Page 62 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Forty-Two

Of the four Cardinal Spirits, none are more elusive than the Onyx Tortoise, who sleeps through the passing seasons and stirs but once in a hundred years. Only the arrival of a vessel worthy of his power can draw him from the depths of his lair.

“I underestimated you,” said Qinglong. “I underestimated your ambition. ”

I smiled at him, shielding my fear. “There comes a time when the master must bow to the pupil. For it was you who trained me well.” With those words, I called upon my hunger, my want, and the sea rose to meet it.

Qinglong roared as the churning tides swept him from the air. The moons doubled in my vision as he sent haixiao waves whirling toward me, pulling me under. We both fell, through oceans and realms and worlds within worlds. My mother had warned me: the two of us were connected at our core.

We surfaced at the mouth of the Dian River. Where this had all begun—where I’d accepted his bargain and taken his power as my own. It was my insecurity that he’d capitalized on, to make me depend upon his power. But just as I needed him, so too did he need me.

Now I looked into his yellow eyes and saw his vulnerability. I saw his jealousy, his lack, the way he always hungered for more.

“ You don’t belong here ,” I told him. “ You will never belong here .”

He laughed at me, at my paltry attempts at compulsion. “ You think you can compel the Azure Dragon? ” he asked, still roaring with laughter.

He set upon me as I dove away, rolling into a crouch.

Before he could turn, I jumped onto his back and clung to his scales.

Outraged, he tried to shake me off, but I held on with maniacal stubbornness.

He leapt into flight, thinking to frighten me, but instead I used the opportunity to scrabble up to his head.

Gritting my teeth against the fierce wind in my face, I withdrew a dagger from my belt and stabbed him through the eye.

He roared in agony, flinging me off his back with a violent twist. I tumbled through the air, not knowing up from down, before I summoned my power and called upon the sea to cushion my fall.

“ How dare you? ” the dragon snarled. “ You think you can slay a dragon? Don’t you know your life is tied to mine? ”

He was right in that I could not kill him, for his death would destroy me. In the same way, Qinglong did not want me dead, only ensnared and under his control.

“I don’t need to slay you,” I said. “I only need to make you see reason. Our worlds depend upon balance. It was your greed that tempted you to disrupt the equilibrium of all living things. But this time, you went too far.

“Look around,” I said, gesturing to the roaring Dian River rapids beneath us. “Your hubris is your undoing. In this realm, I have the upper hand. And you are not what you once were in your world.”

He lunged for me, but his immense size made him slow. I slashed at his side with my sword, black ink pouring from the open wound. He bellowed and smashed his tail into me, so that I went careening off the riverbank.

Wood, fire, earth, metal, water. I forced calm through my thoughts and directed a wave to ease my descent.

The wave brought me back to the mouth of the river, where I sent knives of ice spinning toward him.

He dissolved the blades in a single breath, turning them into a dense fog that obscured my vision.

“ It was you who agreed to the bargain ,” hissed Qinglong. “ You who decided my power was worth its price. ”

“You deceived me,” I said. “You tried to use me as your puppet.”

“ Funny ,” he growled. “ Your mother said the same thing. But even she accepted her fate. ”

My anger knew no end. I screamed, throwing open my arms, and the fog dissipated, revealing the dragon once more.

“ Leave this world behind ,” I said, staring into his punctured eye. “ Leave. ”

And the Azure Dragon went still, unblinking, and I thought—perhaps my compulsion had worked. Perhaps I had truly overpowered a Cardinal Spirit.

But then I tried to step back, and I could not. I tried to blink, and I could not. Rather than him falling into my trap, I had fallen into his.

His eye seized me, captured me whole. I fell into his will, a bottomless pit with no end. My own will stolen, I could not move as ice crystallized around my limbs, locking me in place. Cold, I was so cold.

“ Now you are mine ,” promised Qinglong. “ For you, my slippery little rat, I will put on a show. ”

The ice fogged my breath, my sight, so that when Qinglong’s vision infiltrated my mind, it was the only thing I saw.

Diaochan was running, her long hair loose over her shoulders, her feet bare and her robes open.

Her robes were her downfall; she tripped over their long hem and went tumbling, so that the soldier fell upon her, slitting her throat.

Her last thought was of her sisters and the promise she would never fulfill for them.

For she had promised them she would return home one day.

Little did she know her sisters were already dead.

“ No ,” I tried to say. “ No! ”

Qinglong brought me next to Chuang Ning, to my childhood home in Willow District. Dread flooded my being as I heard Xiuying’s familiar cry.

A stranger with yellow eyes had pinned Xiuying against the wall. “ My vessel is weak ,” said the man, his voice echoing with the boom of another. “ I am tired of this broken shell. I want you, Yu Xiuying. You will be my rightful vessel. ”

The man was trying to press a glowing jade seal into her hand, but she resisted him with improbable strength. “Never,” she spat out. “You will never have me.”

But then the door creaked open. “Ma?” said Plum, his eyes as round as his nickname. “What’s wrong?”

The vessel smiled. “ If you do not accept my bargain ,” he said, “ I will make your boy take it. ”

Xiuying’s shoulders slumped forward, her surrender reflected in the hollowness of her gaze. “I’ll accept it,” she said softly. “Don’t take him. I’ll accept your bargain.”

“Please,” I tried to say. This was my breaking point. This was what I could no longer survive.

I had failed her; I had failed my family.

Rouha and Plum would grow up without a mother, as I once had.

With time they would forget the sound of her laugh, the neatness of her stitches, the resourcefulness she could conjure in any situation.

They would never know how much she loved them, and how much she had tried to stay.

Qinglong showed no pity. Without delay he forced upon me his next vision—bringing us to the outskirts of First Crossing.

Lei’s forces were dwindling. Both hungry spirits and Ximing soldiers converged upon them, hemming them in from all sides. It was a trap, I wanted to tell him, but he already knew. Perhaps he’d known from the start. Still he’d walked straight into it, because he’d hoped to give me a fighting chance.

On the blood-soaked battlefield, his brother rode out to meet him. Zihuan had waited until Lei’s best men were dead, until Lei was exhausted and alone. Still Lei fought, the monster I’d witnessed at the Reed Flute Caves once again released, so that there was no feeling or emotion in his eyes.

Zihuan hung back, waiting, watching. Only when Lei flagged, taking a dagger to his side, did Zihuan come forward. And that was when I noticed his changed eyes—now the color of spun gold.

Zihuan had accepted a spirit bargain. That was how he’d survived the poisoning.

“So it’s come to this,” shouted Lei, breathing hard, one hand clutching his bleeding side. “I always knew it would be me and you.”

“Oh, I’m not interested in fighting you in combat,” said Zihuan, smirking. “I learned from you, Di.” Dismounting from his steed, he raised a hand in signal. “Two can play at this game.”

And the emotion returned to Lei’s face as Zihuan’s guard brought forth a thrashing woman bound in rope. With near theatrical flair, Zihuan removed the cloth bag from her head.

“It’s a little family reunion,” said Zihuan. “Hi, Rea. Miss me?”

Rea glared at the new warlord of Ximing, a brewing storm in her eyes.

“Kill me,” she said, like it was a dare.

“Kill me and my hungry ghost will haunt you for the rest of your days—and when you’re awake I’ll follow you, and when you’re asleep I’ll follow you, and when you eat I will curse every morsel of food that you touch, and when you drink—”

He slapped her, hard enough that her head snapped to one side. Lei looked murderous.

Zihuan patted Rea on the head, his attention fixed on her. “That’s enough, dear—”

Lei seized on his distraction and threw a knife at him, but Zihuan simply snapped his fingers and the blade crumbled into dust.

“Pity you could never accept a spirit bargain,” said Zihuan. “But I guess you can’t help your blood.”

He held his blade to his sister’s throat. “Surrender, or she dies.”

“Ge, no!” Rea shouted, fear sluicing through her eyes.

Lei did not hesitate; he dropped his sword.

“Kneel before me.”

Lei fell to his knees.

“Put your head to the ground.”

Lei kowtowed.

Zihuan began to laugh.

“Lei!” I screamed, but this was a memory Qinglong had shown me, and Lei was perhaps already dead.

And yet would I not have felt our connection sever?

How could he be dead when I still lived?

How could Xiuying be gone when I still survived?

How could this be my curse—to remain behind even as everyone I loved perished?

The vision disappeared. Now we were in Tzu Wan, in the castle on the cliff. The Black Sea roared beneath us, disturbed by the two moons in the sky. From the open-air balcony, Autumn turned and ran, sprinting down the corridor.

She’d cut her hair short since I’d last seen her, and now her braids slapped against her cheeks as she rounded the corner. Breathlessly, she threw open the door to the nursery room. But Rea was gone.

“It can’t be,” she breathed, scanning the empty room. Even her dogs had gone.