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“If vampiresarevulnerable to silver, then yes, we can.”

The knot in my chest loosened. Victory meant peace, and peace meant safe families, villages unburned. If we won, maybe those escapees would get to go home. Parents would cease sending their sons off to battle knowing they might never come home.

Please,I thought to the stars and the gods above.Let this war be over soon.

“Fei, if you want to stay at the front lines, I need you to promise you won’t do anything foolish from now on. If you stay at the camp, you have to do as I say.”

“I didn’t come here to hide.”

“I know you didn’t. But I can’t lose you again. Not after I just gotyou back. Between your life and mine, I’d choose yours every time. The only way I can do my duty and lead this army is if I know you are at camp, safe and sound.”

His eyes brimmed with tears, and I couldn’t help but lean in and kiss them away until I felt him smile.

43

The imperial physicians kept close attention on me in the following days, their eyes curious yet cautious. Nobody asked questions about how this miracle had occurred. Siwang’s orders, I assumed.

Two days passed before I could stand without feeling dizzy.

“You can have A’Zhe and Ke as guards. They are two of my best men,” Siwang told me in the morning. He was having breakfast in my tent again. Watery porridge and fermented cabbage, the same as the soldiers. Except we didn’t have to fight twenty or thirty men for the tiny bowl of fermented cabbage here.

“To do what, follow a foot soldier around like guards? Don’t you think that will look suspicious?”

“You are a hero, if—”

“These are the front lines, Siwang. My identity needs to remain a secret; you’ve said it yourself. No one will know that I am a girl if we don’t tell anyone. But if you insist on special treatment, you might as well shout it from the rooftops.”

Siwang’s lips thinned, like he wanted to say something.

Oh.“You are not worried about the other soldiers finding out whoIam?”

“Lan Yexue knows you are here now,” he said quietly, pushing the fermented cabbage around in his bowl. Siwang tried his best to eat the same as his soldiers, but I could tell that he hated it. After a lifetime of enjoying carefully prepared delicacies, men like Siwang would never get used to food like this.

Something misted behind my eyes. What would happen if Rong did fall? Could Siwang live the life of a normal man, after having been prepared to rule since birth?

If he lived at all, that was.

“If Lan Yexue wanted to take me, he would have. He said he was here to repay a life debt because I had saved him a year ago in the north mountains.”

“I hate that I can’t protect you from him,” Siwang whispered, still not looking at me.

I wanted to remind him that I could protect myself. “I don’t think Yexue expects you to. He actually asked me to leave the front lines and stay as far away from the war as possible.”

Siwang visibly tensed. “If that is what Lan Yexue wants, then I think you should do as he asked.”

Nightmares flashed again. Siwang on his knees, an obsidian blade slicing open his throat. Was that Yexue’s blade? Was Yexue the man who would one day end Siwang’s life?

“No.I’m not running away again. I will stand with you.”I will not let Rong fall and I will not let you die.

“Have you never heard of the saying‘Heroes die, cowards live’?”

“I am no coward,” I repeated, my eyes on my silver-tipped bow in the corner of the room. “When will our silver weapons arrive?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Good.” I didn’t make him false promises—Everything is going to be okay—though I did want him to know I was here, and that I cared abouthim.

My fingers touched his, but Siwang pulled away. “I have to go. There’s work to be done.”