“Hit,” I say softly.
His eyes dart between mine. Then he gives a slow nod. Yields. “Hit,” he echoes.
I hold his gaze and make my true strike. “Does any of this have to do with my father?”
I see it then, that one unguarded moment, in which his face blanches with shock. Turbulence ripples through his deep brown eyes like a storm breaking against rocks.
Find the One of the Vast Sea.
I was right.
It was him, that day in the ocean, so achingly beautiful that I’d believed him a water spirit; it was his dragonhorse I saw through the tides.
He is the one my father sent me to find in this realm.
Hào’yáng exhales. He still holds my wrist in his hand, as though he has forgotten about it. I find that I do not want him to remember.
“I did not know your father,” he says quietly. “But I owe him my life.”
The waves lap at the white-sand shores, the wind weaves through the great camphor tree leaves, but nothing in this world can steal the weight of his words from me.
My chest hurts. “Hào’yáng—”
“Àn’ying. Please. Don’t ask what I can’t tell you.”
There’s a sting in my eyes and a lump in my throat. For the first time in nine long years, it feels as though my father and all the secrets he left behind are within reach—yet still so far away.
“Can I ask you one more question?” I whisper.
He lets my wrist go and steps back. The skin on my arm where his fingers were now feels cold. “If it is mine to answer.”
“Why haven’t you taken a pill of immortality?” It’s the question I have always wondered about my father, and I don’tknow if it is foolish to look for an answer in Hào’yáng. After all, isn’t the pill what most of us are here for? A ticket into paradise, away from all the suffering and pain of our short mortal lives. I would assume that the adopted son of one of the Eight Immortals would be offered one, if all it takes is a drop of their golden blood.
Hào’yáng looks into my eyes, straight and true. “I didn’t want to forget what it meant to be human.”
19
My joints groan as I slam into the sand for what feels like the ten thousandth time.
“Back on your feet.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Every single limb is on fire. “Hào’yáng, you’re going to kill me before the trials do.”
For the past few days, Hào’yáng has been relentless. From sunrise to almost midnight, we train on the beach beneath the camphor tree. I return to my chambers each night bruised and exhausted, managing only to scrub myself with soap powder and a washcloth before collapsing on my bed.
A shadow falls over me. I open my eyes to see Hào’yáng backlit against the sunset sky. Instead of frowning at me with the strict trainer’s demeanor he’s taken on, he sits by my side and crosses his legs. His armor is off. As a breeze pulls in from the water, he lifts his face to greet it, and I’m struck by how much younger and more mortal he looks.
He exhales. “The Third Trial could start at any moment. There are candidates stronger than you out for your blood. This place will swallow you whole. Believe me; I’ve been through it.”
Dusk sweeps an aching, fiery haze across the grounds. Shadows begin to set in, velvet beneath the bright colors of blossoms and trees on the landscape; the remainder of the realm is aflame, the waters as red as molten lava, the clouds like swirls of fire. Hào’yáng’s profile is carved in the last glow of sunlight, his shoulders drawn tight. With each passing day, the possibility of the Third Trial starting soon seems to weigh heavier on him, and I wonder if it’s because he’s afraid of failing to repay the debt he claims he owes my father or of failing the task his mother set to him—or both.
I blow a strand of hair from my face and change the subject. “How did you come to the immortal realm?” It’s a question I’ve been mulling over. From the bits and pieces Hào’yáng has told me through our trainings, I understand he came here as a child—long before he could compete in the Immortality Trials and earn a spot in the Kingdom of Sky.
He glances over. Locks of his hair have come undone from their bindings, falling over his cheeks. “Your father brought me here,” he says, and my world shifts.
I sit up. We face each other, the tides of the Mirror Lake rising and falling just beyond us, the winds murmuring. I could lift a hand and touch him, and this time, he doesn’t move away. “Please tell me why,” I say.
“Àn’ying. I can’t—”
