Her mother appeared last. She was sitting on the bed, head bowed as she sobbed into her hands. She looked so small, frail, and dejected.
Tears escaped from Ai Ling’s own eyes, bled from her core. She tasted the salt of them in her throat, even as the pendant flared hot against her skin and replenished her with breath once more. She cried with her mother until the fathomless lake was filled with her tears.
You have left her with nothing but a broken heart. With a debt that cannot be paid. You could have married Master Huang to help your family. But instead you shirked your duty and ran away.
The voice was like glass shards coated in honey.
The slithering forms, all murmuring their disapproval in some ancient tongue, shifted in the abyss around her. But Ai Ling understood. Selfish. Ungrateful. Useless. She wanted to tear off her ears, gouge out her eyes, anything to stop the voices inside her head.
And your father. He loved you so well. A useless daughter. Your father said you were special. Your father lied. The last word seemed to snicker and shriek. It tore through her mind, reverberated in her skull, and echoed into infinity.
Her father appeared, wearing his favorite dark blue robes. He raised one hand toward his daughter, a look of love and concern on his face. Ai Ling wanted to speak, reach her hand to him.
Then the whites of his eyes began to move as hundreds of maggots squirmed, falling from empty sockets, until his entire body was a writhing mass. His skin peeled away to expose raw flesh, then decayed to mere bones. The skeleton dissolved to silver wisps of dust, streaked away before her horrified eyes.
Your father is dead. Go home.
Ai Ling bit her tongue so she would not scream. You lie, she shrieked in her mind. But part of her believed it.
Go away. Go back.
The muscular tail squeezed tighter, smothering the precious air she had been given. It crushed her until she was nothing. Nothing but darkness and hot salty tears. Ai Ling felt someone tap her cheek. She opened her eyes and winced, her sight seared by the bright blue skies. A young man’s face appeared above hers.
“Are you all right?”
She gazed into his strange amber eyes—a color she had never seen. They were filled with concern.
No, she wanted to say, I’m not all right. My father is dead. I may as well be dead to my mother.
She wanted to curl up and cry. And sleep. Forever. She shivered, even as the strong afternoon sunlight warmed her wet clothes and damp skin.
“Get me away from here,” she whispered. It was all that she could muster.
Ai Ling felt herself gathered into strong arms as the stranger lifted her.
She leaned into him, trusting him completely in her grief and exhaustion. She shut her eyes and once more lost grasp of the world around her.
4
Ai Ling awoke to the sound of twigs crackling on a fire. The orange glow licked beneath her closed lids. She didn’t want to open her eyes.
A shuffling noise to her left. Curiosity overrode fear. She peered from under lowered lashes and saw the young man kneel before the fire, stoking it with a stick. The fire fed and grew. Ai Ling basked in its warmth.
What had she said to him? Ai Ling couldn’t remember. She tilted her head, wanting to see his face. Her movement caught his attention, and their eyes met.
Strange amber eyes. She remembered now.
“You’re awake,” he said.
Ai Ling looked toward the fire. Dusk neared. She could tell by the light and the birds singing above them. Cheerful. Just as they had been before she was pulled into the lake. Had she dreamed it? She touched her still-damp clothes and didn’t answer him.
“I found you on the water’s edge,” he said. “You were half submerged. When I tried to pull you out—it was as if something was pulling you in.”
He stirred the fire again, and the flames leaped. His brow furrowed.
“The water was clear. Shallow. There was nothing at your feet. Yet I used all my strength to drag you out.” He sat down on the ground and rested his arms on raised knees.
“You saved me. There is no proper way I can thank you,” Ai Ling said.
He leaned forward and smiled at her. It altered the lines of his face. “She speaks.”
Ai Ling shifted with care and sat up, drew herself closer to the fire. She reached for the jade pendant without thinking. She squeezed it tight in her palm, remembering the breaths of life-saving air that had filled her lungs.
“You’re shivering. Do you have more clothes?”
She shrugged, caught off guard by his concern. Her hand found her worn knapsack, which she had been using as a pillow. Could she trust him?
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll turn around.”
Ai Ling saw his back before he even finished the sentence. Under different circumstances, she would have sought privacy in the thickets, but she was in no mood to leave the safety of the fire as daylight ebbed. She pulled out a blue cotton tunic and trousers, sewn with care by her mother, then peeled the clothes from her body. Her gaze never strayed from the young man’s back as she changed. She laid her wet clothes down flat near the fire.
“I’m done,” she said.
He turned toward her, and she studied him. He had a high brow, tall nose, and a proud, serious face. His clothes were travel worn, but well made. She guessed him to be about eighteen or nineteen years. He had saved her life. Perhaps it would be safer to stay with him, at least through the night.
“I am called Ai Ling,” she said.
“I am Chen Yong.”
It was like a trick of the light, how his features appeared Xian from one angle, and then quite foreign with a half turn of his head. He wasn’t fully Xian, she realized with shock. The idea had never crossed her mind before. You were either Xian or not.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
She had not thought about it but heard her stomach growl at his question. She was starving.
“I bought some pork buns at the inn. They must be cold by now, but still tasty.”
Chen Yong passed two large buns to her. The breading was thick and a little sweet. The stuffing was savory, and the broth ran down her chin and fingertips.
“You’re hungry, then.” He smiled, stating the obvious.
Ai Ling nodded, abashed. The buns had disappeared like a conjurer’s trick.
“You travel alone?” he asked.
The skin on her arms prickled, reminding her how alone she truly was, how vulnerable. One glance at Chen Yong told her he didn’t realize the weight of his simple question. She looked away.
“I’m searching for my father.” Ai Ling felt her throat clench. She swallowed hard. “But . . . but I think he may be dead.” Sobs overcame her, even as she tried to suppress them. She wiped a hand across her face in frustration. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she had been carried like a babe in the arms of this stranger, now she’d become a blubbering fool before him.
“We travel for similar reasons,” he said, making no mention of her tears.
They didn’t speak again that night. Ai Ling laid her head back down on her knapsack and watched the dancing flames. Chen Yong’s profile, bent over a book, was the final image she carried with her into sleep. Ai Ling’s eyes flew open, and she sat up, confused.
“Good morning,” Chen Yong said. He was sitting by the spot where the fire had been. All traces of it were gone, swept away. He held the same book in his hands. Had he even slept?
“I made some tea. It may be cold now.”
He poured from a small silver kettle. She nursed the cup in cold hands, turning it. It reflected a distorted image of her curious face across its smooth plane.
“It’s made of eng. From abroad. A gift from my father when he learned I was traveling.”