Dragon Rebellion

by M. Lynn

  Hua cried out, the sound echoing in the recesses of her mind, and the Nagi froze.

  Another scream, and the Nagi searched inward, letting her thoughts and attention shift to her mind rather than the world around it.

  Which was just what Hua needed.

  Gathering all her will, she leaped forward in her mind, grasping onto the Nagi’s waves of thoughts and using them to scratch her way to the front of her mind.

  The Nagi convulsed, a greasy haze flittering across her brain before she collapsed, slamming Hua’s head into the ground and jolting her into control.

  Hua lay still for a long moment, pain rocketing through her limbs. Warm blood trickled from the back of her head, soaking into her hair. Slowly, her eyes opened to find a crowd hovering over her.

  Their quiet questions and concerns hit her louder than they could possibly voice, and she covered her ears with her hands, needing to block out the sounds as they closed in on her.

  Only one thought filtered through her mind. She’d done it. She was back.

  Reaching out, she felt the bottom of the imperial palace step and used it to push herself up as anxiety buzzed along her skin. A full moon hung overhead, casting an eerie glow across the square.

  Two guards sprinted down the palace steps, their chainmail clinking together. They parted the crowd of onlookers and stared down at her.

  “Miss,” one of them started. Hua waited for him to ask if she needed help, but instead, he frowned. “You cannot ascend the palace steps.”

  The second guard scowled. “Do you belong here?” He meant at the palace, but as Hua’s eyes flitted past the crowd, taking in the same paper lanterns that had hung during the dragon festival where her life changed, she shook her head. Hua Minglan didn’t belong in Dasha.

  She’d come to kill the emperor, after all.

  A young man ran down the steps, his feet light. “Is she okay?” He tried to get past the guards, but they blocked his way.

  “Prince Duyi,” one of the guards growled. “You are not to be out of the palace.”

  The prince stopped pushing them. “My brother was just taking me out to walk the square.”

  Guard number two crossed his arms. “The emperor should know better than to venture out at night without guards.”

  “I’m sure he was going to ask you to come.” Hua could tell by his tone he was lying. Duyi and Bo had meant to sneak down the steps into the square.

  One of the guards grabbed the prince by the arm and forced him back up the steps.

  Hua lifted her gaze to the palace, peering past the columned splendor to find a young man she’d only met once before standing in the doorway, his eyes meeting hers.

  She couldn’t let the Nagi harm him.

  “You can’t stop me,” the Nagi said in her mind.

  “Watch me.”

  A middle-aged man wearing a short cloak over his pale green silk robe crouched down in front of her. “Are you okay, dear?” He looked up at the others. “Go. Leave us.”

  As if this man had some authority, they scattered with only a few murmured protests. He gripped her elbow and helped her to her feet.

  Hua clutched the man’s arm as the world spun around her, and she almost lost her footing. “I… can’t…” Her head throbbed as the Nagi clawed and thrashed in her mind. It wouldn’t be long before she lost control again, and she needed to be far away from here when that happened. But at the moment, she couldn’t make her feet obey her command to walk forward.

  “Come.” The man slid her arm over his shoulders, his strength keeping her upright as they stumbled across the square together past blackened buildings, burned during the attack at the dragon festival. Some lay in ruins while others were in various stages of being rebuilt.

  Hua spared few thoughts for Dasha after the Kou destroyed the city. She’d thought of the attack many times, but not the city left behind in the rubble. Many of the people living in the capitol and running businesses had lost everything.

  Some even gave their lives. Like Luna.

  And she’d come to cause them more pain.

  “Like the pain they caused us,” the Nagi whispered inside her mind. “Isn’t vengeance the reason you joined the army?”

  No, not vengeance. She’d done it to save her father. At least, that was what she’d told herself. The truth lay somewhere in between. Was the Nagi’s desire for revenge any less noble just because she sought Piao’s destruction instead of Koulland’s? Hua wanted to avenge her sister’s death. The Nagi sought to make up for generations of slaughtered descendants.

  “Ah, we’re beginning to understand each other.”

  The man helping Hua led her into a storefront that still had a black burn stretching across the stones over the newly crafted wooden door. A sign hung in the large-paned glass window. A healer.

  That was why the crowd gave deference to him. Healers were important, revered. “Why did you help me?”

  He grunted under her weight as he led her to a cot near the back of the threadbare room. “You were injured.”

  He didn’t know what he’d just brought into his home, the danger he embroiled himself in. “What is your name?”

  “Liqin.” He helped her onto the cot. “Stay.”

  She didn’t argue as he entered another room at the back.

  “Liqin,” the Nagi said. “He is not dragon blooded.”

  “He’s helping us, me. You will not harm him.”

  “We will see.”

  A growl reverberated in Hua’s throat. “What is wrong with you?” She spoke the words out loud without realizing it.

  The Nagi didn’t respond.

  Liqin returned a moment later with a tarnished silver tray. “Did you say something?”

  She shook her head, wincing at the pain the movement caused.

  Setting the tray on the cot beside her, he passed her a white ceramic cup. “Drink this. It will help.”

  He removed a wet cloth from the bowl on the tray and dabbed her head. “You will be fine. Just a minor cut that I do not need to sew. What you need now is rest.”

  “Rest?” Her head jerked up. “No. I can’t rest.” She got to her feet, her legs wobbling beneath her.

  “You have suffered a fall. The pain will ebb away while you relax and then you can be on your way.”

  “I’ll go now.” He obviously didn’t want her here, a near stranger. He’d never even asked her name. She stumbled toward the door. The teacup tumbled from her fingers, crashing into the ground and shattering, sending a spray of glass near her feet.

  “Don’t move.”

  Hua couldn’t have moved if she tried. Her limbs stood frozen in place as Liqin retrieved a broom and swept away her mess.

  “I-I’m sorry.”

  He cleaned up the remaining glass before reaching a hand toward her. “You look like her.”

  Hua had no more energy to fight. She set her hand in his and let him help her back to the cot. “Like who?”

  “Consort Minglan.”

  Tears sprang to Hua’s eyes unbidden. She neither wiped them away or let them fall. “You knew my sister?”

  Liqin nodded. “My daughter was so proud the day she was chosen to be a servant to a consort. She loved your sister with her whole heart and said she’d never met a kinder woman of her station.”

  “Luna was just a farmer,” Hua whispered. “A village girl.” That was how she remembered her—in woolen robes with dirt under her fingernails from helping their mother in the gardens. But the people in this city knew her as something else, a woman of stature in silk clothing with jewels adorning her hair.

  “I saw you at the festival with her,” Liqin continued. “I was walking with my daughter as she attended to Consort Minglan.”

  “You daughter…” Hua could hardly get the words out as her eyes scanned the surrounding room that so lacked a woman’s presence.

  Liqin met her gaze in some kind of shared pain. “She died in the attack along with my wife and young son.”

&
nbsp; “I am sorry.”

  He bowed his head in acceptance. “As am I. This city loved Consort Minglan. She was the only member of the palace household who frequented our shops rather than sending servants to make her purchases. We have mourned her loss along with the loss of so many others.”

  Maybe it was because she’d finally met someone who could understand her pain, or maybe because he was a stranger with a trustworthy aura, but Hua needed to tell him she’d tried to avenge the deaths of all those they loved. “I tried to fight the Kou.” Her story of joining the army disguised as a man poured out of her. She’d done it for Luna and everyone else who’d died because of the Kou. Once she’d finished, she lowered her voice. “And I failed.”

  “Dear girl, this is not over yet.” He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so she met his gaze. “Do not claim a failure that is not yours.”

  Hua’s entire body relaxed at his words, and she scooted farther back onto the cot. The edges of her vision grew fuzzy, but she held on to consciousness as much as she could. “I can’t…”

  “Sleep, child.”

  She shook her head, her oily hair sticking to her cheeks. “No. You don’t understand.” Her tenuous grip on the moment slipped, and her eyes fixated on where the cup had broken on the floor. “What did you—”

  “Just a bit of silk bark tea.” He smiled as if he’d done her a favor. “It will help you sleep. Just for a while. You need to regain your strength.”

  Hua slumped back against the bed. She tried to sit up again, but it was no use. Her entire body relaxed into sleep, letting her mind go blank as she lost control once again.

  19

  Jian

  Jian never imagined his search for Hua would take him back to a farm he knew so well. It was difficult to wrap his mind around how he’d gotten there, taking only a single day for the massive black dragon to fly him and Heima to the fields surrounding Dasha.

  It wasn’t something he’d ever forget. It gave him hope.

  If Master Delun and his Nagi could live in peace together, causing no harm, then maybe he could see the light in Hua’s defiant eyes again and know it was her and not the beast inside.

  Master Delun carried Jian and Heima in his claws and set them down in the middle of a golden winter wheat field stretching as far as the eye could see. The high grasses bent to make way for the winged beast, giving deference to him.

  Heima launched herself away from the dragon as soon as her hooves touched down, and Jian couldn’t blame her. He too wanted to run. Instead, he turned to Master Delun and bowed in thanks.

  The dragon’s yellow eyes bore into him as his head dipped once before he jumped into the air with an earth-shaking flap of his wings.

  Jian shielded his eyes against the sun as he watched it disappear on the horizon. “Heima, I don’t think that happens every day.”

  Heima ran circles around him, stomping the wheat in her path.

  Jian lowered his hand and surveyed his surroundings. The ring of fields circling Dasha like a crown were legendary. All travelers used the roads between the fields to come and go from the capitol, but there was only one field that surrounded an ancient gingko tree. Its twisted branches stood bare this time of year, but still, it dragged memories from the depths of Jian’s mind.

  How did Master Delun know to bring him here?

  To the farm he’d spent so much time on as a boy? The empress had liked finding ways to torture the young bastard child of the emperor’s consort, but she didn’t realize his time working alongside Luca on his family’s farm was no torture at all.

  Luca’s father was a great general in the civil wars, but he’d always preferred his simple family life to any other. Luca was of the same mind. He’d follow Jian wherever he led, but what he truly wanted was a home to call his own.

  “Heima,” Jian called with a cluck of his tongue. “If the Minglans made it here, we must tell them she is still lost to us.”

  He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he left them with their hopes scattered on the wind. Weeks? But how many? Six?

  And still, he had no good news to tell them other than that she was in Dasha. But was it good news when he knew her reason for being there?

  He looked over his shoulder to the roads leading into the city, winding past the far edge of the fields, but he wouldn’t reach it by nightfall, and the weariness started catching up with him. Heaving a sigh, he closed his eyes for a brief moment.

  He was home.

  Well, the only home he’d ever known.

  The palace had never been a welcoming place to him, but each time he set foot on this farm, he belonged. It was the power of the Kais. The Minglans had it too. An ability to take people in and make them family.

  Heima walked up behind him and nudged his shoulder. He reached up to rub her nose. “I know, girl. This is going to hurt them.” He gripped the saddle and pulled himself up.

  Strands of wheat brushed his calves as he urged Heima into a trot, doing all he could just to remain in the saddle.

  In the last few days, he’d almost died in the snow drifts, been rescued by a strange group of people in Koulland, found an entire Kou army who was not under the control of General Altan, and was carried through the skies by a dragon.

  Now, he rode toward the people he wasn’t yet ready to see. If Luca did as he asked, the Minglans would be in the manor house he saw as he crested a small hill past the tree he’d climbed so many times.

  Heima emerged from the wheat stalks as the ground beneath her hooves hardened into a dirt path meandering toward the large white house. An arching black roof pointed toward the sky. Jian couldn’t focus on the familiar barn across from the house or the straw littering the ground outside the front door.

  He slid from Heima, keeping one hand on the horse to steady himself.

  The front door opened, and a girl he’d know anywhere stood frozen in the entryway. “Jian?”

  “Song.” His shoulders sagged in relief at the familiar face. Her hair, normally hanging to her shoulders as befit an unmarried girl, was pulled back in a simple knot. But her eyes, those hadn’t changed. She still looked at Jian as if he hung the moon.

  “It is you.” She rushed forward. There was a time when Luca’s sister wanted to marry Jian. She hadn’t cared about his lack of position as a common soldier. It wasn’t until Bo came to power he had any prospects in life.

  But she’d never evoked the kind of fear he had for Hua. Fear of losing her. Fear of failing her.

  Song wrapped Jian in a hug more befitting siblings than old friends. He let himself soak in the comfort for a long moment before pulling back.

  “We’ve been so worried.” A smile graced her red-painted lips. “But you’re okay. You’re here. I must tell Luca and Baba. Their hearts will sing with joy.”

  Jian shook his head. “No singing with joy yet please. Just Luca. I need Luca. Have him meet me in the barn. Please speak of this to no one.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Of course. You know I’ll do this for you, Jian.”

  He did know, but he didn’t get a chance to thank her as she rushed back into the house. Jian crossed the small field to the barn and pulled Heima through a side door. It took all his strength to remove her tack and saddle before leaving her in a stall. Luca could feed her.

  Dropping down onto a hay bale along the wall, he folded in on himself, dropping his head into his hands. How was he supposed to save Hua and Bo when he could barely lift his head?

  A thought came to him. Maybe he didn’t have to tell Gen and Fa Minglan at all. At least, not yet. He could let them hold on to their last shreds of hope a while longer. It probably made him a coward, but he couldn’t face them until he knew for sure if Hua was coming back to them.

  The barn door opened, and he turned his head, expecting to see Luca. Instead, Ru ran toward him with Chichi dogging his heels. The dog jumped at Jian, swiping his tongue across Jian’s cheek.

  “Chichi,” Ru’s high pitch voice squealed. “Bad
dog. Jian is not a honeycomb. You can’t just lick anyone you please.” Ru crossed his arms and stared at the dog with stern eyes before settling that hard gaze on Jian. “And you… where is my sister?”

  If Jian wasn’t so far down the road to hopelessness, he’d have laughed at the indignant kid. “Your mama and baba can’t know I’m here, Ru.”

  He stuck out his lip in a pout. “I thought we were friends.”

  Jian sighed. “We are.” He cared about Ru like he cared for his own brother.

  Tears gathered in Ru’s eyes. “Then why weren’t you going to come see me?”

  Jian opened his mouth to protest but closed it when he decided he wouldn’t lie to the kid. Ru had been through too much trauma in his life. “You see too much, you know that.” He patted the hay bale beside him. “Sit, and I’ll tell you of the dragon that brought me here.”

  Ru’s eyes widened, and he did as Jian asked, hanging on his every word as Jian recounted the flight. It was the only way he knew to avoid the subject of Hua.

  Chichi paced the length of the barn and stopped outside Heima’s stall, letting out a shrill bark.

  “What’s wrong, Chichi?” Ru jumped up and ran toward him, his feet skidding to a halt. “Heima? But…” He turned accusatory eyes on Jian. “Hua took her. I saw it. Where is she?”

  “A question I’m sure we’d all like to know.” Luca’s voice came from the doorway where he stood with one foot propped on the frame. “Ru, you will speak of this to no one. Go back to the house. You have not finished your chores for the day.”

  “Luca—”

  “I said go.” Luca did not raise his voice, but the command was the same, leaving no further room for argument.

  Ru’s sad eyes locked on each of them once more before he kicked open the barn door and slammed it shut once Chichi scurried through.

  Luca scrubbed a hand over his face. “He will not say a word. The kid is scared of me.”

  “Of you?” Jian had never met anyone scared of Luca Kai unless meeting him on the battlefield. The man had a personality opposite of Jian’s gruffness. But now, his eyes did not sparkle with mirth.