Chapter Fifteen

At first, I thought I couldn't find Hong because I was too distracted.

I stood on the river plane, my skin rubbed raw after Wenshu had scoured the Silver Alchemist's blood from my face. I'd used

moonstone to absorb the blood from my clothes and carefully polished both rings until the bloodstains grew faint, but they

still felt oddly warm on my fingers, like the Silver Alchemist's ghost was clutching my hand. I could still hear the sound

of the cleaver slicing down, the snap of bone, the wet gush of blood.

I should have been happy to see Hong. I should have rushed through the forest to brag that I now had two of the three rings,

that I would bring him home any day now. Only one more ring to go , I thought.

But the feeling that hummed in my chest was not something I wanted to share with Hong. I thought of the Sandstone Alchemist's

transformation and felt like a bird that sensed the teeth of winter closing in, an unnamed longing to flee and never look back deep within my bones. Maybe all of my strength until now had come not from inside me, but from the other royal alchemists, who couldn't protect me anymore. I would have to find Penglai by myself.

My next step forward sank into wet ground, cold mud swallowing my ankle and numbing my toes. I'd been distracted and wandered

too far from where Hong was supposed to be. I took a steadying breath and pictured his face, the way he always felt like the

soft blur of dawn, pale colors and latent moonlight. I wanted him to soften all my colors, smooth away the bright flashes

of worry that I couldn't seem to shake.

I trudged through the mud until grass whispered around my ankles once more, and at last, the fog parted, revealing the broad

tree with Hong's rope around it.

I called his name and circled the tree, peering through the white fog, but Hong wasn't there. I clenched my teeth and swallowed

down my panic, feeling for the end of the rope, praying I wouldn't find frayed threads and a severed end.

My fingers closed around the rope and traced it up, straight into the sky.

I craned my neck, looking into the misty canopy of dying trees overhead.

"Hong?" I called.

No one answered.

I rolled back my sleeves and lifted the hem of my skirt, then jammed my foot into a low branch and hoisted myself up into

the tree.

Branches scored across my face, scraping lines into my forearms, wet and sharp beneath my fingers as my grip pulled away rotting

bark. I climbed higher and higher, the air growing thin, the mist denser, until at last I found him.

Hong was pressed up against the trunk, straddling a thick branch and staring off into the distance, face turned away from me.

"Hong?" I said, edging carefully onto the branch below him.

His gaze snapped down toward me, as if he hadn't heard my undignified struggles to climb up. He reached down and grabbed me

by the wrist, his rings burning against my skin. With strength I hadn't known he had, he hauled me easily up onto the branch,

straddling him, then wrapped his other arm around me and pulled me close.

"Hong, what—"

"Something is down there," he whispered against my throat.

The words shivered across my skin. His hands trembled where he clutched my back.

"Something?" I said. "Like what?"

"Maybe an animal," he said, pulling me closer. He'd seemed so still before he'd noticed me, but now his whole body shook,

as if my warmth had reminded him to be cold. "Maybe a person? I don't know. But I'm not alone here, Zilan. Aren't I supposed

to be alone?"

I gripped his shoulders, unsure how to answer. Either his mind was truly unraveling in death, or the Empress had made good

on her promise and was looking for him in the land of the dead. I wasn't sure which one was worse.

"Are you sure it's safer up here?" I said, casting an uneasy glance down at the forest floor shrouded in fog.

"I don't know," he said, resting his forehead against my collarbone, letting out a sigh, "but it's harder to fall asleep when

I'm up here. I'm too scared to fall."

I said nothing, pressing my hands to his back, feeling the cavernous silence where his heartbeat should have been.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. Once the words left my lips, I realized I wasn't sure if I'd even said them since he'd died. They seemed so small and worthless compared to his suffering. "I'm sorry, I wish I could—"

"It's okay," he said, pulling back and smiling softly. "Can you just... stay here a bit longer? Please?"

I nodded and held him tighter. As a prince, he'd been good at putting on an air of confidence when it mattered, but death

seemed to be eating through him like moths devouring the fabric within a dark closet.

"Of course," I said, holding him even though his coldness was bleeding into me, making me shiver.

It wasn't wise to stay for much longer, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. I was too exhausted—we'd already ridden deep

into the night, past the first few closest towns, just in case the Silver Alchemist tried to come after us. If I fell asleep

here, I would disappear in his arms, and that somehow seemed worse than telling him I had to go.

The leaves shivered around us, and from the ground below, I sensed a pull.

It was wordless, soundless, but I sensed it in the uneasy shifting of branches, the wisps of gray fog that murmured secrets

across the forest floor. The wind picked up, a breeze rushing between us... and I felt it call for Hong.

He must have sensed it too, because his arms tightened around me, as if anchoring himself here.

"Zilan," he said, the word muffled into my shoulder. "How long have I been here?"

The words sounded so soft, so lost that I wanted to cry. I swallowed the feeling down before I spoke so he wouldn't sense it. What right did I have to sadness when he was the one trapped here?

"About a month," I said. "But I have two out of three rings now. It won't be much longer."

"Just one more ring," he whispered into my hair, as if making a promise himself. "Do you know where to find it?"

"I... haven't discussed it with the others yet," I said tentatively. A simple no felt too cruel to say out loud. "Zheng Sili is such a know-it-all, I'm sure he'll have a few theories."

Hong didn't respond, except to rest his head on my shoulder.

"I'll go over my father's notes again," I said, wishing I could promise Hong something more. I wondered, for the thousandth

time, if the missing page would have saved us.

More than anything, I wanted Hong to say something, anything except this resigned silence, like he too had stopped believing

in me. "Maybe we mistranslated something and we'll find a whole passage about a scarlet-winged tree."

"A what?" Hong said tiredly, finally lifting his head.

" The child of Heaven, the scarlet-winged tree ," I recited. "It's the next line of the transformation. But I don't know what—"

"The child of Heaven," Hong echoed softly, trailing off as if he'd already forgotten the second part. "Zǔfù?"

"Hm?" I said, tracing a hand down his hair, tucking it behind his ear. I had the strange sensation that he was breaking to

pieces in my arms.

He sat up, his eyes suddenly bright. "My grandfather," he said firmly. "Emperor Taizong."

"Your grandfather," I echoed, frowning. "What does he—"

"When he founded the Tang Dynasty, he was called Tiānzǐ, Son of Heaven."

"Okay," I said, my mind spinning. I'd assumed the reference had something to do with mythology, but I supposed that its connection to the Mandate of Heaven—where the royal family believed they got their power—also made sense. "But we're looking for an alchemist."

Hong closed his eyes, frowning as if trying to remember something. "My grandfather died before I was born," he said, "but

I remember my father saying he was very interested in alchemy, and very close with his alchemists, even when they seemed to

be poisoning him with their concoctions. He never lost faith."

There was no record of Taizong himself being an alchemist, that was certain. Back when he was alive, alchemy was seen as undignified

work, a new and unproven science.

I shook my head. "Even if it's referring to Taizong, that wouldn't help us. I can't go ask a dead man for his ring." I hoped

that Hong was wrong, because the last thing I wanted was to go back to Chang'an to dig up his grave and pry the ring from

his skeletal fingers.

"You could check the treasury?" Hong said. "If he had a ring he knew was valuable, he might have left it for my father."

I let out a stiff laugh, imagining myself going back to Chang'an and waltzing into the palace treasury. I'd probably end up

stabbed again. "They don't let concubines poke around in there," I said. "Especially now that Yufei isn't there, I don't think

I can just walk in."

"But you're not just a concubine," Hong said. "Remember?"

Right , I thought grimly. I'm the Empress. It felt impossible to imagine myself in such a position. I had spent my whole life standing in opposition to the rich, the

family chosen by the gods. And now I was part of their history.

Far below us, the wind hummed once more, whispering his name in a language I didn't know yet somehow could understand perfectly. I didn't want to leave him again, but we were so painfully close to finding Penglai, to bringing him back for good, and if something was hunting him in the river plane, it wasn't wise to waste more time. "I have to go," I said, pulling away. "But I'll see you soon."

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Soon," he echoed, the words soft, a gentle promise that the dead wind carried away.

"We are absolutely not going back to Chang'an," Wenshu said, clutching his pear like he wanted to bludgeon me with it. "Do

you want to get skewered again?"

We all sat on the floor of our room, pears and grapes spread out on a cloth before us. We'd ridden half a day south back to

Zhongwei, not wanting to stick around Wuzhong on the off chance that someone found the Silver Alchemist's body and started

looking for her murderer.

Zheng Sili was peeling grapes for Durian while Wenshu sliced the pears. I turned to Zheng Sili, but his expression looked

just as uneasy. I couldn't blame him—Chang'an was at least a week's ride south, not exactly somewhere to return to on a whim.

But I worried more about what we'd find when we eventually returned. I imagined the private armies tearing through the palace,

overturning chests of jewels, storming through the duck ponds. It was dangerous to leave the throne empty for too long.

"The whole country is looking for us," Wenshu said. "At least out here, they can only go by a description and some illustrations.

People in Chang'an have actually seen us. Not to mention that the Empress probably has more puppets there than anywhere else."

"It's not like we're safe up north either," Zheng Sili said, carefully peeling the skin off a grape.

"We'll have to return at some point," I said. "People need to know that the House of Li hasn't been wiped out."

"Yes, we'll return," Wenshu said, "once you've harnessed all the power of Penglai Island to make sure we win whatever fight

we're walking into. Otherwise, all we'll do is prove that the House of Li is gone once they hang our corpses at the gates."

I groaned, flopping back against the futon and staring at the ceiling. The other reason, which I didn't want to bring up,

was that if Yufei was alive, she would return to the palace once she heard that we were there. If she never came back, we'd

know what that meant. Perhaps Wenshu didn't want to think about it.

"But where else can we look?" I said. "What else could child of Heaven mean?"

"Oh, it's definitely Taizong," Zheng Sili said, popping a grape into his mouth. He moved it to his cheek for a moment, then

spit the skin loudly on the floor, followed by two seeds. "Your boyfriend is right."

"Taizong was not the first emperor to hold that title," Wenshu said, glaring at the discarded grape skin. "The Mandate of

Heaven began in the Zhou Dynasty."

"Yes, which is way too old to make any sense," Zheng Sili said, picking something from his teeth. "The Arcane Alchemist said

that when he and his buddies found Penglai Island, they came back with the idea for life gold. That was one century ago, not

nine centuries ago."

"So it's definitely Taizong, who is buried in Chang'an, the one place we absolutely cannot go?" I said.

Wenshu grimaced but said nothing. Zheng Sili finally succeeded in plucking the piece of seed from between his teeth and cast it to the floor. "Maybe I could go?" he said.

Wenshu and I both turned to him.

"My face isn't as well-known as yours," he said, shrugging.

I pictured Zheng Sili knocking on the doors of the palace, picking grape seeds from his teeth. The private armies would behead

him on sight.

"Is this some misguided ploy to seize the crown?" Wenshu said flatly.

Zheng Sili scowled. "My family hasn't laid the political groundwork for something like that. The Zhu family, on the other

hand..."

I shook my head. "This is my mess to clean up," I said. "Besides, they wouldn't let you in, and you'd be executed if they

caught you."

"And they'd let you in?" Zheng Sili said.

"If I showed them the right paperwork, they'd have to," I said. "Hong went ahead and preemptively married me."

Zheng Sili stilled, a grape falling from his hand. "You're already married?" he said.

I nodded, trying my best to ignore Wenshu, who had gone very still.

Zheng Sili let out a stiff laugh, swiping his discarded grape from the floor and starting to peel it. "Well, that explains

why the Empress needs you," he said.

"Yeah, she needs me to make life gold," I said, frowning.

Zheng Sili blinked back at me as if I'd spoken a different language. "Oh, you actually don't understand?" he said. "Sorry,

I forget you're a peasant sometimes."

Wenshu drove the knife hard into the next pear, stabbing the blade straight through the fruit into the floor, glaring pointedly

at Zheng Sili.

"Watch your fingers," I said to him, then turned back to Zheng Sili. "Why does me being married to a mostly dead prince change anything?"

" Because ," Zheng Sili said, "it changes the order of succession. The wife of the emperor outranks his mother. If he dies and there's

no one else in the House of Li, then the crown goes—"

"To me," I finished quietly.

That was why it wasn't enough for the Empress to kill "the prince" and take my sister's body for herself. She needed proof

of my death as well, or her claim to the throne would be illegitimate. Since there hadn't been a wedding, no one would know

at first, but anyone who wanted to challenge her legitimacy wouldn't have to look very far. She needed me back in Chang'an

to die publicly.

But now that the Empress was supposedly dead, what did she expect to do? Have me resurrect her and tell everyone that she'd

dabbled in the very life alchemy that she'd forbidden? There would be an uproar.

My next breath caught in my chest. Of course the Empress wouldn't do something like that. She might have wanted her own body

back at first, but now, surely she wanted mine . It was the only legitimate way to keep the throne she'd worked so hard for.

I pictured the red thread of fate tying me to the Empress, pulling me closer across the river plane, drawing my whole soul

into her until my bones, my blood, my heart belonged to her.

You and I are tethered, and death can never sever that thread. I will always find you.

Wenshu staked his knife into the ground and rose to his feet. He looked between me and Zheng Sili like he wanted to say something,

then turned and grabbed his coat, slipping on his shoes.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"Out," he said stiffly.

Zheng Sili picked up Durian and carefully edged away as if sensing Wenshu's temper. I rolled my eyes and hurried to grab my

own coat, nearly losing my fingers when Wenshu slammed the door in my face. I yanked it open and hurried after him.

Wenshu was already halfway down the hall, but ignored me when I called for him. I caught up to him just in front of the inn,

grabbing his shoulder, but he shrugged out of my grip and pulled up his hood as it began to lightly rain.

"What's wrong with you?" I said.

He let out a sharp laugh. "What's wrong?" he said. "Other than the prince marrying you without your consent and making you

a target?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not that bad," I said. "We would have been married eventually, and I was already a target."

"Do you hear yourself?" Wenshu said, finally turning around, raising his voice so much that nearby merchants paused to stare

at us. I grabbed Wenshu's sleeve and pulled him into an alley, but he yanked out of my grip. "Am I not allowed to be angry

for all that he's done to our family?"

"That's not fair," I said. "Nothing that happened at the palace was his fault."

"No, nothing could ever be his fault," Wenshu said, glaring down at me. It was strange to see the prince's face contorted

with such uncharacteristic anger.

"Why do you hate him so much?" I said. Wenshu stiffened but didn't answer. "He doesn't hate you , you know. Even though he has every right to."

"And why would he have that right?" Wenshu snapped.

"Because I chose you over him!" I said. How could Wenshu not understand that? He'd once told me he was scared of losing me to the prince, yet here was the irreconcilable proof that he never would. How could he overlook that so easily?

Wenshu's expression darkened, his jaw tense. "No," he said quietly. "You didn't. I chose you ."