“You have got to be kidding me.” I realize that I’m pulling my hair so hard it hurts. Maybe that’s why I’m developing a headache. “Are you serious? They want me to do the same thing to them that I did to Michael and Iryna and Dasha?”
He gives a curt nod.
“No way. They can forget it. Not doing it again. Ever.”
“It’s not going to be easy to dissuade them.”
“Why?” My stomach makes a sick turn. “Have they turned into shine-struck zombies like those people in the desert?”
“No. They’re not shine-struck. But they’re very determined.”
“How many of them are there?”
“About fifty, not counting the Green Lady’s people. With more arriving by the hour.”
“If they’re not shine-struck, what are they doing here? What do they hope to gain?”
“According to Waymond, the Seakeepers flocked to your mother too, once she became a seamaster. And later, when she became a bloodmaster, the Bloodkeepers did the same. In the end she had to dim her shine so they couldn’t find her.”
His words hit me like a fist.
“What did you say?”
He looks back at me, silent.
“My mother dimmed her shine?”
A brief nod.
“Is that even possible?”
No response.
“So why the hell hasn’t anybody told me?” My head becomes dizzy as the pieces begin to fall together. “Oh God. They used the shine to keep me prisoner, didn’t they?”
The dying dragon tattooed on his face flicks its tail once.
“Because of my shine I can’t speak to normal people anymore! I can’t even look at them! I have to hide away in dark mansions and hidden villages—–” I’m overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. “And all the while there was a way to stop it!”
“There’s no conspiracy here.” Another flick of the dragon’s inky tail. “You weren’t told because it shouldn’t be possible to dim the shine. Nobody knows how your mother did it.”
By now my hands are shaking and my mouth is dry. But I’ve gotten into the habit of believing Zig, so I force myself to calm down. “Gunn and Ingrid really don’t know how?”
He shakes his head.
“There’s nothing in those old manuscripts?”
“No.”
“But the shine can be dimmed. I’m not really trapped.”
“There’s nobody alive who can tell you how to do it.”
“Nobody has to tell me.” I bite my thumb. “You said I’m an earthmaster now, right?”
“Yes.”
“Earthmasters Remember,” I say, before closing my eyes and throwing my question out to the universe.
Chapter 12
Mingzhu rode the air currents on glittering wings as she searched the gated city for her daughter.
There wasn’t much time.
She had waited too long, drunk on the freedom she’d found outside the walls of the Emperor’s city. She only hoped the girl had not been compromised beyond all help.
As she soared high above the tree-lined avenues and ornamented gardens of the palace, she found no joy in the silver-leaved willows, the glassy lakes or the delicate peach blossoms which she had once found so beautiful. She knew now that the exquisite artifice of this tiny, enclosed world was a trap, a way to leech the primal power from her kind, to rob them of their chaotic freedom and terrifying pride.
As if a dragon was nothing but a pet!
As if their magic could be domesticated, their power manipulated for human gain or human loss!
Yes, she still remembered how easy her life had been inside this glittering silken prison. She had never felt the pain of hunger, the sting of icy winds, the ache of exhaustion, the agony of loneliness, the sorrow of grief.
But she also remembered how good it had felt to step out of that limp, defenseless girlish body for the first time. To unfurl her wide-reaching wings, to leap into the air and to clasp the sunshine to her great scaled chest! What joy it was to swirl up into the deep blue sky, to dance with wind and air, to finally taste the freedom she had hungered for!
Who knew that beyond the many-gated walls of the palace there waited a world so unendingly huge and so untameably wild? How could she have guessed that there were caves as deep as darkness, and oceans as old as creation, and skies as vast as suffering, and fires so hot they ate whole islands alive?
She hadn’t even known how trapped she’d been until she left her old form behind and embraced the primordial chaos that was her true nature.
But she shouldn’t have stayed away so long. For her daughter’s sake, she should have made the journey back here years ago.
She swooped down lower, her far-seeing eyes not missing a thing.
Mingzhu found her daughter sleeping under a willow tree in the forbidden garden where none but the Emperor’s wives and concubines were allowed.
After she closed her great wings around her, she woke the girl by placing a gentle claw on her swollen belly.
“Mother!” The girl scrambled up to throw her arms around the dragon’s neck, weeping with joy. “They told me you were dead! They said I would never see you again; that I was all alone and friendless in the world!”
“Who dared tell such lies to you, child?”
“It was the Empress Dowager who showed me your bones, and who told me that by choosing to live as a dragon you had met an animal’s fate—–to be butchered and eaten!”
Mingzhu felt a slow, deep anger building inside her. “What other lies did she tell you, daughter?”
The girl wept. “She said the bones of your spine would be ground to a powder to cure gallstones, and that your teeth would be made into a potion to cure madness, and that your spittle would be harvested to make a purple ink for the Emperor’s pen!”
The dragon laughed, a deep and terrible sound. “And you believed her?”
“She also said that the same fate would befall me if I ever thought to join you. She said it was only here, inside the palace walls, where someone like me could ever be anything but an animal.”
“And so she married you to that mewling brat of hers? I presume it’s his child you’re carrying?”
“It is his child.”
But Mingzhu sensed the evasion. “You did not marry him?”
“No mother.” The girl blushed. “I am but a lowly concubine.”
“Are you telling me that my grandson will not be Emperor one day?”
The girl hid her face in her hands. “They said anyone who carries our tainted blood could never become the Son of Heaven. That it would be an abomination. They said my only hope was to behave myself; if I do everything they tell me, my son may become a courtier one day”.
The dragon’s large red eyes glowed with anger. “It was the Empress Dowager who told you these lies?”
“No, not only she. Everyone said—–” Suddenly the girl’s eyes grew wide with panic. “Oh, mother! You must leave this place at once! Someone would surely have seen you flying over the city; it will not be long before they find you.”
“Calm yourself, child. There is no need for haste.”
“But mother, don’t you see? You were said to be dead, to be nothing but meat and medicine for the Emperor’s use, and if they find you here, your presence will have disproved the words of the Emperor himself! He is the Son of Heaven, and the price for disagreeing with his words must be brutal torture and certain death.”
“I do not fear that foolish boy.”
“You have not seen what I have seen! Your great body will be ripped apart! You will be boiled in oil, or skinned alive, or sawn in half, or burnt to death! You must flee, mother! You are but one dragon, and the Emperor has an entire army to command.”
The dragon laughed, a sound out of nightmares. “Calm your fears, daughter. It is not the Emperor who will command the army—–it is you.”
It was because the daughters of dragons often bore sons that Mingzhu, like her mother and her grandmoth
er before her, had spent her youth within the walls of the emperor’s pretty, petty little palace. Unlike their sisters, dragonsons were trapped in human flesh forever, unable to claim their true form, and so, to make their lives bearable, a deal had been struck. The daughters would share their blood with that of the emperor, enriching his line beyond all measure, and in return any son born of such a union would grow up to be Emperor of all the civilized world.
And now, Mingzhu thought, incensed, when a male child was finally on his way to make sense of this great sacrifice, the Emperor’s mother, that sly old enemy, had dared to break her word!
She looked at her daughter and she knew what she must do. “My child. You are but eighteen years old, and you still wear the disguise of girlish skin and flesh and bone. In many ways you are not ready for the power which I am about to bestow upon you, but even so, it cannot wait any longer.
“Mother, no! I am not ready to become a dragon.”
“There is no greater gift than becoming what you truly are.”
“That may be so. But I am about to be a mother, and a dragon cannot bear or raise a child.”
“True. You will need to stay in human form for a while, and thus I shall only give you enough power to revenge yourself upon those who have stolen your pride and filled your head with lies and fear.”
And so the dragon passed some of her great power on to her daughter, and when the girl remembered who she truly was, she understood for the first time how deeply she had been disrespected, how terribly mistreated. So great was her anger at those who had degraded her, that she wanted to obliterate them all in one great blow. But her mother stayed her hand, gently.
“No. We will not destroy this place quite yet, for it is through these channels of power that your son will enforce his own will upon the world one day.
“But they will hate him!”
“They will worship the very ground he walks on. As they will worship you, my dearest child. But first you must listen to me very closely.”
Mingzhu explained to her daughter that the girl had a smidgen of a dragon’s power inside her now, and that the people around her must therefore love and worship her, even as they loved and worshipped their gods.
“Know this, my child: a dragon is closer to the gods than to humans, for everyone who carries as much as a drop of dragonblood carries the flame of the gods within them. The higher that flame burns, the purer the blood and the stronger the magic, the lower the flame, the weaker the blood and the magic both. This flame is a blessing from the gods and a weapon in our hands: for if we fan the flame high enough, its light will blind even our enemies into a mindless devotion that is deeper than slavery.”
The girl, who had been humiliated at court for as long as she could remember, gave a sly little smile. “And how do I fan this flame inside me, mother?”
“The trick is to look inside yourself, and to realize that in one way the Empress Dowager was correct in what she told you, for there is indeed a part of us that is purely animal.”
The young girl put her hand to her mouth in shock.
“But you are not merely an animal, my daughter. For beyond the part of you that has become a natural part of this world—–brutal, savage, selfish, cruel, and bent only on its own survival—–there exists a higher self too. And it is by focusing on this higher part that we stoke the flame of the gods inside us.”
And so the dragon showed her daughter how to look beyond—–
*
A strong hand on my arm, its grip biting and vicious.
“No! Jess! Come back to me!”
*
I am tumbling through centuries, through lives, through realities and worlds, through places and times beyond language or thought.
Everything is whole.
Nothing has been lost.
The miracle is happening everywhere, all at once, in a—–
*
“Shit! She’s bleeding!”
“She must’ve bitten her tongue.”
“Shouldn’t we put a pencil in her mouth or something?”
“No. We can’t force her jaw open while she’s having a seizure.”
“How did this happen? Why didn’t you stop her?”
“She’s too powerful now. I never even saw it coming.”
“Didn’t she know how dangerous it is?”
“She knows nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
*
It is all one. It is all whole.
We have lost so much in our quest to understand.
By trying to ease our loneliness and our bewilderment, we have sacrificed everything.
And all the time… The answer right here!
We are not alone and we never were.
Everything is one.
*
“Is she dying?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“It’s starting again. Fuck, I can’t watch her hitting her head against the floor like that.”
“Help me get her to the bed.”
“If I touch her now, I might get sucked in too.”
“Then stand aside. I’ll do it.”
“I thought slayers weren’t allowed to touch the trueborn.”
“We’re not. She’s… Everything has gone wrong with this one.”
“Jesus. So she’s gotten to you too.”
“Get out of the way.”
“You’re in real trouble, aren’t you?”
“I said get out of my way.”
*
There is nothing easier than letting go.
Why have I not realized this before?
All that striving, all that struggling. All that pain and all that sorrow.
Even the pleasure is struggle. Even the love is pain. Even the happiness is sorrow.
And all the time, one could simply stop.
One could take one little step and just let—–
*
Strong arms around me, pulling me back.
Anchoring me to a broken world I can hardly remember.
Oh!
I remember arms.
The feel of muscle and skin under my touch.
So beautifully vulnerable and precious.
I am pressed against a chest.
Living and breathing and human.
Pulling me back. Reminding me.
I am not spirit yet.
Chapter 13
…no greater deception could there be than concealing the true visage of evil beneath the glow of youthful flesh.
Be not deceived by its appearance! Trust not in the false shell it inhabits and do not pity the innocence you see.
The Old Words: Verse 2:12-14.
I’m lying in bed, desperately clinging to someone’s hand.
A thatched roof. Bamboo floors. Mosquito nets. Treetops as far as the eye can see.
The Amazon rainforest.
Yes. I remember.
I’m Jess.
I’m in the Green Lady’s village.
I’m holding Zig’s hand.
“Oh.” I let go immediately. “I’m sorry.”
Zig is sitting on a chair pulled right next to the bed. I look up into his scarred and tattooed face, bracing myself for the inevitable revulsion, but for once his expression is completely without hatred or disgust. “That’s okay,” he says. “You didn’t know.”
His response is so unexpected that I scramble to sit up, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “What day is it? How long have I been out?”
“It’s still the same day. About four hours have passed since we last spoke.”
“Oh. Good.” It’s always reassuring to find out that I didn’t lose weeks of my life. “I hope that means I didn’t cause any more international incidents?”
He doesn’t answer, but the complete lack of expression on his face makes me uneasy.
“What? What did I do now?”
Still no answer.
“Right. I forgot.” I rub the sleep out of my eyes. “It’s not your job to explain anything to me.”
“It’s not that. I’ll answer your questions, if I can. But you should probably eat something first.”
I drop my hands, try to read his face. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on, Jess.”
His words send a spike of fear through my body. I scoot to the other side of the bed, trying to get some space between us. “Oh God. Is it time? Are you going to do it now?”
“Do what?”
“Kill me.”
The dragon on his face remains completely motionless. “No. I’m not here to kill you.”
“So why are you like this?”
“Like what?”
“Don’t play dumb. You just called me Jess.”
He exhales a long, slow breath. “I did, didn’t I?”
His strange, almost introspective answer sends a shiver down my spine. I get out of bed, on the other side, so that the width of the bed is between us, and place my feet firmly on the ground. “So what happened to ‘monster’ and ‘horror’ and ‘psycho bitch from hell’?” I ask, careful to keep my voice completely casual.
He frowns. “I never called you a psycho bitch from hell.”
“Really? It’s kind of hard to keep track.”
I expect him to snap at me, but instead he gives an almost imperceptible nod. “It’s true. I have been very careful to remind myself that you are my enemy, and to stoke my hatred against your kind whenever I’m in your presence. Please understand that this was never done because of any personal antipathy against you.”
I scan the room for a weapon, subtly taking in a fighting stance.
Not subtly enough though, because Zig looks me up and down. “Are you getting ready to fight me?”
“Why?” I ask, tensing my core against attack. “Should I?”
“Of course not.” He shakes his head pityingly, as if I’m being ridiculous. “You could never hope to best me physically. Sit down. I need to talk to you.”
When he sees my expression, he makes an irritated sound. “I give you my solemn word that you do not have to fear me right now. So sit down and listen.”
Oh. Okay.
Good.
Thank God.
“I don’t fear you anyway,” I say, lying straight to his face. “But I’m glad you’re not about to try anything stupid.” Then I sit down on the edge of the bed, as far from him as possible, and wait for him to speak.
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