Page 17 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Twelve

There are times when he is placating. When he asks me, “What is your favorite tea?” or “What music do you find pleasing?” And I think to myself, perhaps I could be happy here.

But then I recall—I already know his answers to such questions, while it has taken him this long to even think to ask mine.

And I wonder, why are the expectations for our husbands made so meager?

Why do we mistake the absence of cruelty for kindness?

When I remain cold, he grows angry, shouting like a child in the throes of a tantrum.

And I remind myself never to lower my guard again.

Sky came for me not an hour later. He burst through the door, upsetting the water jug Lei had left for me by the threshold.

“Meilin.” He reached for me, wrapping me in his arms as if to make sure I was real. “Did they hurt you?”

I shook my head against his chest, my lungs unexpectedly tight. At the familiar sight of him, a foreign emotion constricted my throat, making it hard to speak.

He pulled back, holding me at arm’s length to check for injuries. “When I heard the news…” He swallowed, sensing the roiling emotion within me. “I came as soon as I could.”

“Do you know how long I was trapped here for?” I asked, and now I recognized this strange emotion, not strange in and of itself, but in its unexpected object. “Two days, Sky. Two days—with no food or water. I thought I was going to die—” I broke off, chest heaving.

Sky’s expression was dazed. Until it morphed into fury. He released me, his eyes turning cold and vicious. “You should never have been held in solitary confinement for longer than a day,” he said. “I’ll find out who’s responsible for this.”

“No.” I caught his sleeve, at once regretting my temper. “I don’t think it was the crown prince’s fault,” I clarified. “Someone must’ve bribed the guards to go against protocol. But, Sky, if you investigate the matter, it’ll only draw attention to the rumors of my punishment—and my crime.”

Sky clenched and unclenched his jaw; I doubted he’d heard half of what I’d said. “They can’t get away with this,” he insisted, breaking free of my grasp and striding for the door.

“Sky!” I cried out, feigning sudden weakness. Immediately, he was upon me, steadying me in his warm embrace.

“Let me take you to the physician,” he said, in a different sort of voice.

I shook my head. If he got rid of me now, he would only return to his quest for vengeance.

The culprit was obvious—Prince Yuchen, who could easily claim innocence of the matter.

Worse, if word of my supposed infidelity reached the Imperial Commander’s ears, he might choose to remove me for good.

No, better not to draw attention to the matter.

I would search for more substantial evidence to make my case.

“No,” I said, straightening. “I need fresh air. Would you take a walk with me?” At his reluctance, I added, “Please? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

His eyes softened. “Of course,” he said at last, tucking my arm into his. “Wherever you wish to go.”

I started to lead him to the gardens, before my stomach gave a loud unbecoming grumble.

“I’m rather famished,” said Sky tactfully. “Should we take breakfast first?”

We ate until I was full to bursting, each dish better than the last. At this time of year it was common to serve winter melon soup, which I adored, but I’d never had it with dried dates, mushrooms, and rice noodles, which soaked up the savory broth deliciously.

Moreover, there were pork and chive dumplings, both boiled and fried; tofu with ginger and spice; and baked sweet potato glazed with honey and sugar.

When I wondered aloud how Sky knew all my favorite dishes, Lotus shot me a wink behind him.

“Do you need to rest?” he asked again, after breakfast.

“I’ve been resting ever since you left,” I said. “Why have you returned? Did you catch the alleged spirit summoner?”

To my astonishment, Sky nodded. “He’s to be executed at midday.”

“I want to see him.”

“It’s impossible,” said Sky. “He’s already awaiting his sentence at the Gate of Heavenly Peace.” And I was prohibited from leaving the Forbidden City, he did not add.

I could not go out, but…“We could watch,” I suggested. “From the palace walls.”

The Gate of Heavenly Peace stood directly outside the Forbidden City, and the square was visible from the outer palace walls. Though it was unconventional for a palace lady to be seen there, it was not technically banned.

Sky was hesitant, but I would not take no for an answer. And yet, once I’d gotten what I wanted, I did not know what I was looking for. As I watched the young man brought up to the chopping block, his burlap clothes marking him as a tenant farmer, I could see no signs of spirit power from him.

“What proof do you have of his black magic?” I asked Sky, who looked discomforted by the entire procedure.

Below us, commoners were heckling the prisoner, throwing rotten fruit and vegetables at his back.

The fruit and vegetables he bore, but the slurs wore him down as he shrank from the crowds and even tried to cover his ears.

“His neighbors ratted him out,” said Sky. “They spoke of how he’d made flowers bud in winter, and fruits grow in the most infertile of soils. His harvests were sweeter and more abundant than any others, and so he stirred the jealousy of many farmers in the province.”

“But that’s hardly a crime, is it? For skies’ sake, it sounds like a gift.”

“I argued on his behalf against Father, but…you know how he is.”

I did not, in fact, because Sky had been shielding me from him.

I’d heard from the rumor mill that Sky had asked for my hand in marriage, but the Imperial Commander had refused him, claiming my reputation was too controversial and my health too unstable to warrant the risk.

But most likely, he wanted something to hold over Sky, leverage to keep his youngest and most popular son in check.

“Father asked him to use his lixia, and the fool complied, growing a small seed into a sapling tree. And that was it.” As Sky spoke, I scanned his face and noticed new lines there I hadn’t seen before. Just as the times had not been kind to me, neither had they been kind to him.

“His power is nothing like yours,” said Sky, brows furrowing in thought. “His lixia didn’t feel the same either. Yours felt like…like…” He struggled for an appropriate comparison.

“An ocean?” I offered.

He nodded. “If yours felt like an ocean,” he said, still deep in thought, “then his was rather like a river creek. I could feel the bottom of it, its limitations, I suppose.”

I cut him a sidelong glance, but he was lost in his own memories. I had never questioned Sky’s spirit affinity before, but perhaps it was stronger than I’d first perceived.

His only brother of the same parentage, I recalled, was Winter, whom I’d once encountered in the space between realms. Winter had sensed my affinity before I was even aware of his. He was the one who’d urged Sky to look after me. And Winter’s spirit affinity—it likely surpassed even mine.

No matter. I would not let Sky take on the enormous cost that I had borne. Sky, who was noble and purehearted, would never become a spirit summoner—not while I lived.

I’d always known of the Cardinal Spirits, but not until recently had I considered the existence of other, lesser ones.

And yet, hadn’t I seen proof of them in the spirit realm, in my nightly wanderings?

The floating, blinking lights in the dark world, most of them minding their own business, but others perhaps seeking out human vessels.

And what if, I thought suddenly, the hairs on my arms rising, what if the new tears in the veil were causing more humans to wander into the spirit realm, and form a bargain with a waiting spirit?

Perhaps the spreading madness was not just the madness of a human overwhelmed with lixia energy. Perhaps it was also the madness of a human vessel, subsumed by its spirit master.

This was all getting more complicated than I’d ever imagined.

“ I don’t know how the dragon is managing it ,” Lei had said, “ but I doubt we’ll find the answer within these palace walls. ”

“Sky,” I began, and he frowned at me, guessing my intent. “The next time you have a lead, I want to go with you. I want to see these spirit gates for myself.”

“You were the one who told me they were too dangerous to approach!” said Sky, outraged by my double standard. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Then you agree with your father?” I asked. “That I should become a noble lady, and never stray from the confines of the palace? That I am too weak to lift a sword, much less best a man with it?”

“You know I don’t agree with him, Meilin,” he said with growing irritation.

“Of course, I would rather you come with me—you don’t think I value your judgment on these matters?

But”—he bit his lip, his eyes roving down my body in a way that left me deeply insecure—“do you honestly think you could keep up?”

My eyes pricked with tears. I was frustrated with him for reminding me of my shortcomings, but even more so with myself—for having reached this state of unforgivable weakness.

At my tears, Sky’s face contorted. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have—”

“No.” I cut him off. I refused to let him pity me like this. “I propose a deal.”

His expression took on a wary cast, but he did not interrupt.

“We’ll set aside the matter for the time being. But a month from now, before the new year, I will—I will consent to be examined by a physician. If I am deemed fit, then you must allow me to accompany you. If I am not, then I will agree to stay.”

I would train every day, I resolved, my heart pounding. I would spend every waking hour on recovery. And slowly, I would heal.

This was the way I had tackled every problem in my life—and this was the way I would solve this one. There was nothing that hard work and determination could not fix. Nothing.

“All right,” Sky promised, without thinking it over.

He was unlike Lei in every way. He wore his emotions on his sleeve.

He said exactly what he thought. And he did not see the world in terms of power structures and twisted games, but instead as black and white, good and evil.

In some aspects, I envied him, because the world to him was knowable, just as he was knowable.

The doubt I felt every day of my life was foreign to him.

Perhaps, I mused, if I could keep him by my side, those doubts would be banished forever.

I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. He caught me around the waist and pulled me close before I could escape. “What was that for?” he asked teasingly. But before I could respond, the gong sounded below. Midday had arrived.

With mounting apprehension, I peered over the edge at the crowd below.

Some were still jeering, their taunts cruel, yet oddly exuberant, as if they took pleasure in this spectacle.

Only one girl stood unmoving in the crowd.

She was tall, her build slight. Lily , I recognized with a pang. What was she doing down there?

I shivered with unease, and Sky wrapped his cloak around me, mistaking my discomfort for cold.

The provincial magistrate read out a list of the prisoner’s crimes before giving him a chance to speak.

“I, Duan Mingze, have never sought to harm a living creature. My only crime is in dreaming of a better, more prosperous world, and hoping that we might rebuild this kingdom into a place more beautiful than we left it.”

I could feel his qi intertwined with lixia, and in his voice—I could hear that unmistakable echo. It was the voice of his spirit master, speaking through him. And yet his spirit master felt so unlike my own, inclined toward life instead of destruction.

Were spirits in fact like men, not a monolith as a species, but as separate and distinct as the veins of leaves?

I expected the crowd to be moved by his speech, but instead, they jeered louder, some laughing at the audacity of his words. They were afraid. They were afraid, and so they channeled their fear into a thirst for violence. I knew, because I had once done the same.

Hiding my face against Sky’s chest, I did not watch as the magistrate handed the prisoner off to the executioner. Sky held me in his arms, not questioning my sudden sensitivity.

It was an inexplicable sensation, following no reason or precedent.

And yet I couldn’t shake it, that peculiar feeling that somehow I was the one responsible for this crime.

That if not for me, Duan Mingze would not be standing where he was today.

He would be alive, and I—well, perhaps I would be dead.

The axe met its mark. The crowd cheered as the body fell.