Page 48 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Thirty-Two

Where are you? They claim you’ve gone home, but I cannot believe it.

You of all people would never abandon our cause.

Did you hear me when I called your name in the woods?

Did you see me weeping, broken and terrified without you?

I’m sorry. It was my damned pride, as you warned me.

What I meant to say was, I need you. The rebellion needs you.

The Black Scarves follow me in name only. The true leader is you.

—Tan Kuro, in a private missive to Lü Jinya, undated

I burst through the portal gasping for breath. All the false calm of the spirit realm deserted me, and in the human realm, I was struck by the full force of my anxiety.

Lei caught me by the shoulders as I started to hyperventilate.

“Kuro—” I choked out, for I could not see his body anywhere.

“He returned already. He…he didn’t want to talk.”

He’d been forced to kill Jinya with his own hands. Would I one day be forced to do the same?

I gasped for breath but couldn’t seem to draw air. The sky was darkening, the air rife with the odor of rotting flesh. A dragonfly buzzed by my ear and I shrieked with alarm.

“Breathe,” said Lei, as he looked me over. “Are you hurt?”

Jinya’s writhing body sprang to mind. I shook my head, trying to clear the blood-coated memory.

It refused to release me, its grip on my mind like weeds in still water.

I could see Jinya’s ink-black blood oozing onto the sand, the hovering spirits whispering above us, their hunger as palpable as the warm, cloying wind.

“Meilin,” said Lei, voice low with authority. “Look at me.”

Slowly, the memory faded, the stirring lake faded, even the corpses of the fallen faded.

I met Lei’s implacable gaze, his luminous eyes that always seemed to see straight through my masks and lies.

Lei knew me , I realized. He knew the ugly parts of me that I tried so hard to hide.

He was always one step ahead of me, too clever, too devious, too good at reading and manipulating others.

In captivity, I’d feared this ability of his.

But now, I found myself seeking comfort from it.

For in some perverse way, it made me feel seen.

Despite knowing me, despite knowing my selfishness, my greed, my fits of hysteria and madness—still, he’d stayed. He’d stayed and protected me.

Why?

Perhaps he truly did care for me. But with the Ximing prince, there was always more than one motive.

I thought of how he’d approached every spirit gate on our journey, how he’d made sure to honor the dead—even though I’d never known him to be sentimental.

It had been another of his schemes, I saw. And the truth was, it had worked.

Because every death had eaten at me. The corpses littered along the road, the children too young to even enlist in war. Despite my best efforts, I had seen them, and I had thought: You did this. You started this.

Then Princess Ruihua. Then Jinya. Who else? Who else must I cross paths with in the spirit realm—who else must I recognize with dread?

It was said that spirits were drawn to those with darkness within them. And yet, in the aftermath of war, who had not been tainted by darkness?

What if Xiuying was the next body I discovered along the river?

“I told you plainly I was going to the eternal spring,” I said, increasingly upset. “I told you I wasn’t getting involved in the rebellion, or the thinning of the veil, or any of this!”

“I know,” he said.

“You agreed! You said you’d come with me to the spring!”

“And I will,” he said, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “I gave you my word.”

“But…” My jaw quivered. If I leave for the spring now… “But…” My voice dropped. “Lei, I don’t want to care for this world.”

“I know.” His eyes looked so very sad.

“I wish I didn’t care for this world.”

His calloused hands slid down my arms, before he took my hands in his.

“But…” Pressure built at the backs of my eyes. I was so tired of crying. “But…”

“But you do,” he finished. “You do care.”

“Yes.” I relented, my shoulders slumping forward. He caught me, steadying me against him.

“I can’t give it up,” I admitted into his chest. “Even though I can feel my qi thinning. Even though I only have a few months left to live. If I go now, and seek the spring, the world may not have even that.”

Lei said nothing. I raised my head and watched his jaw pulse, the knot at his throat lifting. After all his tricks and mind games, his silence now frustrated me to no end.

“Say something!” I snapped. “Wasn’t this what you wanted? Wasn’t this your plan all along? Wasn’t this the choice you manipulated me into making?”

“Sweetheart…”

“No!” I cut him off. “Now you’ll just twist my words.

You’ll make me think this was all my doing.

But I know you—I know you have an agenda.

You always do.” Tears leaked from my eyes, running unabated down my cheeks.

My jaw was trembling so violently it was hard for me to speak.

“I’m not the kind of person people think I am,” I gasped, through my tears.

“I don’t work well with others. I hurt people. I-I’m selfish—I’m selfish to my core—”

“You’re not selfish, Meilin.”

“I am! You’ve seen what I’ve done. I opened the spirit gates. I killed innocent people. I-I ruined Sky.” In a softer voice: “I ruin everyone I love.”

He took me by my chin then, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“We’re human, each of us.” The warmth from his hand seeped into my ice-cold skin.

“But I believe we’re more than our worst moments,” he told me, his voice quiet yet thrumming with authority.

“It’s our best moments that have the power to define us. ”

His gaze seared into mine, and suddenly I saw myself laughing with Autumn, my clothes dripping wet but my eyes bright with mirth.

I saw myself from afar, stopping a zuqiu ball from rolling into the pond, then throwing it back to the boys who’d been playing in the palace courtyard.

I saw myself teaching Lily how to defend herself.

I watched myself stumble after a particularly grueling practice session, my body flagging before Lily asked if we could duel once more.

Despite my fatigue, I nodded, forcing myself upright.

“ One more time ,” I agreed, because I didn’t know how much time I had left to teach her.

I surfaced from these memories with a gasp. For a moment, I was too startled to speak. My surprise was so great even my tears had ceased. “Lei.” I cleared my throat. “Did you just…compel me?”

His lips twitched. “I think you’d know if I suddenly became a spirit summoner,” he said wryly.

“Then…what was that?” All those memories, I realized, they hadn’t been from my perspective. They were from his.

“Sometimes, when the Ruan form a particular bond with someone, they can endeavor to communicate in more ways than one.” He hesitated, before explaining, “It began after you saved my life, back on Mount Fuxi.”

“Since Mount Fuxi?” I exclaimed. “You could read my mind since Mount Fuxi? Have you done it before?”

“No,” he replied, before amending reluctantly, “Well, perhaps once or twice.”

Outraged beyond words, I could only glare at him.

“It’s only when the thought is aimed at me,” he clarified. “Then it’s rather like you’re shouting in my head.”

I flushed indignantly. “It’s not fair,” I said. “It’s not fair that you can know what I’m thinking, that you can even speak into my mind, and I can’t do any of that.”

“But you can,” said Lei, surprised into laughter. “Sweetheart, you’re the summoner of a Cardinal Spirit.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Your mind is like a locked door to me. I can’t read you. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

He considered this, trying and failing to conceal his gratification. “How about…now?”

I blinked at him. His smile was as playful and unknowable as ever. But this time, when I looked into his eyes, I felt a soft wave of feeling overcome me. A crack in the doorway, left open just for me.

I stepped closer to him instinctively. His emotions were like a gentle summer wind, enveloping me in their warmth.

He was proud of me; I could feel the strength of his pride.

He believed in me; he believed I could change the world.

But still, he was afraid for me. He was afraid for my safety, for my well-being, for how little I slept at night.

He knew how many people wanted things from me; he was guilt-ridden for wanting more.

That was why he hadn’t asked outright—he’d wanted the choice to be mine.

“ I promised you—I will go with you to the eternal spring .” Lei’s voice in my head was like a warm caress, nothing like Qinglong’s icy brutality. “ The moment you decide to leave, I will go with you. Just say the word. ”

I looked up at him. How strange that I had once hated this man, that I had once wished him dead. Now I trusted his promise. I trusted it with my life.

It was my responsibility to fix this; I understood that now.

I was not my father, who destroyed but never mended.

I would not leave behind a legacy of ruin; I would not let my memory be one of cowardice.

All my life, I had been taught selfish ambition.

My father had modeled how to fend for yourself, how to consider your own desires before the needs of others.

After all, how else could you survive in a society as harsh as ours?

Without a sober father and a sane mother, how else could you thrive in a world this unforgiving?

But there was another way to live. I had seen it in Xiuying; I had even glimpsed it in Sky and Lei.

Those who sought to change the world for the better, who believed not only in the goodness of the world but also in their own inherent goodness.

Those who trusted that their actions would not corrupt, but heal.

“ I will ,” I thought to Lei, and I caught the flicker of recognition in his eyes.

Aloud, I said, “Were you spying on me? Back in the Forbidden City.” At his crooked smirk, I asked, “How? I never saw you.” And I had made certain there were no bystanders at our illegal practice sessions.

If anyone had known I’d been training the palace servant girls, it would have been a criminal offense.

Lei’s eyes crinkled. “I can’t give up all my secrets,” he said. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Where did Kuro go?” I asked, as we returned to the city.

“He came back from the spirit realm hours before you,” said Lei. “He wasn’t really in the mood to chat.”

I shot him a sardonic look. “I gather you suspect what happened,” I said.

Lei nodded. “It’s unfortunate for the Black Scarves. Lü Jinya was their linchpin.”

“Really?” I asked, not because I hadn’t respected her, but because she’d always seemed secondary to Kuro.

“Kuro relied on her for all their logistics coordination, offense strategy, and supply operations.”

“No wonder he took it so hard,” I said.

“It seems there may have been other reasons for his grief,” said Lei. “They grew up together on the outskirts of Xianju, near the Runong Desert. That’s where the rebellion began, as you may have heard.”

“How do you know all this?” I demanded.

“Soldiers talk.”

I sighed, resigned to the fact that Lei would always know more than me. “We’ll need Kuro eventually, to restore the veil,” I said. “I can’t do it alone.”

Lei nodded.

“I’ll give you the task of convincing him,” I said. “Since that seems to be your specialty.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Lei, smirking.

I ignored this, thinking. I had read all of Sky’s books on the practice of lixia, but I was still no more enlightened as to how to repair the veil between realms. Sima Yi would most likely have been our best bet, given his extensive studies on the subject, but now that he was no longer an option…

“I may need to seek out Winter,” I told Lei. “Sky’s brother.” I hesitated. “Is that okay with you?”

He lifted a brow. “Why would that not be? I’ve always liked him.”

“ But you know who he’ll be with ,” I thought to him.

“Whether or not I like him has little to do with the situation at hand.”

I nodded, gratified. My question had been a test—and he had passed.

“Right now,” I continued, thinking aloud, “the spirit gates are many, but the veil still stands in place. I know this because no spirits walk among us. Not in their corporeal form, at least. They still require human vessels to enter the physical realm. Once the veil collapses…” I shivered at the thought.

Then Qinglong would no longer need me. “Anyway, we won’t let that happen.

We’ll seal the veil before it collapses.

“Do you think you could get a message back to the New Quan lixia scholars?” I asked Lei. “I want to understand the fundamentals of how the veil works. We can make a plan from there, and perhaps find a way to evacuate the—”

I gasped, my chest caving inward from impact. My hands went to my sternum, which felt as if it had been cracked into pieces.

“What is it?” demanded Lei.

I couldn’t speak from pain. I folded into myself, and Lei seized me before I keeled over. My throat was closing, my breaths turning short and shallow. The world blurred before me, the streets and people and animals turning into shapes and sounds and monsters.

“The dragon,” I gasped. “He’s—he’s coming for me.”

I could not say how I knew. But I knew—I knew it in my bones.

There was a loud boom in the distance, followed by deep reverberations in the earth. My knees shook as I felt the vibrations thrumming across the mountains. Then the screams began.

We were too late.