Impossible.
“Àn’ying.” Yù’chén speaks my name with infinite gentleness. His lashes flutter, yet he gazes at me with something nearing serenity. “Can I…ask for one thing?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
He tries to lift a hand to touch my cheek. Can’t. It falls to his side. “Will you smile for me?” he asks.
I realize I have never smiled at him, not truly. I’ve regarded him with caution, suspicion, sorrow, and hatred…I’ve kissed him and desired him. I’ve loved him.
But I’ve never smiled at him.
It feels monumental, in this moment, to lift my head beyond the sorrow in my lungs. But I somehow do. I hold his gaze and pull my lips into a smile, even as my tears fall on his cheeks, his neck, his lips.
Yù’chén breathes in deeply. A glow seems to emanate from his skin, warm as dawn, as the throne room around usfills with a great rushing sound. Shadows dance on the walls, tendrils of darkness curling through the air, pulling gently toward the open gateway. Red scorpion lilies bloom and fade against its opening, as though time is unwinding before our eyes. The blues and golds of the carpet gleam, the marble walls and lapis patterns brighten, and suddenly, the night begins to lift.
The gateway behind me is collapsing. The edges dissolve like smoke, the red scorpion lilies braid in on themselves, as though stitching a broken seam between realms. As the ground and the air tremble around us, I gather Yù’chén in my arms. His head falls against my shoulder, his lashes casting perfect crescents against his cheeks. Like this, he could be asleep.
The gateway gives one last shudder. A great, sourceless wind blasts through the palace, shattering windows and breaking open doors. I close my eyes, curling my body over Yù’chén’s as sand and rubble from the ruins blow over us.
Then: nothing.
I open my eyes. The palace doors are open. Sunlight spills through, bright, clear, and golden, pooling on the floors and warming the air. Outside, the sky is the most brilliant shade of azure. A winter-tinged wind kisses my cheeks, blowing flower petals from the gardens inside. They drift toward the back of the room, onto a gleaming gilded throne framed against a great painting of the Kingdom of Rivers: white clouds and green pines, lakes and mountains, all drenched in the gold of the sun.
I look down, and there I find the greatest mystery of all.
Where Yù’chén’s body was is now a scattering of red scorpion lilies, petals bright and gleaming. They face the sun, and asI watch, a butterfly lands on a petal. Its wings, patterned in the most remarkable swirls of black and crimson, open and close. It rests for several heartbeats, then takes off, circling once over my head before flitting outside and vanishing into the endless blue skies.
32
Àn’ying
Kingdom of Rivers
I follow the butterfly.
Outside, the sun is too bright, too warm, as it caresses my skin. I close my eyes, and when I reopen them, the colors of my realm are effervescent. Everything is drenched in a gleaming golden haze, the realm at long last awakened from an eternal night.
I heard you dreaming of afternoons beneath your plum tree with your mother and Méi’zi. I wanted to gift you that.
I turn back to the throne room, convinced for a moment that I’ll see him there, red cloak stirring in the wind, smile curving his lips, as beautiful as the first time I met him.
But the hall is empty, the gateway gone.
I sweep a last glance across the chamber. Then I wipe my sleeves across my cheeks, turn, and step outside.
The liberation of the Imperial City turns the tides of the battle. Everywhere I look, mó are backing down, their powerswaning beneath the energies of the sun. The immortals’ power, on the other hand, grows, the air filling with their spirit energies.
I charge through the battleground, lotus sword in hand, Fleet granting me speed. My spirit energies are buoyed by the presence of the sun, and on my chest, where my jade pendant once rested, I feel a tug in my heart drawing me forward.
He’s there. White-and-gold lamellar armor glinting, blue sword flashing, he fights astride She of the Moon-Frosted Sea. Somehow, across the entire battlefield, Hào’yáng’s gaze finds mine.
He flies to me, She of the Moon-Frosted Sea weaving gracefully through the battle, and leaps off when he reaches for me.
Gently, he tips my chin toward him, eyes searching mine, brows furrowed.
My eyes burn even as I whisper, “It’s done.”
Hào’yáng draws me into his arms and simply holds me, his heartbeat against mine. I don’t know how to explain to him that what should be a moment of victory has turned, instead, to one of grief. That I love him so endlessly and brilliantly as the sky loves the sun—but beneath, now, the shadow of another is carved into my soul.
