Page 9 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

She saw despair in Guma’s eyes, but knew better than to hope it came from love. Her aunt only mourned the loss of the riches shemight have had at the palace. With one hand, she would push Xifeng toward the Emperor, and with the other, she would reap the rewards for herself.

“I’m sorry for hurting you.” Xifeng’s hands shook as she snapped the cane in half over her leg.

“We only have each other,” Guma pleaded. “You are all I have left... daughter.”

Xifeng closed her stinging eyes so she wouldn’t see her aunt’s pleading face. She grabbed her sack and held it close to her body, like a shield.

Guma’s cajoling manner shifted instantly at this display of resolve. “You’ll always be mine. You’ll never be free of me,” she spat. Her eyes flickered to the side and Xifeng tensed, knowing wounded animals were always more dangerous. Guma had taught her that, too.

But she was only looking at a basin of water on the floor nearby. Xifeng caught a glimpse of her own reflection: oval face, slanting eyes, raven hair spilling over her shoulders. She saw the way she held herself, chin lifted and shoulders back to display her long neck and small, high breasts. Just as Guma had instructed her. An obedient puppet to the very last.

She turned her head and gasped at the blur of angry scarlet marring her left cheek. “What have you done?” she whispered, holding her trembling fingers over it.

“It’s your own fault, making me so angry.” The gentle tone had returned. “Come, let me wash the blood away and put some salve on it. You are my child, Xifeng, and I’ll always take care of you.”

Even flat on her back in pain, Guma had the power to make her want to collapse, to cast the die once more by running into her arms and hoping this time, she would be embraced and not beaten. But thecut on Xifeng’s face and the fragments of the cane in her hands told her the truth.

“Goodbye, Guma,” Xifeng said, waves of fury and sorrow rippling through her. “I’ll give the Serpent God your regards if I see him again.”

“I hope it scars, you ungrateful little snake!” her aunt howled after her. “You’re nothing but a disappointment...”

In the corridor, Xifeng pushed past a wide-eyed Ning, who held out a lumpy cloth sack that she accepted wordlessly. And then she left that house behind forever, holding the memory of Guma’s terrified expression like a flame in her black heart.

For eighteen years, the dusty, forgotten town had been Xifeng’s world. The ramshackle buildings, the swamps with their prowling rock-skinned alligators, and the river on the forest’s edge were all she had ever known. But now, from the back of Wei’s old horse, it seemed thetrueworld lay open to her. She could go anywhere and do anything.

“Wouldn’t you like to see the desert?” she asked, her arms wrapped around Wei. She pressed her face into his shoulders, inhaling the familiar scent of forge fire and grass. He smelled like home, and the thought of taking a piece of home with her made leaving a bit less terrifying.

“I’m guessing that’s a little farther from here than the Imperial City.”

She heard the smile in his voice and felt a rush of giddy happiness. “You don’t regret leaving with me, then?”

“I was the one urging you to go,” he said, laughing as he closed his fingers over hers. “My home and my life are with you, wherever you are.”

“And mine are with you.” The words slipped out before she couldhelp it. She breathed him in, closing her eyes against the painful reality of his love. To stand at a distance was to feel its comfort... but to come closer would be letting him believe something that could never be, if Guma’s prediction came to pass.

Thinking of her aunt made Xifeng lightly touch her cheek, wincing at the sting. Each step took her farther away, and she didn’t know whether to feel elated or sad.

“Does your face hurt much?” Wei asked, sensing her movement.

She placed her palm over the wound. “It’s fine.”

“You’ll miss her at first, I’m sure. But with time, it will grow easier.”

“I know she never loved me, but she must feel my loss. She has only Ning now.” Xifeng suddenly remembered the sack the girl had given her and opened it in wonder. “She packed food for us. A carrot, two plums, some mushrooms, and a handful of chestnuts.”

“There’s half a supper for one of us,” Wei teased, and she hit him playfully.

“She must have stolen what she could. She knew it wouldn’t end well with Guma.” The fruits were bruised and the mushrooms withered, but Xifeng smiled all the same. Poor little Ning, who had wished to return her kindness. “The desert was her favorite, too, out of all the five kingdoms of Feng Lu. She’d forget to keep sewing whenever I recited a poem about Surjalana. How Guma would scold!”

“Surjalana.” Wei rolled the name around in his mouth. “It sounds like a delicious pastry.”

Xifeng laughed. She had always been drawn to tales of the fiery kingdom of sand and the spiteful Lord of Surjalana, the god who had once ruled it. “I read all I could about it. I wanted to run away and wander its marble cities. Sleep under the stars with a caravan of goods to sell.”

“You were lucky. Your aunt did well to give you an education,” Wei admitted gruffly.

He had worked all through childhood, helping his aging parents on their farm, and there had never been time for anything else. He was the last and best of four sons, his brothers vanishing with promises of riches only to return in shrouds, having met not fortune on the road but Death himself in the guise of illness and war. After his parents died, Wei found work in town. His education lay in the blades and arrows he shaped with fire, and in each coat of plates he assembled with his own hands. He had wrapped himself in swordcraft the way Xifeng had in tales of far-off lands, and had found his own comfort there.

“I may not be educated, but it won’t be hard to find work in the Imperial City. I’ll seek out another craftsman and make a name for myself.” Wei paused. “Going there was what Guma wanted you to do, wasn’t it? What did she intend for you, anyway?”

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