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“He should not have died, least of all for me,” I said dully.

“I don’t think he would have done it for anyone else.” He studied my face, speaking gently. “Do not blame yourself for his death. Do not cling to misery, pushing everything aside, thinking you don’t deserve happiness. He wanted you to be happy.”

Then he should have lived.

I silenced the impossible, ungrateful thought. As I looked up into Liwei’s face, the ache in my chest swelled. It would have been so easy to ease our suffering with a single word, a touch, a promise. But it would not be right; it would not heal what was broken inside me—if anything ever could. There was no room in my heart for love while it overflowed with grief. Tears clogged my throat, so tight, like it was being squeezed. Spinning around, I strode from the courtyard, not daring to turn—even as my limbs shook, and a chill glazed my skin.

A frightening thing to surrender a future, to plunge alone into the unknown. But this was my life, and I would claim it … the darkness, hurt, and all. Once you had looked death in the face, every moment after was a victory—a new hope, a new beginning. And I was no longer afraid.

A small rabbit bounded between my feet, its fur gleaming like the purest white jade. Crouching down, I gathered it into my arms. As I stroked its head gently, the rabbit nestled closer, its long ears lying against its body.

I carried it as I walked toward my home, restored from the devastation wreaked upon it. The roof shone silver bright, the cracked tiles replaced. Gone were the scorch marks on the stone walls, and the broken mother-of-pearl columns were whole once more, rising proudly from the earth. If only the other wounds inflicted then were as easily mended.

The doors swung open, my parents appearing. My mother had discarded her habitual white robes for one in a brilliant rose, tied around her waist with a lilac sash. A red peony was tucked into the coils of her hair, just as she always wore it. As they came toward me, their warm smiles chipped away at the lump in my chest.

My father nodded at the rabbit in my arms, burrowing its nose in the crook of my elbow. “I thought your mother needed some company after you left.”

“I was replaced by a rabbit?” I was affronted, and yet an urge to laugh gripped me. A precious lightness, a thawing of the cold that clung to my core.

My mother smiled. “The rabbit is more peaceful.”

I could not disagree. “What is her name?”

“We call her Yutu.” My mother traced the characters in the air: 玉兔.

“Jade Rabbit. It suits her well.” The rabbit’s ruby-red eyes fixed upon me as I stroked her head again. When I set her down, she bounded once around my mother, before leaping into the forest.

As I entered the Pure Light Palace, I discovered new touches—a wooden side table in the corridor, silk carpets in vivid hues to replace those charred by flame. Scroll paintings of horses and soldiers hung from the walls, alongside porcelain vases crammed with stalks of fresh osmanthus. Had my father cut those for my mother?

My father strode beside me, the Jade Dragon Bow slung across his back with a soldier’s caution. Its power brushed my consciousness, more a gentle greeting than the eager tug of old. It did not fly into my grasp, content where it lay. And despite the pang in my chest, I had no regrets.

“Father, have your powers returned?” I asked.

His fingers flexed wide, then closed again. “A little. I can draw the bow easier, but it’s like climbing a steep hill.” A crooked smile spread across his lips. “While there’s not much need to use it here, it’s a comfort to have it again.”

If the laurel still thrived, it might have hastened my father’s recovery, as it had mine. But it was gone, disintegrating to nothingness after it had expended the last of its powers to restore me. I glanced through a window that overlooked the osmanthus forest, a void of sky where the laurel had once towered.

“Where is Liwei?” My mother had exercised great restraint to not ask before.

“In his home, as I am in mine.” I did not say more, my emotions raw.

“Was this your decision?” A dangerous note slid into my father’s voice.

“Yes,” I said hastily. “I wanted to come home. He is not at fault.”

“You are always welcome here.” My mother hesitated before adding, “Do you intend to go back? I thought you and Liwei—” Her voice trailed off as she exchanged an anxious look with my father.

“No, Liwei will ascend the throne. And I … will not,” I said flatly.

My mother said no more, wrapping her arms around me. I closed my eyes, feeling a little of the heaviness within me lessen. Oh, I was lucky to be here, fortunate beyond measure to have my parents, and our home restored. But I was hurting inside; I needed to heal. I had no idea how, but it was not by becoming the Celestial Empress, living a life that was not mine.

Settling back into my home came as easily to me as a fish darting through the water. It was just as I remembered … and yet not. Some nights I awoke in bed, fogged with slumber, sweat pouring down my face, a half-formed cry curled in my throat. I almost expected to hear Ping’er’s firm footsteps padding along the corridor. When a door creaked, I turned, my heart leaping at the impossible hope that it would be her—before plunging at the reality that she was gone. Yet there was comfort in knowing a part of her would always be here, interwoven with our memories.

There were good changes too. At last, I fulfilled my cherished dreams of walking beside my father in the osmanthus forest, the three of us having our meals together. We talked of mundane things: what we would cook next, the improvements to our house, what flowers we might plant—and it was music to my ears. I began training archery with my father. We set up targets in the forest, and he would correct my posture, the way I held my bow as I released my arrows. And if there were things I felt he could have done better, I kept them to myself as any dutiful daughter might—at least for now. Such moments were precious indeed, and though they did not quite fill the existing hole in my heart, it replenished it in other ways, yielding me a different kind of happiness to what had been lost.

Some evenings I took over my mother’s task, lighting each lantern by hand, glad for the work to divert me—for the opportunity to indulge in my thoughts. As each lantern flared to life, I imagined the light of the moon shining brighter upon the world below, the mortals turning their heads up to the skies.

Those nights, I did not dread being alone with my memories—falling asleep, mercifully spent. For the light in my father’s eyes whenever they fell on my mother, the answering smile that spread across her lips—these things suffused me with joy and a nameless pain. For despite what I told myself, I could not help longing for the love they shared. The love I had disdained, discarded, and destroyed.