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“Is that really what you think of me?”
“I don’t know what to think of you,” he says with something like frustration. “I don’t want to think of you.”
My heart thuds. “I—”
“It’s getting late,” he cuts in, tearing his gaze away. Quietly, with what seems like extreme effort, he says, “I should leave you to rest. The ghosts will not bother you again, I promise.”
Wait, I imagine myself saying, except my dignity won’t allow it. If anyone is to beg, it will be him, not me.
“Good night,” I tell him, just as quiet, forcing down the dry ache in my throat.
He pauses, then walks faster, and does not reply until he has reached the doorway. A lonely figure, framed by darkness. The moonlight at his back. “Good night, Rujia.”
Chapter Eight
“I command you to stop licking me at once. Stop—”
Even when my eyes open, adjusting slowly to the nascent daylight of the room, I am almost convinced that I’m still dreaming. Everything is disorienting, nonsensical: the barrage of memories from last night, the ice-cold presence of the ghosts, the Death God’s rage and more strangely, his tenderness, right before he turned to leave. And now this: the Death God’s voice, floating from somewhere beyond the walls, impatient and replete with disdain.
“Can you not understand me, you abhorrent creature? Keep your mouth closed.”
A series of loud sniffling noises follows.
Frowning, I slide my outer coat over my shoulders, the white-furred edges tickling my cheeks, and tiptoe down the corridor, then up the stairs. The sniffling grows distinctly louder, as do the Death God’s protests.
“This is my final warning. If you do not stop at once . . .”
When I reach the highest balcony and push open the door, I freeze.
A dragon hovers in the air, its serpentine body so long that it has coiled itself around one of the palace’s turrets, its pearlescent scales shimmering in the snow. Its very shadow covers the entirety of the balcony. All those centuries spent gazing up at the sky, watching the dragons glide through the clouds, yet I’ve never seen one so close before. The creature is even more gorgeous than I had imagined, with sleek golden antlers and slender whiskers, its spines flaring outward like open flames.
As I stare, my breath catching in wonder, the dragon leans its great head over the balcony railing to lick the Death God’s face. “I thought I told you to stop,” the Death God snaps, scowling and wiping violently at his cheek before turning his attention to me.
“You’re awake. Finally,” he says. “I have made yet another new enemy, as you can see.”
The enemy in question is now attempting to chew on a strand of the Death God’s hair.
“What . . . is this?” I ask. “Why is there a dragon here?”
“You said you always wanted to ride one, did you not?” the Death God says curtly, as if this is all part of a prior agreement I’ve been rude enough to forget. “Climb on.”
“Sorry?”
He reaches for the reins around the dragon’s neck, taking them into his gloved fingers, and motions for me to join him. “Climb on before I behead the creature and mount its antlers on my throne.”
I am so surprised, so confused still, overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the dragon, that I simply do as he says. The dragon dips its head lower as I approach. I can feel the energy radiating off its scaled back, the air trembling with its every breath. Each of its fangs are the length of a sword. But the dragon’s eyes are warm, the same clear gold as the osmanthus honey my mother would brew whenever I craved something sweet. They’re gentle creatures, she had told me.
“You’re very beautiful,” I murmur to the dragon as I swing my leg over its back, settling myself into one of the deep grooves between its spines.
A low purring sound emanates from the dragon’s throat.
“Oh, wonderful. So he understands compliments, but he cannot understand threats,” the Death God mutters from behind me. He shifts a few inches forward, moving his arms so that he is holding the reins out in front of my body. I try not to notice how close he is, or, more disturbingly—how safe it feels, having him so close.
Why is he doing this in the first place? The question spirals uselessly through my mind like a leaf inside a whirlpool. I’d mentioned wanting to see the dragons only in passing; I would never have expected him to remember, let alone care enough to make it possible. Is it guilt, for his ghosts attacking me?
But before I can conjure a possible answer, the dragon ascends without warning, its forelegs pushing off from the palace walls with such force I can feel the reverberations under its scales. And then we’re high up in the sky, higher than I’ve ever been before, closer to the Heavens than the earth.
The air tastes cleaner up here, pure and untouched and sweet as rain. I let it trickle past my parted lips, let the wind fan my cheeks and catch in my hair, buffeting the silk sashes of my robes. A laugh of sheer, simple exhilaration escapes my mouth as the dragon suddenly spins toward the horizon, the world rushing around us in a blue-and-white blur. My heart pounds with the same fervor as the dragon’s movements, and I laugh again, louder, an uninhibited sound that hardly sounds like me.
