I crawled backward, tasting blood in my mouth. My elbow throbbed where it’d collided with the ground. “With you as king, that could never be possible.”
“I will make a great king!” he shouted, pounding his fist over his chest. “I’ll bring prosperity and power to this state, expand our borders, protect our resources, and make Sian a nation the whole world reveres.”
“At the cost of your own people,” I hissed. “Sian is powerful enough. What it needs more of isn’t power but compassion.”
“Compassion?” Liqin laughed. “What a foolish, womanly thing to say. But very well. I’ll play the part of tyrant if that’s what you wish. And later, when Sian has become an empire worthy of praise and respect, the people will finally realize that I was a savior. I was the only one willing to pay the price for greatness, a greatness their children will relish long after you and I have become dust.”
“You’re a fool if you believe anyone could be happy living on the graves of others.”
He smiled, looming over me. “Shall we test that theory here? Because I truly believe I’ll feel nothing but joy from your death.”
As he plunged his dagger downward, I rolled off the platform and grabbed my fallen staff. I released the skeletons I couldn’t see and threw all my focus on the one closest to me. With more speed than before, it pounded up the steps, gripped Liqin’s shoulder, and wrenched him back. The prince crashed to the pavement with a cry.
With only one skeleton to control, I pushed to my feet and stood straighter, my wrath settling back on my shoulders like a thick cloak. I chimed my bells and murmured a series of commands.
The skeleton lifted a still-dazed Liqin off the floor and slammed him into a nearby pillar, its skeletal hand wrapped around his throat. The sharp edges of bone cut into his skin, drawing blood. With its other hand, it raised its blade, prepared to pierce through the prince’s heart.
An icy serenity draped over me. This was it. Justice sat in my palm, and all I had to do was close my fingers around it.
I rang the bells again, ready to give the final order.
“Wait!”
My concentration snapped. I turned to see Anshi and Ren entering the courtyard. He held the assistant’s shoulder for support, his left leg slightly dragging. Dried blood caked his face and clothes, his bare wrists raw from rope bindings.
I balled my hand into a fist, seething at the sight of his wounds. Every bruise and cut conjured aches across my body. Liqin was truly evil for torturing his own brother. I almost wished I had the time to prolong the first prince’s suffering.
Despite his injuries, Ren limped forward, pleading with me. “Please, Siying. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“There’s nothing for me to regret.” I glanced at Liqin, still held against the pillar. “Your brother deserves only death for his sins. It’d be unfair otherwise for those he murdered.”
“Yes, but what about your life?” Ren said. “What about your soul? Is it not worth something?”
“I lost it the moment I lost my father.”
“That’s not true. Your life is your own, just as your father’s was his. He wouldn’t want you to throw it away for vengeance.”
“Don’t tell me what my father would want,” I snapped, tired of others using Baba against me. Lilan had mentioned him too. But I didn’t want to listen to another word. All I wanted was to watch the man I hated die.
“Kang Siying!” Ren shouted as I shook my staff. “You accused me of being a coward, and you were right. I have been, because I thought my actions didn’t matter. That my existence didn’t matter. Spending time with you, I’ve learned how wrong I was. Our choices do matter, and we can change things if we want to.”
I looked at him sideways. “So why are you trying to stop me?”
“Because!” he blurted as I started to turn away. “Because not every choice is the right one. And as much as you try to control everything, Siying, the only thing you can truly control is yourself. Please, I’m begging you—don’t condemn your own soul with this one choice. You deserve so much more than that.”
Was this how Chunhua and Master Zhang had felt as I pleaded with them to give up their hatred? Was I embodying Yuyan now as I held a blade over the eldest prince’s heart?
When had I been wrong—then or now?
The throbbing returned to my temple as my control over the skeleton wavered. The energy I’d burned through in the last two days had left me hollow and trembling, and I felt the weight of exhaustion press down on me.
I was running out of time. If I didn’t kill Liqin now, I never would.
“I’m sorry,” I said, then turned back to the eldest prince.
But before I ordered the skeleton to strike, the prince broke free from his captor’s grip and wrested the sword from its hand, bolting toward me once more. I managed to dodge the blade before it swiped off my head, the peach staff slipping as I used both hands to catch the prince’s wrist. My own wrist screamed in pain. Tears burned my eyes. We pushed against each other—him trying to slice the sword down while I fought to hold it up.
“Dage, stop!” Ren shouted.
