Jinya’s writhing body sprang to mind. I shook my head, trying to clear the blood-coated memory. It refused to release me, its grip on my mind like weeds in still water. I could see Jinya’s ink-black blood oozing onto the sand, the hovering spirits whispering above us, their hunger as palpable as the warm, cloying wind.
“Meilin,” said Lei, voice low with authority. “Look at me.”
Slowly, the memory faded, the stirring lake faded, even the corpses of the fallen faded. I met Lei’s implacable gaze, his luminous eyes that always seemed to see straight through my masks and lies.Lei knew me, I realized. He knew the ugly parts of me that I tried so hard to hide. He was always one step ahead of me, too clever, too devious, too good at reading and manipulating others. In captivity, I’d feared this ability of his. But now, I found myself seeking comfort from it. For in some perverse way, it made me feel seen. Despite knowing me, despite knowing my selfishness, my greed, my fits of hysteria and madness—still, he’d stayed. He’d stayed and protected me.
Why?
Perhaps he truly did care for me. But with the Ximing prince, there was always more than one motive.
I thought of how he’d approached every spirit gate on our journey, how he’d made sure to honor the dead—even though I’d never known him to be sentimental.
It had been another of his schemes, I saw. And the truth was, it had worked.
Because every death had eaten at me. The corpses littered along the road, the children too young to even enlist in war. Despite my best efforts, I had seen them, and I had thought:You did this. You started this.
Then Princess Ruihua. Then Jinya.Who else? Who else must I cross paths with in the spirit realm—who else must I recognize with dread?
It was said that spirits were drawn to those with darkness within them. And yet, in the aftermath of war, who had not been tainted by darkness?
What if Xiuying was the next body I discovered along the river?
“I told you plainly I was going to the eternal spring,” I said, increasingly upset. “I told you I wasn’t getting involved in the rebellion, or the thinning of the veil, or any of this!”
“I know,” he said.
“You agreed! You said you’d come with me to the spring!”
“And I will,” he said, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “I gave you my word.”
“But…” My jaw quivered.If I leave for the spring now…“But…” My voice dropped. “Lei, I don’t want to care for this world.”
“I know.” His eyes looked so very sad.
“I wish I didn’t care for this world.”
His calloused hands slid down my arms, before he took my hands in his.
“But…” Pressure built at the backs of my eyes. I was so tired of crying. “But…”
“But you do,” he finished. “You do care.”
“Yes.” I relented, my shoulders slumping forward. He caught me, steadying me against him.
“I can’t give it up,” I admitted into his chest. “Even though I can feel my qi thinning. Even though I only have a few months left to live. If I go now, and seek the spring, the world may not have even that.”
Lei said nothing. I raised my head and watched his jaw pulse, the knot at his throat lifting. After all his tricks and mind games, his silence now frustrated me to no end.
“Say something!” I snapped. “Wasn’t this what you wanted? Wasn’t this your plan all along? Wasn’t this the choice you manipulated me into making?”
“Sweetheart…”
“No!” I cut him off. “Now you’ll just twist my words. You’ll make me think this was all my doing. But I know you—I know you havean agenda. You always do.” Tears leaked from my eyes, running unabated down my cheeks. My jaw was trembling so violently it was hard for me to speak. “I’m not the kind of person people think I am,” I gasped, through my tears. “I don’t work well with others. I hurt people. I-I’m selfish—I’m selfish to my core—”
“You’re not selfish, Meilin.”
“I am! You’ve seen what I’ve done. I opened the spirit gates. I killed innocent people. I-I ruined Sky.” In a softer voice: “I ruin everyone I love.”
He took me by my chin then, forcing me to meet his gaze. “We’re human, each of us.” The warmth from his hand seeped into my ice-cold skin. “But I believe we’re more than our worst moments,” he told me, his voice quiet yet thrumming with authority. “It’s our best moments that have the power to define us.”
