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

by Amélie Wen Zhao

She closed her eyes and let her cheek rest against his shoulder. He was alive, he was alive. She could not be sure whether it was boy or god in control—but from the way he held her, she wanted to think there was some form of the boy who had loved her inside after all. They landed in the shadow of a cliff, softly. Zen knelt. His practitioner’s robes rippled around him in an invisible breeze, and Lan felt the qì surrounding them retreat.

“You told me you wished for me to never be alone again.” The words fell from her lips in broken, jagged pieces. Zen’s chest shifted as he drew in a sudden, rattling breath. His fingers tightened against her shoulders, pushing her back. His eyes were clear. He held her in place for a moment more. His gaze roved her face, from her chin to her lips to her eyes, as though committing every part of her to memory. Then he let go and stood. Qì blazed from Zen’s body again, fanning out like wings in the night, and with a single leap, he was gone, slipping through her fingers like wind.

Māma had been part of a rebellion—one that served neither the clans nor the Imperial Court but the people. It had aimed to destroy the Demon Gods and thus remove the source of power that the ruling parties struggled over. Together with Dé’zǐ, she had found and bound two of them: one in herself, the other in Skies’ End. That left the Black Tortoise and the Crimson Phoenix. Yet the pieces had shifted—the Black Tortoise was bound to Zen, but the Azure Tiger had been set free. The sole aspect of the equation that had remained the same was the mystery of the Crimson Phoenix. The imperial family was said to have held on to it—but the imperial family was dead.

She hesitated, then went on: “My mother told me that those with power were meant to protect those without. I know how dangerous it is. But I also know we cannot sit aside and watch our people suffer like…like this.” Lan met Dilaya and Tai’s eyes. “I want to find the Godslayer. I want to use the power of my Demon God against the Elantians. And I want both of you to keep me in check should I ever”—a sharp exhale, a memory of a beautiful face with fathomless black eyes—“should I ever lose control.” There was

She rose. “Then we journey westward. We find the Godslayer. We find the Azure Tiger and the Crimson Phoenix. We rally the forces of the Demon Gods against the Elantians. Then we destroy them all and rebuild this kingdom from the ground up.”

Well then, Sòng Lián, what will we accomplish together? Lan turned her gaze to the rising sun, toward the mountains where Skies’ End stood. Where the bodies of eight masters lay, amidst the ruins of what had once been a pinnacle of her culture, her heritage. The Sòng clan reached an agreement to serve the imperial family as advisors in an attempt to seek out the Godslayer, Dé’zǐ had said. Your mother included. “We travel west to Shaklahira, the Forgotten City,” Sòng Lián said to her Silver Dragon. “We hunt down the other Demon Gods to finish what my mother started. “Then, together, we destroy the Elantian regime.”

Zen had made sure to distance himself from the people he cared for most. He simply hadn’t managed to do it when it came to Lan. Even as he was now, even with her choice to stand against his goal, he could not imagine a world without her in it. He recalled, in the thick fog he’d been lost in last night, an instinct tugging on his heart. It might have been a dream, but he thought he remembered his arms around her back, breathing in the scent of lilies that clung to her, her hair tickling his cheeks. And her voice, a silver light in his world before the darkness of his Demon God had consumed him again.

Something settled in the pit of Zen’s stomach, and as the red sun arced over the horizon, it might have been another moment when the path of his life again cleaved into distinct paths. No looking back. No regrets. Whatever he had briefly thought possible with Lan would remain in that distant village on the mountains, suspended between dream and reality. If you are not with me, then you are against me.