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Chapter Twenty-Nine: City of Everlasting Peace
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CITY OF EVERLASTING PEACE
Iswim between many, many dreams.
Go, I tell a shaking, sobbing girl while blood soaks my clothes and dribbles from the cleaver in my hand. My voice rasps like I’ve swallowed ash. Only when she’s out of sight do I collapse in the red puddle between the bodies and start to shake and sob myself. The cleaver clatters onto the red-drenched tiles.
But I’ll be needing it again soon.
I resist the inevitability. I don’t want to see it happen. Yet no matter where I try to escape, I find only other nightmares.
Brawls behind steel bars. Mangled fingers in labor trenches. Lying on my back, hands shuddering over fresh stitches on my torso, dumbfounded with the shock of being robbed of my very organs. Lying on my stomach, wheezing and feverish, fresh burns searing my back.
Then there’s a rosy-cheeked girl, stepping in circles with me over a field of scintillating snow, teaching me a fighting form as graceful as the calligraphy I used to write. Our arms and open palms gently deflect each other’s moves. Our legs sweep up mists of ice crystals. Spirals of footprints trail after us. She flashes a sweet smile that belies her lethality.
But she will not win in the end, and this is anything but a reprieve.
Panic sharpens through me. Everything in me screams for this to stop, for her to vanish at once, before I can see what this will lead to.
—get away! get away!—
—don’t go into the—
—please—
“What do you even have to live for that was worth their lives?”
I jolt at my own voice, slicing through a memory that’s not mine.
My eyes stutter open to reality.
The scent of iodine and sterile chemicals invades my nostrils like sharp winter air. My hands grasp scratchy white sheets. I look around in a frenzy.
The sight at my bedside halts me. It makes me wonder if I’m still dreaming.
Yizhi and Shimin are asleep on stools backed against the wall, leaning on each other. Yizhi lies in the groove of Shimin’s shoulder, while Shimin rests his head over Yizhi’s.
Their hands are laced together, clasping where their legs are touching.
“Uh…” I start, but can’t bring enough substance to my voice to continue. Everything feels fuzzy and drifting—since when could I inhabit my mortal body without pain?
Their eyes flutter open in sync.
“Zetian!” Yizhi bolts up, untangling his fingers from Shimin’s to take mine.
Shimin almost leaves his stool as well, mouth open to say something, but ends up staying put. His eyes dart between me and Yizhi, as if unable to decide which one of us to look at.
Terror comes crashing back to me as I stare at him.
My dreams weren’t dreams. They were his memories. Through our battle link, more of them have spilled over into my head.
Now I can no longer meet his eyes.
“So,” I wheeze to Yizhi to distract myself, brows squeezing from the effort of speaking. “What happened?”
I’ve been dragged back from death’s gates with three fractured ribs and a lacerated kidney. The Vermilion Bird’s Fire-type armor may be the worst type for protection, but it at least prevented the bullet from puncturing me all the way. The doctors extracted it after other Chrysalises hauled the Vermilion Bird in from the battlefield, and I’ve been recovering in the Kaihuang watchtower’s med bay for the two days since. My respite from pain is due to the painkillers they gave me. It feels so amazing that I dread going back to an existence without it, but Yizhi suggests, in a dark whisper, to refuse any further doses. If I get hooked, the army will be able to control me the way they control Shimin with liquor.
I take Yizhi’s advice.
Our final battle damage: two dead soldiers, one mutilated Duke-class Chrysalis, one traumatized Xing Tian (whose concubine-pilot probably woke up to quite a shock).
Our final battle achievements: twelve noble Hundun husks in ideal condition to be converted into Chrysalises or offered to the gods as workable spirit metal, and definitive proof that Shimin and I can sustain a stable Heroic Form.
If the strategists were conflicted on what to do with us before, I can’t imagine what their conference calls are like now.
The only thing I regret is trying to destroy the Kaihuang watchtower. Sima Yi, however, has helped us vehemently deny that mass murder was our intention when we flew back to the Great Wall. He was the one who let Yizhi into the war room and onto our speakers. He claimed that he’d once told us about the possibility of using a third person as a qi battery, and recommended we try it if we got desperate. The concept is not without precedent, though it’s historically had a very low rate of success. Usually, the addition of a third person’s qi just causes further dissonance between the main pilot pair. No one’s sure why it worked out for us.
And, of course, I doubt the other strategists buy this story. But it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that we flew too fast for the camera drones to keep up, and they only caught the part after Yizhi reached us on the Wall.
What matters is that Gao Qiu is thrilled about this development. He has now greased the palms he needed to and received clearance from the Sages to officially invite us to Chang’an, the capital of Huaxia, to discuss a media deal with him. As long as I’m still recovering and we’re both waiting for our qi to replenish, An Lushan has no excuse to stop us from leaving the frontier.
When the lights of Chang’an glimmer in from the distance, it’s disorienting, because they sparkle brighter than the stars. For an instant, my brain panics over the possibility that the hovercraft has swung upside-down while I was dozing, and we’re actually plummeting to our deaths. I flinch against the crossed straps of my seat and squeeze Shimin’s hand for dear life.
Then I lock eyes with Yizhi, who’s strapped into a seat opposite us.
“Zetian, I think you’re hurting him,” he says with an awkward smile over the rapid whump whump whumpof the rotor blades, his voice broadcasting through our headsets.
“I’m fine,” Shimin wheezes.
“Sorry.” I let him go, flushing.
Wind wails around the small private hovercraft Gao Qiu sent for us. Clouds skim its windows, pale like Metal qi against the night. I turn to the view, despite my lingering anxiety, so I don’t have to face either of them. My lips tingle with the phantom of my kiss with Shimin before the battle.
I haven’t told Yizhi about it.
Should I?
I have no obligation to. Yizhi knew from the moment he touched down at the Great Wall that he would have to deal with me being tied to Shimin forever.
Yet I can’t ignore the lost way he watches me and Shimin when he thinks I’m not looking. And I don’t know if telling him would make things better or worse.
Ugh.
I lose myself in the sight of the city.
Pretty quickly, the mess in my head gives way to wonder.
This isn’t like my hovercraft trip to the Great Wall. That was nothing more than a dark, bleak tenure in a metal cage that happened to be really loud and wobbly.
This is transcendence on par with piloting a Chrysalis.
Tall buildings cluttered with neon signs soon fill all visible space below, a forest of metal and concrete bathed in lights and holograms. Specks of people and vehicles stream within it like blood cells. There’s so much to take in that I find myself pressing against the window.
So this is what a city looks like.
Ads shift across whole sides of buildings. The Wei River slithers like a dark serpent through the city, glittering with sickles of reflected light. Human achievement floods through every breath of space between the two mountain ranges that separate Chang’an from the Han, Jin, Sui, and Tang provinces. As the heart of Huaxia, it is its own administrative division.
I’m so dazed by everything that I have to make myself remember Yizhi’s tales of how the dazzling lights are only a surface glamor, like the perfumed silk shoes that girls wear on their bound, festering feet. Most Chang’aners struggle to get by. Apartments can be divided into literal cages stacked on top of each other, each just big enough for one person to sleep in, and still sell for astronomical prices. There could be twelve people sharing the kitchen and washroom in a suite the size of ours at the Wall.
Such is the competition that comes with wanting to live in the safest place in Huaxia—a competition involving more than six million people, almost a fifth of Huaxia’s population. It’s not named the City of Everlasting Peace for no reason. Chang’aners may struggle to pay rent, but they’re the last people who have to worry about Hunduns.
My amazement curdles. I’m abruptly reminded that this isn’t the most humanity has achieved, only the most we’ve recovered. My gut twists as I try to imagine the human world before the invasion two millennia ago. The buildings that must’ve soared so much higher than these. The technology lost even to the gods. The thousands and thousands of years of history we will never get back.
It makes me all the more furious that Shimin and I were thrown to the Hunduns like trash.
Yizhi points out the Palace of Sages when it comes into view. It’s a complex of flared-roofed manors and temples built against the mountains, lording over the city, housing the Huaxia government. I fume at it, wishing I could go down there and demand a direct audience with Chairman Kong. But his new decree is clear: he and the Sages will approve the counterattack only if all senior Sui-Tang strategists agree it’s a safe gamble.
While that doesn’t sound unreasonable, given the risks, the likes of An Lushan prove that not every person with power works with the greater good in mind.
Fine. Then they leave us no choice but to use questionable forces as well.
Shimin and I have had enough of begging for forgiveness for being what we are.
The hovercraft lands on a launchpad in the Gao estate, which is another mountain complex, built suspiciously like a copycat of the Palace of Sages. Though I bet the Sages don’t have music pumping and strobe lights flickering everywhere.
As soon as the hovercraft hatch skates aside, the party frenzy floats in on my first ever breath of city air, shockingly smoky. Distant voices and laughter pepper the murky electronic beat pounding like a heart through the mountain. According to Yizhi, everyone noteworthy in Chang’an has come tonight to ogle us.
A line of maidservants scuttles onto the launchpad, colorful silk robes snapping in the waning rotor winds. “Wushaoye,” they acknowledge in unison, shivering. Fifth Young Master.
Removing his headset, Yizhi bows back with a meek smile. His mother was one such maidservant, knocked up and forgotten by Gao Qiu. Until the day he ordered her flogged to death for not smiling with enough enthusiasm at a banquet he held for the Sages.
Nausea overwhelms me at the proof all around of his untouchable power. This is the kind of man I must rely on to get what I want.
These are the kinds of men that run the world.
Frustration coils inside me. I know they don’t do things like this out of some malicious intent to get something out of me or to bind me more tightly to them, so I don’t resist or say anything, but I hate that the world keeps stripping me of my ability to do things for myself. I hate that I have to have Yizhi and Shimin in my life, even though I love one of them, and the other is a necessary partner. Can I really call myself a strong girl if I’m relying on two boys?
But what else am I supposed to do? Distance myself from them and tumble stubbornly to my death? It would not be noble or respectable just because I did it alone.
After I settle in the wheelchair and figure out how to move it with its control stick, the maidservants lead us to a courtyard huddled by multi-story buildings. I’ve seen pictures of the Gao estate, but I’m still aghast. It looks more like a small town than a family home.
A breeze blows across my face, carrying an algae scent that reminds me of the rice terraces. There’s a lily pond ahead, lit from within by shifting colors and bisected like the yin-yang symbol by a winding stone walkway. The partygoers are, thankfully, not right up against us, but cluttered on the wraparound balconies of the buildings. Crimson pillars on every floor hold up flared, tiled roofs. Strings of traditional red lanterns dangle from the edges, but pulsing neon sweeps through paper windows and open doors, backlighting the mingling crowds in flashes. Music thumps into the square of starry sky above the courtyard.
To my shock, some partygoers are wearing pieces and meshes of spirit armor over their shoulders, arms, and, sometimes, chests. I thought only pilots were allowed to wield spirit metal, and with heavy restrictions. Shimin and I were banned from taking our armor on this trip. But I guess rich people scoff in the face of laws, and it’s not dangerous when their spirit pressures are so low. They can’t seem to do anything other than faintly strobing their qi in time with the music.
As we get close, their voices drain of life. Cameras keep flashing, yet the previously lively party congeals to a standstill.
Everyone stares at us. Neon rays of light swing over hesitant male faces and half-veiled female ones.
I stop, too, not knowing what to do. Another wind sweeps over us, bringing the sharp tang of alcohol.
Shimin clutches my shoulder. I let him.
“Welcome!” a husky voice booms through speakers.
I search for the source, and find him on the third and highest level of a building across the courtyard.
“Welcome, my guests of honor—Li Shimin, the Iron Demon, and Wu Zetian, the Iron Widow!” Gao Qiu raises his arms at his sides, mostly a silhouette in the radiance of the open double doors behind him. The bronze headpiece over his topknot shoots as tall as his head. His sleeves drape in crisp angles from his arms. Lines of maidservants stand like docile dolls on either side of him, heads bent, hair fastened into twin loops like little girls.
Disgust eats at my innards as cheers erupt from the partygoers.
“Father.” Yizhi wraps his hands together and bows, reminding me to do the same.
“Gao-zong,” Shimin and I call out, meaning Big Boss Gao. Though there’s so much noise I doubt he can hear us.
“Thank you for your service, pilots!” he says.
“Thank you for your service!” the partygoers slur in remarkable sync, becoming suddenly welcoming of us because Gao Qiu has said it’s okay to do so. Half-shadowed figures in fine robes lean on each other or the balcony railings, raising bronze goblets. Noblewomen, who I’ve heard can’t show their faces in public, sip their liquor by poking metal straws under their gauzy veils, which are hooked ear to ear on intricate bronze frames.
“And my son—the hero! The Baofeng Shaoye!”
“Baofeng Shaoye!”
Young Master of the Storm. Sounds like Yizhi will never be just Wushaoye, Fifth Young Master, again. His eyes widen in the flowing pond glow, and he kneads the edges of his sleeves.
Gao Qiu has not missed Yizhi’s star potential after what he did. There’s one breathtaking shot of him that’s gone viral. Taken mid–lightning flash, it captured him with his hand on the Vermilion Bird’s beak, hair wild in the storm, wet sleeve blowing past his elbow, eyes and meridians lit up like a glorious golden circuit. A brave human boy standing on top of Huaxia’s strongest bastion, giving strength to a gargantuan beast of metal that is Huaxia’s brightest hope.
“My guests will be released to you after just a short meeting between them and me,” Gao Qiu announces. “Until then, enjoy the finest food and drink in Huaxia!”
More throat-shredding cheers surge into the night. Someone lights a string of firecrackers. They pop against my eardrums and fill the courtyard with smoke. Fireworks whistle into the night, exploding like Hundun cores against the stars.
The maidservants lead the way across the pond’s winding bridge. I activate the wheelchair again, but Yizhi grasps the back of it.
He doesn’t dare say anything, but I can read the urgency in his eyes: Be careful of my father.
