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“I do not even remember their names,” I say honestly, surprised he would care to find out. “It has been a long time since I thought of them at all. No, it was not love. I have not felt love before, but perhaps . . .” I do my best to look piteous, to make my voice small. “Perhaps, if you would only let me live a few more centuries, I might be able to. Then my soul could go with you more peacefully, and spare both of us this misery.”

He looks away. “Do you never get tired of negotiating?”

“With you? Or with fate?”

“Either.”

“Is there a difference between the two?” I watch his face, not sure what I want the answer to be, why it’s of such importance in the first place, only that it is. But his expression remains impassive.

“I don’t believe so,” he says.

“Then no.” I rise to my feet, feeling an unpleasant pang in my gut, like taking a gulp of cold water you had expected to still be warm. “Never.”

Chapter Five

When you were the god of everything, you were really the god of nothing.

Crown Prince Junyi considered this bitter truth as he tried his best not to rip the silk sash from around his eyes. In the absence of any real specialties, this seemed to be how he endured most of his days: trying not to do something. Trying not to move when dozens of attendants circled him in the mornings, sliding golden pins and heavy jewels into his hair and fastening the tiny individual knots in his robes. Trying not to betray his utter indifference when he was consulted on what tea to serve at the next banquet. Trying not to think about her at any given moment. Trying not to lose his mind—or his patience, which was currently proving to be such a challenge that if he weren’t already a god, he would think this was the tribulation that determined whether he ascended to the Celestial Realm.

“Just a little longer, Your Highness,” an attendant squeaked from behind him. “We understand you’re extremely busy . . .”

He thought with dread of the scrolls stacked on his desk, waiting for his return. They always came faster than he could review them, but over just the past few days, an alarming number of reports had started flowing in. Detailed accounts of disasters in the Mortal Realms, which was not in itself uncommon; the Mortal Realm was hardly known for being a peaceful and luxurious place. Yet the sheer frequency and nature of the incidents filled him with a vague sense of unease: a sudden snowstorm in the high heat of summer; fish that had washed up ashore poisoned by some unidentified substance, their scales covered in rot; wells that had mysteriously dried up overnight; lightning that flashed red and struck five mortals to death right where they stood . . .

Strange events. Unnatural—that was the word. As if something in the universe had been tipped off-balance.

But he would have to worry about all of that later. For now, he was stuck here, testing out the parameters of his patience as the attendant babbled on and on. “. . . We’ve worked very hard over the past few months to prepare it for you. It will be the perfect surprise.”

He doubted it. He had not been pleasantly surprised by anything in a century—it wasn’t as if his standards were so high, or as if the gifts he’d received were so terrible. It was that he only wanted one thing in the world, and nobody else could give it to him. But he smiled and nodded and forcefully kept his hands at his sides. Even though he could not see anything through the fabric, he could at least rely on his other senses to help make the wait bearable, to imagine the palace around him. There was the distinct honeyed aroma of the hundred-face flowers, which bloomed throughout every season and always smelled sweeter in the darkness or when watered with blood from the heart; the heat of the divine fires, burning eternal within their lotus-shaped holders from every corner; the soft echo of footsteps falling across the marble floors; the ripple of the breeze through opened windows; the whisper of sleeves, lifted and brushed back, and the whisper of conversation between the other attendants.

“It’s ready now, Your Highness,” the same attendant said.

Finally. Someone stepped forward to untie the sash for him, and as it slid from his face, he saw only the haziest impressions of gold and white, the bright burn of shining tiles. Then his eyes adjusted and focused on the new mural stretched out in front of him.

He felt as if he’d been struck by thunder.

“Do you like it?” the attendant asked. He was standing right behind Junyi, yet his voice traveled very faintly, like it was drifting up from another realm.

Horror clawed up Junyi’s throat. The mural itself was a monstrosity. The cranes swooping over the painted clouds looked cursed, with their narrowed red eyes and overly pointed beaks. The mountains were lopsided and, due to what must have been a gross miscalculation in the amount of space available on the wall, seemed to disappear abruptly behind the pavilion in the foreground.

And at the center of it all, a figure rose from the clouds. Judging from his hairstyle and cloak, it was evidently meant to be an image of himself holding a sword—except the artist had done such an unflattering job that Junyi wondered if they harbored a personal grudge against him. His smile looked like a leer; his jaw was too short and too broad; his brows were raised at an unreasonable height; his sword resembled a child’s knife; his complexion somehow managed to look dull, even with all the layers of polish they’d painted over it. He appeared neither to be flying nor floating; he just inexplicably hung there, suspended in the air, like some kind of insect. And the colors. The colors. The rest of the palace was a gleaming scene of gilded tiles and burnished bronze and forest jade. Yet why was this mural—a mural that took up the entire front wall, that would be the first thing visitors saw when they entered—drawn in shades of murky green and orange? What had possessed them to think of this disastrous combination? Did they truly want to surprise him, or shock him into throwing up blood?

“Y-Your Highness?” the attendant prompted, his voice even quieter than before.

He was trying very hard once again. Trying hard not to drag a hand over his face in disgust.

They’d worked on this for months; that was what the attendant had claimed just now, wasn’t it? So much time. The equivalent of more than a century in the Mortal Realm, enough for one emperor to upend the rule of another. It was almost incredible that they could have failed on this scale.

Junyi drew a shallow breath. The scent of the hundred-face flowers rose to his nose, momentarily disrupting his sense of time and place. He had planted them himself in these chambers a century ago. There were thousands of different kinds of flowers in the Celestial Realm, each brighter and more fragrant than the next, and each with their own set of magical properties: some gave you a pleasant singing voice, some made the mind clearer, some could be brewed to taste like your favorite drink. Most gods had not even known the hundred-face flowers existed before he introduced them, but soon, just as he’d hoped, others had rushed to emulate him. The more that grew, the more were planted, until it was impossible to escape their distinct scent anywhere you went in the Celestial Realm.

Why these flowers, Your Highness? someone had asked. I hear the only thing they’re good for is preserving dead flesh. Even the healer gods have no use for them.

I like them, he had said simply.

He breathed in deeper, brushing away those memories.

In the far corners of his mind, he considered the possibility that he was overreacting. Before, something of this nature would not have bothered him in the slightest. He might have even found humor in the situation, or thanked the artist and attendants for their efforts, regardless of the results. He would have thought their good intentions were enough. But now, little things had a way of creeping under his skin, of upsetting him so thoroughly he often needed entire weeks just to recover, by which point something new had already come along to upset him. Sometimes, it felt like there was a needle embedded in his flesh, and every small movement drove it deeper and deeper until it was pressed right into an exposed nerve. He felt exposed, raw, even with all the layers of charm and cheer he wrapped around himself like bandages; he feared that one of these days, he would simply bleed through all of them.

“Thank you,” he made himself say. “I am certainly surprised. It’s—” He struggled to think of the right word. Repulsive would not do. Nauseating was not the right one either.