Chapter Fifty-Six Tengri Khagan

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

TENGRI KHAGAN

I awaken amid the swaying motions of flight. Wind caresses my face and streams over my matted hair. The Vermilion Bird’s wings flap every few seconds, still soaring over the ocean, though night has fallen.

The slightest attempt at lifting my head sends a sparking pain across my brows. I lay my cheek down again.

Beside me, Yizhi is also on his stomach, resting his chin on one hand and gazing ahead at the moonlit waves. He does a double take on me. Our hands remain entwined.

I jerk mine away. No hurt strikes his eyes, only resignation.

I turn my attention to the Bird’s backlit feathers. I brush my hand across them. “Shimin?”

“I’ve gotten no response so far,” Yizhi says.

My hand curls into a fist. My first instinct is to refuse to engage in conversation with him. A few seconds of silence later, my pettiness fades. We’re alone out on the ocean with no idea where we are. We need to work together to find our way back to Huaxia.

“Then what is this?” I mumble, pressing my ear to the Bird’s back. There’s a faint hum inside. I don’t know what that means or how long it will last. I should’ve kept a spinal brace from the Stinger Dame’s pilot seats. Then I’d be able to use my spirit sense.

“I don’t know,” Yizhi says, more quietly. “But he must be in here somehow.”

I recall the ambush by the Black Tortoise, the moments when Shimin piloted the Vermilion Bird alone to hold it back from getting to me and Yizhi. That wasn’t supposed to be humanly possible. Did his…spirit…transfer into the Vermilion Bird?

“Would Helan know more?” Gingerly, I crane my head to see over Yizhi. “What are they doing?”

“Sleeping.” Yizhi glances aside at Helan. “Our gravity is higher than the trade station’s. It’s going to be tough on them. I’m not used to it anymore either, but at least my muscles and bones were developed for it to begin with.”

Stars twinkle above. For the first time in untold centuries, no gods orbit among them. Chunks of destruction are still blazing across the sky. Can the whole planet see them? Everyone must be wondering what’s going on. I hope no one’s unlucky enough to get hit.

“Do you think those station people who evacuated will come down here, too?” I question.

“I assume so. They’ve got nowhere else to go. Those evacuation ships aren’t built for interstellar travel. Technically, the reason they take a few of us up there every year is so they’re not so isolated from us that our diseases would kill them if they had to come down here in an emergency. Though, in their terminology, we’re ‘migrants,’ not ‘tributes.’?”

There’s a silence where I should’ve asked more about how they treated him and those girls. All of this is already too much to process. I don’t think I’m ready for details.

A chill skitters up my spine when I imagine each meteor above as a ship full of Melians, who have no problem being worshipped as gods, landing in the fields of regular folk who have no spirit armor to defend themselves. I imagine Qin Zheng—if he gets back to Huaxia alive—taking his rage at me out on Wan’er, Taiping, and others of the Phoenix Alliance. Tremors travel up from my fingers.

“Yizhi, what have we done?” I say, my voice faraway to my own ears. I grip the metal feathers beneath me, feeling on the verge of falling off. “I shouldn’t have stabbed him, should I? Did I kill Huaxia’s best chance of surviving the retaliation?”

Yizhi puts his hand near mine, close but not touching, as if we’re back under Qin Zheng’s rules.

“When I saw you again, I almost didn’t recognize you,” he says, softly. “It was like the light in your eyes was gone. It didn’t come back until you drove that sword into his chest.”

Tears surging, I bury my face between my arms. “Do you know the mess I had to clean up after you left? The people I had to convince him not to kill? Your own little brothers and sisters, Yizhi.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, barely audible.

I wish he would hold me, but I can’t give in to that kind of dangerous weakness again. Craving someone I can’t trust has no good ending. When our roots sink into each other, there’s no way of coming apart without ripping a thousand bleeding holes in us both.

Something hard digs into my sternum, making me realize I’m still wearing the phoenix half-pendant. I grasp its gold chain, about to pull it out of my salt-encrusted conduction suit, but think better of it. I’m not giving up my claim to being the Empress of Huaxia.

I try to sort out some sense in my mind. For at least another month, Qin Zheng can’t announce what I did or execute anyone in my name. Not if he wants his child to be legitimate. Wan’er and Taiping do invaluable work; he can’t kill them without proper reason. If we get back to Huaxia as soon as possible, we can warn them. Also, the Iron Widows and Phoenix Ladies should still be loyal to me. I’ll tell everyone about the truth of our world and help them prepare for what’s coming while they have all the facts, which they should’ve had all along. I will not be complicit in the lies about the Hunduns, nor their slaughter, any longer.

Yizhi and I speak no more for the rest of the night. I slip unconscious again, qì-exhausted beyond belief.

At daybreak, he calls my name. My eyes blink open to the sight of land on the horizon. No Great Wall beyond the beach and forests. It’s not part of Huaxia, but it’s a start.

After the Vermilion Bird touches down on the beach, it lowers its wings. I slide to the sand on one side while Yizhi helps Helan, who can’t even stand up, down the other. They both stick close to the ground once they’re there, panting. It’s the first time I’ve been the steadiest person in a group.

The Bird’s head droops. Its eyes dim.

“No!” I stumble in front of it. That can’t be it, can it?

I press against its chest to listen for its inner hum. Right as my hand touches the feathered surface, red light splits out. Warm, molten fingers emerge to lace with mine. A winged humanoid outline rises before me, shaping itself out of the Bird’s chest. It looks like someone wearing the Vermilion Bird’s spirit armor, except every bit of them is metallic, and a feathered, beaked mask like that of its Heroic Form sculpts out on its face.

I can do nothing but stumble back with my mouth hanging open when the figure steps down to the ground. Light fades behind it once its vast wings shake free. To the side, Yizhi and Helan watch with matching awe.

How is this possible?

After an eternity in the limbo between hope and answers, I summon the courage to utter the question:

“Shimin…is that you?”

The figure puts its hand to its forehead. The glow of its angular eyes brightens and wanes several times through its bird mask. Then, in a low voice, it speaks.

“… Mei-Niang ?”