Page 57 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Thirty-Eight

Humble apologies for the sudden inquiry, but might you know the current residence of Yu Xiuying? I heard she moved to the capital, and was hoping to pay her a visit before I left town for good.

“Wait,” I said, struggling against my chains. Surely Kuro had read my note by now, and figured out where I’d gone. Were they on their way? I had to stall Princess Yifeng. But the sun had already set, and she too was anxious to be gone.

The princess gestured for Tao, who drew his sword.

Qinglong , I thought. Please. Help me. Lei? Can you hear me? Please. Anyone! Can anyone help me?

“I have a secret,” I said. “A secret you should know.”

The princess frowned. “What is it now?”

I reached for something clever to say, but my body ached with pain, and my mind, craving lixia, refused to cooperate. “Prince Keyan,” I began. “He has an illegitimate child.”

Princess Yifeng threw her head back with laughter. “Is that all?”

“No,” I said. “The prince—”

The sun was gone, the only light emanating from the lit torches the soldiers carried. So we all recoiled as a shadow moved and a guard came sprinting inside. He whispered something to Tao, who scowled in consternation and followed him out of the caves, his strides long and urgent.

I held my breath, afraid to hope.

A rat skittered in the distance, fleeing toward the shadows. Princess Yifeng peered into the cavern depths, at all the various tunnels snaking into the mountainside.

“Keep her quiet,” she ordered the nearest soldier. “And extinguish the torches.”

The guards stationed outside must’ve sensed an approaching threat.

Realizing this was my chance, I let out a high-pitched shriek, my voice echoing across the cavern walls.

I only had time to scream once more before the guard struck me across the face.

My cheek slammed into the stalagmite I was bound to and I choked on my own blood.

Then a guard stuffed a gag into my mouth, silencing me.

The torches went out, leaving us shrouded in hazy darkness, breathing in smoke. I could make out the faintest glimmer of moonlight at the cave’s opening, which rippled as a shadow moved, as fluid as ink spreading through water. Only one person I knew could move like that.

The first scream cut the silence like a knife.

My eyes took time to adjust as screams split the air, followed by the ring of steel against steel, the tang of freshly spilled blood, and the low thud of falling bodies.

Then that dark shadow was upon us, whirling through the air like a sword dancer, dispersing smoke, light, sound, his twin blades like blinking stars against the night.

He was beautiful—and monstrous. I recoiled as blood sprayed everywhere, coating my face, my hair, my clothes. Death hung like a miasma in the air, bodies falling like stalks of wheat beneath a scythe.

In the shadows I saw Princess Yifeng trying to run, but her expensive robes gave her away as the ivory silk drew the moonlight.

She didn’t stand a chance. His speed was unnatural as he caught her from behind and slit her throat, the movement so swift it made me believe in the legends of old, that perhaps mythical creatures had once lived here, and that they’d remained as ghosts.

Ghosts that returned in the dead of the night, beckoned by blood and violence.

For surely this was not the work of a man.

But I caught sight of his face, distinctly human in his anger as he sensed the threat I’d overlooked.

Mesmerized as I’d been, I’d missed the closer danger—and only now I saw Tao was still alive.

He bore a fatal stomach wound, leaving a trail of blood in his wake as he limped toward me, determined to finish one last job.

He raised his blade in the air, but the Ximing prince was faster.

Lei stabbed him so viciously Tao moaned in anguish, his organs spilling from his flesh.

Then he withdrew his blade and stabbed him again, and again.

By the time he was done, the Anlai soldier was unrecognizable.

Chilled to the bone, I could not speak. There were monsters in all of us, I told myself. But the monster in him was terrifying .

At last, when everyone was dead and the reek of blood hung in the air like a dense fog, Lei dropped his curved blades.

They clattered against the stone like a discordant melody.

Instead of coming to me as I’d expected, he leaned heavily against the cavern wall, positively falling against it.

Was he injured? I tried to speak but could not through my gag.

The language of his body, the way he pressed himself against the wall—it spoke of utter defeat.

He said nothing for a time, then let out a broken sound of unadulterated rage—rage and sorrow and grief.

My concern growing, I struggled against my bonds. His face was partially turned from me, but I could see something there—something in his expression that unnerved me to my core. He looked… inhuman .

A beautiful monster, I’d once thought him.

“Lei?” I tried to say. “What’s wrong?”

Only a muffled sound emerged from my gag, but it was enough. He rose, shaking as he turned in my direction.

“ Lei? ” I thought to him.

In a few long strides, he’d crossed the cavern floor. He ripped the gag from my mouth, then held my blood-splattered face in his hands. His touch was so very cold.

“Skies, Meilin,” he breathed, his voice coming out hoarse and gravelly, as if he hadn’t spoken in days. “You—you’re alive. I thought…I thought I’d lost you.”

Then, to my utter amazement, he pressed his forehead against mine and began to cry. Broken sobs that reminded me of his humanity.

“Shh,” I said. “It’s okay.” I tried to wrap my arms around him, forgetting I couldn’t move. My shoulders squirmed uncomfortably in their sockets. “Could you…?”

He roused himself then, lighting a torch to search the dead bodies. He found the key on Tao’s person. He unlocked my collar first, and I gasped for breath as the suffocating iron came off me. The resulting lightness was exhilarating.

I started to fall as he unlocked my remaining chains. Lei caught me in his arms, expecting this. Instead of setting me down, he buried his face in the crook of my neck, breathing me in, not seeming to mind the blood and filth soaking my skin.

This time, I let myself embrace him. In response he drew me closer, until no space remained between us, until our shadows merged as one.

“I was thinking of everything I’d done to you,” he said quietly. “All the torture and grief and unhappiness you’d undergone because of me. And that was my greatest regret—that I hadn’t been able to make things right for you.”

His voice broke beneath the weight of his regret. It’s okay , I wanted to say, but my throat was constricting, and I too could not speak.

He spoke into my mind. “ I promised myself I would make it up to you—even if it took every damn day of the rest of my life. ”

“ You’ve already saved me countless times ,” I answered. “ You don’t owe me anything. ”

“ Then not out of debt. ” A pause. “ But out of—love. ”

I raised my face to look at him. He swallowed, the knot at his throat lifting. He looked so vulnerable then, as if I had the power to save or destroy him.

“I told you—I don’t know if I’m capable of love anymore.”

Lei brushed a stray hair from my face. “ What is love—if not care for one another? Pride in all that you’ve done. Belief in what you will continue to do. And hope—hope that we will grow together, as one. ”

“ Is that what your love is? ” I asked him.

He considered this for a long time. Warring emotions crossed his face—guilt, desperation, sadness, longing. I recalled that he too had been a child of loss, bearing the weight of his mother’s passing from far too young an age.

“ It is how I try to love ,” he answered at last. And somehow, this liberated me.

This simple admission of imperfection. For I too was fallible, bad at loving.

It did not come naturally to me as it seemingly did to others.

My instincts, so trustworthy in battle, led me astray in matters of the heart.

And yet, if love meant the act of trying , then I loved. I loved with all my being.

“I love you,” he told me, his eyes flickering beneath the weak torchlight. In a cavern drenched with blood, with hands cold as ice, he said this. “I am a monster but I love you.”

It was as if the words had been stolen from my mouth. “If you are a monster, then so am I,” I said quietly, and his eyes shone as falling stars. “ I find I am suited for a monster’s love ,” I added.

I reached up to bring his face down to mine, and then I kissed him, softly this time.

I could taste the blood on him. I had witnessed him murdering an entire platoon of soldiers to get to me.

I knew his violent tendencies, his scheming ways, his penchant for drink.

I knew his flaws, and yet he knew mine. He saw me; he saw past my deceit for who I really was.

He knew the lies I told myself at night and the weaknesses I tried so hard to hide in the dark.

He knew them, and still, he loved me. He believed in me, more even than I believed in myself.

“Lei,” I said, wanting to tell him how I felt. “I-I…” No sound emerged from my throat. I could not say it.

“It’s okay,” he said, pressing his lips to my forehead.

A tear snaked down my cheek. There must be something broken within me , I thought. Gently, he wiped the tear with his thumb.

“Thank you for coming for me,” I said instead.

There was no hesitation in his voice. “I will always come for you.”

The pounding of hoofbeats made us separate. I stiffened, but Lei assured me it was the others. “When you weren’t back by sundown, I went to look for you. I saw the note you’d left, and wrote one of my own.”

“Why did you come alone?” I demanded. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“And if I had been a minute slower, I might’ve been too late,” he said, with a self-assurance I found vexing. “So no, I won’t apologize for it.”

I was too tired to argue, and besides, I likely would have done the same.

I stooped to gather the fossils I’d come to collect, but when I tried to rise, I lost my balance.

Lei caught me and supported me as we left the caverns, and he was so warm and steady and solid that I couldn’t even find it in me to be upset.

The moonlight outside was blinding. To my astonishment, two moons hung in the night sky. Both were nearly full.

“The tides will be thrown into chaos,” remarked Lei, who seemed to be taking this all in stride. “I pity the sailors aiming to set sail tonight.”

Balance was integral in everything—in the tides, in the seasons, in the directions of the wind.

In Anlai, we believed balance was key to life itself.

For the first time, I understood the extent of the havoc we’d wrought.

There was no coming back from this. No matter what I did or did not do tomorrow, I would be etched into memory as the villain who tore the veil.

“ Unless you surrender yourself to me. ” The dragon’s voice was friendly, sympathetic. “ Only then can you rise as a legend. ”

My sanity, already teetering on the edge, threatened to collapse. The weight of my choices felt insurmountable, as if I could swim and swim with every fiber of my being and still never reach the surface.

“Breathe,” Lei said lowly.

I forced air into my lungs, trying to ignore the wild, erratic pulse of the dragon’s seal, or was that the beating of my own heart?

“Meilin!”

I lifted my head as Sky leapt off his horse and ran toward us.

He took in our blood-soaked robes and faces with dual horror and relief.

Behind him, Captain Tong and Winter dismounted in a more orderly manner, while Kuro followed at the rear, his steps weighed down with obvious reluctance. He winced at the state of us.

“I should’ve gone with you,” Kuro said gruffly, scratching the back of his neck. By the way he swayed, I could tell he was still intoxicated.

“Apologize to her,” said Sky, with all the imperiousness of a future warlord. Kuro stiffened with anger, and I saw that he would not receive such an order from a monarch. We did not need more discord between us, not on the eve of battle.

I intervened. “What’s past is past. Just don’t do it again. I need you clearheaded, Kuro.”

It was not the first time I’d said this. Lei, who was still holding me, squeezed my hand.

“It won’t happen again,” said Kuro, keeping his distance.

Sky, meanwhile, closed the gap between us. “Who was it?” he asked. His voice, a low growl, was a promise of violence.

“Princess Yifeng, wife of Liu Keyan,” answered Lei.

Sky’s face had gone white. “Where is she?”

“Dead.”

I thought Sky would react poorly to this, but he simply nodded.

He regarded me, eyes hard, and I wondered if he would admonish me for my stupidity, if he would tell me again what a terrible soldier I was.

Instead, he only lifted the back of his hand to my face, brushing his knuckles against the newly formed bruise on my cheek.

“Sky…”

He dropped his hand, turning away. Without another word he mounted his horse and rode off into the dark.