The river sweeps me up, and Hào’yáng draws me against him with the confident familiarity we developed throughout the weeks he trained me for the trials. The air is chill, though Hào’yáng is warm as he shields me.
“You told me once that you wanted to see the ocean,” hesays. “Do you remember that day? It was when you shot your first quail. You were so proud, and it was the first time you told me that you thought you could hunt.”
I close my eyes briefly. Yes, I remember my first kill—the first time I thought that my hands could be good for something other than sewing. Knives and blades, bows and arrows, had become the new keys to survival in our realm, and tasting the rich oil of the meat on my lips after months of foraging had felt like a new door opening.
One my boy in the jade had led me to.
That was the first time I’d felt like I could survive in a fallen land.
“I remember my first successful hunt,” I say, opening my eyes and meeting his. “But I don’t remember telling you about the ocean.”
Hào’yáng studies me. Something in his tone softens when he continues: “That was the night you told me you would swap your needles and threads for your blades,” he says. “It was after midnight. Méi’zi was asleep in the other room, and you sat by your father’s bookshelf, holding the silk handkerchief you were sewing. You spoke to me then, and you said that you’d always dreamt of seeing the ocean. Of seeing the rest of the realm and capturing it in your sewing.”
My lips part. I had forgotten about that dream until recently: the one I’d buried deep in my heart and left to dust and darkness. In the days that had followed and the nights that had befallen our realm, dreams had felt like a luxury when we were starving and dying. There had been only survival.
Hào’yáng watches me patiently. He’s waiting for me to speak.
But I have nothing to say. And suddenly, the emptiness of that forgotten memory threatens to crack my heart.
“I don’t remember,” I whisper, blinking quickly.
Hào’yáng’s hand is warm on my waist; he laces his fingers through mine, as though we are in a slow dance. “That’s all right,” he says. “I remember for you. I remember all of you, Àn’ying. The girl you were when we first met, with dreams and a love of colors and silks.”
I find that I cannot breathe.
“I wanted to let you know that—no matter who you become and what you choose to be.” Hào’yáng’s gaze shifts to the horizon. “Whether a mortal girl…or an immortal’s heir.”
My chest tightens. This is the first part we agreed upon: to secure our initial forces by calling upon the immortal army that once belonged to Lady Shi’ya.
My birth mother, who died to save my life.
Unlike mortals, immortals do not leave their corporeal forms behind when they pass. Yet Lady Shi’ya bequeathed one single item to me when she left this world, with only myself and Hào’yáng as witnesses.
Hào’yáng reaches into his storage pouch, where he has been keeping it safe for me.
Lady Shi’ya’s lotus flower reflects the morning light with a sheen like magic. Blush-colored and framed by a jade-green leaf trailing a long, elegant stalk, it seems to pulse with a soft, dusky glow.
“You know the legends of the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea,” Hào’yáng says, and I nod. It is a fairy tale all mortal children have heard: the Eight Immortals using their vessels ofpower to tame an ocean during a storm as they crossed from the mortal to the immortal realm. “This lotus was the vessel of Lady Shi’ya’s power. Some say the immortals’ vessels hold a drop of their souls,” Hào’yáng continues. He lowers his gaze and holds the lotus out to me as reverently as though it were a part of the woman who raised him for the last ten years. “It’s yours, Àn’ying.”
The lotus shimmers between us. Even from here, I feel the magic energies spilling from it and sweetening the air. It’s a fragrance so similar to Lady Shi’ya’s that I half expect her to step from the river waters, that gentle half smile on her lips. The first time I set eyes upon her, having just qualified for the Immortality Trials, she was holding this lotus. I’ve seen her wield it as a sword as well as use it to heal the most terrible wounds, yet I know I’ve beheld only a fraction of the magic it holds.
This lotus, Hào’yáng and I have reasoned, is the way for me to legitimize my position as Lady Shi’ya’s heir. And it may be the key to the one thing most important to Hào’yáng and this war: access to Lady Shi’ya’s immortal army.
Today, I need to find out how to unlock its powers.
I slide my hands over his, our fingers clasping the lotus—the only thing left of the mother we shared: the one who gave me life, and the one who saved his. And when I look up, I see the heartbreak on Hào’yáng’s face.
I press my palm to his cheek. He doesn’t look at me, but there’s a tension to the lines of his shoulders and his muscles. As though he’s afraid of being touched like this.
“Hào’yáng,” I say softly, and finally, he lifts his eyes to meet mine. And there, within, is an ocean of grief.
He doesn’t speak—he doesn’t have to. Though Lady Shi’yais my birth mother, it is Hào’yáng who was closest to her. She was his sole source of comfort during his time in the immortal realm; when his family was slaughtered in the war with the Kingdom of Night, she became all that he had.
I gained two mothers during my time in the Kingdom of Sky—and I found Hào’yáng. But he has lost all that he had of family.
Beneath his collected facade as the heir to our kingdom is a boy who is grieving.
Hào’yáng shuts his eyes briefly. When he looks at me again, his gaze is cool steel, a vast and unreachable ocean. He takes my hand from his cheek and presses it back to Lady Shi’ya’s lotus. His palms are warm and firm against mine. “I’m going to let go now, Àn’ying,” he says.
