by Alice Wilde
I can’t help but notice his entire demeanor has changed, and he almost appears to look younger.
“I suppose the first thing I need to do is apologize,” Luo says uncomfortably, without looking at me. “I’ve been under the power of a dark magic for a very long time, and it often gets the better of me…”
Roan starts to rub my feet, and I suddenly notice I’ve grown tense, gripping the sheets of the bed. He’s looking up at me with soft, green eyes. It’s been so long since he’s looked at me with such gentleness that my whole body seems to relax, melting into the bed. A feat in and of itself seeing how there’s a dead emperor lying within arm’s reach of me.
“Nearly a year ago, I lost the love of my life, and my son along with her. In an act of desperation, I sought out a powerful magician who was said to live in the mountains behind the city. Those who had seen him warned me against what I planned to do, but so great was my grief, I paid them no mind,” Luo continues. “So, one day, I told my men to stay behind at the foot of the mountain and continued through the forest alone. Days passed as I searched every inch of the land, but much to my dismay, I found nothing. Just as I was about to lose hope, I reached the very top of the highest peak and was startled to find a small hut tucked away on a rocky ledge, nearly invisible to the eye.”
“Of course, the magician would be at the very top of the mountain,” Roan mumbles with a roll of his eyes. “You should have checked there first.”
“Believe me,” Luo continues, “I did, but I saw nothing. Anyway, I could barely contain myself at the sudden discovery and quickly crept along the ledge to the little building. I should have known something was wrong now that I think back on everything, but I was exhausted and so close to my goal. I could hear someone talking to himself inside, but everything went quiet for a long moment as soon as I knocked on the door.”
It is as if I have fallen under a spell as Luo tells me his strange story…
“Who’s there?” a crackly voice finally says from within, much to my relief.
“It is I, Emperor Luo,” I answer.
The being grows silent once again, and all I can hear is the wind whipping past me as I cling to the ledge.
“What do you want?”
“I need your help,” I plead through the door. “I’ve heard you possess great magic, and I don’t know where else to turn.”
Scuffling footsteps draw near, and then the door creaks slowly open to reveal the strangest man I’ve ever seen. He’s slightly hunched over and mostly bald, but his eyebrows and facial hair are so white they’re nearly see-through. His eyebrows are so long, I’m unable to see his eyes, and can’t help but wonder if he even has any.
“Come in,” the old man says warily. “Watch your head.”
I duck into the hut and am surprised to see that it’s quite large, but I am unable to stand fully upright. There’s a fire crackling in a stone fireplace on the far side of the room with a rocking chair and small footstool set in front of it. To either side of the fireplace are two carved out doorways with stone stairways spiraling deeper down into the mountain. Dried herbs are hanging from the low ceiling, along with a variety of small, dead animals. There are bowls of blood, precious stones, and various knives spread out on a long table to one side of the room, small skeletons and bits of trash littering the floor.
The strange man shuts the door behind me and hobbles over to his chair. “You can sit there,” he says, pointing to the small footstool.
I make my way over and sit down, but immediately regret my proximity to the fire. It’s sweltering, and I can already feel beads of sweat rolling down my forehead, although the old man doesn’t seem bothered in the least by the heat.
“Now, tell me exactly why you’re here disturbing my peace.”
I take a shallow breath, my exhaustion and the excessive heat making me dizzy. “My wife is dead,” I say.
“So? People die. Why should I care?”
I clench my teeth to keep from snapping at him. “I love her.”
“Ah, love,” the old man says. “The true death of reason. When and how did she die?”
“I don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you, but if I had to wager a guess…about a fortnight,” I say carefully. “She died in childbirth.”
“And the child?”
“Also dead.”
“Shame. A living child would make things easier,” the sorcerer mumbles to himself.
“So, there’s no hope then?”
His long white mustache twitches. “It depends on how far you’re willing to go,” he says darkly.
“As far as I must,” I say eagerly.
“Very well, then.”
The old man climbs off his chair and walks over to the long table, kicking bits of rubbish out of the way as he does. He plucks at several of the dried herbs and tosses them into a large mortar, along with various bits and pieces of dead animals and finally one of the bowls of blood.
Taking a large pestle, he crushes the ingredients together. My stomach clenches slightly at the squishing sounds of the thick liquids and crunch of bones.
Once finished, the sorcerer returns to where I’m still sitting by the sweltering fire. He places the bowl on the floor in front of me and begins to draw symbols around it and then myself.
“Don’t move.”
I sit motionlessly, hardly daring to breathe as the old man continues marking the floor, scurrying about with surprising agility.
“Ah, that should do,” the sorcerer says, pressing a hand into his lower back and straightening as tall as possible as he stretches. “Now, the fun part.”
He steps closer to the fire and begins to chant into the flames, and I watch on in awe as the fire slowly changes from yellows and oranges to the color of amethyst. The sorcerer reaches in and somehow manages to grab two handfuls of fire, turning carefully back to face me.
“As with all magic, there are limits to what can be done,” the old man says, flames dancing in his eyes. “And, of course, a price must be paid.”
I nod fiercely in blind acknowledgment.
“Here are the terms of your deal,” the sorcerer says, throwing one of the purple balls of fire at me.
I flinch, but instead of feeling the burn of fire as the flames hit me, I feel as though I was thrown into a frozen lake in the dead of winter. The magic flames form a long, flickering chain and wrap tightly around my chest and then run down my body to bind my hands and feet as well.
“After you agree to the first term of the magic contract, you will no longer be able to take it back. Is that understood?”
I nod.
“You must speak.”
“Yes,” I say breathlessly.
“The bodies of your wife and child shall be given new life,” the old man says slowly. “However, as with everything in life, balance must be kept. You must agree to give me two lives in order to restore balance in the land of the dead. Do you agree?”
“Yes, of course!”
The icy chains of fire continue slithering around me and suddenly tighten painfully.
“Excellent,” the sorcerer says with a chilling grin. “You must send your commander, Gao, to meet me at the top of the mountain by midnight tomorrow. The other body must be your own.”
“What?”
“Hush, I won’t kill you,” the old man says with a chuckle. “But you will give up your life, in a way.”
“What do you mean?” I pant as the chains get gradually tighter.
“You are going to willingly give your throne and your life as you know it to me.”
“But—”
“Remember, you’ll be getting your wife and child back. The throne? A small price to pay for the ones you love.”
I close my eyes, knowing full well that what I’m about to agree to is beyond sanity. “Fine, but the people will never accept you.”
The sorcerer’s smile widens, showing small, pointed teeth. “You leave that to me. Now, in order to ensure that you do not cross me, a b
lood promise must be made.”
Pulling a small blade from his robe, the old man slices my wrist and then his own with one quick movement. Holding the blade over the mortar, he lets our blood drip into it before blowing the other fistful of magic fire over it.
“With this magic, we are bound by blood. If you kill me, not only will you die, but your wife and child shall as well. Let the curse never be broken.”
I shudder at his use of the word curse. The purple flames suddenly flare, engulfing me as a wind rushes wildly through the room. I collapse to the ground. As the wind dies down, I open my eyes to find that I’m suddenly outside, alone on top of the mountain.
I hurry down the mountain, where I find my men still waiting for me. “How long have I been gone?”
“About half a day, Your Majesty,” one of my men answers.
I stare at him incredulously. “Very well. Send for Commander Gao immediately. I must speak with him in my chambers at once.”
One of my men hurries off to obey my order while the rest follow me back to the imperial palace.
Pacing the floor of my room, I look up as Gao enters.
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Gao,” I start, “we’ve known each other a very long time, and I hope that you think of me as though I were a brother to you. I must ask you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to go to the top of Phoenix Mountain before midnight tonight. There, you’ll meet an old man who will show you how my wife and daughter can be brought back to life.”
Gao does his best to keep a straight face, but I can tell from his expression that he’s more than a little unsure.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Gao finally says after a long moment of silence, bowing deeply. “I shall go at once.”
As soon as I’m left alone, I make my way to a back room where I’ve had my wife and baby laid out on a large table. I caress each of their cold, lifeless faces before pulling up a chair to sit by them while I wait out the night to see what happens next.
I wake at the sound of movement, lifting my face from the table where I’d apparently fallen asleep the night before. Looking around the room groggily, I search for the source of the noise that woke me. A throat clears behind me and I turn to see Gao standing at the entrance of the room.
I leap up, my emotions a mix of surprise, anger, and relief at the sight of him.
“You were supposed to go to the top of the mountain,” I say through tight lips.
Gao looks at me, a strange smile spreading across his face and seeming to grow wider with every passing second until I can hardly stand to look at him a moment longer. This isn’t Gao, at least not the one I know.
A shiver runs down my spine as Gao continues to stare wide-eyed and silent, his smile plastered across his face. Suddenly, he shakes his head.
“Ah, still getting used to this body,” Gao says, blinking. “Young bodies are far more limber.”
It’s only now that I realize what the old sorcerer has done.
“You…you possessed his body?”
“What better use is there for a recently abandoned body?”
My mind races and I spin around frantically. “But what about my wife and child?”
“Go see,” Gao says. “You’ll see that I’ve held up my end of the bargain as well.”
I rush over to the table and lean over it, taking my wife’s face in my hands.
“She’s still cold,” I say angrily. “And she has no breath!”
Just as I’m about to look away from my wife and back at Gao, her eyelids begin to move.
“Jiayi?”
Jiayi’s eyes slowly open to meet mine. “Why are you here?” Jiayi snaps, looking up at me in anger.
I turn to look at Gao, confusion written across my face. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Ah, I suppose I should have mentioned that,” Gao says with a sneer.
“Explain yourself!” I shout.
The sorcerer tisks his tongue. “That’s no way to speak to your emperor. But I’ll tell you anyway. After all, what’s the fun of tricking people if you don’t let them in on the joke later?”
I stare at him in anger as I grip the edge of the table with painful ferocity.
“You see,” Gao says as he walks casually over to the other side of the table, “while I agreed to bring your wife and child back to life, you gave up your right to the throne in exchange.”
“I don’t see how that has anything to do with my wife,” I snarl.
“Ah, but you see, she was the emperor’s wife, and now that you are no longer emperor…” Gao trails off with a shrug oh his shoulders.
I try to focus and process what he’s saying.
“Are you trying to tell me that she’s no longer my wife because you are the new emperor?”
“Well, not just the new emperor,” Gao says with a slight raise of the eyebrow, “I think you’ll find that I’ve always been emperor.”
And with those words, Gao leans down and kisses Jiayi on the lips.
“I’m so happy to see you again, husband,” Jiayi says, smiling up at Gao as he pulls away from her and turns his gaze to me.
“As am I, wife. As am I…”
I stare open-mouthed at the man sitting at the foot of the bed.
“Do you mean to tell us that you are in fact the real emperor?” I ask after we sit in silence for a while longer.
Rousing himself from his thoughts, Luo turns his head to look up at me. “Yes, or at least I was.”
“Why didn’t you just kill him or tell people what was going on?” Li asks.
“The blood magic was even more powerful than I could ever have imagined,” Luo says. “Not only had the sorcerer taken over the body of my top commander, but something in the magic had changed the minds of my people in an instant, as if my entire life had simply been switched overnight. Everyone who met me spoke to me as if I’d always been a commander.”
Luo looks down at his hands. “I need to apologize to all of you,” he says. “I could have broken the curse over the kingdom a long time ago, but if I killed the sorcerer, I might as well be killing my wife and child with my own hands. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure it was possible to kill him. So, I spent the past year researching every form of magic and curse I could find. Gao sent me out on as many navel scouting trips as he possibly could to keep me away, and I used it to my advantage.”
Luo chuckles to himself. “I happened to stumble on an ancient text on one of my trips that spoke of a particularly powerful, conniving, and vile creature…the snake shifter. They’re cold-blooded monsters that are extremely fond of tricking people into doing things, as you’ve probably guessed by now.”
Visions of Gao’s red, snake-like eyes and fangs pop up in my head, and I shudder.
“I think we have yet to hear an actual apology,” Roan says.
“You’re right. I’m getting to that,” Luo says. “As it happens, within the same set of shifter tales, there was a subscript of how to deal with one of these monsters.”
“You read some children’s stories, so what?” Roan says with annoyance.
“Please, Roan,” I say, giving him what I hope is a gentle but firm look.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but according to the text, the only way to get rid of a shifter for good is to have another shifter kill it. So, when I boarded your ship and saw the three of you, something struck a chord deep within me.”
“Our eyes gave us away, didn’t they?” Roan says.
“To be honest, yes and no,” Luo says. “The only other time I’d seen a man with such vivid eyes was the sorcerer. But of course, I couldn’t be completely sure until I either saw you shift or managed to get you to go after the shifter…”
“Is that why you tried so hard to force me and my men to be reactionary?” I ask hesitantly. I hate the thought of anyone being cruel on purpose simply to try to get Li and Roan to shift, but it would make sense given what he’s told us so far.<
br />
“Yes,” Luo says, looking down at his hands. “I am sorry for that, and I’ll make sure anyone I’ve treated poorly over the past year is well taken care of.”
My stomach tightens at the thought of all the people he’s used, whether or not it was because he actually wanted to treat them that way.
“Wait,” Li says, “then how do you know that we’re shifters?”
“Honestly, I didn’t…until just now,” Luo says with a slight smile. “No matter what I did, none of you would show your true form. It was only after Annalise and I were dining with Gao that I realized just how far I’d fallen to offer up a woman to that beast just for my own benefit, and I hated myself for it.”
“Which is why you freed us from our cell,” Li says quietly.
“Yes. I couldn’t stop the sorcerer from hurting Annalise, but at least I could let you try. Although it seems we weren’t really needed,” Luo says, glancing toward me.
“I don’t understand why he wanted me in the first place,” I say.
“Snake shifters have a more voracious appetite than most men. They tend to enjoy inflicting inordinate amounts of pain on their victims, and they often need fresh blood to stay young…which leaves them with fewer options over time as they slowly drink each body dry. I don’t think he realized how much more difficult it would be to get what he wanted while ruling a country…or at least pretending to rule.”
I shudder at the reminder of what he’d done to me.
“It helps if the victim isn’t someone from the court,” Luo continues, “and a foreign body that no one really knows would be even less suspicious if it were to suddenly go missing.”
“Lunatic,” Roan growls.
“How has he not been caught before now?” Li asks skeptically.
Luo shifts uncomfortably before answering. “He’s been taking villagers in the night, often women. They’re returned by dawn or a few days later, drained…”
“Surely people must have complained,” Li says.
“Of course. If the women had relatives or a husband, they’d often come to implore the emperor to do something, but Gao would chalk it up to insanity and dismiss them. Only the people living within the city walls had some measure of safety, although they didn’t know it.”
