Méi’zi’s and my appearances seem to reflect our names, too. Where she takes after Ma, with her large brown eyes, open face, and soft features, I am cut to be more angled, my face narrower and my eyes as black as Bà’s were. Méi’zi was always the one beloved and favored by the villagers; I, much less so.
I catch my sister’s wrist as she swipes for the towel. Her hands are soft, fine, and delicate, made for threading silk through needles and spinning fabrics into dresses. Over the years, she’s grown calluses from the rough work we’ve had to do to survive, but nothing like my own—and I intend to keep it that way, just as I promised our father. Méi’zi was fivewhen the war against the Kingdom of Night broke out, and she does not remember much of the life we lived before nor of the parents we lost.
“I want to do this today,” I tell her, pushing her hand back and returning to scrub at a sore on my mother’s back. “Why don’t you make breakfast?”
Something in my tone makes her look up, her eyes catching the first rays of sunlight like honey. Her hair, long and wavy unlike my own straight locks, falls in her face, which is no longer smiling.
“You’re leaving,” Méi’zi whispers. “You’re leaving today, aren’t you? That’s why you went to the spring last night.”
I study her face and wonder who will brush her hair for her when I am gone. “There’s a convoy passing by the border in two days’ time,” I say. “It’s full of mortal recruits heading to the immortal realm. It’s my safest option—”
“Nothing about a mortal going to an immortal training temple across these lands issafe,” Méi’zi seethes. Not for the first time, I wonder if my father was wrong in thinking that I was the one who inherited his fighter’s spirit. “You promised me you’d reconsider. You’ve been lying to my face!”
I have, but only so we won’t fight. Nothing will change Méi’zi’s mind about stopping me from going to the Temple of Dawn, and nothing will change my mind about going.
“It’s our only option, Méi’zi,” I shoot back. “The wards Bà and the other village practitioners set up around Xi’lín are old. They’re growing weaker by the day, and sooner or later, a mó is going to break through them. That Higher One from nine years ago—”
I bite my tongue, but it’s too late. We each draw a sharp breath. Speaking of that day is a knife through both our chests.
Méi’zi’s lips thin and her chin juts in an expression that is a jarring reminder of my mother’s when she was still herself. “Bà wanted us to live well,” my sister says, and I don’t miss the tremor in her voice.
“Bà wouldn’t just want me to sit on my hands and do nothing,” I counter. “All our village practitioners are dead.” She flinches, but I refuse to soften the blow. “I need advanced training in the practitioning arts so I can protect us.”
“You could keep training on Bà’s books,” Méi’zi argues. “It’s worked well enough so far.”
“It’s not enough—”
“It’s enough to get by! It’s a dangerous journey to the immortal realm—you coulddie!”
“With just Bà’s books from mortal practitioners, I’ll never find the cure for Ma.” I press my point home. “That’s not something a regular practitioner can teach me, Méi’zi. The pill of immortality, the one that can heal Ma’s soul? That’s old magic, from the gods and the immortals.”
Méi’zi falls silent, and I know I’ve won. But it certainly doesn’t feel that way when she finally whispers, “I’ve already lost Bà and Ma. I can’t lose you, too, jie’jie.”
It’s the way she calls me “older sister” that nearly shatters my resolve. “You won’t,” I say, gentler now. “I’ll be back every few months.” It’s a week’s journey to the fabled temple that sits just beyond the borders of the immortal realm, but I don’t say that. I’ll make it work. I have to.
I’m glad the water boils in this moment. It pulls our attention, and I don’t miss the hungry, hopeful look in my sister’s eyes as I walk over and smother the flames in the clay stove.
Méi’zi watches as I take out six vials and pour just enoughof the elixir into each one. I stopper each vial, and carefully, so carefully, I store five in the birchwood coolbox that rests in the secret space between our floorboards.
Méi’zi follows me as I take the last vial and approach our mother, who’s sitting in the exact same position I left her, eyes wide and staring into space, jaw hanging slack. I sit by her side, smoothing out her lank, stray hair. “Come on, Ma,” I say softly. “It’s not quite your favorite ginseng chicken soup, but it’ll have to do.”
Méi’zi is silent, tensed up by my side. She does not remember enough of Ma, of the way our mother’s laugh used to brighten a room like the sun, of the way her eyes used to sparkle with mischief when she teased our father.
Now our mother gapes into nothingness. I grasp her chin in my hand. As I lift the vial of elixir to her lips, she blinks. Her eyes fly to me. They bulge, and her mouth widens until I see her gums.
My mother screams. I catch her hand as it flies up to strike me, then fend off the other with my elbow. The vial shakes, but I have mastered this—I hold it steady. I cannot spill a single drop. By my side, Méi’zi latches onto one of Ma’s arms, trying to pin it down.
“Mó,”my mother shrieks.“HELP ME! MÓ!”
“Ma.” I squeeze the words out in a gasp. “Please, it’s me, Àn’ying—”
“MÓ! HELP ME! A’ZHÀN…A’ZHÀN!”
I grit my teeth against her cries for my father and shove the vial into her mouth. I grasp her jaw and tilt her head back so she has no choice but to swallow.
As soon as I am out of her sight, she softens, sucking on the vial like a babe. Her nails loosen from my flesh, and herhands fall slack. When she has drunk the last drop, I set her head against the wall, dabbing her mouth with my sleeve and propping a pillow against her back. There is color in her cheeks now, some flush returning to her papery skin, but I can’t be sure if it’s the elixir already making its way through her or the result of her earlier exertion.
She’s staring at me now. Somehow, her eyes are more alive, and as I tuck her blankets around her shoulders, I pause, meeting them.
