“Jeet.”

“Let me finish.” He smiled, clear brown eyes sharp and resigned. He shifted in the water and then cupped my face: a warm, wet hand against my cheek. “I know I’m not him,” he whispered. “I know it’s unfair for me to hope. But if there’s a chance. If—if, after you’ve had time to grieve—someday, we might—”

I pressed a finger to his lips. He blinked, dazed, as I placed his arms around me. Then I braced myself on his shoulders, wrapping my legs around his waist so he held me, weightless, in the water. “Jeet . . . I wasn’t in love with Zuri.”

His breaths came short. “You weren’t?”

I shook my head.

“Oh.” He looked so dumbstruck, I laughed. I kissed his nose, then each of his bushy eyebrows, smiling when they knit together.

“I assumed,” he mumbled. “I mean—you spent so much time with him. And you called him a hero.”

“That’s because he was.” I smiled sadly. “But you can’t hold a legend’s hand, Jeet.” I screwed up my face. Zuri had been right—the Ray didn’t require someone to truly love you. Only the idea of you. I had always been an idea to him, and enamored as he had been with The Lady, I suspected even she had only been a tool in his revolutionary imagination—like a keen knife, or a gleaming sword. And when she lost her usefulness, he had simply exchanged her for a younger, sharper copy.

“Zuri didn’t want the girl,” I said. “He only wanted the empress.” I sighed, wrapping my legs tighter around him. “Only you ever tried to love both.”

The doubt left his eyes, replaced by warmth as my thighs pressed his hips. We kissed—gently at first, shy pecks containing apologies for fights before. Then my tongue grew bold. His skin tasted strongly of salt, seasoned by the spring. I clutched him closer, sharply aware that the cloth binding my breasts had soaked sheer. A sound escaped him, and his mouth dipped beneath my collarbone, moving my obabirin mask aside. I moaned, seeing stars. In the dark, I could not see below the water. But I felt—and wanted—every inch of him.

My head swam. Inhaling so much steam had made me giddy, and I’d had nothing but broth and water for days. Part of me also knew that if we kept this up much longer, my qualms about risks and heirs would fade quickly to white noise, no matter how imminent those risks were. Still, my hands gripped his back, and I let his mouth explore a few blissful moments longer before I broke the embrace.

“We should—” I gasped. “We should go inside.”

He nodded reluctantly, eyes glazed with hunger.

A pile of linens lay stacked neatly beside the jade altar. We climbed from the pool and wrapped our shoulders in the perfumed towels. But before we could leave the clearing, my tutsu swarmed.

“What in Am’s name,” I said, moving to shield Sanjeet. But to my surprise, he didn’t seem afraid.