She hesitated, then went on: “My mother told me that thosewith power were meant to protect those without. I know how dangerous it is. But I also know we cannot sit aside and watch our people suffer like…like this.” Lan met Dilaya and Tai’s eyes. “I want to find the Godslayer. I want to use the power of my Demon God against the Elantians. And I want both of you to keep me in check should I ever”—a sharp exhale, a memory of a beautiful face with fathomless black eyes—“should I ever lose control.”
There was silence for several moments as her words sankin.
“Well, what happens to you?” Dilaya asked, a strange tone to her voice. “If a Demon God is destroyed, what happens to its binder?”
It was a question Lan had pondered the entire night. She glanced over to Tai, but the Spirit Summoner’s head was bowed, his face obscured by locks of his hair.
“I don’t know,” Lan said quietly. “I guess we’ll have to find out.”
“Another problem is, you said the Godslayer was kept by the imperial family,” Dilaya said. “They’re dead. So it must be gone.”
“Not,” Tai said suddenly from where he crouched beneath the ginkgo tree, his tall form awkwardly folded. Lan and Dilaya turned to stare at him. “Not gone.”
“What do you mean?” Lan asked. She straightened, her attention focusing.
“The imperial family was paranoid,” Tai replied. “The emperor and his heir were never in the same location. And they made sure to stow precious items in a hidden place no one but the inside counsel knew of.”
Lan’s mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“If there is anything left for us to find,” Tai said, “it rests inShaklahira, the Forgotten City of the West. That is where the emperor built his hidden palace, safe from the world’s eyes. That is where he stored his most sacred possessions.”
Lan had heard stories of the plateaus and deserts of the West, and the myths that came with them. The Hin had whispered of demons hidden in the sand dunes, of immortal monks who cast Seals of trickery in their golden temple walls.Shaklahirawas no Hin name; it was a name given by the clans that had once ruled over the Western plateaus.
But then the Hin had told such tales of the Northern Steppes, too; of the savage Xan shaman clans to be feared, of how they’d eaten human flesh and drunk the blood of children.
Prejudice, she realized, was not a concept the Elantians had brought with them.
She rose. “Then we journey westward. We find the Godslayer. We find the Azure Tiger and the Crimson Phoenix. Werally the forces of the Demon Gods against the Elantians. Then we destroy them all and rebuild this kingdom from the ground up.”
Ahead, the pine forest opened to a terrain of mountains that jutted impossibly high into the sky. A sea of clouds stirred over the peaks, and as she watched, the sun climbed the sky. Slowly, arduously, yet inevitably, it blazed, a golden core whose light spilled like fire, hot, burning, crimson.
Lan had the impression that she stood at the edge of the world as she lifted her ocarina to her lips.
Let your mother’s song guide you.
Closing her eyes, she began to play. She’d found this to be the best conduit to the monster that slept within her. This time, she crafted her song to awaken its qì.
In her mind’s eye, the silver core of the Demon God began to expand. Its glow brightened as its body lengthened into a rippling mass of shimmering silver scales and knife-sharpclaws. A single eye cracked open, pupil large enough to swallow her body whole. Its qì was steady, healed from the wound inflicted by That Which Cuts Stars.
Lan turned to face her Demon God.
“Silver Dragon of the East,” she said. “Heed my call.”
The Demon God gave a slow, long blink.You have called upon my power many times before, Sòng Lián. You simply did not know. All those times you eluded death were neither coincidence nora testament to your ability. It was my power that brought you this far.
“And yet you need me,” Lan replied. She did not blink, did not bend or yield. “Without me, you are nothing. Without me, you can only watch the comings and goings of this world from afar when you so long to partake in them.”
The Dragon watched her almost lazily.You know the terms of our bargain,it said, but Lan cut it off.
“No,” she said slowly. “I do not. I never madeanybargain with you.”
The Silver Dragon’s eyes curved in what might have been a smile.
“I did not bind you,” Lan continued. “My mother did. So it isherbargain, not mine. You will not have access to my mind, body, or soul.”
Clever mortal.
“Tell me the terms of her bargain.”
