Descendants of the Dragon, Book One: The Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 14: The Divinity Stone

The sparring match had turned out exactly how Jia had expected: quick and painless. For her, anyways.

"You've got something on your face, bruv," Aiden said to Liang, while snickering.

Jia, for the sake of good sportsmanship and poise, did not laugh along with Aiden and Sam, but that did nothing to weigh down her high spirits, marked by the light spring in her step. She did not need to join in the mockery and add insult to injury. The black eye, split lip, and many bruises she'd given Liang were enough to satisfy, especially since she knew it could be up to a week for the injuries to fully mend without the aid of a healer.

"Did you even hit her once?" Aiden said, continuing his ribbing. "Let me guess. You took the high road and went easy, because she's a girl. Who said chivalry was dead, am I right?"

"If you keep talking, I am going to break your legs," Liang growled. "Then you would have to squirm around like a fat caterpillar."

"That is quite enough," Captain Zhensheng said, intervening. Jia couldn't see his face, but he sounded weary. She wasn't exactly surprised. The other Heirs behaved like toddlers, and it was up to the captain to oversee them.

"He started it!" Liang protested.

Behold, the fate of the city! Jia thought disdainfully. Such children.

"Where are you taking us?" Sam asked, breathing heavily, as they made their way up the One-Thousand Steps. Although he was in good shape, the stairs were still a challenge for him. It wasn't much, but she took a petty pleasure in every one of his faults. She felt the most competition from him. Probably because Aiden and Liang were both incompetent idiots, and they were not of the nobility. Sam, on the other hand, could pose a real threat in the near future.

"We've seen the palace already," Aiden said, clutching his left side. He winced and forced his feet to take another step. "My sides feel like they're being stabbed with butcher knives. We should get a royal elevator installed."

"We are going to the palace gardens," Chen said, purposefully passing over Aiden's remark.

"Oh, yeah, the one with those peaches," Aiden said. "I could use one of those right now."

"The Peaches of Immortality are long gone, but yes, it is that garden," Chen replied

"Why?" Jia asked. "The gardens are undeniably beautiful and significant, but the Mongolian and I have seen them many times before. What else is there to see?"

"The Mongolian has a name," Liang muttered.

"There is one more secret that the garden holds. However, unlike the peaches, this one still exists," Kun replied.

Jia's face turned stony, and her fingers curled tightly into her palms. "And why have I not been privy to this information before?"

"Because this is a secret held only by those most entrusted by the city," Chen said, not at all perturbed. "Being nobility is not enough to grant you all of the city's many secrets. That has changed now that you are an Heir. You have more privileges available to you."

Jia knew better than to argue, but she was still upset. That meant her father probably knew about this secret—whatever it was—and he had felt it best to not tell her about it. Her father understood that information was a weapon, and he took great care in arming her with every piece he had available, even secrets. The fact that he had not entrusted her with this apparently vital secret was unsettling.

As they wandered into the palace gardens, Jia realized that she did not feel the same nostalgia that she once felt when drifting through the beautiful scenery. That should have made her sad, as the gardens had once been her private, peaceful getaway, but she felt nothing. Her incident with her mark had sullied her fondness of the gardens.