Love, to Lan, had been an inevitable, nightmarish end to a songgirl’s life at the teahouse, or an unattainable fairy tale like the stories Ying had always dreamt of.
This was different. This love was broken and remade, imperfect in the way their sharp, jagged edges had fit together, yet it was the deepest thing she had ever felt, and the most immutable truth she had known. Tonight, she wanted to know how it felt to be loved.
She met Zen’s gaze, and he seemed to understand her unspoken permission. Holding her to him, he stood and walked them to the kàng. There, gently, so gently, he lowered her to the silk sheets, her páo pooling around her waist like a silver blossom. Her fingers worked the slips to his páo, the blacksamite giving way to the strong cords of his chest. She trailed her fingers over the hard, flat planes of his stomach, feeling the ridges of crisscrossing scars and knowing the pain they held.
Wishing that, for tonight, she could take that pain away.
He lowered himself over her, fingers still tangled in hers and the red cord of their promise, his weight suspended by his elbows.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” Zen said softly.
“Don’t.” She tipped her head back and kissed him. He sighed against her, and she held on to him as he covered her body with his.
He didn’t miss her sharp intake of breath, the way her muscles tightened. “Does it hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head, her heart beating fast. There were some things in life that hurt, Lan decided, but that were meant to be. Perhaps she and Zen were like that: for all the grief and pain and heartbreak she’d gone through, nothing had ever felt more right.
He moved tenderly against her, his gaze never leaving her face, searching for any signs of discomfort. She clung to him, curling her fingers against the nape of his neck and feeling the familiar silken softness of his hair. He dipped his head and grazed kisses against her neck, her jaw, her cheeks. Slow. Reassuring. Letting her take the lead.
She caught his mouth with hers, lips parting, their kisses growing longer and deeper. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to sensation, to his fingers on her skin, the heat of their bodies, the salt-and-sweat taste of him. The darkness became the night sky, she and Zen two destinies inextricably joined across worlds and fates. And she held on tightly to him as that night sky reeled into stars, their two souls bound in pain and pleasure, in grief and love.
They lay together, hands and bodies intertwined, fingersjoined by the red cord of her pendant. It was one of the first times in her life, Sòng Lián reflected as she gazed back at Xan Temurezen, that everything seemed to have fallen into place, if only just for a moment: that the winding, star-crossed fates that had led them together and then pulled them apart had finally found their true course.
Blood draws more blood. Power desires more power. A vicious cycle cannot be broken.
Unless it is destroyed.
—Xan Alatüi, First Shaman of the Eternal Sky and the Great Earth,Classic of Gods and Demons
Xan Temurezen.
A whisper from the depths of an abyss. An abyss he stood at the edge of, an endless void of black that seemed to call to him.
Time runs out, Xan Temurezen. The end is near.
—
Zen awoke sometime in the night with a jolt, his heart in his throat. He could have sworn he’d heard a voice in the darkness, one that had pulled him from his dream—a most wonderful, impossible dream.
He looked down, and his heartbeat slowed. The panic, the frantic feeling, gave way to a calm satisfaction. There, nestled in his arms, was the girl who was the anchor to his world. Sòng Lián. Lan. The faint moonlight that seeped through the paper shutters and the cracks of the doors limned her in silver, so that he had the illusion she was dusted in a light layer of snow. She was warm and small against him.
Zen loosed a breath, closing his eyes and willing himself to sink back into that dream. Yet there was something in the air that felt off: an invisible static, a storm in the distance only he could feel. He frowned.
Against his chest, Lan stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, liquid as they caught the dim glow of moonlight. She blinked. “You’re awake, too,” she whispered.
Zen smiled, trying to quell the feeling of unease as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I am,” he said, speaking against her temple. “I had the most wonderful dream.”
She chuckled, a throaty sound laced with sleep. “Oh? I’m sure I was in it, then.”
He trailed a thumb against her cheekbone. “You were.”
She snuggled against him. “Tell me more.”
“We were back at Skies’ End,” Zen said softly, closing his eyes and tasting the near-tangible joy of this moment. “Only…there were grasslands in the mountains, too. We rode horses beneath the sun and the blue sky, and we had children. Everyone was there…Dé’zi, your mama, my aba and amu, the disciples and the masters…”
“Even Dilaya?” she teased.
“Even Dilaya.” He held her as tightly as he wished to hold on to that dream. It had been a good dream.
