Fury of the Phoenix (20 page)

“Nothing, love. It’s nothing,” he murmured against her neck. She pushed him away so violently she almost fell backward. He grabbed her wrist to steady her.

“You took his life.” It came out in a whisper. Her face was blotchy, wet with sweat and tears. Wisps of raven hair stuck to her cheeks. She was so young. One look into her beautiful eyes, and his heart broke.

“He was a criminal. He would have died anyway.” She was silent, and he captured her other hand. “If you would just try it once. For me…for us.”

“Why can’t you be content with what we already have? All that we’ve been given?” Tears continued to streak down her face.

He would never have escaped the family farm if he had been content with his lot. Never have come to the palace, never have met her. “But we could have so much more,” he said.

She stared hard at the ground, and when she lifted her head, something in her face had changed. “Isn’t our love enough?”

“It’s everything to me.” He pressed a palm over his heart. She seemed a world away.

“You lied to me.”

He hesitated only a moment. “How can I change your mind?”

“You can’t.” She leaned over to retrieve the parchment she had dropped, their banquet menu.

“I love you.” He opened his hands to the heavens to beseech her. “I won’t lose you.”

“I love you, too.” She touched his cheek. “I won’t lose you either. You’ll stop working with that wretched alchemist. This won’t go on if I’m to be your wife.”

Her black eyes were fierce when they met his. And it was as if they were seeing each other for the first time.

Their wedding day arrived at last, and all the preparations were in order. Zhong Ye and Silver Phoenix had spent the previous evening apart, and he had missed her. Manservants helped him dress, hooking the front of his black groom’s tunic. Dusk neared. The wedding sedan would soon be making its way to Silver Phoenix’s bridal quarters.

He heard the shrill scream of his name before the panicked footsteps. A handmaid tripped into his chamber without knocking and threw herself at his feet. “Master Zhong, it’s the mistress we only left for a brief moment she asked for some time alone—”

Dread settled like stone in his stomach. “What is it?” He restrained himself from shaking the teeth from her head. “Is Silver Phoenix ill?”

The girl hid her face in her hands.

Zhong Ye ran.

He ran the entire way to Silver Phoenix’s bridal quarters and crashed into her bedchamber. Silver Phoenix lay on the sumptuous wedding bed, her hands resting on her stomach. Inexplicably, a crimson breast binder was wrapped like a scarf around her neck.

Two other handmaids hovered near her, sobbing.

“What happened?” He pushed them aside. “Did she faint?”

“She-she h-hanged herself. I-I think she’s d-dead.”

Zhong Ye, enraged, turned on the girl, as she continued to hiccup incoherently. His mind couldn’t understand the words that she spoke. Wouldn’t accept them. “Get the royal physician!” he roared. “Get out!”

They scrambled from the chamber.

“Silver Phoenix?” He touched her forehead. She was warm, certainly asleep. The excitement had exhausted her.

He took her hand, and it felt heavy, unresponsive.
She hanged herself.
He choked back a sob and wrenched her robe open, pressing a palm over her heart.

Nothing.

He kissed her mouth. Cool. Listened for her breath.

Silence.

“No.” He stroked her arms.

“No.” Her cheeks.

“No. Nonononono.” Zhong Ye threw his head back and howled, in fury and in pain. In disbelief. He gathered her in his arms and clutched her to him, her head against his shoulder, perfect, like so many times before. The scent of jasmine filled him.

He rocked her, caressing the hair that had fallen
across her soft shoulders, sobbing until her locks were wet with his tears.

When the royal physician arrived, it took him an hour to convince Zhong Ye to let her go.

Royal Physician Chu had replaced Physician Kang while the Emperor was away on progress. He confirmed that Silver Phoenix was dead, most likely from asphyxia when she hanged herself from the bedpost with the breast binder. The details were given haltingly by the handmaids, and Zhong Ye had to clench his fists so he wouldn’t strike them. Or smash the physician in the face for pronouncing the cause of death so plainly, as if he were discussing the weather. Zhong Ye, his breath coming in rasps, forced everyone out of the chamber.

“I could give you a sedative,” the physician said, turning as he left.

Zhong Ye slammed the door in his face.

He sat beside Silver Phoenix as the evening cooled and the darkness deepened. He ignored the gentle knock on the door. It slid open. Yokan entered, holding a lantern. Zhong Ye turned, wincing at the light.

“I’ve sent all the wedding guests away.” Yokan walked to the bedside. “I’m so sorry.”

Zhong Ye couldn’t speak for long moments. “Why? Why would she do this?” His throat was hoarse, closed, and sore. He was empty, as if someone had slit his wrists and bled him dry of everything that mattered to him in life.

“Such a tragedy,” Yokan murmured. “She was lovely.” He reached out to touch her hair.

Zhong Ye caught Yokan’s open palm and squeezed so hard the foreigner’s knuckles cracked. For the briefest moment, an angry bruise bloomed on Yokan’s cheekbone. Zhong Ye blinked, and it was gone. He narrowed his eyes and shoved the man’s hand away.

Yokan met his gaze, his features composed. “Did you argue? Was she upset over something?”

Zhong Ye felt as if he’d been struck in the chest, remembering Silver Phoenix’s anger, her disappointment in him.
Had he caused this?
He drew in a shaking sob; there were no tears left. “The Calling Ritual,” he said, and his heart swelled with hope.

Yokan set the lantern on a table beside the bed. “You would do that?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Zhong Ye couldn’t understand the question.

“You would have to remove her heart.” The alchemist’s head was bowed as he studied Silver Phoenix in the lantern light.

She looked alive still in its soft glow. “I’ll do it,” Zhong Ye whispered.

“And a full bronze bowl of your own blood.” Yokan slanted his head to look at him, the shadows obscuring his pale eyes.

“I have enough to give her.”

Yokan pursed his lips. “You would need an entire empress root. We have none.”

“What?”

“You used the last of it.”

“But the harvest! They are growing now.” Zhong Ye felt his spirit lift. It was meant to be. He could bring her back. But how could he bear to leave her?

As if sensing his thoughts, Yokan nodded. “I’ll do it. I’ll go harvest the roots in your stead. The trip shouldn’t take me more than six days. I will make haste.”

“You would do this for me?”

Yokan gripped his shoulder. “I have all the notes from your last journey. I’ll leave before dawn tomorrow.”

I
t was as if she had been thrown from the skies. Ai Ling clutched her head and doubled over to protect herself from the cacophony of noise and color. She stayed on the hard ground, her eyes squeezed shut, until a searing hotness pierced her chest.

“This one isn’t whole,” a voice like gravel grumbled.

Her eyes snapped open, and she saw a man with the head of an ox, his horns magnificent and curved, his skin a dusty blue. “Did you feel that?” He jabbed a sharp spear at her torso. She cried out, feeling again the stabbing pain.

“She can make noises, too!” Ox head’s mouth stretched into a grotesque sneer. “Have you seen the like, Horse?”

Ai Ling jumped to her feet. She was surrounded by normal people, most looking terrified, confused, or sorrowful. But the ox man towered over her, his powerful body twice her size. A man with a horse’s head, wielding a gleaming scythe, approached. His skin was a sick green, and he was not as bulky as Ox; but he looked just as dangerous.

“I can see through her,” Horse said. He raised his scythe as if to test it, and Ai Ling stumbled back. Suddenly a voice boomed over them. Many in the crowd dropped to their knees, knocking their heads to the dirt. She fought the impulse to do the same and turned toward the speaker.

A magistrate sat at an ebony table decorated with jade, his backdrop the sheer cliff of a mountain. He had a long black beard that reached past his rotund stomach. His robe was a rusted red, like dried blood. He stood and was twice the height of any mortal man. He towered over the hundreds of people cowering in front of him.

“Stop your stupid squawking, Horse and Ox. Get back to sorting!” His words rattled her teeth, and her hands did nothing to protect her ears. It was as if he had spoken from within her.

“We’ve got a see-through one here, hell lord,” the demons cried in unison.

A deep rumbling from the back of the magistrate’s throat shook the ground they stood on. “Let me see.”

Horse raised his scythe, and Ai Ling ran. She tripped through the crowd toward the magistrate, feeling shivers of cold when she brushed against the others. These men and women seemed to be real, solid. She was like a ghost.

The magistrate’s thick brows drew together when she finally stood before the massive table. She tipped her head back so she could see his face; he looked like a man in every way, except for his immense size. “You don’t belong here.” His voice reverberated, and she heard those around her whimper. “What is your name?”

“I am called Wen Ai Ling,” she said, as forcefully as she could manage. Wisps of clouds drifted past the jagged cliffs that surrounded them.

The magistrate leaned forward and squinted down at her. His breath whipped through her. His black eyes narrowed. “Silver Phoenix’s incarnation,” he said.

Ai Ling let out a small gasp that was obliterated by the mewling and terrified clamor from the others.

“You aren’t welcome here.” He curled a thick finger, and an old man stepped forward to stand in front of a giant oval mirror beside the table. The Mirror of Retribution, she realized.

“I have to see Zhong Ye!” Her words were almost inaudible. She repeated herself, shouting this time.

“That wretch? He’s not taking visitors.” The magistrate’s laugh boomed, knocking her off her feet. “Be gone now!”

She turned her head, the dirt beneath her cheek like ash. The old man in front of the mirror, like a withered leaf clinging to a tree, trembled at whatever images he saw. She knew that he was being judged and that all his life’s sins were displayed in the mirror’s reflection. He tilted toward the shining glass and vanished, his fate determined.

“Next!” The magistrate waved another person forward.

Ai Ling lurched to her feet, felt as if she would float away if she didn’t concentrate. It was impossible to move quickly. Her body lacked substance and momentum.

“What are you doing, girl? Stop her!” The magistrate pounded on the table, and everyone bounced from the force of it.

She fell. Ox and Horse careened toward her, their weapons extended. She lunged for the mirror. They stabbed her, their thrusts like a sizzling branding iron on her heart. She thought she cried out when she touched the glowing glass. She saw her ghostly face, then Silver Phoenix’s reflected back at her. The images merged into
one, and the mirror splintered into a thousand shards as dazzling white light exploded around her.

The ground was damp, slick. She could hear a steady dripping. Ai Ling blinked, trying to adjust to the darkness. The curved walls began to glimmer with a blue phosphorescence. She stood and turned in a circle and saw that she was in a massive cave. Alone. Echoes of screaming, sobbing, and shouting floated to her from a great distance.

A sudden tug at her navel, and she glanced down. A glowing white cord as thick as her finger and as insubstantial as air shimmered from her stomach and disappeared into the shadows of the cave. She followed its faint pull. Ai Ling knew who would be at the other end: Zhong Ye was waiting for her.

Water dripped from the ceiling, at times through her. It was cold, like a streak of ice. She didn’t know how long she walked. She saw no one. The cord led her through a small opening at the back of the cavern, one she could barely fit through. She placed a palm against the wall. Although her hand slid beneath the rock’s surface, there was resistance. She couldn’t simply walk through the stone.

A blur of motion, and Ox was bounding toward her. “Stop! You don’t belong here!”

She dropped to her stomach and began wiggling through the small opening. Ox tried to grab her legs, but his fingers slipped through her, his touch scalding. She cried out as she pulled herself to the other side. She could hear Ox hurling himself against the wall.

She stood on a small landing, with nowhere to go except down into a wide river of molten lava. Beyond the river she could see a warren of endless catacombs, a wasp’s nest hewn from rock. The screams and cries were louder here. A plume of lava, taking the shape of a clawed hand, bubbled from the river. Another burst of molten heat formed a skull with long fangs. It surged high enough for her to stare at fiery eye sockets.

Ox crashed onto the landing. He seized her by the throat, his fingers passing through her, and she choked. She scrambled back, teetering on the edge of the small landing.

“There’s nowhere to go, fool,” Ox jeered. “You’re keeping me from my tasks.” Arms wide, he pounced again.

Ai Ling glanced down. She followed the shimmering cord from her navel all the way across the river to the catacombs. That was where she needed to go, where Zhong Ye was.

She jumped.

Ox sprang after her, shouting, “No!” His hand cut
through her chest, stabbing like a thousand needles, but it was too late.

Instead of falling, she drifted, weightless, buffeted by the hot air. A serpent-shaped spiral of lava shot upward and through her. Heat blazed across her body. But the river couldn’t stop her. She swung her arms as if she were swimming and followed the glowing cord as it plunged into the catacombs.

The closer Ai Ling got to the river, the more unbearable the heat. She was almost there. She landed in the magma, burning her feet to the ankles, and screamed. The sound was swallowed by the roar of lava that bubbled in jagged knifelike formations from the riverbed. She stumbled forward through the boiling hot current.

Finally, she climbed onto solid rock and, consumed with pain, pulled her knees to her chest. She stared down at her feet, phantomlike and charred but still there. She stood and took a tentative step. It was like walking on hot glass. She gritted her teeth and continued, one agonizing step at a time.

The cord snaked through a crevice and into a vast cavern. Giant hooks hung from the ceiling, many swinging with human bodies strung upside down or with parts of bodies. She sank to her knees and recognized the demons of hell, with their strange blue, gray, or
green-colored skin and their towering height. Just like the illustrations from
The Book of the Dead
.

Two demons laughed hysterically as they pulled a sharp-toothed saw between them, back and forth, while the victim, impaled on a hook, his hair hanging over his face, screamed. Even when he was halved, and his blood and innards had spilled to the floor, he kept screaming. One of the demons hacked at the rope, and both sides of the man crashed to the floor. They moved even then, squirming like bloodied worms.

Ai Ling stood and tried to run, but her feet wouldn’t allow it. Instead, she kept her eyes on the glowing cord and walked at an infuriatingly slow pace through the cavern. Groans and wails and screams surrounded her, convulsed through her.

The air reeked of blood, guts, and urine and the salty sweat of terror. Passages from
The Book of the Dead
returned to her. The punishment of vertical rending was given to those who had destroyed marriages to satisfy their own lust. She pushed against the cord. Faster, she needed to move faster! It was like thrusting a knife into her own gut. She clenched her fists and forced herself forward.

A gust of hot wind seared through her as she entered a new chamber. This one was lit by hundreds of fires, the
flames as tall as she was. Massive black cauldrons were suspended above the fires. Ai Ling screamed when she saw a demon with the head of a goat toss a man over the rim of the cauldron and into the scalding oil. His entire body blistered instantly, and his hair burst into fire. These men and women, who had helped cheat the poor during their lifetimes, would never die, would be made whole again and again to suffer for their transgressions.

She pressed forward, impaling herself on the cord. The air was thick with grease and the nauseating stench of burned flesh. She gasped with relief when she saw the shimmering cord curve through another opening in the cavern wall.

This chamber was small, circular, the walls a glowing milk white stone. The air was cool. She wiped the sweat from her brow, relieved, even as something tickled the back of her mind like a stray spider silk. The cold stone soothed her feet. The room was empty, and she saw no exit, although the glowing cord shot through the opaque wall. Quivering, she collapsed to the ground.

The cave shimmered. A rainbow of light swirled in the air above her: beautiful and mesmerizing. She saw herself in the light crouched on the floor, next to Li Rong’s body. The blood unfurled beneath him, staining the white stone floor a deep crimson. She watched as her
other self reached into the gaping wound of his chest, slicing his heart out with her dagger.

“Forgive me, Li Rong. I will make it right again.”

“No!” she shouted, and lunged at the vision, lunged at herself, and crashed to the ground, empty-handed.

The cavern glimmered in brilliant colors again, and this time she was in an opulent bedchamber. Festive red lanterns were strung from the ceiling and bouquets of fragrant lilies filled the room. She could smell the steam rising from a jasmine bath. Ai Ling blinked hard, her heart still hammering from seeing Li Rong again, from the memory and the guilt. She watched Silver Phoenix, uncomprehending. She looked older, even more stunning, her hair braided and looped elaborately, threaded with pearls and rubies. A gold brocaded robe was pulled over her shoulders, and she stroked a crimson breast binder with slender fingers.

Ai Ling suddenly understood and tried to turn away, but she couldn’t. She was being forced to watch. Silver Phoenix’s wedding night, so like the one she had endured with Zhong Ye. Soon, Ai Ling knew, she would hang herself. Silver Phoenix dropped the binder on the bed next to her gorgeous wedding dress, the same gown Ai Ling had been made to wear. She glided to the bronzed mirror and gazed at her reflection and adjusted her ruby earrings.

Ai Ling gasped when she saw Yokan flicker into view. Silver Phoenix spun to face him, drawing her robe tight around herself. “What are you doing here?”

The alchemist didn’t reply. He stalked forward, and Silver Phoenix backed away, until she bumped against the lacquered vanity. Yokan paused, standing as close as a lover.

“Get away from me,” Silver Phoenix said.

He pressed closer, never speaking. Silver Phoenix’s arm shot out, an etched gold and silver dagger glinting in her hand. The alchemist wrenched her arm back, the motion so swift it was a blur. He shoved Silver Phoenix hard against the vanity, and the dagger clattered to the floor.

He released her wrist and jammed his hand to her throat. Silver Phoenix thrashed, fought with all her strength. But Ai Ling could see that it was like struggling against an immovable statue. Yokan lifted her off the ground, his pale face expressionless.

Silver Phoenix swung at him. Her jade phoenix ring slammed into his cheekbone. Yokan’s head snapped back, and he lifted his brows in amusement before wrapping his other hand around her throat and crushing the life from her.

Ai Ling watched, frozen, as the minutes dragged into
eternity. Finally, the alchemist let go, and Silver Phoenix slid like a broken butterfly to the floor. He flicked his fingers and smiled. The crimson breast binder snaked through the air and tied itself neatly around Silver Phoenix’s neck.

Ai Ling screamed and tried to lunge forward again. But the scene dispersed, gone like a breath of mist. She was as cold as ice and lying on the floor of the white stone chamber, staring at the illuminated ceiling. Stunned and horrified by Silver Phoenix’s fate, she tried to speak the handmaid’s name aloud but could only whimper. Her hand flew to her neck. She was afraid she’d find it bruised. Broken.

She forced herself onto her ruined feet, her being as diaphanous as dragonfly wings, and allowed the glowing cord to tug her to the cavern wall, where a gaping hole had opened from nowhere.

A deep pit dominated the center of this cavern. The odor of burned hair and flesh trailed her every step. She climbed down and stopped in front of a rough rock, where Zhong Ye sat, alone. He was naked, and the cord was connected to his navel. She dropped her eyes, unwilling to look at him.

The glimmering cord thrummed, then disappeared.

“You’ve come to me, Ai Ling,” he said in that smooth, rich voice.