Passion (31 page)

“What is that light?” she asked Bil .

“That … er, you see that?” Bil sounded surprised. “That’s your soul. Yet another way for you to recognize your past lives when they appear physical y dif erent from you.” He paused. “You’ve never noticed it before?”

“This is the first time, I think.”

“Huh,” Bil said. “That’s a good sign. You’re making progress.”

Luce felt heavy and exhausted al of a sudden. “I thought it was going to be Daniel.” Bil cleared his throat like he was going to say something, but he didn’t. The glow burned brightly for another heartbeat, then snapped out so suddenly she couldn’t see for a moment, until her eyes adjusted.

“What are you doing here?” a voice asked roughly.

Where the light had been, in the center of the room, was a thin, pret y Chinese girl about seventeen—too young and too elegant to be standing over a dead man’s body.

Dark hair hung to her waist, contrasting with her floor-length white silk robe. Dainty as she was, she seemed the kind of girl who didn’t shy away from a fight.

“So, that’s you,” Bil ’s voice said in Luce’s ear. “Your name is Lu Xin and you lived outside the capital city of Yin. We’re at the close of the Shang dynasty, something like a thousand BCE, in case you want to make a note for your scrapbook.” Luce probably seemed crazy to Lu Xin, barging in here wearing a singed animal hide and a necklace made out of bone, her hair a wild and tangled snarl. How long had it been since she’d looked in a mirror? Had a bath? Plus, she was talking to an invisible gargoyle.

But then again, Lu Xin was standing vigil over a dead guy, giving Luce don’t-mess-with-me eyes, so she seemed a lit le crazy herself.

Oh boy. Luce hadn’t noticed the jade knife with the turquoise-studded handle, or the smal pond of blood in the middle of the marble floor.

“What do I—” she started to ask Bil .

“You.” Lu Xin’s voice was surprisingly strong. “Help me hide his body.”

The dead man’s hair was white around his temples; he looked about sixty years old, lean and muscular underneath many elaborate robes and embroidered cloaks.

“I—um, I don’t real y think—”

“As soon as they learn the king is dead, you and I wil be dead, too.”

“As soon as they learn the king is dead, you and I wil be dead, too.”

“What?” Luce asked. “Me?”

“You, me, most of the people inside these wal s. Where else wil they nd the thousand sacri cial bodies that must be buried with the despot?” The girl wiped her cheeks dry with slender, jade-ringed fingers. “Wil you help me or not?” At the girl’s request, Luce moved to help pick up the king’s feet. Lu Xin readied herself to lift him under his arms. “The king,” Luce said, spouting out the old Shang words as if she’d spoken them forever. “Was he—”

“It is not as it appears.” Lu Xin grunted under the weight of the body. The king was heavier than he looked. “I did not kil him. At least not”—she paused—“physical y. He was dead when I walked into the room.” She sni ed. “He stabbed himself in the heart. I used to say he did not have one, but he has proven me wrong.”

Luce looked at the man’s face. One of his eyes was open. His mouth was twisted. He looked as if he’d left this world in agony. “Was he your father?”

By then they’d reached the huge jade wardrobe. Lu Xin wedged its door open with her hip, took a step backward, and dropped her half of the body inside.

“He was to be my husband,” she said coldly. “And a horrible one at that. The ancestors approved of our marriage, but I did not. Rich, powerful older men are nothing to be grateful for, if one enjoys romance.” She studied Luce, who lowered the king’s feet slowly to the oor of the wardrobe. “What part of the plains do you come from that word of the king’s betrothal had not reached you?” Lu Xin had noticed Luce’s Mayan clothing. She picked at the hem of the short brown skirt. “Did they hire you to perform at our wedding? Are you some sort of dancer? A clown?”

“Not exactly.” Luce felt her cheeks ush as she tugged the skirt lower on her hips. “Look, we can’t just leave his body here. Someone’s going to find out. I mean, he’s the king, right? And there’s blood everywhere.” Lu Xin reached into the dragon wardrobe and pul ed out a crimson silk robe. She dropped to her knees and tore a large strip of fabric from it. It was a beautiful soft silk garment, with smal black blossoms embroidered around the neckline. But Lu Xin didn’t think twice about using it to mop up the blood on the floor. She snatched a second, blue robe and tossed it to Luce to help with the mopping.

“Okay,” Luce said, “wel , there’s stil that knife.” She pointed at the gleaming bronze dagger coated up to the hilt with the king’s blood.

In a flash, Lu Xin slipped the knife inside a fold of her robe. She looked up at Luce, as if to say Anything else?

“What’s that over there?” Luce pointed to what looked like the top of a smal turtle’s shel . She’d seen it fal out of the king’s hand when they moved his body.

Lu Xin was on her knees. She tossed down the sopping bloodstained rag and cupped the shel between her hands. “The oracle bone,” she said softly. “More important than any king.”

“What is it?”

“This holds answers from the Deity Above.”

Luce stepped closer, kneeling to see the object that had had such an e ect on the girl. The oracle bone was nothing more than a tortoiseshel , but it was smal and polished and pristine. When Luce leaned closer, she saw that someone had painted something in soft black strokes on the smooth underside of the shel :

Is Lu Xin true to me or does she love another?

Fresh tears wel ed in Lu Xin’s eyes, a crack in the cool resolve she’d shown to Luce. “He asked the ancestors,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “They must have told him of my deceit. I—I could not help myself.”

Daniel. She must be talking about Daniel. A secret love she’d hidden from the king. But she hadn’t been able to hide it wel enough.

Luce’s heart went out to Lu Xin. She understood with every ber of her soul precisely what the girl was feeling. They shared a love that no king could take away, that nobody could extinguish. A love more powerful than nature.

She swept Lu Xin into a deep embrace.

And felt the floor drop away beneath them.

She hadn’t meant to do this! But her stomach was already pitching, and her vision shifted uncontrol ably, and she saw herself from outside, looking alien and wild and holding on for dear life to her past. Then the room stopped spinning and Luce was alone, clutching the oracle bone in her hand. It was done. She’d become Lu Xin.

“I disappear for three minutes and you go three-D?” Bil said, reappearing in a hu . “Can’t a gargoyle enjoy a nice cup of jasmine tea without coming back to nd that his charge has dug her own grave? Have you even thought about what’s going to happen when the guards knock on that door?”

A knock sounded sharply on the great bamboo door in the main chamber.

Luce jumped.

Bil folded his arms over his chest. “Speak of the devil,” he said. Then, in a high, a ected shriek, he cried out, “Oh, Bil ! Help me, Bil , what do I do now? I didn’t think to ask you any questions before I put myself into a very stupid situation, Bil !” But Luce didn’t have to ask Bil any questions. Knowledge was rising to the front of Lu Xin’s mind: She knew that this day would be marked not just by the suicide of one crappy king, but by something even bigger, even darker, even bloodier: a huge clash between armies.

That knock on the door? It was the king’s council waiting to escort him to war. He was to lead the troops in bat le.

But the king was dead and stuf ed in a wardrobe.

And Luce was in Lu Xin’s body, holed up in his private chambers. If they found her here alone …

“King Shang.” Heavy knocks echoed throughout the room. “We await your orders.” Luce stood very stil , freezing in Lu Xin’s silk robe. There was no King Shang. His suicide had left the dynasty without a king, the temples without a high priest, and the army without a general, right before a bat le to maintain the dynasty.

“Talk about an il -timed regicide,” Bil said.

“What do I do?” Luce spun back to the dragon wardrobe, wincing when she peered in at the king. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle, and the blood on his chest was drying a rusty brown. Lu Xin had hated the king when he’d been alive. Luce knew now that the tears she’d cried weren’t tears of sadness, but of fear for what would become of her love, De.

Until three weeks before, Lu Xin had lived on her family’s mil et farm on the banks of the Huan River. Passing through her river val ey on his shining chariot one afternoon, the king had glimpsed Lu Xin tending the crops. He had decided that he fancied her. The next day, two militiamen had arrived at her door. She’d had to leave her family and her home. She’d had to leave De, the handsome young sherman from the next vil age.

Before the king’s summons, De had shown Lu Xin how to sh using his pair of pet cormorants, by tying a bit of rope loosely around their necks so that they could catch several sh in their mouths but not swal ow them. Watching De gently coax the sh from the depths of the necks so that they could catch several sh in their mouths but not swal ow them. Watching De gently coax the sh from the depths of the funny birds’ beaks, Lu Xin had fal en in love with him. The very next morning, she’d had to say goodbye to him. Forever.

Or so she’d thought.

It had been nineteen sunsets since Lu Xin had seen De, seven sunsets since she’d received a scrol from home with bad news: De and some other boys from the neighboring farms had run away to join the rebel army, and no sooner had he left than the king’s men had ransacked the vil age, looking for the deserters.

With the king dead, the Shang men would show no mercy to Lu Xin, and she would never find De, never reunite with Daniel.

Unless the king’s council didn’t find out that their king was dead.

The wardrobe was jammed with colorful, exotic garments, but one object caught her eye: a large curved helmet. It was heavy, made mostly of thick leather straps stitched together with tight seams. At the front was a smooth bronze plate with an ornate re-breathing dragon carved into the metal. The dragon was the zodiac animal of the king’s birth year.

Bil floated toward her. “What are you doing with the king’s helmet?”

Luce slid the helmet onto her head, tucking her black hair inside it. Then she opened the other side of the wardrobe, thril ed and nervous about what she had found.

“The same thing I’m doing with the king’s armor,” she said, gathering a heavy tangle of goods into her arms. She donned a pair of wide leather pants, a thick leather tunic, a pair of chain-mail gloves, leather slippers that were certainly too big but that she’d have to make work, and a bronze chest guard made of overlapping metal plates. The same black, re-breathing dragon on the helmet was embroidered on the front of the tunic. It was hard to believe that anyone could ght a war under the weight of these clothes, but Lu Xin knew that the king didn’t real y fight—he only led bat les from the seat of his war chariot.

“This is not the time to play dress-up!” Bil jabbed a claw at her. “You can’t go out there like that.”

“Why not? It fits. Almost.” She folded over the top of the pants so that she could belt them tightly.

Near the water basin, she found a crude mirror of polished tin inside a bamboo frame. In the re ection, Lu Xin’s face was disguised by the thick bronze plate of the helmet. Her body looked bulky and strong under the leather armor.

Luce started to walk out of the dressing chamber, back into the bedroom.

“Wait!” Bil shouted. “What are you going to say about the king?”

Luce turned to Bil and raised the heavy leather helmet so that he could see her eyes. “I’m the king now.” Bil blinked, and for once made no at empt at a comeback.

A bolt of strength surged through Luce. Disguising herself as the head of the army was, she realized, exactly what Lu Xin would have done.

As a common soldier, of course De would be on the front lines in this bat le. And she was going to find him.

The pounding on the door again. “King Shang, the Zhou army is advancing. We must request your presence!”

“I believe there’s someone talking to you, King Shang.” Bil ’s voice had changed. It was deep and scratchy and echoed around the room so violently that Luce flinched, but she didn’t turn to look at him. She unbolted the heavy bronze handle and opened the thick bamboo door.

Three men in amboyant red-and-yel ow martial robes greeted her anxiously. Instantly, Luce recognized the king’s three closest councilors: Hu, with the tiny teeth and narrowed, yel owed eyes. Cui, the tal est one, with broad shoulders and wide-set eyes. Huang, the youngest and kindest on the council.

“The king is already dressed for war,” Huang said, peering past Luce into the empty chamber quizzical y. “The king looks … dif erent.” Luce froze. What to say? She’d never heard the dead king’s voice, and she was exceptional y bad at impersonations.

“Yes.” Hu agreed with Huang. “Wel rested.”

After a deep, relieved sigh, Luce nodded stif ly, careful not to send the helmet tumbling from her head.

The three men gestured for the king—for Luce—to walk down the marble hal . Huang and Hu anked her, and murmured in low voices about the sad state of morale among the soldiers. Cui walked directly behind Luce, making her uncomfortable.

The palace went on forever—high gabled ceilings, al gleaming white, the same jade and onyx statues at every turn, the same bamboo-framed mirrors on every wal . When nal y they crossed the last threshold and stepped into the gray morning, Luce spot ed the red wooden chariot in the distance, and her knees nearly buckled under her.

She had to find Daniel in this lifetime, but going into bat le terrified her.

At the chariot, the king’s council members bowed and kissed her gauntlet. She was grateful for the armored gloves but stil pul ed back quickly, afraid her grip might give her away. Huang handed her a long spear with a wooden handle and a curved spike a few inches below the spearhead. “Your halberd, Majesty.”

She nearly dropped the heavy thing.

“They wil take you to the overlook above the front lines,” he said. “We wil fol ow behind and meet you there with the cavalry.” Luce turned to the chariot. It was basical y a wooden platform atop a long axle connecting two great wooden wheels, drawn by two immense black horses. The carriage was made of shiny lacquered red wood and had space enough for about three people to sit or stand. A leather awning and curtains could be removed during bat le, but for now, they hung down, giving the passenger some privacy.