by Resa Nelson
Empress Ti sat up straight in the chair while Asu Chu stood behind her. His fingertips grazed her hair like butterflies investigating flowers.
Why is his touch so light?
“I doubt you can hurt me,” Ti said. “And it’ll take forever if you’re that gentle.”
Asu Chu gave a soft grunt in response, but his touch became firmer.
Empress Ti steeled herself for a difficult topic. To the royal magician, she said, “I need to ask you about a delicate subject.”
Tao Chu lowered his body to sit on a tabletop across from the empress and assumed a most solemn expression. “How can I be of service to my empress?”
Ti plowed forward. “You have given me good advice for maintaining my health. You helped me shore my health up through ritual in the Temple of Dark and Light. And now the royal astrologer has advised me to bathe in the light of the blood moon to strengthen my health even more.”
Ti hesitated, searching for the right words. She hadn’t dared broach this subject with her astrologer. Better to discuss it with the magicians alone. She decided it would be best to be blunt—but not too blunt. “But how long will that good health last? How much time do I have before I need a more permanent solution?”
How much time do I have before I must find Frayka’s baby and use its blood to cure me?
Tao Chu clasped his hands in earnest. “A sycophant would say that you have all the time in the world.”
Ti frowned, unfamiliar with the word. “Sycophant?”
“Someone who does little more than flatter,” Tao Chu said. “Someone who lies because he is too afraid of what might happen to him if he tells the truth.”
Asu Chu’s fingers stilled inside Ti’s hair.
What’s wrong with Asu?
The boy resumed searching for ways to release the hair knots while his father continued.
“In your case, the truth is uncertain. The good health you now enjoy might last for years. Or months. Or weeks.” Tao Chu looked into Ti’s eyes as if he sought to look into the future. “Or days. I wish I knew more, but your situation is so rare that the information I’ve found comes from a very long time ago and is difficult to understand.”
For a moment, Ti wondered if she had misunderstood him. “A few days? That can’t be right.”
“Again, I regret that the information I have is unclear. Your good health may last anywhere from a few days to many years.”
Ti felt light-headed and sick. She wanted to double over and put her head between her knees, but she didn’t want to appear weak in front of the magician and his son. Instead, she stared at Tao Chu and deepened her breathing to calm her emotions. “I don’t like uncertainty.”
“Neither do I,” Tao Chu said. “But it is our reality, and we must face it in the best way possible.”
His response didn’t help.
Empress Ti clenched her fists and dug her fingernails into her palms. She focused on the pain. Within a few moments, that pain cleared her head.
Something snapped inside her knotted hair, and it fell loose to her shoulders.
Asu Chu heaved a sigh of relief.
“You will aide Li Chien in my absence?” Ti asked the royal magician.
“To the best of my ability,” Tao Chu said.
Standing, Ti said, “Then it is time. Come with me, Asu.” She marched to the door of the royal magician’s quarters, opened it, and smiled at her favorite guard, Jojen, who kept sentry in the hallway.
* * *
By the afternoon, Ti stood at the railing of a simple fishing boat that sailed out of Zangcheen’s harbor toward the ocean. Asu Chu sequestered himself at the back of the boat and played with the pack of supplies he’d brought along. Jojen worked with the small crew he’d recruited for this secret expedition.
At first, the boat’s pitch terrified Empress Ti, but when she saw Asu Chu’s cowardly response to it, she found the inspiration to adapt to the unpredictable motion of the floorboards beneath her feet.
Look at Asu! He acts like a child. He’s already made a journey by sea and should be used to it.
I’m so much stronger than Asu. I can adapt, and he can’t.
Ti drank in the fresh air whipping all around her as if it were wine. She steadied herself against the railing and gazed at the wondrous view of Zangcheen from the mouth of the harbor.
Never before had she seen such a sight.
The massive city of Zangcheen surrounded by hilly outskirts riddled with tangled dirt avenues jammed with commoners. The small homes made of wooden slats and slanted thatched rooftops that crowded the outermost avenues of Zangcheen.
The sight of the city took away Ti’s breath: its wide paved-stone streets. Its neighborhoods of large buildings and lavish homes. The avenues leading toward the city center, filled with rows of squat trees bursting with pink blossoms. Even this far away, Ti detected the tangy perfume of those flowers drifting on the breeze.
Most of all, Ti relished the sight of the royal palace where she’d spent her life. For the first time, she appreciated how impressed anyone coming to Zangcheen for the first time would be. The elegant complex sprawled behind a stone wall. The grand palace made of golden walls rested like a jewel among manicured gardens and tiny ponds. The gold statue of a dragon perched on the palace’s red clay roof tiles like a sentinel.
Jojen joined Ti at the railing. “It’s a beautiful sight.”
Ti beamed. “The most beautiful sight. It’s difficult to leave, but we must. It’s imperative to find Njall so we can follow him to wherever Frayka has gone.”
Ti prided herself on making a sensible plan. By spreading the rumor of an illness serious enough to keep her in bed but from which she would recover, Ti felt confident that Li Chien and Tao Chu would keep the country safe from the power-hungry advisors tempted to take control. As long as those advisors believed Ti remained in the palace and would return to her throne at any moment, the men she trusted could manage.
She also knew that finding Njall required help from both Asu Chu and Jojen, because each had encountered Frayka at different times outside Zangcheen. Ti believed that they held different bits of information that would provide a worthwhile map to Njall’s location.
As the boat sailed down the wide stretch of river from the harbor, Ti noticed smaller rivers leading into it. She pointed at one. “Where do those little rivers lead?”
Jojen gave a superficial glance at the direction in which she pointed. “Various places along the eastern region of Wulong.”
Ti raised an eyebrow. “Including the mountains where we’re going?”
Jojen shrugged. “Some go in that direction but don’t reach the mountains.”
“But some do.”
Jojen looked directly into her eyes. “Those tributaries are difficult to navigate, and the streams are filled with the sharp edges of boulders. I’ve heard some boats get torn to shreds. I’ve heard of people who drown or get shredded like the boats they were on. I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”
Empress Ti studied the eyes of her favorite royal guard. She saw the same kind of truth and wisdom that she had often seen in her father’s eyes. “The route we take is safer?”
“Much safer. First, we sail out to the sea, and then we’ll hug the coast down to the mountains.” Jojen hesitated. “May I confirm the plans made by my empress? The more I know, the better I can help.”
Ti believed him. “First, you will lead us to the place where you took that mountain girl and Frayka. The place where the girl’s sister had been taken by the serpent dragon.”
Jojen’s face lit up with recognition. “Yes, the Lu girl.” He hesitated. “But if you want to speak with her, it’s too late. The Lu girl you met was killed by the serpent dragon. Her sister lives, if that helps.”
Ti remembered the story relayed by Jojen when he returned. Ti sent Frayka with the Lu girl with the hope that the Northlander would live up to the reputation of her people and slay the serpent dragon. Instead, the Lu girl and the serpent
dragon killed each other. Frayka had freed the captured sister and returned to the girl’s village, where they’d met with the royal guards again. And somehow Frayka had managed to escape.
“Speaking to the sister might help,” Ti said. “I want to know more about what happened.”
Jojen cleared his throat. “My empress believes the account I gave is insufficient?”
“It’s not that,” Ti said. “I trust you—you know that. But my father taught me that not everyone sees the same event in exactly the same way. There can be 20 people who witness the same event at the same time, and they can tell 20 different stories about what happened. Different people see different things. Some people see what others do not.”
“And that makes me one of many.”
“Yes. And I want to talk to the many in case they saw something you didn’t.”
“I see,” Jojen said. “My empress said that first I will lead the way to the mountains. Is there a second place to which I should lead?”
“There is a second place, but Asu will lead.”
“Asu?” Jojen looked at the son of the royal magician, still seated at the back of the boat and playing with his supplies. The royal guard tried to suppress a laugh and failed. “Where can Asu lead?”
“I thought I told you,” Ti said. “I sent another group of guards with Asu to the same place where you accompanied Frayka.”
With a startled look, Jojen said, “When?”
“Not terribly long ago. It happened months after you came back.”
“But they didn’t find her?” For a moment, Jojen sounded relieved.
Could it be that Jojen doesn’t want me to find Frayka? Is it possible he let her escape him?
Ti focused on keeping her tone calm and even. “They did. Asu saw her, but she got away.”
Jojen matched Ti’s composed tone. “That Frayka is a slippery one. It’s hard to pin her down.” With an overly casual voice, he said, “How did she get away from Asu?”
“It’s unclear. Asu saw Frayka on a mountainside and created a landslide to corner her in a village on the sea. But by the time Asu got down to the village, she was gone.”
“A landslide is a dangerous way of cornering someone. Is it possible it killed her and Asu didn’t see the body?”
Ti shook her head. “Frayka is alive. Asu suspects someone in the village helped her run off. That’s why I want him to take us there. If the mountain folk who knew the Lu girl saw nothing worthwhile, maybe someone in the village where Asu last saw Frayka will talk.”
“Frayka must be very important to my empress to spend so much effort finding her.”
Ti looked away because she didn’t want Jojen to suspect anything her eyes might reveal.
I allowed Madam Po and TeaTree to escape Zangcheen because I thought my guards could follow them. I thought they would lead the guards to Frayka. But Madam Po and TeaTree evaded my guards.
Now I have one more chance to find Frayka. And if I find her, the child whose blood will cure me forever will be close by.
“It’s not Frayka we’re following,” Ti said. “It’s Njall. I’m counting on Njall to lead us to her.”
CHAPTER 13
Leaving his Northlander boat hidden by the river’s shore, Njall struggled up the mountainside until he came upon a path. Tired and hungry, he rested by the path and ate the last of the pod nuts he’d stuffed into his pouch when hiding on a Far Eastern ship in the Zangcheen harbor. After eating, his stomach growled for more. Irritated that he had none, Njall followed the path up the mountainside.
Walking up the steep incline of the path made Njall’s legs ache. He thought about how Frayka might have walked this same path and how he might this very moment be walking in her footsteps.
Did her legs hurt, too?
Many months had passed since Njall had seen Frayka, and he wondered where she had been and what she had been doing all that time.
While living in the Hall of Concubines, Njall wondered if Frayka had found her way back home to the Land of Ice. He didn’t think any of his Northlander family or friends would dare come after him. It would be foolish for a small group of Northlanders to challenge an entire nation, especially one as huge as the Far East.
At the same time, he found it impossible to believe that Frayka or anyone else in the Land of Ice would give up and leave him behind.
Frayka must still be here. If she’s not in Zangcheen, then she’s somewhere in the Wulong Province. That’s why the map sent me here. If it doesn’t lead me directly to Frayka, then it will lead me to something or someone who can tell me where she is.
All of Njall’s life, he’d heard fantastic stories about the Northlands and dragons and dragonslayers. He remembered nothing about the Northlands because he’d been born soon after its demise.
Although everyone his age trained extensively in weapons since childhood, the solitude of Blackstone—the only settlement in the Land of Ice—gave them little chance to use their skills.
The stories about the old days made some of the elders shudder to remember, but Njall found those stories to be romantic. He dreamed about what it must have been like to live in a place surrounded by dragons instead of sheep. He longed to know what it would be like to have the kind of great adventures that his father had experienced. Chaotic and treacherous adventures that would make a man feel like a man.
Despite Njall’s growling stomach and aching legs, he smiled. Because he chose to align with Frayka, he had traveled to distant countries, even before coming to the Far East. He had seen wondrous sights and experienced his own thrilling exploits. For the first time in his life, Njall had felt like the true Northlander he was born to be.
But coming to the Far East changed everything. His fights in this country were short-lived and unsuccessful. To protect his wife, he’d pretended to be her slave. In a court of law, an emperor had spared Njall’s life and confined him to slavery. And when that emperor died and his daughter replaced him, the empress had detained Njall in the Hall of Concubines but failed to force him to do her bidding.
Njall smiled when he remembered the rush of excitement he’d felt when he hung the concubine robe he’d been forced to wear from the mast of a ship in the Zangcheen harbor.
Things change. But then they can just as easily change again.
Just because Njall walked as a free man now, it didn’t guarantee he could hold onto that freedom. Not in the Far East. He knew he needed to use caution at every turn.
Still following the map, Njall wound his way up the mountain until he came to a small village.
Dozens of small wooden houses perched on stone foundations. The houses jammed next to each other as if piled by a careless god. Sharply angled roofs pointed skyward.
Vegetables and rice plants sprouted in small plots that sliced into every slope facing the sun. Women wearing simple black pants and shirts squatted among those plants and pulled weeds. In the village below, children played while a few men examined one house’s front door that appeared to need mending.
Njall hesitated, not sure how to approach such a small village. The only other time he’d encountered such a place in the Far East, his wife had been captured, and they had later ended up in a courtroom only to be separated.
He worried about how these remote villagers would react to his pale skin and hair, now tangled and dirty because the wind had blown away his stolen hat. Njall hoped his tall height would help.
An older man scattering grain to chickens in the yard by the houses caught sight of Njall.
At first the man stood still and gaped at Njall as if some kind of monster threatened his home. Moments later, the man shouted, “Intruder!”
Women looked up from the garden plots slicing up the mountainside. Other men ran from inside and around the houses, while a young woman herded the children into their homes.
When women called out from where they worked in the sharp inclines bordering their homes, the older man turned and shouted, “Stay there!”
Men
streamed from all directions until a small army faced Njall. Some held farming tools like weapons.
Njall held up his hands as if in surrender. “I mean no harm!”
The old man who first spotted Njall shouted to the others, “The monster speaks our language!”
“I’m not a monster,” Njall said. “I’m a Northlander.”
A man holding a rake spat on the ground. “Impossible. Northlanders died years ago.”
“Not all of us,” Njall said, feeling a glimmer of hope because the villagers were speaking with him. “Some of us got away. Some of us started new lives in other countries.”
Another man wielding a scythe said, “Not here! No Northlanders live in the Wulong Province or we would know about it!”
“I don’t live here,” Njall said. “I’m just a visitor.”
He paused, remembering how GranGran and TeaTree had warned him about the Far Eastern law prohibiting any Far Easterner from marrying foreigners. That was why he pretended to be Frayka’s servant, and he needed to continue the charade. “I’ve been separated from my mistress. I’m trying to find her. You would know her immediately if you saw her. She’s a Far Eastern woman, but she’s my height.”
The village men all began talking at once.
They must have seen Frayka!
Their chatter lifted Njall’s spirits with hope.
“She came here,” the older man said. “One of my daughters brought her here to slay a dragon.”
Njall struggled to contain his excitement. Empress Ti had mentioned sending Frayka on a mission to kill a dragon but said Frayka never returned. “And did my mistress kill the dragon? Does my mistress live?”
The other village men took the opportunity to protest their opinions.
Frustrated, Njall said, “But is my mistress alive? Is she here?”
“Not anymore,” the older man said. “The guards took her back to Zangcheen the same night my wife and daughter disappeared.” He looked at Njall as if examining livestock. “I suspect they went to Zangcheen, too. I’ve been fixing to go there and ask the emperor to give them back.”