Slowly, the tides ebb and my head stops spinning, enough for sensation to return to my body. I’m holding her in my arms; I feel her quiet breathing against me, the warmth of her skin and the silk of her hair, the gentle pressure of her fingertips as she presses them against my back. I lean my cheek against her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her neck.
Her cheeks glisten as she bows her head, her hands tracing the lines of my shoulder. I kiss her gently again on her cheek.I will wait for you, I want to tell her.No matter how long it takes, no matter how many tears you need me to catch. I will be here.
She stiffens. Then she begins to turn from me.
I reach for her, because now that I’ve held her, I can’t imaginenotholding her, and there it is again, the terror that I’ll wake up in the dark again without her.
She hesitates. Her throat moves as she swallows, but then she pulls her hand back, swiping it across her face. I only feel cold again as she stands sharply; catch glimpses of the dress I made her sweeping out of my chambers. There’s a splash of water as she enters the crystal spring.
Slowly, I straighten. Rearrange my shirt and robes. Fasten my belt. Then I sit and hold my head in my hands as I listen to the sounds of her washing me off her.
The pain in my chest sharpens until I can’t breathe. It is as though I’m in one of my mother’s rage sessions again, drowning in plain air, only this time, it’s worse. I know all my mother’s sessions will end at some point.
This will not.
I can’t fathom an end to everything I feel for her, because that would be an end to life itself. I grew up knowing cruelty and pain in the Court of the Aurora, and then anger as my mother’s scheme—and my entirelife—fell apart in the Kingdom of Rivers. I didn’t know what it felt like to live and to love until I met Àn’ying.
A man living in eternal night who finally sees the sun could never hate it for leaving him in search of bluer skies.
I grip my chest with my hand, fingers digging in as though that will stop the pain. I finally realize that my mother was wrong. No matter how much we try, some things in life were simply never meant to belong to us.
—
By the time Àn’ying returns, I’ve collected myself. I’ve rearranged my expression into the mask of nonchalance I’ve always worn in the Kingdom of Night, the one I’ve upheld before my mother and her court no matter what they did to me.
Still, I drop my gaze as she steps through the gauze curtains, the dress I made for her sweeping across the floor of my chamber.
The moon is halfway to its highest point; we have only hours before we are due in the Court of the Aurora. It’s time to enact our covenant.
All the joy and hope and giddy disbelief I felt when she accepted my offer now tastes like ashes on my tongue. I recall the relief I felt when she began to yield, her anger toward me shifting to a tentative trust. The elation that surged through me when she cemented our alliance with a proposal of a covenant. The possibility of a lifetime with her, which had once felt as inconceivable as reaching for the sun, suddenly opened before me.
Now I feel only shame at shackling her to a life she never wanted.
I stand sharply to shake these thoughts from me. “Ready when you are.”
The seconds trickle past; I can feel her eyes on me, can sense the thoughts running through her mind as she considers her last chance to renege on our agreement. I understand: In saving her realm this way, she is giving up on sunlight, on a life with her family. Choosing to align with me will forever be a compromise. A sacrifice, on her part.
“I’m ready,” she says.
I try to meet her eyes as I offer my palm to her.
Can’t.
Àn’ying takes my hand. Her fingers curl around it—and she squeezes, just once.
I look up to find her gaze on me. Soft, open. Trusting.
I draw her gently toward me, the dark magic in my veins heating as I summon my full strength to conjure the spell.
A reverberatinggongechoes across the night. The moon seems to brighten, the aurora shifting to crimson, then violet. On the balcony before us, red oleanders bloom and grow into an arch swirling with cold black shadows.
Sansiran.
Àn’ying’s lips part, the crease between her brows mirroring my confusion. It’s still early; “when the moon is highest in the midnight sky” were Weirufeng’s precise words, and we are several hours away from that.
Vines shoot out from the gateway, twining around our arms. And before either Àn’ying or I can say a word, we are pulled into the darkness of the flower passageway.
To the Court of the Aurora.
