Xuân Thao said, speaking through the oily feeling choking her, “The others—”
An amused snort. “None of them measured up, either.” The birds stirred, and Xuân Thao saw that their beaks were spattered with blood. “But they provided us with enough.”
More data.
Auntie Man. Auntie Cam Huong. Xuân Thao remembered Auntie Cam Huong’s frail hand, the dryness of her skin as she handed her rice cakes—the smell wafting up to her, and Khuê sleeping with her head on Xuân Thao’s lap, a contented smile on her face. Ancestors, watch over them. Enlightened ones, lead them along the right path, again and again until there is no rebirth.
Let them be free.
Lianlei shook herself, her serpentine body sprouting more legs and arms and armored spikes as she did so, her coils withdrawing from Xuân Thao—a moment that felt like the drawing of a breath. Lianlei turned, briefly, to Vu Côn, who still stood barring the way to the door. “Kill her,” she said.
The chain pulsed like a diseased heart. The dark words at the heart of each link vanished, and Vu Côn moved, lithe and elegant and with a faint thunder like the noise of a storm—maw outstretched and open, her teeth filling Xuân Thao’s world.
Time slowed down and stretched. Xuân Thao found herself reaching out, and the world folded itself again, and she stood panting, behind Vu Côn, a mere stone’s throw from the doors.
Lianlei was coiled upon the smooth floor. The birds in her antlers stirred, looking at Xuân Thao. The chain shone again, a harsh white light that burned, and Vu Côn made a roaring sound, taut over pain. Lianlei cocked her head, and the dragon turned around, fluid and elegant—diving for Xuân Thao again.
Everything was pain and nausea. Xuân Thao felt, again, the world tear—sidestepped, faster than she should have, and found herself on her knees, struggling to breathe. Something brushed past her: Vu Côn’s huge mane, followed by the coldness of the dragon’s scales, the seeming endlessness of her body, everything glittering with the colors of nacre and smooth, translucent jade.
Ancestors, how beautiful she was. Xuân Thao pulled herself up, every breath burning, and found the old prayers again in her throat. Ancestors, give us rain like scattered pearls, fish running through our fingers with salted water, as small and as numerous as grains of rice . . .
Vu Côn turned. There were tears in her eyes. On her chest, the chain turned dark, but still held her tight. “You forget,” the dragon said, and her voice was the thunder of the storm. “The time for prayers is past.”
She dived again. Xuân Thao sidestepped, exhausted—saw Lianlei’s dark, amused gaze, and knew for a certainty that this—this capacity to skip across the surface of the world—was what the masters had injected into her—was what Lianlei was watching, dissecting and measuring so that she’d know what to inflict on the thralls that came after her. Too slow. Unable to jump for long distances. Too exhausted by such a small effort.
Xuân Thao threw herself to the floor—too slow, too weak. Vu Côn’s maw closed over her—held her, motionless and trembling. Xuân Thao’s arms flopped, out of control, and her head was upside down, blood rushing to it, slow and heavy, and no matter how she kicked and struggled she couldn’t bring herself up, she had no hold, no way to make anything right . . . Her vision blurred, became redder, everything smaller and tighter and twisted out of shape, tantalizingly out of reach: Lianlei’s huge shape and the malice in her gaze, the glimmering distant surface of the sphere, the darkness of the doors slowly irising itself shut again. The dragon’s fangs still held her, lightly grazing her skin, lines of fire promising to turn into crunching, tearing pain—a long, stretched, agonizing moment before they closed, before it was all over. Except that Xuân Thao wasn’t the only one trembling—she could feel Vu Côn’s own heartbeat, the doomed struggle against the chain and the masters’ words.
You forget.
“Finish it,” Lianlei said, but as she spoke the palace shook again with the call for the masters to leave. And, as Vu Côn’s muscles tightened in one last immense effort to resist Lianlei’s orders, Xuân Thao, dangling from the dragon’s jaws, saw the golden traceries on the floor shrivel, and Lianlei twist and contort, and she remembered Ongjié’s troubling expression.
Pain. He had been in pain. Just as resisting their orders caused Vu Côn to writhe in agony, so did the masters’ resisting the call.
The time for prayers is past.
Pain.
They were leaving. They had left, and only Lianlei remained.
They were weak.
Xuân Thao gathered herself—every scrap of strength, every hoarded bit of endurance—and pulled again, desperately. Nothing happened. She’d burned herself up like a lit candle, using powers she didn’t understand, and at any time Vu Côn was going to follow the orders she’d been given . . .
And then the universe twisted and shifted, and she was elsewhere—in the darkness under Vu Côn’s belly, kneeling on the first links of the chain. Her legs, scraped by Vu Côn’s fangs, burned, but she paid them no heed. In her mind ran the old prayers like a litany of beseeching, the ancestors and the enlightened ones, and the spirits that walked the earth and the underwater kingdoms.
Give us the enlightening stillness at the heart of the storm, the wet, cold breath of life emerging from the river, the songs of the city beneath the waves . . .
Her hand closed over the darkened chain. The words at its heart, the strange, twisted alphabet, grew sharper and sharper. Pain spiked through her palms, and blood dripped warm and pulsing. The words became distinct enough to read, expanding outward, pushing the links of the chain closer together.
Fish. Gate. River. Storm.
And a last one like a pagoda drum beating in her heart, spreading to her whole chest until everything felt sharp and raw.
Rông.
Dragon.
The chain shattered.
The links merged into each other, the masters’ words completely extinguished by the darker words—and then even these disappeared, their outlines squeezed together until nothing remained but a jumble of blackened letters that fell to the floor amid the silver and golden traceries.
Vu Côn stretched—her body, swinging, sent Xuân Thao sprawling to the floor—but before she could even start to pull herself up, coils wrapped themselves around her: not holding her as Lianlei had once done, but loosely circling around her in an impenetrable wall.
Lianlei screeched. Her body sprouted fangs and scales, and the shadow of another head, and the hunting birds flew away from her—shrinking and multiplying and losing shape as they did so, becoming a cloud of gleaming needles. It sliced through the air, opened up on both sides, and reached out to imprison Vu Côn. Xuân Thao braced herself for the pain. But Vu Côn reared, speaking words in an achingly familiar language, and the fragments of the chain on the floor lifted themselves, along with the golden and silver traceries—weaving themselves into a thin lattice that imprisoned the needles in midair.
The call boomed again. Lianlei twisted—this time the pain on her face was clearly visible, her antlers becoming nubs, teeth and sharpened, brittle arms sprouting along her body, her tail splitting and forking and then becoming single again. Xuân Thao breathed slowly, carefully, feeling the echo of the call in her own bones. She needed to run toward the gates. She needed to throw herself on the masters’ mercy, to be made whole again—to be lifted and blessed again . . .