Page 22 of Song of the Crimson Flower

“Bao’smother?” He turned on Bao. “You are of the Gray City?”

“I don’t know for sure, sir. I’m an orphan—or at least, I thought I was for my whole life—and I haven’t lived in the south since I was ten,” Bao said helplessly. “The witch claimed to be my aunt and said that my mother lived in the Gray City, but we only have her word to go on.”

“A band of smugglers conveys a wagonload of black spice to sell up north, and you two happen to be in the same place at the same time? And one of you is from the Gray City as well?” Commander Wei shook his head grimly and grasped Bao’s arm. They were the same height, but the Commander appeared twice as large to Lan in his ferocious armor. “That does it. I’m taking the two of you in for further questioning.”

“Please, we don’t know anything!” Lan cried, panicking, as the shorter soldier took her arm none too gently. “I told you the truth about who we are!”

“And if we verify that successfully, once the Empress has had a look at you, we will let you go,” the Commander answered, striding off without another word.

The Empress.Lan swallowed hard as the soldier steered her through the trees.What have you gotten yourself into this time, Vu Lan?She remembered her father joking that she could go south as long as Commander Wei escorted her, and felt a ripple of hysterical laughter in her throat. She wondered if she would ever see her parents again. She imagined being clapped into chains, like that dead man must have been when he was in the Iron Palace... or worse...

The short soldier yanked her through the underbrush. Twigs and branches scratched her face as they followed Bao and Commander Wei for several long minutes. Lan was beginning to wonder if they would ever emerge when the line of thick trees and bushes ended. An open field stood before them, littered with bodies like the one she and Bao had discovered—except some of them were still moving, groaning and dying all over the grass.

“Gods above us,” Lan whispered, her knees shaking. She had never seen death in all her life, excepting her grandmother, who had passed peacefully in her sleep, and now she’d had more than her fill in just anhour’s time. There was a metallic tang to the air, sharp and sour, and an aroma like burned, spoiled meat, making her stomach turn violently.

A few of the dying men wore the armor of the Great Forest, but the vast majority wore rags or tunics stitched with a single crimson flower. Armored officers bent to examine the fallen, turning over bodies and calling to each other. One of them ran up to the Commander and saluted.

“What news?” Commander Wei asked.

“It’s as you suspected, sir,” the officer said. “At least half of these smugglers have the brand of the Iron Palace on them. The Gray City is employing not only foreign pirates, but convicts and murderers. Some of them are even proudly wearing Mistress Vy’s mark. The sheer arrogance of displaying their affiliation when half the continent is ready to declare war on them.” He glanced disgustedly at a nearby body draped in the crimson flower emblem.

The Commander listened, still gripping Bao’s arm. “Send missives to the kings of the Sacred Grasslands and Dagovad at once. I will notify Empress Jade. And burn all these bodies.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer strode off, barking commands at the others.

Lan stumbled on the uneven terrain and made the mistake of looking down. The grass was covered in slick, dark liquid, and she gulped and looked quickly away before the torchlight could illuminate it. “Where are you taking us?” she demanded of the soldier who was leading her. “Commander Wei mentioned the Empress. Are we going to the Great Forest?”

Apparently, the Commander had sharper ears than a rabbit and had heard her query. “We’re not taking you to the Imperial City,” he said over his shoulder. “Her Majesty is waiting at an estate nearby.”

Lan perked up. Her father had many friends among the nobles ofthis region, and if one of them vouched for her, the Empress would surely let her and Bao go. “Which one?”

But the Commander was busy instructing another officer who had approached. “I don’t want their hands bound yet, but don’t let them out of your sight,” he said, pushing Bao toward the soldier. “Put them together on one horse and lead it. We should have plenty, now that...” He trailed off, his eyes on the open field littered with the bodies of his men.

The soldiers led Lan and Bao toward an enormous gray stallion. Her father owned several beautiful horses, but none so big as this one. It tossed its magnificent head and exchanged a look of mutual distrust with Lan as she came close to Bao, relieved to see him looking as solid as he had been all the way down the river. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine. You?” Bao returned, and she shrugged. “Have you ever ridden before?”

“Of course not. My mother thinks it an unladylike activity. What about you?”

“I’ve taken the Huynhs’ mare out on errands, but I’ve never ridden a war horse before.” Bao eyed the saddle, with its multiple straps and buckles and hidden pockets, with trepidation. “It looks ten times bigger and higher off the ground. But I can go in front, if you like.”

“Be my guest,” she said as one of the soldiers boosted Bao onto the stallion’s back.

The soldier lifted Lan up behind Bao, with one leg on each side. “Hold on tight,” he said mockingly as he walked away. “The Commander might decide to make you walk if you fall.”

“Great lumbering oaf,” Lan muttered. She shifted in the stiff, uncomfortable saddle and nearly slid right off the other side. She grabbed Bao around the middle to keep from tumbling to the ground and felt him tense at her touch. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he said shortly.

She put her hands on her legs, which seemed like a safe spot, but the horse decided to shift its weight at that moment and she had to grab hold of Bao once more. They sat in silence as the soldiers hurried around them, saddling horses, sheathing weapons, and carrying bodies. Lan saw that Bao was gripping the horse’s mane so tightly with one hand that his knuckles had turned white. He ran his free hand over his face, a gesture that was quickly becoming familiar to her. She opened her mouth to say something reassuring, but she knew that nothing would comfort him.

“I’m going to make the Empress believe me and let us go,” she said at last.

“The way you made Commander Wei believe you?”

Lan decided to ignore that jab. Bao was trapped, he was scared, and they were losing ground on the witch with every minute. She would be irritable in his place, too. “I don’t know why I couldn’t charm him. I spoke to him the way I do to my parents whenever I want something and it always works. I even smiled at him! But he insists on thinking I’m a smuggler.”

“I’m fairly certain no one on earth could think you were capable of smuggling.”

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