“We must recreate the circumstances of the previous night. Perhaps you did something, however unintentional, that allowed him to take human form. Where was he?”
“On my altar. Whenever I return from battle, I first place him—it—” She stumbled over her words, then continued, “I place the statue there and thank Yüying for watching over me.”
“And when he changed? What did it look like?”
“I do not know. I was outside my tent, checking in with the men to ensure they were enjoying the well-deserved respite.”
“Without drinking.”
“Yes, without drinking,” she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest. “When I returned, he was simply here.”
“Hrm.” He turned through the pages of one book, only to set it aside and grab another. “Only a few would be powerful enough to trap a mortal soul in such a vessel.”
“There’s no vessel. His entire body became the dragon.”
Wen stroked his bearded chin. “Even greater a gift to transmute one creature into an object. But to what purpose?”
Sensing he wasn’t asking for an answer, Mulan remained quiet, studying the jade dragon in silence. If not for the clothes, she might have passed it off as a dream. Now she potentially held a royal in her hands. An emperor.
“If it was nothing done by you personally, I can only surmise the eclipse played a role in the statue’s transformation. You’ve carried that object for as long as I have known you without any effect. Lunar events often play a role in incredible magic rituals.”
“You believe me, then.”
“I never said that.” Mulan’s exasperated sigh brought a smile to Wen’s face. “I’m a scientist as much as I am a sorcerer, Captain. I mean no offense, but it long ago became a habit for me to entertain all possible explanations.”
“Fine.” She returned the statue to the altar exactly as she had the previous afternoon.
“Good. Now then, we wait.”
“For what?”
“Sunset. The moon has already risen in the sky and there’s been no change, therefore the only logical conclusion is they must counteract. So we will wait until only moonlight is in the sky.”
“And if nothing happens?”
Wen smiled. “I assume the long day and stressors of our journey took their toll on you.”
At least he hadn’t completely written off her claims as insanity and gave her the benefit of the doubt. While the sorcerer researched rituals that prospered from lunar events, Mulan made tea and served it alongside the sweet cream buns only officers received with their supper.
The man cocked a brow.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, never losing the smile that alluded to secrets she could never fathom. “A mere thought, is all, unrelated to your statue.”
Less than an hour later, twilight arrived in shades of purple and lilac streaking the pink sky. The sun touched the horizon, became a gilded streak against the distant valley’s edge, and then light fell away completely and only the moon hung big and silver above them when Mulan glanced out to confirm night had fallen.
It was a gradual change at first, small enough anyone could overlook it, just a gleam overtaking the polished surface of the detailed carving. Little by little, it appeared less a jade statuette and more of a living, breathing creature growing in size, doubling, then tripling until it slid from her altar. In a flash of mystical light and the issuance of green mist, the dragonesque shape was gone and Cheng stood by the altar.
Naked. Initially, his head hung and he appeared woozy, swaying from the powerful magic releasing its hold on him. Then his head snapped up and his gaze focused on them.
The book Wen held hit the floor with a thud. The sorcerer stared. “Mu, deep down, I really wanted to believe you were wyvern-shit insane.”
Mulan presented Cheng with clothing. Her face grew increasingly hot.
“I thank you,” Cheng said with far too much grace and gratitude for a member of the Imperial Family. Everything Mulan had ever heard about Emperor Da-Wio suggested him to be an arrogant asshole. She’d assumed that ran true for all royalty.
“Your name, my lord?” Wen asked after Cheng had donned the robe. He scrambled for one of the historical books and opened it.
The man closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “When I last walked this world as a man, I was known as Emperor Cheng.”
Wen turned pages in the enormous tome, glanced several times between the image on the paper and the man before them. The portrait of Cheng in the History of Imperial Liang matched, the spitting image of their late emperor. His mouth dropped, as did the book he held. A pregnant pause stretched from those words and flooded the tent with tension. Finally, Wen fell to his knees. He reached out and jerked Mulan’s uniform coat by the hem, prompting her to follow suit.
“Your Majesty, my apologies—”
“Please, don’t. That’s hardly necessary,” Cheng said, waving them both to their feet.
“Forgive me. It’s only… It’s been centuries, Your Majesty,” Wen said. “According to history, you vanished after crossing into enemy lands, and have always been presumed dead.”
Cheng’s smooth brow creased. “Enemy lands… I don’t—I have no recollections…”
“What do you remember?” Mulan asked in a gentle voice.
“I don’t recall much more than the last few years, and even those events are blurry. Battle after battle against those who change into a bestial shape as I do. Swords and black powder. Sorcery rained from the heavens. I remember that, but…most of my past life is a mystery.”
Mulan jerked her gaze toward Wen. “Is it possible that he did meet with the rulers of Cairn Ocland and their queen did this to him?”
“Possible,” he replied. “But unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Transmutation is a powerful magic rarely seem in Cairn Ocland, where spellcraft is elemental, often fey-touched and nature-based.” Wen patted a heavy leather-bound tome. “The origins of magic happen to be a favored subject of mine. Sorcery, and its many progenitors, varies by location across our gulf. Had he been turned into a toad, I would say yes, with absolute certainty, that she did it. Stone would even be a possibility, but that would be an act of magic from the grandest of fae. Whoever bewitched Cheng manipulated the properties of his own magic against him.”
“What about Samahara? They had an enchantress long ago, did they not?” Mulan asked.
“They did. From what I read of her, Grand Enchantress Safiyya was a descendant of an elemental jinni spirit. Still, the magic isn’t quite right. Similar, but this is different.”
Mulan looked from Wen to Cheng. “And you have no memory of it at all?”
Cheng glanced away. “No. Only that I did not venture from our lands. During my last days as a man, I recall there was strife with Cairn Ocland, but also…” His eyes closed with an indrawn breath. “Agreement and friendly correspondence between myself and Witch-Queen Liadh. They spoke of me visiting, yet I did not go.”
“The tale etched into history is that you ventured north and were never seen again. The Oclanders refused to take credit for your demise. Instead, your uncle assumed the throne and established a new line of rulers. We are now led by his ninth descendent.”
“Descendants?” Cheng barked, his face a mask of confusion. “My uncle was an elderly man in his nineties with no children. What descendants?”
“History and the writings of your uncle claim otherwise, Your Majesty.”
“History is wrong.” The young man hesitated. “But I do not understand why he would twist such words.”
Wen glanced to Mulan then back to Cheng, tension in his spine and worry—no, fear—etched in his brow. “Emperor Da-Wio was known as a mighty sorcerer, and he has passed this gift on to his heirs. When you were lost, he kept the land from falling into chaos and protected us from invaders across the Viridian Sea. Established trade with the barbarians of Ridaeron and made alliances with the pale men of Eis
land.”
Cheng listened in disbelief, hardly able to comprehend what he was being told. Trade with the barbarians? War with their northern neighbors? Nothing was as it should be, and had in fact become a world of opposites contradicting everything his mother and father had fought to achieve.
“My uncle was indeed a sorcerer and he taught me much.” He remembered those lessons now, snippets of memory crossing through his mind. His uncle’s kind face as they sat together reading through ancient texts.
“If you had magic, why haven’t you freed yourself?” Mu asked.
“I tried once, I think. Nothing. So I…slept, I suppose you might say. I slept for a long time, until something stirred me awake again. And with that awakening I felt a mere wisp of the magic I once commanded. I knew that I wanted to help you, so I did. What magic I could reach, I willed to assist you in battle. I gave you my endurance, my speed, and all that I could spare.”
“The shield, too,” Mu realized, “at the thorn barrier. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“So it wasn’t the gods,” Wen murmured. “We always thought the captain had the luck of the gods on his side, when in fact, it was you.”
His side? Cheng cut his gaze to Mu and studied the woman clothed in man’s attire, hair bound in a topknot secured by a pin that struck him as familiar. A strong jaw and heavy brows told him male, but fleeting memories of her preparing for a bath said otherwise.
For five years, she had occupied his dreams, a beauty he admired from afar while captive in jade. Not once had it occurred to him that no one realized the truth.
If the sorcerer didn’t know of Mu’s true nature, it was likely no one else within the encampment knew the truth. Cheng cleared his throat and gestured to the altar. “Perhaps the gods put me in Mu’s path for a reason,” he said carefully, guarding her identity.
“Now that we’ve confirmed my suspicion, that you’re free of the curse when the moon rises, what are we to do?” Wen asked.
“I must present myself to the commanding officer of this camp and go to meet the current emperor to reclaim the throne. It is what’s right.”
“How?” Wen asked.
“I will fly there,” Cheng said, summoning a green ball of fire around his clenched fist. “And I will…” Pain slammed into his skull with the force of a chisel. As it exploded through his mind, across his thoughts and his very being, the flames and sparks quickly sputtered into smaller embers, dying as vertigo overtook him. He stumbled forward a step into the arms of both Wen and Mu.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I… I don’t know what happened.”
“Perhaps it is too soon for Your Majesty to use magic, and if so, doubly too soon to become a dragon once more.”
“Agreed,” Mu said. “And that makes him vulnerable.”
Mu and Wen exchanged looks.
“Perhaps it would be safest, Your Majesty,” Wen said, “for you to remain here for a time while I research this particular curse. In secrecy.”
“I will not hide.” He strode toward the front of the tent. “Long have I waited for this opportunity.”
Mu stepped into his path. “Just a moment. Consider this: what if the current ruler does not want to relinquish his claim to the throne?”
“He has no choice. I am the one true ruler of Liang. Yüying’s blood courses through my veins. I am her chosen.”
“But can you prove it?” As Cheng clenched his jaw, she continued. “You are a statue by day, and a weakened man by night. A mere spark nearly sent you to the ground.”
“My captain is correct,” Wen said. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, now that you are found, your safety is paramount, and nothing can be done to jeopardize that. If you were to give me time, perhaps I can undo this cur—What’s that?” The sorcerer’s gaze focused on his face. No, not his face. His throat.
Cheng raised a hand to the heavy piece of metal encircling his throat. “This…it is…” The answer was right there, floating in the nebulous space created by centuries of oblivion. “A gift,” he said, touching his fingers to it.
“May I?” Wen asked.
“Certainly.”
The sorcerer’s brows knit together as he raised a hand toward the silver bauble. His fingers splayed, and energy arced between them in white and gold streaks. “There is no fastening to remove it, but I sense dark magic within this metal. Runes of binding. I’ve seen this before on men in the emperor’s prison quarries.”
Mu stepped closer to look. Now both stared at his throat. “Runes of binding?”
“Yes. Watch.” Within seconds of Wen touching the metal, its surface heated, almost scalding the circumference of his neck. Power exploded from it, and the energy hurled Wen and Mulan back, though Wen shielded them both with a magical barrier.
“Gods!” the man cried.
“Captain!” came alarmed voices outside the tent, joined by other cries. Mu hurried to the tent flap and threw it open as the armed men arrived.
“Everything is fine!”
“We heard an explosion—”
“All is fine,” Mu repeated, authority deepening her voice to a commanding, masculine growl that took Cheng by surprise.
Wen hurried across the open space and scurried under Mu’s arm. “Private magical lesson gone awry, that’s all. Move along.”
All but one of the men dispersed. He stared at Wen for a long time, then he also left, but the tension remained long after Mu and Wen returned to Cheng.
“You’ll have to let Bao down easy,” Wen said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re neither stupid nor blind, Mu. Bao is a man in love, an infatuated man.”
“What?”
“But that is neither here nor there. I have much to research, and can do none of it here.”
“Fine.”
Wen bowed again to Cheng. “Your Imperial Majesty, I must take my leave. Whatever that object is that you wear, it is no gift, and nothing of benefit to you.”
“I…” Cheng raised his hand to the piece. Armor. He’d been told once it was armor, but by who, he couldn’t recall. He nodded. “Thank you, Wen.”
Then the sorcerer was gone and Mu remained, the silence within the tent almost deafening in the aftermath.
Cheng touched his collar again. It pulsed warm beneath his fingers with familiar magic.
“We’ll do our best to release you from this curse, Your Majesty.”
“I appreciate it greatly, but may I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why do they all believe you to be a man?”
Mu spun around and stared at him. “Excuse me?”
He gestured to her uniform, wondering how she managed to hide her curves. “Why do you do this?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
He raised one brow, stepped over, and removed the pin from her hair. It fell around her shoulders like a river of black silk, lending a softness to her features that hadn’t been present before. With her stronger jawline concealed and hair framing her face, her feminine side emerged in full beauty. “I have seen you.”
Pain flashed across Cheng’s face. Several seconds passed before he realized he’d been struck hard enough to cut the inside of his cheek. Startled by the unfamiliar sensation, he raised a hand to his stinging cheek.
“You’ve been spying on me?” she demanded, face red.
“You struck me.” No one had ever dared raise a hand to him before.
“You spied on me!”
“I—” He snapped his mouth shut and studied her face. While he could clearly read the anger in her eyes, it was the pink color crawling up her neck into her cheeks he focused on. Embarrassment.
Humiliation.
He felt like the lowest of the low, an ass of the biggest magnitude.
“Forgive me,” he said, dipping into an elegant bow and holding the position afterward in a show of profound respect. “Please understand, it was not with malice. My awareness came
and went without my control.”
He waited like that, gaze on his feet, counting the silent seconds it took for her to speak, to forgive him. He couldn’t recall ever waiting on someone before, or begging forgiveness for that matter.
He would have waited a lifetime for her to forgive him.
“You must not speak of this ever again,” she finally whispered. “If they knew—if they ever find out I’ve fooled them, the general will execute me.”
“Why would you be executed for serving your nation?”
“Women are forbidden by law to join the Imperial Army.”
“What?” He straightened, bewildered by her announcement. “Our women are fierce protectors, and no Liangese law has ever been decreed that would bar them from service. All men, all women—and all others who desire to serve—have always been valued by the Empire.”
“That may have been true a long time ago, but things have changed, Cheng.”
“Then it is time to show this false emperor how our world should be.”
8
Enough faceless new recruits had joined their camp for no one to question Cheng’s movement. In addition to warriors, they needed servants, men incapable of raising a sword in battle but otherwise useful at handling the tedious day-to-day necessities. And one could never forget the concubines.
In Liang, the fine arts of seduction and pleasure were treated no differently than any other occupation. A small number of men and women received a tidy sum to service the officers and their favorites among the soldiers. Many of them came from the nearby city of Langgan, the army encampment built for its close proximity to both the river and the community.
Mulan led the way on foot with Cheng at her side. He filled out the uniform and armor she’d taken for him well. A little too well. Her attention frequently darted to his broad shoulders and the way his cobalt attire fit just right across a powerful chest composed of sculpted muscles. Several concubines fluttered their fans at him in passing.
Annoyed by the distraction, she hurried him past their prowling grounds and steered him to the outer wall. No one barred their way, allowing them to ascend to the uppermost level. Sometimes she liked to come up here to think, alone amidst the stars and the quiet.
Mulan and the Jade Emperor: an Adult Folktale Retelling (Once Upon a Spell: Legends Book 1) Page 6