The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit, #2)

by K.X. Song

The taste of life had been sweet, hadn’t it? But it tasted sweetest when it was taken from you.

Everything reminds me of you. —Liu Sky, in a private missive, undelivered

“But I believe we’re more than our worst moments,” he told me, his voice quiet yet thrumming with authority. “It’s our best moments that have the power to define us.”

Meeting you was like glimpsing the sea for the first time. All rivers and streams faded; only you remained. —The Classic of Poetry, 532

The snow flowers have bloomed again, as you said they would. You once told me that you had no taste for violence, and I called you a fool, certain that violence would find you regardless of your inclinations. But now I see that I was the fool, for not daring to believe in a world beyond our kingdom’s ceaseless wars. Wherever you are now, I hope you have found that place. —Tong Peilun, in a private missive to Liu Winter, undated

What was independence anyway? What was the value of freedom without the power to use it?

This was the true price of power—that no matter how pure your intentions, relinquishing it was the hardest thing in the world.

“It’s time to find another way to live,” she said to me. “One that does not draw strength from the weakness of others.”

That was the danger with addiction, wasn’t it? It crept up on you, slowly, until you began to forget what life before was like. But this was how it felt—to breathe freely, to laugh with abandon, to hold someone in your arms and tell him you loved him, without restraint.

Whether the world remembered me or not, this was the legacy I’d leave behind: one of strength and weakness, vengeance and forgiveness. A girl who’d strived with all her might to obtain immense power, and then, rather than live and die by it, decided to give it all up.

That beyond ruin, there was hope. Beyond redemption, there was forgiveness.

I love you, I told him silently, reveling in the words I’d never before been able to say. I’ll come back to you. I hesitated, knowing it was selfish, asking it anyway. Don’t forget about me, okay? I won’t, he answered, holding me to him. I can’t.