I know she is thinking of my father.
And I have a chilling premonition of what might come next: fate, run in a circle across two lifetimes, returned to where it all began.
A cold breeze rises, stirring the wild silvergrasses that have grown on our village footpaths. The sun is bright in the sky, but the air is cold; winter will be upon us soon.
“I do not mean my words as a trap for you, Your Highness,” my mother says quietly. “It is only that…Àn’ying has been through more than most of us in this world. She was ten years old when she lost her father, and the task of being sole caretaker of me and her sister fell upon her. She has lived her life in service to others, never for herself.”
You’ve lived your life making choices that benefit others, protecting me and Ma and chasing after the shadows of Bà’s wishes.Ma’s words are an echo of Méi’zi’s.
“I don’t want her to live for anyone but herself after this war,” my mother continues. “I don’t want her to suffer a day more.And if there is anything she deserves in this life, it is someone who will love her first and foremost, irrevocably. Who, when it comes down to it, will choose her over a kingdom.
“You, the imperial heir and, one day, emperor of our kingdom, will hold the weight of our people, of our realm. Each and every day, you will need to choose between kingdom and love. And I don’t wish my daughter to love someone who would choose his kingdom over her. Àn’ying deserves to see the oceans. She deserves a life of freedom, of laughter, of love. Not shackled to a cold throne and a colder bed.”
My eyes heat. I understand, so well, so deeply, the words my mother speaks. My father chose kingdom over love. And I was left to pick up the broken pieces after his death, to live in the aftermath and consequences of that choice.
Ma doesn’t want me to live the same story.
“You say you love her more than your own life,” Ma continues, “and it is my deepest honor to know that, Hào’yáng. But once the war is won and you step onto the throne, your life will no longer be yours. You will no longer be Hào’yáng but emperor of our realm and sovereign of our people. Your life will be a vessel through which the good of the people and the good of the Kingdom of Rivers is governed. Your heart and your soul will be buried under this vast decree beneath the Heavens, child—and there will be no space for love or a life for you. Less so for my daughter.” Her voice softens. “Can you understandthat?”
For the first time since I met him, Hào’yáng seems at a loss for words; he has no clever retort nor diplomatic response. He only sits there, gazing at my mother. Like this, he looks young and lost, like a boy not two decades old with the weight of anentire kingdom upon his shoulders—and I suddenly see the way he must have been the night he arrived in the Kingdom of Sky, having just had his life upended. The most vulnerable parts of my boy in the jade, I realize, he has never shown to me before.
“Your Highness,” Ma says gently. “Hào’yáng. Please do not misunderstand me. I would never seek to dictate the course of your life, nor to take my daughter’s choices away from her. I only speak to you as someone who has walked this line of fate and reached its other side. Your path was charted for you long before you were even born. The fates have brought you and my daughter together; I only ask that you consider from her perspective before joining your paths for the rest of this lifetime.”
Hào’yáng’s face is bowed. The silence stretches until, at last, he looks up. Any traces of emotion are now gone; he is a blank slate. Cold and austere, the guard and the heir.
“I understand, Lady Hé,” he says. “Forgive me that I must continue to ask for more sacrifices from your family when you have already given me so much.” His gaze does not waver. “Should you give your blessings, I will ask Àn’ying for her hand as a political alliance only. She has agreed to fight with me and grant me access to the Heavenly Army that her birth mother was entitled to. I will care for her, but once the war is over, I will annul the marriage so that she may choose the life and the love she wishes. This I promise you.”
My mother watches him, and to my surprise, she covers his hand with hers. “You are honorable, Your Highness,” she says gently. “You will always have my blessings, and my gratitude.”
Hào’yáng sets his knee to the ground and bends until hisforehead presses the floor. He does this three times, then turns to leave.
The front door slams open; by the time I reach it, it has already closed, and there is only a trail of settling dust and fallen petals by our steps, colorless in the late autumn light.
5
Yù’chén
Temple of Dawn, Kingdom of Sky
I’m dreaming the same dream. It’s one I’ve had many times before. The setting changes: Sometimes it’s a pine forest, sometimes by a murmuring river of silvergrasses, other times in a clearing at sunset. In this dream, there is someone chasing me, calling out my name. And each time I turn, about to see their face—
I wake.
In the dark, in those moments between sleep and wakefulness, I always reach to my side. I know what I’m looking for: soft black hair, pale white shift hiding daggers, and the shape ofhercurled by my side.
Always, my fingers close on empty air, and I finally open my eyes to the living nightmare of my reality.
I push up into a sitting position on this stranger’s bed in this stranger’s room I have come to occupy at the Temple of Dawn. There is no moon—there hasn’t been since the Kingdom ofNight invaded the Kingdom of Sky—but a few cold stars shimmer in the skies. The sun should have risen already, but the nights in the immortal realm are growing longer as my kingdom’s hold on it strengthens by the day.
Beyond the half-drawn curtains, flashes of lightning sear across the skies from time to time—clashes of battles being fought, lives being lost, as our army advances through the Kingdom of Sky.
A pounding at my doors draws my attention—the sound that must have woken me in the first place.
“Not now,” I snarl, but the guards stationed outside control access to my chambers. They do not heed my command—they never do.
I throw my robes on, tightening the sash at my waist to hide the sword at my hip.
The cherrywood doors swing open. In the dim moonlight, I make out the silhouette of the Higher One known as Niefuzan as he enters. One of the most powerful mó ever to have come into existence, he is my mother’s faithful general and her second-in-command…and the one who sired the halfling Yán’lù, killed in the Trials.
