“I love you,” I said to Wenzhi. Only now did I know it was the truth, despite everything I had done to destroy it.

This was no time for pride or resentment, for anything except honesty. It was not a betrayal of Liwei. The simple truth was that I loved them both. Perhaps it made me a bad person, yet it was not something I had sought. This fracture in my heart … I only knew it was there after it had formed. And strange though it may sound, it was what made me whole—for they each were a part of me.

A smile spread across Wenzhi’s face, radiant and fierce. My friend, my enemy—whose love and treachery had clawed the deepest grooves in my heart. One did not cancel out the other, yet the truth was that the Wenzhi who had betrayed me would never have sacrificed himself so. The fantasy of what might have been flashed across my mind—if he had been born of a different family, as had I. One untainted by power, suffering, and secrets. We would have been happy, as he had promised. Perhaps it was as he’d said: we never had a chance to begin, because there was already another in my heart. And then, he had lost my trust—forever, I’d believed. Only in this moment did it dawn on me that I had forgiven him long before. That I loved him, still … and it was too late.

His eyes pinned mine, a tremor coursing through him. I clutched him tighter, more afraid than I had ever been before, as though this simple act would suffice to bind him to me. But then his smile wavered as his eyelids sank down, closing over the turbulent gray. A breath left his body, his pulse slowing. His aura dwindling away until all that made him precious—was gone.

Grief ravaged me like a devouring beast. I could neither breathe nor move from the wracking agony, each moment an eternity of night. Scant consolation that I would follow him soon after. Perhaps then, I might find the peace that had long eluded me.

Someone lifted me away from Wenzhi, from the aching stillness of his body—once so powerful and strong. With the last of my strength, I turned to Liwei, to my mother and father. It was almost more than I could bear. Their eyes were ringed red and wet with sorrow. Liwei clasped his hands around mine, his touch bringing an echo of warmth to the chill that engulfed me. His energy poured into me with a rush of heat, a shallow comfort like the sun without warmth, the moon without light. My lifeforce was gone; I could not channel his magic. I wanted to tell him to stop. That I was sick and tired of partings and sorrow, that I was already dead inside.