Chapter 22 Àn’yīng
àn’yīng
Between Realms
àn’yīng.
A voice as ancient as the realms, echoing with the vastness of an ocean.
Colors weave through my consciousness, turquoise, blush, and a glint of gold…movement. I’m in the sea, but I can’t remember how I arrived, as though I simply stepped into a dream and found myself here.
I am nothing, no one. A speck of consciousness between the currents.
àn’yīng, that voice calls again, and something large moves behind me. I spin, but I find nothing, just ocean currents and the deep shift of aquamarines and blues fading into darkness.
In the distance, far below: a glow. It pulses, as though calling out to me in a language of its own.
I move toward it.
Its source grows clearer as I approach.
A great lotus drifts in the middle of the ocean. Its blush-colored petals are closed, pulsing like a heartbeat, cradled by the gentle currents.
I reach out, but I am formless—a wisp of a spirit, perhaps an echo of my own soul. I feel where my fingers would have brushed its petals. Feel a part of me resonate in this connection, as though…as though this flower is a part of me.
With a sigh, its petals unfurl.
Time ebbs to a stop.
He is there, lying at its heart, his white dragonhorse curled protectively around him.
Hào’yáng looks to be in a deep sleep, only his chest does not move, his lashes do not flutter.
His skin is as pale as snow, his cheeks and lips are drained of blood, and his hair is now a dark shade of silver—it’s as though all color and life have leached from him.
Yet his body is healthy and whole, as though the lotus petals preserved him in a perfect cocoon.
Hào’yáng! I cry, but I have no voice, no body. I can’t reach him, can’t touch him, can’t take his shoulders and shake him awake.
Meadowsweet appears to slumber with him in her dragon form. Her serpentine body is carved of ice up to her head, though rime has spread to her neck and coats her antlers and lashes.
Meadowsweet, I plead, but she is as still as stone.
They will not wake, comes that voice again, and it is as though the sea itself speaks to me.
From the swirls of water and darkness comes a deep rumbling sound.
The ocean floor seems to shift as something massive rises before me, like a mountain forming.
Then it blinks—and I realize it is an eye, larger than that of any creature I’ve seen, more ancient than the echoes of this world.
The pupil holds depths of unfathomable knowledge; moss and lichen bloom at the corners, as though this being rose from the bedrock of our world itself.
Dragon.
The dragon blinks again. Indeed, it rumbles, and the ocean seems to shake with it.
How is this possible? I look down at the ocean currents rushing through where my body should be. Am I dead?
You are, and you are not. Your mortal body is dying, trapped still in the realm of demons, yet your immortal soul lives. You are in between life and death and realms.
How is it that I have come to your realm? I ask.
All bodies of water belong to the dragons, the being replies. The sacred vessel within you preserving your life has brought your consciousness here, to where its other half resides.
I look to the great lotus within which Hào’yáng sleeps, and it clicks. That is Lady Shī’yǎ’s lotus—my lotus. It must have shattered that night not out of weakness but to preserve Hào’yáng’s life. I remember how its blush glow absorbed into my skin and Hào’yáng’s.
And now it has brought my spirit here…to where its other half remains, inside Hào’yáng.
I reach for him, a sob of relief bubbling up in my chest as I process this. Hào’yáng is here, alive, because my lotus saved him that night.
My fingers pass through him like air, and I remember that I am not here after all, but that this is a connection in my mind bridged by my lotus. What’s wrong with them? I ask. Why won’t they wake?
The dragon gives a slow blink. They are dying.
The mortal prince was so grievously wounded that even an immortal’s sacred vessel cannot help him.
It can only delay the process. The dragonhorse chooses to remain by his side, lending what she can of her life force to him.
Yet we dragons do not possess the ability to heal or restore life.
Only the immortals have such powers. Immortals, and their offspring…
Immortals and their offspring.
The dragon’s gaze lingers on me. You understand now, the role you played in saving his life…and that you are the only one who can bring him back—before he’s gone forever.
Tell me more, I say desperately. Where is he? How do I save him?
He is in the sea, at the seam between the mortal realm and that of the dragons. The great eye blinks again slowly. The answer to your second question lies with you. Its voice grows distant. Make haste, daughter of immortals, for time runs out…
The ocean is shifting around me, pulling back, and when I reach for Hào’yáng and the lotus, I find that my body has become corporeal again.
My hands struggle against water that has suddenly grown thick, and when I look down, a pink glow radiates from my chest. Sparks dance beneath my skin, and I rise, rise…
When I break the surface of the water, I find my consciousness returned to the Kingdom of Night.
Everything and nothing has changed.
Power courses through my veins, soft light weaving across my eyes, illuminating the throne room—the same light and power that exploded from me when I faced áo’yīn. I could not explain it back then, but I fully understand now. I simply do not know how it took me so long to realize this.
I am part immortal. And the dormant spirit energies of my immortal half were awakened tonight when Sansiran attempted to kill me.
I drift in the water, my world fracturing at this revelation. I’m unable to move or fully open my eyes, but my senses are returning one by one: the cold of water sluicing against my skin, the sound of footsteps, the darkness of a shadow falling over me.
Through my lashes, I see Yù’chén’s outline: hair mussed and clothing torn. Blood seeps from the wounds healing on his arms and throat as he wades through the spring to me.
His mouth falls open as he takes me in. The light of my spirit energies—of me—reflect on his face as realization dawns on him: of what I am, of my birthright and my true identity. He stumbles forward, shock and grief darkening his gaze as he pulls me from the spring.
Yù’chén holds me against his chest as he falls to his knees. We’re crouched beneath the pái’fāng, where the gateway seems to pulse, the blue silk banners of the Kingdom of Rivers fluttering in a breeze from the other realm.
Yù’chén is breathing hard. A trickle of red drips from a cut on his lips, but he holds very still—and I see why. Surrounding us, weapons drawn and pointing in our direction, are Sansiran’s Higher Ones.
“She lives,” Sansiran crows. I can’t see her from this angle, but from the direction of the dais, I catch the gleam of the garnets in her hair as she lifts her arms in triumph.
“And therein lies the truth. This girl is no mortal but the daughter of Yī’lín Shī’yǎ, one of the Eight Immortals of the Kingdom of Sky.
And she is to be wed to my son, cementing our claim over the three realms.”
The court bursts into thunderous cheers and applause. A chant rises in the glade as the mó call out their queen’s name: “Sansiran, Empress of the Three Realms…Sansiran, Ruler of All Kingdoms…”
The light from my spirit energies limns Yù’chén’s face as he tips his chin up to face his mother. Rage flickers on his features. “And what if I refuse?”
The glade has fallen deadly silent. “I’m in a very good mood, my son,” Sansiran says with lethal quiet.
“I warn you not to ruin that. You forget, you are still bound to my will by our covenant. You will bleed into the mortal river tonight to complete your enthronement; the gateway between our realms will be made permanent. You will be wed, and our claim to the immortal realm, too, will be legitimized through her.”
Yù’chén stands utterly still.
Until Sansiran’s fury hits.
I sense the magic rushing toward us. Yù’chén turns, placing himself between his mother and me. Magic erupts from him, weaving a net of scorpion lilies over us. A shield of protection.
Every muscle in his body draws taut as he fights her magic with his own. Shadows bear down upon his wreaths of scorpion lilies; red and black scales again bloom on his skin, and his nails sharpen to claws.
Steps from us, the stone pái’fāng and the gateway within it ripple—as though his waning strength impacts it, too.
As I lie in his arms, my body still paralyzed and struggling to revive from drowning, I can only count the seconds before it stops.
Ten heartbeats.
Sansiran relents.
Yù’chén exhales shakily; his shield of scorpion lilies immediately vanishes. Sweat trickles down his jaw, mingling with the blood that drips from a corner of his mouth. He sways but doesn’t let go of me.
He smirks as he twists his head to survey his mother. “You give yourself too much credit,” he says raggedly. “You forget whose lifeblood it is that binds the mortal realm to this one.”
Whose lifeblood binds the mortal realm to this one. My focus narrows to those words.
“How could I forget?” Sansiran purrs. “Every day, it haunts me that my own son’s weakness has cost us permanent hold over the Kingdom of Rivers.
Every day, I’m reminded that he has failed yet again to obtain the throne, that the mortal realm’s lands reject him, reject his gateway, and thereby reject our kind from expanding farther in.
There never comes a day that I forget.” Her voice cracks like a whip as she slashes her hand down.
And because I’m leaning against Yù’chén’s chest, I catch the exact moment a red oleander flower blooms there—and spikes through his heart.