With that, they snap their fingers, and a warm spring breeze rises through the chamber, sweeping a rain of blossoms around them. When it settles, the chamber is empty, as though the immortal was never there.
—
I sit alone on the bed for a long while, staring out through the shifting gauze drapes.
Death.Cai’hé’s voice seems to echo in the silent chamber.
I have to find the way to call on my army, to reunite withHào’yáng in the mortal realm…and to end this war by closing the gateway from the Kingdom of Night that is swallowing the Kingdom of Rivers day by day.
A blue-tailed magpie waits patiently at my bedside—a spirit messenger that Cai’hé left with me. I tell it my message to Hào’yáng and watch it flutter away, disappearing into the falling night.
Then I drink the contents of Cai’hé’s calabash in one gulp and let sleep take me.
—
I dream. It’s the same dream I’ve had in the mortal realm, only this time, I am in a realm of night. The moon hangs high and round overhead, and silvergrasses and white starflowers brush against my feet as I run, chasing someone through trees. The landscape is hauntingly beautiful and almost familiar, and the wind seems to whisper a ghostly song as it rises around me.
As wisteria petals fall in a shower of violet ahead, a figure appears, turning toward me, and it’s as though time has slowed.
Hair, billowing like swirls of ink.
Eyes, flashing like golden embers.
The phantom of a smile on his face as his gaze lifts to meet mine—
—
I wake. It is the middle of the night; shadows race across the ceiling, the clouds dancing past a hidden moon. A strong breeze lifts the gauze drapes to the pavilion outside, sweeping fallen leaves and flower petals into my chamber.
As I rise to search for shutters or doors to close, movement from the garden catches my attention.
I still, my two remaining crescent blades instantly in myhands. I reach for the edges of the sliding rosewood doors, intending to shut them against the weather—then pause.
A single black feather drifts from the sky, landing at my feet.
I freeze, instinct kicking my adrenaline into high. And as I raise my crescent blades, a shift of the shadows pulls my gazeup.
He’s there. Impossibly, he’s there in my chambers: His tall, elegant form is silhouetted against the curtains, cast in monochrome by the dim moonlight. His hair and cloak are still, in spite of the wind, and I catch a flash of those crimson eyes.
For a moment, we gaze at each other, and I wonder if he, too, is thinking of when I turned back to look at him from across the gateway in the Kingdom of Night. But more than that, I’m remembering the last time we were alone like this: on his balcony beneath the stars, his hand in mine. When I traced the lines of destiny on his palms and everything between us seemed possible.
A sharp ache rises in my chest, but I tamp it down.
I angle my blades at him. “You can’t be here,” I say quietly.
Maybe this moment will be the one where I end it all. Maybe taking his life now to defend the safety of the immortal realm will hurt less.
“I’m not,” Yù’chén replies. “I am a figment of dark magic cast from my shadowcrane. The feathers don’t simply show illusions of the past, Àn’ying.”
Moonlight spills over the edges of his figure—but there is a fainter quality to the lines of his form, almost as if the night pours through him.
Despite my better judgment, I find myself approaching him. The pain in my chest tightens with each step until I’m close enough to touch him.
Yù’chén makes no move to back away. He only watches me, that red gaze burning into my heart.
“You can try to drive that blade through my throat if it pleases you,” he says, “though it won’t work.”
Slowly, I lift Fleet to the curve of his neck. Press it forward, the tip touching his clavicle.
