Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

by Julie C. Dao

  Ming chuckled again. “Bravery isn’t just about being strong and handy with a sword. Sometimes it’s about resolve . . . or deciding whether to face a past you’d rather forget.”

  She thought she could see memories like ghosts in his eyes, but he did not elaborate.

  “You’re like me. We both of us grow tougher with time.” He reached out and placed a large, warm hand on the top of her head. “Go in and get some food in you, young one.”

  Obediently, Jade went inside, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

  * * *

  • • •

  That afternoon, when Ming and Fu had gone off to hunt, Jade told Wren and Koichi what the poisoned comb had shown her. Wren listened, horrified by the knowledge that Xifeng had eaten Amah’s heart. She rose with her fists clenched and a face like thunder, and neither Jade nor Koichi doubted that she would have torn Xifeng limb from limb if the Empress had been there.

  She paced, muttering obscene curses. Without warning, she whirled on Jade. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to use the comb? Empress Lihua said it might be dangerous.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken so much risk upon yourself alone,” Koichi said worriedly. “You said your stepmother seemed to know you were there. She might have wanted you to use the comb and hoped you’d see her killing the dragon.”

  Jade ran a weary hand over her face. “I know it was stupid and I’m sorry. But now we know the Dragon King’s relic—the ruby-red apple—is waiting in the Great Forest. It’s the story of the exiled prince and the apple tree. His father, the king, was threatened by him and sent him off to die on a deserted island. But he found the apples that grew there, taught himself to cultivate them, and survived. It’s about resourcefulness and courage in the face of hopelessness.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken the risk,” Koichi said again.

  “If not me, then who?” Jade countered. “It’s my task and my fault you’re both here.”

  Wren shook her head angrily. “We’re in this together. We chose to go with you.”

  “I know that. But I can’t allow you to go on and endanger yourselves for me.”

  They stared at her in stunned silence. Jade went to the tent flap and stared out at the desert, unable to bear their disappointment and anger.

  “I have the crane feather cloak, and three other treasures to find. The Dragon King’s tree is where I must unite them and summon the Dragon Guard before Xifeng kills me.” Jade turned back to them and winced as the abrupt movement intensified her headache. “There is no choice. I have to succeed. I have to end this. It is my quest and burden. The two of you should ride west to Dagovad from here and then to the coast in a matter of weeks. Sail away and be safe.”

  All through her speech, Wren’s face had grown redder and redder. But Jade realized, with a shock, that it wasn’t just anger: the young woman was as close to tears as Jade had ever seen her, and in someone so strong and unflappable, it was almost frightening.

  “You bite your tongue,” Wren seethed. “I don’t care that you’re a princess, I don’t care that I’m your handmaiden—I will speak to you the way you deserve. How can you talk to us like you’re already a queen dismissing her servants? Don’t we have feelings? Aren’t we allowed a say in this, too?” Her fury faded as tears began to fall, one after the other. “You’ve treated me like your own sister. You’ve been kind to me. You’ve respected me and given me time with my grandmother. And now, after all that, you’re asking me to leave you for dead?”

  Jade put her shaking arms around Wren, as she had done with Amah so many times. She looked at Koichi over the other girl’s trembling head. “I can’t imagine my life without either of you anymore,” she whispered. “Do you think any of this is easy for me to say? I can’t imagine a day where I don’t hear you making sarcastic comments at my expense, Wren . . .”

  The girl’s laugh sounded like a sob.

  “. . . or see your smile, Koichi, and feel like I’m standing at the hearth of my own home,” Jade went on, throwing all caution to the wind. Koichi shook his head, his features twisted with emotion, but she barreled on before either of them could speak. “I learned with Amah and the monks that family can be found, and I remembered it again with both of you.”

  “Then why are you saying goodbye?” Koichi demanded, his eyes shining with tears.

  “Because I need to know you’re safe. It’s the only way I could live without you. Xifeng killed my mother all over again,” Jade said, her voice growing louder to drown out his protests. “She ate Amah’s and Pei’s hearts out of spite. Pei, who was loyal to my father and helped me once. What will she do to you when she finds us?”

  “So you’re going to take away my one chance of avenging my grandmother?” Wren pulled away, her voice low and fierce. “You let us find out for ourselves what Xifeng will do. You owe us the chance to take the consequences of our own actions. We’re not children, Jade.”

  “She ate their hearts!” Jade shouted. “Why won’t you understand? If she finds us, she’ll ensure I die last. And seeing her torture the two of you will kill me before the huntsman’s knife ever stabs into me.” She sank to her knees, sobbing, and Koichi knelt before her, putting a gentle hand on either side of her face.

  “How do you think we would feel if we went away, knowing we’d left you to face the same fate alone?” he asked quietly. “How do you think I would feel if I lost you?”

  And in his eyes, tender and dark with pain, Jade saw the truth at last: he did care for her in the way she did for him. She thought she could fill her lungs just with the way he looked at her. She might even grow wings and fly like a sky-maiden if she tried. “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you really pretend to marry Wren instead of me?” she asked, running her eyes over his dimples and the furrow between his brows, at the face she knew almost as well as her own. “It wasn’t just to keep me safe, was it?”

  Koichi stared at her, then began to laugh—a great, jolly, hearty sound that filled the tent. He laughed until his eyes filled with tears of mirth, and Wren joined him.

  “What a time for that question,” he said. “I did pretend to marry her because it was safer for you to disguise yourself as a servant. But also because it was easier with someone I hadn’t the slightest intention of loving. No offense, Wren.”

  Wren waved a hand, blowing her nose loudly into a rag. “None taken.”

  “And,” Koichi added, pressing his forehead against Jade’s, “in spite of my father’s teachings, and the fact that it was only pretend, I couldn’t imagine being someone worthy of you. Who ever heard of a princess choosing a little man for her consort?”

  “If you ever speak disparagingly of yourself again in my presence,” Jade whispered, “I will point your shoes away from Kamatsu every night from then on.”

  And then—despite Wren being there, despite Ming’s imminent return, despite the fact that they were faced with near-certain danger and death—Jade kissed Koichi.

  His lips were warm and soft and slightly chapped, and beneath the sound of Wren’s joyous laugh, Jade heard the drumming of her own heart.

  She hoped to hear that sound for as long as she could keep it going.

  Wren and Koichi rode by her side when Jade left at dawn on the back of Ming’s black-and-white mare. They had been merry at supper the evening before, with Fu turning on his full charm to make amends with Jade, and man and ghost had stood watching as the three headed west at sunrise. Jade wished Ming the peaceful life he deserved. He had said nothing when they thanked him, and she had taken his silence to mean he never expected to see them again.

  “I think he likes Fu, no matter what he says about it,” Wren declared.

  “Does he have a choice?” Koichi asked. He rode next to Jade the whole day, and every now and then, he reached for her hand as though to reassure himself that s
he was still there.

  She relished the warmth of his fingers and the bright enthusiasm in Wren’s voice, and thought, I am blessed. The gods had seen fit to give her friends who would rather march into danger with her than go into hiding without her. She could not fail easily, not with Wren and Koichi by her side and a resolve that strengthened with each passing day.

  And when the maze appeared on the horizon that afternoon, Jade was even more grateful not to be alone. They gazed up in awestruck fascination as they approached. It was a great structure of pale stone, made up of thousands upon thousands of linked horse statues. The wind had been carved into their granite manes, which flowed as they lifted their proud heads to the burning sky. Each statue stood at least ten feet high and three feet wide. They had been built nose to tail, forming a solid wall, and any gaps in between were filled with prickly green brambles, as though the desert plants too conspired against whoever dared enter.

  Once inside, there would truly be no escape.

  “Gods above us,” Koichi said hoarsely, taking it all in.

  “It must go on for miles.” Jade tipped her head back, and the movement brought on the pounding headache once more. It had insisted on lingering since she had used the comb, fading and intensifying by turns. She winced, pressing her fingers into her temples. “Fu called this place a death trap. We’d better keep our wits about us.”

  Koichi pointed at a distant section of the maze that rose higher than the rest. “The place was built right on top of the rolling dunes. There will be hills within, and unsteady ground.”

  Wren rubbed her hands together. “What are we waiting for? There’s the entrance.”

  A large, open space yawned before them where a stone horse should have been. No sooner had they reached it than a low, malevolent hissing reached their ears.

  A snake coiled on the far side of the wall of horses. In the shadows, Jade could not determine its color as it slithered sideways, tongue darting from its mouth. After a moment, it glided across the sand and disappeared from view. Jade’s horse bucked skittishly at the sight of the serpent, and Jade ran a hand down her flank, soothing her.

  Koichi patted his own nervous horse. “Just a desert snake.”

  “Or a spy for Xifeng,” Wren said darkly, exchanging glances with Jade.

  Inside the maze, death greeted them at once: a man in rags sat propped up against a stone horse, as though he had been waiting patiently for them. What little flesh remained on his skeleton hung off the brittle, yellowed bones in dry, leathery strips. As they stared, a tiny scorpion crawled out of his gaping eye socket and retreated into his lipless mouth.

  “He must be one of those adventurers Fu mentioned,” Jade murmured as Wren slid off her pony and approached him. “He came all this way only to die at the entrance.”

  A worn leather bag lay beside the dead man. Wren nudged it with her foot, but nothing crawled out, so she peeked inside. “It’s empty,” she said, disappointed. “Maybe it always was. Or someone cleaned it out before we could.” Her eyes darted around them.

  They stood on a road of sand, wide enough to place three stone horses head to tail across it. It was lined on either side by a wall of statues and lay open to the unforgiving sky, twisting and turning in different directions. The place had a solemn grandeur suitable for the tomb of a forgotten king—morbidly appropriate, Jade thought, to mark death with a maze of death.

  “That entrance may be the only way out,” she said. “We’ll need to leave a trail behind us, as the phoenix did with her hoard of food in the story.”

  Wren frowned. “We have some dried strips of meat . . .”

  “A food trail would get eaten, and we’ll need all of our provisions,” Koichi pointed out.

  “And crane feathers won’t work. The cloak is a valuable relic and I don’t want to damage it, and feathers would blow away anyway.” Jade studied the statues around them. “What about marking the granite in some way?”

  Wren whipped out a sharp blade, but the dagger did not even make a dent in the stone.

  Jade dismounted and knelt, considering the brambles growing in prickly profusion between the statues. With a small dagger, she gingerly cut at the plants, wincing when the needles pricked her, but managed to extricate a tendril about the length of her hand and place it on the ground. The green of the plant stood out brilliantly against the deep gold of the sand.

  “Now, there’s an inspired thought,” Wren said with approval. “No animals will eat that. We should press it down so the wind doesn’t disturb it.” She stepped on the tendril and applied weight gently until it had sunk about an inch or two beneath the surface of the sand.

  Koichi came to help them gather enough green tendrils to fill the dead adventurer’s empty bag. Every now and then, they hissed as the plant’s sharp edges bloodied their hands.

  “It’s too bad they grow back so quickly,” Wren said, watching with amazement as one of the branches regenerated itself. “We could have opened a shortcut or an escape route that way.”

  “But look!” Koichi had sliced into a particularly thick plant and a spurt of clear water had emerged. Cautiously, he tasted a few drops. “I think it’s safe to drink!”

  “Well done,” Jade said, hugging him. “It might be a long time before we get out of here, and a constant supply of water will be a blessing.”

  They filled their pouches and ensured that the horses’ thirst was quenched before walking down the main path of the maze. Every ten steps or so, they pressed a bramble into the sand, leaving a clear and definite trail of green that led them back out of the maze.

  A heavy silence hung over the maze like a shroud. It seemed watchful, and Jade did not trust it. Fu had said this place was thought to be a tomb, but she couldn’t imagine herself wanting to be buried in the cruel and solitary sands, guarded by statues—she much preferred the forest’s verdant shade or the grasslands, where one’s memory could keep growing like the springtime.

  “The phoenix faced a mudslide in the story,” Wren said to Jade as they moved on cautiously. “Do you think there might be something similar here to test you?”

  Jade nodded. “Koichi’s and Amah’s versions of the story matched almost perfectly—the trail of pebbles, the storm, the mudslide. But Amah’s tale had the phoenix facing another challenge on her way to reclaim her hoard. The storm in the forest had opened many different paths that tried to trick her into getting lost.”

  “This story could not have been more appropriate,” Koichi said as the path branched into four different directions. He and Wren both turned to Jade. “Which should we take?”

  All of the paths looked identical, and Jade saw that one guess would be as good as another. “Let’s go west, toward Kamatsu,” she suggested, and Koichi’s eyes shone at her.

  Jade and Wren chose to walk and lead their horses while Koichi rode. The heat felt even more oppressive within the maze, and the statues provided weak shade, if any. They came to another intersection that split into four additional branches, but Jade decided to keep heading west. The sky darkened, bringing the cool relief of night. But the wind had begun to pick up, making a strange howling sound as it moved through the gaps between stone horses. It blew grains of sand into their eyes and noses as it increased to an eerie, mournful pitch.

  Koichi tossed the girls extra tunics and wrapped one around his own head. “We should stop soon for the night,” he said loudly so they could hear him over the wind.

  “I think we’ll have to!” Wren called back, for when the path twisted and they turned the corner, they saw a dead end. The path was blocked by three stone horses, placed perpendicularly to the walls on either side so that travelers could not pass.

  Jade slumped against her mare, discouraged that they had walked all afternoon on the wrong path. “Let’s stop!” she cried, pulling the tunic tighter around her face. Bits of sand scratched her skin as she tugged her belong
ings down from the mare’s back and tossed them to the ground. “We can curl up in the corners of this dead end and cover the horses, too.”

  But within seconds, the wind grew even stronger and more relentless. A sudden piercing flash of light lit the black sky. The lightning was followed by an enormous clap of thunder that made the animals whinny in fear. Jade covered her ears with her hands, coughing, as great columns of sand began to spin around her, slipping into the folds of her clothing.

  “Quiet now! Calm down!” Koichi cried to his stallion, who was bucking and tossing his head despite all his rider’s efforts to comfort him.

  The wind had whipped up a wall of sand so thick that Jade could barely see her friends through it. “We have to cover the horses’ heads, too!” she shouted to Wren, but she could not tell whether the other girl heard her, for something strange happened in the next moment.

  A face appeared in the wall of sand, the eyes two gaping holes formed by the tunneling wind. It seemed to Jade—blinking painfully as gritty crystals of sand blew into her eyes—that the face was looking right at her. A vicious gust blew her backward, pressing her with violent force against the dead end. The black-and-white mare whinnied with fright and took off in the opposite direction, galloping back down the path they had traveled.

  “Jade, come back!” Koichi roared, and through the raging vortex of sand, Jade saw him riding after the mare. Somehow, in the darkness and confusion, he had thought she was on it.

  “No! I’m still here!” she shouted. “Wren, don’t go!” Dimly, she saw the other girl fling herself onto the gray pony and race after Koichi.

  But no matter how loudly Jade screamed, they did not turn around. When they catch the mare and realize the truth, they’ll come back for me, Jade told herself. She squinted at the sand wall, but the face had disappeared—surely it had been a figment of her panicked imagination.