Song of Silver, Flame Like Night (Song of the Last Kingdom, #1)

by Amélie Wen Zhao

His eyes were still fogged with exhaustion, but his voice was pleasant again, imperial and commanding, as when they had first met back at the Teahouse. “My name is Zen.” Zen. It was a monosyllabic moniker as ordained by the new Elantian laws—but it was something. A half-name, a half-truth…yet it would do for now. Lan pulled her lips into the ghost of a smile. “I’m Lan.”

Lan wrapped her arms around herself. The fabric her fingers gathered was unfamiliar. She looked down and realized she was still in his black coat, the sleeves hanging long from her shoulders. The practitioner had given it to her because the Angels had ripped her páo down the back seam.

She hesitated before dipping her head and touching her nose to the collar. Beneath the smells of grass and bamboo were hints of acrid smoke and incense…and an undoubtedly masculine scent. “Good morning.” Lan jumped. Zen stepped out from between the stalks of bamboo. He looked well rested and impossibly clean, hair wet and combed into some semblance of style, skin scrubbed of sweat and dirt and as shiny as pale jade. Even without his long coat, he was a regal sight in a white shirt tucked into black breeches. He’d removed his boots, and his bare feet made no sound as he approached.

What use are tears? Ying had murmured to her once, back when they had just crossed their twelfth cycle of life and the wounds of Lan’s losses still cut deep every night. The dead will neither feel them nor be called by them. Grief is for the survivors, and I think that, rather than living my life in pain, I would live it in laughter and love. To the fullest.

“Take your time to consider my request.” Zen stood, holding out a hand. Without thinking, Lan took it. He had slipped on his black gloves; his grip was tight as he steadied her by the elbows, drawing her close. Those eyes snapped across her like black lightning. “But I must warn you now that, should you refuse, I would have no choice but to kill you.” The statement was so dramatic that Lan let out a laugh. The practitioner frowned. “I do not jest,” he said. “I did not take it as a jest,” she replied, all traces of mirth vanishing as she met his gaze. “You think I am afraid of death? I have died many times over already, watching the Elantians take those I love one by one, knowing that I have no power to save any of them.”

She had not been able to protect Māma. Nor Old Wei. Nor Ying—nor any of the others at the Teahouse. Yet fate had come knocking at her door and presented her with this chance. She would take it. She would no longer be the flower. She would be the blade.

She saw it again, that flicker of darkness in his eyes—a wall of black flames. The dawn’s light was blood-red across his face, carving him into sharp angles and shadows. His hand tightened on hers briefly, then loosened, his grip fading to a light touch.

Needling him was the only thing keeping her from falling asleep. Besides, it was fun to watch his face tighten and his jaw clench.

“Everyone is born with qì inside them and all around them—qì is the makeup of this world. It is the flow of water, the gusting of wind, the roar of fire, and the steadiness of earth. It is day; it is night. It is sun and moon and life and death. Some people have an affinity for channeling qì and weaving different strands of it into Seals. With training, they can cultivate their ability and become practitioners. Think of it as how most people can hear music but only a few can become talented musicians.”

“I’m not doing this,” she said, rubbing at her face with her dirtied sleeves. “What kind of a ratfart instructor asks his student to close her eyes while running through a forest?” “ ‘Ratfart instructor’?” the accused ratfart instructor repeated, his eyebrows raised. Indignantly, Lan pushed herself to her feet. “What, never heard a village girl talk?” The sun had begun to dip in the sky; hardly a day had passed, yet she was already tired of putting on airs for the boy. He was refined where she was rough-cut; he was a scholar and she a songgirl; he spoke in riddles that befuddled her uneducated mind. “I suppose not,” Zen said with a sincerity that made it impossible for her to be angry at him.

She pushed a dramatic sigh through her nose and clutched her belly. “I’ve tried my hardest today, O Esteemed Practitioner.” Zen’s brows shot up. “Now I’m ‘Esteemed Practitioner’?” “Mister Esteemed Practitioner.” “We appear to be about the same age. I am not a ‘mister’ to you.” “Well, you certainly act like one,” she retorted. At the irritated look he gave her, she pouted.

He ignored her as he shed his black glove, and she was again startled by the appearance of his flesh: pale skin marred by dozens of tiny, eerily uniform scars that shone white in the moonlight. She’d seen it the night before, back in Haak’gong, for a brief few moments.

A familiar scent wafted from it. “Jujubes!” Lan exclaimed. “We used to steal—I mean, hoard—them from our kitchens. They were expensive, and the Madam was stingy.” Something softened in Zen’s face. “Drink it,” he said. “Our Master of Medicine advises boiled jujubes for…for girls…at certain…certain times.” In the firelight, his cheeks had reddened, and he averted his gaze from hers, suddenly busying himself with gathering the fú and tucking them back into his silk pouch.

His voice was pleasant, velvet as the darkness around them, blending into the gentle whisper of wind and chorus of cicadas that had begun to arise in the forest night.

Behind him, Lan froze. The grip of her hand on his arm relaxed and she stepped forward. “That song.” Her voice was filled with wonder as she turned to him, and it was a look he would never forget: her expression was open with curiosity, eyes bright like a star-strewn night. “I know it. It’s…it’s my mother’s. I was just thinking about it.”

She tipped her head up to Zen. “All the stories I’ve read depicted them as malicious creatures. Why is that?” He knew the answer—the full answer, the true answer—to that question. He knew it all too well, having carved it into his bones and inked it into his blood. No. The truth hurt, so much that he’d decided to look the other way twelve cycles ago.

Her eyes were wide, reflecting the ink bowl of stars overhead. Zen stood abruptly. The night had chilled, and a lone wind swept past the fabric of his clothing, sinking into his skin.

He tried to ignore the look of gratitude she gave him. Hearing mysterious songs in the night, being chased by an Elantian Alloy, and now a vision directing her to one of the schools that had been run by members of the clans of old…If taking her there would bring him one step closer to understanding it all, Zen would do it.

Zen loved it out here. There was a grand, untamed beauty to this kingdom that no poem or epic could do justice. Mountains plunged into the silver skies above, mists coiled around them like sleeping dragons. Rivers grew wide and plentiful, spilling into lakes that might have been oceans. One morning, he woke to a flock of white herons taking flight, their majestic wingbeats echoing long after they were barely stitches against a silken blue sky. Here was a land unsullied by Elantian rule. A land he could still fight for.

She was pleasing; laughter came to her quickly, sparking across her face like wind brushing against chimes. Where he had always found conversation a chore, it seemed to delight her—a talent he attributed to her cycles of working at the Teahouse. Once or twice, he thought he caught a glimpse of the stubborn girl who’d unflinchingly smashed a teacup into his head, but otherwise she seemed determined to get along with him, or at least try.

Her left arm rested on his knees as his fingers paused to prod acupuncture points with small bursts of qì. He supposed it shouldn’t, but the fact that she had stopped flinching or shying away when he touched her arm inexplicably pleased him.

She smiled drowsily at him. “I’m sure you can do it.” Zen focused on her arm. It was these moments when she regarded him with complete trust that he found most difficult to guard against.

He looked into the fire. “Back home, it snowed a lot. We used to wake up to a different type of silence, a knowing that the world was spun anew and that winter had arrived. The song comes from there: ‘The Sound of Snow Falling.’ ” “You’re right,” Lan said. “I don’t know it.” Her face lit in a devious smile as she scooted closer to him, propping her elbows in her lap and cupping her chin with her hands. “Which means you must teach me.”

Her páo unfurled in a fall of white, and though she held his jacket carefully to cover the torn parts of the bodice, she was nonetheless graceful as she began to dance. The song that spun from her lips was the most beautiful that Zen had ever heard: a soft, masterful rendition of his. The pale light of the moon dusted her silhouette, catching the edges of her smile. And Zen let himself drink in the sight of her as he had back at the Teahouse, the night around them disappearing as he fell into her spell of snow and silver, and a homeland he now knew only from memory.

Lan blinked, forcing herself to focus, and found the practitioner’s face looming very close to hers. Somehow, she’d clawed a fistful of his shirt, drawing him down. Locks of his hair were plastered to his forehead, and his eyes darted between hers. Searching. There was a storm in those eyes, a swirl of fire and smoke, of a war raging deep inside him.

From an inner pocket, she palmed something. It took Zen a moment to recognize it. It was the butterknife from the Teahouse—the one she’d held when he’d first found her in the Peach Blossom Room, a dead Angel on the floor. She’d raised it with full conviction on her face, as though her entire life were staked upon the little piece of glass. It was with the same expression that she turned to face the direction of the approaching Elantians—only he saw the full truth of it now: not the courage of a warrior who would go down fighting, but the desperation of a girl with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

The energies around them rippled, weighing heavier with the stench of metal with each passing moment. Nearby, he heard the snapping of twigs, the even press of boots against the ground as the Elantian army neared. He swallowed. “Hold me tightly.” Her arms were small yet strong as they cinched around his waist. He felt her press her cheek to his chest, her ear resting against his heart.

I can be of use to you, she’d said to him the first night they’d met. Rain-darkened lashes, eyes like pebbles beneath water, lips trembling. Beneath it all, there had been fire. He’d sensed it. Any ordinary person might have given up, but the girl—she’d looked straight at him and asked him for an equivalent exchange. Zen drew her closer, anchoring himself against the maelstrom in his mind.

“I need no introduction to an Elantian whore with a single-character name,” Dilaya snarled. “Me neither,” Lan said. “Only that whore has a three-part name.” It was almost worth the trouble it might have brought her to see Shàn’jūn nearly drop the bowl he held.

A streak of white light shot skyward before her, cleaving the chamber in monochrome. Lan gasped and flung her hands before her eyes; she heard porcelain shatter, someone hiss, and harried footsteps approaching— Black flames rose to wreathe the silver light.

“You have the look of a lover in mourning.” Zen started. “Sh-shī’fù?” Dé’zǐ gave him a sly look. “The girl will be well,” he said. “Shàn’jūn is as fine a medicine man as they come.” Zen’s face heated. At the core of his worries was Lan—naturally, as recent events had seemed to follow in her wake—but he’d given no indication of that to his master. And he certainly was no “lover in mourning.”

Dé’zǐ peered into his pupil’s face. “Oh? Do you care nothing for whether the girl lives or dies? You risked a great deal, bringing her here.” Sometimes his master truly tested him. “Forgiveness, shī’fù,” Zen said stiffly. “Of course, I wish her well. I merely meant she was not a priority, in the grand scheme of things.” “Hmm. We may all very well be surprised,” Dé’zǐ said, and turned to face Zen properly.

And the other figure…Something stretched taut inside Zen as he beheld her. Lan had changed into disciple’s robes that were large for her small songgirl’s frame. She held both hands before her in defense. A sliver of bandages showed on her midriff; as she lowered her arms, she winced, one hand going to her wound from the Elantian arrow. Her face was pale and drawn, but a spark of fire ignited in her gaze as she turned to Dilaya. “Don’t touch me, you horse-faced fox spirit,” she spat. Zen fought back the ridiculous urge to laugh.

“Dilaya.” Zen inclined his head, keeping his tone even. As always, he could not bring himself to look at her face, to meet her one gray eye and the dark eye patch, the mark of his mistake that haunted him to this day. “This girl has been my charge. Any crimes she has committed, any taboos against the school, are mine to bear. Though I do request that you think before accusing anyone of anything egregious.” He sensed when Lan looked up sharply at him.

Zen felt his entire body freeze over. There it was, the stain to his name that could never be erased. The proof that the scholars and emperors of the Middle Kingdom had been right to fear demonic power.

Dé’zǐ’s face broke into a crinkled smile. “Ah, our new friend. Lan, is it?” Zen sent a prayer to his ancestors that the girl’s next words would not break the taboos of the school and get her expelled before she even started. But all that she said, voice high and clear as bells, was “Yes.”

The steel in her expression cast Zen back to the morning after they had met, the sun breaking fierce over her face. He had known this girl for her joviality, her quick wit and words, yet there had been no hint of a jest on her face at that time. Teach me to be powerful, so that I will not have to watch another person I love fall to the Elantian regime.

When she came to, sunlight slanted gold across the windowsill. A late-afternoon breeze stirred across her cheeks, bringing with it the distant chimes of bells and the sound of laughter. For a moment, she might have been back at the Teahouse, rousing from an evening nap, the chattering of songgirls at their chores drifting upstairs to her.

“So,” she said, wishing to turn the subject to something other than deadly Elantian spells and noxious-tasting caterpillar stews, “ ‘Shàn’jūn.’ ‘Kind, Noble One’?” He smiled and lowered his gaze in a gesture that rendered him unfairly pretty, soft black hair framing his slim face, eyes that curved with the flutter of long, dark lashes.

Lan shivered. “The Elantians came to your village?” “No.” He touched his lip. “My parents discarded me.” It seemed like a deeper betrayal, to find out that it was Hin who had chosen to leave him for dead.

Lan found herself smiling. It was so easy to slip into the carefree warmth of the safety and security the school offered. But like shadows seeping in came memories of Haak’gong, of the metal-clad Angels who had stormed the thin wooden doors of the Teahouse, the screams that had echoed in rooms once filled with song and laughter.

“I feel fine now,” Lan said hastily, pushing the bowl back toward him. “Are you sure this stuff’s healthy for you?” “You are in good hands,” came a voice. Zen stood in the doorway, practitioner’s páo falling in an elegant sweep. The setting sun gilded him as he stepped over the threshold, black boots thudding across the wooden floor. He inclined his head.

There was a new caution to the way Zen moved around her that made Lan feel as though she were a barrel of firepowder that might explode at any time. Zen had led her to a natural courtyard, framed by outgrowths of rock and stone. The blood of sunset was fading, chased by a watery gray aftermath followed by ink-black night. Birdsong had been replaced by the steady chirp of cicadas through the brush. The entirety of Skies’ End was so beautiful Lan felt as though she’d sunk into a dream. A miracle. An impossibility.

She was aware of Zen watching her closely. When she turned to look at him, he quickly dipped his gaze down to her arm.

She tapped a finger of her good hand to her chin. “Well, now that you mention it…” Alarm flared in Zen’s expression. “What?” “I feel something inside me. A voice, whispering to me…telling me it hungers…” Zen leaned closer. “Hungers for what?” “…for steamed pork buns,” Lan finished. The practitioner drew back, giving her a flat look. “You mock me.” “I wouldn’t dare.” “There are some topics you must not jest about.” “What, so I can become as fun as you?” Lan poked her tongue out.

Zen’s expression softened, and she pushed on: “And I’d do it again. You’ve never had the need. You don’t know what it’s like, to suffer at the hands of the Elantians.” “And if I did?” His gaze was sharp as a black blade. They were close, so close that she felt tension drawing tight between them like a bowstring. There was something so intimate to his words, so private to the way he regarded her, eyes flaming with a mix of anger and vulnerability at once.

The anger swept from Zen’s face, leaving only a sorrow so profound that, for a moment, his eyes seemed to be drowning in it, a lake beneath a starless night. He turned from her, tilting his face to the darkening sky. A lock of hair fell over his forehead. Lan had the sudden, strange urge to brush it back.

“Lan,” he said, and somehow her name coming from his mouth unsteadied her into silence.

She had never heard this part of her kingdom’s history before. The last rays of sun had ebbed from the world. Like a tipping scale, the moon rose on the other side of the sky, its fluorescence carving the boy before her into black and white, parts known and hidden. Lan thought of the way his eyes had turned black, of the scars on his hands, of the storms in his eyes, and suddenly felt ashamed of her own lightheartedness on the subject matter.

“Stop calling me ‘mister.’ I am not so much older than you.” “Then stop acting like it.” “I have a better idea.” He leaned forward and gave her a look so searing, she had the sudden impression that his propriety had all been an act. “How about I teach you, personally?”