Page 68

Shuxiao’s eyes were glassy, her breathing labored. My grip tightened around her hand. “Don’t tire yourself. Rest. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Despite my words, despair seeped through me. This was a battle we could not win. We had to escape, but how? The dragons, my mind whispered. They could not fight these creatures, but they could help us flee. While I was reluctant to expose them to Wugang, I would not let Shuxiao die. Fumbling in my pouch, my fingers brushed the paper dragon Prince Yanming had given me before closing around something flat and cool. The scale from the Long Dragon.

Immerse this in liquid to call us, it had told me.

My fingers curled around it, pressing against its fine edge—stinging—as it sliced my skin. Blood trickled forth, slippery and warm, as I rubbed it against the scale.

A thin shout rang out a distance away. Prince Yanming? I glanced up to find him and his brother encircled by soldiers. In the tumult, I had not realized they had been separated from us. Terror clawed me at the sight of a soldier moving silently behind Prince Yanxi. Flames arced from my hand, the creature dipping back to evade them. With a smooth twist of its arm, the soldier swung its guandao toward Prince Yanxi—my cry of warning morphing into a howl, my insides shriveling like burnt paper as someone hurled himself in front of the blade, small arms clutched tight around Prince Yanxi’s waist. How warm and soft they had felt around my own. Weapons crashed all around, shouts erupting—yet I heard nothing except that sick, wet squelch as the guandao slid through Prince Yanming’s chest, scattering his blood like rain upon the sand.

Light crackled from the blade into Prince Yanming’s body, the stench of scorched flesh springing into the air. Just hours earlier, I had remarked he was taller, and now … how frail he looked, with that massive guandao jutting cruelly from his chest. Blood pooled, his palm groping at the wound, coming away a glistening red. His small body convulsed, eyes so wide there was a ring of pure white around his irises.

A guttural scream tore from Prince Yanxi’s throat as he lunged at the soldier, thrusting his sword through its gut in a single ferocious strike. The creature stiffened, its hands clenching harder around the guandao, holding it fast.

“The blade! Get it out!” I raced toward them, nauseated by the sight of the ominous lights still flowing into Prince Yanming’s body.

Prince Yanxi clawed the soldier away, grabbing the guandao and ripping it from his brother’s chest. The boy’s gasp, trapped between a breath and a scream, stabbed like nails driven through my skull.

As the Celestial soldiers started toward me, my mind hollowed of thought, consumed by rage. My power surged, a storm erupting from my fingers, knocking aside those in my path. A reckless use of my energy, a waste I could ill afford—but I no longer cared, my only thought to reach Prince Yanming.

A thunderous rush swirled through the air, the churn of water and wind. My hair flew across my face, cold droplets spraying all around as the Four Dragons sprang from the ocean depths, covering the sky itself. Crimson and yellow, pearl and black, undulating through the heavens with majestic grace, the monstrous press of their auras closing in as they descended to the beach. Arched gold claws sank into the white sands, billowing like mist in their wake.

Shouts broke out from behind me. A scuffle, the clang of blades, before the soldiers abruptly stilled as though turned to stone. I swung around to find Wugang bound by glowing bands of ice, Wenzhi pressing his sword to the back of his neck. Ever quick to grasp an opportunity, he must have seized Wugang amid the earlier chaos. The soldiers stared blankly at Wenzhi and their master, whom they obeyed like puppets whose strings he tugged.

I reached Prince Yanming, falling to my knees beside him, clutching his hand. Stiff and so cold, a shiver coursed through me. His youthful glow was fading fast, like the dying embers of a flame.

My heart clenched so tight I thought it might fracture. “Why? How?” I did not know to whom I spoke, or what answer I sought … just that this was so brutally unfair, so very wrong. That I would give anything to set it right again.

“The soldiers separated us.” Prince Yanxi’s face crumpled as he spoke. “I should not have fought them; we should have run. Yanming should have been the only one that mattered.”

I could find no words of solace, my own guilt driving deep. Wugang had come for us—Prince Yanming was innocent, simply caught in the fray. They had only fled here because of the turmoil we caused in the Southern Sea. They had even tried to help us … and a part of me wished they had not. Nothing was worth this price.

Bodies crowded around, yet I could no longer distinguish friend from foe. All I saw was a small face as pale as the moon, blue eyes darkening to night. A mouth that trembled as he tried to speak.

I bent my ear lower, catching the wisp of warmth in his frail breath.

“We … did not betray you. They found us. Don’t be angry.”

His words wracked me to my core. “I know.” I tried to smile but my lips were trembling. “I’m not angry. I’ll never be angry at you.”

My fingers wrapped tight around his as I grasped my energy, unsure of what I intended. A cut, a burn—such injuries I could tackle. Not this deathlike frost that bloomed from within, sapping the life from his veins.

Someone touched my shoulder, the warmth startling in the cold that shrouded me. Liwei knelt down, folding Prince Yanming’s hand in his.

Hope flared. Liwei’s Life magic was strong, far stronger than mine. “Help him,” I pleaded, though he had already gathered his power.

“Be careful, Liwei.” The Celestial Empress’s voice sounded like it came from far away. “Don’t exhaust yourself.”

I wanted to silence her, as much as I wanted to repeat her warning. I did not want to trade one life for another—I just wanted to save Prince Yanming.

The dragons prowled toward me, the evening sun setting the Long Dragon’s crimson scales afire, its golden claws alight. Their amber eyes lingered upon the gleaming remnants of the soldiers piled around us like shards of hewn marble.

What were these creatures? The Long Dragon’s tone was equal parts gentle and fierce, flowing with the crystalline purity of a mountain spring.

“Resurrected Celestial spirits, stolen from the Divine Harmony Sky,” I replied listlessly.

The dragons reared back, their manes rippling in the wind. A monstrous act. How is this possible?

“The laurel on the moon,” Wenzhi said.