. “Our time is over. I’m sure of that now.”
