Hào’yáng’s eyes soften. “Come here,” he says quietly, pulling me toward him. When I round the table, he draws me into his lap. I drape my wrists over his shoulders, marveling at how I feel so at home with his touch.
His eyes rove my face, and he takes my chin in his hand. “I agree to proceed with your strategy.”
I grin. “Then teach me everything I need to know about the Kingdom of Sky—about your allies and their hideaways, about how the immortals conduct their affairs and how the rules work in that realm—so I may claim my title and army.”
We strategize deep into the night. He fills parchment afterparchment with maps of the Kingdom of Sky, lists of all the immortals whose support he and Lady Shi’ya gathered over the years. For his part of the plan, we sketch out maps of the mortal realm, the path to the Western Province and, deep within, the fabled Kun’lún Mountains, said to hold gateways to so many other lands: the Realm of Phoenixes, the Realm of Flower Fairies, and more.
When the moon is high in the sky and we have recorded every last detail of our plan, he carries me to our bed. We make love to the song of the tides and the silvery glow of the moon, then lie tangled beneath the starlight and trade stories of the moments in each other’s lives that we missed over the past ten years. And when we fall asleep in each other’s arms, I find myself hoping fervently that we’ll have a lifetime of nights like this.
—
At the crack of dawn, we rise. A meal sits on our dining table: sweet wine-soaked prawns and scallops, abalone soup, and braised bass, accompanied by fresh spring water. Hào’yáng and I break our fast as the sun rises over the horizon.
I left the white dress Méi’zi gifted me back in Xi’lín, but the replica that the magic of this realm conjured for me comes with fitted straps for my crescent blades—the ones that remain. Most significantly, there’s a samite belt, onto which I strap my lotus sword.
The sky is waking when Hào’yáng comes to me and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Ready?” he says against my hair.
“Ready,” I reply. Together, we grasp the pearl necklaces gifted to us by the Dragon King and blow on them.
A sudden wind gusts outside, stirring the blossoms and great camphors. The sound of rushing water fills the air, andocean currents begin to seep through the cracks of the doors, pooling across our floor. As the water rises, the floorboards beneath turn to sand and kelp. I wrap my arms around Hào’yáng as the water laps over our knees, then our waists. Fish dart past our ankles, and when the waves reach our necks, we take deep breaths and let them submerge us completely.
The chambers, the furniture, the table upon which we took our meals and the bed upon which we slept—it’s all gone, swept away by the rush of water. I taste salt, and when I look up, it’s no longer the ceiling of our house but the distant surface of an ocean. Far away, sunlight glints.
Together we swim against the currents. When we finally break through the surface, we gulp down fresh, brine-laced air, and I can tell immediately that we have left the Realm of Dragons.
Now the water is dark, the sun is pale behind shifting clouds, and the air is cold and woven with winter’s breath. Everything is a little less saturated in color, a little less radiant and perfect.
But it’s home.
Here, too, it’s dawn. A cliff wall rises before us, so high that it vanishes into fog. Out on the sea behind us, a series of stone pillars soar skyward, vanishing into distant clouds that loom over the horizon.
When the realization hits me, I let out a startled laugh.
“The Immortals’ Steps,” I say to Hào’yáng. “I crossed these to reach the Temple of Dawn for the Trials. They’re also known as the Dragons’ Pass.” So the myths are true—theydolead to the Realm of Dragons. I look down at the water we tread, dark and flecked with foam, and I think I can make out a faint aquamarine glow, the glint of scales, or the flash of a golden palace deep, deep down…
I tear my gaze away and crane my neck up at the Immortals’ Steps, then at the impossibly high cliff wreathed with fog. On the other side of that fog is Heavens’ Gates, the mountain range that marks the end of the mortal realm. The one I crossed months ago to enter the Immortality Trials.
Fitting that the end should begin at the place where everything started.
I hold on tightly to Hào’yáng as he summons a great wave that lifts us upward. When we emerge from the fog, we’re back in the Kingdom of Rivers.
I recognize the clifftop we alight on, the expanse of rock covered in pines. The last time I was here, the sun was shining as I turned and gazed, for the first time, at the far-off palaces of the immortal realm.
I was here with Yù’chén.
Now the distant skies roil with storm clouds; fog churns restlessly beneath us, obscuring our view of the Four Seas. I search the horizon for the silhouettes of mountains drifting in the skies, for the curving golden rooftops and pearlescent walls of the entry to the Kingdom of Sky.
I find nothing.
“The last time I was here was when I was twelve years old,” Hào’yáng says quietly. He glances at me. “It was with your father.”
I turn to him, hungry for any kernel of a story about my father. “You never told me this.”
He searches through the thick clouds for a sign of the sun. We agreed to begin our plan after dawn, when the mó are winding down from their peak of power. “I had just lost everything and witnessed the death of my entire family. I was so, so tired, Àn’ying…and when I reached Heavens’ Gates and realizedthere was still an entire ocean to cross, I couldn’t keep going. I didn’t want to.
“Your father turned to me then and he said, ‘You can either stop here and give up—or grit your teeth and continue on. We mortals have one chance at life, my prince. So long as you live, you are not forsaking your family and your people. One day at a time. Step by step, by putting one foot before the other.’ ”
My breath catches. “You said those words to me once,” I whisper.
