Page 110 of The Dragon and the Sun Lotus

Someone is laughing. Deep and melodious laughter, heartfelt and genuine…one I know like the echoes of a dream.

I stand. Sunlight drips through the canopy in pools of gold, yet through it all, I catch sight of a glade just several dozen steps away. I make out the curved eaves of a moss-colored temple, mahogany pillars blending into the surrounding foliage. A wooden plaque announces in elegant gold lettering that it is a practitioning temple—perhaps one of the many Hào’yáng and I reestablished across the kingdom during our reign. Smoke plumes from its open doors, and wind chimes before its paper windows tinkle in the breeze.

In the clearing, two men are in conversation. Their swords catch the glint of light. One, dressed in a deep-blue shift, turns away and walks into the temple.

I shift my grip on my crescent blades. Their talismans have been aglow with my spirit energies, Fleet lending me speed and Heart pointing me toward what I’d thought was the fei’fei.

In a single leap, I’m at the edge of the clearing. My head is light; my limbs are like air; my heart is in my throat.

The man sheathes his longsword and reaches for his cloak, slung on a nearby tree branch. As he tosses it over his shoulders, its rich red hue flares beneath the rising sun, and that is the moment I’m certain.

I keep having a dream,he told me.The same dream. I’m in a forest, and I’ve been searching my entire life for something, but I don’t know what it is.

A sudden wind sweeps through the trees, stirring jade-green leaves and peach blossoms into the air. Overhead, the clouds shift, and the sun seems to grow brighter, so that everything is rendered in a golden haze.

I take a step forward, and I dare myself to call out to him.

He pauses. His back is to me, his crimson cloak shifting with the breeze. Then he turns toward me as though time has slowed—a painting in the rising dawn.

Hair, billowing like swirls of ink.

Eyes, flashing like golden embers.

The phantom of a smile on his face as his eyes lift to meet mine.

Then I hear someone say my name, and suddenly, I know in my soul that I’ve found what I’m looking for.

His lips part, eyes widening as he takes me in. And suddenly, it is as though time flows backward, as though all the years between us vanish within that single heartbeat of our eyes meeting, and we are once again in that same forest in a lifetime long past: me a mortal and him a demon, beholding each other for the very first time.

But this is a different life, in a time centuries later. There is no recognition on his face. Yet his gaze roves me as though he is searching for something; and when he meets my eyes again, his eyes crease in puzzled warmth—perhaps because a memory lingers in his soul, flitting just out of reach of his conscious mind.

He cocks his head, a smile spreading over his face, and it islike watching the sun rising after a long, dark night. His voice is as deep and smooth as the night—exactly the same as I remember it—when he speaks those same first words to me as when we met a lifetime ago.

“Do I know you?”