The Queen confronts the Mastermind

Queen Zhu roars. With one of her paws, she pushes down the fox’s head. It whines pitifully as the sharp claws dig into its skin, the white fur stained crimson with blood. Another roar and with it a blizzard, freezing the fox. I don’t know if it’s dead or just badly hurt, but it doesn’t move anymore. Queen Zhu stands up and leaps into the sky. I follow her, flying after her into the palace. She lands directly on the plaza in front of the main hall, where our people are in a standoff with the enemy shifters. The ones outside the palace ground don’t fare much better. Our troops are surrounded, yet for the moment the fighting has ceased.

Queen Zhu shrinks down as she shifts back, staying in her half-dragon form. Evidently more practised in this me, she is wearing an elaborate, white and silver robe, her hair pinned up not less beautifully, silver pins to accent it. There are two large horns growing out of her forehead, curved and shining like polished steel. Her tail flicks back and forth angrily, like that of a cat.

“Don’t follow her too closely,” Murong Zhiyu says inside my head. “There’s another entrance to the throne room.”

With the light of my scales dimmed, I circle around the building to land on the garden behind it. The walls are solid at first glance. Even with the moonlight cautiously glancing out between the clouds, I can’t see anything. Under Murong Zhiyu’s instruction I shift back into human form. These constant changes are exhausting, but I know that my exhaustion is the smallest problem we have right now.

Everything has been turned on its head. The early attack, the different approach of their advance on the city, the defeat of our army and the capture of Zhu Chun… The outcome rests on the direct confrontation between Queen Zhu and Gu Shuai now. If this goes wrong, no matter how much everyone cooperates, no matter how much Feng Yu and Liu Renqing love each other, I will have failed.

The shadows provide cover as I sneak behind the bushes, and find a stone in the wall close to the ground. It’s small and unassuming, and my fingers shake as I push it. A wooden pillar slides to the side and I slip into the building, turning a handle in the small space to close the gap behind me. I walk along the long, narrow corridor, until I reach a gap in the wall, and emerge hidden behind a decorative curtain.

“We’re behind the throne now,” Murong Zhiyu says in my head. “If Gu Shuai is sitting on it, I can dispatch him from here.”

I wonder how she can stay so calm when the room has broken out into pandemonium. Even if I try to concentrate to sense what’s going on, there’s just a confusing mass of energy, everything intertwined. I make an attempt to move and am immediately stopped by my muscles locking up.

“Don’t. If you join the fight now, we lose the element of sur—”

“Qing-ge!!” Feng Yu’s voice rings out, loud and desperate.

Even Murong Zhiyu jolts, yet she doesn’t move. No matter how much I try to fight against it, she doesn’t budge.

“This is bigger than us,” she says gravely.

“Even if they both die?”

“Even if they both die.”

Silence falls over the room in the wake of Feng Yu’s scream. I don’t know what happened, but it seems there must be a standoff. Then I hear footsteps over the walkway and someone coming closer.

“Down,” I hear Gu Shuai say, and in response, Zhu Chun whimpers in pain.

I don’t need to see what happened, I can imagine it just as well. Gu Shuai has taken a seat on the throne he wants, the hostage at his feet.

“Let her go!” Queen Zhu demands.

Gu Shuai laughs. “I should let the commander of the army sent to annihilate me and all of the white fox kind go? I think not. Her sins are too vast to forgive with a simple death, so I’ll keep her to pay for them.”

“Chun’er…”

Zhu Chun doesn’t reply. I only hear Gu Shuai laugh. “I heard you have four children. Where are they when the city is under attack?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“No, you’re right. You don’t owe us anything. You’re just a stepping stone on the path to the empire. They owe us everything. They exploited and killed our kind for as long as anyone can remember. And when they couldn’t deal with us publically anymore, they shipped us off to a deadly desert, forbidding us to ever return to the land of our ancestors. But we didn’t die, as they hoped. We made a home, not in the desert, but with new friends, who hate the empire as much as us, and together we grew strong enough to take the fertile lands we should have been living on for so long.”

His people, distributed around the room, keeping Xiyang’s forces at bay, shout their agreement in dialects I can barely understand. Even Gu Shuai has a heavy accent, but he makes an effort so his insults can be understood.

“It is your misfortune that you live here, right where we start our invasion. Your lives can be a sacrifice I am willing to make, but I am not a ruthless leader, such as the empress of the south. Surrender to us, and I will let you live as my captives.”

“Are you stupid enough to think my mother will agree to those terms?” Zhu Chun shouts and earns a kick for her trouble, evident in her pained shout.

I reach for my sword.

“What are you doing?” Murong Zhiyu hisses.

“Making an opening. I need to see.”

She doesn’t stop me as I cut a small hole into the curtain. I can look through it with one eye. In front of me, I see the throne at an angle, which enables me to catch sight of Gu Shuai’s feet and part of Zhu Chun, lying on the floor next to him. Between us is the milky water, which fills most of the room. I still don’t know how deep it actually is.

“Very deep.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s filled with pure water directly from the vicinity of the artefact. My mother uses it as a safeguard and power reserve.”

“Can we use it?”

“Our whole family can. But what good does it do us when he kills San-mei?”

“Submit to me or you will regret it,” Gu Shuai says.

He takes a deep breath and tips forward, shifting into the form of a large, white fox with a golden shimmer to his fur. Around his eyes and at the tips of his ears, there is crimson, as deep as blood. His eyes shine in an orange ember as he regards the room. Immediately, Zhu Chun wiggles away from him, trying to turn towards the water. He doesn’t see her! Gu Shuai’s eyes are trained on Queen Zhu, who stares him down, the very air between them charged. She can get away! She can—Gu Shuai steps on her with one of his paws without even looking.

“I am also not a ruthless leader. I do care for my family,” Queen Zhu says. “I do not want to see any of my children die. But if you think I will let you take this city, you are a very stupid man.”

“So you don’t care if I end her life?” Gu Shuai asks, pressing down with his leg.

Zhu Chun is gasping for breath under the weight. I can see her trying to shift into her dragon form, but the bindings seem to suppress her powers completely, as her horns appear and disappear like they’re flickering.

“None of our lives is worth more than the safety of the empire. Xiyang is their first line of defence and our family has always stood with the empress.”

“She has always been like this,” Murong Zhiyu says. It doesn’t sound sad. It’s just the statement of a girl, who had to leave her home as a young child, training to fulfil her role given by destiny through being born into the Zhu family.

“Your army has been crushed. Your city is conquered. I am sitting on your throne. What could you possibly do?”

“You underestimate my power.”

“The arrogance of dragons never fails to astound me. Do you assume no one can stand up to you?”

“I do not need to assume. I know,” Queen Zhu says.

She waves her hand and from the depths of the water, shards of ice shoot to the centre of the room. They never reach Gu Shuai. All of them shatter against an invisible wall, disintegrating into fine snow, which fills the air with icy mist. As it fades, Gu Shuai no longer stands alone. Next to his head, Zhu Chun stares down her mother, hands raised, power visibly swirling around them. She is no longer tied up.

“Chun’er?”