“We are not strangers,” he said with cool civility. “Surely we can stay in the same room together. Take the bed, I will not disturb you.”

I shook my head. It was not him but myself I did not trust. I left then, making my way to my mother’s room.

Her smile vanished when she saw me. “Xingyin, what is the matter? Why do you look so upset?”

I said nothing, just hugged her tight, catching a trace of the osmanthus that somehow clung to her still. Her arms went around me, her palm stroking the back of my head, just as she used to when I was a child in need of comfort. She did not ask again, nor did I speak—silence was our language of grief.

I had slain monsters, fought vicious enemies, been stabbed and speared and burned—yet the torments of the heart were no less excruciating. Perhaps those who brought us greatest joy, also wielded the power to inflict the most suffering. I did not know how long I wept, until at last my breathing calmed and I lay still.

My mother brushed aside the damp strands of hair from my face. “This pain you feel … you might believe that you will never recover. And while it might always hurt, the pain will fade a little more each time—until one day, there will be no more tears. Just the memories and the hope, that you might find some joy in them again.”

She was well schooled in suffering. What anguish she must have endured when she first came to the moon, separated from her husband, knowing she would never see him again.

I pulled myself up, wiping away the last of my tears. This was no time to wallow in self-pity. My father needed me. The world below held countless dangers for a mortal: accidents, wild beasts, illnesses that swept in like dust carried by the wind. My fingers brushed the jade bottle tucked into my sleeve. Something stirred in my veins, a precious hope blooming within the void of my chest, one that had haunted all the days of my life. Too fragile to be spoken aloud as I dared not tempt the vagaries of fate—that even as my own heart was broken, I might be able to heal those of my parents.

Chapter 19

The sky was aglitter with stars, as though the heavens were trying to distract from the absence of the moon. Following the directions my father had given me, I made my way to his home—the whitewashed walls gleaming against the slate gray roof. As I approached, light flared from a window, throwing my shadow across the ground. Had he sensed me, though I’d made no sound? After all, he was no ordinary mortal.