Silver Phoenix (27 page)

“I apologize.” Li Rong turned to her. “You can do it to me anytime.”

Ai Ling punched him in his bad shoulder, and he winced.

“Actually, don’t. My thoughts will only bring me more trouble,” Li Rong said.

“That’s an impressive ability.” Chen Yong added twigs to the fi re. “Have you had it all your life?”

She propped her chin on one hand. “No. It started soon after I turned sixteen years. I thought I was imagining it at first.” Ai Ling remembered hearing Lady Wong’s words in 145

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her mind:
too tall, good hips
. “Since starting this journey, the ability has grown stronger.”

“Do you know why?” Chen Yong asked.

She shook her head. “Do you think I’m . . . strange?”

Chen Yong stirred the firewood. She could tell he was thinking, weighing the facts by the way his brow furrowed.

“I think you have this ability for a reason.” He turned and smiled at her. “Maybe we’ll fi nd out why on this journey.”

Li Rong nodded until his topknot swayed. “In the adventure tales I read, the hero always has a special ability.”

Ai Ling laid a thin blanket on the hard ground and arranged her knapsack as a pillow. “The heroes in those tales are men,” she said.

Li Rong rubbed his chin. “Hmm. You’re right. The women are usually there to look pretty. Add to the scenery, so to speak.”

She searched for something to throw at him. Finding nothing, she made do with a loud snort.

“But it doesn’t mean you can’t be one, Ai Ling!” Li Rong explained with boyish enthusiasm, and Ai Ling smiled despite herself.

She put her head down and drew her knees to her chest. She listened to them speak in low murmurs, allowing the dancing flames to coax her into slumber. That night she dreamed of wandering alone in the bamboo forest. But instead of a lush green, the bamboo was ink black with leaves in gradations of gray, like a painting by the old masters.

* * *

S I LV E R P H O E N I X

The next morning, Ai Ling awoke before the others—a first.

The day had barely broken, its light too faint to penetrate the mist that swirled like phantoms among the bamboo.

The fire had burned out sometime in the night, and the air was damp against her cheeks. Li Rong and Chen Yong lay curled close to the fi re pit.

She drew the thin blanket tight about her shoulders, tucking the edge beneath her chin, and stared out at the silver mist. Her mind whirled, trying to make sense of all that had taken place since she left home. With the exception of the snake demon, the others had attacked her, tried to break her spirit. The writhing eel from the ancient lake had told her to go home, lied and said her father was dead. Yes, it must have lied. She couldn’t trust its words, the heartbreaking images it had conjured.

They did not want her to go to the Palace, that much was clear. She wouldn’t let them stop her.

Li Rong scuffled his feet and grunted—no doubt chasing a pretty maiden in his dreams—and woke his brother. Chen Yong sat up and stretched his arms above his head, yawning like a languid panther. She watched him from her thin cocoon, drank in his every movement.

“Good morning,” Chen Yong said in a quiet voice.

Ai Ling wrinkled her nose. “How did you know I was awake?” she whispered.

“I could see the glint of your eyes.” He climbed out of his makeshift bed with fl uid ease.

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“There’s no light.” She pursed her lips. Why did he have to be so observant? She stuck out her tongue.

“I saw that, too.” Chen Yong grinned at her as he folded his travel blanket, his own eyes hidden.

Ai Ling snorted, quiet enough so she would not wake Li Rong, but loudly enough for Chen Yong to hear. She emerged from her cocoon in reluctant stages, first freeing her shoulders, then rolling the soft cotton down to her hips, finally wiggling her legs out. She rinsed her mouth and wiped her face with her damp cotton rag and also folded her blanket, tucking it back in the knapsack. Her fingers touched a bundle. The letters she had not wanted to share until they were alone. A twinge of guilt wormed its way through her—she had been so selfi sh to keep them.

Ai Ling withdrew the stack of letters bound in blue ribbon and walked over to Chen Yong, who was preparing to restart their campfire. She handed him the thick bundle. “I should have given these to you sooner. Master Tan asked me to deliver them. He didn’t think he would see you again.”

“My father’s letters?” He was down on one bended knee by the remnants of the fi re, his face tilted toward hers.

“Yes.”

He clutched the letters for a brief moment before slipping them into his knapsack. “Thank you,” he said in a thick voice.

She helped to gather more firewood, sat down, and watched him strike a small flint against the carved oval striker, creating sparks like tiny exploding stars. A 148

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pinpoint fl ame fi nally emerged, fed, and grew brighter.

Chen Yong retrieved the bundle and sat down next to the fire, removing a thin folded parchment with careful hands.

The page was yellowed, the black calligraphy visible from the underside as he held it to the light.

Ai Ling watched as he folded each letter after reading it and opened another with gentle fingers. Li Rong sat up, scratching his head. He opened his mouth to speak, saw the expression on Chen Yong’s face, and lay back down again.

So it went until the mist dissipated and sunlight shone through the bamboo leaves above them. Chen Yong sat hunched near the flames, his broad shoulders folded forward, in a posture of reverent prayer. He was oblivious to everything but the words written by a father he never knew.

Ai Ling’s gaze did not stray from his face. Faint lines creased between his dark brows at certain moments, crinkled around his eyes when he narrowed them as he read.

Finally he folded the last letter and tied the blue ribbon around the bundle once more. Having stayed silent longer than she would have believed was possible, Li Rong spoke.

“What did the letters tell, old brother?”

But Chen Yong didn’t reply and wiped the tears from his face.

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The jagged peak towered over them, obscuring half the sky.

Ai Ling’s shoulders dropped in exhaustion when they finally arrived at its base. At least a path had been worn for them by the many travelers who made this trek before. They huddled in the shade of the rocks to take a midday meal.

She sank to the ground and wished she could do anything else but climb this hill.

They rested for only a short while. Ai Ling rose to her feet with reluctance and drank another swallow of cool water from her fl ask.

They hiked in silence. Even Li Rong was quiet, the sweat trickling down his face. It was early afternoon when they 150

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reached the summit and saw what lay beyond—a vast sea rose, expanding within a heartbeat to surround them, until the endless water merged with the skyline. Ai Ling gasped.

She turned to look back at the path from which they had come, but there was no path, no mountain. Only the piece of jutting rock they stood on and the sea that engulfed them. In the distance was the vague shape of land, an island perhaps, shrouded in mist.

“The heavens have mercy,” Li Rong said under his breath.

“We’re trapped,” she said.

“We’re hundreds of leagues from the sea.” Chen Yong drew his sword from its sheath. “This must be sorcery of some kind.”

“Even that island is too far away to swim to, if it is an island,” Li Rong said.

The image of the island before them shimmered as the mist swirled around it. Ai Ling squinted, and thought she saw the reflection of something gold. It wavered and was gone.

“I would think I was hallucinating if you weren’t both standing beside me,” she said.

“What’s that?” Chen Yong pointed. A shape seemed to be moving over the water toward them.

Ai Ling shaded her eyes with one hand. Whatever it was moved fast, almost in a blur. “It glints in the sun,” she said.

The thing suddenly veered up into the sky, and she saw 151