by Resa Nelson
“Should be able?” Frayka’s jaw slackened in surprise. “Do you mean he destroyed his own gate and no one has seen it since?”
“Correct,” TeaTree said.
“Then how am I supposed to find it? Or him?”
GranGran reached across the table to give a reassuring pat to Frayka’s hand. “Mortals rarely realize they always have access to the dragon gods. Kikita is in the air we breathe. Wendill is in every patch of earth beneath your feet. Every fire contains a bit of Fiera.”
“Does that mean the dragon god of water is in the ocean?” Frayka said. She brightened with hope. “Or in the fresh water we drink?”
“Both,” TeaTree said. “The dragon god is in all forms of water.”
“Are you saying all I have to do is ask?”
“There is an easier way,” GranGran said. “You can contact the dragon god by asking your portents to take you to his essence. You must introduce yourself and explain why you seek the Gate of Water. Do everything you can think to convince him to meet you in the mortal realm. It is the most likely way you can convince him to help you.”
Frayka’s face sagged. “That’s impossible. My portents abandoned me. It happened when I was in the Hall of Concubines.”
GranGran cocked her head to one side as if she were studying an interesting insect. “You said nothing of this when we last saw you.”
“It had just happened. I didn’t know when I saw you in Zangcheen.”
TeaTree perked up. “Something like that happened to Madam! Her portents stopped for a while, but it turned out that some kind of magic must have been blocking them. Once we left the royal complex, Madam’s portents returned. Maybe that magic blocked your portents, too.”
“No. It’s only after I left the city that it became obvious my portents left me forever.” The back of Frayka’s throat choked. For as long as she could remember, her portents had been her closest friend and ally, always there to guide her through the perilous parts of life. She felt lost and alone without them.
“The portents have not left you.” GranGran chuckled. “They are teaching you a lesson. Tell me: what happened to make them leave you?”
A moment of shame washed over Frayka, quickly replaced by a longing to defend herself. “The portents tried to come to me when I was in an unsafe place. There were strangers all around me. I couldn’t allow the portents to take my spirit out of my body. Not when I would have left my body in such a vulnerable place!”
“What happened after that?” GranGran said.
“Nothing.” Frayka slumped. “I’ve wanted the portents to come back, but they’ve ignored me ever since. I’ve never gone for so long without a portent. I sense them nowhere near me, ever. They’ve left, and they’ll never come back.”
“Nonsense!” GranGran laughed. “Those of us blessed with portents have them forever. Yours are teaching you the lesson that you must always allow the portents to overtake you, even when you think it means leaving your body in danger. The portents will never come to you unless it is safe to leave your body. Once you learn that lesson, your portents will return.” GranGran paused. “Have you had any interesting dreams? Sometimes the portents will provide information through your dreams.”
Frayka thought about her travels since leaving Zangcheen. She remembered no dreams during the time she spent with Luan Lu in search of the serpent dragon.
But she did have dreams once she met Wendill and spent the better part of the past year with him. “I dreamed that roots and twigs bundled together and took the shape of women. And then in real life Wendill made that happen. He created them as decoys to help me when I came back to the mortal realm and left his gate.”
Frayka remembered something else. “That happened after Wendill received a message telling him to send me back to Zangcheen.”
“Zangcheen?” GranGran said. She directed her full attention at Frayka. “Who sent that message to Wendill?”
“It was signed with your name, GranGran, but we both knew it couldn’t be from you. There were other messages like that, and that’s why Wendill made the decoys.”
“When did the messages begin?” TeaTree leaned forward, his expression as intent as that of GranGran.
Frayka thought back. “When I had Dagby, Wendill sent a message to you. But all of the messages that came in return were so strange that we thought they must have been intercepted.”
“Like the ones we discussed before,” GranGran said. “I wager it’s all the work of Empress Ti.” She paused as if regrouping her thoughts. “But your dream of the women made of twigs. That kind of dream speaks of the nourishment you need, especially when bearing a child.”
Frayka smiled at the memory of her time with Wendill and his garden. “Wendill gave me a place where I was safe and could be nourished. And so was Dagby.”
“That’s a good sign,” GranGran said. “Those dreams came from your portents. It is proof your portents will not abandon you.”
“And you’re saying I need my portents to find the dragon god of water because I won’t find him in our mortal realm,” Frayka said.
“That is most likely the case,” GranGran said.
Frayka mulled over her great-grandmother’s words. She then turned to TeaTree. “Will you watch my child?”
With a puzzled frown, TeaTree said, “Of course. But—”
With bold determination, Frayka marched out of the house and down toward the beach. She took off her shoes and stood ankle-deep in the chilly Far Eastern sea. Foam and bits of seaweed swirled around her feet.
What was it that GranGran and TeaTree said?
Mortals rarely realize they always have access to the dragon gods. Kikita is in the air we breathe. Wendill is in every patch of earth beneath your feet. Every fire contains a bit of Fiera.
The dragon god is in all forms of water.
Frayka scooped up a handful of the ocean and spoke to it. “Hear me, dragon god of water. I am Frayka, great-granddaughter of Madam Po. I am Frayka, a Northlander from the Land of Ice. I need to meet you now. I ask that you open the Gate of Water to me now!”
She held her arms open to the sea before her. Layers of varying shades of blue showed different depths, from shallow turquoise to deep blue-black. Frayka waited for a magnificent gate to rise from the water.
Instead, a lone gull circling overhead let loose a noisy cry. Women’s voices drifted from the distant side of the beach where they gathered shellfish washed up on the sand. Strong sunlight glared against far-away waves building momentum on their way to shore.
No gate appeared. No dragon god made himself known.
“Please,” Frayka whispered. “The only other way I can talk to you is through my portents, and I’ve offended them. If you don’t speak to me now, my daughter’s life is in danger. Don’t you care that mortal babies are disappearing? Don’t you care that mine could be next?”
Frayka listened, and not even the wind howled. Silence surrounded her.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at the ocean.
“Frayka?” TeaTree said. “I think she’s hungry.”
Frayka turned to see him holding Dagby in his arms. The baby fussed and reached a chubby hand toward Frayka.
“Thank you, TeaTree.” Frayka took Dagby in her arms. The baby continued fussing. Moments later, Frayka watched as Dagby turned her interest to the tiny long-legged birds running in and out with the tide to discover what might be uncovered with every ebb and flow.
CHAPTER 6
Asu Chu, the royal magician’s son, wondered what would happen when Empress Ti saw him again.
When steeped in his most troublesome thoughts, he worried that she might kill him.
Along with a small group of royal guards, Asu Chu returned by ship to the city of Zangcheen. He curled up at the back of the ship, pretending to sleep. He knew the guards wouldn’t ask him to help with the ship, because no one of his high stature should entertain such requests. Asu Chu simply didn’t want to speak to them, and the be
st way to avoid them was to keep his eyes closed.
The deck rolled beneath his body, and the ship creaked as it cruised across the sea. The sails snapped and strained against the masts. Asu Chu shivered, unaccustomed to being outside the warmth and comfort of the royal palace for so many days. As soon as the ship landed, he planned to run to the royal complex and go directly to his father’s quarters inside the palace to hide.
For now, Asu Chu couldn’t escape the terrible truth of his failure, and he wallowed in remembering the details of how things had gone so wrong.
At first, all seemed well. With the royal guards at his side, Asu Chu followed Empress Ti’s order to find Frayka. Asu Chu appreciated the ease of the task, because everyone knew the empress had sent Frayka to Dragon Mountain—one of the southern mountains—with Luan Lu. The mountain girl needed help freeing her sister from the grasp of a serpent dragon. Everyone knew the old tales about the Northlands and its dragonslayers, so it made sense to send Frayka to kill the serpent dragon.
But Frayka failed to return to Zangcheen.
A dreadful memory came back to Asu Chu, no matter how hard he tried to push it away. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Ti looked like when her bones became so soft and pliable that she couldn’t stand. He remembered how she struggled to keep her teeth inside her mouth because they kept threatening to fall out.
Ti needs my help. She’s my only friend, and she needs my help. If she dies, what will I do without her?
Asu Chu reminded himself that his own father, the royal magician, had diagnosed Ti and told her about the only remedy for her problem: to bathe in and drink the blood of newborn mortals. And when Ti found out Frayka had a newborn child, the empress questioned the royal magician. The magician confirmed that because Frayka’s baby carried blood of the Po Dynasty, its blood could provide a permanent cure for everything that ailed Empress Ti.
At first, Asu Chu thought little of it because it didn’t concern him. The empress found men who were willing to travel to the outermost regions of the Wulong Province, capture newborns, and bring them back to the palace in a secretive way. Whenever the empress needed her health to be renewed, one of those men would help her.
That made it easy to look the other way and pretend it wasn’t happening. When families made the long journey from those outer reaches to Zangcheen, the empress heard their complaints in court but ruled that they had no evidence of wrong-doing. The empress often suggested that the newborns had been taken by wild animals while the parents slumbered heavily after a night filled with wine.
But one time all of the empress’s men had been gone when she needed help. Because few people knew about the empress’s malady or its short-lived cure, Ti asked Asu Chu to prepare the blood. He’d assumed it would be a simple task. After all, he’d created and executed the tableau magic that killed Ti’s father and the advisor who had tried to capture Ti as his bride. Asu Chu had felt no anxiety about that task. He took it for granted that killing a baby would be just as easy.
It wasn’t.
Tableau magic allowed Asu Chu to hide in the shadows. Working with tableau magic felt like playing a game. It didn’t occur to him that placing his hands on a baby and ending its life while looking into its eyes would have such a visceral effect. It didn’t feel like playing a game.
It felt sickening.
That horrible feeling haunted Asu Chu. It wouldn’t leave him be. The more he tried to push it out of his head, the more the memory dug its roots into his mind.
Maybe I failed because of it.
Asu Chu found that thought to be strange. He’d succeeded in finding Luan Lu’s village and then travelled beyond it with the guards who accompanied him. One day when his guards investigated a false lead, Asu Chu spotted Frayka before she raced down a mountain path.
He succeeded in creating a magic tableau that caused an avalanche, hoping it would trap or stop her. The tableau called forth the creation of a man formed from ice with the mission to murder Frayka while keeping her baby alive. But when Asu Chu made his way to the village where the avalanche came to a stop, he discovered the ice man had killed a village woman, mistaking her for Frayka.
Asu Chu succeeded in questioning a man that he believed aided Frayka and the child. When the royal guards caught up with Asu Chu, he convinced a villager to loan her boat to them. Certain that Frayka now roamed along the coast running north of the village, Asu Chu knew the fastest way to find her would be to sail along that coast and look for signs of her presence.
Once again, Asu Chu succeeded in finding such signs. Once again, he created a magic tableau, confident that it would result in her death and the capture of her child, which he would take to Empress Ti. The child’s death would cure Empress Ti forever, and he would strengthen his friendship with her by proving his unwavering loyalty. For the rest of his life, Asu Chu could count on the protection and companionship of the empress.
But I failed.
Asu Chu didn’t understand what went wrong. Hadn’t he read all the signs correctly? Did Frayka manage to slip away from the place where he thought she must be cornered or had there been more signs that he’d missed? The signs indicated she’d been trapped by a wild man of the mountains, and no one could escape a wild man. Especially not with an infant in tow.
Unless Frayka did.
Asu Chu could have kicked himself. The only explanation was that he’d made the wrong assumptions. Even worse, he’d acted on those assumptions, and that’s why he failed.
I underestimated Frayka. It won’t happen again.
Still, Asu Chu worried about Empress Ti. How could he explain himself and his ultimate failure, especially when he’d enjoyed success after success? Would she forgive him because of their life-long friendship? Or would she think Asu Chu had turned into a traitor who had allowed Frayka to escape?
Asu Chu wondered if Empress Ti knew how the memory of the blood on his hands haunted him.
The motion of the ship steadied, but it creaked louder. One guard shouted orders to the others to take down the sails.
Cracking his eyelids open, Asu Chu gazed upward to see the masts of other ships surrounding him.
We’re back in Zangcheen.
While the guards busied themselves with guiding the ship to the dock, Asu Chu hurried to make sure he had all of his magical supplies tucked away in his bag. If he jumped onto the dock quickly, he could run to a little-used gate to the royal complex. Entering it would give him the fastest way home, where he could hide in safety.
As soon as he saw a guard jump from the ship onto the dock, Asu Chu followed suit. He climbed out of the ship while the guards moored it. But before he could run toward the city gate, he saw who stood in his way.
“Did you have a good trip?” Empress Ti said. She stood with her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. Her favorite guard Jojen and another guard flanked her.
For a brief moment, Asu Chu considered racing past them. A flood of panic consumed him, leaving him torn between his fear of facing Empress Ti and wondering what the consequences would be if he ran and the guards caught him. Even if he escaped the guards, it would only be temporary. Everyone knew where Asu Chu lived, and they wouldn’t hesitate to come after him.
“Tell me about your trip when we get to the council room,” Ti said. She turned her back on Asu Chu as if she had no desire to look at him and then walked toward the city gate.
With a start, Asu Chu realized this was the first time Ti had ever set foot outside the royal complex, much less come down to the city dock.
Dread filled his heart as the guards escorted him to trail behind the empress. Asu Chu looked at everything around him, wondering if his life would soon end.
CHAPTER 7
Asu Chu sat across the large table from Empress Ti inside the council room in the Hall of Justice. He worried that she’d brought him here instead of the royal palace. Did she plan to charge him with a crime? Take him down the hallway to the courtroom and put him on trial? Judge that he shou
ld be put to death?
“I sent you to the southern mountains for one reason,” Ti said. “To bring Frayka’s child to me. You know how important this is.”
Asu Chu nodded, too frightened to speak.
“Didn’t I make it clear that you could either kill Frayka or bring her back? Didn’t you understand that it’s the child I need?”
Asu Chu nodded again. He felt his eyes fill with tears but didn’t want Ti to notice. He looked down, but that made the tears fall from his eyes.
Ti’s voice softened. “I’m scared, Asu.”
Wiping his face dry, Asu looked up at her in surprise.
Ti’s face tensed with alarm. She held out her arms for him to see. “I feel fine now. I’ve been fine for days. But I know it won’t last forever. Sooner or later, I’ll get sick again. And it’s harder to get what I need to fix it.” Ti’s voice fell to a whisper, and she looked at the room’s closed door as if worried someone outside might hear her. “The overseers who bring what I need won’t do it anymore.”
This fact caught Asu Chu’s attention. “What?” he said, forgetting his fear.
“They say the journey to the outermost parts of the province is too difficult. They say so few people live in those regions the supply of what I need is now exhausted. They say the only thing to do is look at regions closer to Zangcheen, but those places have more people. Getting caught becomes a problem.” Ti peered at Asu Chu with a pleading look in her eyes. “I’m running out of time! I need to be cured once and for all, and my only hope is Frayka’s child!”
In that moment, Asu Chu forgot he sat in a private meeting with the empress of Zangcheen and the Wulong Province. Instead, he sat with his closest friend, worried about her future.
“Please,” Ti said. “Tell me what happened while you were gone.”
“Things were good at first,” Asu Chu stuttered. “But then they got bad.”
“How bad?”
Asu Chu heaved a beleaguered sigh and relayed the story of how he found Frayka and used tableau magic twice, once in an attempt to kill her and once in an attempt to locate her. He elaborated his successes and minimized his defeat.
