And there was hurt in his tone, that she hadn’t chosen to tell him. Mei Li hastily assured him, “I had to be secretive in the past; I couldn’t explain it then. And I had to tell Rone last night, otherwise she’d have strangled me on the spot. But there’s a reason I said we should talk about this face to face.”
He settled into a parade rest in front of her, and the suspicion in his expression was clear as day. “And what’s so important, then?”
Right, clearly she just needed to say this bluntly. He was developing all sorts of wild theories in his head, and she absolutely didn’t want any of them to put down roots.
“I found a way to tie my life force to yours.”
Shunlei blinked. Then blinked again, more slowly, as if his mind was racing so hard to process her words that the rest of his body slowed down by default. “Come again?”
“That secret project I was working on in the past. The one that’s banned here in the present, that will get us in worlds of trouble if anyone figures out what I’m planning to do. What I told Rone. All of it is just so that I can stay with you.”
She gauged his reaction and wasn’t surprised when his eyes burned bright with unshed tears. Coming closer, she cradled his head with both hands, smiling up at him helplessly.
“I couldn’t stay with you as I wished to in the past. That was out of my control. But I can tie my life force into yours so that as long as your heart beats, so will mine. I’ll share your lifespan, so death cannot separate us on a whim.”
Shunlei snatched her up, kissing her ardently, but all she felt was his relief. When he pulled back, he put their foreheads together, and tears streamed down his cheeks unchecked.
His voice was hoarse as he said, “Thank you. Losing you a second time…I wouldn’t have been able to survive it. My heart couldn’t take it.”
Hearing that made her ever so glad that she’d come up with a plan to avoid that future. Mei Li smoothed his hair back from his face, keeping him close.
“I didn’t want you to even question it, to ever arrive at that point. I did feel a little guilty about the secrecy but didn’t see a good way around it.”
“I now know why. I do understand, even if it confused me in the past.” He snorted softly. “No wonder Rone forgave you so easily, if you told her this.”
“She might have some issue with me still, but I think she’ll let go of the grudge completely with time.” Lifting her head up, Mei Li cautioned, “The spell entails a great deal of prep. I’ll need at least three weeks to set everything up and will borrow heavily from your dragon fire in order to fuel the spell. My power alone won’t even begin to touch the power levels necessary to manage this.”
“Whatever you need,” he promised without hesitation. “But if it takes that much time, we can’t do this soon.”
“No, I think we’ll need to wait for next winter, when the snows quiet things again. Once we’re back at Dragon’s Peak, we’ll have the time necessary for this. I don’t want to push it off any longer than that. I’m more fragile than you, for one thing. It tempts fate.”
Fire flashed in his eyes. “Nothing will touch you.”
“I don’t want you hurt either,” she said with considerable asperity. “Even if you are tougher now.”
“Out of the two of us, my love, it’s better I take the damage.”
“You know, I’ve been hearing this argument for ten years, yet it still fails to move me.”
For some reason, her snark delighted him. He hugged her close, rocking her back and forth.
“Gods above, I missed you. You’re the only one to ever be completely unfazed by me.”
“That’s because I see right through you.” She hugged him back, burrowing into his arms for a moment. “You do realize the spell I’ll have to enact is highly illegal and might get us in trouble?”
There was a dismissive snarl. “I was there when those laws were written. No one can dictate whether or not I can keep my own wife at my side.”
“Fair enough.” Not that she subscribed to the idea that anyone should be above the law, but if anyone should be…well, Shunlei definitely made the top of the list. “I love you, my darling. I’m so sorry you were left alone for so long, and so thankful you waited for my return.”
He rested his head against hers, thrumming low and long.
“I won’t pretend it was easy. It most definitely was not. There was many a time when I wished I had heeded your warning. I realized belatedly that you knew precisely what this would be like. I could have been better braced for it. But all that was a price I had to pay in order to have you back, and I consider it a fair trade over losing you completely after fifty or so years due to old age.”
Now, there was perspective for her. “That’s true. At least our future didn’t end there.”
Shunlei sighed. “As much as I would like to sit and talk with you uninterrupted, it’s cold out here. And we need to reach an inn by nightfall. Let’s eat quickly. We can talk more tonight about what you’ll need for the bonding spell.”
“I can list it all out for you,” she promised. Not that he was likely to understand it all, but she’d learned how to explain things in layman’s terms so he could follow at least the general outline of the plan.
“Good.”
He let go of her, a little reluctantly, but they ended up seated side by side as they ate their lunch. It was a quiet moment they both needed, and Mei Li hoped for more of them.
Loading up again took only a moment, and then they were back in the air. They had to cross a good section of Horvath in order to reach Zaffi, and it took several hours to manage it, even by dragon-back. Mei Li couldn’t easily speak with Shunlei without letting a lot of cold air into her carrier, which she was loathe to do, and it would require shouting, anyway. She didn’t have the lung power for it. So, she lay there and thought instead. Thought about the logistics of Zaffi’s sealing, of Odom’s, of how to deal with Kovel Below.
The only answer that came back to her was—manpower. And a lot more of it.
Mei Li started praying, for all their sakes, that more mages would come to help. They’d definitely need more dragons to help ferry people around and lend their firepower.
“Abe,” she sighed to herself, heartsore. “If you’re still alive, I’m going to strangle you for making me deal with all of this myself.”
“Mei, landing!”
“Alright!” she called back. Righting herself, she braced for landing.
Shunlei came in steady and smooth, as he always did when he had a passenger. The landing barely jostled her at all, which Mei Li was grateful for since she had a full stomach. She undid the latches and flipped out, then stopped long enough to get her bearings.
This area was so entirely strange. She remembered it as—well, it hadn’t been lush when they’d sealed Zaffi. The ground had been thoroughly wrecked, in fact, with downed trees and upturned earth, like a falling star had come through and shattered the side of the mountain range. But even those traces of vegetation were long gone. A ring of bare ground stretched over the now-dry riverbed and crawled up the mountainside.
No, truly, where was the river? Mei Li had wondered what had gone wrong, causing the seal to finally fail. But if the river they’d used in the past to funnel the seal was gone, then that explained it.
And gave her a whopper of a headache. If the water was all gone, what was she to use to reseal him? And it wasn’t just the absence of a river—there was no water to be seen at all. The earth itself was loose, powdery, with no trace of moisture in it.
The foul stench of brimstone permeated the area, the air hot enough that no snow lingered anywhere in the vicinity. The surge of heat and unnatural flame pulsed in the air, barely held in check by the glowing dome shining ahead of her.
Zaffi.
As she eyed him, acute anger boiled in her chest. She’d lost friends to this demon, and those memories burned. She did feel grim satisfaction that their sacrifice had contributed to him being caged for f
ive thousand years. As Mei Li stared at him, she silently promised everyone who had once fought him that she’d make sure he’d stay down, too.
Zaffi would not rise again. Not on her watch.
Shunlei had touched down on the edges of the camp. She saw mages and dragons alike sitting around a table, many a spell design drawn out on overlapping papers in front of them. They jumped to their feet, though, with delighted smiles as they turned to greet their guests.
It was good to see so many familiar faces. Mei Li’s joy at the reunion showed on her face, no doubt of that. Sometimes, she was so heart sore over the companions she’d lost to the past that the fear carried over to her friends of the present. Seeing them whole and healthy eased the constrictions in her chest as nothing else could have. She’d have to sit properly with each person, catch up with them, when time allowed for it. Mei Li gave them a wave, even as her attention went back to Zaffi.
“He hasn’t changed much,” she noted clinically to her husband. “Still an ugly brute, isn’t he?”
“That he is.” Shunlei changed over to human form, shaking out his sleeves as he settled. With a disgruntled look, he noted, “If only he wasn’t so fire-based, I could do something about him.”
“Trust me, love, I wish you could just melt him, too. But that’s why we had to use a river to begin with.”
Sadly, neither fire nor earth would have any effect on Zaffi. He had too much of both elements to make that feasible. Born of a volcano, he carried those elements naturally—even if he looked more like an open flame on legs. But the heart of him was volcanic stone, clearly seen through the dancing flames of his outer body.
It made for a difficult sealing, no doubt about that.
And just where had that river gone, anyway? Mei Li wanted flowing water back in this area, please and thank you.
Dolan gave them a wave as he approached at a half-jog. His mountain man look had gained new dimensions as his beard bristled in this cold weather, and he seemed torn between lingering near Zaffi to keep to ward off the cold and keeping a fair distance. He was dressed in layers, as if he were shedding them and pulling them back on constantly through the day. “Mei Li, Master Shunlei, glad to see you. How is everyone faring back there?”
“Still healing, but Gen and Bai expect to be airborne later in the week,” Mei Li reported.
Tengfei and Ling Ling clapped and gave a cheer, clearly able to hear her despite the distance.
“Leah will take a bit more time, but she hopes to be well enough to help with Kovel Below.” Mei Li made a face. “And we’ll need all the help we can get on that one. Dolan, is there absolutely no water to be found anywhere in this area?”
“Not that we’ve seen. Why?”
“We’ll need some,” she explained with a groan. “And a lot of it, a natural source that can be tapped into. And a way to tap it near Zaffi, otherwise it will do us no good.”
“We can certainly work on that,” Dolan promised her. “Maybe a basin underneath his feet? And we’ll look for water to fill it?”
“Yes, that sounds perfect.”
Dolan’s expression grew hopeful. “If you’re asking for water, then you’ve figured out a plan?”
“I dropped in to tell you that I know how to reseal Zaffi and Odom.”
Dolan’s mouth dropped. “Wh-wha-what?! How?! You had no idea earlier!”
Oh, right. They didn’t know anything about her going into the past. After ten years, she’d forgotten that little detail. A slow, evil grin took over her face. Oh, this would be fun.
“Why don’t we sit down, Dolan? I have an excellent story to tell you.”
Five minutes after landing at the Summer Winds Temple, Mei Li found herself in a very posh waiting room while someone ran to fetch the head priest. She looked around at the nicely appointed room with its cushy seating, the fire blazing merrily in the corner, the throw blankets on each chair, and couldn’t help but smile ruefully.
“It’s so different,” she commented to Shunlei.
“What is, my love?”
Turning her head, she looked at him, all stretched out under a blanket, basking in the heat of the nearby fire. He looked perfectly content to curl around the warmth and take a long nap. Which, after the long flight in cold weather, who could blame him?
“Now compared to then, I mean.” She gestured to the room in general. “It used to be that I’d have to explain, over and over, who I was. Convince them I had the experience and knowledge to help. Some people readily accepted the aid, others were wary about taking me on. We didn’t receive ready help or open doors because no one knew us. Now, I show up and people readily bend over backwards to get me whatever I request. It’s a night-and-day difference.”
“We both worked very hard to gain that respect,” he pointed out. “I suppose I’ve grown accustomed to the change in attitude over the years. You have a more recent reminder of the past than I.”
“True.”
Shunlei was one of the very few people who would understand her perspective of things. And speaking of the past…
“You’re quite confident you can subdue Ghost General’s Sword without struggle?”
He just cocked an eyebrow at her, arrogant and amused.
“Right, I feel like I just asked a stupid question. It’s just that the first time that you faced it, you had to sit and mentally battle with Ghost General for almost a full day. Remember? And I had to thrum at you to get you free of it.”
“Oh, I remember. But I’m also much older and not so easily swayed now.”
“Fair, fair. I expect you to wear a charm to deflect its effects anyway, as a precaution. But if you’re that confident, then how do you feel about destroying it?”
That surprised him. Shunlei sat up abruptly, his eyes locked on hers. “You think we can?”
“There are two distinct differences between now and the first time we battled this thing.” Mei Li ticked them off on her fingers. “One, this temple is fully equipped with exorcists. The temple of the past was brand new, barely up and running, and nobody had that expertise. The best we could do was seal it. Two, you are far stronger now than you were as a Red. I think your dragon fire could easily melt the sword and destroy the spirit’s housing.”
To his credit, he didn’t immediately jump on this idea. Shunlei sat back again for a moment, thinking it through. “I believe you’re right, although my memory of the event is hazy. I was strongly under its influence at the time. I’d certainly be game to try. I don’t know about you, but I’m rather tired of sealing things over and over.”
“The repetition has to be worse for you than me,” she agreed with complete understanding. “But I say, if we can destroy it, let’s do that. Not just push the burden off to future generations.”
“You’ll be part of those future generations,” he pointed out dryly.
Right, so she would be. As her lifespan would soon match his. “In that case, let’s really destroy things as we can. I don’t want to create more work for future me.”
“Then we’ll do so.” He turned his head slightly toward the door. “I believe the priest is here.”
A dragon’s ears were indeed sensitive. The priest arrived a minute later, looking red in the face from rushing, his white robe flapping around his ankles.
“My profuse apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said, trying to look as if he hadn’t sprinted—as much as an elderly man of his advanced years could sprint—all the way here.
“We came without any warning,” Mei Li assured him with a warm smile. “Don’t rush, please sit and catch your breath.”
“No, think nothing of it. We’re very happy you’re both here.” He sat rather heavily in one of the chairs, taking deep breaths and regaining his composure. “I assume, Tomes, you are here because of Ghost General’s Sword?”
“I am.” Mei Li steepled her fingers in front of her, trying to figure out how to put this diplomatically. “This temple has been entrusted with guarding Ghost General’s Sword
and keeping it sealed for almost five thousand years. You’ve done a splendid job of it, keeping it in check far longer than anyone would have guessed. But I think it’s time to deal with the sword in a more permanent manner.”
He blinked owlishly. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow. What could be more permanent than what we’ve always done? I think five thousand years is a rather good showing.”
“Oh, it’s amazing, as I said. But we Tomes are tired of having to keep track of things that need to be resealed. I can only imagine how the Master of All Dragons feels about it.” She gave her husband a speaking look, amused when he rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. “The reaction speaks volumes. And truthfully, you now have the resources to destroy Ghost General’s Sword and the malevolent spirit that resides within it.”
The head priest ogled her as if she had lost her mind.
But the assistant priest—who had been so quiet she barely noticed his entrance into the room—cottoned onto her meaning. He was younger, likely with only a decade or so on her own age, jet-black hair pulled back harshly in a strict ponytail. His brown eyes caught hers as he spoke softly.
“You mean to have us exorcise the spirit, while you destroy the sword itself. Don’t you?”
“Indeed,” she purred with wicked anticipation. He was on board with this plan, she could read it from his expression. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have the burden on this temple permanently gone? Not to mention the boost to your reputation—imagine if you defeated the ancient evil, Ghost General’s Sword, a feat even your ancestors couldn’t do.”
The head priest turned and looked up at his younger counterpart. “Is this possible?”
“Not alone, no,” he said instantly. “But I’m not alone in this. With the Master of All Dragons and our reliable Tomes doing half of the work, this is very possible, I think. Ghost General’s Sword is powerful, but not compared to them.”
Well. That was flattering. Mei Li felt her head swell just a bit.
Shunlei cleared his throat in a quiet rumble. “Forgive me, what is your name?”
Master of Tomes Page 5