Palace of the Aurora, Kingdom of Night
I manage to stumble out onto the balcony. I’ve spent my entire life building walls around myself, so high and so thick that no one and nothing can hurt me. It was necessary for survival as a halfling in the Kingdom of Night.
One word from her, and the walls fell.
Hào’yáng.Her voice echoes in my mind. A hot knife through my chest.
I lean over the cold spring, my reflection perfectly captured by the scythe moon, my eyes burning that damning red of demonic energies, my lips and cheeks flushed in a way no mortal’s can be.
You’re beautiful.Her words, laced with the impossible sweetness of oleander nectar, drift through the wind to me.
I choke out a sob and slash my hand through the spring water.
I’d imagined her in a gown like that, in my most farfetched dreams. I’d imagined, a thousand times over, a lifetime in which she might wear a smile and a dress for me. Tonight, those dreams were willed into existence, yet I hadn’t realized just how cruel the irony would taste.
Because tonight, smiling up at me from the dais, she looked beautiful in the gown she wore to wed another man.
I extend my hand, and where scorpion lilies bloom, a carafe of liquor appears. I toss the contents down my throat, again and again as it magically refills, the oleander nectar hot and cloying against my tongue. Just this once, I wish to forget everything, so the ache in my chest will go away.
As I down another cup of the poison, I sense the air shift. Red oleander begins to bloom, a trail flowering from beneath my feet to the trees around. Magic gathers in the air like shadows. The wind picks up, and as my head begins to rush, whispers fill my mind.
Hào’yáng, Hào’yáng, Hào’yáng…
Faint laughter swirls in the air. As the shadows behind me thicken, I know it’s Sansiran.
A cold hand slides over my back. “Poor little halfling. Intended to give up his life and his kingdom for a girl, only to have her run off with another man.”
She steps out in front of me, shaking off her cloak of night. She gazes down at me, and tonight, I truly don’t have the strength to act like I care nothing for what is happening aroundme.
“My pitiful son,” my mother says gently, leaning forward and tracing her fingers across my cheeks.
“Why are you doing this?” I demand. No more pretending.She’s won, and she knows it; I’m laid bare to the bone in front of her. “I’ve let you denigrate me every day before your court. I’ve endured your torture, I’ve said nothing as your generals use me and let their subordinates abuse me. Haven’t you had enough?”
My mother examines the wetness on her fingertips, her face inscrutable. “Why?” she repeats softly. “I could ask the same of you, Yù’chén.”
I glance at her sharply, and she sighs.
“I loved you,” she says. “The Heavenly Order would say we mó are incapable of love, but I loved you as best I could, as best I knew how. I gave you everything: a life, a throne, the promise of a future where you hold the realms in your palms. And you threw it all away—for what?”
I’m too stunned to say anything. To hear the woman who is my mother tell me she loved me when all I’ve known at her hands has been pain and terror simply feels inconceivable. I’m convinced this is another one of her tricks, that at any point, she’s going to hurt me in some new way.
“You betrayed me,” she hisses, the sudden vehemence in her tone making me flinch. “I gave you everything—Ilovedyou—and you still chose to betray me.” A pause, and her crimson eyes go dark and empty. “Just like your father.”
The pain comes, sharp and sudden as always. This time, it’s the sensation that all my bones are snapping, over and over and over again.
When my mother’s anger ebbs, I’m sprawled on the ground, my clothes soaked through, slipping in and out of consciousness. Sansiran’s voice resounds in my mind:I wanted your father to feel the pain I felt. I wanted him to watch as his entire familywas slaughtered, his people were fed on, and his realm was burned to ashes.
Now I want you to feel the same.
“That’s not love.” My voice is ragged.
My vision filters back slowly. My mother stands beneath a tree of red oleander, watching me. “And you think you know, because of a girl who’s so disgusted by you that she can’t even stand to look at you?”
I think of Àn’ying, limned by the light of the moon and my magic, her cheeks flushed and eyes dark with the nectar.You’re beautiful.
The pain in my chest returns.
“One day, my son, you will understand,” my mother continues. “Love is nothing like all the mortal poems describe, all peach blossoms and sunshine and beautiful things. Love can grow dark and twisted and sharp, can hurt you like nothing you have felt before. One day, your love will hurt you so much that you will understand why I would burn down kingdoms for it.”
