He would not listen even if I could have spoken in that moment, his magic sweeping over me like rainfall, gliding off my skin as I continued to fade. Lights flashed across my vision like a thousand stars spinning across the heavens. My head fell to the earth, my gaze falling upon Wenzhi’s body. How calm he looked, how young and peaceful, the cares wiped from his face. The grass beneath me was wet with morning dew. It was still dark, the lanterns unlit. If only I could have seen their glow one last time.

“I love you,” I whispered. To Liwei. To my mother and father. To my home, where I would lay forever.

And then, I was free. Severed from the husk of my body, floating above. Such lightness, such calm. Love without pain, joy with sorrow, and the promise of the infinite. I stared down at the carnage before me. Wenzhi. Wugang. The broken remnants of those soldiers.

A cry erupted from Liwei that would have torn the heart from my chest if it beat still. My father’s head bowed with grief as he wrapped an arm around my mother—her weeping resonating through the air, her tears streaming into the soil. A shudder rippled through the ground, the lanterns around us flaring to sudden life—luminous and bright. The moon eagerly awakening to greet its mistress after so long an absence.

My mother pulled free of my father’s hold, kneeling by my side to grasp my hand. Tears slid down her face, falling upon the withered roots of the laurel. “Xingyin,” she wept, again and again, in the sorrowful rhythm of loss.

Something gleamed, a rivulet of bright gold sap trickling forth from the laurel’s stump. It streaked across the wood, between the charred crevices, spilling upon the ground. The earth shimmered with light, warmth erupting in the air like a burst of summer—a force yanking me back into my body, even as pain and grief latched onto my consciousness once more with excruciating clarity.

I sucked in a heaving breath, bolting upright. My eyes met my mother’s, wide with shock and disbelief, a moment before she threw her arms around me, clutching me tight. A tingling warmth surged through my flesh, coursing through my veins. Over her shoulder, I saw the last of the laurel stump crumble away, its once-glittering sap fading to brown, scattering like sand over Wenzhi’s body. No breath rattled in his lungs; he was as lifeless as stone.

“Is he—?” I could not speak the word.

“He is gone,” Liwei said hoarsely.

“Why? Why him and not me?” I burst out, unreasonable in my grief.