Jade Fire Gold(28)

“Come with us,” says Father’s ghost. He reaches out a gauzy hand. “Come and we can be a family again.”

I shake my head despite the longing in my heart. If only it were so easy to erase the past. If only it were possible to bring back the dead.

A small figure appears in the corner. I don’t want to go near, but my feet move anyway. The boy is sprawled on the ground, one leg bent at an awkward angle. He lifts his head and reaches out a trembling hand. I start to shake when I recognize his tear-streaked face.

“Help, Jin,” cries the boy who looks exactly like my cousin. “Help me.”

I have not heard my real name for so long that something in me fractures. A memory rises from its grave. I was seven when it happened. Tai Shun was six. I was up on one of the roofs of the eastern wing of the Inner Court that day, grieving over the loss of my father. It was a place I went whenever I wanted to be by myself. A steep, hazardous climb, but I’d done it numerous times before. It rained the night before and the tiles glistened with dew. Slippery for those who were not sure-footed.

Tai Shun came to look for me, features contorted not with effort, but regret.

If my destiny shifted with Father’s last breath, it was completely upended by my cousin’s words.

I know who killed your father.

I stared in disbelief as he told me how he overheard his own parents talking about Father’s murder. How they’d planned to use a slow-acting nerve-targeting poison. But all that stuck in my head was how Tai Shun had known about it before my father died. Known about the malicious plan and never said a word.

He was complicit.

I shoved him away and started my climb down. He followed. I remember the moment he put his foot on the wrong step, slipping on a slick tile. I remember the look on his face as he fell. I remember my own screams.

The gods must have been smiling on Tai Shun that day. He bounced off a secondary eave and fell onto a balcony instead of plummeting to the ground. A fall that would guarantee his death. He lived, breaking both legs. He took ill with fever right after, and that was the last time we saw each other.

His mother, Zhenxi, personally hauled me up at the crack of dawn the next day. She whipped me herself. She wanted to know what happened, why Tai Shun was on the roof, how he fell. If I had pushed him. I told her nothing. Certain that Tai Shun’s punishment would be infinitely worse than mine, I never revealed that her own son had betrayed her. I might have died that day by her hand, but Mother found us and intervened.

We fled the palace two days later, my wounds still a mess of raw fire.

A phantom pain rakes down my back now, like a hungry ghost demanding offerings. Memories scorched into the recesses of my mind tumble forward. Mother singing me to sleep; Father lifting me on his shoulders; Tai Shun and I playing in the palace gardens, catching koi we weren’t supposed to; my aunt, whip in hand.

My cousin, broken.

Another figure appears. The specter of my aunt hovers over my ghostly cousin, that very whip in her hand.

“You,” she sneers at me, features beautiful and terrifying. “Still alive, are you?”

“Jin.” Tai Shun’s specter looks up at me with fear. “Jin, be careful.”

I raise my hands in defense as my aunt screams. The whip comes down, but it goes through me like smoke.

I’m alone in the cavern again. Did I pass the test? Is this over?

“Brother.”

One word. Crisp as fresh fallen snow, clear as the desert sky.

Her voice.

I spin around.

It can’t be her. But my eyes tell me otherwise. She materializes, solidifying before me, dressed in the clothes I last saw her in. Powder blue and ecru, her sun-brown hair curling down her shoulders. We should be the same age, but there she stands. Frozen in time, a child of eight. And here I am, almost a man.

“Brother,” she repeats. She holds a doll in her hand, a miniature replica of herself.

A trick. This is a trick. But she looks so real—

No.

“It can’t be you.” I shake my head. “It’s not you.”

“Why did you leave me, brother?”

Her voice aches with such pain that I move closer. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, reason remains. It reminds me that none of this is real. That I must resist the lure of the illusions. But right now, all I can see is the little girl in front of me.

My sister.

“Brother, do you miss me?”

“Every day,” I choke out.

“Then why did you kill me?”

She bares her teeth. Fangs. Dripping with blood. Her arms reach for me like twisted claws, and I flinch with a cry.

In an instant, the innocent child is in front of me again. She smiles that smile I miss, the right side of her lips lifting higher than the left, a single dimple appearing near her chin. Crooked and mischievous. The smile that convinced Tai Shun and me to join in her schemes around the palace grounds; the smile that got us out of trouble after that.

“I am lonely.” Her smile fades, and that aching look returns. “So lonely, brother.”

I stagger back, falling to my knees. Shivering. I killed her and saved myself. This is my fault. Nothing can bring her back. Nothing can undo my terrible mistake. I am unworthy of this life, unworthy of the throne I covet. If I could go back in time, I would gladly give up my life for hers.

“It’s not too late, brother,” she whispers as if she read my thoughts. “Join me, and I won’t be lonely again.” She reaches out for my hand. I feel her touch.