He half-turned, to offer Nanami his hand. Alarm and amusement were warring for dominance in her expression, so he winked before helping her to her feet. He tucked her stump into the crook of his arm. “My dear, perhaps you would introduce me to these beings, since they seem unwilling or unable to introduce themselves.”
Nanami cleared her throat. “This is Kaihachi, the eighth child of the Sea Dragon.”
“Seventh!” Kaihachi barked, and Xiao’s dislike for the man changed from general to personal.
But Nanami merely agreed blandly, “Seventh. My mistake.”
NANAMI’S earliest memory was of baby Kaihachi. He was not quite two thousand years younger than her (each of her mother’s pregnancies followed the last as soon as fate allowed) and they had regularly been put down to nap together.
Nanami supposed she had woken first from such a nap, but her memory began when she was kneeling next to Kaihachi in the many futon beds they shared with their parents. He was still deep asleep, his bow-shaped lips slightly parted and his tiny nose rising like a miniature mountain in the sea of his cheeks. Nanami leaned closer and closer until the tip of her nose just touched his. He kept sleeping, and his breath, warm and soft, tickled her face. Nanami wanted him to wake up and play with her, so she moved her head and pressed their foreheads together. Still no response. Nanami sat back on her heels and thought for a few moments before baring his belly, placing her mouth against it and blowing so as to tickle him.
Kaihachi came abruptly awake with an angry yell, and Nanami’s mother came running into the room.
“Nanami! Did you wake the baby?” Her fury lashed the air. “Out! Now!”
Mortified, tears leaked down her face as Nanami ran out into the hall. She slid the rice paper door mostly shut behind her, then lay down next to it, listening as her mother hushed the baby. When he grew quiet, Nanami peered around the door to see him nursing. She remembered feeling very jealous – she supposed that at the time she might have remembered nursing herself, though of course she no longer did, and her mother started crooning a lullaby.
Sleep, sleep, my baby,
Hush now, my dearest,
Mama will hold you,
As long as you rest.
Sleep, sleep my baby,
Please don’t you weep.
Mama is here now,
So please go to sleep.
When her mother had tucked the baby back under a light blanket, she slipped out the door and almost stepped on Nanami, who was still lying on the floor, her eyes red and swollen.
Her mother sighed. “You know better than to wake the baby. Why don’t you play with Kairoku if you are bored?”
Nanami made a face. Kairoku always bossed her and took the best toys. “But I love Hachi-chan the best because he’s my baby.”
“He’ll still be your baby when he wakes up. Now, go play somewhere else.” Nanami started to run off, but her mother caught her shoulder. She kissed Nanami’s temple. “If you wake the baby again, you’ll get a spanking instead.”
NANAMI was humming tunelessly, seemingly unaware of it, as Kaihachi and the Sea Dragon’s liegemen escorted them across a crescent-shaped dock. Some of their escorts were giving her odd looks, so Xiao dimpled and winked at them. Xiao would like to see them be called before their family after not seeing them for thirteen millennia!
They reached a silver arch surrounded by massive rhododendrons laden with large garnet blossoms. Walking through it, they emerged in an expansive garden. Xiao had to look up to prove to himself that they were really on the seafloor, but fish were indeed swimming in the water overhead. He supposed they were attracted to the light of the palace. He looked around the garden again, curious about the place Nanami had grown up. Had it changed a great deal since she left? Or perhaps she had learned to climb on the pines – carefully shaped trees with bulbous branches and deep green needles – which dominated the landscape? Nanami faltered at his side. She was focused on a large wooden gazebo that seemed in danger of collapsing beneath the weight of a thousand peonies. Her face was full of such longing that Xiao’s gut clenched.
WHO had gotten married? Nanami wondered as she saw the peony-bedecked gazebo.
Every one of her siblings’ weddings – that she had attended, Nanami amended reluctantly – had been held in that gazebo and Nanami’s mother Miko always covered it with more flowers than the time before. For Ichimi, it had been yellow chrysanthemums, but after Ichimi’s lying, cheating husband had abandoned her, Miko switched to peonies for Nimi.
Nanami was glad that it was still peonies – hopefully that meant her other sibling’s marriages were happier than Ichimi’s.
XIAO tucked a strand of hair behind Nanami’s ear, bringing her back to him. “You’ll have to tell me stories later.”
Kaihachi growled at the suggestion, but Nanami smiled and nodded.
More retainers lined up on the wrap-around porch on the front of the palace. There was not a friendly face among the group. Xiao tried to convince himself that these were all new faces, that none of them had been here thirteen millennia ago when Nanami was banished, but he didn’t succeed because he saw recognition and hurt in Nanami’s eyes.
When they reached the porch, everyone stopped to slip off their footwear and arrange them so that they pointed outward. The residents of the Sea Palace and Nanami did so gracefully, not even needing to sit down, but Xiao plopped right on the porch, provoking several annoyed looks. Actually, he could have easily done as they did, but he wanted to keep their antagonism directed toward him. Nanami watched him with a strange expression as he made a fool of himself, her eyes very soft. She leaned forward, braced her hand on his shoulder, and whispered so that her lips tickled his ear, “Xiao – I don’t care anymore. If you want to leave–”
Xiao pressed an index finger to her lips, stopping her words. He didn’t believe her; she was just trying to protect him. So he said, “I’m not ready to leave. I want to see the inside of the hall.”
Nanami pulled back to free her mouth. “Okay.”
The retainers slid open the doors to reveal the hall within. Dark indigo pillars supported the high ceiling and indigo banners with swirls of silver embroidery stretched between them. Low lacquer tables lined the sides of the hall and were filled with staring eyes. Kaihachi and the rest of their escort immediately went to their seats, but there were no empty places for Xiao and Nanami. Xiao stood a bit taller and directed his attention to the far end of the hall where a couple dressed richly in long flowing silk robes of indigo and silver were framed by a wide mother of pearl throne. Xiao examined the man curiously, presuming he was the Sea Dragon.
His long beard was still indigo, and what Xiao could see of his hair was as well – most of it hidden beneath a tall black hat. His brows, also indigo, were bushy slashes that shadowed his eyes. Although he was about fifty feet away, Xiao could tell his skin showed his age and his face was cast in a perpetually sullen expression.
What surprised Xiao the most was how very small the Sea Dragon was – but given Nanami, Ichimi, and Kairoku’s petite stature, he supposed he should have realized. Xiao doubted the older immortal would even reach his collar bone. Indeed, although that tall black hat tried to indicate otherwise, it looked as though the Sea Dragon was the same height as his wife, a plump woman who Xiao had heard won the Sea Dragon’s affections with her looks alone, but who had sacrificed her luster to bear thirteen children. Tiredness dulled her eyes and not even the swathes of silk that encased her hid the fact that her body had been stretched and deflated many times.
Of course, if either of them smiled – if a hand were extended to their prodigal daughter – Xiao would declare them perfectly pleasant and attractive people, but the censure that emanated from them just made them ugly and sad.
Nanami’s arm at Xiao’s elbow was trembling, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She was scanning the hall so quickly that Xiao wondered if she was really seeing any of it – and yet
despite her almost frantic survey, she was steadfastly avoiding looking at the opposite end.
SO Kyumi was the one who had married. She was sitting next to a handsome young man that Nanami recognized as one of their retainer’s sons. She and her husband were still dressed in their wedding finery – had they been married today? After Nanami had been discovered trespassing and the Yanou summoned or before? Not that it mattered. How strange to think Kyumi had just been a newborn at Ichimi’s wedding – Nanami, a teenager then and thus not allowed to be an attendant had been tasked with holding her.
Kaihachi’s wife was a stranger to Nanami, but they must have been wed for several millennia as two adorable children sat between them. Nanami recognized Nimi’s husband at least, and even their daughter, though she was an adult now and the last time Nanami had seen her she had been potty training. Kairoku’s son, who had been a baby, was also fully grown.
And there were the twins, Jyumi and Jyuichimi, the first holding a baby and the secondly visibly pregnant. They still looked so similar that Nanami wondered if their husbands – one short and muscular, the other tall and gangly – ever felt confused.
She scanned the tables thoroughly until she had found all of her siblings but Ichimi, as well as seven new nieces and nephews. Finally, she had to acknowledge there was only one place left to look, but it was as if an invisible hand kept turning her gaze away from the front of the hall. Away from him.
“How dare you, how dare you go to the Sun Court to embarrass my daughter! And how dare you break your exile now! You come here having stolen the Goddess of Beauty’s betrothed! Does your shamelessness know no bounds?” his voice was loud, waves crashing on cliffs.
Nanami finally looked at him and was shocked to see how short he was. She supposed he must be the same size he had always been, but in her memories he had loomed like a tsunami. Realizing that he didn’t even reach Xiao’s chin surprised her so much that a nervous chuckle escaped.
XIAO had only half his attention on the volatile Sea Dragon; the rest of it was trained on Nanami, trying to read every micro-expression that flitted across her face.
But when she giggled nervously, overwhelmed by being here, surrounded by the family that cast her out, her father took offense. Xiao found it expedient to ignore Nanami’s pain for a moment to focus on the threat the Sea Dragon offered. He couldn’t quite believe that the older immortal would truly harm Nanami, his daughter, but Xiao couldn’t remember the last time he saw anyone so angry. The Sea Dragon held all the violence of the sea.
He surged upward from his throne, robes billowing out behind him. They writhed and rippled like eels as the Sea Dragon advanced down the hall, wholly focused on Nanami. Despite having referenced Xiao as Jin’s betrothed, and the fact that Nanami had practically glued herself to his side, the Sea Dragon must have dismissed him as useless.
Xiao had no intention of fleeing – that was the last resort. What he really wanted was to show this whole family that they had made a mistake.
About halfway down the hall, the Sea Dragon paused and raised both of his arms. “I brought you into this world and it is time I owned that mistake, as I ought to have done thirteen thousand years ago! I will eat you!”
And then he rippled, as if the millennium of power contained by Ao was suddenly manifesting itself. Almost as soon as the ripple started it finished, and it turned out that the title “Sea Dragon” was literal rather than poetic.
The dragon was as big as the orca Xiao had been days before, if much more sinuous with indigo scales. Its dark mane flared as it raised its head and scraped the ceiling with wickedly sharp horns. Its eyes were the fathomless deep of the sea; the dragon shut them to roar its rage, revealing fangs as long as Xiao’s arms. Its sinuous body seemed to shudder with a need for destruction, its tail flickering amidst the pillars faster than the eye could follow.
Xiao smiled. Just as when Bai had become a seagull, Xiao somehow understood exactly what Ao had done, and Xiao unleashed his own power, letting it rip through the fragile shell of his body.
NANAMI was so shocked by her father’s transformation that there was no room for fear. She tried to wrap both arms around Xiao, her thoughts almost idle as she wondered if he could really transport them away from here.
But Xiao was gone, replaced by a wave of power that dwarfed her father’s.
Perfectly formed scales filled her vision, each beginning as a pale lavender and darkening to a black edge. Nanami turned and found dark violet claws, each longer than she was tall. A horrendous cracking noise drew her attention upward – the ceiling of the hall shattered as the dragon burst through it. Splintered plaster and wood rained down, and Nanami heard cries of terror and desperation muffled by the dragon’s body. The dragon lowered its head briefly, examining her with its full moon eyes. Its long black whiskers tickled her as they danced seemingly of their own accord and with great daring, Nanami touched its thick black mane and found it soft and smooth. The mane was pierced by massive horns like growths of amethyst crystal. Those full moons blinked once, and then the head swept away to focus on something hidden from her – her father, she supposed.
Xiao’s voice boomed, “Not if I eat you first.”
Chapter 15: The Sleeper’s Resting Place
BAI paused in his digging to wipe the sweat off his forehead before it dripped in his eyes. The task of breaking up the hard mountain soil and shoveling it aside had quickly made the mild morning hot, and Bai had stripped down to just his loose white breeches. His bare torso was liberally streaked with dirt and sweat. Bai welcomed that – the solitary labor had brought him the peace of his hermitage and kept his mind quiet for the first time in over a month.
That was half the reason he had not fetched help when he found the unknowable essence halfway down Taitou mountain, buried deep beneath the surface.
The other half was he didn’t know what he would find and was loath to expose Cheng to potentially unfriendly eyes. If whatever he was digging toward was indeed Cheng.
He set his shovel next to his pickaxe, both made from snowdrop petals when nothing in the soil responded to Bai’s power, and examined the bottom of the pit he’d excavated. He was close to the mystery; Bai would estimate no more than an inch before it was revealed. He’d better stop using the shovel, in case it was fragile.
He changed the shovel into a broom and began to sweep the dirt away. It was repetitive and dull, and Bai’s mind, so recently cleared, began to wander.
It wasn’t surprising that he was feeling overwhelmed by people when he had been alone for so long. It was more surprising that he didn’t find Jin tiring. The flirting of the Moon Deer’s granddaughters had overwhelmed him, but he almost entered the onsen when he’d found Jin there.
But he had run away instead. Where had his confidence from their little boat on the Kuanbai gone? He hadn’t felt scared then. The rest of the world seemed far away, the dangers of Jin’s quest half-forgotten. He had liked working with her, studying with her, watching her elegant movements.
His feelings for Noran had never been comfortable or easy.
The first time they met, at the wedding of Zi and Hei, Noran was already over twenty thousand years old. He had been quite startled by her unique appearance – sunlight hair and gold eyes and delicate fair skin. She had smiled at him shyly and introduced herself. Some point later, Cheng had convinced him that Noran had recognized him instantly, but at the time, Bai had been charmed by her seeming lack of calculation.
He had asked to see her again. Her eyes had widened, and a delicate blush had touched her cheeks. That was like Jin – she blushed so easily, her feelings writ for the world to see. But Bai was fairly sure Jin’s were genuine, and not the careful artifice of Noran. Jin had lamented that he didn’t trust her, but it was really himself he didn’t trust.
Robin’s egg blue became visible beneath his broom, and Bai knelt to examine it.
Bai recognized the blue stone as raw turquoise. But surely it wasn�
�t naturally occurring – as Bai scraped away more dirt, the size and purity of the stone became improbable. He started feeling a little ill and worked more quickly to excavate the large stone.
When a head was fully exposed, Bai had to take several calming breaths.
It looked like a statue of a man sleeping. Despite the rough texture of the stone, Cheng’s broad nose and pronounced jaw were easily recognizable.
Bai rested his hands on either side of the head, reading the essence of the stone. Even though it encapsulated the unknowable, Bai could read the stone easily enough.
He immediately confirmed his worst suspicions, that the stone had been shaped by Neela.
He tried to remember her exact words regarding Cheng.
I got no answers. Because she asked no questions. Bai’s hands began to shake, even though they rested against the stone.
Cheng might not be dead. As former magma, he needed nothing to exist – not air, not food, not drink. He could in theory live forever trapped in a prison of rock like this.
Neela did this. She trapped him in a living hell for eternity. And she chose her words carefully to keep me from suspecting anything.
Bai’s first impulse was to destroy the rock. He thought he could, and any sort of release must be preferable to the never-ending confinement. But there was a second possibility.
He would never trust Neela to free Cheng. But Jin might be able to melt away the stone without harming the being within. Taking a deep breath, Bai wrapped his hands around the stone-encased head and pulled it in between with him.
JIN stood before the large changing screen in her room, arms wrapped around her waist, staring at the two swallows as if they might have answers for her. She had painted this screen herself when she had been studying under the Crescent Moon master, but she had no idea how it had ended up here. She frowned at one of the swallow’s wings that was all off in proportion – she couldn’t see the very proper Lady Atsuko collecting this amateur piece for the art alone.
Vows of Gold and Laughter (The Immortal Beings Book 1) Page 31
