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“We must destroy the laurel.” I spoke clearly, giving no sign of the fear unfolding within me, the sadness that thrummed like a plucked string. The laurel had been a part of my childhood, and how I had loved it. Through no fault of its own, it had been fed a lifetime of suffering through Wugang’s hatred and my mother’s sorrow.

“Is that possible?” Shuxiao asked. Her movements were sluggish, her face drained of color—an urgency rising in me to get her to safety.

The Long Dragon’s eyes rolled up like it was searching its thoughts. The laurel’s nature is cold, as are those who draw their strength from the moon. To destroy such a thing, you would need the most potent flame in the realm.

“Where can we find this?” Wenzhi asked.

“What of the Phoenix Kingdom?” I ventured. “Those strong in Fire come from there.”

The Long Dragon said nothing, slanting its great head toward the empress.

“Mother, could you help us?” Liwei asked.

I thought it more probable that she would claw me to shreds—but surely, she would understand the threat of Wugang should take precedence over all else. When she remained silent, I let a note of disdain slide into my voice. “Perhaps you do not know. Perhaps only the great Queen Fengjin has the answer.”

“I know far more than an ignorant girl like you does,” she hissed. “You are wrong; what you seek is not in the Phoenix Kingdom. The Sacred Flame Feather grows from the sunbird’s crown.”

Sunbird. As the word resonated through the silence, my father’s face contorted with pain. I did not think he regretted saving the Mortal Realm, yet it did not mean he relished his victory.

“The sunbird resides in the Fragrant Mulberry Grove. The domain of Lady Xihe.” Wenzhi’s gaze was sharp and assessing. “I doubt Your Celestial Majesty will grieve should the goddess attack us.”

She would have just cause. Lady Xihe was the Goddess of the Sun. Mother to the sunbirds, nine of whom my father had slain.

The empress’s lips curled. “Don’t you dare look at me that way. I am no liar—not like you, you treacherous spy.” She swung to my father. “Murderer of my kin, surely you remember the day you slew them. You have felt the potency of their heat. You have seen the feathers I speak of.”

She laughed, a brittle sound. “Thanks to you, there is only one left in the world, when once there were ten. A fitting penance to have you grovel for Xihe’s mercy, to witness the suffering you wrought upon her family.”

I took an involuntary step back. “Lady Xihe will never aid us, not even if the Immortal Realm burned to ash.”

“Yet we must try,” my father said gravely.

“How can we find the grove?” Liwei asked his mother. “I have heard it’s no easy place to enter.”

“Follow the trail of the sun’s descent, the path the sun chariot traverses as it returns home. You must be quick and not fall behind its shadow. If you do, the way will be shut to you, and you must wait another day.” The empress spoke slowly, as though unearthing memories long past.

She had been close to Lady Xihe once—as intimate as sisters—until the sunbirds were killed while under her protection.

What of the key, Your Celestial Majesty? the Long Dragon pressed.

“Key?” Liwei repeated.

Three were crafted, for the three who were the closest of companions. One in Lady Xihe’s keeping, one given to Queen Fengjin. And one to Her Celestial Majesty. To enter the Fragrant Mulberry Grove without key or invitation, is to perish.

“I was going to tell you.” Red bloomed in the empress’s cheeks, but I had dealt with far better pretenders. Perhaps her loathing of me was too great—that she was unable to mask it, unable to discern between wanting me dead and aiding her own cause.

“Why don’t you help us?” I asked her without rancor. “You despise me, think me beneath you. But Wugang took my home, and now he’s taken yours. He threatens all we love, the entire realm itself. Nothing should matter except stopping him.”

“I don’t need your help to do that,” she snarled.

Liwei stepped between us. “We need all the help we can get.”

The Long Dragon’s gaze was intent upon me, its words for me alone. The nine slain sunbirds were arrogant, selfish, and capricious. However, they did not deserve their fate. While your father saved the mortals from certain calamity, you should not forget that the sunbirds, too, were unfortunate participants in this farce—they on one end, your father on the other. One tricked with false coin, the other forced to pay an impossible price.

Before, I had felt little grief for the sunbirds, blaming them for tormenting the world. To be reminded that they had been young and foolish, and they had family who grieved for them still … it hurt, for I had tasted the bitterness of loss. And yet, that was incomparable to a mother’s sorrow.

Lady Xihe’s grief is vast, her rage unquenched, the dragon continued. It simmers each morning as the sun illuminates the skies, roiling as she bears her lone child in the chariot, reminded anew of those she lost. It pulses in the vicious lash of her whip as she strikes her mount. She was not cruel before, though her heart is now hardened by misery. The most dangerous hate is that which festers unsated.

Why are you telling me this? I asked in the silence of my mind, not wanting to draw the attention of the others.