Page 52 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Thirty-Six

Only twice in known history have the pacifist southern monks interfered in military conflicts of any nature.

The first recorded instance occurred during the Great Floods of the Quan Dynasty, when the harmony of the natural world was threatened.

The second occurred nearly five centuries later, when a prophecy was made regarding a half-Ruan prince.

Because of the prophecy, the monks swore an oath.

When the prince called for their aid, they would come.

“I have an idea,” I began, as we gathered near the torchlight. A wave of déjà vu crested through me as I regarded their familiar faces, lit by flame. “I stole another spirit’s seal today. It drove the dragon mad.”

“Jealousy,” commented Kuro. “All the spirits are prone to it.”

“It gave me power too,” I said. “I wonder if we could somehow use that to seal the veil.”

“Where is that jade now?” asked Lei.

I reached into my pocket and showed them the ash remains. “I think Qinglong got rid of her.”

Lei raised a brow at this. “What power did her seal lend you? Lixia?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then that won’t work,” said Lei. “Excess lixia was what created the spirit gates in the first place. It won’t be lixia that closes the rift. It will be qi.”

Our life force. What spirits craved, just as we humans sought lixia. That push and pull was fragile, but it had never splintered, not until now.

Winter nodded. “He’s right. The counterpart of lixia is qi, which no spirit possesses. To restore the balance between realms, one would need to return qi to the veil.”

“So,” said Kuro, “which gate do we target? You know there are gates all over the Three Kingdoms by now.”

“Is it feasible to close all of them?” I asked.

“You don’t have time,” said Sky brusquely. I met his eyes—and felt that familiar snarl of rage and remorse. His gaze held mine before I turned away; I could not surrender to my emotions, not at a time like this.

“Then what?” said Kuro unhelpfully.

Lei gestured toward Kuro’s bow. “Do you mind if I borrow this?”

Kuro removed the weapon and handed it to him without objection. The two seemed to have made their peace in the aftermath of the quake.

Lei gathered a few rocks from the ground, then crouched and set the bow on the dirt. Pinning the bow against the ground, he pulled the bowstring taut, then positioned it there against the dirt.

“Hold this for me, will you?” he asked Kuro, who shrugged and complied, gripping the bow in place with one hand, and the taut string with the other.

We all watched silently as Lei placed a few pebbles and rocks along the string, weighting it down, then added a massive stone on top of the nocking point.

“You can let go now,” said Lei. Kuro released the string; it stayed in place.

“The deepest tear in the veil,” said Lei. “Where is that?”

“The chasm at the center of First Crossing,” said Kuro with grim confidence. “As far as I know, that’s the only gate through which spirits have crossed.”

Lei nodded, expecting this answer. “Say this is the gate at First Crossing,” he said, pointing at the massive rock at the center. “We seal this one and—” He removed it from the bowstring.

Not seconds later, the bowstring bounced back into place, scattering the smaller rocks everywhere. Winter winced as dust billowed up, smearing his robes.

“Is it that simple?” asked Kuro skeptically.

Winter tilted his head. “Balance seeks itself. That which was once in balance will seek to return to balance,” he said thoughtfully.

“Prince Cao has a point. Once you close the deepest tear and restore the veil to equilibrium, the other spirit gates will naturally decline as lixia fades from the human realm.”

Kuro shrugged. “All right,” he said. “Then how do we feed our life force into the veil?”

I was beginning to understand just how much of the leadership Jinya had contributed to the Black Scarves.

“I have a way,” Winter volunteered, before glancing at his younger brother. “But you won’t like this.”

Sky said nothing.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Blood,” said Winter. “Qi concentrates within blood.”

My own went cold. “ The spirits demand blood ,” my mother had told me. Back then, I hadn’t understood what she’d meant.

“So we give ourselves up?” asked Kuro, torn between outrage and amusement. “As human sacrifices?”

“No,” said Sky. His jaw had gone as taut as the bowstring.

Lei’s expression was inscrutable. “Excess blood will only lure more spirits out.”

I thought of how I’d cut myself to draw the bird spirit away from Sky. “It does drive them into a frenzy,” I admitted.

“Which is the opposite of what we want,” said Lei. Sky nodded emphatically. For once, they were in agreement.

“Then how else do we end this?” asked Kuro.

Winter said nothing, only folded his lips into a flat line.

Kuro shot me a sidelong glance. His face was ragged with weariness, but there was a spark of levity in his eyes.

I was reminded of all life had thrown at him, how often he’d fallen down—and how often he’d gotten back up again.

And yet this time, the rebel leader looked ready to let go.

In fact, at the thought of certain suicide, he looked almost relieved .

“Phoenix-Slayer,” he said to me, with a certain tone of reluctant camaraderie. “Are you ready to die?”

Our momentary civility ended after that.

Sky fiercely objected to Winter’s plan, Lei tried to brainstorm alternatives, and Kuro began to laugh, his mind teetering on the brink of sanity.

He had lost Jinya only a day ago, I reminded myself.

If not for the iron walls surrounding us, I would’ve peered into his mind, which felt volatile, like flames dancing with oil.

After a few more minutes of pointless dispute, Winter asked if we shouldn’t break for food. This of course raised further debate.

Kuro suggested the rebel base, which Sky disapproved of. Winter proposed the Anlai camp, which Kuro protested against.

“What if we split up?” I asked.

Kuro shoved a finger in Sky’s direction. “How do I know you won’t simply go back to your troops and turn us in?” Kuro demanded.

“How do I know you won’t do the same?” said Sky.

“None of us separates from the group,” Lei decided. “We stick together, until the veil is restored.”

“Then the cease-fire’s off,” finished Kuro. “Am I right?”

At the ensuing silence, I guessed he was.

For the issue of sustenance, Lei suggested a nearby pleasure-house, which was known for being discreet regarding delicate matters.

As it turned out, there was little need for delicacy. The pleasure-house, along with all other businesses, was shuttered, its residents having fled the city in the hours following the quake. Now those less fortunate, who hadn’t managed to escape, would never leave at all.

The streets of First Crossing, once bustling, were now eerily silent but for the creaking of trees in the wind or the errant moan of a casualty. Apart from bandits and other foolhardy opportunists, few roamed the open streets.

It was a strange party then that we comprised: Sky in the front, his sword at the ready; Kuro at the rear; and Winter and I in the middle. Lei kept toward the back, occasionally breaking away to tinker with the locks on various stores.

“This one,” he said at last, and we followed him to an abandoned noodle house. We gathered around Lei as he inserted a hairpin into the lock.

A stray motion caught my eye; I glanced over my shoulder to see a corporeal rabbit spirit peering at us from around the corner. Sky stepped in front of me, lifting his sword.

“Wait!” Kuro and I exclaimed in unison. In our indecision, the rabbit turned and hopped away.

“Not all spirits are violent,” explained Kuro. “They’re like us; they vary in disposition and temperament.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, turning back to the noodle shop as the lock clicked and Lei pushed the door open, ushering us inside. Kuro and I entered first, followed by Winter.

“Baihu once told me,” Kuro replied, and I felt a twinge of surprise, followed by jealousy.

Baihu was nothing like Qinglong. She had always sought to maintain balance between realms, and even now, with the veil torn, she hadn’t attempted to cross into the human realm.

Was it our ban on black magic that had first cast spirits as beings of malice and evil?

And in perceiving them that way, had we somehow made it a reality?

I cleared my throat. “The Ivory Tiger seems—”

“Liu Sky!” Lei shouted. “Get down!”

I whirled around just as a seemingly dead corpse picked himself off the street and, with supernatural strength, proceeded to pitch an axe at Sky.

Sky, standing outside the noodle shop, ducked just in time, the axe barely grazing his shoulder.

The old man’s hair had gone to gray, and his face was as wrinkled as a dried prune.

And yet, when he saw the axe had not met its mark, he charged at Sky, sprinting as if he were a boy in his prime.

Sky anchored his stance, raising his sword, but Lei beat him to it. With practiced aim, Lei hurled a dual-sided knife at the man, who choked as the blade sliced cleanly across his throat. The blood that trickled out was the color of black tar.

The old man fell to his knees, chortling. I couldn’t tell if he was choking or laughing, or both. His yellow irises fixed on mine as he died. As if he saw me, and knew what I was.

Someone like him.

Someone ready to die.

“Get in,” ordered Lei, shaking me from my stupor. He bolted the door behind us.

None of us, it turned out, knew how to cook. There was noodle dough sitting on the kitchen counter, yet no one who knew how to knead it. Then there were chicken eggs in the basket by the fire, and no one who knew how to cook them. Laughing at our incompetence, Lei endeavored to learn.