“I want to be the one to take you to see all the oceans. I want to be the one you see this world with. Our realm, and all the realms; what the sunrise looks like in each, what the wind feels like, and what the water tastes like.” Hào’yáng cups my chin in his palm. “I never wanted to marry you simply for a political alliance. In all of nine years, the certainty has only grown clearer to me. I want to spend this lifetime withyou.”
Beyond our cottage, the seawater surges into a roar. Something clatters onto the table: my lotus sword, in the form of a hairpin. I last tucked it into a pocket in my bodice; I have the strangest feeling that it is no coincidence that it fell out.
I pick it up and hand it to Hào’yáng. His expression grows distant for several heartbeats as he stares at the most precious belonging of the woman who raised him.
Then he looks up at me. “May I?” he asks.
In our culture, a young woman wearing a hairpin signifies her transition from childhood into womanhood, from a girl to a married woman.
Unbidden, a memory surges in my mind again—Yù’chén, watching me with sorrow darkening his eyes right before I stepped through the gate.
I cannot live a life of what-ifs and impossibilities, of regretsand guilt. Loving him as I once did destroyed my home; allowing myself to feel anything for him was born of necessity. Caring for him danced on the edges of a most tender pain and a promised fall.
Loving Hào’yáng is like being swept forward by the currents of a river, to a destiny as clear and as bright as the sun.
I meet his gaze now.
“Marry me,” I whisper. “Marry me now, under the Heavenly Order, with the skies as our witness.”
Hào’yáng’s eyes dart between mine. Searching. A smile spreads over his face, as slow and radiant as a sunrise. “Àn’ying,” he murmurs. “I can think of no greater joy in this life than to take you as my wife, my partner, and my other half.”
The skies seem to brighten, as though the Heavens perceive us in this moment.
“And I take you,” I say softly, “as my husband, my partner, and my companion in everything this lifetime has to offer.”
Hào’yáng stands and rounds the table, kneeling before me. The heat of his body envelops me as he reaches over my shoulders to loosen my braid. The white ribbons I have worn for the past nine years fall to the sands as my hair sweeps over my shoulders. Hào’yáng slides the lotus hairpin into my hair.
Then he takes my hands in his. “Àn’ying,” he says. “I promise to make memories with you across each and every realm so that, even after I am gone, you have them to hold on to until you arrive at where destiny will take you next.”
I don’t want to imagine life without his steady warmth by my side. Was this how Lady Shi’ya felt when she loved my mortal father?
And yet…she still chose love.
Hào’yáng kisses my cheek, and then the other, heartbreakingly gentle. I close my eyes, breathing in his familiar scent, savoring this feeling of having found a home in his arms.
Then Hào’yáng’s lips find mine, a soft feather’s brush—and I lean forward, deepening the kiss. I sweep my tongue against his, breathing in his scent and relishing the heat of his body. Feeling as though I am at once discovering something new and also coming home.
Hào’yáng inhales deeply. His hands clench on my hips, and with a decisive move, he lifts me from my chair and carries me to the bed. He sits, shifting me onto his lap so I am flush againsthim.
I make a small sound of surprise, and he responds with a deep, rumbling chuckle, the corners of his mouth tugging up as he holds me tighter. As I feel him straining against me and my body responding with the same urgency, I pull back from my boy in the jade and hold his face, gazing into the eyes of the man he has become, this lover I have found in him.
I shift against him, tangling my legs in his, ablaze with sensation. The smile falls from his lips, and his face sharpens, the intensity of his eyes and desire focused on me. His hands move up my rib cage, pausing at my collarbone, lingering at the buttons of my gown.
A question.
I slide my hand beneath his. Then, slowly, one by one, I undo the buttons until I reach my waist. I twine my fingers through his and slide his palm beneath the silks.
He inhales sharply, his chest rising and falling unevenly and his pupils dilating as he watches my movement. I guide his hand down to my navel, little shivers running through me as his calluses scrape the softest parts of my skin.
I peel back my dress, baring my shoulders, then my arms, until it falls to my waist. Hào’yáng draws a deep breath, his eyes roving down every inch of my exposed body.
“Àn’ying,” he says, reaching up to touch my hair, where my hairpin gleams. “You’reradiant.” The way he says it makes me shiver with pleasure, and even more so as his mouth finds my jawline, tracing up to nip at my ear. “I don’t know how many times I’ve imagined this.”
“Oh?” I tease, drawing back and arching a brow, but my voice is slightly breathless. “The honorable heir and dutiful captain, imagining such things?”
His eyes narrow as he smiles. “I am a man, Àn’ying” is all he says before he kisses me again, and all the clever retorts vanish from my mind. His mouth trails the curve of my neck, and I arc back as he pauses, lower, to savor me, his tongue wringing sensation from every inch of my skin. He moves to the flat planes of my stomach, and I wrap my body around his, losing myself in the heat of his muscles and the thrum of power from his core.
I tug a hand through his hair, wanting this, wanting more, wanting to be as close to him as possible.
