Soul of Fire (55 page)

What did he mean to do? Did he mean to leave her in charge of the Dragon Boats when he left? Did he think that the Dragon Boats would accept the rulings of a woman, and a woman with foreign blood in her veins?

Zhan would take over. Zhan would . . . She felt her throat close. She couldn’t tell her brother the disgust she felt for his second-in-command—once her father’s second-in-command. Though he was of an old dragon dynasty, and powerful in magic and might, she didn’t trust him. And she did not wish to be his wife.

But Wen was reclining upon his cushions and looked at her, mildly surprised, as though she had stayed much longer than he expected. He waved his hand. “Go, sister. I am tired. I’ve had too much reality.”

Jade bowed and walked backward—as she’d once done in her father’s presence—till she was at the doors. These she opened, without turning back, and left, still bowing—making sure that everyone saw her bow, so they knew she respected her brother and valued his authority.

While the guards at the door of her brother’s chambers closed the doors, she turned and walked away, linking her hands together as she did so. Her right hand covered her left, and she felt the red jewel on her finger. The jewel with the power to make the boats fly.

But the jewel only worked if the Emperor had power. Had Wen’s opium dreams grounded the boats forever?

Red Jade saw Zhan before she lifted her eyes. Or rather, she sensed him, his hulking, broad-shouldered presence barring her way. Amid the various milling courtiers, only he stood squarely in her path.

He was a tall man, and though he was close to her father’s age, he could still be said to be handsome. His dark hair showed very few white threads, and though he wore his beard closely shaven—unlike most men in the Dragon Boats—he let his moustaches grow long, framing his broad, sensuous lips. Jade had heard his father’s women talk and giggle about him, claiming his dark eyes glowed like banked fires, but Jade could not see anything attractive in him.

She could not remember a time when she had not been afraid of Zhan. She remembered being very small—maybe two or three—and coming out of her mother’s quarters to find Zhan in the hallway. She had instantly run back to the safety of her mother’s arms, though she couldn’t say what she’d thought Zhan might do to her. Surely even Zhan, arrogant as he was, wouldn’t have dared hurt the daughter of the True Emperor.

Since adolescence, Jade had found other reasons to dread the man. He looked at her with a covetous sort of hunger—the type of look she imagined a ravening tiger might bestow upon a juicy buffalo. It made her shiver and blush and look away. And, more often than not, this caused him to chuckle drily.

This danger, she knew, was more real than any she might have imagined as a toddler. Zhan was her father’s second-in-command, because he was the most noble of the Dragon Barge leaders. His family was descended from Jade’s own family, many generations back. As such, he had royal blood in his veins, and was entitled to almost as much respect as Wen and Jade. If Wen’s father were to marry her off, whom else would he choose for a husband? Few of the land-bound nobility even knew that Jade was their equal, let alone their superior, and most of them were descended from the interlopers and not proper noblemen of China at all.

But Jade didn’t want to marry Zhan, and now she made sure the look she gave him was full of a haughty chill. “Ah, Prince of the High Mountain,” she said, addressing him by the title that his family had worn many centuries before.

“My lady,” he said, bowing in the most correct way possible. But he didn’t get out of her way and he straightened almost immediately, his eyes challenging her.

“Is there something you require of me?”

“Only to know when his majesty, the true Emperor, intends to make the Dragon Boats fly. By tradition, he won’t be fully in power till he does. Until then, it leaves things . . . in dispute.”

Did Zhan intend to challenge Wen? Steeling herself, she said briskly, “His Majesty is tired. He’s given me the ring and the power to fly the boats myself.”

“You?” Zhan looked at Jade as though she had suddenly grown a second head.

“As his nearest in blood, I will be able to channel his power whenever he doesn’t feel like exerting it.”

“But . . .” Zhan looked like a man who had just had a rug pulled out from under him.

“Yes?”

“But . . . I’d talked to his majesty your father, and I’ve . . . I meant to talk to your brother too, but . . . I don’t know if you . . .”

Surprised that Zhan could be so discomposed—Jade had never seen him in less than perfect control—she lifted her left hand with the oversized ring on it. “I hold the power of the True Emperor,” she said, simply, even as her heart thumped hard in her chest and she wondered if Wen was in fact the true Emperor. If his magic, damaged as it would be from opium, would be able to lift the Dragon Boats.

Zhan looked . . . worried. Which was odd, because if she and Wen couldn’t make the boats fly, then Zhan would kill them both, and the power would devolve, naturally, upon him.

So what was worrying Zhan?

Looking up, she signaled, wordlessly, that she was willing to listen to his words in private.

“It is about the jewels of power,” he said, as soon as they were isolated enough that no one else would hear them. “The twin jewels.” He spoke the words with reverence and so close to her face that his hot breath tickled her cheek. He smelled of ginger and garlic.

“What twin jewels?”

He sighed. “This is why I’d prefer to speak to His Majesty. Women are not told these things, nor are they supposed to enmesh themselves in the affairs of men.”

Jade thought of Wen, who by now would be well lost in his opium dreams. He might have heard of the jewels—or not, considering that their father had never been very fond of Wen. If he’d told anyone secrets of state, he was far more likely to tell them to Jade. So instead of speaking, she simply raised her hand, with the ring on it.

Zhan made a sound like a pricked balloon. “There are two rubies of great power, upon which the whole power of the world rests. The whole magical power.”

“Impossible,” Jade said. “For if that were true, then none of us would have magic or the ability to use it.”

Zhan made a sound that might have been a cough or a hastily swallowed put down on the mental power of women. Having heard him deliver such opinions before, Jade suspected it was the latter. “I mean,” he said in the tone of a master who is barely holding back from caning a disobedient pupil, “that the jewels anchor the power of the world. That without them, no one in our world would be able to hold magic. Beyond that . . .” He shrugged. “Many centuries ago, it is said the king of the foreign devils stole one of them and made the magic in it his own, so that magic would pass only to him and his descendants. Which is why the magic in Europe goes only to a few families, and why European mages are much stronger than those in other lands—the Dragon Boat people excepted, of course.”

“Ah,
a legend,
” Jade said, managing to convey in those words the disdain she felt for Zhan.

He recoiled as though slapped. And for a moment, as he looked up at her, his dark eyes burned with unmistakable hatred so strong that it shocked even her. But almost immediately he smoothed over his expression into the vague, deferential gaze he usually gave her.

“It is a legend with a lot of truth,” he snapped. “The queen of the foreign devils, Queen Victoria”—he pronounced the name as an imprecation—“thought so too. She sent envoys of her own to find the remaining jewel. I found out about it, with my foreseeing magic, and I have followed their exploits ever since. Even though they found the other jewel, they didn’t give it to the queen. Instead, one of them took the new jewel and the other went in search of the old spent jewel . . . which he found and healed somehow. Now one of the envoys has both jewels, and I know where he is headed. I had a vision that told me which carpetship he will be traveling on.” Zhan’s eyes burned with light, as if he were feverish. “We can intercept the ship. We can take the jewels.”

“Why should we?” Jade asked, taken aback by the naked lust in the man’s voice.

Zhan looked at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. “They are the most powerful jewels in the world. They contain power over all the magic on Earth. Whoever holds them can deny magic to everyone else by means of a simple ritual. Whoever holds them could rule the world.”

Jade couldn’t think of anything that Wen would want less. And if the rule of the world were to devolve upon her shoulders by default, then it was more burden than she needed.

“Your brother would truly be Emperor of All Under Heaven,” Zhan said.

“He
is
Emperor of All Under Heaven,” Jade snapped.

“In name, at least. But with this . . .” Zhan’s voice dropped and slid, caressing like velvet. “With this, he could rule like your distant ancestors. He could take over the palace, and eject the interlopers.”

At this, Jade paused. Getting back their proper place was something altogether different. Since the invaders had taken over the land of her ancestors, they’d lived like pariahs aboard the Dragon Boats. Most people thought them pirates, vagabonds, people of no account. To be able to recover their position and power was something that Jade could not turn down. In fact, it it would be a sin against her ancestors to refuse.

And a secret, almost unheard, thought whispered: If she were to recover the throne of her ancestors, then she could find someone else to take over looking after Wen, and she, herself, could choose a husband from all the noblemen in the kingdom. Not many would aspire to marry the daughter of a Dragon Boat pirate, but how many would vie for the sister of the Dragon King?

“Ah,” he said. “I see that you know your duty.”

“Perhaps,” she said, unwilling to concede anything. “But how are we to accomplish this daring feat? Yes, we’ve attacked carpetships before, but surely if this carpetship is carrying such a treasure as you describe, then it will have an armed escort. Are you suggesting that our Dragon Boats are enough to face the wrath of the devil-queen’s army?”

“No escort,” he said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “No armed men. This man who carries the jewels is no longer working for his queen, nor is he traveling with her permission. He is attempting to return the jewels to Africa.”

“To Africa?” Jade said, in dismay, thinking of the distances they would have to fly to intercept such a carpetship. Not only that, but they would fly over many peopled lands, many places where others were bound to see them. And with her magic being bound to the Kingdom, she wasn’t sure at all if it would work over foreign lands.

“Are you afraid that you can’t fly the boats that far?” Zhan asked. “Perhaps we should ask His Majesty—”

“No,” Jade said. His Majesty would probably not be of much more use than an infant now. She thought hard. Her mother had told her, far back in childhood, that a good part of her magic was from the foreign devil side of Jade’s ancestry. Surely that would be enough to allow her to fly the Dragon Boats wherever she needed.

“Very well, then. How do we go about this?”

“I have drawn a map from my vision.” From his sleeve, Zhan pulled a scroll which he opened, showing Jade where they were and where the carpetship would be when they reached it.

Jade looked at the vast expanse of undulating lines which she supposed signified the ocean in between and bit her lip, but said nothing.

“So, milady, do you think you can make the boats fly?”

“I’m sure I can. By the power of my brother, the Emperor.” She glared at Zhan and swept past him, to the place where the Emperor stood while making the prayer that caused the boats to fly. It was a place on the deck, just outside the Emperor’s quarters, looking out over the entire flotilla. “If you’re sure we can take the carpetship?”

“That I am sure of. This ship is no stronger than the
Light of the Orient
. And your father and I took that easily just last month.”

Jade did not dignify that with an answer. Instead, she stepped out onto the flat, polished deck. She could feel the courtiers assemble in a rough circle behind her, as they waited for her to make the boats fly.

She heard the conversations diminish from normal voices to whispers, and finally from whispers to a heavy silence. The news must have spread that she was using her brother’s power. She could sense the doubt and confusion in all their minds. Those who knew of Wen’s problem would doubt Wen’s ability to wield any power, and those who didn’t know of it would, of course, question Jade’s ability to borrow that power.

Their doubt pricked at Jade’s consciousness like thorns. In her mind, she said the prayer she’d heard her father say hundreds of times before, but nothing happened.

She folded her hands, her right hand covering the ring. Was she imagining it, or was the stone warm to her touch? She took a deep breath. Her father always said the prayer aloud. Perhaps she must do the same. But what if the prayer failed?

Jade choked back a laugh. It didn’t matter. If Wen’s power failed her, then neither of them would last long enough to worry about anything ever again. And the Dragon Boats would be Zhan’s problem.

Taking a deep breath, she started reciting the prayer to the gods of wind and air, and to her ancestors. She begged them to take the Dragon Boats and bear them aloft, bend them to her commands.