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“That makes one of us.”

“Tell me what you want, Fei. And don’t say peace.”

His question caught me off guard. “I do want peace,” I whispered. “But…I also want to know the truth. Of destinies, and what it means.”

He broke into a wide, double-dimpled grin, as if he had been waiting for this moment. “Then we will find you answers.???????.To untie the bell, we must find the person who had tied it in the first place.Mine is no longer of this world, but I believe I know how we might find yours.”

I stumbled back. “You know where the stargazer is?”

“No, I don’t. But I do have one last lead—same as your last lead, perhaps. The location of her favorite student. Xiangxi is not far from here. We will be there in a day or so if we pick the right horses.”

“We are going together? What about your city?”

“I have excellent generals and captains. They can still do their jobs while I take care of more pressing matters.”

“Such as reclaiming your destiny?”

Yexue smiled. “Such as corrupting you.”

I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. And beneath that laughter was an echo of something he had said earlier:A dragon will die without a head.

An empire without its leader would crumble faster than spring’s scattered seeds of hope.

47

I stared at the ceiling as dusk turned to night.

The day’s events flashed in vivid succession. The burned buildings. The children who revered Yexue like he was a god. The city that radiated life.

Recovery in progress. Those children had a right to grow up innocent of the violence of war, as those parents had the right to watch their babies grow up without fearing that one day the emperor might force them to become soldiers.

However, one thing didn’t escape me: Yexue’s demons were nowhere to be seen. The only people I saw were the ones who showered him with admiration, love, and nothing else.

I had grown up around eunuchs and palace ladies who shuddered at the mention of the emperor; I knew fear like the back of my hand and would have recognized it in the civilians today.

With cries for Rong, they threw firebombs at children before setting themselves alight. That is the real reason we are still tangled in thisgods-forsaken conflict. Not because of my greed, but because of Rong Siwang’s pride.

There was a desk in my room. Papers and brushes and a gorgeously chiseled inkstone.

I trickled water onto the stone and then slowly ground it into ink. With it, I penned a letter, detailing Yexue’s plan to travel to Xiangxi, the state of the city, and anything that I thought might be useful.

But as I wrote, one thought kept coming back:Would Siwang lie to me?

If there really was a peace treaty on the table, why would he not sign it? I didn’t want to believe Yexue, however he had no reason to lie. Not about this, at least.

I looked at the red string Yexue had tied around my wrist like a bracelet before we parted, a fragile shackle that matched his. Regardless of everything else, he had a soft spot for me. I could use this to my advantage and help Siwang from behind the enemy lines.

When I was done, I tied the letter with the headband I’d worn on the night I left, so that Siwang would know it was me.

Peace treaties were one way to end the war. The other was by slaying the dragon at its head.

Now all I had to do was find a way of getting this letter to Siwang, and hope I was not helping the wrong prince.

We left the city just after dawn. Yexue promised we would reach Xiangxi by sunset provided that we made only one stop on the way.

To my surprise, it wasn’t just us. By the time we got to the stables,five men in plain winter coats were saddled and waiting. Most of them were burly men whose ages ranged from a few years to a decade older than us and looked like they’d happily kill me if they suspected I was coaxing secrets from their prince. Seasoned warriors with swords and spears and bows and arrows strapped to their backs, covering both long-range and short-range forms of attack. There was also a boy who couldn’t have been older than fifteen. He held his head high like the rest of the guards. I almost asked Yexue why there was a boy coming with us, then decided againstit.

If I was to gather information for Siwang, I had to parcel out my questions sparingly, save them for things that actually mattered.