Xi recognized the streets and the buildings when he descended from the faery hill into the human quarters. He did not recognize Sutao, the city that his mother left him in place of her love. It used to be the city of ambition, where one wiped the tears away out of sight. Today, the tears fell everywhere he looked, the taint of misery clogging the air. Even the fresh breeze from the Jade Sea could not relieve the suffocating press of too many people with too few comforts in a place too small to hold them.
The flowers of the monastery, Sayewa's alluring presence, the Celestial's crazy world - all of it became a distant dream between two strides on the cobbles. It was as if the skipped time shouldered its way in, pushing his memories backwards, but just how much time?
One winter could not have changed things this much, Xi thought, how long had I been away?
He cut through the crowd of beggars and refugees, keeping his ears open for the bits of conversations. The new Emperor was crowned, the youngest of Zha Yao's two sons. The Great Horde came from the North at the end of his first regnal year. The Secret Fleet is fighting at the Laughing Men Islands...
However tempted, particularly when his ear picked out Lord Maeng in the chatter, he did not stop. The questions circled his mind, multiplying. He had to get to someone who would not waste his time with their own questions.
"How long?" Xi asked the apprentice the moment he opened the gates of Rustam Bei's mansion.
The apprentice, the lanky Blackbird, drew him inside the gates. "Nearly two years, Master Chong Xi."
"Two years..." he repeated. The Emperor was eleven now, and his elder brother would have been fifteen if he did not inexplicably try to follow through the portal.
They took their shoes off by the threshold, and Blackbird led him into the still house. "I have letters waiting for your return. Master Rustam would doubtlessly send Fenghuang as soon as he sees you reappear in Tiandi. Tea?"
He nodded. "Yes, and the letters, please. Join me."
Zijun's letters, both old and new, he set aside unopened.
Rustam's letter he browsed, while Blackbird poured. It was strange to see Rustam coach his words as advice rather than instructions. "Hmm, stay in Sutao, do whatever it takes to wake the dragons... how bad are things? Did Tarkan fall?"
Blackbird frowned, his hsin rejecting Xi's new vagueness of expression. He answered the specific question first. "The attack came from the North, so Tarkan was spared, but it is now cut off by the Horde. The demons aim to overrun the heartland first."
The invisible claw relaxed its grip on Xi's guts. Tarkan was spared, so the people he knew were not drained of life yet. Maybe it should not have mattered, but it did.
"Xichon was torched again, but Zhenshi retreated in good order. The Northern border provinces are lost except for Hantao district around Kushan," Blackbird went on. "The Secret Fleet..."
"Fleet? We broke the treaty with the demons of the Laughing Men Islands that forbade building the navy?"
Blackbird nodded.
No big surprise there. It was a wonder that the treaty held for sixteen years. With the Northern Horde rolling in, their seafaring cousins would not have remained on standby. "Better we break it by building the defences, than them breaking it by ravaging us."
Xi ran his eyes over the last column of characters in Rustam's letter, advising him not to rush into taking the Imperial Oath to Emperor Tingkung. A mage of free will could prove an asset, Rustam wrote. He let the scroll's edge curl back up, and shifted his attention back to the apprentice.
"How did Emperor Hsuanji die?" If only his voice could be as firm as his former Master's hand.
"Ah... the official version is that a crimson dragon, each scale glittering with rubies, each feather etched in scarlet, carried the Emperor to Heavens to plead for the return of the dragons." Blackbird stared thoughtfully into the bottom of his cup, avoiding looking at Xi's. He was the best soothsayer in Rustam's Coven, so Xi used a trickle of understanding to mess up the leaves to make the reading impossible.
The secrets must remain secret, particularly the ones he only half-gleaned himself.
"What are your orders?"
Only the thinnest edge of resentment flashed in Blackbird's eyes as he stood up to bow. "To obey yours, Master Chong Xi." His Adam's apple spasmed when he swallowed the unsaid words after that.
Xi remained seated, waiting out on his once-comrade to either fight down his emotions or speak up. He could only hope he was less obvious with Sayewa every time his hsin twisted out of control, or that she was too preoccupied to bother with his inner turmoil. The disturbing sentiments dissipated the moment he stepped on human soil, faster than smoke is gone from the air, making Xi suspect that the desire was not real.
On the other hand, the illusion of Minh's presence would not leave him.
Blackbird's voice interrupted the daydream Xi'd nearly sunk into. "Kestrel is the Seventeenth, she is Mistress Peng Cui now, fighting in the North."
The chicks of Rustam's nest took wing, just like he did. Xi started to smile, but Blackbird swallowed again. "Canary, he did not pass. He's now in Lady Tien Lyn's refuge. It reflected poorly on the Master. He was not himself for a while, made me the senior apprentice, but forbade me to try... And he took Finch with him to the North."
Xi knitted his fingers. Canary flew too far, too fast, too high. "You did well here." It was true - the mansion showed no signs of neglect.
Blackbird dismissed the compliment with an unhappy chuckle. "You know what's funny, Xi? I used to dream about being the senior apprentice instead of Kest— Mistress Cui. Particularly after you'd left."
"Once Fenghuang is here, you will ride North to join Rustam. With me in Sutao, there is no need for you to stay," Xi said, getting up. "I am going to see my mother and Canary. Maybe there is something I can do."
The apprentice gave him a pitying look before bowing again, but did not say anything. Xi knew what was going through his mind, for it mirrored his own thoughts. What could you do, Chong Xi that Master Rustam Bei could not?