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I should tell him that I had done the same, that I’d missed him the way he’d missed me. However that would be a lie, and Siwang’s heart was not something I should toy with, not anymore.

I turned to Beifeng instead, picked up a carrot from the bucket and fed him. “You’re not going to tell anyone my secret, right?”

“As long as you don’t tell anyone the classified military information I divulged.”

“I wonder how much Lan Yexue would pay for such information.” My lips twitched. “You shouldn’t tell people Rong’s military secrets so easily, you know.”

“I trust you.”

My heart did its cursed flutter again, but I couldn’t tell if this feeling was good or bad. There was a sour taste on my tongue, a seeping dread that I didn’t deserve Siwang’s unconditional trust.

Did he ever stop to think that I might take advantage of his feelings? I looked away. Perhaps we shouldn’t be spending so much time together after all, regardless of how much I enjoyed it. “I’m honored by the credence you give to my character.”

A silence befell us. Siwang’s attention shifted to the silver brush in his hand as he ran it through Beifeng’s mane. “Was everything…worth it? Did I make the right choice by letting you go?”

I thought of my sister’s eloquent smiles, my parents’ tender warmth when they looked at each other in the cottage’s flickering candlelight. All the things I couldn’t see when I was Lifeng Fei, the girl betrothed to a prince, trapped inside a gilded cage.

But I also thought of my mother’s squinting eyes, my father’s slouched back, and the blisters that marred Fangyun’s hands.

“In some ways, yes. Though in other ways, no…. I am happy. Happier than I was inside the palace. I only wish this happiness didn’tcost my family their life in the capital. I was the one who wanted to leave, yet they are paying the price. They never complained, and never blamed me. But I blame myself.”

Siwang didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t read his expression once his princely mask fell into place. This mask used to be something he wore around the court officials, never around me.

Another reminder that things had changed. We had changed.

The next day, Beifeng was gone from his stall, Siwang from his tent, and Caikun from the morning roll call.

The camp suddenly felt empty.

“The prince returned to the palace,” I overheard one of the commanders say. He didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask. Anyone important enough to know the whereabouts of the crown prince would never tell a nobody like me.

Rong Siwang was allowed to do what he wanted, when he wanted.

He didn’t have to explain himself to me.

Not anymore.

36

Days passed in slow blinks; spring breathed life back into the frozen plains. Snow thawed to water, whimpering green sprouts broke from the derelict ground, and life blossomed under the warmingsun.

Gradually, color bled back into the land.

Even with Siwang gone, the camp continued to whisper whenever my back was turned.

“I didn’t know the crown prince liked men.”

“That’s what the guards claim. He ate with the prince and they…you know!”

“I saw them talking by the stables!”

“Maybe this is why his betrothed ran away?”

“Did she really run away?”

“That’s what the Lans claim!”

“I heard the Prince of Lan is in love with Siwang’s betrothed, and that’s why he started this war!”