Ben stormed through the outer garden as workers bustled around them, fetching greenery, sweeping pathways, and hoisting ladders with the assistance of a few helpful wind vampires.
“But why are you angry?”
He stopped and turned. Tenzin nearly floated into him.
“I’m not,” he said. “I just want to meet with Jae and touch base. Have a drink.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You told Tai you’d help with the preparations for Mahina’s arrival, right?”
“Yes.” Tenzin narrowed her eyes.
“So you do that, and I’ll get with Jae. He said he wants to go over the work details for all the humans doing restoration on the seal the week before it went missing. Two sets of eyes will be more than enough for that.”
He sounded so reasonable, but Tenzin felt a low buzz of irritation growing in her amnis, and she didn’t know if it was her own anger or Ben’s.
Maybe it was both.
“Fine.” She didn’t wait for her mate to say another word; she simply flew up and over the bustling outer garden and away from Ben.
Once, Tenzin had battled the twin urges in her blood to destroy anything that might keep her apart from Benjamin while also experiencing the occasional impulse to eliminate him because he was a weakness and a distraction.
Nothing about becoming his mate had conquered those dueling desires. If anything, her longing for him became more intense, as did the instinct to strangle him as he slept.
She wouldn’t, because it would be akin to strangling herself—and she was nothing if not a survivor—but when her mate said one thing with his mouth and another with his actions, she was tempted to make him bleed.
Just a little.
Instead, she let him walk down to the tavern with Jae to look over human paperwork that would tell them nothing.
There was something else she needed to investigate, but she couldn’t formulate her thoughts into anything concrete yet. She only had an itching suspicion at the back of her mind that didn’t warrant exploration unless she could see some things for herself.
“Tenzin?”
She turned and saw Tai waving at her, so she walked over. “I may not be able to assist you tonight.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “We accomplished what I wanted for the party preparations last night, but I was curious if you were committed to the investigation tonight.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“Ah.” Tai nodded. “Then I shall recruit one of Elder Zhongli’s household to assist me.”
“What’s going on?”
“We received word from Sina’s court that their party is three nights away,” Tai said. “Normally preparations only go on during the day and out of sight of the elders, but with this short notice, we must work at night too. There are some roof tiles that need to be replaced in the palace, and it’s far more efficient if the wind vampires replace them instead of having humans stumbling all over the roofs.”
“That makes sense.” She felt torn. “If I finish early tonight, I will check with you.”
Tai bowed. “Of course, but don’t rush your work. I’m sure we will have more than enough time to finish with the help of Elder Zhongli’s household.”
Tenzin supposed part of this shortfall was her own fault since she’d been the one to kill all of Zhang’s rotten spawn thousands of years ago. If she hadn’t, they likely would have sired half-decent workers for Zhang’s household now.
Then again, what’s done was done. She was never one to dwell in the past. “I’ll check with you before dawn.”
Tai waved and Tenzin flew off, creating a bubble of air around herself to shield her body from the frigid winter wind across the Bohai Sea.
As she left the shores of Penglai and flew north over the sheer face of the mountain where the palace was situated, she looked down at the cliff that met the ocean and saw whitecaps of ice beating against the rocky north side of the sacred island.
She flew through the ever-present bank of fog that water vampires carefully built to shield the island from outsider view and skipped the familiar and friendly lights of Kun to her right before heading north to the island of Set.
She made it in a little over thirty minutes and landed on the highest point of the island where a Taoist temple stood. Someone had cast a massive bell to serve as both a meditation and a call to the residents of the island if gathering was necessary. Its dark bronze surface was frosted over with a sheen of ice, and sharp wind whipped the cedars and pines that surrounded the temple.
Tenzin surveyed the island, noting the gentle slopes that tumbled down from the high point of the temple. Foothills really, the rolling hills of Set were covered with waving green fields of wheat and barley, the two grain staples of the islands. While some islanders enjoyed the imported rice from the mainland, the islands weren’t suitable places to grow rice, the climate too unforgiving for the warm-weather crop.
She floated over the hills and gentle valleys of Set, noting the abundance of thriving crops, the huddled livestock in the trees, and the deep green leaves of winter vegetables.
After she examined Set, she flew north, veering off to the east to catch the edge of Male before she hit the southern tip of Jogé.
There she saw the same abundance she saw on the island of Set. There were thriving fields of burgeoning grain that would be more than enough to feed the islands when they were ready to harvest in the spring. Added to that, the storehouses on the islands seemed to be full of corn and potatoes from the summer planting, and there was no lack of livestock, no hungry-looking animals.
The islands of Penglai appeared to be thriving, as ready to sustain the long winter as they ever were. Good news for the islands, the elders, and the daoshi who served them.
So why was the harbormaster of Penglai town importing wheat and other staples from the mainland?
Chapter Eleven
He unwrapped the stolen seal only during the daytime. Unlike most places, the most secret time on the islands was not in the dead of night but when the sun was high and shadows were thin on the ground.
He locked his door, closed the wooden shutters, and rolled down the heavy wool blankets that kept the cold from stealing into his small house. Then he spread out the woolen blanket that had once been his wife’s favorite on cold nights.
He couldn’t bring himself to look directly at the dragon’s eye, so he focused on the jade fish swimming across the bright orange flowers that Shuang had loved so much; the edge of the blanket was edged in bright yellow satin.
Put her on the blanket, Xīngān. Look at her sweet face. She is so perfect. I’m going to draw a picture.
He still had Shuang’s sketches, all of them stored in a box near the corner shrine where he and his daughter lit candles on Shuang’s birthday. His wife had not wanted them to remember the day she died.
Remember me on my birthday, Xīngān. Remember me on the day I started living, not the day I stopped.
She had been everything to him. His own heart. For days after her death, the women in the village brought food for Tianyu and the small silent girl that pretty, bright Shuang had left behind. His wife had been everyone’s friend, but now her small family lived in isolation and her husband was a thief.
A thief.