The world was awash with a brilliant golden glow, the sky a deep red, casting a burning warmth on her skin.

  The whole world was id out before her, in an ocean of curved eaves and red ntern lights, like stars that seemed to glint across the nd with towering pagodas splitting into the sky’s honeyed horizon.

  The wind danced in her hair — she reached out and tugged off her ribbon, letting her long tresses fly free. The relief of it sung on her scalp, the light searing her eyes as the cold stung her cheeks.

  Her fingers clenched around it.

  This world.

  She never knew it could be so beautiful.

  A confused mix of words on her tongue, she turned to the princess, as though to share the painful beauty of the dying sun, but then her words were stolen from her lips —

  Xi Qian’e wasn’t watching the sunset.

  She was staring, stunned into silence, gaze almost enchanted, at Three.

  A shadow guard.

  Bitterness swelled up in her chest, with an almost rusted sting. Her eyes roved over the other, each breath drinking in the sad smile on her princess’s face, the fluttering, ghost-like waves of white linen, the dancing bck hair finer than silk, the heat in those eyes holding a terrifyingly familiar gentleness.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Xi Qian’e whispered. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life.’

  ‘You’ll see far better ones,’ Three said. Her voice had suddenly turned dry, almost horribly so in its coarseness. But even then, the cracking of it sent fear sparking down her hands, her scarred skin, almost alive in the trembling of her gaze. ‘Once you’re the emperor, you’ll see sunrises and falling stars and a moon setting over the Forbidden Pace, Your Highness.’ She faltered. ‘The world will be yours to sample.’

  The princess swallowed and said, ‘I told you before, to call me Xi Yu.’

  ‘But…’ She bit back on that name and squashed it down, far away until she couldn’t feel it or touch it or know that it was thrashing deep inside. ‘It’s an address that’s too close. Too close for you and me.’

  ‘What do you mean, “too close”?’ The princess took a step closer, as though to prove her point. ‘Why, Three?!’

  Three.

  That name — she had never hated it more before.

  ‘Because it’s wrong,’ she said. Her voice couldn’t help but quicken, growing louder, ‘Because I’m a guard, you’re a princess, and there are lines that can’t be crossed.’ Everything seemed to swell inside her, some cursed mess of tears and anger and shredded child’s dream. She felt it twist her face, her brows, burning her eyes and balling her hands into fists. ‘You’ll hurt me, Xi Yu, because I’m living by letting my desires run free and I won’t put them in someone else’s hands again.’

  She could still remember the pain on her wrists, her back, her arms, her neck, her stomach, her ribs.

  The pain when Little Melon’s young miss would carve and whittle down her heart in ruthless hands.

  But then the princess grabbed her arms with a force that she never knew the other was capable of. Those red eyes, smouldering not like ashes but like the warmest coals in snow, wrapped her in something that was dangerously soft. ‘Maybe it’s not wrong,’ Xi Qian’e said. ‘Because even though I can hurt you, Three — you can hurt me just the same.’

  She froze.

  She whispered, ‘Xi Yu, I’ve done many things, many terrible things.’

  ‘I know, Three,’ said the other. ‘I know.’

  That haunted gaze poured into hers, and the realisation smmed into her: neither of them had forgotten, even if they’d sworn to ignore it under the swollen, white-yellow moon.

  ‘You’ll be emperor one day,’ she said. Her voice was gone — all of it was just a breathy, trembling mess not much more than a whisper of the wind. ‘And an emperor can’t promise me what I want.’

  ‘And maybe I’ll die tomorrow,’ said Xi Qian’e. Wet, burning tears fell onto her face. It trailed down the scar on her neck and seeped into her bck robes.

  And as though time and rewound, the princess wrapped her arm around Three’s waist, a hand cupping her cheek. Xi Qian’e pleaded, ‘Three. Could we just… ignore everything? Forget it all? Could we pretend that nothing ever happened? Just until then?’

  Her heartbeat was so loud it nearly drowned out the other’s words.

  She forced a smile.

  Then Xi Yu’s burning lips fell on hers.

  It was hot, almost searingly so against her. The other did not know how to kiss — that stubborn naivety pressed gently at her as she let it in. A hand pressed nervously at her waist, and she wrapped around the other, their shallow breaths and racing hearts filling the air like dried flowers in water.

  She slid her fingertips, still wrapped with that ribbon, up into Xi Qian’e’s hair to press them closer. She tilted her head, standing on the tips of her toes, the silkiness of it running through her hands. Then her lips drew away, just enough for her to whisper against the other’s, her blue eyes curving into a teasing yet painful smile, ‘Xi Yu, shall I teach you how to kiss?’

  The warmth of it smothered her as she coaxed her way in, stealing her princess’s breath away. The taller woman shook in her embrace but held her tighter, as though wanting to never let go, the joy racing through her veins like the finest wine as the sun lit up their faces.

  Something in their kiss was melting her, just like how it softened Xi Qian’e’s eyes and smile, like frost thawing to reveal the mud and grassy pins underneath. The princess’s hair smelled like fresh snow, her skin soft under the linen robes, and it told Three that everything she did was right.

  She didn’t dare to indulge and let that softness, that precious gentleness sour, so she rocked back onto her heels and pulled away with a careless smile that couldn’t quite sit naturally on her face.

  Xi Qian’e must’ve seen it, perhaps on her eyes or maybe on her reddened lips, for the other reached out and took the ribbon from her clenched fingers.

  Then, that pair of jade-like hands lightly lifted her hair, combing it all back into a braid, folding the locks over and over in a honeyed silence and tied a little bck bow.

  ‘I think I’m mad,’ she whispered. ‘I’m a shadow guard, and I’ve just kissed my master.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ the princess said. ‘I’ll just go mad with you.’

  And the shattered pieces of the white earring burned a hole through to her heart.