There had been no later, because Bao had died. It was a moment etched in my memory. The captured sorcerer Black Sleeve turning in a graceful, unrepentant arc, the deadly sleeve of his robe flaring wide. A spray of poisoned darts.
The dragon’s helpless roar.
Bao whirling, his broken staff in two pieces in his hands, intercepting the barrage.
Bao, dying.
One dart, a single dart, had gotten past him, had pierced his throat beneath the chiseled angle of his jaw. It had been enough.
I breathed the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, the most calming of all the Five Styles. I let the memories wash over me.
I should have known; of course, I should have known. Master Lo had as good as told me. Today, I realize I have lived too long, he said. Emperor Zhu had known what he meant. For the first and only time, Master Lo had asked me to share my gift with him, his dark eyes grave and anguished. Are you willing to give a part of yourself that my magpie might live?
I remembered my frantic reply.
Anything!
I should have known, but I didn’t. When Master Lo Feng placed his hands on Bao’s unmoving chest, I laid my hands over his and poured my energy into him, until I felt myself begin to fade and go away, until I saw the stone doorway that represents the portal into the afterlife for the folk of the Maghuin Dhonn. For a moment, I thought I would pass through it, and the thought was not unwelcome.
Then my diadh-anam blazed and doubled…
… waking inside Bao.
Bao came to life with a startled shout, thrust out of the realms of death. Master Lo passed from it peacefully, his chin sinking to his chest, his eyes closing forever.
What would I have done if I had known, if I had grasped what should have been obvious? I cannot say. And in truth, it does not matter.
What was done, is done.
On that day, my stubborn peasant-boy went away from me. He told me he did not blame me for our mentor’s death. He told me that if he had been given the opportunity to choose, he would have chosen to spend his life with me.
But he died without being given that chance, and what Master Lo did in restoring his life, dividing the divine spark of my diadh-anam between us, bound us together in a way that only a second death could undo.
And Bao needed to find a way to choose this, to make it his own. To reconcile the hard choices and uncertainties that had yoked my destiny to his, to believe that I had chosen him out of genuine desire and love, that it wasn’t merely Master Lo’s art at work.
So I let him go.
And I waited for him to come back to me. All the while I travelled Ch’in and served as the Emperor’s swallower-of-memories, I waited for Bao. The Imperial entourage returned in triumph to Shuntian, where I waited for Bao. In the gardens of the Celestial City, I listened to poetry with the princess and waited for Bao.
He didn’t come.
Instead, I sensed him moving farther away from me, carrying the twinned flame of my diadh-anam inside him. Moving away from me, toward the outskirts of the empire, toward the Great Wall that kept the Tatar horde at bay.
It was the princess-Snow Tiger, my brave, lovely princess-who reminded me that I, too, had a choice. She had given me the greatest gift of all, the fragile gift of trust. In the beginning, I had been nothing but an unwelcome burden to her; her necessary inconvenience, she had called me. Much had changed between us by the end, and I carried private, tender memories of her that warmed my heart.
But nothing, nothing could replace what I had lost. And yes, I had a choice. So I had set out to find my stubborn peasant-boy.
If Bao would not come to me, I would go to him.
At least, I hoped so.
TWO
I took a room at a travellers’ inn that first night. There was a time when I would have eschewed man-made walls for the freedom of the outdoors, but I had grown more civilized since leaving my home in Alba. After a long day’s ride, the notion of a hot meal and a roof over my head appealed to me.
The ostler at the stable gaped at the sight of me, revealing a few missing teeth. On the road, I’d managed not to attract overmuch attention merely by dint of keeping my head lowered and my eyes averted. To be sure, a seemingly well-off young woman travelling alone drew curious glances, but at a quick, stealthy glance, with my coloring I could almost pass for Ch’in. My straight, black hair, I’d inherited from my mother. My skin was a warm golden hue, fairer than my mother’s, but not nearly so fair as my D’Angeline father’s milk-white skin.
I had his eyes, though. Green as grass, green as the rushes grow. And I had a measure of the fearful, keen-edged symmetry of D’Angeline beauty, coupled with the untamed spark of the Maghuin Dhonn. No one looking me full in the face could mistake me for aught but what I was: the Emperor’s jade-eyed witch.
The ostler barked at a young stable-lad in an unfamiliar dialect. The boy went pelting toward the inn proper. I settled my battered canvas satchel over my shoulder and followed him. I hadn’t gone ten steps before a solidly built middle-aged woman, clearly the proprietress of the establishment, came bustling down the path toward me. Her shrewd gaze raked me over, taking in my fine robes, my jade bangles, and the Emperor’s medallion.
I bowed in the Ch’in manner, hand over fist, and spoke in the Shuntian scholar’s tongue, the only one I knew. “Greetings, Honored Aunt. I seek lodging for the night.”
A smile broke over her face. “You are the foreign witch, are you not? The one who freed the dragon?”
“Aye,” I agreed. “I am.”
She clutched my arm in a companionable manner, tugging me toward the inn. “Come, come! We are honored to give you hospitality. No charge, no charge at all. You must call me Auntie Li.”
“You’re very kind,” I said politely. “But I can pay.”
The proprietress snorted, squeezed my arm, and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “I’m nothing of the sort, child. I’m a greedy old widow who knows that folk will pay to hear tales of the Emperor’s witch’s stay here. Indulge me.”
I smiled. “All right, Auntie Li.”
She was right, of course. A silence fell over the common room of the inn when she ushered me inside. Men paused, teacups halfway to their mouths, staring.
But I was used to it.
I’d been stared at a great deal in my short life. In Alba, I had been my mother’s well-kept secret-not due to any sense of shame, but simply my mother’s own taciturn nature. Folk there had found it startling that a woman of the Maghuin Dhonn, a descendant of Alais the Wise, had borne a half-D’Angeline child.
In Terre d’Ange, folk had found it just as startling that a full-blooded D’Angeline man-a Priest of Naamah, no less-had chosen to couple with one of the infamous bear-witches of the Maghuin Dhonn, fathering a child on her.
And in Ch’in…
Vast as it was, the mighty empire of Ch’in was insular, circumscribed by its Great Wall and its outer shores. No one in that inn knew or cared aught about my heritage. I was the foreign witch who had helped free the dragon. It was enough.
“Sit.” Auntie Li showed me to a low table, pressed on my shoulder.
I sat.
She clapped her hands together. Food came-hot, steamed dumplings with spiced pork and a dipping sauce. Noodle soup with green onions floating atop the broth and chicken feet stewed until they were gelatinous and tender. Auntie Li hovered over me, pouring hot water into my teacup whenever it grew low, nodding approvingly as I shoveled noodles into my mouth and sucked chicken flesh from the bone, tilting the bowl to slurp the dregs of the broth.
“You eat like a proper Ch’in woman,” she observed.
I lowered the bowl. “I’ve had practice.”
“Huh.” Her shrewd gaze measured me. “Is it true you seek the twice-born one?”