Chapter 32 #2
She crumpled to the ground, filling the air with the keening wail of a woman who had lost her most precious child as her now painfully thin but once-more upright husband gently took her into his arms, giving Alex a look that was equal parts gratitude and sorrow.
“That monster will pay for what he did!” Nili shrieked. “I swear it upon my blood that—”
Her words cut off with a gasp that echoed through the courtyard when Alex summoned forth a pair of sliced-off forearms and a blackened head.
“Li of a Thousand Eyes, Dongfang Hong’s prized killer, is dead. He will never be able to persecute your kind ever again.”
Nili’s bitter chuckle broke Alex’s heart.
“You killed him. A Gold-tier wujen shooting out God’s Fire that no kitsune could escape.
Of course you did! WiFu’s chosen disciple of chaos and change and catastrophic destruction.
Honing yourself on the hatred of Golds. Ascending in righteous glory as all your friends and foes burn. ”
Alex knew there was nothing he could say to that, so he didn’t try. He merely bowed one final time to Sunlay and her family before turning on his heel and making his way toward the city exit.
“Alex, wait!”
He blinked, his thoughts moving far too sluggishly as a Sage’s Insight became not so much a Fool’s Folly as a man pushed to the brink of exhaustion. The furthest thing from a figure of any pantheon with far too much familiarity with the River of Souls…
He turned around to gaze at Sunlay, who peered at him with such heartfelt gratitude that he couldn’t even bear to meet her gaze.
“Alex, for all that my grief is sharp and bitter, for all that my heart aches for my dearest friends who lost so much, Wanshi will not paint you in the light of the monsters who were so eager to enslave us and destroy you. You’re a hero, Alex.
And you will be remembered as such within the walls of this city for at least so long as Lini’s golden gift holds. You have my oath on that.”
Alex bowed his head. “Thank you. Now I have to go.”
“Why?” Sunlay blinked, as if surprised by the audacity of her own question. “You saved our city. Why can’t you…”
Alex gave a sad shake of his head. “For all that I’m perpetually reborn as a clueless youth over who knows how many forgotten incarnations, one thing I now know from the bottom of my heart is that bad things happen, very bad things…
whenever I stand out. Far better that I fade away into legend and fable and Wanshi fades out of the eyes of jaded immortals altogether.
” He flashed a bitter smile. “In that way alone can I ensure your city any degree of safety at all.”
“Alex…”
“Your father’s made it clear that he plans on sealing off the entire city from outside influence, at least for a time, and I don’t blame him. Not one bit. But that means I need to leave now, if I’m going to exit by any but the most unorthodox route.”
Sunlay gazed at Alex for long moments before kowtowing before him. “The royal family thanks the Fox’s emissary for giving our fragile city desperately needed shelter from the divine storms forever raging overhead.”
Alex blinked, momentarily caught off guard, before bowing exactly forty-five degrees.
“You’re welcome. For what little I was able to do.
” His sad gaze took in the battle-damaged palace and devastated plaza, Nili’s desperate wails, and the royal family the healers didn’t dare move yet, all in one solemn sweeping glance.
“I’m only sorry that I couldn’t do more.
That a pair of assholes betrayed us. That we couldn’t arrive at the ritual site, just five minutes sooner. ”
He sighed sadly. “I’m sorry for a lot of things. But at least I was able to put that conquest-hungry Gold in his place.”
Sunlay solemnly bowed her head once more. “And he lives still. Only because you valued my life more than you did his death.”
“Of course. As much as I wanted to avenge Lini, I won’t do it at the expense of friends still among the living.”
She sighed and nodded at that, looking down at the cleaved hands and shriveled head. “It looks to me like you already got vengeance, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that that particular monster is dead.”
Alex swallowed the painful lump in his throat, gazing at Nili, her husband, and his other former companions who had all paid such a fearsome price in the bitter tale they now found themselves in.
And though Alex knew better than to blame himself, knew damn well that Dongfang Hong and his cronies were the real culprits, still, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as he prepared to slip free of the city.
He could only hope that the countless thousands of tales making up the lives of Wanshi’s citizens would have far sweeter endings than they otherwise might, if he weren’t wise enough to slip away, here and now, after revealing so many bitter truths and daring to hope that the bitter spite of gods might not touch this fragile caldera any more than such already had.
Sunlay took in the devastation all around them. “Do you even know why our enemies are so set on conquest?”
Alex paused in thought, knowing that as much as he was desperate to flee the sight of so much tragedy and pain, he’d be a fool not to learn absolutely everything he could about the motivations of his foes.
“I assume it’s because they’re power-hungry madmen. Psychopaths eager to break the world under their heels, and they need no more reason than that.”
Sunlay’s graceful features tightened with grief and pain.
“To my great shame, I… I dared to offer myself as a consort to either of those brothers, should they spare my family any further pain. And all I received in turn was mocking laughter. They made it clear that their previous offers had ended the instant the city ward had flickered off and all previous oath-bindings had disappeared, leaving them free to ravish our city as they saw fit. When I dared to plead with them, dared to make the case of the worth of a true desert queen, their contempt seared me so deeply that I broke down and wept.”
“Sunlay…”
“Please, let me explain. In a single offhanded comment said with absolute contempt, they made it clear that the world we had thought a doomed wasteland was anything but. That, in fact, it is our desert sanctuaries that represent just a tiny flickering flame compared to the roaring bonfire that is the Golden Realms as a whole.” She shook her head.
“They castigated me for even suggesting that I had any worth at all. Declaring that the meanest administrator oversaw Sacred Cities over fifty-fold the size of our caldera. Fifty! With numbers approaching or exceeding ten million citizens. A number I can scarcely even conceive! And that, Alex, is just one of their Sacred Cities. Tenfold makes a territory, ruled by a sovereign prince or princess, and a dozen territories make a kingdom. YanTu nation is comprised of over one hundred and twenty Sacred Cities. With a total population in excess of a billion souls!” Her eyes widened with an odd mixture of awe and dismay.
“That is what they’re fighting for, Alex.”
Alex blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand.”
She flashed a bitter smile. “Neither do I. But the brothers were clear. King Dongfang Hong—”
“He’s no king. He’s a bastard, literally, who murdered his own stepfather and stole the rightful crown from his step-niece before breaking her so badly that she’s been judged unfit to rule through no fault of her own.”
Sunlay sighed. “Just as vicious and ruthless as politics everywhere. A universal truth, no matter the size of the empire, I suppose. Regardless, the bastard prince Dongfang Hong is trying to consolidate his power base in the desert sands because he plans on competing in the Imperial Gauntlet.”
Alex blinked at this. “Wait… Imperial what?”
“The Imperial Gauntlet. Apparently, there’s an actual emperor who’s so incredibly busy and powerful that he has absolutely no time or interest in a desert wasteland, according to Xien Tang.
But supposedly, in memorandum of an empire forged in the fires of conflict, he’s offering all worthy Golds the right to fight for administratorship rights over all the Sacred Cities that make up YanTu nation.
The nation Dongfang Hong had once ruled…
before being exiled for reasons that neither brother would elaborate on.
And for the truly elite, there will even be an opportunity to fight for the right to rule entire territories, earning noble rank and title that even one’s offspring can inherit.
It’s a trial of combat that’s supposedly open to absolutely anyone… even this monstrous Red Prince.”
Alex whistled. “That is impressive. Though I find it strange that the very man who exiled and banished Dongfang Hong is giving him and all the other corrupt administrators a chance to fight for the very noble ranks they were all forced to surrender.”
Sunlay shrugged. “As to what actually goes on in the minds of the heavenbound, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that Xien Tang made it clear that Dongfang Hong seeks a prize far beyond any desert princess. All the desert princesses, in fact. A prize that will completely wipe away the shame he supposedly suffered at your hands.”
“If that prize is a brutal death, I’ll be fucking happy to give it to him.”
This earned a bleak smile, though she shook her head. “No, Alex. The ultimate prize is to be admitted into the Imperial Clan by marriage.”
Alex’s smile froze on his features.
His heart was pounding.
Blood was roaring in his ears so loudly that he was unable to register what had just been said.
“Excuse me?”
“Apparently, by some incredibly fortuitous stroke of fate and luck, Crown Prince Cheng Lei of the Blue discovered a lost heiress of the throne. A young woman raised as a dancer, of all things, who somehow managed to ascend all the way to Gold in just a handful of… Alex, what’s wrong?”