I stop before him, an arm’s reach away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I try to keep my voice steady, but something inside me is loose, unmoored. “All this time. Why didn’t you?”
“Because your mother is right. I cannot offer you the life you deserve.”
“And you’re the one to decide that?”
“No,” he says. “No, of course not.”
“Then—”
“Because I knew it would be fruitless,” Hào’yáng says at last, and his expression breaks open with that familiar sorrow. “Because your heart is taken already, Àn’ying. And I have no right to use our alliance to get in the way of that.”
I draw a tight breath.
A memory hangs in the air between us. Him, facing me in the dusk light of the immortal realm. Watching me beg him to save Yù’chén’s life.
“You say his name sometimes when you dream,” Hào’yáng continues quietly. The last rays of sunlight limn his profile. “I had no wish to burden you with feelings you cannot return.”
I think of those nine years I spent in my house crying over the shadow of my father, when I still had my home, my sister, a part of my mother, and my neighbors—when Hào’yáng had witnessed the death of his entire family and been spirited away to another realm. All those times I spoke to my guardian in the jade of my grief and he wrote back to me words of comfort and care when he was the one with nothing. I think of him watching me through the jade, perhaps waiting for me to speak to him of the pieces of his heart he’d kept hidden from me for half a lifetime.
I’ve seen the way he looks at you, jie’jie, when you’re not paying attention.
“Tell me.” My voice is soft, so soft. “I would like to hear it from you.”
He draws a sharp breath. “Àn’ying,” he says. “I know you see me as your friend, your guardian, your trainer…but I am a man, too, and I have my pride.”
I’m not sure what gives me the courage to close the gap between us, to reach out and tip his chin toward me, forcing him to meet my eyes.
Within, I find grief and broken dignity—and unmistakable desire as he gazes back at me.
I surge up on my toes and brush my lips against his.
Hào’yáng inhales sharply, and I feel the muscles of his shoulders tense. He catches my arm as I draw back. A hundred thoughts seem to race through his eyes, the intricate calculations of his brilliant mind.
Then it all clears. Hào’yáng cups my cheek, his touch gentler than anything I have felt before.
And kisses me.
His lips are soft, his palm steady and warm against my waist, his other hand cradling my chin. He tastes of salt and spun sugar, and as his eyes flutter shut, a wind stirs flower petals from the trees around us. They drift in the fading glow of sunset, showering over my wedding gown and Hào’yáng’s golden armor, and I find myself thinking that this is the type of kiss befitting fairy tales.
Slowly, he pulls back. Blinks away the haze in his eyes. “Àn’ying.” He speaks my name in a way that sends shivers across my skin.
Reaching to close the distance between us, I kiss him again.Hào’yáng thaws—and this time, the kiss is no longer a fairy-tale one.
He grips my waist and pulls me against him, the movement sudden and hard. His grasp tightens, and he makes a noise low in his throat as his mouth caresses mine. And I’m drowning in sensation as the dam in my chest finally breaks open, those whispering waters swelling into the waves of oceans.
Hào’yáng draws back sharply—and there it is again: the conflict in his eyes, the sadness that shadows his face.
“I made a promise to your mother, Àn’ying, and I will not be a man to break the promises I make,” he says haltingly, as though each word costs him a great effort. “But most of all, your mother is right. I will not be the man to hold you back from the life and the love you deserve.”
The words take flight in the soft dusk air. Beyond us, the last light of sunset fades from the surface of the river and drains from the sky, and I imagine the distant horizon, a place where sea and sky meet, forever reaching yet never touching.
Hào’yáng steps away. Cold air seeps in between us; the blossoms litter the ground like dying butterflies. His hand goes to the hilt of Azure Tide. In the moments that follow, his lips move, and the words he speaks might have been something likeI love you too much to be selfish—had I heard them.
But I don’t.
A great tremor rolls through the ground, and the setting sun seems to vanish completely from the sky. Hào’yáng’s gaze snaps to the east, where Xi’lín lies. His hand tightens against my waist.
I turn, and what I see nearly sweeps my legs out from underme.
