Jade Fire Gold(51)

Horror chills my blood.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” moans Tai Shun.

“Me, too,” I mumble.

“Did you say something?” Ahn steadies herself against Tai Shun’s weight. Linxi darts a worried look at me.

I shake my head.

“Oh,” says Ahn. Her cheeks turn pink. “Well, it was nice to see you again.”

Linxi frowns at me, questioning. I don’t say anything to Ahn, even though it makes me seem rude. Even though something in me is fighting to tell her I’m glad to have met her again. She turns even redder and looks away, her disappointment obvious. They stagger past me, a drunk Tai Shun muttering to himself.

As I watch their backs, anger seeps out of me, replaced by something colder.

Emptier.

The girl from the desert, the girl who stole the mangosteen—the girl who is inexplicably holding the crown prince in her arms—she is the girl I must kill.





18


Ahn


I flop onto a chair, exhausted from dragging Tai Shun back to his chambers. Linxi and I used a more discreet entrance near the servants’ quarters, but it was hard to hide the fact that the soon-to-be emperor of the mighty Shi Empire was, in every way, drunk as a skunk. At least we managed to keep the vomit off his robes.

I stare at the lump on the bed now, listening to Tai Shun’s fitful snores from under the blankets. His shoeless foot sticks out from the side, but I’m too tired to get up from my chair to tuck it back in.

“Will he be all right?” I say.

Linxi straightens her robes with a purposeful tug. “Nothing a tonic from the royal physician won’t cure in the morning.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

“He likes his drink. But from what I hear, this isn’t like him. Come, you look like you need some sleep yourself.”

I get up and follow her through the bedroom and outer parlor.

“I trust you to keep this to yourselves,” she says to the two attendants and three soldiers standing guard outside. I can’t help marveling at her commanding tone.

The five men had kept their expressions scrubbed of any emotion when we carried Tai Shun into his room and left us undisturbed for an hour as we put him to bed. For my own sake, I hope they will truly keep their mouths shut.

“How did your date go?” I ask when we arrive in my room.

“Wonderfully.” Linxi beams and shows me the pink-and-purple woven necklace around her neck. “A gift from her.”

“It’s lovely,” I say, admiring the delicate handicraft. It looks familiar, like the kind of work that the nomads who visit Shahmo specialize in.

“Thank you, I’m going to make her a bracelet in return,” says Linxi. “But let’s not talk about me. Who was that young man with the eye patch?”

“Nobody. Just someone I met a long time ago.”

“If he was nobody, you wouldn’t have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“Your eyes lit up when I mentioned him and you’re smiling. It isn’t your usual smile.”

I open my mouth, but no words—denial or otherwise—come out.

“Ha!” Linxi’s tone is triumphant, but I see a faint worry line between her brows. It’s gone so soon it might have been my imagination.

My legs are aching, and my head is starting to hurt. All I want is to lie down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you silly goose. Go to bed.” I give her a shove and then another when she doesn’t budge. “Go on, I can clean myself up. I’m exhausted from babysitting our child emperor. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She finally leaves, and I crawl into bed without caring about the dirty state of my clothes or hair. My limbs loosen and the tightness in my shoulders dissipates as I stretch. I close my eyes, willing my mind not to think about the boy in black.

Altan.

His name, his voice, his face . . . my mind replays our meeting. Everything he said, every movement he made. Ugh. My fists beat the mattress. It isn’t as if I’ll see him again. There’s no point thinking about him.

Besides, when dawn breaks, I’ll have bigger problems.

The attendants and guards may not spread salacious rumors about tonight to other people, but I know for a fact that my father will be informed of our unsanctioned excursion. Anything concerning the throne is the premier’s business.

I drag the covers over my face, hoping that fate will be kind to me when he finds out that I aided and abetted the crown prince’s escape from the palace.

The boy in black appears in my dream. He shoots arrows into the sky and the sun bursts into flames and splits into ten smaller suns, revolving in a circle. Clad in crimson and yellow, his hair lit gold, and he shoots arrow after arrow. But they keep missing their targets. The burning suns dance, flames waving, their heat scorching.

In a flash, the suns transform into ten rabbits, hopping around in a circle to some unknown tune. The rabbits catch fire and I smell burning flesh.

I hear a distant chuckle and the dream changes.

“Do you see the puppets, Ahn-er?”

I’m a child again, sitting atop my father’s shoulders. That distinctive melody—the funeral dirge—plays around us. My mother claps along, her face angled away from me.