CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I t feels like I’ve only slept a few minutes when I’m shaken awake, my eyes cracking open to the brightness of day. As Dian crouches beside me, holding out a cup of water and a piece of bread, Jin leads the horses toward us.
“It’s several days’ ride to the Iron Mountains. We don’t have time to waste,” he says. “There is an urgency with the imminent coronation. Everything could change once Prince Zixin wears the crown. He will claim his father’s starfire and seek to unite the shards.”
“Do they know how?” I ask.
“They might have found a way,” Jin replies. “It’s why he’s intent on gathering the pieces.”
“I don’t want to go to the Iron Mountains.” Ruilin’s arms are folded across her chest. “Dian told me what happened last night. Could I wait elsewhere? What if Prince Zixin returns me to my father? If I don’t have the starfire, he’ll be furious—he’ll punish me.”
“We need you.” Jin’s calm tone is the one he used to persuade me to challenge General Xilu on the tower. “Your presence allows us to return to the palace secure in our victory, with His Highness’s favor. Stay for a few days, and I’ll get you to safety.”
“Will you be there?” Ruilin asks Dian.
“I can’t enter the palace; they’ll detect my magic. But I’ll be close. If there’s any sign of danger, I will come for you,” she assures her.
Ruilin hesitates, then nods. “I will go.”
I take a long drink of water, chewing the stale bread. “We must find the Sun Dragon too.” Guilt pierces me for leaving him there.
“We will,” Jin agrees.
“What about the starfire?” Dian taps her pouch, its strings retied to her waist.
“We can’t bring it to the Palace of Nine Hills,” Jin says.
“You must keep it, Dian; you can best protect it. We’ll tell His Highness that the starfire is with Duke Yuan, as he expects.
Even if he sends a messenger to the duke, it will be a while before he learns otherwise—hopefully enough time for us to find the ring and dragon, and escape. ”
It feels impossible. Part of me wishes I had the starfire; it’s not easy to relinquish the one thing that can save my life. But I understand now why it must be kept out of the prince’s hands.
“Dian, do you want to return to Mist Island first, to bring the starfire to the Elders?” Jin suggests.
“No.” Her refusal is swift. “I can’t enter the palace, but I’m not leaving without my sister and Ruilin.”
“Then it’s settled,” Jin says grimly. “We ride to the Palace of Nine Hills.”
The lush meadows and golden trees of the Amber Forest are left far behind after four days of hard riding.
Looming ahead are the jagged peaks of the Iron Mountains, and I sense the moment we cross the border—even without noticing how the grass grows more sparsely, the ground turning rockier, the coolness sharpening.
It’s the faint metallic tinge in the air that I discern more keenly after this time away.
The first breath of it pierces my lungs, dread slithering over me. There is no joy to being back.
As the sun sinks low, the mountains cast long shadows over the earth.
Wind rustles the leaves in a familiar rhythm, the sight of the trees stirring my memories.
An urge rises to visit my old house, but too many bitter recollections are braided with those cherished.
They need time to settle before I can pick them apart.
But there is another place that calls to me, one that isn’t my home.
“I need to stop somewhere,” I tell the others.
“Do we have time?” Jin’s gaze drops to my hand, a habit he’s formed since learning about my ring.
“It’s just a short detour from the palace.”
I lead the way, turning from the main path into the bamboo forest—the same one I passed through after my first encounter with Jin. As we ride by the grove of pear trees, the scent grows sickly sweet with the fruit rotting on the branches, many half-eaten by birds.
“Where are we going?” Dian calls out.
“To pay my respects to my aunt and uncle.” I glance at her. “You don’t have to come.”
A pause. “I want to. They looked after you when we couldn’t.”
We dismount from the horses and tie them outside the cemetery, a short walk from the pond. Tombstones dot the small hill, the grass almost as tall as the stone markers—those buried here in the wild can’t afford to pay a caretaker.
I shiver, cold inside and out; I haven’t felt warm since crossing the border.
Jin unfastens his cloak, draping it around me, clasping it at my throat.
As his fingers brush the hollow of my neck, our eyes lock.
I’m not used to being cared for this way.
Even in the Palace of Nine Hills, Prince Zixin’s considerations were usually performed by his attendants or guards.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“You thank me for such small things.”
Jin’s hands linger, his touch warming me more than the cloak. His throat convulses like he’s about to say something—but then Dian calls out, and the moment is broken.
Jin and Ruilin wait at the foot of the hill while Dian and I make our way up the grass-trodden path.
The calm here possesses an endless quality, maybe because of those slumbering eternally beneath the earth.
I know this place well; I used to come here through wind and rain, my eyes blurred with tears until I couldn’t see.
I kneel at my aunt’s and uncle’s graves, Dian standing behind me. My hands are empty; I have no incense nor food offerings, just a handful of crumpled wildflowers that I lay before their wooden name plaques.
When I rise, brushing the soil from my knees, Dian asks, “Why did you want to come here today?”
“I don’t know when I’ll return. My life has forked, and every path leads away.” Except for the one that leads to death.
She lays her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t feel bad for leaving. For those we love, we carry them in our hearts. We don’t lose what matters.”
I reach up to clasp her hand. “Thank you, Sister.” The silence between us fills with many things, those words can’t form. I look toward the pond in the distance. “There is one more place I’d like to visit—the resting place of Little Dragon, the carp who brought my flower from Mother.”
She frowns. “It’s dead? Buried here?”
“My step-aunt killed it.” Even now, rage engulfs me at the memory.
Dian grips my arm. “The spirit isn’t gone. Without our abilities, you couldn’t summon or hear it in this current form. But I can—just as Mother did.”
Hope flares as I turn in the direction of Little Dragon’s resting place. “Follow me.”
The clearing where Little Dragon’s bones are buried appears undisturbed.
Peace steals over me; I’d forgotten the coolness in the shade of the trees, the soothing brush of the reeds ringing the nearby pond.
The crude marker I’d carved for the carp still stands, though a layer of leaves now cloaks the spot, tender shoots of grass springing forth.
Dian kneels before the wooden marker, as do I. She scatters a handful of dried flowers over the mound of soil. As the edges of their petals glow like embers, a thin wisp of smoke trails into the air, smelling like mint and cloves.
Little Dragon’s voice rings out, hollow and disjointed: You have returned… and you’ve brought others.
“My sister summoned you. I found her, Little Dragon.”
Dian bows her head. “Thank you, Honored Spirit, for helping my sister. She now knows who she truly is.”
A shuddering sigh from the spirit, one of seeming relief.
Your mother forbade me to speak of this until her daughter claimed her heritage, or until I was summoned by one with her power.
Now I may tell you that she was a prisoner in the Palace of Nine Hills, locked in a dark chamber.
With her diminished powers, your mother summoned me—unable to call one stronger.
She tasked me to find her daughter, to give her the flower that was her birthright.
As payment, she surrendered the last of her magic.
I fight a burst of anger at the thought of her captivity. “Why didn’t Mother ask you to bring a message to her home? Why didn’t she try to escape?”
Your mother was dying. I couldn’t travel to her home, and her sole concern was for her children—one lost, one left behind. I sensed her sorrow. I would have done what she asked without any gift, but it was necessary to allow me to search for you.
“How did I escape from the Palace of Nine Hills?” I ask.
Your mother only said someone helped you. A friend.
I wish I knew who. All I had when my uncle found me was my ring and the handkerchief—nothing else, not even my memories. “Did she say what they did to her?” I’m afraid to know but consumed with the need to.
She didn’t speak much about herself, but I saw her wounds. They wanted the secrets she possessed, that she didn’t want to share… that sometimes, she was forced to.
Revulsion chokes me, the urge to scream, to smash something—preferably King Baoyu’s face if he weren’t already dead. Dian’s nails dig into my skin, her thoughts running the same murderous path. Though we’ve grown up in different worlds, we’re both cut from the same hard cloth, forged of strife.
The smoke from the flowers wanes, the scent fading. “We don’t have much time left,” Dian says in a low voice.
My task is ended. I am tired, the spirit says.
“Thank you, Little Dragon. I am grateful.” I bow my head, as does Dian. “If there is anything we can do—”
Before I finish speaking, the carp’s words rustle through the air. I have one favor I would ask of you.
“Anything.” This isn’t a promise I make lightly; what I owe Little Dragon can’t be measured or weighed.
Bring me to your home—to Mist Island. Bury my bones in the shade of its trees. Your mother spoke so lovingly of it, I hope to find my eternal peace there.
My throat thickens as I glance at Dian. “We would be honored.”
Thank you.
The glowing edges of the flowers darken, the fragrance vanishing. In silence, I dig up the carp’s bones, still wrapped in the cloth. Dian takes the bundle from me. “I will keep them safe with the starfire.”
I nod, unable to speak, a fire raging through me. I will return to the Palace of Nine Hills, and even though its iron jaws will close tighter around me this time, I will pry them apart to right the wrong done to my mother, to seize back what was stolen from us.
And I won’t let them take me.