by Julie C. Dao
The crane spread her wings once more and took off, soaring for the heavens with the ghost upon her back. One by one, her sisters followed like a swirl of white petals.
The final crane bent her long, slender neck and plucked an object from the air once more: the thirteenth cloak, the treasure the sky-maidens had made for the god who had loved and ruled over the Grasslands. The bird tossed the cloak to Jade and she caught it, surprised to find that it was as light as silk though it was as big as a blanket. Each pearl-white, gold-tipped feather was as long as her arm from her wrist to her elbow.
“Thank you,” Jade said, and the crane bowed deeply, returning her gratitude. And then it took flight, shimmering up into the sky, the moon illuminating her wings. Jade watched the reunited sky-maidens until she could no longer tell them apart from the stars.
Carefully, she folded the crane feather cloak into her rowboat and got back in. The bundle of white cloth was still there, but it neither moved nor made a sound.
Jade’s fingers trembled as she took hold of one corner and tugged, terrified and heartsick at what she might see within it. But when it came apart, there was nothing within the folds at all.
Only air.
Something was wrong in the way Wren and Koichi shouted and waved frantically at her from shore. Jade rowed faster, ignoring the soreness in her arms, and saw Wren boost Koichi onto his horse. The second she reached shore, Wren hauled her out without glancing at the relic.
“Kang is coming,” she said curtly. “The map showed us that and told us the next relic is in the desert, so south we go.”
There was no time for questions. The girls mounted the pony and raced after Koichi.
“They’re coming from the north, from town!” Koichi shouted.
The sky was still pitch-dark as they thundered through the tall grass, avoiding the road. Jade’s pulse roared in her ears and she clung on desperately. Her triumph in outwitting the ghost and claiming the first relic faded in the face of reality: Xifeng’s huntsman had found them.
The air grew warmer the farther they went from Red Lotus Lake. Jade didn’t dare glance back, both for fear of losing her balance and of what she might see. Up ahead, Koichi angled his stallion to the right, taking them inland away from the coast of the Dragon’s Shadow Sea.
And then they heard it like a great black storm: the thunder of the Empress’s men in pursuit. Jade leaned forward, sweat sliding down her face, praying they would find somewhere to hide before Kang caught up. The grasslands were not so flat here, and grassy dunes began to appear, growing higher and higher the farther they went from the coastline.
“Over here!” Koichi tore over to a large grassy hill, which had a shadowy recess covered with trees and shrubs. “This is the best option we have! We can’t outrun them.”
The horses huddled together in the dark, remaining as still as their riders as the Empress’s men came into view. There were about fifty of them on coal-black horses, masked and armored, and despite their human form, Jade could hear them hissing through the silk over their mouths.
The only unmasked man rode in front between soldiers wielding twisted metal lanterns. His bald head shone in the light as it swiveled, and Jade inhaled sharply at the sight of Kang’s cruel mouth and hooded eyes. Gone was the mild-mannered, flattering court eunuch—this was an unearthly warrior, encased in black armor with a ferocious saw-edged sword in his hand.
In the dark, Koichi reached for Jade’s hand, and her icy fingers gripped his. She tasted fear in her mouth like sour bile, imagining Kang’s blade biting into her chest and his roar of triumph as he wrenched her heart from its cage of bone.
The Imperial soldiers stopped thirty feet from the recess where Jade and her companions hid. One sneeze, one cough, one snort from the horses and they would be dead. Worse than dead. Images of Xifeng’s pool reappeared behind Jade’s eyelids: the silent, heartless women forever locked in time, their chests agape and their hair floating like rotten seaweed.
She could not let Wren and Koichi suffer such a fate. She would march out to Kang this instant and give herself up to save them. And then Wren and Koichi could find Shiro and sail together to Kamatsu, farther from the reaches of the Empress.
Xifeng wanted her. They were in danger only because of her.
But Jade had a duty to her people, and saving her friends meant forfeiting her mission and failing everyone else. She thought of Xifeng ladling dark poison down the Emperor’s throat and of Kang flinging the sword into Amah’s frail body. Only the gods knew what else the Empress had been up to in the three weeks Jade had been gone from court—and what else she would destroy in the years to come. Jade clenched her jaw with renewed zeal and anger.
When she opened her eyes, Koichi was watching her without a trace of fear on his handsome face. He squeezed her hand, his gaze full of sympathy and understanding as though he had known exactly what she had been thinking. Jade felt the sudden powerful longing to be close to him, to lean her head against his comforting warmth until the serpents went away.
“They may have continued along the coast,” Kang told his men, his tone deep and guttural, the opposite of the high-pitched voice he had used at court. “You, take your men along the shore. You, double back to town. Burn all the buildings if you have to and check the docks to see if any ships have left in haste. The rest of you, come with me. They can’t have gone far. Go!”
Hoofbeats roared as the soldiers tore off in different directions and vanished from view.
“Don’t move,” Wren whispered. “They may be lying in wait.”
They sat in agonizing stillness until, like a shroud being lifted from the air, the silence was transformed. It changed from a prowling, wakeful tenseness to the restful quiet of night. Crickets began to sing again in the fields, and the horses exhaled, one by one.
Wren let out a heavy breath and patted her pony, swinging down. “I think they’re gone.” She glanced at Jade and Koichi’s still-joined hands, then away with a little smile. “We may as well sleep here tonight and continue on tomorrow morning.”
“But they’ve found us,” Jade said. “They know we came this way. I’m so sorry.”
“None of that. Wren and I knew what we were getting into when we came with you.” Koichi gave her hand another squeeze before releasing it.
“Agreed. Let’s sleep, and tomorrow we’ll check the map. The feather cloak, too.” Wren paused in the midst of unrolling her bedding to beam at Jade. “I knew you could do it.”
And though she was warm and safe, tucked between her friends, sleep evaded Jade for the better part of the night. Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the snake-men hissing. It was a sound she felt sure she would hear for years to come . . . if she had that long to live.
Five Dragon Lords. Five relics to summon an army powerful enough to defend Feng Lu from Xifeng and the Serpent God, who were no doubt amassing their own forces at this very moment. The Empress had already discovered her path, and Jade had only one of five treasures. Could they retrieve even one more before Kang found them again? She didn’t want to contemplate the consequences of failure.
At the end of the journey lay her destiny . . . but whether that was victory or the saw-edged blade of Kang’s sword remained to be seen.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, a light dew settled over the grasslands, which showed no sign of the soldiers except patches of trampled grass where their horses had stopped the night before. Wren and Koichi examined the gold-tipped feathers of the crane cloak.
“It’s beautiful, but what does it do?” Wren asked, puzzled.
After a few long, fruitless moments, Koichi decided to drape the cloak over his shoulders and parade grandly about, saying outrageous things in a court lady’s accent. Wren and Jade laughed until their sides hurt, but Jade forced herself to recover quickly.
“I’m sure we’ll fi
nd out about the feathers sometime,” Jade said, spreading out the brocade map before her friends. “Right now, I want to see this new relic Wren mentioned.”
“The snakes are gone,” Koichi said, surprised. “We saw a whole sea of them in black thread—that was how we suspected Kang was coming. Maybe the map shows them only when they’re close enough to be a threat.”
“This is what we saw last night.” Wren pointed to the expanse of gold silk representing Surjalana, Kingdom of the Shifting Sands. An embroidered rose had appeared in the very center of the desert. “Do you know a tale about a rose?”
“I thought it might be the phoenix story, but what do you think?” Koichi asked Jade.
“I agree. It has to be the burning rose from that fable.” Jade folded up the cloak. “We can tell you on the way, Wren. It may take weeks to reach the relic, and we should go now.”
Within minutes, they were riding south. They filled their water pouches at a stream and replenished provisions at a trading post, knowing that soon every morsel would count.
“Is this phoenix story better than the crane wife?” Wren asked, when they were traveling at a steady pace. “If I’m going to be listening to children’s tales, I want ones full of action.”
Jade chuckled. “I can’t promise swordfights, but I think you’ll like this one. Koichi?”
He cleared his throat. “A long time ago, the animals of the forest lived in peace and prosperity. There was more than enough food, but still the phoenix ate sparingly and hoarded her supply, worried that their good fortune would end. Everyone laughed at her because her frugality showed a lack of trust in the gods’ generosity. Does this match Amah’s version so far?”
Jade nodded. “Point for point.”
“One day, a powerful storm came and devastated the forest. The animals’ homes vanished in a day and a night, leaving them with nothing. But then they remembered the phoenix’s hoard of food, which would be enough to sustain them all until they were able to forage and rebuild.”
“If I were her, I wouldn’t give them a morsel,” Wren said, affronted. “They mocked her!”
“But she had a generous nature and was perfectly willing to share,” Koichi told her. “Unfortunately, the storm had torn apart the forest, and the phoenix could not find where she had hidden the supply. Luckily, in her anxiety, she had prepared for every occasion, including this one. She had placed a trail of pebbles embedded deep in the soil to lead her back to the food.”
Jade watched his hands move as he told the story and thought how much Amah would have liked him. When you tell a tale, her nursemaid had once said, tell it respectfully.
“But while following the trail, the phoenix saw a great wave of rain-soaked earth moving toward her at a terrifying speed,” Koichi continued. “The mudslide seized her and she panicked, knowing that when it dried, she would be trapped forever. Struggling made it worse, so she remained still and stretched herself out flat. When she began to rise to the surface, she made small movements to very slowly extricate herself. At last, the phoenix escaped the mud and reclaimed her hoard. When the forest grew back, she became the most respected of all birds.”
Wren nodded approvingly. “I do like that story. But what’s this about a burning rose?”
“The forest spirits, who had been watching the phoenix’s struggles, were so impressed by her fortitude that they presented her with a rich gift,” Jade explained. “A beautiful red rose had bloomed after the rain. The spirits blessed it so that it would burn forevermore, providing her warmth and comfort, and it also purified water for drinking when dipped into a stream or pond. With this gift, the phoenix was honored beyond all other animals for her resourcefulness.”
“The Dragon Lord of Surjalana and the Serpent God are one and the same,” Koichi said thoughtfully. “I can see why he chose such a valuable relic, but is there another reason?”
“He brought a rose to the desert,” Jade pointed out. “Maybe he liked the idea of a plant blooming in adversity and thought of himself in the same way. He was known for his arrogance and dislike of being inferior, hence his resentment of the Dragon King. He also claimed the world would end in fire, so the rose must have appealed to him in that way.”
“And isn’t that the story’s lesson: waste not, want not?” Wren asked, not to be outdone by the others. “Fitting for the desert. You know, I’m beginning to see some value to these stories.”
Jade and Koichi laughed at her grudging confession.
“I think you’d like my favorite story, too. It’s about a legendary warrior named Tu Lam. He was only a man, though,” Koichi added cheekily.
Wren grinned and poked Jade, pointing at Koichi. “This one is growing on me more and more.”
Over the next few days, the grasslands became a swirling sea of yellow sand. There was a frightening loveliness to the desert and the rippling sand dunes contrasting with the hot blue sky. When the wind blew over the land, the entire tawny-brown ocean shifted like the haunches of a great beast, ready to swallow them whole. What plants they saw were rough and rimmed with needles and prickly edges, nothing like the lush fauna of the Great Forest. The dry air sucked the moisture from their noses and throats, and the sun left a stinging red trail on any exposed skin. It was Wren who had the idea of wetting their spare tunics and wrapping them around their heads.
The horses struggled on the soft terrain, so the girls got off frequently to give the pony a rest from their weight. Koichi continued to ride, since he could not walk long distances comfortably, but when they stopped to rest, he made sure to give his stallion the greater share of his water.
Jade took the opportunity to check the map. “We’re going in the right direction. But look here—it’s changed again! Now there are markings all around the rose.”
Wren leaned close to the brocade, her eyes widening. “They’re little horses.”
“Maybe the Serpent God is growing a garden somewhere that’s guarded by tiny four-legged beasts?” Koichi suggested.
Jade laughed. “I hope so, because where there’s life, there’s water.”
But as the week went on, they found precious little to laugh about. They hadn’t found so much as a trickle of water, and the air itself was treacherous, undulating in waves above the sand until Jade felt dizzy. The horses’ heads, too, hung lower than usual. Whenever they stopped for the evening, Jade and Wren removed their sacks to relieve the animals, even though it meant taking longer to get moving if Xifeng’s men reappeared.
The desert was even more beautiful at night, with the moonlight catching sparkles in the sand. But the temperature had the habit of cooling rapidly, and before long, the extra tunics moved from their heads to their bodies. Koichi even made a small fire with a box of sulfur matches he had bought from the trading post.
“We’ve got enough provisions for another week. We’re doing fairly well with desert travel, if truth be told. Even you must admit we’ve learned a lot,” he added cheerfully when Wren gave him a look. “We now know to dig holes for our bare feet because the sand is cooler deep down. And we know to shake out our bedding before sleeping.”
Wren groaned. “Will you never let me forget that incident?”
The previous night, she had woken Jade and Koichi with her screams because a black scorpion had been sitting next to her face. Since then, they had made sure to shake out all of their possessions, from blankets to boots, before using them.
“We also know to spread hot ashes around our sleeping area,” Koichi said.
Two evenings earlier, a hairy, speckled gray spider the size of Jade’s hand had found its way onto Koichi’s blanket. He had frightened both girls with his shouting as he flung the creature off into the night. After that, Jade had drawn a protective circle around them using a straggly, ash-covered plant branch that Koichi had burned. She had done it as a joke, but no unwanted visitors had come near their sleeping area again.
“This seems like it would be ideal Crimson Army training ground,” Jade said, and Wren grinned at her. Despite her complaints, Wren fared better than either of the others in the harsh environment. She often remarked that she would have run up the sand dunes for exercise if they’d had water to spare.
“So,” Wren said, lying down with her arms behind her head, “when we complete this quest, Jade will be Empress and I will be a deadly assassin. Koichi, you’ll be a pirate king?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. I might go into public service like my father.”
“So what I want to know is,” Wren said casually, “if you’re a high-ranking nobleman with money, would it be likely for you to be a royal consort one day?”
Koichi raised an eyebrow. “How did you jump to that?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all,” Wren said.
Jade caught the sly look Wren angled in her direction. Quickly, she busied herself with brushing off imaginary sand from her bedding, pretending she hadn’t seen, although she listened for Koichi’s response with all her might.
“I guess it would depend upon the person to whom I’d be consort,” he said, after a pause.
Jade peeked at him, but he turned away to poke the fire and changed the subject back to the Crimson Army. As the firelight danced on his profile, she thought again how used she had grown to his presence day and night. She knew his voice, his laugh, and the way his moods shifted in his eyes. But she had no idea whether he knew hers, or if he even cared.
Koichi always had a joke or a cheerful word to say when she was frightened or upset, and he seemed to know what she was thinking without her having to speak. But perhaps he cared for her only in a brotherly sort of way. He probably behaved in the same affectionate, teasing way he did with Wren, and Jade’s hopeful, reckless imagination had expanded it.