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When our eyes met across the room, he smiled.

It was time for me to slip away.

After tonight, Siwang would continue his life as the crown prince and grand general, and I would return to the border as a third-ranked commander of a small battalion. We had nothing to talk about. I would keep my promise to Yexue. I would be where he could see me, far from Siwang and the glimmeringcapital.

Far from everything.

Where I could train my army and amass the kind of power this empire would never allow a girl to have.

Siwang claimed he wanted to honor his men, but none of my comrades were invited to the feast.

The only people he wanted to honor were those with power and status who wished for an excuse to get drunk and boast for all to hear, while the soldiers who had risked their lives were forgotten and erased.

As I headed for the exit, someone touched my elbow at the darkened corner of the banquet hall, far from the dancing girls and cheering men.

I half expected to see Siwang flushed with alcohol, but instead saw my father’s face.

I gasped.“Baba?”

“Child,” my father whispered, tears already welling in his eyes.

I threw my arms around him and hugged him with all my might, relishing his familiar scent of pinewood and green tea.

“The crown prince said he’s lifted our exile and wants me as his advisor. He also told me what you did in the war, Fei. How all of this was your doing. You saved Rong, my brilliant girl. You are a hero.”

Hero.“This is the first time someone has called me that.”

“It is what you are, Fei.” He kissed my cheek, and I cried, too. “The crown prince told me to hurry. He said tonight is my last chance of seeing you before you return to the border?”

I nodded. “I’m supposed to be in the capital for only a few days, to face the emperor and receive my fate. I made a promise to Lan Yexue that I would be back as soon as possible.”

Father nodded, didn’t ask further questions. “Your mother and Fangyun are so proud.”

At this, I perked up. “Mama? Fangyun? Are they—”

“Your mother is on her way. Fangyun hasn’t decided whether she wants to come back to the capital yet.”

I smiled. When Fangyun talked about how much she preferred life outside the capital, I’d always thought she said it to comfort me. It seemed she might have been honest after all. “And you are happy? Coming back to the capital?”

My father’s smile was all the answer I needed.

I might never forgive Siwang for his mistakes, but he had done the right thing by calling my father back to court. The country life wasn’t for him or Mother. Father didn’t read all those scriptures just to let hiswisdom waste away in a bamboo shack. Besides, Siwang needed good men like him in times like these.

Perhaps if my father had been at his side before the massacre of Changchun, he could have steered Siwang back to a more moral path?

Father’s hand clutched mine. “Do you have to go back to the border? The crown prince told me about your deal with Lan’s prince regent. I don’t think a girl should—”

“I’ll be okay, Father. I have survived the war. I can survive this.”

“Prince Siwang—he loves you, Fei. He really does love you. Will you ever—”

“I made my choice a year ago.” I interrupted him before he could wander down a path I didn’t want to revisit. “And I have never regretted it for a single day. As for life at the border? Though I will not quite live life on my own terms, I’ll be free, at least. I’ll visit when I can, I promise.”

This was for the best.

Father, Mother, and Fangyun all belonged here, no matter how much they tried to pretend otherwise for my sake.

In the south, free of courtly expectations, I’d had plenty of time to find out where I belonged. “I’m sorry.”