Jade Fire Gold(20)
“You said we’d run into the nomads today. Where are they? Are you sure you remember how to read the sands? Ten years is a long time.”
“Quit your whining.”
“Should have stabbed you at the inn and dragged you home to Master Sun.”
“And upset Linxi?”
I give her a pointed look. Linxi supports my cause through and through. She was the one who suggested I look for the Phoenix. Though I suppose she had a different intention for doing so. She doesn’t know I plan to rid the world of the Life Stealer.
“Right. Linxi . . . Happy thoughts, happy thoughts,” chants Tang Wei. “I can’t die here, not without seeing her face again.”
I grunt and ride on, almost wishing I had a sweetheart waiting for me somewhere, too. But some of us are meant to be alone.
Just as the sun nears the horizon, we see a caravan and a line of tents in the distance. My heart lightens. Ten years is a long time. I can only hope that I will be greeted with open arms.
We ride up to the campsite and get off our camels.
An old but robust-looking man with curly graying hair and a young boy with a sprinkling of freckles on his cheerful face come up to greet us. The man must be the clan leader. Disappointment settles in my chest. I don’t recognize him; this isn’t the clan that saved me ten years ago. Nonetheless, he looks friendly and welcoming.
“Good travelers, you must be weary. The desert is not always a friend. May I invite you to rest with us for a while before you go on?” he says in halting Shi. “We are happy to provide water for your camels.”
The boy offers the beasts a pail of water, and upon seeing Tang Wei, hands her his own waterskin with a shy smile. She beams at him and takes it, drinking greedily.
I respond perfectly in his dialect. “Good evening, wise one. My name is Altan, and this is Tang Wei. We are on our way to the mountains. Thank you for your generosity.”
The man’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He laughs boisterously, clapping me on the back before pulling me close for a hug. The nomads can be rather exuberant whenever they find a stranger who knows their language and customs. Since they never stay in one place for long, to them, it is like finding long-lost family.
“Good, good, you speak my language. I am Shenla,” he says. “You and your friend can rest in my own tent. It isn’t often that I meet someone from the north—you are from the north, correct?”
“Yes,” I lie, thankful that it is his immediate assumption.
Mother used to say I look like Father. But both my twin sister and I inherited Mother’s coloring, with lighter hair and skin deep enough to pass convincingly as a northerner. And even though I speak Shi like a native, I have honed my northern accent over the years and kept my hair in the tradition of my mother’s people. A style I chose to wear when I first left the mainland as a personal protest against my father’s ilk. Now, I wear it for my own protection.
“My family lived among your people for a while and they showed us great charity,” I explain.
“Ah, excellent! This means you are family.”
Shenla embraces me again. This time, longer and tighter and with an invitation to stay for a meal. As he leads us to the tents, I translate our conversation for Tang Wei. She flashes him her most charming smile at the mention of food and shelter.
When it is time to eat, we are both too hungry to care about decorum, scarfing everything down with our hands. Rough grain pumiced into a thick gruel, eggs cooked on a flat rock, preserved vegetables, and some creature slowly roasted over a fire. . . . This food brings back memories for me. Tang Wei merely seems happy to have something to eat.
The nomad children cast us curious glances. Some of the adults smile but make no move to talk to us. Many say nomads of this desert are as old as the world itself and are full of wisdom and secrets. They no longer practice magic openly, and since they make no claim on any land, the Diyeh priests have left them well alone.
As night draws in and food is put away, a hum of folk songs and laughter floats around the camp. Even though this isn’t the clan that took me in, the familiarity is comforting.
Tang Wei wanders over to a group of nomad women who are weaving colorful threads into intricate necklaces. Soon she’s weaving her own necklace and conversing with gestures as if she’s lived with these women her entire life. I watch them, a pang of envy in my chest. Sometimes, I wish I had her natural ability to make friends.
I lean back on my hands, careful to keep them on the woven rugs spread out on the sand. The waxing moon is weak tonight, and the sky is a never-ending ombré from lightest gray to deepest black far in the distance.
A woman with luminous eyes and wavy, dark hair comes and sits next to me, introducing herself as Shenni, Shenla’s daughter. She stokes the fire, tosses in more twigs.
“You search for the sword,” she says suddenly.
My spine pulls straight. “How did you know?”
Her expression is cloaked. “You believe the sword of light will return the world to what it once was?”
I nod, wondering if she has any information or wisdom to spare.
“Nature and men must coexist in harmony, even if men and other men fail to do so. I understand your desire to undo the misdeeds of your ancestors. But both the White Jade Sword and the Obsidian Sword answer to the call of the Life Stealer.”
There is a warning in her words.