“Soldiers talk.”
I sighed, resigned to the fact that Lei would always know more than me. “We’ll need Kuro eventually, to restore the veil,” I said. “I can’t do it alone.”
Lei nodded.
“I’ll give you the task of convincing him,” I said. “Since that seems to be your specialty.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Lei, smirking.
I ignored this, thinking. I had read all of Sky’s books on the practice of lixia, but I was still no more enlightened as to how to repair the veil between realms. Sima Yi would most likely have been our best bet, given his extensive studies on the subject, but now that he was no longer an option…
“I may need to seek out Winter,” I told Lei. “Sky’s brother.” I hesitated. “Is that okay with you?”
He lifted a brow. “Why would that not be? I’ve always liked him.”
“But you know who he’ll be with,” I thought to him.
“Whether or not I likehimhas little to do with the situation at hand.”
I nodded, gratified. My question had been a test—and he had passed.
“Right now,” I continued, thinking aloud, “the spirit gates are many, but the veil still stands in place. I know this because no spirits walk among us. Not in their corporeal form, at least. They still require human vessels to enter the physical realm. Once the veil collapses…” I shivered at the thought. Then Qinglong would no longer need me. “Anyway, we won’t let that happen. We’ll seal the veil before it collapses.
“Do you think you could get a message back to the New Quan lixia scholars?” I asked Lei. “I want to understand the fundamentals of how the veil works. We can make a plan from there, and perhaps find a way to evacuate the—”
I gasped, my chest caving inward from impact. My hands went to my sternum, which felt as if it had been cracked into pieces.
“What is it?” demanded Lei.
I couldn’t speak from pain. I folded into myself, and Lei seized me before I keeled over. My throat was closing, my breaths turning short and shallow. The world blurred before me, the streets and people and animals turning into shapes and sounds and monsters.
“The dragon,” I gasped. “He’s—he’s coming for me.”
I could not say how I knew. But I knew—I knew it in my bones.
There was a loud boom in the distance, followed by deep reverberations in the earth. My knees shook as I felt the vibrations thrumming across the mountains. Then the screams began.
We were too late.
PartIII
Thirty-Three
Baihu is a guardian of the old order. To her, balance is key, and any change—whether for gain or loss—is a disturbance to be resisted. While some chronicles revere her as a protector of tradition, others cast her as an enemy of progress.
—A History of Lixia, 762
The first spirit beast toreach the air was a great hawk with wings of steel. It shrieked as it took flight, flying higher and higher as if trying to reach the sun. Then it dived.
Its shadow disappeared behind the city gates. But by the screams that followed, I had no doubt it found its mark.
“We need to get you out of here,” said Lei urgently. “Does he know where you are? Does Qing—”
“Don’t say his name,” I gasped, my superstitions emerging. “I-I don’t know.”
Would Qinglong come for me now? And yet, with the dragon free to move between realms, what need did he have for a human vessel anymore?
“Kuro,” I croaked out, pressing my hand to my sternum as if to hold the bones intact. “We need to find Kuro.”
