Liwei’s hands were clenched, his mouth set into a hard line. “You have violated every principle of honor. The dead should be left in peace, a rule as old as our realm itself.”

“Honor?” The word burst from Wugang’s lips. “What of my wife making a mockery of our union? The craven immortal bedding her behind my back? When I finally avenged my honor—was it fair of your father to play that cruel trick upon me, turning me into the laughingstock of his court?” He held up his scarred palms. “I have long learned that honor is not worth the having. Nor is love, for that matter.”

Despite his seeming indifference, his voice broke—was it with grief? I would feel no pity for him. Whatever had befallen him, he alone had made the choices that came after. He had killed Ping’er, destroyed my home, enslaved immortal spirits to create an army of the dead. His suffering was no excuse for the evil he had spawned.

“Why do this?” I asked as steadily as I could. “You have had your vengeance; your wife and her lover are dead. Why not build a new life instead of destroying everything?”

“They are not dead,” he muttered, as though speaking to himself. “Their cries ring through my mind. They will not leave me in peace. How shameful, that I loved someone so unworthy. Who thought me so great a fool, so worthless, that I would accept the crumbs of her affection as she stamped my pride into the ground.”

I was no stranger to the agonies of heartache, the bitterness that lurked, eager to flourish. “Love is a privilege, not a possession. We can’t control our own feelings, much less those of others. Sometimes love means letting go—for yourself, if not for them.”

“The answer of a fool.” Wugang’s laugh rang hollow. “I am the Celestial Emperor now. All will kneel to me, and none will dare scorn me again.”

I shuddered from the ferocity in his expression. He was mad, I thought. And if not, he was on the cusp of it. There was nothing left to anchor him, to sway him from ruin. Even when the lines across his face smoothed away, calm coating him like glaze over porcelain—it was a thin veneer, liable to crack under the slightest pressure.

Wugang’s gaze shifted to someone behind me. “Houyi, the Slayer of the Suns. It gladdens me to see you.”

My father glanced at the soldiers surrounding us. “I cannot say the same for you.”