by JC Kang
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are either fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, alive or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended.
Copyright © 2017 by JC Kang
http://www.jckang.info
[email protected]
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work or portions thereof in any way whatsoever except as provided by law. For permission, questions, or contact information, see www.jckang.info.
Maps by Laura Kang
Cover Art by Bob Kehl:
Cover Layout by Laura Kang
Second Edition: April 2017
Table of Contents
Who’s Who in Mandate of Heaven
Prologue:
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter 10:
Chapter 11:
Chapter 12:
Chapter 13:
Chapter 14:
Chapter 15:
Chapter 16:
Chapter 17:
Chapter 18:
Chapter 19:
Chapter 20:
Chapter 21:
Chapter 22:
Chapter 23:
Chapter 24:
Chapter 25:
Chapter 26:
Chapter 27:
Chapter 28:
Chapter 29:
Chapter 30:
Chapter 31:
Chapter 32:
Chapter 33:
Chapter 34:
Chapter 35:
Chapter 36:
Chapter 37:
Chapter 38:
Chapter 39:
Chapter 40:
Chapter 41:
Chapter 42:
Chapter 43:
Chapter 44:
Chapter 45:
Chapter 46:
Chapter 47:
Epilogue:
Birthright:
Appendix
Celestial Bodies
Time
Provinces of Cathay
Human Ethnicities
Acknowledgments
To Critique Circle
For all the help in teaching me to write.
Map of Cathay
Who’s Who in Mandate of Heaven
Imperial Family
Wang Kai-Wu, the Tianzi
Wang Kaiya, princess
Wu Yanli, wife of Kai-Wu, from Zhenjing Province
Zhao Xiulan, wife of Kai-Guo, from Ximen Province
Kaiya’s Friends
Ma Jun, Kaiya’s imperial guard
Han Mei-Ling, Kaiya’s handmaiden
Lin Ziqiu, Kaiya’s cousin, from Linshan Province
Wang Kai-Hua, Kaiya’s cousin, married to the heir of Jiangzhou Province
Yan Jie, Moquan spy, Kaiya’s bodyguard
Kaiya’s Mentors
Lord Xu, Elf Lord of Haikou Island
Doctor Wu, Taoist from Haikou Island
Royalists Lords
Du, Yu-Ming lord
Chen Qing, Yu-Ming heir
Han, Lord of Fenggu Province
Liu Yong, Lord of Jiangzhou Province
Liu Deying, Heir of Jiangzhou Province
Wu, Lord of Zhenjing Province
Zhao, Lord of Ximen Province
Zheng Han, Lord of Dongmen Province
Zheng Ming, Kaiya’s main suitor, Heir to Dongmen
Zheng Lun, Third son of Zheng Han
Zheng Shu, Second son of Zheng Han
Zheng Tian, Fourth son of Zheng Han
Rebel Lords
Jiang, Lord of Yutou Province
Lin, Lord of Linshan Province
Peng Kai-Long, cousin of the Tianzi, Lord of Nanling Province
Ministers
Fen, Council Minister
Geng, Treasury Minister
Hong Jianbin, Minister of Household Relations
Song Henglin, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Tan, Chief Minister
Insurgents
Liang Yu, former Moquan
Song Xingyuan, Liang Yu’s apprentice
Black Lotus Clan
Master Yan, Master of the clan
Huang Zhen, Clan initiate
Feng Mi, Clan initiate
Teleri Empire
Geros Bovyan, Emperor of the Teleri
Altos Di Bovyan, Teleri General
Leina, half-Ayuri from Ankira
Feiying, Master of the Nightblades
Wild Elves
Kiri, half-elf
Kala, half-elf
Nayori, Shaman
Dior, archer
Layani, warrior
Foreigners
Aelward Corivar, Prince of Tarkoth
Brehane, Mystic
Cyrus Estazadeh, Akolyte
Fleet, Madaeri Guide
Sameer Vikram, Paladin apprentice
Thielas Starsong, elf prince
Yuha, Maki Shaman
Legendary Figures
Aralas, elf angel
Avarax, Last Dragon
Celastya, Guardian Dragon of Hua
Yanyan, founder of musical magic
Prologue:
Of Gems and Dragons
Celastya had never seen a dragon transform into human form against its will before. From Avarax’s shocked look as he swept his gaze over his now-tiny arms and legs, neither had he.
For millennia, he had forcibly mated with her and ate the resulting eggs to keep her energy low and enhance his own. Though she enjoyed a seven-hundred year reprieve as he dreamed through magically-induced slumber, Avarax had awoken on this night, when the heavens rained fire.
Thanks to her elf friend Xu transforming him into a human, she finally had an advantage. Her serpentine form now dwarfed Avarax.
The former dragon had little time to lament his frail new body. Xu thrust a thin sword at his chest.
The enchanted blade didn’t even nick Avarax’s soft skin. All three stared, wide-eyed.
Then Avarax looked up, bewildered expression transforming into a malevolent grin. He spoke a single word of power, sending the elf reeling to the sandy beach.
With Avarax’s attention on Xu, Celastya dove at him. He was so tiny now, she’d rip him limb from limb with her talons. He met her first swipe with a punch to the claw. The pain rippled through her foreleg and into her core. The Pearl housed there shuddered. Undaunted, she swung her other claw.
She found only air. Avarax was gone.
Celastya snaked her head around. Neither elf nor dragon was anywhere to be found on the island beach. Before she could piece together what might have happened, Xu materialized out of thin air and collapsed into the sand.
“What happened, Xu?”
“We were lucky to take him by surprise. I froze time and transported him to the other side of Tivaralan. Though forced into human form, he still has all the vitality of a dragon. It took all of my energy to move him.”
Celastya scratched her whiskers. She’d never imagined a mortal could be so powerful. “He will return.”
The elf staggered to his feet. “Yes, but he will have to walk. It will take him years, unless he finds a way to regain his own form.”
“And when he does?”
Xu sighed. “Let us hope I have time to teach someone with the right voice to sing him back to sleep.”
Celast
ya’s spine stiffened. The slave girl Yanyan, who had first accomplished the feat, died seven centuries ago. No one since had such a unique voice. It seemed hopeless. “Avarax will always find a way. He wants my Pearl, especially since he has not drained its energy for seven hundred years.”
The elf searched her expression, and then pointed into space. “Tomorrow night, Ayara’s Eye will be at its widest aspect this year. It will meet with the full white moon and full iridescent moon in the God’s Eye Conjunction. Istrium energies will wax to their strongest in three hundred years. With the power of this island and your Pearl combined, I can open up a rift in time and space. Pick a time and place, and I will send you there. You can escape and never have to worry about Avarax again. Consider it and we can speak again tomorrow.”
Celastya coiled herself around the rune-engraved arch that spanned the mouth of the atoll, allowing the vibrations of the island to resonate through her. She pondered the suggestion through the night.
How she longed to return to the last place where she had truly been happy. When she walked in human form. When she loved a human man; a man who died in a petty human struggle for mortal power.
The night brightened to dawn, and day darkened to night. Heavy clouds of ash from the previous night’s devastation choked the atmosphere, blotting out the heavens. Though unseen, the celestial bodies rose to their inevitable meeting, low in the southern sky. The energy of the world resonated louder and louder to all who could feel it.
Toward dusk, Xu approached the arch. A young human woman accompanied him, dressed in tight-fitting black pants and a long black shirt, whose material and fashion looked out of place in this era. Her black hair and honey-toned skin marked her as Cathayi. She held a fist-sized globe of istrium, shedding a pale blue light. She gawked as her gaze swept across Celastya’s serpentine form.
Xu bowed low. “Have you decided?”
Celastya drew a deep breath and coughed out her Pearl. The size of the elf’s head, it swirled in colors like the iridescent moon.
Xu studied it, eyes curious. “When and where do you wish to go?”
Celastya recalled the moment she had fled the battlefield on her lover’s orders, and held the image in her memories. She willed it into his mind.
With a nod, he chanted in the musical language of Deep Magic. Her Pearl’s colors whirled faster, and the ground vibrated. The istrium sphere glowed brighter in the woman’s hands as the island’s energy coursed through Celastya and into the elf. The space under the arch wavered and flashed, and a wormhole opened.
Through the portal, the graceful eaves and wooden columns appeared familiar, as did the armor of the fighting men. A middle-aged warlord, ambushed and outnumbered, held a curved sword aloft. Yet it was not her lover, the one who had died two thousand years ago. When she saw silent flashes of musket fire, she knew it was the wrong era.
The human woman at her side gasped, nearly dropping the sphere, and looked from the portal to the elf and back.
Celastya shook her head. “This is the right place, but almost four hundred years too late.”
The elf held the Pearl aloft. “I am sorry, this is the best I can do. Space is easy to traverse, but time is very hard to pinpoint.”
Celastya’s sigh sent waves across the atoll. It would be meaningless to go there; yet it would be a safe place to hide her Pearl against Avarax’s return. She could remain here and, to some degree, even draw on her gemstone’s energy across the vast distances.
The scene in the arch shifted, tracking the warlord as he retreated into a central building. Fires blazed around him. A wooden sign with Original Mastery Temple engraved in Cathayi script crashed to the ground. Celastya had lived through that era, as wife to one of the warlord’s most trusted vassals. The building would burn to the ground, killing the warlord. Her husband would usher in a new age in that nation’s history. “I will take the Pearl and hide it there.”
Xu raised a halting hand. “Without our combined energies to hold the rift open, the portal will collapse. You will be trapped in that time and place.”
The Cathayi woman raised her hand. She spoke in a strange language, foreign to this world, but not to the one beyond the arch. “I will take the Pearl there.”
As a dragon, Celastya could understand her words.
Xu apparently could as well. He shook his head at her. “Miss Wang, though you come from that world, it is a different time than you know. It is a dangerous task.”
Wang patted a weapon at her side. “I am up to the task. Both that era in history, and that man there, have always fascinated me.”
Xu and Celastya exchanged glances. If Xu trusted the woman, Celastya could see no reason to doubt her. In any case, the Pearl would be safe. Celastya nodded.
Xu’s ageless brow furrowed. “I will see if I can move the portal over to a safer place.”
The scene shifted, pushing through burning temple halls. Flaming beams cracked and fell. At last, they settled on an interior courtyard, where some roof tiles had collapsed. The rubble partially obscured a well.
“There.” Celastya pointed a talon toward the well.
The elf placed the Pearl into the woman’s hands. She waded into the water and crossed through the threshold with a pop.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Xu regarded Celastya through half-lidded eyes.
“No. But when are we ever sure of decisions like these?”
Both turned and watched as Wang picked her way through burning debris. Reaching the well, she peered down. Then she dropped the Pearl into its depths.
Wang looked back through the portal for several seconds. However, instead of coming back through, she dashed through the halls.
“Turn around! Come back!” Xu yelled, though Wang would not hear him.
“She will alter the timeline of that world,” Celaysta said, wondering about the consequences. Wang’s weapon could turn the tide of the ambush, if she chose to interfere, and change the history of a nation. Maybe the world’s.
Growling, Xu focused on the arch again. The image followed Wang as she ducked and weaved through fallen debris. At last, they saw the doomed warlord kneeling, broken katana in hand, preparing to disembowel himself. Behind him, a young warrior raised his sword, ready to behead the man.
Of course. Their culture glorified honorable deaths. Celastya remembered it well, how her lover had charged into his enemies. She could have saved him, but it would have meant revealing her true identity as a dragon. He would have reviled her, and cursed her for denying him a glorious death. Celastya turned back to the portal.
In the land beyond, Wang drew her weapon. A light flashed, and the younger man collapsed.
The warlord looked up. He pointed his blade at Wang.
She gestured toward the portal. The man’s gaze followed, and his mouth gaped.
The warlord picked up a musket that lay beside him as she helped him to his feet. They then spilled back through the temporal threshold, just as the room behind them burst into flames. The opening snapped shut with a hollow popping sound.
Celastya’s energy wavered as her connection to the Pearl stretched over time and space.
Xu jabbed an accusing finger at Wang. “What have you done? You cannot just change your history!”
Shrugging, Wang pointed at the man. “In our history, he died. His body was never recovered. They won’t miss him.”
The man spun around, wonderment written on his face. When he spoke, it was in yet another foreign tongue, one Celastya hadn’t spoken in two millennia. “What is this place?”
Wang switched to a halting version of his language. “Far away, both in time and space.”
Short of breath and limbs languid, Celastya’s body shuddered. The pull of her Pearl was tentative, unable to support her mass. With the force of her will, she compressed her size, shrinking down and taking a human’s frail form. She took a deep breath, and oxygen filled her newly-transformed lungs. Even at a distance, the power of her gemstone surged
through her smaller body, awakening her with a renewed vitality.
Yet, faced with the prospect of living an eternity among mortals, regret overwhelmed her. Had she made the right decision? Whether or not she had the Pearl, Avarax would seek her out, if only for revenge.
Xu appraised her naked body, a wry smile forming on his lips. “Interesting choice. At least you will be able to walk among the Cathayi without drawing too much attention. Once you put on clothes.” He turned to the real humans. “And what am I to do with you two?”
Wang stared into the elf’s eyes. “Last night, you told me that this world is devolving into chaos.” She gestured to the warlord. “Here is a military genius with the model for a superior weapon.” She nodded toward Celastya. “Here is a dragon. We can restore order.”
Xu rubbed his chin as he looked east toward the mainland. “We must protect this island at all costs. If not from Avarax, then from the Altivorc King. Very well, Wang Yuxiang. Tell me your ideas.”
Chapter 1:
Deceptions
The setting sun outside the castle window taunted Kaiya, its descent marking one more day of concealing her pregnancy. Though Doctor Wu’s unparalleled acupuncture skills detected the twin boys in her womb, she couldn’t discern their father. Was it the exiled spy she’d to love during her escape from the frigid Northwest? Or the foreign tyrant who murdered him?
Neither was an appropriate match for a nineteen-year-old princess. Not when her unborn sons stood next in line to inherit the Dragon Throne.
“My choice is clear.” Kaiya turned to her half-elf bodyguard, who was also her sworn sister and one-time rival in love.
Yan Jie sat on the wood floors of the guest suite’s anteroom, sharpening a wicked knife that didn’t match the softness of her plain, pink dress. She looked up, even as she continued to draw the knife across a whetstone in rhythmic swishes. Jie’s childlike features had never appeared so forlorn.
Kaiya should’ve also been wallowing in grief. She’d ransomed her body and dignity to spare hostages from a brutal death, yet couldn’t save Father, Eldest Brother, or her beloved Tian. The experience would have broken her, if not for the mental block of Jie’s Tiger Eye technique.