Page 81 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

He held his arms out and his long sleeves billowed like banners of war. “This is my true form. My harmless, bumbling human appearance requires me to expend magical energy. I take the trouble to do so in the palace, but I want you to know... I want you to see me as I am.”

She took a tentative step forward and the monk-creature placed the concubine’s knife on the ground. He backed away courteously so she could examine the body. In death, Lady Meng’s once pretty face resembled a drained, contorted melon. Kang had stabbed her through the chest a dozen times, and the deep blue silk she wore was black from the blood that had gushed out.

It seemed like years ago that Xifeng had bemoaned her fate in the village while Lady Meng rode past in a palanquin.

“I saw her with that knife and I knew she had come for you. I was too late to stop her.” He sank to his knees. “Forgive me, my queen, and accept her heart as my gift of apology.”

Xifeng closed her eyes. The girl’s lifeless face felt too much like a different version of her own future. Back in her town, she had longed to be Lady Meng. If that silly wish had been granted, she too might have been a concubine; she too might have been overpowered by desperation, by the tie to a man who neither loved nor valued her. By her hopeless longing for another and her sheer, breathtaking worthlessness.

But now Xifeng held the Emperor in the palm of her hand, and Lady Meng was dead.How generous is fate,she thought.And how cruel.

She bent to close the girl’s eyes, and underneath her pity grew the drumbeat of a relentless hunger, humming in her veins. “Tell me everything,” she commanded Kang.

“I was born to a poor village fisherman not far from your town,” he said softly. “When I was twelve, the black snake lured me to the cave as he had done with your mother. He transformed into a man and promised me wealth and power beyond my dreams. He invited me to join him and his priests.”

Kang spoke of a cave that was merely the mouth and throat of an entire world that had sprung up beneath the ground. There were dank woodlands, a serpentine jungle pungent with the breath of toxic flowers, an ocean that burned hotter than fire, and dagger-sharp mountains stabbing into the dark. This labyrinthine world housed the Serpent God’s demonic monastery.

“It is a sordid reflection of the heavens,” Kang whispered reverently. “The opposite of all that is goodness and light, balancing the whole universe. When I turned fifteen, he unleashed me from this dark world to establish myself in the Empress’s service and wait here for you. Ipretended to be weak. I allowed Lady Sun to have me beaten so everyone could see how harmless, how silly poor, fat Kang was.” His mouth cracked in a humorless grin.

Xifeng looked into his bottomless eyes. “I saw you at the encampment and the market.”

“When the time came, he gave me the task of protecting you and ensuring your entry into court. The Serpent God knows you have great enemies. Someone outside of the palace wanted so much to destroy you, they would have killed all in your party if given the chance.”

Xifeng’s blood froze. “The assassins who attacked us in the forest and killed two of Shiro’s men. Then theyweresent for me. But by whom? I thought Empress Lihua...”

“It was not her, but a threat far greater than any found on this earth. That is all I know. The Serpent God sent me to summon thetengaru,to stave off the impending violence in their forest—and rescue you. I had to get you to the palace alive.”

That was why thetengaruhad treated their group with fear and distrust. “The demons sensed something odd, something wrong about you. And therefore, me.”

Kang sneered. “Those mules boast about their magic when in truth, they would bow to the Serpent God in a second if he bothered to challenge them.” His nostrils flared. “There is an army in that world below the earth, my queen, a dark legion of men and beasts he created. In the sunlight, they appear as black snakes, spiraling in the depths. And they are at your command.”

The words raised the hairs on her arms and neck. “An army... atmycommand?”

The monk-creature’s mouth was an abyss of sharp teeth and scarlet tongue. “You are the consort chosen by His Dark Majesty. He saw youin the sands of time and the winds of fortune. Always, he sensed your presence,” he said. “The great queen who would help him overtake the continent that should have been his from the beginning. His mark is on every kingdom, mountain, and ocean. The arrogant lordling who called himself the Dragon King could never have dreamed the lowly Lord of Surjalana would be so worthy of that title. And the Lord of Surjalana, the Serpent God, in turn, dreamed of a queen worthy of ruling alongside him.”

Xifeng felt this truth wrap around her like an embrace.

Hunger throbbed in her veins, and her tongue emerged from her mouth, licking the salt of her lips like it was the sweetest lifeblood. Deep in the remote corners of her mind, the apple tree appeared. How far it seemed from her now, how removed. Perhaps it had never been meant for her after all; perhaps she didn’t want it to be. She had been chosen for something far, far greater.

“He found the witch who would be your mother and orchestrated your birth. He gave her the incense of snakeskin and black spice, and he left her the book of poetry to remind her what she owed him.” As Kang spoke, images flashed before Xifeng’s eyes: a woman screaming on blood-splattered grass, begging for death as a baby clawed its way out. “When she transmitted his teachings to you, she passed his spirit on as well, without knowing. And you allowed him to manifest his powers and thoughts within you.”

“But she denounced him. She burned what he had given her and turned her back on him.”

The monk-creature laughed softly. “She imagined herself to be free, the silly woman. But her soul became his the first time she adopted his teachings. It wouldn’t matter if she threw the cards of fortune into the deepest ocean. Once he takes hold, he never lets go.”

Xifeng exhaled. “It’s true, then. I told Guma he might be controlling her... controllingmeand my destiny all along.”

“Butyoumade the choices to get there.Youdid what it took to get yourself to the palace, to defeat your enemies, to put yourself before Emperor Jun. Your own two feet walked that dark road, as the Serpent God hoped they would.” Kang took a step closer, his dead eyes glimmering. “He is your father, your lover, your true king, and the maker of your fate. He loves you as no one ever has or ever will. Every heart you take, every drop of lifeblood you drink, brings you closer to him. The darkness you felt inside was his protection. He will be with you always and forever.”

“What would he have me do?”

The monster lowered himself beside Xifeng, his icy fingers running down her cheek. “Take your place as supreme Empress over all of Feng Lu. Strengthen yourself with the hearts of lesser beings and allow him to speak and act through you. And in return, you will have the whole of his power at your disposal,” Kang murmured. “There is only one true god, and it is him. You will gain control of the continent and deploy your army, and together the two of you will finish the work he started.Thisis your destiny. This is what your clumsy mother tried to engineer, believing it to be her own wish.”

Xifeng opened her eyes to see Guma’s face floating in the mirror-water.

A savage smile tore across Kang’s face. “She has been most useful to His Dark Majesty. But now her time is over and you must think of her no more. She has served her purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

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