Chapter Forty-Nine
WE STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DRAGON courtyard and...
I didn’t know what to feel. Ashfall Cliff had turned into a ruin—eaten away by time and left to fall into rubble.
The stone Whispering Dragon was the only thing still intact—its scales softened and faded, a few of its whiskers broken from wind and storms.
The pavilions, carved corridors, koi ponds, and blossom gardens had all decayed into unrecognisable heaps. Dead leaves swirled in the breeze. Roofs collapsed inward. And tree roots broke through the marble tiles.
“You alright?” Rook asked gently, slipping her hand into mine just like she had the day we’d first returned home and I’d been so close to burning up.
She’d sheltered me from all the staff who’d welcomed me home like a prince.
She’d tried to help me as I reached the first burnout, and I’d run when she’d passed out under her own Requiem pain.
All of that seemed so, so long ago, yet somehow also felt like just yesterday.
Squeezing her fingers, I cleared my throat and nodded. “I’m fine. I mean...I had my suspicions after we walked our way through Iceland. But...seeing it like this is a bit of a shock.”
We’d travelled here the old-fashioned way—until we hadn’t.
Three things had happened, which only proved we were no longer human.
One, we never got hungry or thirsty or tired. Our energy levels stayed the same, cycling around our two hearts in a perfect never-ending loop.
Two, we dabbled with the powers we’d been given. Rook had the ability to see what used to exist and hear the histories of all that had come before us. Yet I had the ability to conjure the potential of things that existed in the future.
And three, we no longer had to abide by this world’s rules.
Which was handy because, after a few days of walking, I grew sick of being naked—not because we felt the elements or needed shoes—but because lingering propriety said walking toward a city meant we should probably be clothed.
All it’d taken was a thought, and my body was sheathed in my familiar wardrobe of black. Rook grinned as I dressed her in an ice-blue gown, so similar to the pretty embroidered hanfus she’d inherited from my mother.
For weeks, we travelled through Iceland and Europe, trying to figure out how to get back to China. Airports didn’t seem to exist anymore, cars had become obsolete, and we found that no one noticed us as we slipped into society that looked the same yet different.
We mingled in crowds with Whisper at our heels, and no one paid us any attention...almost as if we existed on a different plane to them, able to glide through their peripheral vision.
Occasionally, a child would make eye contact with us and wave, but it wasn’t until we actually focused on wanting to be seen that others noticed. The first time we’d done it, the people surrounding us froze and gawked, all eyes going to Whisper.
After that, we preferred to be unseen because it allowed us to listen and learn.
According to snippets of conversations, three hundred years had passed and...it showed.
Everywhere we travelled, things had changed.
From the black sands of Iceland’s ice fields to the fjords of Scandinavia, the air was noticeably warmer.
Deep blue waters lapped at floating villages built on massive living platforms. Vertical gardens grew all kinds of vegetables and solar-sailed skiffs drifted on the large lakes, fishermen hauling fish the size of pigs out of the depths.
Vast temperate rainforests had reclaimed megacities, breaking down the skyrises and replacing them with green canopies. People had adapted and built graceful bridges in the treetops, linking shops and homes and schools.
City centres still existed, but the buildings were single level and covered in solar panels, while walls of smart-glass and greenery protected them from natural disasters.
As we travelled out of the human clusters, nature reclaimed the world with aggressive beauty, swallowing abandoned towns and changing the landscape to become unrecognisable.
Everywhere we went, the world felt both familiar and alien.
We were strangers in the future.
Immortals in a world that had moved on.
But we were together, so that made everything perfect.
A month or two into our journey—still wondering how to jump continents and return to Asia—Rook cut in front of me on the animal track we followed through a woodland.
The sway of her hips and the glow of her skin ensured I couldn’t help myself.
Wrapping my arms around her, I carried her into the dreamscape—trapping her in our own secret world where we could be as desperate and loud as we wanted.
By the time we’d finished, we noticed Whisper had slipped in with us. Either because he shared our joint energy or he also had a gift of slipping between realms, and...we all decided to stay awhile.
As we lazed and dozed, my thoughts filled with Ashfall Cliff.
I had no idea how we’d get back if we couldn’t fly. No idea if we could travel by sea or if China even still existed. And when we’d roused, we’d stepped out of the dreamscape to continue our walk, only...Ashfall Cliff manifested around us.
The black and gold gates hung off their hinges, welcoming me home to ruin.
At first, I’d feared it was another illusion—like the one that had trapped me when Rook had died—but as we’d stepped inside, and Rook heard the souls of all those who’d passed here, we had to accept that once again, we were no longer normal.
We’d bypassed whatever law of gravity and geography existed, and used the dreamscape as our vehicle to appear wherever we wanted.
Wrapping my arm around Rook’s waist, I pulled her against my side. She leaned into me, her head resting on my shoulder as we stared at the past.
“Everything’s gone,” she whispered.
“Not everything.” I pressed a kiss to her temple.
She smiled softly. “You’re right. We’re still here...somehow.”
The breeze carried the faint scent of old incense and spruce, and for a second, I saw the ghosts of Auntie Mei and Uncle Wen.
Ashfall Cliff came to life as the lanterns glimmered, and the windchimes sang in the branches.
And then it all vanished again, and I had to know.
“Come.” Taking Rook’s hand, I pulled her through the wreckage, heading toward the back of the estate where the old family temple used to be.
The roof had rotted long ago and only two of the walls still stood. The memorial tablets inside were weathered and faded, but I took the time to clean each one, reading the inscription of all those who’d died.
My hands stilled as I found Uncle Wen and Auntie Mei’s tablets.
Rook came to my side, closing her eyes and focusing on their souls. “They lived until they were old. They were happy.”
“Do you know where they are now? Could we bring them back?”
She frowned before shaking her head. “Just like Dillon, I can hear them, but...I can’t touch them. They’re obscured behind some kind of wall.”
I nodded, hiding my disappointment.
Placing the memorial tablets next to my father and mother’s, I headed out of the ruin and stared at the Gaoligong Mountains.
The reds and purples of the setting sun painted the ranges in fire, highlighting the scars I’d caused when I’d lost control the night I’d stupidly left Rook behind and went to the Eastern Crucible.
Even after all this time, the lava and volcanic ash ensured the forest couldn’t grow, leaving a wasteland instead of woods.
The guilt I’d felt ever since I’d lost control grew worse.
We’d been gone so long. We’d destroyed so much and killed so many creatures and...I needed to rectify those sins before I could move on.
“You want to do what we did by the river?” Rook asked softly, picking up on my thoughts.
Turning to her, I shrugged. “Is that even possible?”
She frowned a little as she looked past me to the destroyed mountain range. “It wasn’t just you who killed countless animals that night. The ice I cast went far further than your fire. I’m as much to blame.”
“So we should do something about it, right?” I held out my hand. “At least try?”
Whisper nudged my knuckles with his nose as if he wanted to be part of our attempt at healing what we’d broken. I scratched his ear. “We won’t be long, Whisp. We’ll go and see what we can do. Wait for us here, alright?”
The panther huffed and dropped to his haunches just as Rook placed her hand in mine.
Together, we stepped into the dreamscape.
The meadow of wildflowers and twinkling sun swallowed us whole before we focused on the mountain range where all of this had started to fall apart.
Together, we stepped from the dreamscape onto the barren wasteland of lava.
Ashfall Cliff perched far in the distance on the cliff edge, barely visible in the dusk. This part of the world looked largely the same, even after three hundred years. Water levels hadn’t crept this high and the twinkling lights dotted in the hills and valleys hinted people still lived here.
Which only made me more determined to fix what we’d destroyed.
“Together?” I held up my hands, summoning the fire. Golden light ignited in my palms, eager and powerful, full of life and energy.
Rook nodded and copied me, her hands filling with silver.
What Frank had said echoed in the back of my mind. She was ice and yin—in touch with death and stillness, the quiet protector of all the echoes that once were, able to manipulate time and carry every history of those who went before us.
But me...I was heat and yang—fire and chaos, able to create life and possibilities.
Together, we were the perfect balance.
And for the first time since we’d awoken, I truly understood what we had become.
We weren’t just manmade immortals—created by a gene that stripped us of everything—we were the living embodiment of harmony itself and perhaps that was how we survived. How we’d become the beginning and end, even while we’d only wished to be human.
As my thoughts raced with what we could achieve and the weight of responsibilities we now bore, we stepped forward as one and followed instinct.