“How do I know?” the emperor scoffs. One of his concubines climbs onto his lap to wipe at his lips with a silk napkin. “You weren’t exactly discreet, my boy. The famous Thread-Seeker… Not just anyone has the magic to see red threads of fate. Only those descended from an ancient line of power can do so. Stories of the matches you made spread much farther than you thought. It was an easy enough task to discover you. The mighty red dragon, returned once more.”
I seethe. “So you sent me to find her on purpose?”
“I figured, why not let you do the work for me? If you did manage to find your own Fated One, all I had to do was keep an eye on you from afar and follow.”
I spit at the ground, my opinion of him clear. “Wipe that smug look off your face, you rat.”
The emperor leans back on his low chair, carved of varnished mahogany. He pops a soured plum into his mouth and chews on it gracelessly. “I suggest you choose your words carefully. You are in no position to speak to me in such a manner.”
I struggle against my chains to no avail. “Let her go. I will do whatever you command, but please, let her go.”
The emperor rises to his feet and wraps the long sleeves of his robes about his forearms. Then he approaches me slowly, without the slightest hint of urgency, as if he were out on a leisurely stroll. He stops just in front of me and peers down with a cruel satisfaction.
“Plead all you wish,” he says, dragging the tip of his pointed finger guard my cheek. “Neither of you will ever know the taste of freedom again, now that I have you within my grasp.”
His words sink in, and I understand their ominous implications. He has no plans to release us, nor will he let us die, for at least in death, we might have escaped him. We could have come back, reborn. But now he has us captured and restrained; we are truly trapped, his prisoners to do with as he sees fit for all eternity.
I consider strangling myself on my restraints, biting off my own tongue to drown in my blood, refusing all food in captivity. I will come back as many times as it takes. But what about Jyn? She might never recover from losing me after we’ve finally come this far; would she give up when offered another life? It is a horrifying realization that even death can’t save us.
On the other side of the atrium, Jyn groans as she blinks herself awake. Focus alights in her eyes the moment she spots the emperor; they flash a dangerously dark shade of green.
“Get away from him!” she screams, so loudly and viciously that her guards jolt back in surprise.
The emperor laughs. “About time. Now the fun can finally begin.”
My eyes widen. “What do you mean?”
“Seven thousand years I’ve spent hunting you, andfinally, you have been reborn with your dragon magic. I shall have not one, but two mighty beasts at my disposal.”
I’m adrift, my body so numb from the cold that I can’t distinguish where I end and the rest of the world begins. He means to strip us for parts; little by little, or perhaps all at once. If he was willing to kill his own Fated One for such selfish gains, there’s no telling what else he’s capable of.
He frightens me more than any fei or yayu. More than illness, than war, than death. The longer I stare at him in helpless disbelief, the more I understand that there’s truly no creature in all the realms with a blacker heart. He’s a demon, destined for Hell if I ever find a way out of these restraints.
“Go on, then,” the emperor says, nudging my thigh with the tip of his foot. “Transform, boy. Show me the red dragon in all his glorious splendor.”
I only glare at him. “Mark my words: when I kill you, I will savor every one of your screams.”
For only a moment, I catch a glimpse of something behind his stony expression, the faintest trace of fear. He’s a cruel man, yes, but he’s by no means a fool. He remains breakable, which I will certainly not forget.
“You will transform,” he repeats, a hard edge to his tone. “Or I will bring down every manner of hurt unto your Fated One.”
I lurch against my chains. “Don’t you touch her!”
The emperor bends at the hip, his face a mere inch from mine. “Would you like to test me, boy? Even if I kill her, she will come back. I will dispatch her again and again until she returns as a dragon. As many times as it takes, just as I did with you. I’ll make you watch every single time until you do as I ask.”
A chill tears at my tender flesh. I close my eyes, and my mind finally sees through the haze and pain.
The first time I came back, I was a boy. My village was punished by an unforgiving plague. When I focus hard enough, I can see him; the mysterious stranger with vials full of blue gems. No, not gems—scales. I suddenly remember my mother and father from many lifetimes ago, pleading with the stranger to let them have the medicine that had worked wonders for their neighbors, only for him to deny them outright because they couldn’t pay.
When I came back as a bird of paradise, it was the emperor’s cage in which I sat, alone and helpless until the day I died. And who led the charge when the hunters attacked me when I was reborn a fei? None other than the emperor himself, all so he could keep an eye on me to see if my magic had returned.
In every life, in every possible capacity, this monster has haunted me. There’s only one way to escape his clutches. I must free his soul from his body to break this cursed cycle—and in doing so, free A-Qian’s own soul as well. Only then will my son have a choice to return once more.
“Enough!” Jyn screams. “You have it wrong. He’s no dragon.”
The emperor arches his brow, casting her a sharp look. He abandons my side and starts toward her. “Come again?”
“Sai is mortal. He has no powers.”
