I’m yanked from my sullen thoughts when the captain grips me by the collar. With shaking hands, he rips a scroll from the sash around his waist and shoves it to my chest.
“Your ordinance,” he rasps. “See your mission through.”
“Save your breath. I’ll find you a doctor.”
“Move, soldier!” he bellows.
“I can’t leave you here like this.”
An unexpected wave of calm washes over his features. He stares blankly up at the sky, his face bruised and swollen. “His Imperial Highness… promised me.”
I lean down closer to hear. It’s a miracle the captain has held out this long. “Promised you? Promised you what?”
“My family… will be looked after. I was to see you safely… across the border.”
“Hang on,” I tell him. “Just hang on. Those dragon scales… I can find you some. They can heal, and—”
Captain Tian’s eyes may remain open, but they are dark, empty wells. His eerie stillness is my second clue, the transformation of his red thread to black and then to nothing, my third and final one.
I rise slowly, the emperor’s ordinance in hand. My clothes are filthy, caked in dirt and drying blood. The soldiers finish off thelast of the Southern Kingdom’s army, too busy looting supplies and piling up bodies to burn in a single heap to pay me any mind.
One step after the next, I will myself forward. I clumsily approach a nearby warhorse. It’s one of ours, a dark brown mare draped in the Imperial Family’s colors, though her rider is nowhere in sight. Most likely dead.
I pat her neck gently, struggling to clear the murky haze clouding my mind. I must venture farther south to find out if this dragon really exists. Perhaps not to a city, but a smaller village that I can pass through discreetly. There’s no doubt that news of the Imperial Army’s advance will reach the major trading hubs faster than the towns far from the main roads. After witnessing the devastation firsthand, I shudder at the thought of the terrors my brethren will carry out in the emperor’s name.
I mount the horse swiftly, grabbing her reins and digging my heels against her sides. I need to get ahead of the soldiers before they raze everything nearby to the ground. I can’t gather information if there’s no one alive to provide it.
“Hey!” someone shouts at me. The tall red feathers atop his helmet tell me that he’s one of the higher-ranking officers. “Where do you think you’re going? Our orders are to kill the survivors.”
I look down at him in horror. “I’ll have no hand in this madness.”
“Dismount at once or you’ll be tried for insubordination!”
“So be it,” I say bitterly.
“Deserter!” he cries, brandishing his sword. “We have a deserter!”
I snap the reins to break the horse into a mad gallop, leaving the carnage far behind.
7
The warm winds that comeoff the Albeion Sea offer the Southern Kingdom of Jian a tropical climate. Its air isn’t arid and thin like that of the Western Wastelands, but humid and uncomfortably thick. Even in these winter months, the moisture in the air clings to my skin in a film. I’m unaccustomed to the thick jungles and the nasty biting bugs that have made the leaves and branches their home.
My new equine friend has taken me far, at least a hundred li. My exhaustion finally catches up to me when the sun centers itself in the sky. I haven’t had a chance to rest since the night before I visited Doctor Qi, and now my bones are weary from travel and the weight of all I’ve seen in the past two days.
The smell of blood lingers in my nose. The screams of dying men rattle within my skull even still. Every time I manage to close my eyes, I’m haunted by the memory of the captain’s lifeless ones staring back.
Deserter!
I wipe a clammy palm over my chest, feeling the hard thud of my heart rattle my rib cage.
What if news gets back to my mother that I’ve gone missing? A-Ma would lose her sanity upon the discovery that her son was sent off and lost to battle; her nerves might not handle it well. First her husband, then her son… And with Doctor Qi dead, there’s no one left to care for her in her condition.
I force myself to take a deep, shaky breath. No. No one, apart from Emperor Róng and Captain Tian—the latter of whom now lies dead, taking with him all his secrets—knows that I’m here. From what I can tell, my name was never officially added to any military roster. I have no rank, no regiment to belong to. I was only at Shéyan for a little under a day, so I doubt any of the other soldiers would even recognize me, let alone know that I abandoned them. My mission is a secret, as is my location. The sooner I find this dragon, the sooner I can return home.
My horse slows and veers slightly off the overgrown dirt path, drawn to the sound of trickling water somewhere nearby. We find a narrow stream slithering through the tall grass like a snake, barely deep nor wide enough to get my boots wet. Still, I suppose a short break could do us good.
She cuts through a low thicket of rich green ferns and dips her head down to drink greedily. I slide out of the saddle, sore in places I didn’t think it possible.
