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I shook my head, inching away from the ring. “Hong, I’m not from a noble family. I don’t think you’re even allowed to marry me.” Anyone at all could be a concubine without the court making a fuss—even a peasant girl, as long as she was pretty. But the wife of an emperor needed to be someone of importance.

“My father would probably take issue with it,” he said, shrugging, “but I will be Emperor one day, and no one will question me then.”

“Have you lost your mind?” I said. “I can’t be the Empress.”

The prince frowned, scooping Durian up and cradling him. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Do you not want to be the Empress, or my wife?”

I shook my head again, my mind feeling like hot soup leaking out of my ears at the absurd question. I had never imagined either title for myself. When I’d pictured the rest of my life, I’d always seen myself as a royal alchemist until the end, and what came after was a story entirely unwritten, because what could matter more? I’d never even considered that I could be a part of someone else’s dream.

The prince sighed. “If you don’t want to be the Empress, that’s fine. I just won’t have an Empress.”

“You can’t just not have an Empress!”I said, gripping my hair. “Your mother has killed all of your relatives in the line of succession. It’s dangerous not to have an heir!”

“What am I supposed to do, then? Marry some random noblewoman?”

“Yes!”

His expression dropped even further. “I don’t want to marry anyone else,” he said, hugging Durian to his chest.

“You don’twant—” I scoffed, unable to repeat his ridiculous sentence, clapping a hand over my eyes. “You’ll already be changing so much of what your people are used to,” I said, “and you think it’s worth making them even angrier because of me?”

“Yes,” he said, taking my hand and pulling it away from my face.

“They would hate me.”

“It wouldn’t matter.”

“Think about this. Abolishing gold will cost you the rich. Marrying me could cost you the poor as well.”

“Zilan,” he said, taking my other hand, “I don’t care if it costs me the world.”

Heat bloomed in my face. I turned away, but he only squeezed my hands harder, and while I knew the rich were skilled at spinning beautiful lies to get what they wanted, somehow the prince’s words rang true. I wanted to believe in him the way some people believed in gods or gold, their promises all that you could cling to when drowning.

“I won’t eat gold to live with you forever,” I said quietly.Not unless you want me turn into one of those rabid beasts, I thought.

He shook his head. “There won’t be any more life gold to eat. We’ll live short, normal lives together.”

“Normal?” I said, laughing. “Nothing with you could ever be normal.”

“Are you referring to the current assassination plot, or just me as a person?”

I shrugged. “A bit of both.”

“I am offended,” he said, making a show of crossing his arms and turning away. “I may forgive you if you kiss me, though.”

I glanced at the candle, burning down toward the last notch. “How about we make sure your mother is dead first?”

The prince groaned, closing his eyes, and fell back onto the bed. “How does my mother ruin everything even when she’s not here?”

I rose to my feet, tugging the prince’s hands. “Come on,” I said. “I’d like to live at least one more day, and that requires you to get up.”

The prince cracked an eye open. “One more day?” he said, as I hauled him to his feet. “I think I can manage that.”

“Promise me,” I said, because his words felt more real than any religion, as bright and true as the summer constellations.

His expression sobered. He picked up the ring and placed it in my palms, then closed my hands around it. His grip was bone-crushing, like he also knew the secret weight of his words.

“One more day,” he said.