Confused, I shook my head as if to wake myself, then tore a strip of fabric and used it to bind my arm wound. The forest was silent but for my ragged breaths. By the age of these gnarled oak trees, I was in the woods east of Chuang Ning.
As I regained my breath, my memories returned to me. I was a prisoner—no, I’d been released. The Imperial Commander had given his blessing for Sky and me to marry…and yet I was not free to come and go from the Forbidden City.
How had I gotten here? I stared at the torn hem of my nightclothesand remembered…my last waking memory was of my bedchamber, as I prepared for sleep.
A woman’s scream ruptured the sleeping forest. Heart pounding, I raced toward the sound.
But it was too late to save her. Between two ancient oak trees, both bent and dying, stood a newly erected spirit gate. I could sense it was new by the energy of the place, which hummed with change and turmoil. The portal had been created by sapping the life force from the forest floor, which was slowly turning as cold and desolate as a tundra.
The screaming woman lay before the gate like a living sacrifice. Her spirit affinity was not strong enough for the overwhelming lixia of the place, and it was driving her mad. She writhed like a hooked fish, her mouth foaming and her eyes rolled back in her skull. Her screams petered out, her body jerked, and then she was still, unmoving.
Another casualty of the night, I thought distantly, before rousing myself. I was not responsible for this girl’s unfortunate death. I was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. The spirit summoner that Sky was trying to catch had clearly just been here, and I had missed him. Perhaps, if I used my lixia, I could track him down.
But, I realized, how did I have access to my lixia? I rolled up the sleeve of my nightclothes, then gasped as I saw that my iron manacle was missing. How could I have taken it off? I only knew of one set of keys, and it was back in the palace, with the guard stationed outside my rooms.
A chill of dread snaked through my veins.
I’d been waking up for months wondering where these strange cuts and bruises had come from. I’d felt sore all over on days I’d barely strolled the palace gardens. And Zibei, my personal guard, hehad acted as if we’d known each other, as if we’d possessed some secret relationship that I’d perceived as one-sided.
Could the dragon have been controlling me all this time, even when I wore my irons? Could he have used compulsion, or persuaded Zibei of some other terrible way to free me from my irons in the night, only to return them every morning?
No, it was impossible. The spirit gates had been cropping up all over the kingdom. It could not be me who was responsible; it had to be someone else.
But all the alleged summoners Sky had caught were minor ones. It would have to be a powerful vessel, one that bore the might of a Cardinal Spirit, to create a rift in the veil so wide that the spirit realm bled into the human world.
Please let it not be true, I begged.Please let me not be the one responsible for this. Let me catch the true culprit, and rid myself of blame.
Closing my eyes, I reached for my lixia to perceive the inner workings of the world. When I raised my head, the elemental threads of the forest glowed. Unmistakably, as if I’d left a trail of blood, I could see the elemental threads of my being, intertwined at the base of the spirit gate.
“No,” I choked out. “No!”
Qinglong must be laughing, I thought. For he had been pulling the strings all this time, manipulating me in the night, then erasing my memories in the morning. It had been Qinglong who had tried to burn my mother’s diary, Qinglong who had steered me toward the throne.
My obsession with claiming power, with eliminating the princes who stood in my way—it was the hidden handiwork of the dragon, warping and feeding my ambition. And I, a pawn who thought myself the player, had willingly dove into his game.
The iron arrowhead had shaken me momentarily from his grasp, but he was surely unworried. Sleep was no longer safe for me; he could exploit any moment of vulnerability to turn me into his puppet, to bend me to his will so completely that I lost my own. The true extent of my helplessness caused my knees to lock. In depending on Qinglong’s power, I had damned myself.
Shaking uncontrollably, I reached for my jade. My hand instinctively clenched around the seal, yet I forced my fist open, telling myself to take off the necklace. I would throw away my jade; I would walk away at last.
Wood, fire, earth, metal, water.I cycled through each element, practicing my qi gong. The forest seemed to hold its breath as it watched me. No leaves rustled; no branches stirred. In one quick motion, like ripping out an arrowhead, I lifted the jade from my neck and threw it on the dirt.
Immediately, a searing pain tore through my chest. I fell to my knees in agony, screaming with untenable pain. I was going to die—no, I was dying, and there was no greater torment than this. Crawling on my hands and knees, I groped blindly for my jade, before something cool and pulsating brushed my finger. In desperate relief, I lunged for it, securing my necklace back around my throat.
As soon as it had come, the pain vanished.
I collapsed on the ground, wheezing, relishing the overwhelming sensation of the absence of pain. But as my relief subsided, it dawned on me what this meant: my addiction was past the point of recovery. Trying to remove my jade had been like trying to remove a vital organ. I could no longer live without it.
I swallowed a broken laugh. No wonder the dragon did not even deign to speak to me. It no longer mattered whether I knew of his deceptions; even if I made him my enemy, I could not survive without him.
“Keep your iron safeguards on,” a voice barked into the night. “There’s black magic here.”
The marching thud of boots followed. Although I had no will left to live, my survival instinct still reared its head. Hastily, I rose into a crouch and ducked behind the nearest tree, so as to avoid the notice of the imperial soldiers. When they passed me, I ran in the opposite direction, toward the city.
Despite the late hour, most partygoers were still celebrating the Arrival of Spring. I saw no one on the back roads until I entered Chuang Ning, compelling the city guards so that they looked the other way as I crossed inside.
“Do you think you’ll be happy here?” Lei had asked, only hours ago. At the time, I had not known what to tell him. I knew my answer now. The imperial palace, despite its finery and elegance, was little more than a cage to me. A place where I had to constantly look over my shoulder, second-guess every action, weaken and restrain myself so as to fit in and belong. I was wrong to think Sky’s love could be enough for me. Despite the strength of his love, and the goodness of his intentions, this was the reality of who I was. Someone broken, someone corrupted from within, someone who took innocent lives and then slept soundly in her own bed.
I could not return to the Forbidden City; that much was clear.
