The emperor’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You should,” the Qilin growled, glaring down with a rage Julius had never seen. “I’ve made no secret of the love I have for your sister, but an emperor’s life does not belong to him alone. The last time I was selfish, my empire paid the price. Now you’re telling me to do it again, and you have the nerve to question my sincerity when I tell you no?”
“Yes,” Julius said. “Because I don’t think you’re saying it to be a good emperor.” His eyes narrowed. “I think you’re scared.”
“OfcourseI’m scared!” the Qilin cried. “You’ve seen what I can do!”
As if on cue, a large chunk of the damaged ceiling chose that moment to fall, crashing to the ground directly between them. Julius jumped out of the way with room to spare, but when he looked up again, the emperor was hunched over his throne, defeated.
“You see?” he said miserably, looking down at the rubble. “It’s always like this. Even when I’m calm, I’m afraid, because I know the moment I get upset, I’ll destroy everything. When your sister left me, we had earthquakes every day for a year. All of Nanjing burned down.Twice.My maternal aunt, Lao’s mother, died of a heart attack after she mentioned Chelsie’s name in my presence. Dragons don’t evengetheart attacks, but I gave her one. I caused it all, disaster after disaster, misery after misery, on and on andon.”
He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t risk that again. You’re right when you say I love your sister, but that’s the problem. Love brought me lower than anything else before or since, and when the Qilin goes down, he takes everything else with him. That’s the truth of being the Golden Emperor, and it’s why I can’t help you now. Because no matter how much I love her, I can’t fix this problem, and I have no right to drag my empire through the mud with me again.”
He said that like it was the end. Like there was nothing more that could ever be said, but Julius shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
The emperor looked up. “What?”
“You’re wrong,” Julius repeated sadly. “Everyone calls you a luck dragon, but the more I learn about you, the more I realize you’re actually the opposite. You’re not lucky. You’re cursed, in a lot of ways. Your whole empire is built around capitalizing on your magical good fortune, but that fortune’s only good when you’re happy, andno one’shappy all the time. You go on and on about how it’s your responsibility to stay serene and bring good fortune to your people while overlooking the fact that it is utterlyirresponsible to bet the fate of twenty dragon clans, hundreds of millions of humans, all the land in China, and nowHeartstrikeron the happiness of one dragon. Especially since you don’t even seem to be getting your fair share of the deal.”
“That’s absurd,” the Qilin said dismissively.
“Is it?” Julius crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. “When was the last time you were actually happy?”
The emperor’s jaw tightened. “I endeavor always to maintain the serenity—”
Julius held up his hand. “I didn’t say serenity. I asked about happiness. When was the last time you actually enjoyed beingyou?”
“I can’t remember,” the Qilin said irritably. “But that’s not the point.”
“It’s theentirepoint!” Julius cried. “You’ve been telling me since you got here about how it’s your responsibility to bring good fortune. That your all-powerful luck would rain down blessings and protection on us if we’d only agree to join you. But that’s not what I’ve observed. From whatI’veseen so far of how your empire runs, it’s mostly about avoiding the consequences of yourunhappiness.”
He pointed over his shoulder at the closed throne room doors, where Lao was presumably still waiting on the other side. “Your cousin, your mother, the ones that you should trust most, they all treat you like you’re a living nuclear weapon, and they’reright. You’re a disaster waiting to happen, because no one’s life, not even the Golden Emperor’s, is devoid of suffering. Being alive means being unhappy at points, and yet the entire Golden Empire is based on the idea that you’re somehow exempt from that. You’ve built your entire civilization on a fallacy! The very concept of an eternally serene Golden Emperor sets an impossible standard, and you’ve bought into it. You tell yourself you’re just being responsible, just staying calm, but the reality is that you’ve become so afraid of your own magic, you’d rather let the love of your life go into danger alone than risk making yourself upset.”
His words echoed off the cracked walls, but the Qilin said nothing. Julius wasn’t even sure if the emperor was listening anymore. He just sat there on his throne with his head down and his fists clenched, and the longer Julius watched him, the more his heart went out to the Qilin.
“I know how tempting it is to give up your own happiness for others,” he said gently. “Believe me, I know, but that kind of thing only goes so far. It might seem good and noble, but there’s a point where self-sacrifice becomes a liability, not a gift, and I think you passed that a long time ago. You’ve spent so much of yourself trying to be a good emperor, it’s left you with nothing of your own. No happiness. No hope. No love. Since you arrived, I’ve heard the story of how you’re the most powerful Qilin ever born over and over, but what’s the point of all that power if you can’t use it to save the one you love?”
“Because it isn’tmypower,” the Qilin said, looking up at last. “I have responsibilities. Dragons who depend on—”
“You have dragons who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves,” Julius said. “They’redragons! Every other clan in the world survives without the Qilin’s luck. It’s perfectly possible to live a long, fulfilling life without the blessing of a magical emperor, so maybe it’s time you stopped worrying so much about your dragons and started worrying aboutyou. What doyouwant? What makesyouhappy? And before you dismiss that as selfish, I think there’s a lot of evidence that a happy Qilin would do his empire a lot more good than one that’s merely calm. If nothing else, whatever damage you cause now by going to save Chelsie will be minuscule compared to the fallout of knowing you could have saved her but were too afraid to try.”
The Qilin closed his eyes with a sigh. “What you say makes sense,” he admitted. “But I don’t know if that’s because you’re actually right, or because I want to believe you so badly, I’m willing to twist logic.”
“Why can’t it be both?” Julius asked. “Not to sound like a stereotypical Heartstriker, but what’s the good of being emperor if you can’t do what you want now and again?”
Pale as he still was, Xian actually smiled a tiny bit at that. “I lied to you before,” he said. “When you asked about the last time I was happy. I do remember. It was when I was with your sister. With Chelsie.” His smile widened. “She also wasn’t afraid to argue with me.”
Julius smiled back. “Heartstrikers aren’t known for being meek.”
“No, you’re not,” the emperor agreed. “But that’s what I liked about her. She wasn’t afraid of upsetting me, wasn’t afraid of anything. I used to think that was reckless. Now, I wish I’d been reckless, too. How much of this could have been avoided if I’d acted differently?”
“We’ll never know,” Julius said. “But it’s not too late. Before Bob lured her out, I’d convinced her to meet you.”
The emperor’s eyes went wide. “You did?”
“You’re not the only one who’s been bottling things up for centuries,” Julius said smugly. “She wanted to talk, or at least make a start, but then Bob called and everything went wrong. She teleported to the DFZ, and—”
