by JC Kang
His special pupil, Lin Ziqiu, daughter of a Tai-Ming lord. Her skill had improved so much. She had tracked him here, and even succeeded in sneaking up on him. Used the noise of bell-making to mask her approach. Clever. Or maybe his hearing declined with age.
Though she was still not smart enough to realize his deception. He smiled. “Have you tracked Chief Minister Hong’s mistress?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. He bought her a house in the Floating World.”
The Floating World! It might be a better place to gather information than even the bell foundry. Liang Yu reached over and brushed hair out of her pretty face. “Pose as a Night Blossom, get close to her.”
Her lip curled. “But I wanted to accompany Princess Kaiya on her mission to demand Lord Peng’s extradition.”
It was a pointless mission. A dangerous one, too, since the barbaric kingdoms to the north might not take kindly to accusations of harboring criminals.
Liang Yu shook his head. He couldn’t expose his student to needless danger. But if he told her Peng was still in Hua, she might warn the princess. “Hong’s mistress is more important. My control over him is nominal at best, but if we can find a way to manipulate her, it might give us extra leverage.”
Her expression lit up and she clapped her hands together. Always in search of adventure, this one.
Colors flashed in the corner of his eye. He pulled the girl back behind the cover of the tree and peered back toward the potter’s shop. The mute worker from the bell foundry dropped several messages into a worn funerary urn.
Within a quarter hour, a Moquan trainee, hypnotized to forget his task after completion, would retrieve the specially-folded messages. Which gave Liang Yu a quarter hour to send his student on her way, and then find out what his former clan knew.
For what must’ve been the hundredth time, Jie opened the small magic pouch Ayana had given her, marveling at the massive interior space. If only she could fit Zheng Ming through the opening, she wouldn’t have to listen to his constant complaints about the heat and humidity.
She looked up from the pouch and toward the back of the river skiff.
The imperial guards sat back in their seats, their rigid discipline softened in the princess’ absence. They chatted and joked with Sameer, revealing actual personalities. The belligerent Levanthi mercenary, on the other hand, sat apart, always staring ahead toward the homeland he hadn’t seen for two decades.
The chocolate-skinned Askumi Mystic Brehane, with whom she’d shared an adventure two years before in the Teleri Empire, also kept to herself. She ostensibly studied her sheaf of magical scrolls, but was more likely trying to avoid Zheng Ming’s flirtatious banter in his ever-improving Ayuri tongue. By now, he must’ve heard a dozen different ways to say no. Rounding out the motley crew was the dwarf Ashler Blackhammer, who constantly tinkered with some contraption he planned to market.
Rumor had it that Avarax, now limited to two legs, was making his way to Selastya. With the repairs to the Golden Phoenix expected to take much longer than the initial estimate, she’d convinced the imperial guards that the princess’ future safety relied on foiling whatever nefarious plans the dragon had.
They now travelled with Sameer, on his quest to investigate the magical dead zone surrounding the Levanthi Pyramid.
Seven Hua warriors, an Ayuri Paladin, a Levanthi mercenary, an Askumi sorceress, and a dwarven weaponsmith in a boat. There had to be a punchline in there somewhere.
Avarax huddled among the beggars near the docks of some river city. It had taken him weeks for his two legs to bring him here, and he was not sure how much farther he had to go to reach Selastya.
Princess Kaiya’s music still reverberated through his dragonstone, holding his immense reserves of energy in check. Though he was still virtually invulnerable, his magic remained locked away. Somewhere in her song, the tapestry of musical notes had destructively interfered with the frequency of his dragonstone. It was something only her voice could do.
Two years of planning, only to have a naïve girl grow into an insightful woman and deconstruct the fake song he’d given her. No, she could not circumvent the magical ward designed to protect a human voice from singing him to sleep, as the slave girl had a thousand years ago. But she had reverse-engineered the other ward, the one set to prevent an elven voice from forcing an involuntary transformation.
Xu had done so during the Hellstorm, trapping him in human form for nearly three hundred years. Only when he tricked one of Aralas’ descendants into playing the Dragon Scale Lute had he been able to regain his dragon form, if not all his power.
Never did he imagine that a human whelp—not even one with the voice of the slave girl—could accomplish the same as Xu. It should not have been possible.
Though fond of Rumiya’s form and all of the entertaining adventures it afforded him when he chose, he was not pleased at the prospect of being stuck as a human for another three hundred years.
Decades were not long for an immortal. Another chance would present itself. Maybe not today, maybe not in a century. But it would happen. If one thing was reliable, it was that mortal beings had failings which his fifty-thousand years of experience could find ways to exploit.
The first step would be tapping into the energy of the pyramid to restore his magic. Now if only he could find his way to the closest one, in Selastya. It wasn’t that easy. Everything looked a lot different at ground level.
It didn’t matter. Soon he would look down on the world again, and make Kaiya his own.
BOOK 3: DANCES OF DECEPTION
Maps
PROLOGUE:
Childhood Scars
Sweat rolled off Zheng Tian’s forehead and stung his eyes as he fumbled with the tiny key.
“H-H-Hurry up, Tian!” Kai-Long hissed.
Tian’s hands trembled even more than his companion’s voice. The loose robes and pants usually afforded ample mobility, but now seemed as restricting as a silkworm’s cocoon.
He shot a panicked glance out the circular window, where his friend stood on lookout. Beyond, two men wearing dark blue robes hurried down the garden path.
Kai-Long’s shoulders quivered. “Come on! We’re dead if they catch us!”
“Shut up! I can’t focus.” Tian took a deep breath and eyed the rectangular golden lock. It taunted him as it dangled between the double doors of the eldarwood armoire. Everyone knew Dwarves forged the sharpest blades and strongest armor, but who knew they could also make such intricate locks?
And in truth, it hadn’t been that difficult to unlock the first time he opened the armor cabinet. Now his fingers had minds of their own. He again tried to ease the spindly key into the hole, praying to all his ancestors. If they would please, please just let him open this lock, he’d place incense at their altars every day, both morning and—
Behind him, the training hall doors crashed open. Tian’s heart leaped into his throat, and he stumbled backward, his legs tangling in the mess of armor pieces strewn at his feet. He tumbled onto his behind. Face hot from panic and embarrassment, he looked up.
The two imperial guards approached, marching in unison across the worn wooden floors. Etched into their burnished breastplates, a five-clawed dragon—the symbol of the ruling Tianzi—glowered down at him. Already racing, ten-year-old Tian’s heart now hammered like a drum at a New Year’s Lion Dance. His stomach twisted in knots.
“What are you doing, Young Lord Zheng?” Though lanky with a boyish face, the newly minted imperial guard Chen Xin still radiated intimidation.
Cowering, Tian whipped the key behind his back. “I-I...nothing…”
Chen Xin leaned down and clamped Tian’s concealed wrist in an eagle’s grip. The guard dragged him to his feet, revealing the key in the same motion. He looked from Tian’s hand to the lock. “Silly boy. This is the wrong key.”
How had that happened? Tian shrugged with a sheepish smile. “Oh, what do you know...”
Chen Xin’s jaw tightened. His comr
ade’s shoulders shook as he tried to swallow a laugh.
Behind the guards at the door to the master’s study, thirteen-year-old Peng Kai-Long scowled at him. He held up the correct key and mouthed, Get them out of here.
The guards followed Tian’s gaze back towards Kai-Long. The boy stood there gaping, key out for everyone to see. The older guard gestured him to come, and Kai-Long’s head sank as he moped over. Chen Xin swiped the key away.
“What are you doing in the swordmaster’s armoire? Trying on his armor?” Chen Xin scowled as he looked at the mess on the floor, and then began fiddling with the lock.
Oh, no. Tian tried to open his mouth to say something, but his tongue refused to move. He had been clenching his teeth. What had seemed like a harmless joke three hours ago might now have serious consequences. If the guard opened that chest, even Father wouldn’t be able to save him from banishment, or even death.
His mind raced for a good answer until he caught sight of the hanging scroll with the character for calm. The magic imbued in its tranquil script rippled over him, slowing his heart and cooling the heat in his head. “No, no, the master. He ordered us to oil his armor. We were just putting it back. We can take care of—”
The lock yielded in Chen Xin’s hands with a whispering click.
Oh, no.
The armoire doors swung open, revealing an eight-year-old girl standing as motionless as a statue. She wore the same cotton robes as Tian and Kai-Long, suitable for martial training. Her typically porcelain complexion blanched into an ashen pallor. Her fists squeezed so tightly her knuckles whitened, and her brown eyes, too large for her head, stared straight forward, unblinking.
“Dian-xia!” both imperial guards boomed in unison, using the formal address for an imperial princess. They sank to their right knees, right fists to the floor.
The princess steadied herself on the armoire wall and took a tentative step out, limbs stiff as the corpses that the bronze-skinned Southerners embalmed. After having spent a few hours in the equivalent of a coffin, all of her delicate grace seemed lost. Chen Xin rose and hurried over to support her, while the other guard fixed his glinting glare on the two boys.
Tian and Kai-Long both dropped to their knees and placed their foreheads to the ground, hands splayed in front of them.
“Forgive us, Dian-xia!” Tian’s own voice sounded wrong to him, almost a squeak.
“Us? It’s not my fault, it was your idea!” Kai-Long peered over, expression almost mirthful.
“Liar,” Tian muttered under his breath. It had been Kai-Long’s idea, but there was no use protesting. He was the Tianzi’s favorite nephew and would escape blame.
The princess’ catatonic expression remained unchanged for a few seconds before her eyes welled up with tears.
“I’m sorry, Kaiya. It was just a stupid prank.” Tian sobbed as Chen Xin grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Was he crying because he faced certain, and possibly severe, punishment? Or because he’d hurt his best friend—and if he admitted it, his love? He’d spent almost half his life with her, learning archery, swordsmanship, literature, and the other educational foundations of the noble houses.
Stumbling to keep up as Chen Xin dragged him along, Tian craned his neck to catch one last glimpse of the girl who’d promised to marry him. Kaiya was now weeping inconsolably, while her cousin Kai-Long comforted her with reassuring pats on the head.
He didn’t want this to be his last image of the princess. Would she only remember him as the one who locked her in an armoire? Servants scurried past him, obscuring his view of her. Attention forward, Tian shuddered as Chen Xin prodded him through the grounds of Sun-Moon Palace for his inevitable audience with the Tianzi himself. The other guard ran ahead.
All Tian could do was count, like he always did: His paces. His breaths. The number of flowering fruit trees.
Tian climbed the one hundred and sixty-eight white stone steps to the entrance of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The final step, the knee-high spirit-tripping threshold, took the last of his strength. Inside the cavernous room, eighty-eight gold-lacquered columns vaulted upwards to support a tile ceiling mosaic of circling dragons.
Inebriated by the cloying incense hanging in the air, Tian stumbled down an aisle between ninety-two seated ministers in blue robes. His footsteps clicked on the white marble floors, faltering as he came to a bloodwood dais carved with countless auspicious symbols of bats and lotuses.
Two thrones loomed above him. One was chiseled from a gigantic chunk of jade to resemble a coiled dragon; the other was gold, worked to resemble a resting phoenix. Seated on the larger jade throne was a man of middling years, dressed in yellow robes with blue-and-red dragon heads on the breast and sleeves.
The Tianzi.
Tian gulped. Despite spending much of his time at the palace, he’d never seen Kaiya’s father, the man who would pass sentence on him.
His gaze strayed to the Broken Sword, borne by the commander of the imperial guard, who stood behind the Tianzi. Maybe they’d use it to behead him, or run him through; or maybe order him to cut his own throat.
Tian threw himself to his knees, nearly knocking himself unconscious as his forehead hit the ground. He knew his history well: three centuries before, the first Tianzi had executed five generations of an entire family over a child’s mischief.
“Raise your head, boy.”
Despite Tian’s fear, the man’s tone of command compelled him to rise into a kneel. He stared downward, keeping his eyes averted from the Tianzi.
“You convinced the princess to hide from her guards, and then locked her in an armoire for three phase-hours of the Iridescent Moon. What have you to say in your defense?”
Tian’s words stuck in his throat. He opened and closed his mouth, but only a squeak came out.
“Huang-Shang,” a new voice from behind said, using the formal address for the Tianzi. “May I speak?”
“You may.”
“Young Lord Zheng, face me.” The same voice now came from the opposite side of the room.
What? Tian shifted his position and looked in the direction of the voice. He found only pitying stares. No one acknowledged him. He turned again, back in the direction from which the voice had initially originated.
A minister with one knee down, fist to the floor, gazed back at him with dark eyes that seemed to be looking into his mind. “You were counting the number of guards on your way in, weren’t you? It’s okay, answer freely.”
Tian nodded. He had counted them. Counting was a compulsive habit with little use.
“How many?”
“Thirty-six,” Tian said.
“On your way to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, did anything seem out of the ordinary?”
These questions had nothing to do with the princess. Why was he asking? “There was an enormous palanquin. With wheels. Borne by large horses instead of porters.”
“And?”
“The door was dark green. With a nine-pointed star of silver.”
The minister’s lips twitched. “As you entered the hall, who was standing where you are now?”
“A barbarian from the East.”
“Where in the East?” The minister was smiling now.
Where? How was he supposed to know? Just as he was about to shake his head, he remembered his heraldry lessons. Tian swept his gaze towards the area he thought the man’s voice had come from the second time.
A teenage boy with a slim build and sharp features looked back at him. Unlike the honey-colored skin and black hair of the Hua, this boy had an olive skin tone and a long brown mane. And although he wore silken court robes, the wen emblem on his chest was the same foreign-looking star he had seen on the palanquin.
He was an Eldaeri human, part of a tribe that had mingled with elves thousands of years before. The circlet indicated nobility, and the crest belonged to the Kingdom of Tarkoth. “He is a prince of Tarkoth.”
“Crown Prince Elrayn, to be exact.” The Tianzi nodde
d a fraction. “Impressive.”
“Huang-Shang,” the minister said. “With your permission, allow me to decide his sentence and administer the punishment.”
Fear had partially given way to curiosity, and Tian now spoke with no thought to his predicament. “Will I see the princess? Before my punishment?”
The minister shook his head. “No. Where I am taking you, you might never see her again.”
CHAPTER 1:
Value of a Dragonfly’s Life
Zheng Tian knew many ways to kill the smuggler, but none to ease his own conscience.
A column of sun streamed in from the dusty warehouse’s skylight, reflecting off his target’s seventeen glittering rings. All it would take was a signal to assassinate him and his two bejeweled henchmen.
Hold the dragonfly with care, eight-year-old Princess Kaiya’s voice chimed in his head, quoting an old Hua proverb. For even their fleeting lives have value.
What was the value of a man’s life?
Now twenty-one, Tian banished memories of the gentle girl to the recesses of his mind. Time to focus on the most distasteful of his duties. Just eleven feet away, the olive-skinned Estomari merchant walked from crate to crate, checking items off a cargo manifest and barking orders.
The twenty-four wooden crates contained legitimate trade goods, for sure. However, Marcus Larruso also trafficked in the local girls, sending them to the South, where their fair complexions and blonde hair would fetch a handsome price. Perhaps he deserved death.
Tian’s goals weren’t particularly noble, either. As much as he wanted to, he wasn’t here to rescue impoverished girls from a short and miserable life of exploitation, far away from home.
Larruso reached the last of the two crates, while one of the heavily-armed bodyguards stepped onto the spot where he would die.
The power of life and death, in Tian’s hands. Perhaps that burden was a form of punishment, one which widened the gulf between his carefree youth and the ruthless spy he had become.