Chapter 24 Àn’yīng #2
“When the light lotuses began to die and you were strong enough, I told you about the Immortality Trials. I was almost ready to return to the mortal realm and claim the throne by then; Lady Shī’yǎ had planned this with me early on, to save your family and enlist your help once more.
But a part of me longed to see you for entirely selfish reasons, more than anything else I have ever wanted in this lifetime.
“When you fell in the ocean at the Immortals’ Steps, I broke a sacred rule of the Trials and flew with Meadowsweet to save you.
And when I first met you, at the edge of the Celestial Gardens, I felt as though I had been waiting for that moment for half my lifetime.
I wanted to tell you everything then—all be damned, I wished to break every rule of those nonsensical trials for you.
But Lady Shī’yǎ had asked me to first ensure that you wanted to help us.
So I needed to get close to you without revealing who I was.
“But I heard the candidates speak of rumors that you had a lover among them.” His gaze falls to the sand.
“I also knew that the entire reason you were there, the reason your family was torn apart and you needed the pill of immortality that was the prize in the trials…was because of me. I had taken your place in the Kingdom of Sky, I had grown up safe and healthy while you were out there fighting for your life each day, and I realized I didn’t deserve you.
I told myself that so long as you were happy, you should be with whomever you wished, live your life however you wanted—and I would be content with watching you from the side, keeping you safe, and loving you in silence.
” Finally, he lifts his eyes again to meet mine. “And that still holds true.”
The rest of the world has faded. The sun, the water, the trees, the flowers…nothing else exists in this moment but me and my boy in the jade.
Hào’yáng is the sun in my life. The golden strokes on my jade pendant, always there, always steady and reassuring and offering me comfort and warmth. Until the day he nearly vanished forever, I never realized how much of my life he had touched.
I hold his gaze. “I think,” I begin, and he goes very still, watching me with an unwavering gaze, “that I have been searching for you my entire life.”
Hào’yáng’s lips part.
“And I think I realized too late,” I continue, “the night I almost lost you, that I cannot bear to live in a world without you.”
He exhales sharply. His eyes flicker with a torrent of emotions that I know he buries beneath that cool exterior, and I see Hào’yáng, the boy in the jade and the man I have come to love, rather than the captain or the guard or the heir.
“You saved me when I was most broken and in need of a light in the darkness,” I whisper, my voice cracking now at the memory of those dark days. “All along, you were there for me, expecting nothing in return. You have been my friend, my guardian, and the one closest to my soul.”
“And I always will be,” Hào’yáng says, and presses something into my palm.
“My handkerchief,” I breathe. The silk is soft in my hands, slightly worn, yet an inexplicable sense of comfort and hope knots in my throat. “You kept it.”
“àn’yīng.” The way he speaks my name makes me look up at him.
“I’ve never said any of this because I was afraid to put pressure on you.
Afraid that it wasn’t what you wanted. But today, I’m going to be a selfish man.
” Hào’yáng’s gaze suddenly churns with the strength of an ocean, sweeping me into it without hope of resisting.
“You told me the night after your first hunt, after you swapped your needles for your blades, that you’d always dreamt of seeing the ocean.
Of seeing the rest of the realm and embroidering it. ”
I nod, my throat tight. I don’t trust myself with words right now.
“I want to be the one to take you to see all the oceans. I want to be the one you see this world with. Our realm, and all the realms; what the sunrise looks like in each, what the wind feels like, and what the water tastes like.” Hào’yáng cups my chin in his palm.
“I never wanted to marry you simply for a political alliance. In all of nine years, the certainty has only grown clearer to me. I want to spend this lifetime with you.”
Beyond our cottage, the seawater surges into a roar. Something clatters onto the table: my lotus sword, in the form of a hairpin. I last tucked it into a pocket in my bodice; I have the strangest feeling that it is no coincidence that it fell out.
I pick it up and hand it to Hào’yáng. His expression grows distant for several heartbeats as he stares at the most precious belonging of the woman who raised him.
Then he looks up at me. “May I?” he asks.
In our culture, a young woman wearing a hairpin signifies her transition from childhood into womanhood, from a girl to a married woman.
Unbidden, a memory surges in my mind again—Yù’chén, watching me with sorrow darkening his eyes right before I stepped through the gate.
I cannot live a life of what-ifs and impossibilities, of regrets and guilt. Loving him as I once did destroyed my home; allowing myself to feel anything for him was born of necessity. Caring for him danced on the edges of a most tender pain and a promised fall.
Loving Hào’yáng is like being swept forward by the currents of a river, to a destiny as clear and as bright as the sun.
I meet his gaze now.
“Marry me,” I whisper. “Marry me now, under the Heavenly Order, with the skies as our witness.”
Hào’yáng’s eyes dart between mine. Searching. A smile spreads over his face, as slow and radiant as a sunrise. “àn’yīng,” he murmurs. “I can think of no greater joy in this life than to take you as my wife, my partner, and my other half.”
The skies seem to brighten, as though the Heavens perceive us in this moment.
“And I take you,” I say softly, “as my husband, my partner, and my companion in everything this lifetime has to offer.”
Hào’yáng stands and rounds the table, kneeling before me. The heat of his body envelops me as he reaches over my shoulders to loosen my braid. The white ribbons I have worn for the past nine years fall to the sands as my hair sweeps over my shoulders. Hào’yáng slides the lotus hairpin into my hair.
Then he takes my hands in his. “àn’yīng,” he says. “I promise to make memories with you across each and every realm so that, even after I am gone, you have them to hold on to until you arrive at where destiny will take you next.”
I don’t want to imagine life without his steady warmth by my side. Was this how Lady Shī’yǎ felt when she loved my mortal father?
And yet…she still chose love.
Hào’yáng kisses my cheek, and then the other, heartbreakingly gentle. I close my eyes, breathing in his familiar scent, savoring this feeling of having found a home in his arms.
Then Hào’yáng’s lips find mine, a soft feather’s brush—and I lean forward, deepening the kiss. I sweep my tongue against his, breathing in his scent and relishing the heat of his body. Feeling as though I am at once discovering something new and also coming home.
Hào’yáng inhales deeply. His hands clench on my hips, and with a decisive move, he lifts me from my chair and carries me to the bed. He sits, shifting me onto his lap so I am flush against him.
I make a small sound of surprise, and he responds with a deep, rumbling chuckle, the corners of his mouth tugging up as he holds me tighter.
As I feel him straining against me and my body responding with the same urgency, I pull back from my boy in the jade and hold his face, gazing into the eyes of the man he has become, this lover I have found in him.
I shift against him, tangling my legs in his, ablaze with sensation. The smile falls from his lips, and his face sharpens, the intensity of his eyes and desire focused on me. His hands move up my rib cage, pausing at my collarbone, lingering at the buttons of my gown.
A question.
I slide my hand beneath his. Then, slowly, one by one, I undo the buttons until I reach my waist. I twine my fingers through his and slide his palm beneath the silks.
He inhales sharply, his chest rising and falling unevenly and his pupils dilating as he watches my movement. I guide his hand down to my navel, little shivers running through me as his calluses scrape the softest parts of my skin.
I peel back my dress, baring my shoulders, then my arms, until it falls to my waist. Hào’yáng draws a deep breath, his eyes roving down every inch of my exposed body.
“àn’yīng,” he says, reaching up to touch my hair, where my hairpin gleams. “You’re radiant.” The way he says it makes me shiver with pleasure, and even more so as his mouth finds my jawline, tracing up to nip at my ear. “I don’t know how many times I’ve imagined this.”
“Oh?” I tease, drawing back and arching a brow, but my voice is slightly breathless. “The honorable heir and dutiful captain, imagining such things?”
His eyes narrow as he smiles. “I am a man, àn’yīng” is all he says before he kisses me again, and all the clever retorts vanish from my mind.
His mouth trails the curve of my neck, and I arc back as he pauses, lower, to savor me, his tongue wringing sensation from every inch of my skin.
He moves to the flat planes of my stomach, and I wrap my body around his, losing myself in the heat of his muscles and the thrum of power from his core.
I tug a hand through his hair, wanting this, wanting more, wanting to be as close to him as possible.
Gently, he turns us and splays me against the bed, then his fingers are at my waist, undoing the rest of my buttons and tugging my dress off.
Cool air kisses my bare skin as he draws back, his gaze roving down my body, my skin, taking in the scars, the burns from when I first learned to cook, the shape of my ribs and the flatness of my belly.