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“You have the right to be angry,” he said.

“I’m not angry. I’mfurious.And I’m disappointed in you.”

Gently, he turned me to face him. In the moonlight, his face was flushed and beautiful, his lips lush like petals. My pulse quickened as I remembered how they had caressed my skin all those months ago in his tent.

Our single night together.

“The Siwang you knew as a child is not who I am today,” he murmured. “No matter how much we both wish otherwise. Maybe that Siwang died the day you left the capital.” A soft flutter of a laugh. “After you left, winning the war became my only purpose. I didn’t want to disappoint my father, or the ministers always looking for a reason to criticize me, taunt my father with how I shouldn’t have been chosen as heir. They wanted to bring some of my older half brothers back to the palace. They wanted my father to reconsider. And for a second there, I thought they swayed my father. This is why I couldn’t sign that treaty, Fei. I had to prove I was worthy.”

I stiffened. “Worthy of what? Of being a tyrant?”

He flinched. “My teachers said that in life and war, victories comewith sacrifices. I thought Changchun…” He paused and looked down. For the first time in years, he looked more like the boy I’d once known than the man he’d become.

“I still have nightmares. I hear their screams, smell the stench of their burning flesh in the wind. I should have listened to you, Fei. I’m sorry.”

Words I had rarely heard from Siwang. If this had been about anything else, it would have been enough to make me forgivehim.

“It’s not my forgiveness you should be seeking, Siwang.” Beifeng’s reins in hand, I turned to leave.

“Wait.” He stepped into my path, and when he looked at me, his eyes were red with tears. “I…I’ll find a way to break your promise to Lan Yexue. You don’t have to stay at the border for long.”

And that was when I knew. The man Siwang had become…had no idea what I wanted.

I offered Siwang a small smile. “I heard Changchun is beautiful in the summer. When they finish rebuilding the city, I’m sure that will be true once more.”

59

Beifeng lived up to his name. He was truly as fast as the northern wind. The journey from the capital passed in serene solitude. I arrived as the sun set against a silhouette of Changchun. The ghost city that now marked Lan’s and Rong’s borders.

Where the forest broke into a clearing of camps and half-constructed barracks, a shadow was waiting for me.

“Welcome home, deserter,” he murmured when I approached.

“You shouldn’t be here. Isn’t this a breach of the peace treaty?” I asked as I dismounted.

Though he had been waiting for me, Yexue was not looking at me. “It would only be a breach if I brought an army with me,” he replied, his voice deep.

I laughed. “Did you think I was going to breakmypromise?”

Yexue shrugged, still turned away from me. “I don’t know. You are a hero of Rong now. You might deem yourself too good for borderpatrol.”

I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me. “I’m not a hero. You won our competition and essentially handed the victory to me.”

“You did do something,” he replied, his tone no longer so haughty. “Over a year ago, you saved my life when you didn’t have to. You made me believe that good does exist in this world. Every time I see you, a part of me wants to be better. The type of man my mother would have been proud of if she were still alive.”

“Is that why you’ve now waged war west against Yan, your neighbor?”

“I said I wanted to be kind. I never said I wanted to be a saint,” he grumbled, turning to face me for the first time. “The stars and the gods gave me the power to create these extraordinary creatures for a reason, and I want to know why.” He stepped forward, took my unoffered hand, and cradled it in his. “And the more power I amass, the more likely I’ll find someone who knows why we were born with these abilities. Someone out there must have the answers we are seeking.”

And someone must know where my stargazer is hiding.“But what if the answer isn’t what we want to hear?”

“Then I will find another answer, then another, until I am satisfied.”

I smiled. “In that case, let’s find the answer together.”

Epilogue

All my life, I saw the future but could not control it.

Perhaps it was time to change that.