Page 53 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Meanwhile, I escaped to the storage room, craving solitude.

Being in Lei and Sky’s combined presence grated on my nerves like the shrill whine of a whistle, leaving me agitated and on edge.

I shut the storage room door and sat in the dark, seeking focus and calm.

An idea was simmering in the back of my mind, like a pot left over a low flame.

“ We’re human, each of us ,” Lei had told me. “ But I believe we’re more than our worst moments. It’s our best moments that have the power to define us. ”

“ Remember yourself. ” My mother’s advice had enabled me to escape the spirit realm. “ Remember your humanness, and you will be able to return. ”

What was humanness? Was it a condition of being, or was it inherent somehow? Was it possible to lose one’s humanity, or was that like water losing its wetness? How then did human vessels die? It was when we lost our qi, yes, but more than that, it was when we lost our will to live.

What gave us our will to live, then? Joy, perhaps, and hope. Where did those feelings stem from?

“ The future is always a source of comfort ,” Lei had once told me. “ It’s the past I despise. ”

I found now that I did not agree. It was my memories that offered the essence of me, that brought me invaluable comfort, that reminded me of who I was.

I thought of my mother in her moments of lucidity, teaching me how to swim.

Xiuying braiding my hair. Rouha and Plum stuffing their faces with dumplings, asking me to tell them the same story over and over.

“What happened to the cowherd and the weaver girl?”

“ They lived happily ever after ,” I said, having changed the story for them.

“What happens after happily ever after?”

“Every day, they wake up and choose happiness.”

“ Like us ,” said Rouha, her mouth full. “ We do that too. ”

The door burst open, yanking me from my thoughts. Sky leaned against it, panting, his face stricken and white.

“What is it?” I asked him, reaching for my sword.

“Nothing,” he said, color slowly returning to his face. “Don’t go off alone,” he added roughly. “We thought you’d been taken.”

I’ve been in here for all of five minutes , I wanted to argue. But I saw the strain on his face, which likely matched my own. Holding my tongue, I strode past him to the kitchen.

Dinner was boiled eggs—underboiled—and noodles—overcooked. Still, after life in the army, I was not one to refuse food.

“Look what I found!” announced Kuro, emerging from the cellar with a bottle of sorghum wine. “It’s a proper meal now.”

All of us accepted a glass. All of us—except Lei, who opted for barley tea instead. I glanced at him curiously, before remembering that I was upset with him.

“To those who make history,” said Kuro, toasting us.

“And to those who live to write about it,” said Winter, smiling.

The sorghum wine warmed me, calming my nerves and settling my thoughts. Over the dining table I scrutinized Kuro, thinking hard.

“What is it?” the rebel leader asked, after he’d eaten twice as much as the rest of us.

“Nothing,” I said.

“ You look like you’re scheming .” Lei spoke into my mind.

“ Go away ,” I replied. I felt the weight of his gaze but studied my chopsticks instead.

“Are you upset with me?”

I said nothing.

“We’ll find another way. Did you think I’d consent to Winter’s plan?”

Now I did look up, the anger I’d been holding back threatening to emerge in a way I could not control. “ You think that’s what I’m angry about? ”

A long pause, and then: “ Is this about Sky? ”

For a mind reader, he was awfully slow on the uptake. “ You antagonized him. ” I thought back to the violent and hateful way they’d fought. The way I’d hidden in the corner, useless, helpless, angry with them, angry with myself.

“He hurt you, Meilin. Is it not permissible for me to loathe him for it?”

I rose abruptly from the table and went to the fire, stoking the flames with a bit too much aggression.

Although the air had warmed considerably, gooseflesh still lined my skin.

On second thought, it most likely had less to do with the temperature and more to do with the iron Lei had barricaded against the door.

“ I feel like this is all my fault ,” I finally answered. “ I poisoned you, both of you, I corrupted you— ”

“ No, sweetheart. ” The thought he sent me was so forceful it quieted all other noise in my head. “ If I am corrupted, it is because of the world, not you. Never you. You who have been a balm to my soul. ”

Those words…they were familiar. Because he’d heard my thoughts before. I had spoken to him in my mind, before I’d known he could hear me.

Now I raised my face from the fire and sought his gaze across the room.

He was so beautiful to me; that much was unchanged.

From the moment I’d met him, I’d thought him lovely.

Then my impression had shifted—as I’d witnessed his monstrosity, his cruelty, the lengths to which he would go to obtain what he wanted.

It had frightened me, but at the same time, it had drawn me to him.

For I’d recognized parts of myself in him—the part of me that longed for love and trust but thought myself unworthy.

The part of me that blamed myself for my mother’s passing, yet still—foolishly, perhaps—sought redemption.

The part of me—however small—that decided it was less important to be remembered as a hero than to do what was right and good for those I loved.

For no one would ever know that Lei had tried to stop Chancellor Sima on his path of vengeance.

History would not remember him as anything more than a vain, self-serving prince who had lied and cheated his way to victory.

But I would remember. I and Autumn and perhaps his sister, whom he spoke of with light in his eyes. Would that be enough?

And more importantly, was that enough for me?

Kuro and I took first watch together, the two of us sitting by the door as the others slept by the fire. Sky, who I knew had trouble sleeping, kept rising to double- and triple-check the locks.

“I saw some dried jujube tea in the storage room,” I said in a low whisper, as Sky sat up yet again, woken by an errant scream in the distance. From our time in the army, I knew he often brewed jujube tea to help him sleep through the night.

Sky studied me in the dim light. I could not make out his expression in the shadows, but I could trace the planes of his face: hard and smooth as marble.

“I’m fine,” he said at last, but there was a note of pain in his voice. Had I hurt him again, unwittingly? But how could I pretend distance between us, when once we had been so much more than strangers?

“You royals are an amusing bunch,” whispered Kuro, as Sky stalked into the storage room.

“I’m not a royal,” I hissed.

“Not yet,” said Kuro with a wink. “If you ask me, my dear, my vote is for the Ximing prince. Much better temper.”

“I didn’t ask you,” I snapped. Kuro chuckled, though I noted the smile did not reach his eyes. Ever since we’d returned from the spirit realm, the rebel leader hadn’t been the same.

“It’s not your fault, you know. What happened to Jinya.”

Kuro didn’t look at me. “It is, and you know it.”

I shook my head. “You once asked me to destroy the foundations of the old world with you, and build a new one from its ashes. Remember that? These are its ashes, Kuro. The new world is ready for the taking.” I sat up.

“Imagine how much good you can do. You can create that world you envisioned—a world for all people. Wouldn’t Jinya have wanted that? ”

“Jinya wanted to live,” he snarled. He withdrew his seal from beneath his shirt, thumbing the smooth jade for comfort. More quietly, he said, “I’m ready to move on, to tell the truth. I’m ready to go to her.”

“Don’t say that,” I said, alarmed. “The people need you.”

Kuro laughed. “They don’t need me . They need a hero they can adore—and shunt responsibility to.” He shook his head. “Plenty of those to choose from.”

Jinya’s death had changed him, irrevocably. He was no longer the same man I’d met in a Canyuan cellar: charismatic, confident, effervescent with energy. Now he was losing his will to live, which, if my suspicions were correct, was exactly what we needed to succeed.

“Is anyone out there?”

Kuro and I both turned toward the door, though neither of us made a move to rise. The speaker sounded like a young woman, her voice panicked and near tears.

“Please—please save us!”

We’d covered all the windows and doors, and now we could not risk looking outside without alerting the spirits to our presence. “It’s likely a trap,” I said, through gritted teeth.

Kuro nodded. With a stray stick, he began to draw a sketch in the dirt.

“No—no!” There was a sound like a baby’s wail, and I winced, a hollowness expanding in my chest. Then abruptly, the screams stopped, replaced by the whistling of the wind.

You did this. You started this.

“Kuro,” I asked, forcibly changing the subject. “How did you open your gates?”

“What do you mean?” He yawned. I saw he’d drawn a rudimentary picture of a smiling girl with pigtails.

“The spirit gates you created—how did you do it?”

He sat back, frowning as he tried to remember. “It happened naturally. I didn’t think much about it. I used my power…”

“What power?”

“Lixia, of course.”

“And how did you draw on your lixia?” I asked, knowing my own answer.

His frown deepened. “I called on my belief—that I was worth more than this. That I deserved to be known, known and remembered…”

I nodded. Kuro had drawn on his pride, the pride that the Ivory Tiger fed and bolstered. It was the same way I accessed the dragon’s power. Through my greed.