Page 65 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Forty-Four

And do not the birds, weary from far-flung flights, still know to find their way home?

Time passed like the unspooling of thread, slowly, then all at once. In the darkness I wandered, neither alive nor dead. At times I heard stories, stories of great heroes and terrible villains, stories of war and adventure and chaos. And I thought, I wonder what that must be like .

Gradually, I forgot my name. I forgot my life before.

I wandered the trees and the rivers and the mountains, knowing I liked warmth, knowing I gravitated toward light, though I could not recall why.

I migrated with the seasons, finding solace in the habits of birds, who knew how to make a home anywhere.

It was early in the spring when the plum trees had blossomed, and I was sitting beneath their shade, gossiping with the fireflies.

A young human woman approached me, hesitantly at first, then with a boldness that made me uncomfortable.

I was not afraid, of course, for true emotion in the spirit realm was a rare thing.

But I was not accustomed to boldness; most of the human wanderers in this place bore only a vague sort of aim about them.

“Qinaide,” she said. Beloved. “I’ve been looking for you.”

What a peculiar word— beloved . For there was no such thing as love and affection here, or any emotion that required intensity of feeling.

I observed her as she drew near. Her shoulders were strong and straight—swimmer’s shoulders—and the apples on her cheeks high and pronounced. She looked young, but there was a certain depth of experience in her eyes that only came with age.

“Do you know my name?” she asked me. I shook my head.

“Do you know your name?” she asked me, and this I pondered for a beat longer, before shaking my head.

“You really did give it all to the veil, then.”

I did not understand her, so I said nothing.

This did not frighten me, that I did not understand.

There were many things about this world that I did not understand.

For example, why did the water feel cold when you first stepped in, but warm when you left it?

Why did the stars seem brighter on cold winter nights?

Why did some birds always sing, even with no one to return their song?

She sighed and sat beside me, picking a fallen plum blossom and tucking it behind my ear. “Let me tell you a story,” she said. Under her breath: “Where should I begin?”

“At the beginning, of course,” I said, and she laughed.

“Why, yes,” she said, settling back on the grass. “Let’s see. This is a story about a girl, a girl named Hai Meilin.”

By the time my mother was done, the seasons had shifted and it was winter once more. Day fell into night with swift alacrity, and the shadows liked to linger, making friends with the morning hours.

Still, my mother waited. When Meilin’s story ended, she told me hers, and when her story ended, she told me her grandmother’s. On and on, as the world changed and stayed the same around us. Until one day, I understood what she’d been waiting for.

On a clear autumn day, a man on a winged lion flew into the meadow.

He landed too quickly, tumbling in the grass, but he recovered with the skill of a seasoned warrior.

He did not appear as I’d imagined him from my mother’s stories.

He did not have his boyish vigor, that plumpness to his pale cheeks, and he did not walk with any bounce to his step, as if he believed the world would part at his command.

But it was his eyes that most surprised me, that induced a pale shadow of fear, if fear could exist in this world.

From my mother’s stories, his eyes had been the color of dark chestnuts. Yet now they were unmistakably the color of ripe wheat.

“My name is Liu Sky,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m an…old friend of yours.”

He smiled, not because he was happy to see me, but because it was the polite thing to do.

“Come with me,” he said. “I can bring you home.”

Home? But I was home. And yet…my mother had told me stories. Stories of another world. Of a place of beauty and wonder and terror.

I found, for the first time in a long time, that I was frightened. I was frightened and exhilarated. I thought of that girl in the story, who had loved adventure and risk and possibility. And I thought, I wonder if I can be like her too .

I looked back at my mother, sitting beneath the plum tree where we’d first met. “Are you coming?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I have no place there anymore,” she answered. “But it’s not too late for you, qinaide.”

“Thank you,” Liu Sky told her, bowing. I laughed, finding the gesture comical here, in the world of spirits.

“For what?” I asked him, as we left the meadow.

“She made sure you held on,” he replied. “Otherwise, I never could have found you.”

“And why were you looking for me?” I asked curiously.

He considered me, a furrow between his brows.

“I couldn’t leave you behind,” he said at last. Then he called upon his spirit, a beautiful lion with wings of light, helping me onto the beast’s back.

The journey was both long and short, familiar and strange.

I did not know if I was happy or sad, inspired or indifferent.

I only knew that something was about to change.

That the calm and distant peace I’d felt here in this land of shadows was about to be replaced… by what, I did not know.

Liu Sky’s blood eased our passage into the human realm, so that we emerged without trouble or delay.

And yet there was nothing that could have made the transition easy—nothing that could have assuaged the pain that besieged me as the weight of nineteen years of grief and rage and suffering came crashing down upon me.

I screamed, clutching my head, as my mother’s stories connected with reality, as the truth of them lodged in my throat, as I learned I was the girl in those tales, I was the girl who’d disobeyed her father and joined the army and sought the glory and honor of war, and instead found the brutal reality of it.

There are no easy choices in war. I had chosen what I’d thought best at the time.

I had tried to protect those I loved. And above all, I had tried to honor the part of myself that had dared to dream of more, that had known I was just as capable, strong, and clever as the rest of them—and that I could prove it.

The onslaught did not slow, but it grew more manageable.

Buried within moments of suffering were moments of joy and resilience, like precious stones within bedrock.

Lifting my head, I found Sky watching me.

He looked just as he had the last time I’d seen him, and I recognized that while we both had aged what felt like centuries in the spirit realm, little to no time had passed in the human world.

And yet his eyes—they were still gold.

“What happened?” I asked him. “How could you?”

His gaze was as hard as steel. “It needed to be done.”

“It needed to be…?” I trailed off as I recalled how he’d dived into the spirit realm after me, even as the rift was closing. He’d accepted a spirit bargain to find me, I realized, to save me.

I closed my eyes, guilt like a suffocating collar around my throat. “I’m so—so sorry—”

“Meilin,” he said, cutting me off. He made to reach for me, before holding himself back. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s okay.” Straightening and assuming a businesslike demeanor, he said, “I’ve prepared supplies for your journey. I wasn’t sure what you’d need to pack, but…I had help.”

I swallowed repeatedly, trying to speak through the lump in my throat. “What journey?” I said hoarsely. “I can’t leave you now.”

He shook his head. “My spirit isn’t like yours.” He scrubbed the back of his head, considering how to articulate his thoughts. “Let’s just say he’s less of the troublemaking sort.” He shrugged. “Less powerful too, but perhaps there’s a reason for that.”

I could hardly hear what he was saying. I looked into his golden irises and felt my own eyes well with tears. Sky, the purest man I knew, the most honorable and duty bound…I had reduced him to a fate his father would never condone.

His father, who was no longer alive.

Sky was the new Imperial Commander of Anlai.

There was too much happening at once, and I did not have the mental capacity to process it. My tears collected faster, blurring my vision.

Sky rummaged for a handkerchief he did not have, before looking helplessly at me.

“Don’t stay out of pity,” he said. In a softer voice: “You owe me that much.” Hesitantly, he put his hand on my shoulder.

When I did not recoil, he drew me to him and pressed his lips to my forehead.

Then, just as quickly, he released me, creating deliberate distance between us.

We’d been through so much together. He had been the first man to ever hold me, to save me, to love me. He had been the first one to believe in me, to tell me I could succeed in a man’s world. But in the stories of our lives, we were not each other’s happy ending.

I wished with all my heart he would find his.

I began to cry in earnest now, great, shoulder-racking sobs. Sky looked past me with an imploring air, and then a new embrace caused me to break down completely.

“Mei Mei,” said Xiuying, patting me on the back. “Don’t cry so hard. It’s unbecoming.”

I snorted through my tears, and she laughed with me, holding me as she used to.

We clung to each other, feeling for scars old and new.

It was hard to say what could have dragged us apart if not for Rouha and Plum diving into our midst, trying to worm themselves between us.

I looked for Uncle Zhou beyond them, but Xiuying told me quietly he had passed during the Day of Terror, when the veil between realms had split in two.

Father too was gone, though I could not quite bring myself to mourn him.

“He was much more docile,” said Xiuying generously, “toward the end of his days.”