Chapter 7 Àn’yīng #2
I meet Tán’mù’s gaze, her pupils turned to slits like those of a snake. Understanding flickers in the space between us, and with every fiber of hope and conviction in my body, I entrust the most important parts of my life to her. “Take care of my family.”
She nods once, and that’s all I need.
I turn away, my heart hardening against Méi’zi’s sobs as Tán’mù gathers her in her arms, those great wings shielding Méi’zi from harm as she turns and starts for the village gates.
Lì’líng darts up to me. She stops before me and holds out something cupped in her palms.
“My tail,” she says. “When separated from my body, no matter how far away, it emits a jingling sound that only I can hear.” She places it around my wrist, where the thing—white and fluffy like a hare—wriggles once and nestles around my forearm like a bracelet.
“I can’t take your tail,” I begin, but Lì’líng giggles.
“You look so disturbed,” she says, but her smile slips as one of the hellbeasts lets out an earsplitting scream again.
My friend holds my hand between hers and lifts her large, amber eyes to me, unblinking.
“Take it. This way, no matter where you are, Tán’mù and I can find our way back to you.
” She slips her arms around me in a quick hug.
“Besides, one tail means nothing to me. Haven’t you heard the myths?
” She wriggles her hips as she turns. “I have nine.”
With a leap, the young woman is gone and the version of my friend looking back at me is the little white fox. She lifts her tail—a second one, I suppose—in a cheeky parting gesture, and then she’s off, darting between the trees faster than I can track.
On my wrist, her tail taps me in what seems like a reassuring gesture…and then vanishes.
Another roar rips through the air. Overhead, She of the Moon-Frosted Sea dances before Qióng’qí, engaging the beast in battle, her silver, serpentine form cutting against its mass of darkness.
Suddenly, the dragon lets out an anguished cry—one so foreign and yet so human in its heartbreak. As she lifts her head in the direction of the battle waging behind me, a terrifying pain sears across my chest. My hand darts to the jade pendant at my collarbone.
Hào’yáng.
Fleet and Striker are in my hands, their power becoming an extension of me as I pivot, adrenaline and spirit energy thrumming through my blood, my hands and feet in a harmonious weave.
Táo’wù towers over a patch of rubble. Amidst wood splinters and stones and tile is a figure in gold.
Hào’yáng is kneeling, which strikes me as horribly wrong, yet as I close the distance, I make out his hand clutched to his side—and how his gold armor and white shift are stained red.
Táo’wù lets out a roar of triumph. It rears on its hind legs, swordlike claws heavy enough to crush entire houses, and leaps for Hào’yáng.
Something cool and hard presses against my collarbone. I stumble, momentarily thrown off-balance. Then I reach into the folds of my wedding gown and draw out a sword.
It’s more slight than other longswords, made of a metal I cannot place: one that glows a soft blush, the color of sunrises.
Its hilt, a deep-green woven through with veins like a leaf, warms beneath my fingers as I lift it.
Somehow, in my hands, it is as light as a feather…
and it rests in my palms as though it has always belonged there.
I have seen this blade, on many occasions. I know with a bone-deep recognition, what it is:
It’s Lady Shī’yǎ’s lotus, transformed into its sword form.
My skin begins to dance with light, pouring into the weapon, as I leap into the air and lift it over my head.
Then I plunge it through Táo’wù’s tusked, open maw.
The hellbeast’s scream fractures the ground as it reels back, crashing into a nearby house. Overhead, the seam splitting the skies trembles, the scythe moon and night stars within rippling like the surface of a lake.
I land by Hào’yáng’s side. He kneels, sword driven into the ground before him, other hand clutching his side to stem the flow of blood.
“àn’yīng?” he rasps as I kneel before him, patting him down to check for more injuries.
“I’m here,” I tell him. “I’m here, Hào’yáng.”
He blinks rapidly, and I’m close enough to see my reflection in his eyes—the lotus’s light dancing over my skin and radiating from me. “You’re…beautiful.”
A sob bubbles in my chest, which I turn into a laugh. “You tell me this now? When my wedding gown is ruined and our banquet destroyed?”
He slumps against me. His breathing is shallow, fast, and I am suddenly more terrified than words can describe as I hold him.
I press my fingers to my lips and whistle.
From somewhere nearby comes a responding whinny—followed by a roar.
Hào’yáng’s grip tightens against my back. “Go,” he breathes. “They’re after me. Go, àn’yīng.”
Beyond us, Táo’wù is stirring from the wreckage of a house. Behind us, the ground shakes as Qióng’qí closes in. Yet the world seems to slow and fall away as I hold my boy in the jade.
There are a handful of moments in life when the meaning of destiny becomes clear. As Hào’yáng’s blood warms me and his life energy ebbs away, my mother’s words to him come back to me:
Your life will be a vessel through which the good of the Kingdom of Rivers is governed. Your heart and your soul will be buried under this vast decree beneath the Heavens, child.
There will be no space for love or a life for you.
And yet, Hào’yáng is here with me, so alive and so human.
To most, he is the heir and the captain, cold and distant and powerful—yet to me, he is so much more.
He is my guardian in the jade, with the warmth in his eyes reserved only for me, the rare smiles I’ve come to love coaxing from him, lighting my skies like a glimpse of the sun.
He is my political ally: When his brows crease, his gaze goes unfocused and a calculating look appears in his eyes, a look I’ve come to recognize when his brilliant mind is at work.
And then there are the parts of him that have threaded into my heart like the currents of a sunlit river. The Hào’yáng whose touch stirs those tides, whose gaze sets my world on fire like the sun burning flames into the sea.
The one whose kiss slammed the waves of an entire ocean into my chest.
If he must hold the weight of realms on his shoulders now and for the rest of his life, I will not let him do so alone.
As She of the Moon-Frosted Sea stops before us, I clasp his chin between my hands, forcing his eyes to meet mine.
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” I tell him, and without waiting for a response, I hoist him onto the dragonhorse’s scaly back.
I loop my brocade belt around her and strap Hào’yáng down.
Then I slide on behind him and we’re off, gaining speed as we rise into the air.
Behind us, roars of the two hellbeasts follow us into the night.
Red seeps from Hào’yáng onto the dragonhorse’s scales.
I brush a thumb along the hilt of my birth mother’s lotus sword, feeling the grooves of its etchings against my skin, an ancient calling that might have been the start of my destiny.
“We make for the immortal realm tonight,” I say, glancing to the distant horizon.
She of the Moon-Frosted Sea’s ears twitch back to me; her scales ripple dimly in the cloud-swathed night as she gallops.
I grip my lotus sword tightly, its blade trailing an aurora glow through the darkness.
“My mother’s lotus vessel has recognized me.
It’s time I declare myself as Yī’lín Shī’yǎ’s heir and summon her army. ”