His eyes widened and he opened his mouth, perhaps in genuine disbelief that he could have been bested in such a manner. His surprise lasted a split second before a gust of otherworldly qì rammed through him.
Within a blink, he was gone, no more than an empty shell of metal-plated armor and a few embers curling in upon themselves as they drifted through the air.
The Tiger’s form wavered, its qì flickering as its bargain shriveled in the face of its binder’s death. Its form broke, scattering into a thousand, thousand crystals that hung suspended in the night like stars.
Then, slowly, the crystals coalesced into a single, glowing blue pearl.
From the Gate Seal overhead, a figure descended. His crimson hàn’fú rippled as though his body were enshrouded in flames. The glow of the Azure Tiger’s core undulated against Hóng’yì like water as he touched his finger to it.
Zen shouted, but it was too late. A storm of qì swept through the mountains around them as the binding began. The Tiger’s core exploded, tendrils wrapping around Hóng’yì’s body and settling into his skin, his flesh, his bones.
Hóng’yì breathed in deeply and lifted his hands. The skies themselves seemed to light up in red and blue, from horizon to horizon, as both the Crimson Phoenix and the Azure Tiger reared up behind him.
The prince was laughing as he turned to Zen and Lan.“Behold,” he boomed, an unearthly wind gusting behind him. “The most powerful emperor to have ever set foot on this land. The Last Kingdom is mine now. And I will rule it with the power of all Four Demon Gods.”
Zen gave a command to the Black Tortoise:Shield us.He sensed its energies spill from him as his Demon God turned to the two other ancient beings across the mountain range. Sensed its willpower begin to twine around his mind, fighting to claim what was left of him.
He gritted his teeth and turned to Lan. “The Dragon,” Zen choked. “There is no other way. Sòng Lián—”
She looked at him then, and he forgot whatever he meant to say next. She had always worn her emotions on her face, and her expression told him everything he needed to know.
Lan flung her arms around him. Her body was wound so tightly around his that he could feel her shaking. Yet with her in his arms, the chaos in his mind calmed and the shadows that always pressed so close seemed to yield to light.
Gently, Zen let his arms fall to her lower back. Turned his face to hers so that he could breathe her in. Spoke against her temple, her hair tickling his cheeks.
“Say yes, Lan,” he murmured. “One word. You usually have so many.”
Her face was pressed to his neck, and it was wet. But that was how he felt her lips move.
“Yes.”
Behind them, wind stirred the snows of the mountain. A bright beam of moonlight cut through the clouds, and within, a great serpentine form rose. It turned its head toward Zen.
Back at the school, Geomancy Master Feng had read in his oracle bones the circumstances of Zen’s birth: how the stars and the red sands had blown and the words carved into thebones of the wild horse chosen for him had written his destiny. And the world had whispered of the tragic history of his people, and how the last Mansorian heir was cursed to follow.
Here he stood, nearly one hundred cycles after his great-grandfather: the very finale to Xan Tolürigin’s tragic tale that Zen had fought to escape for his entire life.
Yet his would end differently. And if Zen could close his eyes and pick the single point in time when his story had begun to diverge from his chosen path…it would be the moment in the crowded Haak’gong teahouse when he’d set eyes upon the girl with the silver-bells voice and a páo like snow. He’d felt his gaze drawn to her as though a force greater than he could understand had encircled them, spinning them toward each other like opposite ends of a centrifuge. And when she’d looked up and, of the entire audience gathered that night, met his eyes, he’d felt something click into place.Yin into yáng, their threads ensnaring to come together into a fully woven story.
Life, death. Creation, destruction. Power, weakness.
At the center of it all: balance.
Tonight, they would restore it to this land and its people.
Xan Temurezen lifted his face to the light of the Silver Dragon.
“Silver Dragon of the East,” he said. “I have a bargain foryou.”
Capture the general and win the war.
—General Nuru Ala Šuzhan of the Jorshen Steel clan,Classic of War
They descended upon the Heavenly Palace like wraiths in the night, taking advantage of the chaos in the square.
Yeshin Noro Dilaya had always preferred the language of steel to the language of shadows, and she would much rather have been out in the square, soaking in the heat of battle and feeling the thrill of wielding her dao as an extension of her body. A deadly dance, her mother had called it.
Her hand tightened on the hilt of Falcon’s Claw, stroking the thumb ring on its hilt and thinking of the woman who had worn it before her.
