by CK Dawn
With a low mutter, Hardeep jerked back, his hip jarring into my head and knocking me back.
Pain flared in my temples and white flashed in my field of vision. Just when the alcohol had begun to clear. I blinked away the cobwebs.
Hardeep knelt beside me, his brows furrowed. “Are you all right?”
Was I? My head ached, my thumb stung. My chest hurt from the lute’s echo in my heart. I gawked at the thin line of blood on my thumb.
Tearing a strip of cloth from his shirt, he wrapped the wound. Tight and firm. He helped me to my feet with a chuckle. “You must be lucky, to survive two attacks with just a small cut on your thumb.”
It didn’t seem lucky, nor a laughing matter. I pouted.
His smile flattened. He turned to the side and pointed. “We are here.”
Already? And where had our attackers gone? I looked at him, and then followed his gesture. An eight-tiered stupa, its colors indistinct in the night, towered above white stone walls. Two soldiers in ceremonial robes and breastplates flanked the metal gates.
There was only one place in Huajing like this: the Temple of Heaven, which housed a chunk from a fallen star, brought to Cathay by the Wang Dynasty Founder at the bidding of the gods. And if the story from the geomancy book we’d found in the archives was true, it was built over the spot where the elf angel Aralas revealed himself to Yanyan, the mother of musical magic.
My pulse quickened. There was one last chance to leave before risking a capital offense.
Twelve
Foreboding Melodies
Whether the low buzz was in my head, echoed in the Dragon Scale Lute’s strings, or emanated from the Temple of Heaven, I couldn’t tell. My spatial relations and sense of direction must have sunk to the bottom of Sun-Moon Lake. We couldn’t have possibly reached the Temple of Heaven, in Huajing’s south.
Maybe Kai-Long and I had ridden in the palanquin farther than I thought; or Hardeep and I had just run a lot faster and longer than my drunken, jarred brain could register. I shook my head in hopes a clear thought would surface. No such luck, and no point in sounding like a fool.
Still, an inner voice that sounded suspiciously like my brother’s soon-to-be bride reminded me: entry into the sacred grounds without a blessing was far worse than wandering the palace without permission or gallivanting through the city. It invited a death sentence. For Hardeep. Maybe even for me.
I edged back a step and studied my prince.
Staring at the Temple of Heaven’s eight-tiered stupa tower, his head bobbed in a rhythmic beat, as if listening to a song in his head.
He was so brave. My heart swelled in my chest. I could be the same. The chance to save an embattled nation and revive a lost art was worth risking death. With one hand on Tian’s pebble, I pointed at the walls. “How do we get past the guards?”
Prince Hardeep flashed a conspiratorial smile. “We’ll climb over the walls.”
I covered my mouth. He’d probably never worn a dress. Not to mention, “Patrols walk around the perimeter at regular intervals. It will be impossible to get over the walls without being seen.”
His eyes strayed to the lute, still in my hands.
How could he even suggest it? Using it on thugs was one thing, but on loyal soldiers… Shaking my head, I thrust the instrument into its bag and offered it to him.
A hint of a frown formed on his lips. “All right, I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Trust me.” He grinned. “Everything has worked so far.”
Getting ambushed twice didn’t seem to be part of any successful endeavor. Still, we’d gotten out of it with little more than a cut on my thumb. Not to mention I’d escaped the palace, itself a difficult proposition. “All right.”
With his always-charming smile, he squeezed my hand and crept toward the Temple of Heaven’s walls. As I’d told him, guards in ceremonial breastplates and armed with broadswords circled the perimeter, always within line of sight of each other.
Again, he mumbled under his breath in sounds so foul, they could only be a curse. Not like I hadn’t warned him.
Serendipitously, both guards stopped in place and turned away from us. Had they heard something?
Hardeep tugged me forward to the wall. At the base, he cupped his hands together. “Your foot,” he mouthed.
I stared at his hands, forming a makeshift stirrup. How unladylike. An unexpected grin tugged at my lips. It was like being a child with Tian again, far more fun than having tea with a dumpy general who only wanted me for a trophy.
I stepped into his hands, and he lifted me up, all the way to his shoulders. At that height, my hands just barely reached the top. Head spinning, I hopped and pushed my weight up to perch on the wall. Skirts and propriety be damned, I swung a leg over.
Below, the stone wall circled in an ellipse, with the stupa sitting on a three-tiered white marble base at one focus. An identical base stood at the other focus, with walls partially formed by dragon bones. Brittle leaves scattered across the empty grounds, unswept since Father’s visit during the last Spring Festival.
“Your hand!” Hardeep hissed from the outside.
Right, Hardeep. Shaking my foggy head, I leaned back and extended a hand.
Hardeep backed up, and then bolted into a quick run and jump. He caught my hand, his weight nearly dragging me back down to the ground. Luckily, his other hand slapped up on top of the wall. Leaning back, I pulled him to the top. The yanking burned my arm and shoulder muscles. Heavens, he was heavier than he appeared. Down below, the guard was just then looking forward again.
Safe! Hopefully, our run of luck tonight would continue. I swung my other leg over and shimmied down to the marble ground. Hardeep leaped down after me, landing with nary a sound.
“Now what?” I scanned the compound, which I’d never seen from the inside. In just a few days, on the New Year, Father would come here for his annual prayers to the gods. How beautiful his voice always sounded, audible from almost anywhere in the city.
Hardeep pressed up against the wall. “Any guards? Priests?”
“No, the temple remains empty until just a day or so before the New Year, when priests from the Jianguo Shrine sweep it and prepare for the Emperor’s visit.”
“Well, then.” Walking toward the marble base at the near focus, he unshouldered the silk brocade bag and opened it. “According to your archives, this is where Aralas revealed himself to Yanyan.”
I nodded, but, in retrospect, coming here just because of a chance meeting a thousand years before didn’t make as much sense now as it had earlier in the day. So the elf angel had met the mother of Dragon Songs here. It wasn’t as if he’d taught her here…unless he had? “Now what?”
Up a few steps, we arrived at the top of the base’s three tiers. Hardeep stepped in the direct center and closed his eyes. “Our legends say Aralas met his Ayuri lover Vanya on Shakti’s Hill in what is now Palimur City. It was there that martial magic flared in her.” He offered the lute.
I received it in two hands. “Our magic calligraphers, painters, and other artisans do not have to visit holy sites to gain their power. It just takes dedicated practice over many years.”
“I see.” He scanned the surroundings, his gaze pausing briefly at the top of the stupa. “There is something special about this place. Perhaps if you played, we might discover something?”
I shrugged. We had nothing to lose, except maybe some sleep from the haunting melody of the lute.
He scooted off the center spot and gestured to it with an open hand. “A beautiful performer like you will need a stage.”
Beaming at his compliment, I stepped onto it. The ever-present hum echoed louder in my ears.
“Don’t let any other sound distract you,” he said. “Concentrate only on the lute. Maybe try that posture from before.”
I lowered myself into a horse stance and gripped the marble with my toes, then looked up at him expectantly. “I don’t know the sounds this instrument makes.�
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“You are so talented, I’m sure you will figure it out quickly.” He tapped his chin with a finger, again invoking the image of my childhood friend, Tian. So cute. And reassuring. “Now, where in this compound does the Emperor go to say his annual prayers?”
With an open hand, I gestured toward the stupa.
“I am going to take a look. From the shape of the ellipse, I would wager the sound is strongest there.”
Inside the stupa was sacred territory, where the fallen star was kept. Only a select few were ever allowed to visit. If a foreigner entered, there was no telling what would happen. Perhaps another Hellstorm. I shook my head. “You mustn’t.”
He searched my eyes. His gaze was mesmerizing in the way it seemed to explore my soul. So beautiful!
But no, we’d done too many things I shouldn’t have today, culminating in the chance at a death sentence, and this would be a monumental mistake. The consequences would be borne not by me, but perhaps the entire nation. I broke eye contact and stared at the ground.
“Very well,” he said. “I do want to get closer and admire the architecture. I promise I won’t enter.” His smile was reassuring. Of course he wouldn’t do something against my wishes; he had yielded to my will time and time again.
Or would he? We’d already committed capital crimes. As he walked across the compound, I tentatively tried a string while pressing a fret. Though I kept the pluck light, its eerie moan came out loud. Even Hardeep turned his head, his irises reflecting the blue Eye of Guanyin in the heavens above.
Several more plucks reverberated louder than they should, given the amount of force I used. The descending heptatonic scales all made logical sense, and even if each note seemed to evoke the feeling of an emperor’s betrayal, a queen’s execution, or the outbreak of a plague, the sound was tonally perfect and frighteningly beautiful. No wonder that in the hands of an elf, it could compel a dragon to flee.
I experimented with chords and descending scales. Confident I could play, I increased the force of my plucks and strums, improvising an Arkothi marching song I’d once heard. The vibrations fluttered and twirled in my core, spreading through my arms and legs.
Outside the walls, dogs howled and birds cawed. I picked up the tempo, weaving bass and treble notes into a web of harmony. My entire body tingled, my insides wriggling like the Guardian Dragon of Cathay chasing after his Flaming Pearl. The power from earlier in the day, which had felt like an ocean dripping from a hole in a wall when I played Yanyan’s pipa, now trickled through me.
If Yanyan’s pipa made me feel beautiful, the Dragon Scale Lute transformed me into the embodiment of might and power. What would Hardeep think? I looked up.
He stood, pressing his back against the doors to the stupa, his expression one of awe…or perhaps, like me, exultation? We were here, together. He’d brought me and the lute. Without him, this feeling wouldn’t now be resonating in my chest, urging me to sing.
Behind me, the gates to the temple grounds rattled. From my music? Or maybe someone trying to get in? I started to turn my head.
Don’t look back! Hardeep mouthed, or maybe spoke. No matter how, his message rang clear. The power is within you! Sing!
Yes, sing! No, someone was there, ready to expose this latest, worst transgression. Some of my fingers sped up while others slowed. The lute’s song wobbled into a staccato, along with the vibrations inside me. My heart thumped at irregular beats. The crushing pain felt as if a phoenix from the imperial aviary sat on my chest.
Everything blurred, bleeding into greys and blacks until darkness and silence overtook my senses.
Thirteen
Aftermath
Metal tinkled and chimed as my head bobbled on a cold, hard floor. My body lurched. Something dug into the back of my head, over and over again. My hairpins.
“Your Highness,” a female voice called. “Wake up.”
A jolt of pain flared in the divot under my nose. My eyes fluttered open. Above me, the star-studded night sky came into focus as I blinked.
Luminous blue eyes encroached into my field of vision. Hardeep…no, a woman. Barely-visible lines of wisdom framed a familiar, matronly face. Pulled up into a tight, austere coil, her long silver hair seemed to have a faint bluish tinge to it, perhaps reflected from her eyes.
Those eyes. Pale blue like the moon Guanyin’s Eye itself, unique in a Cathayi woman. Their depth and serenity evoked a soothing calm rivaling Sun-Moon Lake on the clearest of days. I loved those eyes as I adored the Daoist master to whom they belonged.
Struggling to sit up, I coughed a few times before finding words. “Doctor Wu. What are you doing here?”
“An awe-inspiring song pulsated through the city, coming from the Temple of Heaven,” said the ancient woman—nobody knew her actual age, though some speculated her longevity rivaled that of a dwarf or even an elf. As a master of an art that sought the secret to immortality, she didn’t look particularly old. That, despite the fact she eschewed the pearl creams and other make-up that most Cathayi women used as the passing years magnified the effect of gravity. “The question is what are you doing here?”
What was I doing here? Playing enchanted musical instruments in the middle of a forbidden area, with a foreign prince.
Foreign prince!
Hardeep must’ve been nearby. I scanned the surroundings. We were outside the gates of the temple compound. There was no sign of him or the Dragon Scale Lute, only a man whose blue-and-gold robes marked him as the Jianguo Shrine’s high priest. He craned over me while several other priests huddled beyond, whispering among themselves as their judgmental stares fell on me. How mortifying.
One of the priests ran past, probably headed for the palace to report to Father. Once he learned about my sneaking out and entering the Temple of Heaven, on top of disobeying his initial order to send Prince Hardeep away…
I looked around again. “Where is Prince Hardeep?”
“Who?” Doctor Wu raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. She turned to the growing crowd of murmuring men. “Who is Prince Hardeep?”
The most charming and handsome man I’d ever seen. The only one who ever truly knew me. “A foreign supplicant to the Emperor.”
“Where is he now?” General Zheng, Commander of the Imperial Guard, shouldered his way to the front, several imperial guards in tow. The other men bowed and made way. He beckoned the hall steward and my guards. “Was he alone with the princess? Here?”
My stomach churned. When the truth came out, Prince Hardeep would lose his head, foreign dignitary or not.
The priests all exchanged glances. Apparently, Hardeep had escaped without anyone seeing him. Which meant I’d fainted, and he had just left me there.
To get help. He must have risked his life to get help. And he was safe.
General Zheng turned back to the priests. “Where is Prince Hardeep now?”
The men all looked among themselves, shrugging.
“I…I am not sure.” The high priest squinted and blinked like a child testing new spectacles.
The general pointed to three imperial guards. “Go find the foreigner.”
I twirled a loose lock of my hair. Maybe Prince Hardeep had just abandoned me to save his own skin. And like some silly daydream, I’d believed music made me beautiful in his eyes. How gullible I’d been. Breaking rules, acting like a love-struck fool. And now, possibly getting servants and Cousin Kai-Long executed. Myself, too. Cold seeped into my hands, and my vision faded at the edges.
“Steady, Your Highness.” Doctor Wu placed one hand on my back, the other on my wrist, feeling my pulse. Her eyebrows clashed together like charging goats. “Show me your tongue.”
I glanced up at a different kind of audience than I was accustomed to. How embarrassing. Heat flared in my cheeks.
Doctor Wu swept an imperious gaze over the assembled men. “Turn around.”
Like a temple’s revolving storm door shutters, the men spun and snapped into place. Jaw tight, General Zheng nodd
ed and turned around as well.
Thank the Heavens. I nodded to the doctor in thanks and stuck out my tongue.
“I see.” Doctor Wu’s lips pursed. She spent the next several minutes poking and prodding at me, while soldiers jogged around the temple walls and nervous priests shuffled at a respectful distance. How mortifying, to have so much attention for all the wrong reasons.
Just when my heart was about to stop, a middle-aged man slunk through the wall of imperial guards. The white-and-red symbols stitched into his blue robes marked him as a member of the Ministry of Household Affairs. “Your Highness, the Emperor commands you to present yourself before him.”
Heavens, no. I resigned to humiliating myself in front of all the hereditary lords. The Emperor—Father—had no choice but to pass harsh judgment.
Doctor Wu’s hand squeezed mine, sending a reassuring warmth coursing through my body. “Don’t worry, Your Highness. I will accompany you.”
For whatever good that would do. No matter Father’s respect for the doctor, he couldn’t afford to appear weak and overlook a capital offense. Not when the North was unsettled. Not when I couldn’t prove my budding skill at Dragon Songs. Hopefully, when meting out punishment, he would take into account that I’d never done anything wrong in the past.
Doctor Wu helped me to my shaky feet. The men all bowed. Imperial guards formed up behind me. The Minister of Household Affairs led me from the Temple of Heaven’s front gates to where a palanquin and a several dozen imperial guards awaited.
I peered at the palanquin, all vibrations of power from the lute melting away from my core. I gritted my teeth and ducked into its narrow confines. It rose off the ground and lurched into a steady pace. Outside, the imperial guards marched in tight formation.
How foolish I’d been, believing Prince Hardeep wanted to help me. An accomplished musician himself, he’d probably taken the lute. He might’ve already chartered a ship back to Ankiras, where he would scatter the Maduran armies with the instrument’s fell magic.
