The Dragon Songs Saga: The Complete Quartet: Songs of Insurrection, Orchestra of Treacheries, Dances of Deception, and Symphony of Fates

by JC Kang

  “Yes, Dian-xia.” The captain beckoned one of his men. “Prepare for a dispatch, both inbound and outbound.”

  As the soldier ran off to the stables, she peered west, where the hazy red sun peeked just above the horizon. With an open hand, she waved toward the tower. “Now captain, let us alight the tower and prepare a message.”

  If the captain’s mouth could open any wider, he probably still wouldn’t be able to fit his equally large eyes in it. “The light tower hasn’t been used in…in…”

  “Never.” Kaiya composed her most grave expression. “My ancestor erected the towers, and since then, Hua has never suffered an invasion. She does now.”

  “Yes, Dian-xia. Please follow me.” Holding a bow, the captain beckoned them into the tower.

  Kaiya placed a hand over her belly, where her twins grew. It was a long climb up those steps.

  With Little Song flanking him, Liang Yu eyed the princess, who sat at the captain’s wooden desk, panting. Surely, a short trip up two flights of spiraling stone stairs should be easy for such a young woman, a dancer no less. Nonetheless, her brow furrowed with unmistakable fatigue. She had not so much as whiffed the tea and egg custard pastry the lieutenant had offered.

  Still, tired or not, her poise and authority had captured the tower with only words, and prevented needless bloodshed. Perhaps she was worth much more than any of the nearsighted hereditary lords had thought.

  The captain reappeared at the office door and bowed. “Dian-xia, I have sent couriers toward Dongmen.”

  Eyes narrowing, she stood and walked around the desk, interposing herself between Liang Yu and the captain. “What about the capital?”

  “Yes, that too.” He scratched his nose, a telltale sign of a lie.

  The princess pointed up. “Then let us alight the tower to send the signals.”

  “Forgive my impertinence, Dian-xia.” His eyes darted from her to Fu and Song and back. “I will wait until a courier returns before I send the message.”

  Such a waste of time. The relay couriers would take at least two hours to reach the border of Dongmen. Not to mention, they weren’t scouts, looking out for enemies. Even if they didn’t get caught, the message to the capital would be delayed for four hours. The princess had already gotten them inside, past the bulk of the garrison. The rest was easy. It was time to channel his inner Surgeon. Shuffling forward a step, Liang Yu grasped both ends of his staff, ready to expose the spear and sword. They didn’t need this capt—

  The princess shot her hand back, barring the path to his intended victim. “Captain, I understand your concern. However, every hour we wait gives the imperial armies one less hour to mobilize.”

  Chewing on his lip, the captain’s attention shifted from Song to Liang Yu and back to the princess.

  Her head tilted, and she ran a hand behind her ear. When she spoke, a breathy, sultry tone replaced her imperial voice. A trick the Beauty had used time and time again. “Please. I will accept full responsibility.”

  “I….uh, as the princess commands.” Pupils dilated, the captain sucked on a lip and bowed. What had the nation and its soldiers come to? Apparently, a beautiful woman’s charms could work better than imperial authority these days. The man straightened and strode to a bookshelf. He pulled out thread-bound book and dusted it off.

  Liang Yu frowned. If only his old eyes could make out the title on the cover before the captain opened it. “This is no time to read.”

  The captain held it up. “These are the codes for the light signals.”

  Incompetence! They should know these codes by memory. “I am sure it is not every day that royalty strolls into a watchtower, but—”

  The princess shot him an angry glance, one that demanded silence. Why? She could just tell him the sequence of signals.

  Unless she had lied about knowing the codes. Not only that, if she were in such a hurry, why did she waste time making requests instead of just using the magic of her voice?

  Kaiya fought to stay upright, hands on her knees as she huffed for air. The climb to the top of the tower had proved even more daunting than it initially appeared. It didn’t help that the pungent pastries had sent waves of nausea roiling through her stomach. Hopefully, Fu hadn’t noticed.

  She looked up. His narrowed eyes relaxed and his expression blanked. Flashing a smile, she straightened and gazed through dusk’s cloak over the surrounding farmland. A courier horse clopped in the distance, heading toward Dongmen.

  Of course, the light signal would arrive sooner, if only the captain could get the shutters to work. He fiddled with the metal slats. “Dian-xia, the hinges have rusted.”

  Rusted! Perhaps the Expansionist faction had been right all along. The realm had fallen into complacency, too secure with a hundred thousand guns pointed out from behind the Wall. The great lords, Father included, never considered the possibility of fighting an invading army on open ground. She frowned. “Hurry.”

  He bowed. “Sorry, Dian-Xia.”

  Fu sidled up to the captain, who in turn nudged Fu to the side. With a graceful twist which belied Fu’s age but lent credence to his claims of a Moquan background, he spun around to the other side of the captain, right next to the shutter mechanism.

  He snorted. “Dian-xia, the hinges are fine.” He pulled on a lever, and the dozen slats whispered open. Bright light flared from the crystal globe within.

  Blinking away the orange glare in her visual field, Kaiya gasped. Had the crystal carried a magical enchantment all this time, for three hundred years? Glowing unknown in perpetuity, until this very moment? Maybe the elf lord Xu had enchanted them himself.

  “Look!” Song pointed into the countryside.

  In the indeterminate distance, small orbs lit up in slow succession, forming a dotted line to the north. Kaiya turned in the other direction. A light glowed on the main gatehouse of the north capital walls. A couple dozen seconds later, another one flashed from a tower inside the city, followed not long after by one on Sun-Moon Lake.

  The palace knew! What must they be thinking? What about the general populace? The lights had never been seen before, after all. Kaiya’s heart fluttered with excitement before the Tiger’s Eye stifled that emotion. “Captain, hurry. Send an encoded message.”

  The captain licked his lips, and shifted on his feet.

  Something wasn’t right. She exchanged glances with Fu, who jerked his head toward the light with a look of askance. Of course, he believed she knew the codes. She’d implied as much. She glowered at the captain. “I order you to send the message.”

  “As the princess commands.” He bowed and placed his hands on the lever. With several pushes and pulls of varying lengths, the light blinked and flashed.

  She squinted back toward the palace, some thirty li away. As far as she could tell, the dots of light blinked the same sequence…. Followed by a new one?

  Fu apparently noticed, too. “What was the response?”

  The captain’s face contorted. “That they received the message, and for the towers to await further orders.”

  With a rasp, Fu separated his spear and sword. One he placed across the captain’s throat.

  Song’s hand took her wrist in a strong grip and wrenched her arm behind her back.

  “Now, captain,” Fu said, “what did the response really say?”

  “Just what the princess commanded. That a Teleri army has breached the Walls at Dongmen.”

  Fu snorted. “And why did you only send a horse toward Dongmen, but not to the capital?”

  Kaiya listened again. Yes, a horse clopped north, but none headed south.

  The captain shouted, “Men, surround the tower. Don’t let anyone in or out.”

  CHAPTER 20:

  Old and New Scars

  Though she’d spent a year blindfolded during her training, Jie had never excelled at blind techniques like her human Moquan clan members. With elf vision, she rarely needed them. Now, however, she tripped and stumbled on numerous occasions as they
traipsed through the forest, each time bruising her ego as much as her body.

  All Tian’s fault. If he hadn’t decided to be alive, maybe she wouldn’t be so bewildered. The simultaneous discovery of a missing twin, now holding on to her arm and doing an awful job of guiding her through obstacles, didn’t help matters.

  What was her twin’s story? Did she know their father? She could apparently speak the altivorc language and was scared of Jie. There was an unbelievable story somewhere in there, even beyond the improbable reunion with an amnesiac Tian.

  Meanwhile, the Teleri moved supplies through the Wilds unhindered, to support their invasion of Hua.

  Crack! She stepped on a dry branch, and would’ve fallen on her face if Kiri hadn’t supported her.

  Brushing off her hands, and also what was left of her dignity, Jie sighed. “Is the blindfold necessary? I’m lost.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Ming chirped from somewhere behind her.

  How humiliating. Shown up by Ming, of all people. However, it seemed like Tian was doing a better job at leading him through the forest compared to her own guide.

  “We’re almost there.” Tian’s voice bore into her back, his unanswered question undoubtedly still weighing on him. Amnesiac or not, his need to know, and know now, remained.

  A wife and unborn children, possibly his, were more than he needed to learn about in his state. Right? Yes. There’d be a better time and place for that.

  Heavy boots clomped on pavestones in the distance. A hand pressed on her shoulder and pushed her down. The underbrush rustled as Tian, Kiri, Kala, and Dior sunk to the forest floor.

  “Ouch!” Ming hissed as he clumsily fell into a shrub. “The shoulder!”

  “Shhhh,” Tian said.

  The blindfold came off, and Jie’s eyes adjusted. She peered through the trees in the direction of clopping boots and jingling chainmail. Light glinted off metal, with the occasional flash of red feathers. At least thirty Bovyan soldiers guarded over a hundred natives and ten horse-drawn provision carts. They headed west to supply the Teleri invasion of Hua.

  She and Ming—or rather, she—had been harassing these convoys for over a week now, first on the overgrown paths near Hua, and later on the restored roads. With an elf archer and Tian, it would be even easier. She started forward to get a better view, only to be restrained by Tian’s hand.

  He shook his head and flashed the Moquan signals, Stay down, keep quiet.

  Why?

  Too dangerous. He grinned for the first time, the crooked smile that sent her heart pounding.

  She glanced back at the others. The elf watched their hands dance with a look that could only be described as bored. Ming gawked, while little Kala huddled low, oblivious. Kiri, on the other hand, scowled, her lips tight enough to crush a walnut.

  Jie knew that expression. Her own, when jealous. Used with alarming frequency while in service to the princess. Perhaps her twin shared expressions and an attraction to a not-so-dead man.

  The sound of marching boots and creaking wheels faded in the distance, and with it, the opportunity to wreak havoc on the Teleri supply lines. Dior motioned them up.

  “We could’ve slowed them down.” Jie put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been doing it for over a week now. I—”

  “We,” Ming inserted.

  Jie raised her voice. “I have sabotaged their supplies, and made their lives miserable. We need to get back to that.”

  Ming snorted. “You couldn’t have done much without my help.” If help meant distracting the Teleri with incompetence…

  The elf faced Tian and spoke in a string of syllables that sounded not much different from the secret Hua imperial language. Tian pointed in the direction of the men, then Jie, all the while fumbling through the same language. Kiri apparently added her opinion as well, leaving Ming and Jie to exchange glances.

  With a shake of his head, Tian turned to her. “Their village is close by. The elves don’t want the Metal Men to even know they exist. It’s the best way to protect their home.”

  Jie sucked on her lower lip. “What about your home? The Teleri march on Hua, and your own father let them in.”

  He stared back at her, expression empty. Ming studied his feet, sharing Tian’s guilt.

  No, she wouldn’t let their guilty feelings cow her into silence. Not when the realm and all its women relied on their help. She continued, relentless, “Think of what they did to the natives here. They will do the same, if not worse, to your own people. What Emperor Geros himself did to—” no, better not to bring her into the conversation, for Tian’s own good, “—so many women.”

  Dior poked Tian in the back and they exchanged more words. Kiri joined in, her frown and tone evidently conveying her opinion in no uncertain terms.

  Tian turned back. “That’s not the elves’ concern.” Apparently, he’d gone native.

  “It will be.” Ming kept his voice low. “The Wilds lie between Hua and them, and they will eventually connect it all. No one on the plateau will be safe, not even these elves.”

  Jie studied Ming. Someone had swapped out the bumbling buffoon for a Tai-Ming heir. She nodded at Tian. “Translate.”

  His gaze shifted from Ming and settled on her. He then spoke again to the elves.

  After a brief exchange, Tian nodded. “Dior says your argument has merit. He will present your case—”

  “Our case.” She glared at him.

  “—our case back at the village for the people to discuss.”

  Great. More elves, and from the look of it, more blindfolds, too.

  Tian. His name was Tian, even if the revelation didn’t jar any memories.

  Now he couldn’t get back to the treetop village soon enough. Whoever this Jie was, whatever his relationship to her, she remained tight-lipped about the Doe-Eyed Girl from his dreams. So many questions about his past, and yet, Jie cared more about the future. Namely, the threat of the Metal Men to a homeland he didn’t remember.

  “Were you looking for me?” He pulled Ming to the side, just avoiding a limb that would’ve smacked his supposed brother in the face.

  “Ow! The shoulder!” Ming winced. “No, I thought you were dead.”

  “Then how’d you come to be here?”

  “The insane half-elf.” Ming pointed in the wrong direction. “We were stuck on the wrong side of the Wall, and instead of trying to find a way back in, she took us deeper into the Wilds.”

  ‘Insane’ didn’t quite seem to do Jie justice. But Ming was leaving something out. Tian frowned. “Why?”

  “Ask her. I’m still trying to figure it out.” Ming threw his hands up, but then immediately grimaced and grabbed his left shoulder. “Though I am pleased we found you.”

  “What happened to your shoulder?”

  Expression souring, Ming rubbed it. “A Teleri soldier stabbed me. It will be a miracle if I ever draw a bow again.”

  Miracles apparently happened around here. Tian removed his brother’s blindfold and pointed up the tree. “Here we are. Perhaps the elves’ shaman can help you.”

  Ming looked up the circling branches. “It’s just a tree canopy.”

  The others gathered around the base of the tree, except for Kala, who pranced up the branches. Jie tracked the girl, then met Tian’s gaze. She raised her eyebrow and quirked her lips in the cutest manner.

  Her question was clear. Tian nodded. “Yes, the village. You’ll be surprised.”

  With a shrug, she followed Kala up. Kiri’s glare was sharp enough to shear cured leather, yet she said nothing as she joined her unexpected twin. The rest of the group followed.

  At the top, dozens of elves gathered, many gazing with curiosity at Jie. Ming’s eyes rounded as wide as walnuts. Jie’s expression blanked, but her irises drifted across the platforms and bridges, pausing on any elf with a weapon. Just like Tian himself had done the first time.

  Dior called out, “More strangers, and even more mysteries.” He pointed to Ming. “Feneyas’ brother, c
oming to search for him.” As attention drifted to Ming, Dior shifted an open palm toward Jie. “And her.”

  The elves murmured among themselves in a low hum of musical voices. Though their language escaped him, Tian could guess the general sentiment from their nods and gestures: she and Kiri looked exactly alike. Jie stared back at them, her brow wrinkling.

  Layani, the elves’ best warrior, spoke with Kiri, their voices getting louder with each exchange. Kiri shook her head vehemently before snapping her lips shut and staring out into the forest. Oh, to be able to speak their language.

  Tian sighed. What was it with these half-elves withholding information? Kiri apparently knew more about her relationship to Jie, yet refused to explain. Jie would not speak of the Doe-Eyed Girl.

  Sidling over as the elves’ debate reached a crescendo, Ming whispered in Tian’s ear, “What are they saying?”

  “I’d surmise they have the same question. As you and I.” Tian jutted his chin first at Kiri, then at Jie.

  “And me.” Jie crossed her arms. “I hate that they’re talking about me and I have no idea what they’re saying.”

  “Enough.” Using the Kanin dialect, the shaman Nayori’s voice cut through the animated discussion, bringing the treetops to silence. She sang several words, and a wind whistled through the village. When she spoke again, her elf words echoed back in the Hua tongue. “Feneyas, you wished to learn who you are. You have been reunited with those who know you.”

  The unspoken message left no doubt: he should go. To the elves, he must be like a wolf that scavenged on the edge of a Kanin village. Tolerated, amusing to watch, yet not loved like the tribe’s dogs. They would not miss him if he left.

  Yet how could he, with so many questions left unresolved? Only Kiri could answer some of those, if they could coax her to talk about something so obviously painful.

  “Wait,” Tian said. “The Metal Men come in greater numbers.”