Upward and upward, we climbed.
I grew faint and dizzy with exhaustion, gasping for breath. But when Snow Tiger asked quietly once more if she might go ahead without me, my diadh-anam flared in alarm, and I shook my head in silent refusal.
She took the lead, feeling her way blind over the rough semblance of a path more swiftly than I could with eyes to see. She clambered effortlessly up steep inclines, reaching a hand back to haul me ungently after her. I accepted her aid gratefully.
Far, far below us and to the north, the Divine Thunder coughed and boomed. And with every thundering crack that split the sky, I knew there was a cost in carnage, more corpses littering the battlefield, torn and rent beyond recognition.
I prayed.
I prayed to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, I prayed to Naamah and Blessed Elua and Anael the Good Steward, and the thousandfold gods of Ch'in, the older ones whose names I did not know, and Sakyamuni the Enlightened One, and Guanyin, She Who Hears Our Prayers.
In the oldest, oldest prayer of my people, I prayed to stone and sea and sky, and all that they encompassed.
Moirin.
I was startled at the touch of the dragon's voice in my thoughts, half imagining I'd been addressed by a god. I didn't recall the dragon calling me by name before. "Aye?"
/ need to see. I think we are nearly there.
I glanced up at the snow-covered peak looming above us. It was still very, very far away. "But—"
"We seek the reflecting lake, not the mountaintop itself," Snow Tiger reminded me, sounding hopeful for the first time in many days. "No human has ever scaled the heights of White Jade Mountain. Ah, gods!" An edge of dismay crept into her voice. "The reflecting lake."
"At the very end, he would have seen his absence and gone mad," I murmured. "That's why I had to come."
She put her hand on my shoulder. "Do you have the strength to summon your magic?"
"I will find it."
I sat cross-legged on the mountainside and breathed the Five Styles. I called upon memories that lent me strength. My enigmatic mother who loved me with all her fierce, taciturn pride. My kin among the Maghuin Dhonn. My gentle D'Angeline priest of a father, who trailed grace in his wake. Others I had loved. My lost Cillian, still my first and best friend. My lady Jehanne, her star-bright eyes sparkling at me with unstinting affection. Master Lo Feng in all his kind, generous wisdom. My peasant-boy Bao, whose infuriating rudeness could no longer hide the vastness of his impossibly romantic heart.
The dragon.
The princess, too.
And stone and sea and sky, and all that they encompassed.
I loved them. I loved them all. I drew strength from it, finding a place within myself where I could spin it into magic. I breathed the twilight deep into my lungs, exhaled it gently around us.
Snow Tiger sighed with relief, and lowered her blindfold. "This way."
Weary beyond weariness, yet strangely exalted, I followed her darting figure through the forest of spruce pines that dotted the mountainside. Now that they were awake, they sang fine songs to themselves, those vibrant spruces. The three long-neglected Camaeline snowdrop bulbs at the bottom of my satchel roused to answer with a thin, feeble chorus.
HERE! the dragon roared. HOME!
Ahead of me, I saw the princess check herself violently, recoiling as the spruce forest opened onto a new vista.
I hurried to join her.
We had gained the lake. True to the dragon's vision, it reflected the snow-capped peak of White Jade Mountain in its depths. The water was very pure and clear and still. In the unaltered daylight, it would have been a translucent shade of green. The reflected mountain barely wavered on the surface of the waters, suggesting a placid, enduring eternity. Even in the twilight, it was a beautiful sight, a sight I could have gazed at for a thousand years.
And it lay in a valley far, far below us. There was no path to descend, only a sharp overhang, the sheer drop from which the princess had recoiled.
Snow Tiger glanced at me, the dragon reflected in her eyes. "I will have to jump," she said calmly. "Tell my father—"
I interrupted her. "You can't swim, can you?"
She didn't answer.
"I can." I held out my hand to her, trying to ignore the vertiginous drop before us. "I grew up in a cave alongside a river. I can swim. My lady, I have not come so far to help you die. Are we not friends? If you must jump, then I must jump with you."
She took my hand.
We jumped.
And fell, and fell.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
How long does it take to die? As long as it took us to fall—or at least, that was what it felt like. I lived and died an entire life in that fall.
Until we hit the water.
The impact and the utter shock of the cold mountain water was so vast, so unimaginable, that for the span of a few heartbeats, I didn't know if I were alive or dead, didn't know if I were broken or whole.
Cold, so cold.
I felt the breath burning in my lungs and opened my eyes. I was underwater in a glimmering green world. The princess was sinking slowly opposite me, trails of bubbles rising from the air trapped in her robes. Her wide, terrified gaze met mine.
I had lost the twilight, and there was no dragon reflected in her pupils.
She opened her mouth, and nothing emerged.
Only in the lake where the snow-capped peak is reflected can she disgorge the pearl. That was what Master Lo Feng had said. But he hadn't said how, and none of us had thought to ask. We had been so concerned with the multitude of obstacles that lay in our path, we hadn't thought about what would happen once we reached our destination. If I had thought about it at all, I had supposed that the dragon's essence would simply spill out of her, returning to its natural habitat.
But that was not happening, and the dragon's panic was rising. I grabbed Snow Tiger's robes with both hands and kicked strongly with my legs, intending to propel us to the surface. In the grip of the dragon's madness, she fought me off.
I hadn't thought about that, either.
If only I could breathe, I thought in despair, I could concentrate. But the water was so, so very cold. It was leaching my life and my wits away with every heartbeat. The weight of my sodden robes dragged at me. If I abandoned the princess and made for the surface, I would be abandoning her forever. I caught one of her arms with both hands and tried again.
Again, she struggled wildly, her braid lashing around her head in the water like…..
Like…..
An image flashed before my eyes. A black-maned lion with yellow-gold eyes pacing in the innermost circle of an etched star, its tufted tail lashing. A hint the dragon had given me in a fleeting glimpse.
The spirit Marbas, summoned by the Circle of Shalomon.
It had offered me a gift, the gift of shape-changing, the gift the Maghuin Dhonn had lost before I was born. And although I hungered for it, I had refused.
Wise child, it had said. For that, I give you a gift unasked.
And then….. ah, gods! My chest ached and my lungs burned. More than anything, I wanted to breathe. But I remembered, I made myself remember, I remembered that the black-maned lion had opened its fearsome jaws and roared without sound, and something like a bright topaz jewel, as yellow-gold as the lion's eyes, had made a home inside my mind, and I had cried aloud at the strangeness of it, at being given this unexpected gift that Raphael and his companions so coveted.
The charm to reveal hidden things, the lion Marbas had said to me. Yours and yours alone. The words will be there if you need them.
What was the dragon's spirit if not a hidden thing? Hidden first within a pearl, hidden twice within the princess.
The topaz jewel nestled in my thoughts sparked to life, dazzling. I reached for it and found myself speaking unfamiliar words in an unfamiliar tongue. A series of round, shimmering bubbles rose from my lips, ascending through the green water as I spent the precious air in my lungs to speak the charm.
The dragon roared in my thoughts, an exultant, triumphant roar wilder and louder than any lion's. The water around us shivered.
Snow Tiger's lips parted helplessly. Her face was transfixed and rapt as translucent brightness spilled out of her mouth—at first a trickle, then a rushing stream. It came and came endlessly, pouring out of her, taking immense shape in the depths of the jade-green water.
Coils, familiar coils, elegant and twining. Legs with pearly claws.
A noble, long-jowled, whiskered face.
I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in one enormous eye; and then the lake erupted around us.
We shot upward like corks. My head broke the surface of the churning water. I took a deep, gasping breath of air. Kicking my legs to keep afloat, I reached out blindly and grabbed a fistful of the princess' robes, hauling her toward me, treading water and turning her face toward the sky.
"Lady, don't fight me!" I gasped.
She made a ragged sound of assent.
The lake erupted again. In the once-placid depths, a wave like a giant hand gathered beneath us, lifting us and carrying us toward the shore. I kicked my legs frantically and kept a tight grip on Snow Tiger, my icy fingers frozen in the folds of her robe, trying not to let either of us drown.
The wave cast us ashore on a rocky ledge. Beginning to shiver violently with the profound effects of the cold, I dragged the princess to safety.
The dragon was not finished.
The dragon was only beginning.
The wave retreated, gathered again. It tossed up a gift, two gifts. My satchel and my bow and quiver, forgotten in the fall.
I retrieved them weakly.
And then there was a stillness, a gathering stillness. Shivering, I breathed the Breath of Embers Glowing, wrapping my arms around the princess to share what little warmth I could conjure with her.
I had a sense of the dragon's essence coiling and coiling unto itself in the depths of the reflecting lake. Forming a ball—an enormous pearl—and descending slowly through the green waters, settling gently onto the lake's floor, coming to rest in the place from which it had been stolen by a younger Master Lo Feng.
HOME, the dragon thundered.I am here and awake and I am HOME!
The entire valley shuddered.
The shudder began in the lake, stirring its waters. It rippled up the cliff from which we had leapt. It rippled up the snow-covered flanks of White Jade Mountain, all the way to the peak.
The peak stirred, coming alive.
The dragon raised his immense head from its resting place. His coils unwound from the peak, sun-gilded snow turning to pearlescent scales. Mighty claws were extracted from the snow-covered rock. I stared in awe, too awestruck to feel the cold, to feel the ache of the jarring impact of the fall in my body. In my arms, Snow Tiger had gone utterly still with the same wonder.
"HOME!"
With a deafening, joyous cry, the dragon launched himself into the blue sky, his coils gleaming in the sunlight, casting a vast, moving shadow over the mountain below. And all at once, I was laughing and crying and babbling, because it was the most beautiful, glorious thing I had ever seen.
"Moirin, Moirin!" The princess was shouting at me, tears streaking her face. "Listen!"
I was bewildered. "To what?"
"Nothing!" Her tear-bright eyes shone. "The Divine Thunder! It's gone quiet!"
I gazed at the dragon spiraling overhead. "They can see him from the battlefield."
She laughed. "I imagine they can see him from Shuntian! Come, we've got to find a way out of here." I dragged myself to my feet. Snow Tiger rose, stumbling. She caught herself and swayed, the dragon's loss hitting her for the first time.
I put out one hand to steady her. "Are you all right, my lady? We very nearly drowned, not to mention the fall."
"Yes." She bowed her head a moment. "Just sore and aching, and….. weak." She held out her hands, gazing at them. "I had forgotten what it was like to feel human. So very vulnerable, so very weak."
"I know," I said softly. "Perhaps….. perhaps we might rest and wait for rescue. If my satchel is not soaked through, I may be able to kindle a fire."
Do not fear, the dragon said in my thoughts.I will come for you. Startled, I glanced skyward. High overhead, the dragon was heading for us like a gleaming arrow.
"You still hear him," Snow Tiger murmured.
"Aye, I do."
She gave a short, broken laugh. "A year ago, I could never have imagined it would hurt so much to be free of him."
"I know," I said again.
And then the dragon in all his glory descended, settling over the landscape as gently as an enormous cloud. The wonder of his presence drove away all sorrow, at least for the moment. His vast, whiskered head dipped to the princess.
"Noble Highness," the dragon said in a low rumble. "Granddaughter of Heaven. I beg your forgiveness for the pain I have caused you. I thank you for the gift of my freedom and your extraordinary valor. There are no words fit to praise your courage. If there were, I would speak them." One massive foreleg shifted forward, rotating to offer a cage of glistening claws. "Please allow me to carry you both to safety."
In silence, Snow Tiger raised one hand to the dragon's face, caressing the pearly scales. His body shifted again, almost imperceptibly, curling around her with great tenderness. She leaned her brow against the hinge of his jaw, letting herself relax against him. His opalescent eyes closed briefly.
What they had truly shared, no one could know.
Not even me.
"Thank you." Her back straightened. "Your generosity is appreciated, Celestial One. I am grateful to accept."
The princess stepped into the cupped palm of the dragon's claw and held out her hand to me. Her eyes met mine—mortal, grave, and dark.
I gathered my things and took her hand, climbing into the dragon's palm. Glistening claws clicked shut around us.
