Chapter 22

Ying looked up at the strokes of gold carved into the heavy wooden plaque of Ye-yang's manor, stone lions flanking her like silent sentries. The first time she had stood in front of these doors, she had been filled with excitement and anticipation for the adventure she was to embark on in this glamorous city. Now there was nothing left but dread.

It was the day after the banquet. She had lied about running an errand for Master Kyzo to sneak out of the guild, but she couldn't care less even if she was found out. She needed to know the truth. That was why she had come to Fei.

But it started pouring halfway there, heaven's idea of making a joke out of her misery.

The sun had barely risen. Raindrops pelted down from the sky, and her robes were adhering to her like a second skin, much like the day when she first met the beile. Perhaps it was for the better, so she could no longer tell whether the cold she felt was from the storm without or within.

She took a step forward and reached for the bronze knockers.

"Who is it at this hour?" an irate voice rang out from the other side.

Moments later, the doors creaked open and Qorchi's rotund face appeared, oil-paper umbrella in hand. He frowned when he saw her.

"What brings you here?"

"I need to speak to him. Now."

The lines on the steward's forehead deepened, but he stepped aside to let her in. "The beile has not yet returned from his morning meeting with the High Commander. We can get you a change of clothes first," he said while leading the way.

"No, there's no need. I'll just wait for him," Ying replied.

Qorchi took a quick glance at her disheveled appearance, then shrugged his shoulders. "If you say so. You can wait in the study."

They walked past the familiar bamboo grove and arrived at the two-story loft that housed Ye-yang's study. Qorchi pushed open the latticed doors and gestured at some wooden chairs on the ground floor.

"Wait down here," he said. "I'll send for some ginger tea." Clucking his tongue, he quickly disappeared through the curtain of rain.

Ignoring Qorchi's instruction, Ying made her way upstairs. The first floor of the loft was where Ye-yang received guests, but the second floor was where he worked. She didn't want to wait for him to give her an answer, she wanted it now.

The study was as she remembered, elegant and tidy, with a half-finished game of weiqi still left on the board by the window. A memory of the round that she had played with Ye-yang in this very room floated to the forefront of her mind, leaving a pang in her heart.

She walked toward his desk, where a small pile of parchment scrolls sat beside a rack of hanging brushes, alongside the half-finished frame of a lamp that Ye-yang seemed to have been carving. An octagonal lamp, like the one her father had made for her mother.

Was it a gift meant for her?

Maybe this is a misunderstanding. I won't find anything here, just like how I didn't find anything in Gerel's workshop. I'm being paranoid. There has to be a good explanation for—

But then her gaze fell upon a sheet of parchment that was laid out on the table, held in place by the stone paperweights sitting upon their corners. An innocuous, partially written reply about the trade of rice—yet the handwriting left her reeling.

She recognized this.

Her mind reached back for a memory of a letter that she had seen stowed away in a locked cabinet in her brother's tent. A strangled cry escaped her lips.

It's the same. How could it be the same?

She reached for the red marble seal that rested beside the rack of brushes, fear pulsing through trembling fingers. Slowly, she lifted the heavy square block and turned it over. A creature bared its teeth at her, and the guild's motto stared back in mockery. She let go, and the seal tumbled to the ground with a loud crash.

"Ying?"

She looked up.

Ye-yang was standing at the top of the stairs, peering at her with a puzzled expression. "Is something wrong? Look at you, you're drenched to the bone. You need to take a warm bath and change out of those clothes or else you'll—"

"You wrote the letter?" Ying interrupted, holding up the flimsy parchment with her trembling fingers. "You were the one who sent that letter to my brother, warning him not to investigate A-ma's murder?"

On hindsight, she should have thought it suspicious that she never had the chance to glimpse Ye-yang's writing at all, even though she had lived in his manor for a short period of time. He must have been intentionally keeping it out of her sight as a precaution.

Ye-yang's gaze dimmed. He sighed. "Ying, please, I can explain everything," he said.

"Like how you never told me the jade pendant represents the High Commander's personal guard? Or that you—Aogiya Ye-yang—are the commander of the bastards who killed my father?" Ying was yelling, hyperventilating. The fear, uncertainty, and anguish bottled up inside her erupted like an avalanche the moment she set eyes upon him.

A tense silence filled the room.

Ye-yang stared at her quietly, and she turned away so she wouldn't have to see the pain and hurt reflecting in his gray eyes. How dare he, when he was the one who had taken a dagger to her heart?

"I was under orders," he said. "The High Commander's personal guard answer only to the High Commander. I am but an administrator appointed to oversee proceedings." Excuses, Ying thought. It was only too easy to divert blame. He strode toward her, his voice serious. "My father coveted Aihui Shan-jin's work and even tried to summon him back to the capital, back to the guild, but your father refused, so the guards were deployed. I feared that your brother would try to seek revenge and that doing so would bring harm upon your entire clan, so I sent him that letter. I only meant to help."

Ying closed her eyes, stumbling backward against the desk. She wished he had denied her accusations, told her she was mistaken about it all. But no, she was getting a full confession.

Another memory struck her, sending a chill down her spine.

"The first time we met on Muci, when I was running from the assassin—did you know who I was then?"

Ye-yang pursed his lips together, and his momentary hesitation told Ying that his reply would only be another stab at her heart. "My fleet docked at Muci to refuel on the way back from the Juwan mines. I had arranged to receive a report on the Aihui assignment then." An assignment. The cold-blooded murder of her dearest father—a mere assignment. "I did not expect for you to be there too, although I knew it the moment I picked up your clan pendant. It was never my intention to search for you, but…I did have a separate agenda when I realized who you were." He paused. "I only wanted to see if you had your father's journal, the one that the High Commander wanted."

Ying's laughter rang out, bitter and cold. She laughed at her own naivety and foolishness, at her willingness to believe in luck and destiny. It had all been one giant ruse from the beginning. She had walked straight into the wolf's den, thinking him her savior—and even imagining a rosy future where they might actually be together.

"So it was a trap right from the beginning," she said, the disappointment threatening to swallow her whole. "You offering to help me get into the guild, dissuading me from seeking revenge, and at the Red Tower…" At the Red Tower, when she thought she had seen Ye-yang speaking to someone who looked like her father's killer. She shook her head, scoffing at how gullible she was. "You knew all along, and I was foolish enough to think you were helping me."

"Things changed. That's not what it is now!" Ye-yang pleaded. He came closer, taking hold of her hand.

She yanked it away immediately, reviled by the mere thought of how he had deceived her. It hurt, the way her heart broke.

"Ying, please. It doesn't have to be this way. I admit that I made a mistake at the start, but that was before I got to know you! After that, I only tried to keep the truth from you in order to protect you. You are but one person, and it is the High Commander you are going against!" He placed his hands on her shoulders, willing her to listen.

Ying twisted away from him, taking a step back. His words, his touch—all of it felt like a mockery. "You're in no position to tell me what I should or shouldn't do or to claim that you did it for my sake, because you are an accomplice. You knew what I came for and you knew the answers. If you were truly repentant, you would have told me the truth from the start and let me make that decision for myself, instead of acting like you know better. You lied to me, Ye-yang, over and over. The only thing you care about protecting is your status and authority, just like the High Commander."

Ye-yang winced. "I'm not like him," he said quietly. "I just…I can't lose you to him, not like how I lost my e-niye." His usual confident, self-assured fa?ade cracked, and his gray eyes revealed a vulnerability that Ying had never seen before.

But she could no longer trust what she saw.

She reached into the folds of her robes and pulled out the jade ring that he had once placed on her finger. She let its coolness rest on her skin one last time, then she set it down on the table, next to the octagonal lamp that felt like an insult to her father's memory.

"I don't know what to believe anymore, Ye-yang. I look at you and I don't know what's real and what's not," she said, steadying her voice. "I never want to see you again." She pushed past him and headed toward the stairs, but he reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist.

"Wait. The negotiations with the Qirin ambassador will fail, as they should. Tomorrow, his head will hang at the docks of Fei." Ye-yang's eyes burned, pleading for her to listen. "The Empire will not take this lying down. The High Commander has issued the order to strike first. We leave tomorrow at dawn," his voice echoed. "I will prove to you that everything I've said is real, I promise. If you still wish to seek revenge for your father's death, I will wield the sword on your behalf. Please just keep yourself safe and don't do anything rash while I'm gone."

Ying didn't answer. Blinking back her tears, she shrugged her arm free of his grip and bolted down the stairs, disappearing into the comforting cover of the pouring rain.

The next day, the fleet of the Cobra's Order left the shores of Fei when the first sliver of light cracked across the horizon. Loud, rhythmic drumming echoed down every street and canal, invigorating to some, ominous to others. Unlike the battle at Fu-li, which had been a quiet, secretive affair to avoid arousing the suspicion of Qirin spies that resided in Fei, today's departure was done with much pomp and fanfare.

The sun was blazing down from the heavens, as if yesterday's storm had never happened.

Ying was hanging off the side of an airship hull, suspended by a rope tied around her waist, slapping putty absentmindedly into holes in the wood. The pounding of the drums echoed in her ears, impossible to ignore. Then came the loud whir of propellers, deafening as they approached.

She looked up.

The cerulean sky was obscured by a shadow that resembled a storm cloud, and as it slowly drifted across the sun, it plunged the land into an eerie darkness. Black ballonets held up immense hulls, battened bamboo sails fully extended to their sides, undulating in frightening waves. The shabby old airship that Ying was patching up was nowhere close to the magnificence sailing overhead. Up there, that was the pride of the Cobra's Order, the finest airships of the Antaran isles, beginning on their long journey toward the Great Jade Empire.

He was on one of those airships.

She turned back toward her rotting wooden sideboard, poking at the putty with her fingers. The sun's rays shone down once again as the fleet's thunderous roars faded into peace and quiet once more. The next time she turned her gaze toward the skies, she could only see a small black haze retreating in the distance.

And he was gone.

As he should be.

"Do you think they'll be back before the final test?" Chang-en hollered from the airship's deck.

"Of course they will. The High Commander said he wanted to personally preside over the final test, so they have to be back before then," An-xi's voice wafted in the air, although Ying couldn't see him anywhere. He was probably hanging off the other side of the ship.

"As if anyone can predict how long this battle will last," Chang-en snorted in reply. "They might postpone the trial until the High Commander returns. Apparently the head of the Qirin ambassador has been hung at the docks. He was still alive and kicking at the banquet two nights ago. Can't imagine the Empire will be thrilled about that. What if the fighting goes on for a year?"

"Stop making baseless speculations!" An-xi snapped. "Do your work!"

Ying had almost forgotten about the High Commander presiding over the final test of the guild's trial. Her fingers tightened around the ball of white putty in her hand.

Aogiya Lianzhe—the man who was responsible for her father's death.

She was but a single person, wanting to go up against the most powerful man in the nine isles, and she knew how impossible that sounded. Ye-yang was not wrong about that. But he should never have underestimated her or tried to make that decision on her behalf. She was her father's daughter, and her father's courage ran in her blood, his ideas lived inside her mind.

I will finish what I came here to do, she silently vowed. Even without Ye-yang's help, or anyone's help for that matter, she would see things through till the end.

The final test would not merely be the gateway to upholding her father's reputation and name in the Engineers Guild, to achieving her own ambition of becoming a guild master.

It would also be an opportunity to see justice served.

Concentrating became exceedingly hard from then on.

Classes at the guild proceeded as normal, with no one speaking a word of the battle that was raging across the seas. The guild compound seemed quieter and more somber now that only twenty apprentice candidates were left. With the final test around the corner, tensions ran high, and no one seemed in the mood for idle chatter anymore. There were only three left in Ying's dormitory—Ye-kan, Chang-en, and herself. It was already one of the more crowded rooms. In An-xi's dormitory, he was the only one remaining.

It was just as well. Ying had no time to entertain small talk. She spent most of her free time working on her sketches and experimental designs in the guild workshops, making plans for what would happen once the fleet returned from battle and when she had the chance to face the High Commander once again.

The unfinished work that her father left behind had taken on a new life of its own now, with Ying's careful fanning of the dying embers. She had become intrigued—obsessed, even—with the potential that she saw in every line she drew and every equation she scribbled in charcoal. At the same time, she had been refining the prototypes of the Peony, which she had since renamed the flying guillotine.

After all, it was not a harmless, decorative flower. It was a weapon with a dozen curved blades that could take off a man's head. She had already gotten the basic blade retraction mechanisms to work, now all she had to do was figure out how to make the entire contraption a little slimmer, so that it could be concealed more easily.

Master Lianshu was repairing one of her bee automatons when Ying flung her latticed door open, almost tearing off the hinges. Her elbow slipped and the tweezer she had been holding jabbed into the bee's body, smashing the tiny gears inside.

"Master Lianshu, do you know if the guild keeps a store of ming-roen ore somewhere?"

The guild master stared at her ruined pet in despair, then ripped her magnifying goggles off her head and straightened her back with a loud crack. "Don't you know how to knock?" she shouted, flinging the goggles at Ying's head. "Look at what you made me do! One of these bees takes at least three days to build!" She looked around for something else to throw.

Ying ducked behind a shelf, staring warily at the cranky master through the gaps between piles of scrolls.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said, "you can hit me later, but can you answer my question please?"

Lianshu bristled, nostrils flaring like an angry horse. "Why are you looking for that? It's a controlled substance and you're not authorized."

"So the guild does have it!"

"Are you even listening to me? You. Are. Not. Authorized." Lianshu turned back toward her worktable, snorting in displeasure when she glanced at the bee's carcass. "If that's all you're here for, then you can leave." She walked to the circular rosewood table in the center of the room and sat down for a cup of tea.

"Is there any way I could get some? I need it for an experiment. Just a small bit. I promise I will be extra careful and I won't blow a hole through the guild." Ying ran over and sat down across from the master, leaning forward expectantly.

Lianshu's eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. She picked up a pair of chopsticks and jabbed at Ying's forehead with its tips. "Blow a hole through the guild? What sneaky plan have you got up your sleeve? Don't try that innocent look with me. I'm not so gullible," she said. "Unless you convince me of what you need it for, you can get out of my sight."

"I've been studying the composition of gunpowder that we use in cannons to see if I can make some modifications. One of the possibilities I'm exploring is adding a dash of ming-roen ore to the formula."

"The devil's ore is highly corrosive. It'll sooner eat a hole through the cannon itself." Lianshu frowned. "Silly idea. Now, get lost." She grabbed Ying by the arm and started hauling her toward the door.

"No, wait!" Ying said hurriedly, stretching out both arms to cling on to the doorframe to stop Lianshu from pushing her out. "I have a solution!"

"Spit it out."

"Instead of adding the ore to the gunpowder, we should add it to the cannonball itself. We can modify the structure of the cannonball so that there's a small interior cavity to inject a small quantity of the ore. When the cannonball is fired, the ore will eventually leak out from within as it corrodes through the iron shell, which would vastly increase its damage potential."

Lianshu let go of Ying, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Did you come up with that all by yourself?" she asked.

Ying nodded.

She had spent the longest time poring over her father's record books, including the contents of his secret journal, focusing her energy on the gunpowder formula and cannon designs. However, she had been struck by an epiphany while lying on a rooftop one night when a bird dropped an apricot pit on her head. Holding the apricot in her hand, she realized that there was a component to a cannon attack that her father had overlooked.

The cannonball.

The master wrinkled up her nose and hesitated, then she walked toward a shelf and picked up a book from the top of a pile. Holding it out, she blew the layer of dust off the surface, then threw it over to Ying.

"On your father's account, you can take a look at this," Lianshu said. "This is a translation of the original text. It comes from the Empire, but it might be of interest to you."

Ying peered down at the book in her hands, the characters "Huo Long Jing"—Fire Dragon Manual—emblazoned in bold Antaran strokes on the right of the cover. She flipped it open curiously, skimming through the pages.

Diagrams of cannons and projectiles of all shapes and sizes, fire arrows, and land and sea mines crammed the pages.

"This is…"

"A documentation of fire weapons that have been critical to any army's victory since they first appeared," Lianshu replied, her eyes glinting with fervor. "I've made some of my own notes inside, so that's a bonus for you. You won't find anything about devil's ore, because that's only found within the Antaran territories. You'll have to work that out yourself. We can have another discussion when you're done reading through it." The master snorted. "Trust Abka Han to gift us with a material that does nothing but destroy."

Ying continued poring over the book, mesmerized by the diverse range of work that had already been done by others, which she had barely begun to comprehend. Then her gaze locked upon a tiny row of words that had been scribbled next to one of the cannon sketches.

"It was you," she gasped, suddenly snapping her neck upward to stare at the woman who had resumed sipping her tea.

The handwriting in this book matched what was on the back of her father's parchment.

Master Lianshu is the one who A-ma was collaborating with.

She already had her suspicions, but this was proof that her conjecture was correct. Gerel couldn't have been the collaborator, given his bitter rivalry with her father, but Lianshu on the other hand, who claimed to be her father's best friend, was a far more likely candidate.

"Hmm? Are you quite all right, child?"

Ying studied the messy notes that the guild master had left behind on the manual once more, if only to verify that she had made no mistake. She took a few steps toward the woman, still reeling at her discovery.

"Master Lianshu, were you still in contact with my a-ma after he left the guild?"

Lianshu's fingers tightened around her ceramic teacup. "What do you mean by that?" the master asked, the stiff smile on her face betraying her unease.

"Might you have been working on something with him…fairly recently?"

An awkward laugh escaped from Lianshu's lips. She turned to look at Ying, shrugging her shoulders. "We exchange letters from time to time. Well, it was mostly me sending the letters and him ignoring them," she said, her eyebrows knitting in a frown. "Shan-jin could be a stubborn cow, you know? It was all for the sake of research and knowledge, so I really don't know why he was so reluctant to help. If he had been willing to work with me from the beginning, we might already have made a dozen breakthroughs that could change the face of Antaran engineering!"

There it was again, that zealous energy in the guild master's eyes that always appeared whenever she was too engrossed in describing some technology she was obsessed about. Aogiya Lianshu's one true love was engineering, Ying was almost certain of that, but did she realize what this passion of hers had cost her closest friend?

"So you've been trying to get my a-ma to work with you since he left the guild, but he only agreed twenty years later, is that right?"

Lianshu responded with a smug nod. "Couldn't resist eventually. But his condition was that I wasn't allowed to share our research with anyone else, because of the damage it could cause, loss of lives, blah blah," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "I was on the verge of a breakthrough. Our design of the air cannon, the one your father built, has been stagnant for years. If my model succeeded, then it would increase the accuracy and damage radius of our cannons by at least threefold! Can you imagine that? Our cannons would far outstrip the Qirins'!"

Ying could not bring herself to feel a shred of enthusiasm about what Lianshu was saying. The realization washed upon her like a cold wave.

The cannon improvements that Lianshu and her father had been working on had immense potential to shift the tides in the military campaign against the Empire. If the High Commander had intercepted their correspondence and gotten wind of the developments, then it was entirely possible for him to opt to steal from Aihui Shan-jin had he not been able to get anything out of Lianshu. But why did he have to resort to killing her father? Was her father not worth more to him alive?

Aihui Shan-jin had returned to Huarin almost twenty years ago and lived a happy, contented life on his home isle, surrounded by a loving wife and adoring children. All of that had fallen apart because of Aogiya Lianshu's selfish thirst for knowledge and discovery, and her brother Lianzhe's hunger for power. If Lianshu hadn't reached out to her father, if her father had not agreed to help, then perhaps he would not be dead.

Lianshu was still rambling on about the sheer genius of her engineering designs, but Ying was no longer listening. She turned and ran out of the room, clutching the Fire Dragon Manual to her chest.