by M. Lynn
He couldn’t look into the faces of the men arming themselves for a hopeless battle, so he kept his eyes on the ground, wondering if it would swallow him whole.
It took him a moment to gather his courage to ask the next question. “Where are the others? Chen… Yan… Qara…”
“Alive.”
The tension in Jian’s chest eased.
“We left a camp of injured in the valley with enough men to care for them along with Qara and a few other healers. The rest of us rode hard for Dasha. We had to ride through the night and skirt around the Kou army. They suffered many losses in the battle, but it will not slow them.”
“I know.”
“If the Kou defeat Dasha, they will return to the valley and kill everyone in that camp.”
“I know.”
Zhao’s shoulders sagged, and Jian needed to take him somewhere quiet to rest. The guards took care of the other men he’d ridden with, but Jian needed Zhao to inform Bo of everything that had happened. “I’m taking you to the palace.”
Zhao froze, his eyes widening. “No.”
“The emperor must speak to you.”
He shook his head. “Our time in the army together has made you forget how I got there, Commander.”
Right. Zhao had been a prisoner. He sighed, a crease forming in his brow. “Do you think that matters anymore?”
“Do you wish to know why the emperor imprisoned me?”
“No. You are no longer the man you were before. We are soldiers. That is all. And as soldiers, we fight together.” Jian started up the steps, looking back over his shoulder to make sure Zhao was still there.
Reluctantly, the big man followed him, sweeping one hand over his top knot to fix it in place. He ran his other hand down the filthy armor, but Bo wouldn’t care about Zhao’s appearance, only his information.
A guard opened the door, and they strode in through the gleaming marble entryway.
Empress Yanyu walked toward them with a scowl. “First, we allow a dog into this palace and now a common soldier is dirtying the floors with his boots.” She looked closer at Zhao. “I know you.”
Zhao ducked his head and bowed stiffly. “Empress.”
Jian looked to one of the servants who’d followed her. “Find the emperor and General Kai, and bring them to the study.”
Yanyu’s cheeks reddened. “You do not summon the emperor.”
Jian stared at the woman who had always enjoyed making people feel small, seeing her own insecurities flash across her face. Her husband was dead, and as soon as Bo had an empress, she would cease to have a role at all. Most in the palace still called her Empress out of respect, but if it weren’t for her youngest son’s favor with Bo, she’d have been sent away as soon as her husband died. Whatever power she’d once held was now gone. Without a word, he walked past her.
A greater battle than he’d ever imagined was coming to Dasha, and it was time he stopped believing the lies about himself.
Jian was the commander. His past mistakes held no more power over him.
All that mattered was what he did next.
34
Hua
The first thing Hua wanted to do when she opened her eyes—her, not the Nagi—was find Jian. The deal the Nagi made with the emperor swirled in her mind, but she understood him on another level.
He thought Piao was worth his sacrifice, just as she had.
What right did she have to take that away from him?
She lifted her hand, flexing her fingers. The Nagi slept, gathering her strength for the coming battle, allowing Hua these last moments.
Moonlight streamed through the painted window, casting prisms of color across the floor. She sat up and slid her legs over the side of the bed. When her feet hit the cold marble floor, the sensation flooded her. Such a simple act, yet she felt it, reveling in the sensation. The Nagi hadn’t slept in days, leaving Hua as thoughts scattering across her mind.
She reached for a lantern and lit it before pulling on a cloak over her robe. More than anything, she needed to see the stars, to know they would continue shining long after the battle hours from now.
Slipping her feet into soft slippers, she left her room to creep through the eerily silent palace. On the eve of battle, everything was prepared, everyone had been armed and now rested for what was to come. Only a few guards and servants wandered the halls. She nodded to each she passed before pushing out into the courtyard between the main palace and the temple.
The dormant fountain reminded her of what Piao might become, an empire of failed potential, a place of dying dreams.
She sat on the edge of the fountain and lifted her eyes to the stars. The dragon spread across the black sky, obscuring the other constellations from view. Was that a sign?
“You once thought the stars held all the answers.” The sound of Nainai’s voice was like a salve in an open wound, both soothing and painful.
“I was naïve.” She lowered her gaze to the woman who’d reached her side, the one who’d hidden so many things from her.
“Not naïve, child.” Nainai brushed a hand over Hua’s head. “The stars themselves hold no answers for us. But in searching them for truths, we find answers within ourselves. In being still and reading the skies, we search inward.”
Hua’s eyes burned with tears. It was the kind of thing Nainai would have said as they sat on the roof of their home outside Zhouchang. That time seemed like another life. “Oh, Hua.” She sat next to her.
Hua leaned into her, soaking in the familiar comfort. She hiccupped back a sob. “Before Luna was chosen as consort, could you ever imagine us here in this world of royalty and wars?”
Nainai smoothed the hair back from Hua’s face. “Our family was always meant to play a part in the fate of the world. That is why a Nagi chose me when I was a girl. It is why you have been chosen now.”
Hua pulled away. “Your Nagi only needed to save a boy. I don’t want to kill the emperor, Nainai.”
She pressed a kiss to Hua’s forehead. “I know, child.”
A door opened behind them, and Hua turned to see the emperor slipping into the temple.
Nainai smiled sadly. “Your family needs you, my girl. They need to know you are not yet lost. But that young man also has need of you. Go. And then find us.”
Once her Nainai left, Hua stared at the temple doors, knowing she would not be welcome inside. The only conversation she’d had with the emperor ended in the Nagi taking control and trying to kill him.
But she found herself walking toward the ornate carved gold and pushing on the handle. Living in a remote part of the empire, she’d never entered a temple, and the silence was as loud as any crack of thunder. She inched forward to where a sheer veil separated the emperor from her.
“I can feel you watching me.” The emperor’s voice held no annoyance or anger, only an immense weariness. “What need has a Nagi for the temple?”
Hua pushed aside the curtain and stepped through. “None, I suppose.” Fighting in the army surrounded by crude men made her immune to the intimidation many of them tried to portray. But Bo Xu Wei was not that man. She’d once thought he had a joy about him, but that joy had been snuffed out, just like hers.
She kneeled at his side, not saying a word. This all started for her with the death of Luna, with meeting the emperor. And now it would finish with him too.
“Will the Nagi have control during the battle tomorrow?” He leaned forward as if to touch a bronze statue but pulled his hand back.
“I will surrender to her, yes.” She’d never willingly given over control, but Piao didn’t need Hua Minglan. It needed the dragon.
“You should be resting.”
Hua ignored that. “I understand you, your Majesty.”
He snapped his eyes to hers, the flickering of candlelight reflecting off his irises. “I guess you do.”
“You refused to kill me.”
He sat back on his heels. “Do you wish I had?”
“I don’t
know.”
He considered that for a moment. “Do you love my brother?”
It wasn’t the kind of conversation she’d ever thought to have with the emperor, but it was here nonetheless. “I’m not sure that matters anymore.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Do you love Luca?” Insinuating such a thing was dangerous, but against all better judgement, she trusted the emperor.
“I’m not sure that matters either.” He sighed. “My decision will hurt them both.”
“Just as I knew mine would.”
He offered her a weak smile. They were in this together. She tried not to think about the fact that he wanted her hands to be the ones that killed him, that he allowed the deal in exchange for the Nagi’s help. She would do what she could to prevent it, but she was helpless under the Nagi’s control.
Yet, there was one thing she could control. It was why the Nagi couldn’t shift, why Hua wouldn’t fade away. She put a hand over her heart. “For what it’s worth, your Majesty, maybe it does matter. Maybe it’s all that matters.”
He reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I wish that were true.”
Hua lifted her hand to a closed door but didn’t knock. How was she supposed to face her family after everything she’d done, all the blood she’d spilled?
She knew it hadn’t been her, that she hadn’t consciously chosen to end lives and destroy others, but she’d still felt the actions and would forever live with the scars on her soul.
Searching her mind, she could barely sense the Nagi as she slept. Maybe that was for the best. This was something she had to do alone.
But did she have the strength?
Beyond that door, her family would be preparing to send her father into battle, a fate she’d tried to spare him when she stole away in the night to join the army.
Beyond that door, they were together as they had been since she left, trying to heal from everything she’d put them through.
Beyond that door, she wasn’t sure she belonged anymore.
Laughter filtered through the solid wood, and for a moment, she was an older sister wondering why Ru was awake at this hour. He’d need his rest to get through the coming day. Most of the people in this palace would not be riding into battle, but they’d face a battle of their own as they waited to see who would return from the soon-to-be bloody field. Would it be victorious Piao warriors? Their sons and fathers? Or the Kou coming to claim the city?
The last time she’d faced her parents as herself—Hua, not the Nagi—was the night before she defied them and left for the war. And now, she’d leave them once again come morning.
As if it had a will of its own, her hand rapped against the smooth oak. Her heartbeat pounded in her temples as she waited. All sound coming from the room cut off as the door opened, and her father froze, his eyes widening.
Tears gathered in Hua’s eyes. “Baba.”
“Hua?” he whispered, searching her eyes. “My dear.” He reached for her with tentative movements, slow at first. The moment his fingertips grazed her cheek she fell into his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Baba.” And she was. Sorry for everything. Leaving. Letting the Nagi destroy Kanyuan. Killing an entire unit of sleeping men right in front of him. And then abandoning them once again.
Her baba saw the evil in her, the wrong her hands could do, but when his arms molded around her, they held on tighter, his entire body shaking.
“It’s you. It’s you.” He whispered the words over and over as if reassuring himself.
“Hua?” Her mama rushed toward them, and Hua released her father to repeat the collapse into her mama’s arms.
But it was the next voice that broke her, the next reunion she’d seen in her dreams. Little arms wrapped around her legs, holding on tighter than either of Hua’s parents had.
Hua smiled through the tears, releasing her mama to bend down and fold Ru into a tight hug. Unlike their parents, he didn’t cry. Instead, he whispered into her hair. “I was strong for you, Hua. I knew you’d come back to us.”
She leaned away from her brother to look into his eyes, eyes that had seen too much for his young age. “You were, didi. You were strong. Thank you.” She pulled him back to her chest, wishing she never had to let go, wishing she could tell him she didn’t have to leave him again, that this wasn’t the last time she’d hold him in her arms.
She hadn’t realized it as she stood outside their door, but this was both reunion and farewell. If she survived the battle, the Nagi planned to kill the emperor, and Hua would suffer the consequences. The Nagi would leave once she completed the mission, but Hua… the empire would punish her.
Nainai walked toward them with Chichi at her heels. She smiled in understanding as if she’d read Hua’s mind. She knew what the cost of this life was, a life of being chosen for a purpose out of her control.
As her family led her farther into the room, she caught sight of unfamiliar armor sitting in the corner by a silver table, a reminder of both past and future. Hua had taken her father’s armor, so now, he’d ride to battle wearing scales that were not his.
Just like her.
Because Hua knew, if she was truly going to help Piao, she’d have to let the Nagi shift into her true form.
Hua listened to the soft snores of her family. The room held two beds and a settee. Her parents slept across the room in an elegant four-poster bed while her Nainai took the smaller one. Hua, not wanting to leave her family for her own room, had curled up on the settee after spending half the night sitting with her family in front of the hearth just like they would have at home.
She shifted onto her side, pulling Ru’s little body with her. Her brother had insisted on staying with her, and she could never say no to him. Chichi curled up on the settee at their feet. It wasn’t comfortable physically, but mentally, it was everything.
Ru eased the tension in her mind, letting her live in the moment.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The Nagi’s voice returned in her mind.
“There’s nowhere else I should be.”
“You do not lack intelligence, Hua Minglan. Do not act like it.”
There was one farewell she hadn’t been able to face, one man she tried to avoid thinking about. Even if the Nagi performed the act, once the emperor died, Jian would never forgive her.
“How can I look him in the eyes?” she whispered.
The Nagi didn’t respond for a long moment. “How can you not?”
Since when was the Nagi a romantic? Hua wanted to hate the beast inside her, she wanted to hold on to the anger and fight with everything she had. But tonight was not a night for anger, not when she held her little brother, not when Jian was somewhere in this palace preparing to ride to war in only a few hours.
Nothing was certain. There was a good chance they’d all die trying to protect Dasha.
And she had to look into his eyes one final time. She needed him to see her, not the Nagi. Releasing Ru, Hua climbed over him to kneel on the floor at his side. She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I will protect you, didi.” She’d give everything she had left to keep the Kou out of the city, even her life.
Chichi lifted his head to stare at her.
“Take care of him.” She rubbed the dog’s head, letting her eyes drift to the rest of her family. “One day, I hope you’ll all be able to forgive me.”
Her mama stirred but didn’t wake. Her baba remained still, his body storing up energy for what was to come. She’d see him on the battlefield.
But Nainai… her eyes slid open, and her understanding gaze rested on Hua. Hua bowed her head, and Nainai nodded, telling her it was okay to go, giving her permission to do whatever was required of her for Piao.
Hua rushed from the room, tears burning her eyes. She wiped them away and straightened her shoulders. This was not a time to cry, to wallow in everything she’d lost.
The Nagi gave her strength from within so she could walk away from her family—again.<
br />
At this late hour, she didn’t expect Jian to be awake. The Nagi directed her to his room as if she could sense him. Not wanting to wake him, Hua tried the door, finding it unlocked. She pushed it open, revealing a room awash in starlight. Her eyes skittered past the large bed covered in furs. They didn’t stop on the ornate marble hearth or intricately woven rugs.
Because standing at the window with moonlight setting his skin aglow was Jian Li, the commander she’d befriended, the friend she’d fallen in love with.
And the last person on earth she had the strength to say goodbye to.
He wore only a pair of silk pants, his robe discarded over the end of the bed. The muscles in his back tightened as he turned, his eyes drinking her in.
He was beautiful, but the way he looked at her made her believe she could be too. That was the power of Jian Li. It had nothing to do with his sheer strength or skill in battle. He saw past the lies, past the Nagi, to her, Hua Minglan.
His arms had held her after she’d tried to kill the Nagi by taking her own life. He’d spent months searching for her in desolate mountain ranges across enemy territory.
He’d saved her family.
And when he looked at her, she saw every reason.
“I love you.” The words felt right on her tongue. This time, she didn’t fight the feeling, there wasn’t a weapon she was trying to get from him or any other goal.
The words cracked the stillness between them, and Hua pushed the door shut as Jian marched toward her, intent in his every step. In this moment, there was no Nagi standing between them and he wasn’t the commander.
Their bodies collided like they were drawn together by some invisible force, their lips warring for supremacy. If there was one thing they did well, it was battle.
Jian backed her up, pressing her against the door as the last few months fell away, and they were two people falling in love for the first time without the constraints of war or tradition. All that mattered was the fire burning through their veins.
