Five Kingdoms (19 page)

The lady turned about to strike him. Han Quan blocked her with an upheld hand, and a spell which coagulated the dust in the air, creating several particles that scraped against her skin when she raised her hand with force. The sting caused her to recoil.

“Your words are of treachery!” she told him. “The Empress will—”

“The Empress will not hear you,” Han Quan reminded. “I have already set a drop of poison against you into her delicate ear. She looks upon you with suspicion, for as she grows nearer to womanhood, her love for Lord Xu Liang grows. I need only prod the drop I have planted for her to believe that you convene with Xu Liang not as Song Lu’s widow, but with aspirations on becoming Xu Liang’s wife.”

“You’re a madman,” Song Bin Ce insisted.

“And when I speak to Xu Liang of the heir you carried, and lost…”

The Song widow turned from him abruptly, and left the path in defeat that Han Quan fully believed would hold her silence. She was no longer consort to a prince and had been consort to an emperor for such a fleeting hour that not even her father recognized her worth within the walls of the Imperial City. She had risen a mere shadow, and fell now, a withering flower on a disused terrace. Her value to Han Quan was that she would eventually break. She would become an instrument of his establishment as the next emperor of Sheng Fan, and while his physical reign would be brief, his legacy would be everlasting.

The Yellow Tortoise of the River

B
y the time
the land displayed more of grassy knolls than drifts of snow, the company was nearly half completed with their journey from Dhong Castle to the Imperial City. A mist hung above green stands of trees along the horizon on the morning Xu Liang expressed to them that they would have to exercise an excess of caution for the sake of relations. It had been days since they’d left the stronghold in the mountains, where they’d been very nearly sequestered in quarters that were abandoned enough by their original occupants to have felt like a prison. In the course of the single night they’d stayed, they’d seen very little of Xu Liang, and were offered only the minimal comfort of the mystic’s guards to ensure them that they had not somehow been taken into custody, rather than taken in as guests.

According to the mystic, they were still in the kingdom of Ying, and it would not be until they had crossed a river and traversed several more miles that they would arrive in the Kingdom of Ji, which housed the central stronghold of the Fanese empire. Shirisae was impressed with the extensiveness of Sheng Fan. Her own people had once been of an empire, long before the divide and spread that made smaller, separate cultures of all elves. History spoke of a striation of bloodlines that stemmed from war with humans. Different factions and family members could not agree on how to maintain themselves as a nation and versus the swiftly growing numbers of men. The Great Division marked the end of an elven empire on Dryth, and perhaps it was such a division in Sheng Fan which Xu Liang feared would bring about the demise of this hidden empire in the east, separating its people irrevocably.

Shirisae could only wonder if aiding Sheng Fan in this meant ensuring a powerful neighbor that the western lands might one day have cause to fear or war against. She reminded herself that Xu Liang’s vision of the Blades coming together was one of peace. She could not say how much she trusted that, but she had come to trust Xu Liang…at a more considered pace than she had declared love for a stranger she believed the Phoenix had chosen for her.

She knew now that she had read her god’s message too quickly then, and partly owed to being impressed by the godlike strength that had taken over Tristus. It had also been presented to her since that Tristus was not the only champion of higher forces among them—that they all were, as bearers of the Celestial Swords. Her mother believed that the Phoenix’s message was just that, and that Shirisae should partake of this assignment because it was what the Flame had willed. Shirisae understood the sense in that now, and admitted that her mother was the god’s current conduit, along with
Firestorm
. It was not her place to have behaved in such an upstart manner as she had upon returning to Vilciel with Tristus and the others. She’d been so affected, though…she couldn’t imagine with the way she’d felt at the time that she would have translated it any differently, even knowing what she knew now. Impulse was perhaps her greatest flaw, as stubbornness was her sibling’s.

Thinking about D’mitri, she sent him a silent prayer of wellness. Her gaze went to the sky, and she imagined the prayer being caught on a cloud, making its way across the lands of the eastern continent and the ocean on its way back to Yvaria.

“Lass,” Tarfan said from his seat behind her. “You’ve more hair than you need.”

She smiled while he grumbled about untangling the ends from his beard, something he tended to complain about only when the wind stirred or they had to move quickly. At times she braided it or wound it higher on her head for the dwarf’s benefit, but not always. Her hair was an expression of the Flame—as was the bright hair of any Phoenix Elf—and there were times when she would not bind it for any reason, not even the comfort of a surly old dwarf.

She could see the slightly waved ends of her hair being lifted by the breeze in the corner of her view. It had grown to the length of her thigh, and it still did not match the length of Xu Liang’s black locks. The mystic’s hair weighed behind him like a cloak. While many of the males at Vilciel also grew their hair to greater lengths than most humans of the west would consider—Alere was testament to the fact that the Verressi seemed to do so as well—Xu Liang’s choice in length seemed to surpass tradition. With the mystic, it seemed almost a symbol, perhaps of beauty—though he did not seem vain—or perhaps of establishment; establishment of his station, of his bloodline, possibly. It joined the many other details of their Fanese host that Shirisae desired to know. Since the resurrection ritual, it had dawned on Shirisae that the Phoenix had accepted Xu Liang—if not chosen him—to live. Not all who were brought before the Flame of Ahjenta returned to life. Even when she had initially offered that hope to Tristus in the Flatlands, Shirisae could not have promised Xu Liang would live. She had wanted him to, as a way at providing something important at the beginning of what she had presumed then would be her courtship with her future consort.

Having pressed through the veil of immaturity she had wrapped about herself—perhaps for too long, if her mother’s reaction was anything to gauge against—she realized that she was not only glad that Xu Liang’s life had been returned to him, on the merit that it was his life, but also that she was curious about him. Who was this man that the Phoenix had insisted remain physically among them? The Phoenix was an icon of salvation from suffering. Was it possible that in some way this
shandon
held the potential to fulfill that role on Dryth? If that were so, his life was to be as valued as that of the Priestess of the Flame herself, for it would mean that he had been chosen, separate of blood and lineage, to herald the rise of the Phoenix itself. The selection of an outsider meant that it had come time for them to extend their concerns and priorities beyond their isolated land.

Shirisae had nearly put that level of importance on to Tristus, but without the manifestation of the Phoenix. It was only just occurring to her that she had witnessed the manifestation of her god in the presence of both Tristus and Xu Liang, but Tristus had not been the Flame’s focus at the time. For a period, she had tried to convince herself—and her mother—that somehow he was. Ahjenta had been upset with the idea that her daughter had allowed an outsider to witness the ritual, but it had been overlooked, owed to the circumstances, which then already involved someone from outside. Shirisae realized now that she had not tried to imprint such value onto Tristus for her people, but for herself. She was aware of the eventual inclusion of someone not of elf blood in their book of prophecies, and she had childishly and selfishly wanted that moment to fall on her cycle as priestess. Now that she was reconsidering, and coming to the possibility that such an important event might indeed befall her time—though perhaps not so romantically as she imagined it would at first—she felt neither so bold nor as proud. She felt vain, and culpably young.

When she felt that she had given introspection enough free rein—something she had been avoiding since the guardian of the Aeran forest—Shirisae shook the confusing effects of it from her mind and raised her chin to the patches of sunlight on offer. The weather had been sporadic since entering Sheng Fan, not nearly as predictable as the Yvarian mountains or the Flatlands, both of which cycled through periods of relentless snow, bitter winds, and phases of melt with calculable regularity. Areas of variance, like what the Deepwood demonstrated, were the region’s anomaly. It wasn’t a wonder to have found the Night Blade and its adversely affected bearer in such a place. Malek Vorhaven had constructed a nightmare from night’s energy. It was the hope of all of them that Guang Ci would prove more resilient to the Blade’s more malignant properties.

Her horse flicked its ears and she gave his muscular neck a pat. Kirlothden was accustomed to long days or nights of travel. He and his fellows had been bred and raised for endurance and strength. Still, a journey of this length hadn’t been made since the Phoenix Elves were in their nomadic period, which had concluded before Shirisae’s birth. She had been born in Vilciel, amid towers raised by dragons and corridors hewn by dwarves…beneath skies populated by griffins and the waning glow of the Phoenix while it soared from the fiery resurrection of its sunlight hours, across the darkness of evening, scattering burning embers in its wake as it returned to its bed of ashes. It was said that all priestesses were born between sunrise and sunset, the hours of resurrection. They would ascend to their roles during a nighttime ceremony, the time of dormancy. It was symbolic of the greater cycle. The majority of a priestess’ service as leader would take place in the quieter phase of their god. Transition of power from mother to daughter always occurred during a rising phase. She was not too young, or too stubborn to be ignorant of the fact that they were at the start of a rising phase. She knew that was partly why her mother had encouraged her to partake of this.

“By the Heartstone!” Tarfan exclaimed suddenly.

Shirisae thought that the dwarf might have been lodging further complaint about her hair, but then she looked to the right of their caravan as they crested a shallow rise. A river lay below, one wide as many of the mountain caverns in Lower Yvaria, cutting through the green hills. It moved with the strength and grace of a serpent with both ends out of view, its motion noticeable only by the shimmer of light that chased its ardently moving form while it undulated. And across this great serpent’s back lay a tortoise.

Bringing Kirlothden to a halt, Shirisae paused to take in a better view. The tortoise spanned the river with all four clawed feet at rest upon either shore. It was a bridge, the architecture of which had been painstakingly designed to appear as a fantastic beast. The head and neck supplied the slope on the entering side with the tail leading off. Its shell was an articulate accumulation of pillars and a series of sharply angled roofs adorned with glistening shingles and wispy banners. The entirety of it was painted in shades of yellow and gold with green or red accents throughout.

“Jung Ho Bridge,” Xu Liang said, having stopped not far ahead. The others accumulated behind and beside him in order to take in the monument below. “The tortoise was among the first creatures set upon the world by the Jade Emperor. The river is its breath, manifested as water to provide defense against intrusion into the heart of Sheng Fan. The bridge itself is also an icon of guardianship. It’s said that only the honorable will be borne across its back. Defilers are spat toward the sea.”

“If I wasn’t already nervous to cross it,” Tristus said, “I suspect I am now.”

Xu Liang turned his head, but didn’t quite look back at the knight. It was a manner of mild perturbation the mystic had adopted in Tristus’ presence since just before leaving Vilciel. He said, “You have nothing to fear, Tristus Edainien.”

Shirisae believed that was true, about all of them, and she believed also that the mystic’s words had not been in warning, only in relating the significance of the bridge to them. She was uncertain which among them was more superstitious; Tristus or Tarfan.

“Dwarves aren’t among the best swimmers in Dryth,” the dwarf said, as if in response to the thought. “We’re too dense, and tend to sink.”

Shirisae believed that Tarfan was shaping his defense in advance, and that the dwarf would insist on walking across, rather than chancing a fall from the back of a horse.

“The railing looks high enough,” Taya said, in spite of her uncle’s claims. “If it’s not going to be coming to life to throw me directly into the water, I won’t concern myself.”

“Suit yourself, lass,” was her uncle’s response.

Shirisae smiled, guiding Kirlothden forward when others began downhill toward the river.