If the emperor was trying to impress her, then her plan was already off to an auspicious beginning.
The twins tried to present her with a dress but she turned it away, declaring she would wear her own garments. The meek things acquiesced without a mutter of argument, and turned their attention to her hair. They spent an hour twisting it up into elaborate loops and braids held in place with jeweled pins and clasps. She accepted it all with grace except for one matter, insisting they use her father’s hairpin in her updo. The family heirloom meant too much to her, and could not be lost.
Once they were satisfied with her appearance, they led the way through the palace. Mulan took note of every turn and every guard, committing them to memory and orienting herself. Cheng had mapped out the palace as much as his recollection allowed, but things had changed over the centuries.
The Balcony of the Sun was aptly named. Or perhaps it had been long ago before the palace came into Da-Wio’s possession. A fine layer of dulling substance covered once-golden railings, and the floor mosaic depicting a blazing sun against pale blue marble did not shine as illustrated in Wen’s books.
A table set for two occupied the center of the large balcony, but the emperor stood at the railing with his back to her. The servants slid the doors shut behind Mulan, leaving her and her quarry in privacy.
“Join me,” the emperor called without turning.
The balcony overlooked the land to the west, a wide swath of verdant green fields, sparkling rivers, and pockets of thick jungle. The drop to the ground below was nauseatingly far. She imagined on a foggy day, standing out here would be like standing in the clouds themselves.
Mulan couldn’t help but enjoy the view, despite the poor company. For the briefest of moments, she wondered if she could push him over the ledge, but she quickly dismissed the idea. She needed him completely off guard. Now was not the moment.
“Stand here with me,” he coaxed in his silken voice.
“I am not one for taking orders from men.”
“As spirited as you are beautiful. Though I wonder…” He reached out and clasped her arm, drawing her close. Despite everything in her screaming otherwise, Mulan did not resist.
Da-Wio’s gaze traveled over her slowly, hungrily. The cool hand on her arm kneaded her flesh, his grip unyielding.
“You are truly stunning and fierce, but what of loyalty? Ambition?”
For one pulse-pounding moment, she feared he had discovered her plot against him. Her heartbeat kicked up and adrenaline rushed through her veins.
“I am loyal to Liang and my goddess.”
His thoughtful, piercing look transformed into a charming smile and his grip on her arm loosened, but his hand did not fall away. Instead, he brushed his knuckles up her arm to her bare shoulder in a soft caress.
Seizing the opportunity, she dipped her chin slightly, straddling a fine line between confidence and the demure facade he no doubt expected of a woman drawn by his charm.
“Tell me of your magical powers. How did you command the beast?”
“I am the rider of dragons. When I felt the living soul inside the jade statuette, I shaped it to my will and commanded it to grow in size when the moon shone above us. He became alive.”
“And then?”
“I told him to do my bidding. He followed my every order. Every breath of flame from his mouth was given on my order.”
Greed gleamed in his muddy brown eyes. “And could you do this again with other dragons?”
“Can’t you?” Despite the way her body wanted to tremble, she infused an air of superiority into her voice.
“No,” the emperor admitted, surprising her. “I cannot. You are a woman of a rare, unusual gift. At my side, Mulan, you would be more than an empress. You would be a living goddess far greater than Yüying. Together we would obliterate the northern threat. We’d set the west aflame, purging the blood witches and their revenants from the land for all eternity.”
“And then we will take their land?”
“It will be ours.” He touched her chin and cupped it with his curled index finger, tilting her head up until they made eye contact. His gaze and the intensity in it unsettled her, making her head swim. “Yours. I would give the lands to you as my new bride. You need only accept me.”
“I…”
“Take me for a husband and bear for me a child. A powerful heir with both of our gifts.”
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth.
Something is wrong.
“You will wed me tomorrow before the Imperial City.”
I will not. “Yes,” she agreed instead.
What’s happening to me?
A smile shaped Da-Wio’s mouth. He was a handsome man of youthful features, his clear brown eyes becoming brighter by the second. Almost red-tinted in the dwindling sunlight.
“You will be the greatest of my treasures. A woman with the will to command dragons is not a prize I can afford to squander,” he murmured, caressing her cheek. “Though I wonder what secrets you hold from me. Such a gift cannot be your only talent.”
Her chest ached. She tried to break eye contact but found her head wouldn’t turn. Her eyes disobeyed her, refusing to shift.
“Come to me.”
She stumbled forward and fell involuntarily against his chest. Her fingers curved over his shoulders and felt the muscles of his frame, a hard body that couldn’t be a day over forty pressed tightly against her.
“You will provide the greatest and most powerful child yet. With you in my possession, I will find the remaining dragon gods, and take their strength for my own.”
Her world went dark and foggy, concealed behind a gray curtain. His voice echoed between her ears and her head nodded agreement despite the welling disgust in the pit of her stomach. More than she wanted to rip Cheng out of his possession, she wanted to puke on the emperor for the mere suggestion.
“Be my empress.”
Her mind changed. She viewed him through a new lens, attractive, cunning.
I will be an empress. “A child,” she whispered. “Yes.”
“Disrobe.”
Mulan’s fingers raised to the wide sash of her dress. Warm silk reacted to her touch and reflected a rainbow of colors. Each one was more dazzling than the next, a mesmerizing cascade of pastel hues. Several seconds passed, her beating heart becoming a desperate roar between her ears. Her fingers twitched against the sash. No.
“You defy me?”
Heat ensconced her from head to toe—no, everywhere the silk touched her became alive with sensation that vanquished the fog from her mind. “No. I…I…” Clarity returned with the force of a war hammer as Ana’s magic—fae magic—coursed through her in an invigorating wave.
Seizing her chance, Mulan tore the hair ornament from her updo. She drove the sharpened pin through his throat with all her strength, ignoring the hot blood that gushed over her hand. Da-Wio made a strangled sound and grabbed at her seconds too late.
“Cheng is the only true emperor and you will imprison him no longer.”
The usurper stumbled to his knees, helpless and weak as his lifeblood spilled from him. “You—”
“Will never be your empress. You will never rule Liang.”
She finally released the hairpin and stepped back, letting him collapse in a heap on the tiled floor. In another moment, he was still. No more breath stirred in his chest, and the color faded from his flesh in a blackening radius of tissue.
“Cheng…”
As soon as Mulan dropped to her knees, she searched desperately through Da-Wio’s robes for Cheng. She found the statuette deep within an inner pocket, the jade pale and semi-translucent, streaked with strands of black.
“No, no, no. Cheng? Has he drained you already?” His silence was thunderous. “Please, please, answer me, Cheng.”
She cradled the statuette on her open palms and caressed its polished surface with her thumbs. Her chest heaved, her frantic heartbeat scarcely letting breath fill her lungs.
Gradually, little by little, some of the color returned to the jade, and the stone felt alive in her grip once more. Her hands felt warm, fingertips tingled, and wisps of color flowed from them to the precious object she tenderly held.
It’s me. I’m doing it.
All along, she had been the one restoring Cheng.
“Amazing. It appears you told the truth to me, after all.”
Mulan snapped her head up and stared into the bloodred eyes of a man who should have been dead. As Da-Wio smiled, the appearance of a handsome man melted like candle wax. Two sets of elongated teeth curved against his lower lip. Without the youthful visage of whichever son he had most recently devoured, the false emperor’s skin shriveled and turned the shade of a long-dead corpse.
He’s one of them. All along, he’s been one of them.
When the blood witches tainted the body of a Liangese, a dark abomination rose one night later.
These foul horrors were called jiangshi, evil creatures who no longer derived nourishment from meals and instead dined upon blood, draining their victim’s life force with every sip.
Da-Wio rose to his feet and drew her pin from his throat, as if he were plucking a stray thread from his robe. He flicked it aside and sneered at her. “Star metal? Foolish girl. I am no dark fae or spirit to be slain by your cheap parlor tricks. You have succeeded at nothing here. What is the loss of one face when I can collect a dozen more? I am a living god, and once I have claimed your power, I will drain him again.”
“You won’t.” Mulan sprang up and backpedaled. “I won’t let you.”
As he advanced on her, she sprinted for the balcony doors and burst through them into the next chamber. “Call the guard! Arm yourselves!”
A young man with an armful of linens jumped. “What in the name of the goddess?”
“He’s a monster!” she shouted as she dashed past him, down the corridor with the statue in her grip.
She didn’t dare look back as men screamed behind her. Without a weapon, she stood no chance against a blood witch. She needed a sword. Her sword.
But she had no idea where to find Wen.
“No one can help you, Mulan.” Da-Wio’s chilling voice taunted down the hall. “You are helpless to stop me.”
Another scream and then silence. She rushed around the next corner, having no idea which way she was supposed to be going, only that something, a whisper on the edge of hearing, seemed to be guiding her. The next hall she nearly ran into Wen and the others. Her men were coming toward her, weapons drawn.
“Wen? How did you—? Never mind. My sword.”
The moment she drew the blade, her dress vanished in a shimmering wave as magic replaced it with armor blessed by Yüying. The transformation came not a minute too soon, for Da-Wio came around the corner in robes soaked with blood.
Void surrounded Cheng once more. He floated within a womb of silence and endless gloom, a lack of sensation, warmth or cold, surrounding him on all sides.
Rise, child.
Distant noises reached him, each sounding miles away. They penetrated the endless fog, reaching him as shrieks and screams for aid, the noises of guards shouting.
Mulan.
Rise, child. She needs you.
The voices converged and melded together, rolling sounds and noises, battle. Alarms blared with increasing clarity.
Where am I?
The jiangshi drained you to the point of death. With what power I had left, I sustained your spirit until the girl recovered your shell and replenished you with her qi.
How? I don’t understand. How did she—?
You are the yin to her yang. She is the sun to your night. You were meant for one another, dearest son of Liang. You must rise now. She needs you.
I can’t.
You must. I can do nothing else for you. What happens next is your destiny.
The voice faded. The goddess was gone, but the war continued to rage around them, shouts and cries for help bleeding into the alternate dimension where Cheng’s consciousness hung in shadow.
She needs me.
In the distance, he saw light and heard the powerful commands of the woman he loved. Though she seemed beyond his reach, one realization broke through the miasma of black magic: Yüying had given him the answer to his plight, but he had been too ignorant to understand.
I am Cheng the Munificent, son of Empress Li-Song and Emperor Kazan. I will be imprisoned no more.
Power rushed through Cheng’s veins as he took his draconic form, sundering the chains of Da-Wio’s magic. The collar that had expanded with his draconic body shattered and its shards tinkled to the ground, each one evaporating like smoke.
Free.
Only the one who donned it could remove it.
Da-Wio had not placed the collar on Cheng. It had been up to him to remove it all along.
A wild battle raged across the palace’s manicured courtyard, armored men in the colors of the Imperial Army clashing against palace guards. Each guard appeared as a puppet did, attached to Da-Wio by threads of magic like bloody webs, tying the empty-eyed guards to the undead abomination.
Mulan shone like a star amidst them, her glittering armor keeping Da-Wio at bay. A war horn blew, and more soldiers arrived on horseback to rain arrows on the creature with impressive precision that never placed Mulan in harm’s way. In that split second of assessment, he noticed Bao and many more from her regiment.
Then two sets of eyes lifted to him, one full of hope and the other seething with hatred.
“You!” his uncle hissed. “I should have drained you centuries ago.”
Energy pulsed through the air, a silent thunderclap that shuddered through Cheng’s body and rattled every window in the palace. Darkness streaked toward him, coalescing into a familiar yet malformed shape. His uncle—the thing that had been his uncle—had become a dragon of shadow and malice. Cheng narrowly avoided him, but the wicked talons dragging against his scales ignited streaks of pain.
Even without Da-Wio on the ground, Mulan was kept busy. Her men fought like lions, and she was a tornado of destruction herself, tearing through the palace guards. Cheng could only spare a glance, one to reassure himself that she was fine, before he had to watch his uncle.
No, not his uncle. That man had died. This was a monster, a corpse given unnatural life by the darkest parts of what had once been a good soul. His uncle was gone. Destroying the desecration against life that remained was the final thing Cheng could do to honor the good man who once lived.
This is not Da-Wio. He died.
He died at the border. That is when I lost him. I understand now.
And with that thought, that conviction, he charged his enemy and spewed emerald flames.
Cheng and Da-Wio turned over and over in the air, their two serpentine bodies twisting on magical current. They hit the ground and separated again as a volley of arrows came from Mulan’s detachment. They struck the black dragon and riddled his ashen hide, but still he fought on.
Gripping Da-Wio in his claws, he slammed the black dragon into the courtyard, shattering tiles and blocks beneath the weight of his massive body. They twisted and writhed, tails crashing into the fountain and claws tearing up the grounds. Mulan dove forward over his head. She twisted an acrobatic flip that should have been impossible and came down on the black dragon’s spine. Her blade plunged through the back of the neck and sliced through.
“Now!” she cried.
Wen and another sorcerer rushed the corpse. A jiangshi was a dangerous creature, and even without its head, could not be trusted. As they bound it in spellcraft and scrolls, monks from the local temple arrived to finish the deed.
“Something’s happening!” Akio cried. “Look!”
As the jiangshi crumbled into ash and dust, the oily residue covering the palace walls melted away. Bleak colors transformed and turned radiant beneath the lantern light.
“It’s changing!”
Mulan darted to the palace entrance and
stepped inside first. She spun to face Cheng, her eyes wide. “It’s beautiful again. Like the pictures and history books. He’s truly gone.”
Cheng wanted to go to her, but the moment he transformed back to his human body, dozens of men swarmed him, priests and warriors alike. Someone wrapped him in their silk robe, and a tide of questions began.
“I will answer anything you desire later. Please, I need to—” He tried to work his way through the crowd, but he was moments too late.
Mulan was gone.
21
Three days had passed since Da-Wio’s reign ended and Cheng returned to the throne. It had been three days of revelations and change for not only Mulan, but the entire empire.
At that very moment, word spread by traveler, eagle, and gossip that the true heir of Li-Song had returned. Word spread that a woman had infiltrated the Imperial Army and saved their true ruler. More importantly than all of that, word had spread that the long war with Cairn Ocland was over at last.
Mulan fingered the polished stone of the amulet she had received that evening, its color dazzling against her uniform.
General Hua Mulan of Songshi.
For her service, courage, and endless dedication to Liang, Cheng had awarded her the highest honor anyone within the army could receive.
What she wanted more than accolades, riches, and titles, however, was just ten more minutes in his company to speak in private without some bootlicking official or priest.
Now, as she sat in her tent at the camp, she wondered where fate would take her next. Cheng had not called for her since the ceremony before her peers and thousands of citizens.
“General Mulan?” A man cleared his throat at the tent entrance. She had yet to be relocated to larger, more private quarters, and hoped to speak with Cheng beforehand.
“Yes?” Mulan faced the tent flap, startled to find Bao gazing at her.
“May I have a moment of your time?”
“I always have time for you.”
Open surprise on Bao’s youthful face told her he’d expected otherwise. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Nothing excuses my behavior. You led us with honor, risked your life beside us, and when it came time to show my loyalty, I turned my back on you. I can never apologize enough.”
Mulan and the Jade Emperor: an Adult Folktale Retelling (Once Upon a Spell: Legends Book 1) Page 18