Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Still in the Dragon, I touch down in the ash-filled valley where we battled the Emperor Hunduns. I had to come back to Zhou for three reasons: to recharge, to deal with the army, and to bring Shimin home.

But I do not find what I expect.

“What do you mean, ‘they took him’?” I exclaim to the White Tiger.

“I’m serious!” Qieluo speaks through the Tiger’s mouth. “This giant hovercraft came out of nowhere—literally, it materialized in thin air—and then dropped down over here. By the time we rushed over, it was gone, and so were the pieces of the Bird’s head!”

My thoughts race, tangled up by the concept of this. “Was it—was it the gods?”

“I mean, who else could it be?”

“But the gods never show themselves! They never intervene! They—”

Suddenly, a force hijacks the Dragon’s voice.

“They never even helped me when I needed it!” Qin Zheng roars in outrage.

It’s the first time he’s spoken through the Dragon since he awakened.

The White Tiger and the few Chrysalises behind it gawk at us. I don’t think they fully processed—on top of everything else—that Emperor Qin Zheng is actually back, revived from the brink of death after two centuries.

I can feel his spirit growing stronger, and I don’t like it.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to use him.

A beeping comes from the Dragon’s cockpit. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what Qieluo said, but I disconnect to my human body to check my wristlet. I moved radio trucks around to keep communications open with Yizhi. If he’s calling me, something urgent must have happened in Chang’an.

The notification opens to his frantic face.

“Zetian, it’s all a lie! Everything’s a lie!”

I blink. “I know—”

“No, it’s nothing about the pilot system! It’s the planet! This isn’t our planet!”

“What…?” I breathe. In the yin seat, Qin Zheng stirs sharply to attention.

Yizhi sounds so winded that he struggles to speak. “My people recovered a quartz drive of documents in the palace rubble. The entire idea that the Hunduns destroyed our previous civilization—it’s not real! Our ancestors were dropped onto this planet! The Hunduns are the natives, not—!”

The screen flickers to black. White blocky text appears, scrolling slowly.

DEAR WU ZETIAN,

IF YOU CONTINUE WITH YOUR DRASTIC ACTIONS, YOU WILL GIVE US OF THE HEAVENLY COURT NO CHOICE BUT TO INTERVENE. HOWEVER, WE RECOGNIZE YOUR POWER, SO HERE IS OUR OFFER:

IF YOU DO OUR BIDDING AS THE SAGES DID, WE HAVE WAYS TO BRING BACK WHAT YOU’VE LOST.

BUT IF YOU DEFY US OR REVEAL THE TRUTH, YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING.

Color returns to the screen. A dim video feed of a cylindrical tank, filled with bubbly fluid. Something’s in it, attached to the top by a jungle of tubes and wires.

Something with a head, a heavy black oxygen mask, and a bare, broken rib cage that exposes a slow-beating heart and sluggishly breathing lungs. There’s nothing else.

I can’t process this as a person. I can’t process this as…as…

But I know that short hair. I know those deep-set eyes.

A white noise lances through my brain, and so does the Metal Emperor’s haunting wail.

“Humans…scourge of the universe…”

The memory of that, and the Water Emperor’s pain, grief, and rage, tear through me. The mountain full of Hundun larvae, shattered and steaming, flashes behind my eyes, splicing with this horrific hope on the screen like a nightmare I can’t escape, no matter which way I try to run.

I drag my nails down my head and scream.