‘You want the chance to end us,’ Chonglin stammered, unsure how he could take these two on if it came to a fight.
‘Please, sit down,’ the man said, waving the other man from the room. ‘We needed to meet on neutral ground, and this was the only way to make that happen. It will wear off.’
Chonglin nodded acknowledgment and sat back. He had little option now. ‘Who are you exactly, and what do you want?’
‘I am Li Sho-Ma. I am just a man, a merchant from Fourth. We want the Rei-Een Empire to end. We don’t want a return to what was.’ He held up his hand again as Chonglin leant forward. ‘You can have half of the current empire if you leave us in peace with the other.’
‘Do you think it that easy?’ Chonglin asked, trying and failing not to laugh at the man.
‘It could be.’
Chonglin had only answered the summons to try and get some answers, and so far these people were making less sense than he’d expected. ‘What happened to the high priestess?’ he asked.
The man cocked his head but said nothing.
‘Did you kill her?’
‘Why would we kill a priestess?’ Li Sho-Ma asked too calmly. ‘They all returned to the Sacred Isle, and they can stay there as far as we are concerned.’
Chonglin nodded once. ‘And the crown prince and his hidden princess—they are stronger than you think. Do you really think we can take the Empire from them?’
‘We have that in hand,’ he said.
Chonglin shook his head. ‘She can’t be underestimated.’
The man grinned and stood up. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said, opening the door. Chonglin climbed to his feet and followed. They moved back towards the hut with the man tied to the leg of it, who continued to yell.
He opened the door and then motioned another man forward with a lantern. Chonglin could hear movement inside the small space. As the lantern was passed up and the room lit up, he locked eyes with a bruised and dishevelled princess. He tried again to raise the fire to his hand.
‘She is harmless,’ the man said.
‘They want the magic,’ she cried, her throat raw, and he noted one eye was swollen shut. Her clothes were in tatters around her. ‘They want to take the magic for themselves,’ she rasped.
‘Give it to me,’ the man beneath them cried out.
‘They want the power,’ she whispered hoarsely. Whatever was left of her voice was nearly gone. ‘Run.’
He backed down the steps and bumped into the man waiting there.
‘We want,’ Li Sho-Ma said, appearing in the doorway, ‘a truce. Continued fighting will only destroy what is left of the Empire. And it is dying already. You know this. You’ve seen it. The Palace Isle is not what it was, and now there is no one there but soldiers and royals and healers.’
Chonglin looked back at the broken princess. A lone tear ran down her face, and he knew what it had taken for her to try and warn him. ‘What happened to her?’ he asked.
‘We found a way to subdue the magic,’ Li Sho-Ma said. ‘The spice dust. We have it sewn into her clothing.’
‘What is left of it,’ Chonglin muttered.
‘One of us lost the way,’ Li Sho-Ma said, his voice harsh, and he turned to the man tied to the pole. ‘He wanted to end this, but really he only wanted her and her power. He will not be a problem.’
Chonglin stared at the man trying to pull himself free, the ropes cutting into his arms, his hate spilling out, and he wondered what else they had done to the woman trapped in the room. ‘Kill her and we have a deal,’ Chonglin said.
The man tied beneath the house started to laugh, an odd cackle that wouldn’t stop.
‘We need her to keep the prince from the Palace Isle,’ Li Sho-Ma said. ‘She stays as she is.’
‘She is much stronger than you realise.’
‘Not with the dust she isn’t. She can’t pull any magic, not even a little flower, with that filling her senses.’
Chonglin nodded.
‘We mean to show that we are dedicated to this truce.’ He waved the other man forward, and he held out a bucket of water. ‘This will clear you of the dust.’
Chonglin braced himself as the man threw the water over his face. He blinked back the salty water and then he felt clearer. A small fire sparked in his hand.
‘It will take a little time,’ Li Sho-Ma said. ‘What else could we do to prove our loyalty to the cause?’
Chonglin looked at the mad man who struggled even more.
‘We will prove to you that it is not the magic we seek—far from it, only peace.’
‘Peace,’ Chonglin said, holding out his hand. All he needed was to get off this island and back to his own people so they could decide what to do next. But as they shut the door on the broken princess, he wondered which of them would win the Palace Isle. ‘She doesn’t need to be alive for the prince to search for her; she only needs to be hard to find.’
The leader of the small group laughed and slapped Chonglin on the shoulder. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we are working together already.’
Chonglin bowed and followed the other man towards the fence.
‘We are working for the same thing,’ Li Sho-Ma called after him.
He didn’t turn back to the man, but continued walking and hoped he would find those on his boat just as he had left them. He didn’t think that peace or understanding with this man would be what he claimed.
Chapter 27
Remi stood at the front of the boat and sucked in a deep breath. The hunter beside him did the same.
They had been sitting in the same small area just off the Sacred Isle for a day and a night. They were two of the best hunters in the Empire. Any hint of magic, anywhere within the empire, and they would be able to detect it. But there had been nothing.
Remi tilted his head to the side. ‘There,’ he whispered.
The hunter nodded once. It was barely anything, a hint of magic rather than any real use of it. He held out his hand in the direction he was sure there might be something. The sails were raised, and the boat sailed forward into the nothing of the ocean. Remi remained where he was well into the night, but he sensed nothing further. He wondered if the magics were deliberately keeping their magic to themselves to prevent being discovered.
As he stood in the dark, he wondered at the people they had met during their tour. How many of them had magic or some other skill they were keeping to themselves for fear of what the Empire might do? What would he have done? Before Lis, before his own magic had flared. Would he have hunted these people down? It seemed more important now to pull them together. To build the Empire back to what it had been. His father appeared to have lost the strength he’d had before, but that didn’t mean they would not see the end of this fight together.
The boat knocked against something, and they tipped to the side, Remi lost his footing and hit his shoulder on the railing. There was a general cry from amongst the men.
‘Drop anchor,’ Remi called. They might be close, or they might be far away. They might even have been sailing in circles. The moonless night wasn’t helping them, although the captain assured him the stars were enough. ‘Not if we run aground,’ Remi muttered. It wouldn’t be too long before they would be looking at the rising sun.
He rubbed at his eyes and then his shoulder.
‘Get some rest,’ Hui Te-Sze said.
Remi nodded, but he didn’t move. He didn’t want to sleep through a possible sign of where she was.
As the morning light shone across the water, Remi realised they had come up close to some small rocky islands barely big enough to stand on, and it was only luck they hadn’t taken out the side of the hull. Ahead of them was a long, flat island of sand. ‘Let us see if we can make it to that island,’ he said, pointing ahead.
‘We might need a moment on dry land to gather our thoughts,’ the hunter offered.
‘Or we keep looking,’ Remi said.
They sailed around the island looking for somewhere to g
et close enough to shore, and Remi stared across the flat, dry land at a sand dune in the middle. It didn’t matter from which angle they approached the island, it was always rising away from them.
‘Lower the boat,’ he called, standing at the railing as he studied the sand. ‘You can wait here,’ he called back to the captain.
He was one of the first in the boat and then the first out of it, helping drag it through the shallows and onto the sand.
‘What can you see?’ Te-Sze asked.
Remi shook his head. ‘It doesn’t feel right,’ he said.
The soldiers were still trying to get out of the boat as he splashed through the water and onto the dry island. It was wider than it looked. He took off running, feeling as though the flat world wasn’t changing around them, and then all of a sudden they were standing at the edge of the sand dune.
Despite his instincts to pull his fire to the surface, Remi took his sword and headed up the sand. He stopped at the top, looking down at the little village hidden from the world. There were several grey, weathered, wooden buildings dotted around the area, in no particular order and of various sizes. Someone hung from a rope in the middle of the space, and he almost fell trying to run down the sand dune before he hit the fence. He felt along it, banging, and then a gate swung open.
From this angle, he could only tell it was a man. He threaded his way between the buildings. Then he stopped and looked up, wondering for a moment how they had managed to hoist him so high. And why Remi hadn’t seen him from the water.
The hunter stopped beside him.
‘Wu Peng,’ Remi said. ‘But why?’
The hunter shrugged.
‘Check every building,’ Remi called to the men, and they started carefully checking each building.
Remi pushed open the door of the largest one, but other than furs and blankets there was nothing. No hint of who these people were or what they were doing out here.
‘I didn’t know anyone lived on these islands,’ he admitted to Hui Te-Sze.
‘I am starting to wonder if I understand anything of the Empire and its people,’ the hunter admitted.
Remi stopped to look at the rope marks burnt into the leg of a small building. He looked back at the hanging man and wondered if he had been held captive. He took the first step and as it creaked, he heard something move inside. When he took another, there was a distinctive shuffle. He pulled his sword and quickly took the remaining steps, then pushed the door open.
His heart broke. Lis sat in the corner, her arms up. ‘No Remi,’ she cried, but he stepped forward. ‘Stop,’ she cried, her throat raw. ‘It isn’t safe.’
He stopped and looked around. She kept her hands out in front of her, but she shook. Her clothes were tattered, and anger flared across his skin.
‘What is that smell?’ the hunter asked, coming in behind him.
‘Spice dust,’ she whispered. ‘It stops the magic.’
A strange noise filled the cabin, and he realised she was crying. He stepped forward.
‘No,’ she said, and it caused her obvious pain.
‘Ok,’ he said, squatting down where he was, his hands out. ‘I’m not coming any closer. Where is it?’
She carefully put her hand to her chest and then pulled the material away to expose a mesh bag. ‘As soon as you move it, the dust gets everywhere, it burns my eyes and I can’t smell or sense anything. I can’t put my shield up.’
He nodded slowly, looking over her battered body.
‘They will find you,’ she said. ‘Go.’
‘There is no one here,’ he said. ‘There are all gone.’
She cocked her head to the side. ‘Are you sure?’
He nodded.
‘I need to get to the water.’ She took a shaky step up and leaned against the wall. He noticed her skirts were ripped then, and he wondered just what they had done to her. She swayed and then leaned back against the wall.
He stepped forward, but she waved him away again. ‘You don’t want this,’ she said.
‘I’ll help,’ the hunter said, directing Remi out the door.
‘I don’t know what this will do to you either,’ she whispered.
‘Well, if we run into trouble, it is best that the two of you are working to full capacity.’
Lis nodded and leaned into him. Remi backed down the stairs and gave them a wide birth. She looked for a moment at the sand dune as though it would be too hard, then turned back to Remi with a smile. She must have seen Peng behind him, hanging by the neck, but the only movement was the smile slipping from her face before she allowed the hunter to lead her out of the village and across the island to the water.
Remi followed as close as he dared, but as the wind picked up, he stood further back.
He watched her walk directly into the waves with the hunter, who tried to hold on to her tight despite not wanting to look at her as the material floated away around her. She ducked beneath the waves. Then, sitting in the shallows, she started to remove her clothes. The hunter turned his back. She dipped under the water again and then stood, running her hands through her hair. Remi could see the bruises from this distance, and he only hoped the child had survived.
By the time she reached the sand, he expected her to have created something to wear, but he raced forward, pulling his coat off and wrapping her in it as he had done when she had been attacked in the baths. She leaned into him heavily, and he had her up and in his arms. The soldiers had started to move over the sand dune, and the hunter seemed to be fishing around in the water.
Then he pulled at something and stood with the bag held high.
‘Is that a good idea?’ Remi asked him.
‘I think we should have the healers look at it. See exactly what makes it up and if you need to inhale it. We will keep it locked in a box, or wet.’
Remi nodded once.
‘Do you want us to cut him down?’ one of the soldiers asked, catching them up.
‘No,’ Lis murmured, her eyes closed and her head on his shoulder. ‘Leave him there.’
‘Your Highness.’ The man bowed, and they surrounded the group, escorting them back to the boat.
Yang paced back and forth across the laundry space. It was surprisingly long and, despite the distance one way before he turned and headed back in the other, it was quite calming. Although not for Wei-Song, as she screamed at him to stop. He raised a finger to his lips but did as he was bid.
General Long was resting, or at least Yang hoped he was. After they had stopped his supply of rice wine, the man had started to come to terms with what had happened. Despite what Yang had heard about how strong he was, the man had gone to pieces. He had spent the first couple of days crying, but Yang doubted he had given himself time to do that, to grieve properly, despite the fact he had tried to drown himself in rice wine.
Yang had worked to calm him as much as he could, but it was important he face what had occurred. Not that Yang was too keen to face what might have happened to Lis. He put his hand to his head and tried not to wince. The Imperial Healer had looked him over and treated the wound, but there was a bruise across nearly half his face.
Then another bruised and battered face appeared around the edge of the building, and Yang ran towards her. She held up a hand, and he stopped. He bowed low, but he itched to throw his arms around her and ensure she was safe. She walked past him and into the large room they had shared, then closed the door after her.
He looked at the prince, who ran a hand across his face.
‘What happened?’
The prince shook his head.
‘Is it that bad?’
‘I don’t know,’ he snapped, then pulled himself together. Yang was tempted to take a step back as he saw the angry fire behind the prince’s eyes, but he kept his ground. ‘She won’t say. She won’t say anything.’
‘I’ve sent it with two soldiers,’ the hunter said, coming into the compound.
‘What?’ Yang asked.
‘They used a
spice or herb to keep her magic from working. We have sent it to the healers to learn what it is, but I don’t think anyone with magic should get close to it until we know more.’
‘Has her magic returned?’ Wei-Song asked, standing by the door.
Remi shook his head. ‘She was covered in it. It might take days to leave her system.’
‘She couldn’t lift the barrier?’
Remi shook his head again.
‘Hence the bruises,’ the hunter whispered.
‘The child?’
Remi turned his back then and walked away.
Yang wasn’t sure what he could do, but Wei-Song nodded towards the closed door. He took a deep breath and stepped up onto the walkway. She gave him a small smile. He knocked once and then entered.
She sat against the far wall, in a corner out of the light. But she didn’t move as he crept closer. He had seen her scared before, but this was something more, like an angry fear, and he almost felt hit in the face with the intensity of it.
‘Do you want to talk?’
She shook her head.
‘Can I look you over? There seems to be some significant bruises. I’d like to make sure there is nothing more serious.’
She nodded once and used the wall to climb to her feet.
‘Come and sit in the light,’ he said, reaching out for her. He could feel the hesitation before she took his hand.
‘I don’t want you to feel the loss of magic if I still have it in my system.’
‘Does it work like that?’
‘I don’t know. I washed it off, and it seemed to help. I felt lighter, like I could sense the world around me again, but I can’t use it.’
He nodded. ‘Don’t push. Let’s make sure you are physically well first.’
He looked her over slowly. There were some scratches on her hands, and some serious bruising on her arms as though someone had held her down. The finger marks were still clear. Her face was dark, as though someone had punched her, and one eye was swollen, although she appeared to be able to see from it.
He sighed. ‘What did the magics think they would gain from this? It seems somewhat risky—they might have removed their own magic.’
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 71
