*FEATURED* Ao is a wrathful, ravenous former god trapped in a human body and sentenced to roam the Inner Empire for all eternity.
Eternity is rather dull, until she meets a green-eyed prince and his friends.
The prince offers her a deal; help him a...
閉月羞花 Bì yuè xiū huā Shut out the moon shame the flowers. Beauty so great it eclipses the moon and puts flowers to shame.
Outside the moon had risen, and hung in the sky, bright and cool and near full. The silver of its face had a slight pinkish tinge to it, that happens sometimes on warm summer nights. The Eastern sea spread before Kageyama and me, the distant waves catching the light of the moon. To the west, a lime green glow hung on the horizon above the city. I thought it must be some sort of magical haze rising up from Zhanghai, before I realized it was simply the continued glow of twilight. It was Midsummer, after all, and the longest day of the year. The light would linger for a while longer.
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A few stars had come out, pinpricks of white bravely staying their place despite the competing light from the moon and the twilight. A breeze from the sea washed over me, pulling at the coiffeurs of my hair and tugging at the silk of my dress like curious hands. It was truly summer now, for the breeze was not cold, just pleasantly cool.
I leaned upon the stone balustrade that surrounded the balcony with one arm, the other still clutched by my side. Carefully from the corner of my eye, I studied Kageyama as he stood beside me. His eyes were on the sea below us, but I could tell they were seeing another scene.
I wondered if I had looked like that, earlier, when I had recalled my past with Guang Han. I imagined I had looked a bit angrier. Kageyama looked...solitary. Weathered. Like a single mountain standing alone.
For the first time, I started to wonder about Kageyama's story. I wondered why he was here, in the Inner Empire, and not in Wa. I wondered why he had chosen to swear himself to Lu's family all those years ago, and what it was exactly he had before, that he had 'thrown away', according to Kawashima.
But most of all, I wondered about the human woman that Kageyama had supposedly thrown it all away for.
"Lord Kageyama," I said. He turned toward me.
"Hmm?" His faraway look was still there.
"Look," I held out my hand. The moth that had been in the small lantern on my table sat there, glowing, beautiful, trapped in the cage of my fingers.
Kageyama chuckled softly, indulgent in his melancholy. "What do you have there?"
Instead of answering him I spread my fingers, and raised my palm up, shaking it a little. We both watched as the moth flapped, once, twice, and lifted itself, from my palm, up into the night, and out of sight over the roof of the manor behind us, shining like a fragment of the moon.
Left behind on my palm was a shimmer of dust from the moth's wings. It glowed like stardust.
"What foolish things are you doing now?" sighed Kageyama, not really caring.
I inspected the dust a moment longer, before brushing it off into the sea below. "I think any creature, no matter how small, deserves to be free. Don't you?"
