Gently, he turns us and splays me against the bed, then his fingers are at my waist, undoing the rest of my buttons and tugging my dress off. Cool air kisses my bare skin as he draws back, his gaze roving down my body, my skin, taking in the scars, the burns from when I first learned to cook, the shape of my ribs and the flatness of my belly.
Then he brings his hand to my leg and touches me, skin and scars and all. I let him, our breaths soft and tangling in the light as he explores my every curve and dip and sharp angle.
“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,” he whispers.
I raise an eyebrow, suppressing a shiver at his words. “Evenmore than the immortals you’ve spent half your life around?” I wonder if he has had immortal lovers, wonder if he is comparing me to their perfection.
“I’ve only ever wanted you,” he says with a sincerity that sets my stomach aflutter. “I’ve never…”
I reach up and capture his mouth with mine, pulling him down with me as my fingers work his buttons and slip off his robe. “You’ve never?” I tease in between kisses; feel the huff of his laugh as he draws back and flicks my nose. His grin flickers, however, when I wrap my legs around him and draw him close to me. “I want to see you lose control today,” I tease, and his fingers tighten against me.
“Wicked wife of mine,” he concedes, “I’ve never been able to control myself very well around you.”
I push the hair from his face, holding his gaze as I arch into him. His breathing goes shallow and his muscles clench as he holds himself over me, his body warming mine in the cool ocean breeze. The setting sun paints his features in shades of gold and coral, his eyes in a deep, warm brown, and everything—everything—about him feels familiar and right and fills me with a feeling of safety and contentedness I haven’t known in years. I wrap my arms around him as I wished to when we were children, clinging onto hope and onto comfort and onto life, and now he fills the empty spaces within me in a new way. I watch as he unravels from that cool exterior he wears as heir, captain, and guard, as his careful control finally slips and he yields completely to me. As I hold him and give myself to the tides that build and break inside me, I close my eyes and imagine his love filling me with light, and in this moment, I am the sun, I am the sea, and I am hope.
—
We remain tangled on the silken sheets, gazing at each other, until twilight blooms and a cool breeze pulls in from the sea, smelling of salt. In our chambers, lanterns flicker on with the magic of this realm, their warmth chasing away the shadows. Outside, the flowering trees whisper and the spring murmurs, and it feels as though the world has fallen away and it’s just the two of us.
“Tell me the first moment you fell in love with me.” I snuggle close to Hào’yáng, loving the heat of his body and his arms as he holds me.
Hào’yáng feeds me a piece of fruit that appeared with an entire tray of dinner upon platters made of large shells. The fruit isn’t anything I’ve ever tasted in the mortal realm: the size of a peach, the insides soft and succulent, sweetness combined with a briny taste that renders it delicious. “Sea fruit,” he says, catching my wonder, and then leans back with a grin. “What do I get for revealing my secrets?”
I eat another piece of sea fruit from his fingers. “A kiss, for every question of mine that you answer.”
Hào’yáng wipes a spot of juice from my chin. “Then I’ll answer your questions into eternity,” he says with such innocent sincerity that I roll my eyes. “Do you remember the first day you caught a rabbit and had to butcher it? You were kneeling out in your garden with your knife and sobbing as you spoke to me through the pendant. I was glad you couldn’t see me then, because I was certain you’d hate me for laughing.”
I glare at him. “Thatwas the moment you fell for me?”
“Or that time when you found a bush of blueberries in theforest,” he continues. “You told me you would be selfish and take just two before bringing them home: one to savor for yourself, and another so you could use its juices to draw warts on your face.”
“I threatened that if you didn’t show your face, I would think of you as a warty old man.” I’m giggling.
“Mm,” Hào’yáng says, pulling me against him. “And how do you feel about having married said warty old man and owing him two kisses now?”
I flick his forehead. “Continue.”
His eyes have a faraway look, and that ghost of a smile plays on his lips. “The first day you started training again and tripped over your own feet. You sat in the dust and burst into tears.”
I flip over and hide my face beneath a pillow. “Those are all suchsillymemories of me! Be glad I couldn’t see you, because you probablywerewarty.”
“I was handsome enough for the mortal bards to sing of me back in the days.” Hào’yáng ducks as I throw the pillow at him, then captures my wrists in his hands. “Those memories of you showed me that you weren’t infallible. That you, too, had your weaknesses.”
I scoff. “Why do you want to remember my weaknesses?”
“Because you are brave in spite of them,” he replies, and I grow still. “You didn’t want to kill the rabbit, but you still did it—to make stew to feed your mother and sister. You wanted to eat the entire bush of berries, but you only took two for yourself—and brought the rest back to Xi’lín for your family and neighbors. You tripped into the dust during your training—but you got back up, Àn’ying. When your father asked you to put away your needles and silks for your crescent blades, you did, and you never looked back.” Hào’yáng’s gaze burns intomine. “I love you because of that. Because ofallthat—your strengthsandyour vulnerabilities.” He moves a strand of hair out of my eyes and then thumbs away the tears that have gathered at their corners. “And I’m fighting to return you to a world where youcancry over a rabbit, where you can eat as many berries as you like, and where you can have both your blades and your needles—whichever you please. I want you as you are now, but I also want the girl I first met, the girl who wished to sew oceans…should you wish to remember her.”
I can’t remember ever feeling this understood, feeling like someone has taken the wallsIhave spent all these years building around myself, knocked them down, and pulled out the girl I long ago buried deep inside.
“I think,” I whisper, catching his hand, “that in the years I have spent shaping myself into someone…infallible, I left the girl who sewed oceans locked away. I didn’t think this was a world where I could be both.”
“I remember that girl,” Hào’yáng says gently, pressing a palm to my cheek. “We can find her again once this is all over. Together.”
I lean forward and press a kiss to his mouth.
Hào’yáng pulls me to him. “Now,” he says, “about those kisses…”
25
