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The empress drew herself up tall. “Not all of us believe death to be a fitting sentence for infidelity.”

A gurgling rasp snared my attention. My eyes snapped back to Prince Yanming, my heart splintering with dread.

“I’m sorry, Xingyin,” Liwei said in a low voice, “His lifeforce is extinguished. Nothing can restore it.”

“He’s still alive. Do something. Anything.” I was hateful in my despair.

“What’s left of his energy sustains him for now, but it will fade soon.” He left unspoken the words: he will die.

An unbearable thought, a vicious reality. Prince Yanming had barely scraped the surface of a mortal’s lifespan. Such anguish sank over me, that wracking futility I had felt when Ping’er died.

Prince Yanxi cupped his brother’s cheek. “Hold on, Little Brother. I will bring you home. You will be well soon.” He smiled warmly, though I heard the lie in the crack of his voice.

Prince Yanming’s lips curved. “Home. To Mother.” He drew a shuddering breath. “Don’t let her be too sad.”

I folded over, feeling like a fist had been driven into my gut. He knew he was dying; there was no comfort we could offer—neither hollow lies nor promises. Closing my eyes, I reached out tentatively with my power. I trusted Liwei, yet I had to try. I plunged my consciousness into Prince Yanming’s body, searching the dullness of his blood, now devoid of an immortal’s radiance. His lifeforce, tucked deep in his mind, was no longer dazzling bright but murky and dim. I threw my energy at it, willing it to catch fire as a spark to tinder. Again and again, but nothing took root, my power sliding from him as waves crashing over a rock. My breaths came heavier, my nerves strained from fatigue. My mother’s soft cries drifted into my ears—how long had she wept?

I could not save him. No one could.

I fell back, wanting to sink into the sand. To close my eyes and let the numbness take me, a respite from this relentless agony. And I … let go. I had failed Ping’er. I had failed Prince Yanming. I was no hero.

As Prince Yanxi embraced his brother, muttering soft words I could not hear, my father gestured to me. “We must decide what to do with Wugang.”

I yanked my mind from the grasp of sorrow, for we were still in the gravest of danger. Grief was an indulgence I could not afford. My heart cried out for Wugang’s death in retribution for those he had taken, but I could not form the words, the better part of me seeking restraint, to save those we could.

“Is there any question? Let him go!” the Celestial Empress snarled. “He will kill—”

“Your Celestial Majesty,” Wenzhi drawled from where he stood. “I doubt many of us here would mourn the loss of your husband. He has not made many friends of late.” He prodded Wugang with his sword. “Offer us something else, something of real value—start by disbanding your army.”

Liwei’s hands clenched as he rose, but I tugged his sleeve in warning. Wenzhi was skilled at piercing an opponent without a weapon, honing a scrap of truth into a blade, unearthing an enemy’s weakness to force them to relent.

Wugang laughed. “Do not take me for a fool. The Celestial Prince certainly cares about his father’s fate, and because he does, so would the daughter of the Moon Goddess.” His mouth curled into a smirk. “While you will not move against her wishes.”

Heat flushed my face at his insinuation, while Wenzhi’s expression remained inscrutable. “You forget what I’m capable of; I do not lose my head for my heart. What does it matter to me if the emperor dies? I care less for him than I do for his son.”

His cold words pricked me. But it was nothing I had not known, and I would be a gullible fool to ever believe anything else of him.

“I know what you were capable of,” Wugang said cryptically. “Be warned that the army will heed no one but me. Nor will they stop at the Celestial Kingdom, they will engulf the entire Immortal Realm, even your lands, and that of the mortals.”

Wenzhi’s jaw clenched. “End your vile ambitions, return the spirits you have stolen, and we will let you go. We will not seek retribution. You will be free to build a new life, to earn a second chance to make it worthwhile—even though you do not deserve it.”

“I will not.” Wugang’s eyes were chips of muddied ice. “I would rather die knowing my ambition is fulfilled, my vengeance complete, than to start over with nothing. Let the realms wither to dust if I cannot rule them. You can’t frighten me. I have lived through my worst nightmares and come out on the other side.”

His gaze lifted toward the darkening sky. “Sundown is almost upon us. Will you let me go or risk everyone? Some of you might survive. Certainly, not all. Not to mention the innocents dwelling in the realms above and below, whose blood will stain your hands.”

I smothered my instinctive protest, the violent urge to make Wugang suffer. I had never felt any true satisfaction in killing before, but I could have slain him now without hesitation, relishing the Sky-fire crackling over his face, twisting with the bone-deep torment I knew so well. Yet it would yield just a futile relief, a bandage to a festering wound without its cure.

My eyes searched for Shuxiao where she lay on the ground, alert though quiet, her eyes ringed in purple like they were bruised. There was no real choice here; the stakes were too high. We were outnumbered, weakened, vulnerable. Even if we escaped with the dragons’ aid … I could not bear the burden of the lives lost in the Celestial Kingdom and beyond. Even that of the emperor, even if it were not for Liwei.

I had lost. No, I reminded myself. It was not over. And if winning meant countless innocents would perish—that was no victory.

“Call off your soldiers and leave this place. You will let us go safely and not give chase,” I said slowly.

“For now,” Wugang agreed. “A day’s respite.”

“Forever,” I demanded. “We want nothing more to do with you.”

“I will never agree to that,” he said with resolute finality.