“Get on my back,” he said.
I looked up at him. “No.”
His lip curled. “Are you going to die for your pride?”
“N-no.”
“Then come on,” he said. “Before it gets dark.”
The thought of being left out here in the cold and dark was enough to spur me into action. After I climbed onto his back clumsily, he lifted me as if I weighed nothing and went on his way, whistling and humming a melody under his breath. Although I thought it impossible, with his even, steady steps and song like a lullaby, gradually, I fell asleep.
Twenty-Six
Many civilizations have sought to tame the Zoigen Marsh—some with stone, others with fire, and still others with oxen. But whether in the span of ten days or ten decades, all were undone by the slow breath of the marsh. To this day, the wetlands remain untouched, where nature bows to none.
—Remembering the Wu Dynasty, 913
I felt my consciousness slide, butI did not think much of it, not until I realized I was watching myself from a bird’s-eye view, and that I was no longer in my own body. Below me, Kuro placed my body on a cot and handed me off to his healer. Was I dead? Had I somehow drained my life force, and now lacked a tether to return my spirit to my body?
I began to float, drifting out of the tent and into the sky. I struggled to return, to wake up, but instead, I found myself wandering into the spirit realm.
It was alive, bustling with tremendous activity and a chaotic, frenetic sort of energy. I didn’t recognize any of the faces wandering the glowing trees, speaking with spirits, enacting bargains, testing their newfound lixia. As for the unlucky ones on the ground, writhing, foaming at the mouth—their spirit affinity not strong enough to withstand the onslaught of lixia—I turned away from their faces. I did not wish to recognize them.
I was seeking a pool, a pool from a memory or a dream. It hadbeen many months ago, and many li away, and yet distance did not matter in the spirit realm. After some time, I found that golden pool of water, so brightly lit it was hard to see past the sparkling surface.
But there was a flicker of movement—a long tendril of hair, a confident swimmer’s strokes. That girl—the one who I’d once believed to be me. She was still here, and while I had aged, she had not.
“Meilin,” she said, and I recalled that her voice had always been different—sweeter,younger. “You’re back.”
“Who are you?” I asked, my lower lip quivering. Hope bloomed like a tiny seed in my heart, struggling to put down roots in a barren land. “You’re not…you’re not my mother?”
She tensed, her eyes widening in a gesture both achingly familiar and eerily strange. Then she did something that made the world go still. She nodded.
She nodded and I began to weep, my tears flowing into the pool of water and making the pond grow and grow, until nearby spirits grumbled and drifted away from us. Fireflies buzzed irritably in my ear, chastising me for disturbing the peace. Still, I wept.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why are you here?”
“Qinaide,” she said.Beloved.But she kept her distance. She didn’t comfort me as Xiuying would have, nor did she offer the simple touch of a friend.
“There comes a point for every spirit summoner when a choice must be made,” she said. “You can let your spirit master subsume you entirely, as the Great Warrior Guan Yang once did. Or you can take your own life, denying both your spirit master and yourself.” She paused, her gaze piercing mine. “Then there is a third path, though few are strong enough to take it—you can seek Zhuque’s spring and relinquish your power.” Her sad eyes were like mirrors, reflecting my wretchedness. “You must understand how difficultthe path you’ve chosen will be. The dragon will do everything in his power to stop you.”
“Ma,” I whispered. “I-I’m so scared. I don’t want to die.”
“Remember, Meilin,” she said softly, “the dragon is only as strong as you are. You both walk a fine line, because although you are his enemy, he depends upon you, as you do him.”
“He was using me,” I admitted aloud for the first time. “He was using me to create the rifts in the veil.”
The melancholy in her gaze belied the youthfulness of her face. “He needs you, Meilin. The minor spirits may accelerate the process, and expand the existing rifts, but they cannot create a gate out of nothing, not like you can. The greater the rift, the more unstable the veil. Already it has been stretched thin. There is too much qi in this world, and too much lixia in yours.”
I rubbed my temples, hard. This wasn’t my problem. I needed to focus on finding Zhuque’s eternal spring. I didn’t have time to concern myself with Qinglong’s plans or the fate of Anlai.
But it wasn’t just the fate of Anlai, said the nagging voice in my head. It was the fate of the Three Kingdoms. Of the human world itself.
My mother nodded as if I’d spoken these thoughts aloud. “Once the veil collapses, it will be like the times of old—and spirits will once again roam freely among men.”
All along, this had been Qinglong’s plan.
Lei had tried to warn me: “I believe that you and I share the same concerns, do we not?” He had read my mother’s diary and understood. Understood the gravity of our predicament and its far-reaching consequences. Meanwhile, I had covered my eyes like a child in a game of hide-and-seek, my focus narrowly fixed on securing the throne—a mere distraction that Qinglong had used to keep me preoccupied while he orchestrated greater schemes.
