by JC Kang
Shoulders slumping, the prince tilted his eyes downward. He was handsome, even in sadness. “Will you sing for me? As a memory of our meeting?”
A song. Kaiya’s heart flitted. She would do this for him, appropriate or not. At least someone today would appreciate her voice. She looked over her shoulder toward the official, who scowled and shook his head. No? Who was he to defy her wishes?
The prince’s lips trembled into a brittle smile.
Her first foray into diplomacy might have ended in disaster, but with music, very few in Hua could rival her. Perhaps if the fabled magic of Dragon Songs still existed, she could sing the rebellious lords into submission. Then, Father would value her ability over her marriage prospects. She lifted her voice in song, her soul soaring with each breath. The Broken Sword recounted how the Founder had transformed weakness into strength. Perhaps it would give Hardeep hope.
Exultation surged through her spine, into her limbs. All uncertainties and self-doubts melted away. With each note, she shed her poor imitation of imperial grace, replacing it with the sincerity of her soul. Not even the tight dress could contain her. Verse upon verse rose to a crescendo, her spirit floating with it.
Prince Hardeep’s blue eyes sparkled. “Even Yanyan would envy your voice.”
Heat rose to her cheeks. How could he compare her to the girl from a thousand years before, who had summoned storms with her music and sung the dragon Avarax to sleep? “Yanyan charmed an orc army into surrender with her song. I could not even convince my father to change his mind.”
“You spoke from your heart, and the emperor listened.” His forlorn smile sent a chill up her spine. “With an indomitable spirit, you can move your people to do the right thing.”
Could she? Besides Cousin Kai-Long, none of the men in the Hall of Supreme Harmony had shown any concern for morality. She sighed. “If I had the voice of Yanyan, he would have listened.”
Those blue eyes searched hers. “Channeling magic through artistic endeavor is the gift of your people, just as the fighting arts are ours. Come with me, and scatter the Maduran armies with the power of your music.”
Was he suggesting running away? With him? Escaping marriage with General Lu? She glanced back at the official. If he understood, the prince might lose his head. And if only shirking duty were so easy. They wouldn’t make it to the front gates, even if she could bring herself to take up his offer.
And who knew? Maybe he was trying to kidnap her, and hold her hostage to get what he wanted.
Tearing her gaze away, she shook her head. “Even though master performers from Hua’s past could accomplish amazing feats with Dragon Songs, those skills have since faded into legend. You would need an elf.” Like Father’s councilor, Lord Xu. Too bad nobody could predict when the enigmatic elf would make an appearance.
Prince Hardeep took her hands in his. Excitement rose in his tone. “With your voice and musical talent, you have the potential. We will research. I can help you scour your records. Together, we could learn how the masters of old did it.”
His touch sent heat up her arms and into her core. Behind her, the official sucked in a sharp breath and the imperial guards stepped forward. Kaiya withdrew, for his safety, and raised an open hand to assuage the guards. Was it even possible? “How can I learn from books what the elf angel taught Yanyan?”
“I would hazard to guess that singing a dragon to sleep is just a little more difficult than convincing a doting father to do the right thing.” He put a finger to his chin. “And if—no, when—you succeed, you will save my nation.”
Yes! No. Even if it were possible to learn from dusty old books, using magic to change a Tianzi’s mind flirted with treason even more than running away. She met his gaze again. Those eyes implored her, making her belly flutter. No, helping Ankira was the moral thing to do. Here was a chance to show that music was worth something. That she was worth something, beyond her value as a bride to some lord. “I will try.”
A grin bloomed on his face. “Ankira owes you a debt of gratitude. I owe you.”
Kaiya twirled an errant lock of hair. “We will need to retrace Yanyan’s steps. To find out exactly where she met the elf angel.” Which meant a trip to the imperial archives. After the mandated matchmaking with General Lu.
She looked into the prince’s eyes. No. He was here, close, and marriage to the general seemed so far away. Hardeep’s people needed her help, because everyone else would just let them suffer. Again, her hand found Tian’s pebble, firm and resolute beneath her sash. He’d support her decision.
They’d go now, even though it meant disobeying Father.
CHAPTER 5
Crooked Detours
Clothes swished and footsteps shuffled across the marble floors as Kaiya gawked at the rows and rows of books bound in silk cords. When Father ordered her to send Prince Hardeep away, he likely didn’t expect the route out of the palace to include a stop at the imperial archives.
Maybe it was a bad idea. Her bad idea, on the preposterous assumption she could learn the dead art of Dragon Songs.
A battalion of grey-robed scholars hovered nearby, their annoyance at the unannounced visit clear in their tight frowns. Though they hadn’t dared oppose an imperial princess, they’d dispatched an apprentice clerk to lodge a complaint with the Ministry of Appointments.
All trouble waiting to happen, if the old secretary’s wringing hands were any indication. She’d abused her position and strong-armed him into delaying the matchmaking meeting with General Lu. No doubt both the Ministries of Appointments and Household Affairs scoured the grounds for her.
Her imperial guards Chen Xin and Zhao Yue stood nearby, their usually stoic expressions now shadowed by uncertainty. Nothing good would come of this visit, no matter how noble the intentions. She’d tarnished her already-poor façade of Perfect Princess, and disobeyed the Tianzi’s command to meet General Lu.
Was it worth it? She looked over at Prince Hardeep, a book in each hand, his face brightly illuminated by the magic baubles suspended from the ceiling. So handsome in his need! And unlike everyone else, he believed she could become more than an awkward political bride. Her stomach fluttered like a swarm of butterflies. She didn’t need to be beautiful or graceful to revive Dragon Songs and save a downtrodden people.
If she could do it.
If they even had enough time.
She scanned the labels. “According to legend, Yanyan’s magic awoke in the place where the elf angel Aralas revealed himself. Before the War of Ancient Gods.”
Shrugging, Hardeep held up one book, entitled The Fall of the Yu Dynasty. “It’s in your language, but the illustrations tell me we are in the wrong era.” His sheepish smile was too adorable.
She covered a laugh with her hand. “That is about seven hundred years too late.”
One scholar’s face flushed red, while others glared at Hardeep’s hands on their precious books.
His perfect lips formed a perfect circle. “The Hellstorm and Long Winter, then.”
She stifled her giggle. There was nothing amusing about fire raining from the heavens, nor the three years of starvation in its aftermath.
Prince Hardeep returned the Fall of the Yu Dynasty to the shelf. With the other book cradled in his hand, he tapped his chin, just like her childhood playmate Tian. So cute, even more so with the pointed beard. “Where do we find the right era?”
Not like she knew where those historical accounts might be stored. She’d only visited the archives a few times in the past, always on a tightly regulated schedule. Kaiya turned to the irritated scholars. “Take us to the documents on the War of Ancient Gods.”
A bearded middle-aged man bowed low and extended an open hand. “This way, Dian-xia.” His begrudging tone left no doubt as to his opinion of an unauthorized visit by a girl, princess or not, and a foreign prince who might be trying to smuggle out a book.
She followed as he shuffled down the rows, Prince Hardeep at her side and the two imperial guards a swo
rd’s reach away. The Foreign Ministry secretary and the gaggle of scholars trailed an almost-respectful distance behind, though most kept staring at the book the prince swung about in his hand. If the archives had windows, they would have been eyeing the Iridescent Moon with a dwarven timepiece, counting the minutes until some bureaucrat, and maybe a few imperial guards, arrived to usher her out. The low-level archive clerk they’d sent must’ve reported to the Ministry of Appointments by now.
Which gave them ten, maybe fifteen minutes at best to find out where Aralas had met Yanyan a millennia ago. Over the next several twists and turns, the air became more stale and musty, the books more dusty and faded. They also dwindled in number, replaced by sheaves of unbound scrolls: Historical accounts. Interpretations of those histories. Financial implications of the interpretations. Somewhere in the mass of information, they could probably uncover how many demon hearts the Sun God Yang-Di paid the dwarf Da-Jin to forge the world for the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin.
The head scholar came to a stop and bowed again. “Here, Dian-xia.” His tone carried an unspoken warning to be extremely careful with the brittle-looking scrolls. As if she wasn’t in enough trouble already, without damaging a priceless book or three.
Kaiya scanned the shelves. Labels protruded from each roll, inviting a browser to learn the title of the work without actually having to touch it. A few steps ahead, Prince Hardeep had all but forgotten her, his attention locked on some scroll. She shrugged the outer gown off her shoulders to expose her collarbones, the most feminine of her otherwise uninspiring features.
No response. He seemed fixated on that scroll. Maybe he saw her as a mere tool, a means of getting into the archives. She dug her nails into her clammy palms. He apparently didn’t care about the risk she was taking for him.
No, not for him. He was just a man she’d just met, and good looks and charm had never swayed her before. She took these risks for Ankira and the people suffering for Hua’s profit.
And, of course, for the chance to learn Dragon Songs. Fists loosening, she turned back to the rows of shelves. A newer-looking book, bound in leather like those of the fair-skinned people in the East, stood out among the scrolls. Gold Arkothi lettering emblazoned on the spine screamed for her to read it.
She tilted her head to decipher the foreign words. The Nine Loves of Aralas. Countless Hua accounts told how the elf angel Aralas taught different types of magic to his human lovers so that they could help overthrow the orcs who enslaved them during the War of Ancient Gods. Invariably these stories emphasized Yanyan’s role as the most important. Perhaps a foreign version might have a different opinion. Gesturing toward it with an open hand, she beckoned the head scholar. “What is an Arkothi book doing here?”
Without even looking at it, the scholar harrumphed. “The imperial archives have the largest collection of information in the world. Works come from all over the continent. If you wish to know this particular book’s provenance, I would be happy to delve through piles of records to find out.” His pursed lips and flippant tone suggested otherwise.
Exchanging a glance with Prince Hardeep, she thumbed through the pages to Yanyan’s story. The handwritten foreign words came slowly.
He reached in and turned the page. The heat from his closeness sent her arms tingling. She looked up at him to find his eyes darting back and forth.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a paragraph. “Yanyan labored in the rice paddies near Frawdok’s Purse Lake. She stumbled upon the elf angel Aralas when he was investigating the remains of the dragon Pyarax.”
She shrugged. “That is nowhere in Cathay.” No lake anywhere in the world, least of all Hua, was named for Frawdok, the orc god of greed and trickery.
“It has to be.” He flipped another page, revealing a map. The geographic features resembled Hua, even if the names made no sense.
“Sun-Moon Lake.” She pointed to its unmistakable shape, and then slid over to what appeared to be a dragon, cruel and ugly as the fair-skinned people of the east depicted them.
Hardeep’s head bobbled. “Of course, they would use the old names in the tales. This looks like the location of your capital.”
Kaiya offered a hesitant nod. She might be talented at music and nominally good at pretending to be perfect; maps and directions were another story. “I have never heard of dragon remains in Huajing.”
The scholar’s scoff transformed into a cough. Accentless Ayuri slid off his tongue. “If I may, Dian-xia, the book the prince holds might be of use.” He extended an impertinent finger at the tome Hardeep had carried from the previous section.
Prince Hardeep gawped at the book as if it had magically appeared in his hand. With a sheepish grin, he offered Geomancy Studies of Huajing to the scholar.
The scholar blew out a sigh that managed to mix exasperation with relief, and gingerly plucked the volume from the prince’s hands. “As Queen Regent, the Founder’s consort commissioned several Feng Shui masters to lay out Huajing’s precise gridded network of roads to ensure national prosperity.”
With fanatical reverence, he turned one page. Then another. In the time it took him to flip a page, empires could rise and fall. Maybe he was just biding time until a high official came to remove them from the archives.
And drag her to meet General Lu. Studying Hardeep’s jawline, she twirled a lock of hair. They couldn’t have much more than five minutes now.
At last, he held it open, beyond anyone’s reach, revealing an illustration. The fearsome dragon looked nothing like the graceful, serpentine spirit dragons that controlled the weather and acted as Heaven’s messengers. Not like any of the latter had appeared in three hundred years.
“Such a horrible beast.” Hardeep recoiled. “Thank the gods that only Avarax remains.”
She nodded. “And that he is content with controlling the Dragonlands.”
“Content…” He looked up at her. “What do the words say?”
Kaiya read the passage aloud. “When the orcs thought they had finally exterminated the elves, they turned on their dragon allies in the Dragonpurge. Their gods descended in flaming chariots and slew the great wyrms until only Avarax remained.”
Hardeep sucked in a sharp breath. “Avarax was too powerful, even for the Tivari gods.”
With a nod, she skimmed into the next paragraph. “With the establishment of the Wang Dynasty, the Queen Regent ordered the construction of the Temple of Heaven over Pyarax’s bones, and placed the chunk of a fallen star from the Founder’s homeland there.”
Reaching past her toward the book in the scholar’s grasp, Hardeep’s trembling hand flipped the page. He pointed. “Look.”
A diagram showed the dragon bones as columns, protruding from the ground and forming the outline of the temple’s elliptical walls. She shook her head. “Even the Tianzi himself requires a special blessing from the temple priests to enter the compound, and he only goes on New Year’s Day.”
“Which is in four days.” He held up four fingers.
She fiddled with a lock of hair. There was little hope of convincing Father to break three hundred years of tradition by allowing a foreigner to join in a trip to a set of dragon bones. And in four days’ time, she’d already be betrothed to a different kind of reptile.
Muffled by distance and the labyrinth of bookshelves, boots clopped and slippered feet shuffled somewhere near the entrance. It was the Ministry of Appointments coming for her, no doubt, along with imperial guards to help Hardeep find the palace exit.
The head scholar cleared his throat and closed the book. “I am pleased to have been of service to the princess.”
Though his tone implied otherwise, Kaiya nodded. “Thank you.”
The scholar’s shoulders relaxed as he returned the leather-bound book to the shelf. From somewhere closer to the entrance, voices spoke and footsteps approached.
“One more thing,” she said.
The head scholar tensed up again, and his colleagues all muttered. “How may we serve the pri
ncess?”
“Would you happen to have any books of Yanyan’s songs?”
“No.” A tentative smile formed on the scholar’s face. “If any survived, they would be in the Hall of Pure Melody.”
Hardeep turned to her. “Where is that?”
“The music hall. Just across the central plaza.” Kaiya pointed, toward what she hoped was the right area.
Tapping his chin, Hardeep looked the other way. He didn’t seem to notice her poor sense of direction. No, he was in deep thought, perhaps thinking…
The same thing as her. She said, “Maybe if we saw what Yanyan sang, we could figure out how she did it.”
“Yes,” the head scholar said. “I think that is a wonderful idea.”
Or was it? Kaiya fiddled with the long sleeves of her formal gown. She couldn’t traipse all around the palace grounds while General Lu waited. Especially into the Hall of Pure Melody, which housed priceless musical instruments from antiquity. She searched Hardeep’s blue eyes.
They danced with boyish enthusiasm. And hope. Hope that his people would be free from foreign aggression. Hope that she would rediscover the power of Dragon Songs to accomplish that goal. Her pulse jittered. His hopes were hers. General Lu could wait.
Now if only they could get there before the Ministry of Appointments came and dragged her off to the self-proclaimed Guardian Dragon of Hua. It would be much more interesting to charm a real dragon.
Dozens of footsteps and voices grew louder.
CHAPTER 6:
Misdirection
In the three thousand, one hundred and forty-seven days since his banishment from the capital, Tian rarely had time to ponder how he, the fourth son of a Tai-Ming lord, had ended up as a Moquan adept. All he knew was that the clan was the only place he fit in, the only place where his talents outweighed his lack of social graces.
None of his colleagues in the harbormaster’s office knew of either his noble birth, his childhood friendship with Princess Kaiya, or his identity as a spy; only that he could scribble notes quickly and accurately. Nobody seemed to notice how often he visited the records room today, nor that he lingered there an extra twenty-six seconds longer than average as he surreptitiously reviewed copies of the Wild Orchid’s manifests and logs. Owned by Nanling Province, it had followed an unspectacular trade route over the last two years.