Winter lifted an appraising brow. Lei’s face turned cold, expressionless. And Sky—though I could not see him—I could feel him, feel the heat radiating off his body, his trembling hand, clenched on my arm, the weight of his indecision and hatred and fear. Because I knew him; I knew it was fear that made him behave this way. Fear for me, for my safety.
Slowly, he released me.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked the physician.
“Please sit on the examination table, Lady Hai, and drink this,” said Master Yan, offering me a newly mixed herbal drink. The smell was foul, but I gulped it down.
Too late, I realized the tea’s purpose was to help me relax. I felt my eyelids flutter as Master Yan eased me back onto the examination table. “What are you…” My words slurred together as my tongue refused to cooperate. My increasingly heavy eyelids begged to rest. I let them fall shut—just for a moment, I told myself.
Distantly, I heard Master Yan chant a sutra over me, and I felt a burning sensation that began in my chest, before spreading through my veins across my entire body. I heard a collective inhalation of breath and blinked open one eye; to my amazement, gleamingthreads of elemental light floated in the air above my body, in a way that I’d seen only once before—in the space between realms, when I’d dueled Sima Yi. I could see threads of water, metal, and fire in my bloodstream, but frighteningly, water had spread to dominate the others.
“It is natural to contain some level of elemental imbalance,” said Master Yan. “However, as you can see here, overuse of lixia heightens the natural imbalance found in our bodies, intensifying the overrepresented elements and leading to further polarity.”
He exhaled, chanting another sutra, or perhaps the same one. His hands, which were raised in the air as if holding an invisible sphere, began to shake. The glowing lights above me shifted, growing dimmer as what looked like black mold spread across each thread. Slowly, lights began to wink out.
“This is the effect of lixia overuse on her life force. Like yin and yang, lixia and qi balance each other and keep the realms in equilibrium. But while lixia can imbue humans with power, it is also unnatural to the body, and given time, dependence and addiction will poison and corrupt from within. As you can see, her wood and earth threads have already been consumed in entirety. I’m sorry to say…”
Despite my attempts to pay attention, my eyelids fluttered shut. So I nearly missed Sky’s interruption, if not for the release of the burning sensation in my chest. “Let’s talk outside,” Sky said quietly.
I imagined sitting upright to tell them no, stay. To tell them that I couldn’t be bothered to stand. But then I understood they weren’t waiting for me. They were talking about me, without me. As the door closed and the murmur of indecipherable voices continued outside, I felt the ache of betrayal in my throat. I tried to rise; I imagined the act of rising; and yet perhaps I was as helpless as they made me out to be. The medicine taking effect, I succumbed to sleep.
I woke from a baddream, groggy and disoriented. Squinting at the stark white walls surrounding me, I stood and felt a cramp shooting up my leg. How long had I slept for? Why was sunlight coming in through the window? And why did I feel so horribly weak?
My right wrist was uncomfortably heavy. I raised my hand—and caught sight of the gleaming iron band locked around my wrist.
Panic started in my throat before surging through the rest of my body. Without thinking, I bashed my wrist against the edge of the table. Of course the iron did not budge. I ignored the stinging pain, the angry red welts left on my skin. I brought it down again, and again, using more and more force until the wood cracked beneath me. Still the iron did not budge.
The pain was but a distraction. I could feel a far crueler agony spreading through my chest—an aching lack where my spirit power had once been. I could not survive without the dragon’s presence, without the weight of lixia to sustain me.
Reaching for my jade, I tried to steady my thoughts.Think rationally, Meilin.Sky would have given the key to Zibei. All I needed to do was find him.
Limping to the door, I twisted the knob.
It did not open.
“Sky?” I rasped, but my voice did not carry.
Why was I locked inside? Why had everyone forgotten about me? I was taken back to the war, when I had rescued Sky and Sparrow and Tao, only for them to flee without me. They had left me behind. They were free, but I would remain in chains.
The injustice of life never failed to astound me.
Circulate your qi.Uncle Zhou’s instructions rang in my head as Isank to the cold floor. He had taught me qi gong after I’d begun experiencing panic attacks in the wake of my mother’s passing. Now I tried to follow his instructions, and yet I could no longer feel the pulse of my qi. My life force felt thin, weak, like a riverbed in the thick of summer. The barest trickle of water ran down the rocks, soon to be subsumed by sand.
The door opened. I rushed toward Sky, only—it was not Sky, but his brother.
A crease marked the space between Winter’s brows. Although he maintained his composure, there was something unsettled about him, like the air before a typhoon. “You’re awake,” he said, with some surprise.
“Where’s Sky?” I asked him, accepting the cup of hot tea he handed me. I cupped the porcelain between my palms, letting it warm my skin. Skies, why was I so cold?
“He’s…” Winter hesitated, which was unusual for him. “Indisposed.”
I was too tired to decipher what that meant. As I drank the bitter tea, my heart rate steadied, and my racing thoughts slowed.
“I would keep that on, if I were you,” said Winter, eyeing the iron band. “As disagreeable as it is, it may offset your growing lixia addiction.”
Addiction?I thought, repulsed. Addiction was a disorder that belonged entirely to my father—his habit for opium, his weakness for gambling. I had spent my entire life trying to separate myself from him, trying to run as far from his legacy as I possibly could. And yet here I was, my father’s daughter.
For the past few months, every waking thought had been fixed on securing the throne. Now, without the dragon’s voice in my head, my mind was startlingly empty. A barren wasteland.
