Jade Fire Gold(76)

“Let’s go!”

I should say no. I should stay to help Master Sun. But Altan’s expression stops me. There is a blank numbness that tells me he has chosen to save me instead of his shīfù.

I want to tell him he doesn’t have to, that my life is worth nothing. I want to yell, Turn back! Turn back!

But the words stick in my throat and I flee like the coward I am.





31


Altan


The scent of burnt wood and smoke lingers in the air, and the streets are empty when we return in the early glow of dawn. It feels unnatural to see so much destruction in the gentle morning light. Doors and windows of the shophouses remain shut, the townsfolk too frightened to venture out. I don’t know if the priests have left or if they will return.

It doesn’t matter at this point.

The tavern is torn apart, the remaining half of its facade charred. The ruined building bears a skeletal resemblance to a shack. Mounds of crumbled stone, fractured wood, and dirt. No familiar faces among the bodies on the ground. Hope glimmers inside me, alluring like a mirage.

There is a gasp next to me.

Ahn points. I follow her finger, my gaze finding a fragment of green fabric in the wreckage of somber gray.

Scrambling recklessly, I wade into the rubble, moving aside broken earthen pots and bowls, what was once a bed frame, a one-legged chair—

I am not prepared for the pain when it stabs me in the gut.

My heart wants to believe Shīfù is fine, but my head knows otherwise. I don’t see a wound, but that makes it infinitely worse. His face is almost drained of life, his lips bloodless. His barely opened eyes find me, and his hand grips mine.

A grip so weak it crushes my entire being.

“I’m . . . sorry, my boy.” Shīfù’s voice is a fragile whisper.

I shake my head. Unable to speak. Unable to breathe.

“You must find a way to live. . . . Find your peace.” He swallows thickly. “I know you will.”

I want to say something. But there is too much to say. Too little to say.

The pressure on my hand increases for a moment.

And then, it is too late, and I feel nothing.

I was six years old when I first met Sun Tie Mu.

I’d snuck into the throne room, safely concealed among the rafters. It wasn’t like I was interested in Father’s daily dealings with the endless stream of ministers, I didn’t understand their discussions about political affairs.

I was hiding from my sister.

We were playing a game of hide-and-seek. But the rules were different. To make things more interesting, the perimeter was in the northern wing where the emperor’s quarters were instead of the eastern wing where we lived. To make the stakes higher, my sister decided the loser had to give up their most precious possession to the other.

And the possession had to be something living.

We’d been given a pair of lion-dog pups a few months before by the monks. Intelligent little creatures traditionally gifted as pets to princes only, but my sister was not one to be denied. Knowing that my pup was my prized possession, she offered up her own lion-dog as a wager for our little game. There was no outward declaration about what the fate of the loser’s pup would be. But already in my young mind, I understood what the tacit consequences of losing could be.

Already, I understood how my twin sister’s mind worked.

An old man dressed in a pale green hànfú was speaking to Father. His hair was white, twisted into a topknot and secured with an ivory chopstick, but he stood straight and tall. Although I didn’t recognize him, he spoke to Father with the air of a familiar friend. Their voices remained low and I could not hear their conversation. But even from up in the rafters, I sensed the affection Father had for him.

Midway through their conversation, the old man glanced up. It was cursory but at once, I knew I was exposed. I didn’t dare to move for fear of alerting Father as we were not allowed in the throne room when he had guests. My sister burst in recklessly, tired of searching for me after a few hours. Father rose from his throne immediately to admonish her, but the old man only seemed amused. And when my sister was finally escorted away by her nanny, the old man looked up at me again and winked.

When the throne room was empty, I climbed back down. I’d won the game of hide-and-seek, but I refused to take my sister’s lion-dog from her. Refused to mete out the punishment she would have done to my own pup had she won. We had a screaming match in a garden. She called me weak. Said it was a lesson I had to learn. That our fate as royals meant we needed to understand how to survive—to only and always show strength.

The old man found me afterward sitting by the koi pond, holding the knife my sister had given me earlier. He’d heard everything.

“Just because you have the power to take a life, it does not mean you should,” he said, taking the dagger away from me. “Forgiveness is not weakness. It requires more strength than you think, my boy. You may not be able to change the past, but with each action, you can change the future.”

The next time I saw that old man, I was in the desert. He was my lifeline, and he became the only family I had.

You may not be able to change the past, but with each action, you can change the future.

Shīfù’s first words to me echo in my ears. Vaguely aware of Ahn trailing behind me, I shamble on, his body in my arms. I don’t know where I’m headed, but my legs seem to know the way.