“Is that why you can’t choose between us?” Nanami snarled.
Xiao’s mouth worked silently. Nanami’s anger faded, replaced by hurt. Could he really not choose between them? She had started to think...
Xiao dropped Jin’s arm but continued to hold her own. “I did choose – but Jin is still my best friend.” He dropped Nanami’s arm too.
“Both of you,” Xiao said, “owe the other an apology–”
“Oh, shut up, Xiao!”
Shocked, Nanami turned and looked at Jin. Tears were at the corners of her eyes, but Jin blinked them away. “Just – just leave me alone!” She ran from the room.
Xiao hesitated, but started to follow her. Bai caught his arm. “I think we should let Nanami and Jin figure this out by themselves.” He looked at Nanami. “I trust you won’t fight again.” Nanami felt like a child.
“No, First,” she said meekly.
“We have our own things to hash out,” Bai said to Xiao. And then they teleported away.
XIAO didn’t immediately recognize the dim room in which they emerged. A fire suddenly blazed up in a hearth, revealing white stone walls with pale live-edge wood furnishings. He brought us all the way back to his house?
Bai hung a kettle in the hearth.
“So what do we need to hash out?”
Bai rubbed his forehead, and Xiao realized the older being was making an effort to be patient. “Tea first.”
“I’m surprised you are willing to be this far from Jin.”
Bai shrugged. “No one can break the ban she set on the ship, and you can find her anywhere in the world. I didn’t like leaving, but she needs space and I want to speak with you privately.” Bai held up a hand just as Xiao opened his mouth to ask another question. “Please, let me gather my thoughts.”
Xiao reluctantly took a seat at the table and waited while Bai set two cups on it.
Finally, Bai said, “I owe you an apology. When we first met, I was dismissive of you.” There was a long pause then, and Xiao could see he was struggling for the words. Xiao suspected Bai already knew what he wanted to say – he was methodical like that – but for some reason he couldn’t say it.
“And we were both jealous of the other,” Xiao suggested. “I was jealous because Jin had fallen for you immediately, when she hasn’t been the least interested in me for our whole lives, and you were jealous of me because we are betrothed.”
Bai went very stiff. “How can you read my emotions?” he barked.
Xiao blinked in surprise. “They’re written all over your face. A little bit of logic, and a lot of experience, it isn’t too hard to figure out how most people feel at any given time.”
Xiao had finally managed to shock the older being and was in turn shocked himself when Bai bowed to him.
“I have fifteen times your experience, and it is not a skill I have mastered. I have misjudged you.”
Xiao burst out laughing. “You have fifteen times my years, but not my experience. I have heard the prayers of mortals every day for the past thousand years. I have had millions of relationships – friendships, lovers, worshippers. Whereas you... well, you spent three times my life in isolation.”
Xiao half-expected Bai to be angry, but instead he nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I’ve always shied away from emotion. I was alone when I came to be. For me, it is a habit.” He cleared his throat.
“You want to talk to me about Jin?” Xiao guessed. “You apologized because I am her friend?”
Bai looked stricken but shrugged. “If it is so obvious to you, I suppose there is no point in denying it.”
Xiao chuckled. “You are wrong. Because it’s obvious, you should deny more strongly, but I don’t mind. You remind me of Jin, in your honesty. For such an old man, you are a little naive yourself.”
Bai suddenly turned away from him and collected the kettle from the hearth – the water was now steaming – and poured some in each vessel. He offered Xiao the cup.
He’s being hospitable. I wonder, was he always this clumsy with others, or was his long isolation? Xiao accepted the cup with an inclination of his head, then gulped half of it down.
When Bai had finished swallowing his own sip, Xiao said, “You don’t have to do the social dance. Why don’t you just spit it out?”
Bai’s eyes widened comically, but he managed, “I wish to court Jin.”
“But she’s betrothed to me.”
Bai nodded. “I want to know how you feel about her. About your betrothal.” Bai drew in another deep breath. “I don’t wish to court someone who belongs to another again.”
“Again?” Xiao echoed in confusion.
Bai blushed. “Nanami told Jin, so I had thought she told you as well. My first love was Noran, Gang’s mother. She never had feelings for any but Aka.”
“But Jin doesn’t love me that way – you already know that from Jin herself.”
“But when we first met, I thought you were in love with her. I heard you tell Nanami you had chosen between them – I want to hear what you decided, directly from you.”
Xiao had met people like Bai before, but he thought it was ridiculous. All that mattered was if his attentions were welcomed by the object of his affections. After all, nobody belonged to anyone else. Xiao drank the rest of his water and decided to humor Bai. He could, after all, break Xiao into little pieces without breathing hard. “Jin and I are friends; that is all we'll ever be. I want to break our betrothal, but...”
Bai nodded. “Your power and your immortality are a fundamental part of yourself. I don’t wish to see Jin lose hers either. May I ask, what was the wording of your vow?”
“The emperor and my parents made the vow, and Jin and I agreed to follow it.”
Bai, who had been focused on his bowl, looked sharply at Xiao. “What precisely did you and she say?”
“Uh... ‘I pledge to honor my parent’s vows.’” Xiao thought for a moment. “I think she said the same as I.”
Bai’s eyebrows flew up, in excitement rather than judgment for once. “But Aka is not Jin’s father!”
“I thought about that,” Xiao admitted, “But if Jin thinks of him as her father...”
The excitement in Bai’s eyes dimmed.
“There is that,” he agreed. “Still, if she rejected him as her father, she would be free of the vow.”
“And me?”
Bai shrugged. “If anyone involved breaks the vow, it should be voided. But I will admit that side-stepping it might not have quite the same effect.”
Xiao drank down the warm water quickly.
“Are you sure it’s okay for us to leave them alone together?”
Bai nodded. “They aren’t really mad at each other – they were taking out other pain and anger. I think they will resolve it more quickly if we aren’t there.”
“Because you and I are what is really ticking them off?”
Bai shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“You should just talk to Jin,” Xiao advised him.
“I don’t know what to say,” Bai admitted. “When I figure it out, I will.”
“I don’t understand why you are upset with her,” Xiao prodded. “Like, Jin was pissed that you didn’t tell her about the cloud. But she didn’t do anything to you.”
Bai stared at the fire, and Xiao just had just about given up hearing an answer when Bai murmured. “She left me.”
Oh, man, he really was a coward. Xiao was trying to think of a response, when Bai said, “Why don’t we stay here tonight?”
Xiao cocked his head in surprise. “You’re willing to leave Jin’s side that long?”
“You can you track Jin. If they move suddenly, we’ll return. This is a good place to teach you.”
Xiao didn’t think that was really why Bai wanted to stay. He had wanted to come home, to run away from the big, bad world that threatened him with feelings. But he brought Xiao because he couldn’t leave Jin without having a way back to
her.
Was that stalkerish or romantic?
Xiao touched the ring he had braided of Nanami’s hair. He supposed he was in no position to judge.
“Very well,” he said, “What else can you teach me?”
XIAO and Bai really did leave them alone, but Nanami avoided Jin as well. She was ashamed and embarrassed by her own words, and she didn’t know what to say.
They both slept in their room that night but pretended by unspoken agreement that the other wasn’t there. The next morning, Nanami slipped out early and settled herself in the Yanou’s prow. To her surprise, Jin stood before her less than fifteen minutes later and bowed.
“I’m sorry. I said horrible things yesterday. And it wasn’t because you deserved them – it’s because I am angry with my family, and I have been wanting to yell at someone for days.”
Nanami chewed on her lips. “I’m sorry, too. I also was taking out other anger on you – I’m upset about my hand, and... I am jealous of the bond you and Xiao have.”
Nanami looked away. She felt Jin kneel beside her, and a hand rested on her shoulder. “You really don’t need to be. Xiao and I are close, and we love each other, but not the way he loves you.”
Nanami focused on Jin. “Why do you say Xiao loves me?”
“Oh, I can feel it. And I–”
“Yes, you love the First. I shouldn’t have mocked you. He seems genuinely interested in you – I’ve never seen him act towards anyone the way he acts toward you.”
Jin winced. “I hope that’s true, but I’m not sure even he knows how he feels.”
Nanami laughed. “That’s true. The First is very powerful, but in touch with his feelings – eh, not so much.”
“I just wish – this sounds awful, but I keep wishing that the emperor had been cursed just a little sooner, so that we would have embarked on this quest unentangled.”
“I think all four of us feel that way.” Nanami swallowed, uneasy how much the answer to her next question mattered. “Have you given any thought to breaking the betrothal?”
“Just several times a day since we reached the Lower Kuanbai.” Jin’s voice was bloated with self-mockery. “If I break it, I’d have maybe fifty years left.” Jin shuddered. “That, even more than losing my powers, terrifies me.”
“No! No, of course you mustn’t break the vow – but there must be some way – some loophole.”
Jin shrugged. “I suppose if Father or the Moon Goddess or the Night God broke the betrothal for us – but then they’d suffer the consequences.”
To point out that all three deities had no interest in ending the betrothal seemed unnecessary; Jin was surely more keenly aware of that than Nanami.
“Well, there’s still eleven months left. Who knows where everything will be then? You seem like a different person from just last week, your powers have bloomed so brightly.”
“Yes – actually – well, speaking of powers, there’s been something I’ve been wanting to try, if you’ll let me.”
Nanami cocked her head in question.
Jin reached out and lifted Nanami’s arm – the one without a hand. “I think I could make you a new hand, with your help.”
The idea was so inconceivable to Nanami that it took her a few moments to reply. “Come again?”
“A new hand. Have you tried shaping one out of water?”
She had actually. When Xiao had been sleeping, Nanami had gone to the pond in Jin’s garden and shaped one. But it had just been self-torture for she couldn’t attach it to her body, and she couldn’t make it flesh.
Jin nodded. “I think I could help you with that. I could bring your veins and arteries and muscles through it.”
“And the bones?”
“Can’t you make the bones?” Jin asked. “I’ve noticed – everything Bai makes is white, but you make things both indigo and silver. I thought...”
Nanami was considering it. “It’s because of my mother and her father. He is the Moon Deer, you know, so I have an affinity for both white and indigo. But my power is mostly indigo - I cannot read essences at all. Yet perhaps I could make bone, of a sort...”
Nanami asked a crew member to bring several buckets of seawater, and he practically flew to complete the task. The sailors then stayed well away from the two immortals, sensing that powerful magic was being worked.
Nanami shaped the hand first. This part was time-consuming, yet held the ease of familiarity, as she had done it before. Perhaps an hour later, when the hand looked perfect except for its watery nature, Jin slipped behind her, and it was as if she cocooned Nanami with her own power. Nanami’s sense of the world was suspended; time did not exist in the warm, colorful, and bright place that was Jin. Nanami felt lost, a little afraid even, until she found a streak of blue that was almost familiar. Nanami followed that blue streak like a road, and found the hand she had created, only the water sculpture had become flesh and blood. But there was still water inside it – water that needed to be bone. Nanami tried to assert her will over it, but it resisted violently. Bone is just like deer antlers, isn’t it?
The hand suddenly shredded, horrifically and violently, pierced by silver prongs. Jin was unfazed, changing the bloody, dismembered hand into flower petals that the breeze carried away, leaving only a single silver antler behind.
“Hmm. Shall we try again?”
Nanami felt weak from the creation, as if she had tapped her life force itself for power. She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t make bones. I don’t have enough dominion over white.” Her voice sounded high and strained in her ears.
Jin sagged down. “I’m sorry.”
Nanami managed to shake her head, trying to reassure Jin that it didn’t matter, but her eyes betrayed her as hot tears spilled out of them.
THEY stayed long enough in Bai’s cave that Xiao used the lock of Nanami’s hair – or, more precisely, let Bai use it – to track the Yanou before they teleported. Bai noted that the ship was farther east than he expected, a comment that Xiao barely registered until they stood on the junk’s deck.
“Where are all the crew?” he asked, his eyes darting first to the sails and then the aft.
“Can’t you feel it?” Bai countered. “Nanami and Jin are practically radiating power. The crew has probably hidden from it – most mortals instinctively fear magic.” Bai, having regained his sea-legs with no apparent effort, strode across the rocking deck to the prow, blind to anything but the two women.
Xiao frowned at Bai’s retreating back. Of course he felt the power that thickened the air like smoke, but he didn’t think Jin and Nanami were the priority now. He looked again at the sails, which seemed to him to be adjusting themselves, without a seaman in sight. He almost called Bai back, but then he thought of Bai’s easy familiarity with the boat versus his own total ignorance. He didn’t remember the sails acting like this in the past few days, but perhaps it wasn’t unusual. Still, he’d feel better if he spoke with the captain. Xiao headed for the aft, scuttling like a crab to keep his balance. At least no one was looking.
Xiao opened the trapdoor set in the wood planking and climbed down the steep, narrow ladder to the lower deck. It was dark below and the oil lamp that the crew usually left for their passengers was gone, but Xiao was Laughter in the Shadows. He moved quickly as he was able through the cramped lower rooms, yet it still took a good ten minutes to find the crew.
When he did, he wished he hadn’t. The hold had been cleared so that all the crew could lie down, resembling nothing so much as a compass rose with their feet touching in the center and their hands outstretched to form the perimeter. The air felt heavy and the smell of saltwater was strong, even more so than on the deck. Sound asleep, the sailors’ lids twitched rapidly, their hands fisting and releasing in awkward jerks. Xiao had granted enough of his own to recognize the signs of a god’s dream.
Xiao set to work immediately. Kneeling by the captain’s head, Xiao touched his fingers to the man’s
temples. Xiao scowled – he knew the man had a wife in Bando, but it appeared he did not worship Xiao. Xiao moved on, checking the crew one by one for a worshipper. The third man, a scrawny fellow with gray stubble, immediately relaxed under Xiao’s fingers. Xiao smiled. “You’ll be rewarded for your faith,” he whispered.
The man’s dream felt like Nanami – a controlling, old Nanami. Xiao cursed internally. The Sea Dragon must have felt the women’s working. Did he know that it was Nanami who had been casting a spell, or was he simply curious about a surge of power within his realm?
It didn’t matter either way, Xiao decided. Through the crew’s dreams, the ship was now being steered to the Sea Palace, and being trapped in the Sea Dragon’s seat of power wasn’t in any of their interests. If he was allied with Salaana, as Nanami suspected, then he would sabotage Jin’s quest. If he was trying to bring his intractable daughter home – Xiao shook his head.
He considered breaking the dream’s hold on the crew, but, given their long and committed worship of the Sea Dragon – for all sailors worshipped him, though he denied being a god – Xiao wasn’t sure there was much he could do. Secondly, he was afraid that bringing the Sea Dragon’s attention to them again might result in a worse scenario – perhaps he would turn the seas against them.
Instead, Xiao raced back to the deck, bumping both a shin and a hip painfully in his rush. On deck, he found his three companions in earnest discussion of resurrection. Xiao grit his teeth in annoyance.
“This isn’t the time to chat about magic theory!” he overrode their conversation. “This ship is being summoned by the Sea Dragon! We need to get off it.”
“What!” Nanami jumped to her feet and Xiao belatedly realized her eyes were red and puffy. Had she been crying? But no, that had to wait.
“Don’t you see how fast the ship is moving? And look at the sails! All twelve of the crew are in a god’s dream. The Sea Dragon’s. We’re headed to his palace, as fast as the Yanou can carry us. No, faster – he is using his power to speed the trip. Whatever you did attracted his attention.”
Vows of Gold and Laughter (The Immortal Beings Book 1) Page 27