Hào’yáng’s lips curve in a weak smile. His lashes flutter, and I see his eyes rolling as he fights to stay conscious. “I’ve imagined this ten thousand times for our wedding night,” he mutters, “only never with me bleeding out.”
Heat warms my cheeks, but my embarrassment falls away when I peel back his golden lamellar armor to reveal the blood-soaked shift underneath.
It’s worse than I thought. On the left side of his powerful,corded chest, the skin is shredded by a giant puncturewound. Blood glistens and oozes out with each of his breaths.
“It’ll be all right,” Hào’yáng says, catching my expression. “I’ll be all right, Àn’ying.”
I press my fingers to either side of the wound and begin weaving the talisman I learned from Healer.
Spirit energy flows from me, shimmering gently in the night.A talisman is only as powerful as the strength of your will, my father once told me in the early days of my training.
I bare my heart now, opening all I have been through with my boy in the jade and letting it flow into the rhythm of my hands as I trace this healing talisman to save his life.
But his blood continues to leak between my fingers. I feel him slipping away.
Help me.I speak into the echoes of my mind. My vision blurs; the flow of my spirit energy falters.Meadowsweet, help me.
The dragonhorse’s familiar presence enters my mind in a swirl of silver and waves. Her voice is quiet as she replies:
I do not possess the ability to pull someone back from the Nine Fountains as the ancients of my realm do, she says.But there is something I’d like to show you, Àn’ying. Hào’yáng will never be selfish enough to express any of this to you, and so I will in his place.
The waves in my mind grow louder; the dragonhorse’s eyes begin to glow the color of the sea, and the clouds and skies of the mortal realm fade as I’m pulled into the tide of her memories.
It’s bright, clear, the sun pouring through puffs of clouds, gilding everything. I recognize the ethereal perfection of the immortal realm, the way everything gleams as though wrought from paintings. A white dragonhorse dozes beneath a familiar-looking osmanthus tree; plumes of clouds curl over distant mountains, and a river sparkles as if it holds stars.
It’s Hào’yáng’s residence at the Temple of Dawn. I try to make out the year of this memory, but it proves impossible: The immortal realm is as unchanged as ever, eternally beautiful.
Footsteps sound from inside the cliffside house. The wooden doors slide open, and a boy emerges from beneath the curved eaves—a boy I would recognize anywhere.
This Hào’yáng must be twelve or thirteen years old; I make out traces of him like a sketch superimposed over the memory. His hair is tied in an austere bun, and he wears plain white silks. A golden tassel hanging from his waist marks him as a student. He’s cradling something in his hands.
“She spoke.” His voice is calm, yet there is an undercurrent of excitement. His eyes spark in a way that lights up his entire face as he kneels by Meadowsweet and holds out his hands. As the jade pendant glimmers in the sun, something in my heart shifts. “She was telling me about her day.”
Meadowsweet blinks slowly.You are meant to be practicing your skills with the longsword, and yet you spend all day waiting on a piece of stone.
“That isn’t true,” Hào’yáng replies, but the ghost of a smile curls his lips as he settles beneath the tree, leaning against the dragonhorse and holding the pendant up to the sun. “Besides, I have a duty to take care of the girl in the jade.” He pauses, and the smile slides from his face, yielding to that familiar crease between his brows. “The man who saved my life and brought me here is—was—her father. He gave me her place in this realm.” His face holds that practiced, careful blankness; his thumb trails an involuntary stroke across the smooth surface of the pendant as he stares at it, lost in thought.
The scene shifts, and this time, I recognize Lady Shi’ya’s home drifting in the skies of the immortal realm, with the cherry blossom tree in the courtyard, for which my father named me. My breath catches at the sight of her, well and alive, pluckingat the strings of a lute as she sits by a stream flowing through her garden. The music tangles with the fall of cherry blossoms and the sound of rushing water in the soft evening air; there is a certain melancholy to it all.
Hào’yáng stands before her. A year, maybe more, seems to have passed since the last memory; he has grown taller, his shoulders and chest broadening and his jawline sharpening. His head is bowed, his hand on the hilt of Azure Tide.
The music stops. Lady Shi’ya looks up.
“You directly disobeyed me.” There is no anger in her voice, only disappointment.
Hào’yáng lifts his gaze. His jaw is clenched, but there is a storm in his eyes, too. “Was I meant to watch her drown?” he asks, and I suddenly know what memory this is. It was after my first excursion in search of the light lotuses for Ma, when I’d fallen through the ice of a pond.
The first time I dreamt of the boy in the sea.
Lady Shi’ya’s expression is calm as she gazes back at her protégée. “Hào’yáng,” she says gently. “You must make your own choices in life. Yet if you commit to the path of heir, if you desire to one day take back your kingdom from the mó, there are sacrifices you must make. Going to the mortal realm put everything we have been working toward at stake.”
“But I’m here and well and alive, aren’t I?” There is a touch of anger to Hào’yáng’s words. I have never seen this side of him: younger, more tempestuous, emotions sharper.
“You could have been killed—”
“Àn’ying’s father was killed! And if she’d died tonight, it would have been because ofme, and I can’t—” Hào’yáng blinks rapidly, breathing fast. “I can’t live with the guilt of that, Lady. Can you at least understand that?”
The immortal remains as stoic as though carved from stone. It is several heartbeats before she speaks again. “If you choose the path of heir, you must cast aside all else. Love, family, friendship…you must shed everything in pursuit of your duty to your realm, to your people, and to your kingdom. You would exist not for yourself but as a vessel to serve the Kingdom of Rivers. Can you understand that?”
