The Dragon Warrior

by Katie Zhao

  “Of course. No one is as handsome as you are, my sun and moon.” Chuangmu pecked the short, rotund man on his scruffy cheek. He glowed, his smile revealing mossy, bricklike yellow teeth.

  I guess this proved love really was blind.

  “You’re a goddess,” Alex said. “Why do you care what’s in ‘the market’?”

  Chuangmu’s eyes snapped to him. “Money is power. It allows me to run this empire and keep my name alive, you stupid boy. Some of us aren’t lucky enough to have altars in temples across the world. Some of us are barely remembered by the humans.” For just a moment, her expression turned sad. Then her lips curled into a sneer. In two long strides, she knelt before my brother and grasped his chin with her fingers. She appraised Alex like a jeweler would a ten-carat diamond. “Ooh, exotic eyes and hair, but a very distinct Chinese nose.”

  “What’s a Chinese nose supposed to look like?” Alex snapped.

  Chuangmu let go of his chin and patted his cheek. “You, boy, are certainly worth a pretty yuán. But you”—the goddess pointed at me—“are worth a fortune, with that powerful mix of Chinese, Greek, Turkish, and Egyptian blood in your veins.”

  I blinked. “Powerful?”

  Nobody had ever called us powerful. Not even Ye Ye.

  “What are you saying?” Moli demanded. “The rest of us warriors aren’t powerful?”

  The goddess of love regarded Moli like she was a particularly smelly plate of stinky tofu, and dismissed her by focusing her attention on me. “You are one of a kind, Heaven Breaker. The Greeks, Egyptians, and Turks have produced some of history’s greatest heroes. Hector. Odysseus. Nefertiti. Ramses II. Köroğlu. Their blood is your blood. Their power is your power. Engineered with your father’s warrior ancestry and mother’s mixed blood, you have unlimited potential.”

  Engineered. My stomach lurched at the word. It sounded as though I were a piece of machinery built to be used and tossed aside.

  Even though Chuangmu thought I was powerful, I didn’t feel it. Had the gods named me the Heaven Breaker just because I had mixed ancestry?

  I didn’t get it. I’d only ever seen myself as a girl who wanted, more than anything, to become a warrior who would make the Jade Society—and my family—proud. My ancestry shouldn’t have anything to do with that.

  “Then why wasn’t I chosen to be the Heaven Breaker?” asked Alex. “Faryn and I share the same blood.”

  Chuangmu raised an eyebrow. “You do not share the same blood.”

  Alex reeled backward as though she’d slapped him.

  “Of course we have the same blood,” I snapped. “He’s my dì di. My little brother.”

  The goddess of love laughed. “That’s very touching. But it doesn’t change the fact that you”—she pointed at Alex—“don’t possess the powerful blood that your so-called sister does.”

  Alex fell silent. My rapid heartbeat stole the breath from my lungs.

  To my surprise, it was Ren whose expression contorted into one of anger, a flush creeping into his cheeks.

  “Stop lying,” he snapped.

  The goddess’s smile faded. “How very rude of you. Your mother wouldn’t like it if she heard you speaking to me that way. She’s a member of my rewards program. A very loyal customer.”

  Ren gaped at Chuangmu, his eyes as wide as golf balls. “You know … my mother? How?”

  “Rumors spread even faster through Heaven than through Earth.”

  Ren leaned forward. “Can—can you tell me who she is?”

  “Nope! You’d get silly ideas in your head. Try to escape and find her. No, it’s best to keep you in the dark. I’m sorry about that. I truly am,” Chuangmu simpered, fooling no one.

  “Let us go!” Moli commanded. I was stunned to see a tear slip out of her eye. “We have to return to San Francisco to save our families.”

  Chuangmu sneered and rolled up her sleeves. “I’m afraid this is not a negotiation. You will stay right here. If I can’t sell you, I can always use more mortals to pray for me and build my power.”

  My body trembled at the thought of being trapped here forever, forced to do this goddess’s horrible bidding. No. I couldn’t let that happen. A plan took root in my head.

  “If it’s your home you’re concerned about, you need not worry,” Chuangmu continued. “San Francisco’s Chinatown will fall within the day, if it has not already. Guards, take them to the holding cells.”

  She snapped her fingers, and the guards closed in on us. I struggled against the rough hands that forced me to my feet.

  “Get your hands off me!” Moli snapped, kicking and twisting.

  Alex hissed, “You’ll regret this.”

  “No, I don’t think I will,” Chuangmu said, sitting back in her throne. “Qīn ài de, hand me my quill and prayer note. I have an important message to send to the Queen Mother of the West.” Her husband dutifully plopped a small piece of parchment, along with a quill and ink, into her hand. Her quill dashed madly across the parchment, and with a frown on her face she studied her altar of Xi Wangmu.

  The guards marched us down a dark, gloomy hall filled with rocky walls and barred cells, as well as the sound of inhumanly low rumbling and snarls. The servants scurrying toward us kept their eyes averted.

  As I peered into the cells and saw the flash of huge white fangs and glowing red eyes, I discovered the source of the noise.

  Dragons. White ones, green ones, tall ones, short ones. Our footsteps woke them from their slumber. Trapped in the cells, they tracked our movement down the hall with their glowing eyes.

  Their whispers crackled in and out of focus like a radio.

  Trapped … sold … betrayed …

  None of the guards reacted to the voices.

  “Do you guys hear that?” I asked. Moli and Alex gave me blank looks, but Ren nodded.

  “This is horrible,” Ren muttered. “Dragons shouldn’t be locked up like this.”

  With lackluster scales, the magnificent creatures lay brokenly in defeat. I had a feeling no one had prayed to or truly believed in them for a while, either.

  “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the business of dragon trading,” said a guard behind Ren. “Learn well, little dragon. You’ll soon join their ranks.”

  I desperately racked my brain for a way out. Things really weren’t looking so hot for us. We hadn’t solved the latter half of the riddle. We hadn’t freed the fallen beasts. We hadn’t even lasted a full night here before getting thrown into jail.

  Wait a minute.

  Fallen beasts.

  I paused at the shocking realization, but a guard behind me forced me forward. I stumbled but managed to stay upright.

  The dragons. These were the fallen beasts we had to save. And Chuangmu had had them locked up all this time.

  How I could I communicate this silent message to the others? Too bad we couldn’t telepathically communicate …

  Except, I could. With Fenghuang.

  Of course. I could speak to the dragons, like I’d spoken to Ren’s dragon. Get them to help us, somehow. But first I had to break through the ropes that bound my wrists and reach up for the pin in my hair.

  “Keep marching.” A guard prodded the small of my back with the blunt end of his spear again. I stumbled into Ren, whose face had gone white. He gazed at one of the smaller holding cells at the end of the hall.

  “Those—those are … kids.”

  I peered inside and saw two boys. Familiar—though battered, bruised—boys whose clothes were torn, who’d shrunk into bony, hollow versions of their former selves.

  “It’s you losers!” Luhao yelled in a hoarse voice.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Luhao’s rude outburst was met by utter silence and angry looks.

  “I mean, um … hello … dearest … friends,” he amended, which just made me shudder. Luhao being nice? I guess the world really was about to come to an end.

  Wang lunged forward. With his face pressed against the bars, he
blinked at us in disbelief, like we were illusions that might disappear any moment.

  How had these two ended up here when they were supposed to be thousands of miles away, back in San Francisco?

  Frowning, Ren turned to me. “Do you know them?”

  My mouth dried. I didn’t want to explain to Ren why Luhao hated us so much. What that said about me.

  One guard snickered as he halted in front of the boys’ cell. “Seems like you’re already acquainted with these prison rats. Great. You can spend your copious time catching up with each other.”

  He pulled out a pair of keys and rattled them in the lock. When the metal door creaked open, the guards shoved us into the cold, damp cell. I tripped over Luhao’s unnaturally long, spindly leg and fell to the ground, pain shooting up my back.

  “Ow,” he grumbled. “Stupid idiot.”

  There was an ugly purple bruise under Luhao’s right eye. The scratches on his face and arms had scabbed over, as though they’d been there awhile.

  “Don’t worry,” said a guard. “We’ll let you out every morning and evening to pray to our goddesses, Chuangmu and Wangmu niáng niang.”

  “You can’t lock us up in here,” Moli snarled at the guards. But they’d already turned their backs. “Do you hear me? I’m—I’m the descendent of Zhao Fu, and a junior national equestrian champion, and—”

  My brother coughed into his bound fists. “I don’t think that impresses these guys.”

  Moli slumped to the ground. The guards disappeared down the hall. Four remained behind, two at either end of the hall.

  The air in the prison was stuffy, stale—and now, tense. The two boys sat opposite Moli, Alex, Ren, and me. We glared at each other across an invisible line.

  I took in the mildew that clung to the bricks, the ants that crawled along the floor. Searching for an escape route, I bit my lip in frustration. How were we supposed to save ourselves and the fallen beasts, especially if I couldn’t reach Fenghuang, pinned in my hair?

  I had to try. I raised my bound hands to grab it. I winced through the burning pain of the rope against my skin.

  “H-hey, guys,” Wang said.

  He attempted what I think was supposed to be a friendly smile. It made him look like he had a stomachache.

  “Why didn’t you idiots go back to protect San Francisco like you were supposed to?” Moli demanded. “Everything’s on fire now. Are you happy?”

  Wang’s face turned ashy. “Wh-what? Fire?”

  “The demons are invading Chinatown right now. I m-might never s-see my father again.” Moli wiped angry tears from her eyes. “And it’s all your fault.”

  “Ch-Chinatown … is … is this true?” asked Wang. When we nodded grimly, he fell back against the wall. “No …”

  Luhao shook his head at Alex and me. “You two have got no one to blame but yourselves for this.”

  I paused and gave my poor hand a rest. “What? We’re hundreds of miles from San Francisco. How’s it our fault?”

  “My father was right. This world—the great nation and legacy of China—is weakening, and the proof is in your mixed blood.” Luhao spat out the words, glowering at Alex and me.

  My brother stood up. “Say that again.”

  Rage washed over me. This time, I didn’t try to hold Alex back.

  “Luhao, stop it,” Wang said. “You know that isn’t true.”

  Luhao’s sneer faded. “I’m just looking out for you, dude. Aren’t you angry? You were supposed to be the Heaven Breaker. They took all that from you.”

  “They couldn’t have taken something that wasn’t mine in the first place,” Wang said shortly.

  Luhao’s shoulders drooped in defeat.

  “Okay, I’m a little lost,” Ren whispered in my ear. “How do you know these guys, and what in Diyu is going on here?”

  “Uh …” I said intelligently. In my defense, I was too busy still struggling with my bound hands to reach Fenghuang to bother analyzing all my childhood trauma for Ren, too.

  Alex got up right in Wang’s face. “More importantly, how’d you two end up here? Thought you were gonna go home and become some big-shot actor, Wang.”

  “Um … we got … lost?” he offered.

  Luhao straightened his back. “No, we didn’t. We rode our flying horses to get here on purpose. We knew we had to beat you idiots to the island, and once we did, the gods would have to see we were the best warriors for the job. Did you really think we would let you two and that horse-obsessed idiot take all the glory?”

  “I am not horse obsessed,” said Moli “I just have a healthy admiration for them.”

  “What glory?” asked Wang. “Your brilliant plan has only gotten us locked up instead.”

  Luhao’s face reddened. “At least I had a plan to do something. All you wanted to do was stay behind in San Francisco cleaning up after demons’ messes while these guys got to go on a cool quest.”

  “And now that your plan to do something has gone so well, we get to clean up our own mess while San Francisco is up in flames!” Wang spat. Luhao squared his shoulders, but his body trembled. “In case you haven’t noticed, a goddess hoodwinked us. We’ve been squatting in this miserable cell for days.”

  A long, tense silence followed, broken only by the guards’ shouts of laughter. At first I thought they’d come to ridicule us, and I was about to drop my hands to act like I hadn’t been trying to escape for the past ten minutes. But they’d congregated at the opposite end of the hall from us and were playing Chinese poker, laughing and shouting with way too much enthusiasm. Nobody should be that happy while playing a game.

  “The guards aren’t paying attention,” I whispered. “This is our chance to escape.”

  “Except there’s no way out of this prison.” Wang thudded his head against the wall. “Even the dragons can’t break out.”

  Dragons. I felt like an idiot. Wang and Luhao had distracted me from talking to the dragons like I’d planned. I would break all of us free. With this thought and one huge breath to fuel me, I twisted my shaking fingers into an excruciatingly painful position—and plucked the pin out of my hair.

  After making sure all my fingers were intact, I said, “Ǎn ma ne bā mī hōng!”

  Luhao yelled at the sight of Fenghuang shifting out of what appeared to be thin air.

  “That’s—that isn’t—?” Wang spluttered.

  “Fenghuang,” Alex supplied. Pride flickered in his eyes. “That’s my big sis, the Heaven Breaker, and the real master of Fenghuang.”

  “Alex …” I couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across my lips.

  “I’ve solved the riddle—the dragons are the fallen beasts,” I informed everyone. “And I’m going to use the power of this spear to break out the dragons. As the Heaven Breaker, I command them, so they’ll help us fly out of here.”

  Surprisingly, no one protested. Everyone only stared at me—and the glowing weapon in my palms—in awe.

  “Geez, the gods messed up badly. Some Heaven Breaker you are,” Luhao muttered loudly. Alex kicked him. He grunted and swore.

  “Shut it,” Alex snarled. He nodded at me, his face steeled—with pride.

  My brother believed in me. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on communicating with the dragons. The Heaven Breaker is here. You have the power within you to break free of your chains, so do it, and help us escape!

  “F-Faryn,” Ren whispered. His eyes flashed blue, then black, then back to blue. His body shook. It took me a moment to process what was happening. The dragon inside Ren was responding to the pull of Fenghuang.

  Master. The voice of Ren’s dragon dropped into my head. Let us help you.

  “Whoa. What’s his deal?” Wang asked, blinking as he noticed Ren shaking.

  I recalled the dragon’s words to me in Phoenix: whenever Ren transformed, he lost some of his humanity in the process.

  “No,” I said sharply. “Not you. Go back.”

  Snarls echoed in the hall as the dragons awoke, s
ome of them banging their bodies against the cages.

  “S-something’s wrong,” Wang stammered.

  Alex and Moli looked at each other nervously.

  “Ren?” Moli whispered.

  Ren’s flashing eyes snapped to mine. Please, Heaven Breaker. Give me the word.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and then filled my voice with more force. “As your master, I forbid you to emerge.”

  I held my breath for one, two, three heartbeats—until Ren’s body stopped shuddering. He blinked, his eyes now back to their usual colors.

  But there was no time to waste on relief. The guards began shouting. The other dragons’ rumblings grew louder.

  And their voices, so many voices, clouded my head, drawing power from the presence of Fenghuang. It had worked. In the shuddering of my weapon, I felt their strength return to them, emboldening the dragons who’d been trapped and powerless for so long.

  It’s the Heaven Breaker.

  Must save master.

  My mind clouded with a haze of panic, I did the only thing I could think to do: pray. Please, dragons, help me break us out of this prison.

  The energy thrumming in Fenghuang grew so powerful that I almost dropped the shaking shaft. Instead, I aimed my spear at the white dragon in the neighboring cell. As a burst of golden light surged out of Fenghuang to zap the dragon, the creature grew in size. Metal screeched as its claws tore through the bars of our prison, showering us with dirt and dust.

  Everyone in the cell screamed.

  “D-d-d-d-d-drag—” Luhao stammered.

  “Hey!” shouted one of the guards. “Alert Chuangmu niáng niang. Don’t let the beasts and prisoners escape!”

  The white dragon fixed its red eyes on me.

  I swallowed back my terror and said, in the loudest, steadiest voice I could muster, “As your master, I command you to cut our ropes.”

  The dragon shot forward. I screamed. The dragon opened its jaws and snapped them down, tearing through my ropes in one clean movement. Everyone in the cell screamed as it tore their ropes, too. Then the dragon slammed against the bars and burst through them. As if encouraged by the white dragon, the other dragons began thrashing against their cages.