Page 97 of The Scarlet Alchemist

The prince hummed, fingers tracing my other arm, all the way down to my fingertips, where he laced our hands together once more.

“Then let me remember it as long as I can,” he said.

So I let his warm hands remember me, whispering across my stomach and hips, shivering across the knobs of my spine, his lips gentle at the back of my neck. I felt myself sinking into his touch, like a warm river rising over my head, ready to carry me far away. He brushed my hair aside and ran a finger across a spot between my shoulder blades.

“I thought your surname was Fan,” he said.

“It is,” I said, the words murmured and distant, my whole body boneless beneath him.

“Then who is Su Zilan?”

All the warmth drained from my body. I curled away from his touch, sitting up, my skin suddenly cold and tight. I hadn’t heard that name in a long time.

My mother and Auntie So were sisters, and since my father didn’t have a surname they could write in Chinese, they’d given me my mother’s name. I’d been born as So Zilan. In the dialect of Chang’an, my name would be read as Su Zilan. But the prince wouldn’t know that unless he saw my name written down, and I hadn’t written that name anywhere since Auntie and Uncle had adopted me.

“Where did you read that?” I said, turning around.

The prince pulled back slightly, as if sensing the danger of his question. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.

“I’m not offended, I just don’t understand. Where did you see that name?”

“Your scar,” he said quietly.

I was already on my feet, my fingers fumbling to light a candle by the mirror.

“What scar?” I said, the wick finally igniting, singeing my fingers.

The prince rose from bed and tried to drape a sheet over me, but I swatted his hand away, scanning my body in the mirror.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.

I shook my head.“What scar?”

He pointed to my back, between my shoulder blades. I pulled my hair over my shoulder and tried to twist to see it in the mirror, but the light was too dim.

“Here,” he said, picking up the candle for me and nudging my shoulder forward until I could barely see the center of my spine in the mirror. There, in small, jagged lines, the skin was raised and white, a ghost of a scar.

?

?

?

Su Zilan.

“I’m sorry,” the prince said, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I was only curious.”

But I could only stare at the mark—my real name—branded onto my skin. For so many years, I’d tried to be one of the Fans, but, as always, alchemy unveiled the truth. I pressed a hand to my throat, feeling like the golden walls were crushing closer, like the world was a cold, dark box, no air left for me to breathe.

“It’s very small,” the prince said, shifting from foot to foot. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t felt it. If it bothers you that much, I can see if there are any healers who can remove scars...”

It’s not a scar, I wanted to scream, staring at my horrified reflection.

It’s a soul tag.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I ran across the palace grounds, my untied hair lashing my face as the wind tore through it. I didn’t know where I was going, but I couldn’t be around the prince right now. What would he think if he knew I was just a hollow shell living on stolen time, no different than any of the corpses chained in the dungeon? He thought I was beautiful, but he didn’t know that I was rotting inside.

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