by Lauren Kate
But then again, Lu Xin was standing vigil over a dead guy, giving Luce don’t-mess-with-me eyes, so she seemed a little crazy herself.
Oh boy. Luce hadn’t noticed the jade knife with the turquoise-studded handle, or the small pond of blood in the middle of the marble floor.
“What do I—” she started to ask Bill.
“You.” Lu Xin’s voice was surprisingly strong. “Help me hide his body.”
The dead man’s hair was white around his temples; he looked about sixty years old, lean and muscular underneath many elaborate robes and embroidered cloaks.
“I—um, I don’t really think—”
“As soon as they learn the king is dead, you and I will be dead, too.”
“What?” Luce asked. “Me?”
“You, me, most of the people inside these walls. Where else will they find the thousand sacrificial bodies that must be buried with the despot?” The girl wiped her cheeks dry with slender, jade-ringed fingers. “Will you help me or not?”
At the girl’s request, Luce moved to help pick up the king’s feet. Lu Xin readied herself to lift him under his arms. “The king,” Luce said, spouting out the old Shang words as if she’d spoken them forever. “Was he—”
“It is not as it appears.” Lu Xin grunted under the weight of the body. The king was heavier than he looked. “I did not kill him. At least not”—she paused—“physically. He was dead when I walked into the room.” She sniffed. “He stabbed himself in the heart. I used to say he did not have one, but he has proven me wrong.”
Luce looked at the man’s face. One of his eyes was open. His mouth was twisted. He looked as if he’d left this world in agony. “Was he your father?”
By then they’d reached the huge jade wardrobe. Lu Xin wedged its door open with her hip, took a step backward, and dropped her half of the body inside.
“He was to be my husband,” she said coldly. “And a horrible one at that. The ancestors approved of our marriage, but I did not. Rich, powerful older men are nothing to be grateful for, if one enjoys romance.” She studied Luce, who lowered the king’s feet slowly to the floor of the wardrobe. “What part of the plains do you come from that word of the king’s betrothal had not reached you?” Lu Xin had noticed Luce’s Mayan clothing. She picked at the hem of the short brown skirt. “Did they hire you to perform at our wedding? Are you some sort of dancer? A clown?”
“Not exactly.” Luce felt her cheeks flush as she tugged the skirt lower on her hips. “Look, we can’t just leave his body here. Someone’s going to find out. I mean, he’s the king, right? And there’s blood everywhere.”
Lu Xin reached into the dragon wardrobe and pulled out a crimson silk robe. She dropped to her knees and tore a large strip of fabric from it. It was a beautiful soft silk garment, with small black blossoms embroidered around the neckline. But Lu Xin didn’t think twice about using it to mop up the blood on the floor. She snatched a second, blue robe and tossed it to Luce to help with the mopping.
“Okay,” Luce said, “well, there’s still that knife.” She pointed at the gleaming bronze dagger coated up to the hilt with the king’s blood.
In a flash, Lu Xin slipped the knife inside a fold of her robe. She looked up at Luce, as if to say Anything else?
“What’s that over there?” Luce pointed to what looked like the top of a small turtle’s shell. She’d seen it fall out of the king’s hand when they moved his body.
Lu Xin was on her knees. She tossed down the sopping bloodstained rag and cupped the shell between her hands. “The oracle bone,” she said softly. “More important than any king.”
“What is it?”
“This holds answers from the Deity Above.”
Luce stepped closer, kneeling to see the object that had had such an effect on the girl. The oracle bone was nothing more than a tortoiseshell, but it was small and polished and pristine. When Luce leaned closer, she saw that someone had painted something in soft black strokes on the smooth underside of the shell:
Is Lu Xin true to me or does she love another?
Fresh tears welled in Lu Xin’s eyes, a crack in the cool resolve she’d shown to Luce. “He asked the ancestors,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “They must have told him of my deceit. I—I could not help myself.”
Daniel. She must be talking about Daniel. A secret love she’d hidden from the king. But she hadn’t been able to hide it well enough.
Luce’s heart went out to Lu Xin. She understood with every fiber of her soul precisely what the girl was feeling. They shared a love that no king could take away, that nobody could extinguish. A love more powerful than nature.
She swept Lu Xin into a deep embrace.
And felt the floor drop away beneath them.
She hadn’t meant to do this! But her stomach was already pitching, and her vision shifted uncontrollably, and she saw herself from outside, looking alien and wild and holding on for dear life to her past. Then the room stopped spinning and Luce was alone, clutching the oracle bone in her hand. It was done. She’d become Lu Xin.
“I disappear for three minutes and you go three-D?” Bill said, reappearing in a huff. “Can’t a gargoyle enjoy a nice cup of jasmine tea without coming back to find that his charge has dug her own grave? Have you even thought about what’s going to happen when the guards knock on that door?”
A knock sounded sharply on the great bamboo door in the main chamber.
Luce jumped.
Bill folded his arms over his chest. “Speak of the devil,” he said. Then, in a high, affected shriek, he cried out, “Oh, Bill! Help me, Bill, what do I do now? I didn’t think to ask you any questions before I put myself into a very stupid situation, Bill!”
But Luce didn’t have to ask Bill any questions. Knowledge was rising to the front of Lu Xin’s mind: She knew that this day would be marked not just by the suicide of one crappy king, but by something even bigger, even darker, even bloodier: a huge clash between armies. That knock on the door? It was the king’s council waiting to escort him to war. He was to lead the troops in battle.
But the king was dead and stuffed in a wardrobe.
And Luce was in Lu Xin’s body, holed up in his private chambers. If they found her here alone …
“King Shang.” Heavy knocks echoed throughout the room. “We await your orders.”
Luce stood very still, freezing in Lu Xin’s silk robe. There was no King Shang. His suicide had left the dynasty without a king, the temples without a high priest, and the army without a general, right before a battle to maintain the dynasty.
“Talk about an ill-timed regicide,” Bill said.
“What do I do?” Luce spun back to the dragon wardrobe, wincing when she peered in at the king. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle, and the blood on his chest was drying a rusty brown. Lu Xin had hated the king when he’d been alive. Luce knew now that the tears she’d cried weren’t tears of sadness, but of fear for what would become of her love, De.
Until three weeks before, Lu Xin had lived on her family’s millet farm on the banks of the Huan River. Passing through her river valley on his shining chariot one afternoon, the king had glimpsed Lu Xin tending the crops. He had decided that he fancied her. The next day, two militiamen had arrived at her door. She’d had to leave her family and her home. She’d had to leave De, the handsome young fisherman from the next village.
Before the king’s summons, De had shown Lu Xin how to fish using his pair of pet cormorants, by tying a bit of rope loosely around their necks so that they could catch several fish in their mouths but not swallow them. Watching De gently coax the fish from the depths of the funny birds’ beaks, Lu Xin had fallen in love with him. The very next morning, she’d had to say goodbye to him. Forever.
Or so she’d thought.
It had been nineteen sunsets since Lu Xin had seen De, seven sunsets since she’d received a scroll from home with bad news: De and some other boys from the neighboring farms had run away to join the rebel army, a
nd no sooner had he left than the king’s men had ransacked the village, looking for the deserters.
With the king dead, the Shang men would show no mercy to Lu Xin, and she would never find De, never reunite with Daniel.
Unless the king’s council didn’t find out that their king was dead.
The wardrobe was jammed with colorful, exotic garments, but one object caught her eye: a large curved helmet. It was heavy, made mostly of thick leather straps stitched together with tight seams. At the front was a smooth bronze plate with an ornate fire-breathing dragon carved into the metal. The dragon was the zodiac animal of the king’s birth year.
Bill floated toward her. “What are you doing with the king’s helmet?”
Luce slid the helmet onto her head, tucking her black hair inside it. Then she opened the other side of the wardrobe, thrilled and nervous about what she had found.
“The same thing I’m doing with the king’s armor,” she said, gathering a heavy tangle of goods into her arms. She donned a pair of wide leather pants, a thick leather tunic, a pair of chain-mail gloves, leather slippers that were certainly too big but that she’d have to make work, and a bronze chest guard made of overlapping metal plates. The same black, fire-breathing dragon on the helmet was embroidered on the front of the tunic. It was hard to believe that anyone could fight a war under the weight of these clothes, but Lu Xin knew that the king didn’t really fight—he only led battles from the seat of his war chariot.
“This is not the time to play dress-up!” Bill jabbed a claw at her. “You can’t go out there like that.”
“Why not? It fits. Almost.” She folded over the top of the pants so that she could belt them tightly.
Near the water basin, she found a crude mirror of polished tin inside a bamboo frame. In the reflection, Lu Xin’s face was disguised by the thick bronze plate of the helmet. Her body looked bulky and strong under the leather armor.
Luce started to walk out of the dressing chamber, back into the bedroom.
“Wait!” Bill shouted. “What are you going to say about the king?”
Luce turned to Bill and raised the heavy leather helmet so that he could see her eyes. “I’m the king now.”
Bill blinked, and for once made no attempt at a comeback.
A bolt of strength surged through Luce. Disguising herself as the head of the army was, she realized, exactly what Lu Xin would have done. As a common soldier, of course De would be on the front lines in this battle. And she was going to find him.
The pounding on the door again. “King Shang, the Zhou army is advancing. We must request your presence!”
“I believe there’s someone talking to you, King Shang.” Bill’s voice had changed. It was deep and scratchy and echoed around the room so violently that Luce flinched, but she didn’t turn to look at him. She unbolted the heavy bronze handle and opened the thick bamboo door.
Three men in flamboyant red-and-yellow martial robes greeted her anxiously. Instantly, Luce recognized the king’s three closest councilors: Hu, with the tiny teeth and narrowed, yellowed eyes. Cui, the tallest one, with broad shoulders and wide-set eyes. Huang, the youngest and kindest on the council.
“The king is already dressed for war,” Huang said, peering past Luce into the empty chamber quizzically. “The king looks … different.”
Luce froze. What to say? She’d never heard the dead king’s voice, and she was exceptionally bad at impersonations.
“Yes.” Hu agreed with Huang. “Well rested.”
After a deep, relieved sigh, Luce nodded stiffly, careful not to send the helmet tumbling from her head.
The three men gestured for the king—for Luce—to walk down the marble hall. Huang and Hu flanked her, and murmured in low voices about the sad state of morale among the soldiers. Cui walked directly behind Luce, making her uncomfortable.
The palace went on forever—high gabled ceilings, all gleaming white, the same jade and onyx statues at every turn, the same bamboo-framed mirrors on every wall. When finally they crossed the last threshold and stepped into the gray morning, Luce spotted the red wooden chariot in the distance, and her knees nearly buckled under her.
She had to find Daniel in this lifetime, but going into battle terrified her.
At the chariot, the king’s council members bowed and kissed her gauntlet. She was grateful for the armored gloves but still pulled back quickly, afraid her grip might give her away. Huang handed her a long spear with a wooden handle and a curved spike a few inches below the spearhead. “Your halberd, Majesty.”
She nearly dropped the heavy thing.
“They will take you to the overlook above the front lines,” he said. “We will follow behind and meet you there with the cavalry.”
Luce turned to the chariot. It was basically a wooden platform atop a long axle connecting two great wooden wheels, drawn by two immense black horses. The carriage was made of shiny lacquered red wood and had space enough for about three people to sit or stand. A leather awning and curtains could be removed during battle, but for now, they hung down, giving the passenger some privacy.
Luce climbed up, passed through the curtains, and took a seat. It was padded with tiger skins. A driver with a thin mustache took the reins, and another soldier with drooping eyes and a battle-ax climbed up to stand at his side. At the crack of a whip, the horses broke into a gallop and she felt the wheels beneath her begin to turn.
As they rolled past the high, austere gates of the palace, sun streamed through pockets of fog onto a great expanse of green farmland to the west. The land was beautiful, but Luce was too nervous to appreciate it.
“Bill,” she whispered. “Help?”
No answer. “Bill?”
She peeked outside the curtains, but that only attracted the attention of the droopy-eyed soldier who was supposed to be the king’s bodyguard during the journey. “Your Majesty, please, for your safety, I must insist.” He gestured for Luce to withdraw.
Luce groaned and leaned back against the padded chariot seat. The paved streets of the city must have ended, for the ride became incredibly bumpy. Luce was flung against the seat, feeling like she was on a wooden roller coaster. Her fingers gripped the plush fur of the tiger skin.
Bill hadn’t wanted her to do this. Was he teaching her a lesson by bailing now when she most needed his help?
Her knees rattled with each jolt in the road. She had absolutely no idea how she’d find De. If the king’s guards wouldn’t even let her look out past a curtain, how were they going to let her near the front lines?
But then:
Once, thousands of years ago, her past self had sat alone in this chariot, disguised as the deceased king. Luce could feel it—even if she hadn’t joined with her past body, Lu Xin would have been here right now.
Without the aid of some weird ornery gargoyle. And, more importantly, without all the knowledge that Luce had amassed so far on her quest. She had seen Daniel’s unbridled glory in Chichén Itzá. She had witnessed and finally understood the depths of his curse in London. She’d seen him go from suicidal in Tibet to saving her from a rotten life in Versailles. She’d watched him sleep through the pain of her death in Prussia as if he were under a spell. She’d seen him fall for her even when she was snotty and immature in Helston. She’d touched the scars of his wings in Milan and understood how much he’d given up in Heaven just for her. She’d seen the tortured look in his eyes when he lost her in Moscow, the same misery over and over again.
Luce owed it to him to find a way to break this curse.
The chariot jolted to a stop, and Luce was nearly flung off her seat. Outside, there was a thunderous pounding of horses’ hooves—which was strange because the king’s chariot was standing still.
Someone else was out there.
Luce heard a clash of metal and a long, pained grunt. The chariot was jostled roughly. Something heavy thumped to the ground.
There was more clashing, more grunting, a harsh cry, and another thump on the grou
nd. Her hands trembling, Luce parted the leather curtains the tiniest bit and saw the droopy-eyed solder lying in a pool of blood on the ground beneath.
The king’s chariot had been ambushed.
The curtains before her were thrust apart by one of the insurgents. The foreign fighter raised his sword.
Luce couldn’t help herself: She screamed.
The sword faltered in the air—and then, the warmest feeling washed over Luce, flooding her veins, calming her nerves, and slowing the pounding of her heart.
The fighter on the chariot was De.
His leather helmet covered his black, shoulder-length hair, but it left his face wonderfully unobstructed. His violet eyes stood out against his clear olive skin. He looked baffled and hopeful at the same time. His sword was drawn, but he held it as if he sensed he shouldn’t strike. Quickly, Luce lifted her helmet over her head and flung it onto the seat.
Her dark hair cascaded down, her locks tumbling all the way to the bottom of her bronze breastplate. Her vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears.
“Lu Xin?” De gathered her tightly into his arms. His nose grazed hers and she rested her cheek on his, feeling warm and safe. He seemed unable to stop smiling. She lifted her head and kissed the beautiful curve of his lips. He answered her kiss hungrily, and Luce soaked up every wonderful moment, feeling the weight of his body against hers, wishing there weren’t so much heavy armor between them.
“You’re the last person I expected to see,” De said softly.
“I could say the same for you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“When I joined forces with the Zhou rebels, I vowed to kill the king and get you back.”
“The king is—Oh, none of that matters anymore,” Luce whispered, kissing his cheeks and his eyelids, holding tight around his neck.
“Nothing matters,” De said. “Except that I’m with you.”
Luce thought back to his luminous glow back in Chichén Itzá. Seeing him in these other lives, in places and times that were so far from home—each one confirmed how much she loved him. The bond between them was unbreakable—it was clear from the way they looked at each other, the way they could read each other’s thoughts, the way one made the other feel whole.
