Chapter 117: Intruders!

The festival unfolded around them.

Dragons danced in patterns that had been old when the lowlands were new. Musicians played instruments made of crystal and light. Food appeared on tables that had been empty a moment before, dishes that steamed and glowed and smelled like nothing Bai Yue had ever eaten.

She stood at the edge of it all, watching, and tried to remember that she belonged here.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Han Shān said.

“I’m trying to figure out if this is real.”

“It’s real.”

“The stars are falling.”

“The Festival of Falling Stars. That’s the point.”

“But they’re—they’re falling. And then they’re not. They’re just—” she gestured vaguely, “—floating.”

Han Shān’s lips curved. It was barely a smile, but it was there. “They’re light. Captured light. The dragons harvest it from the upper peaks. They release it during the festival. It’s a tradition.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yes.”

He wasn’t looking at the stars.

Bai Yue’s cheeks warmed. She looked away, searching for something, anything, to focus on.

She found Yòu Lín.

The fox cub was in the center of the plaza, his small form somehow visible through the press of dragons. He was dancing. Or attempting to dance. His movements were enthusiastic rather than graceful, his tail wagging in rhythm with a beat he seemed to have invented himself.

And across from him, matching his chaos move for move, was Glimmer.

The baby dragon’s scales were blazing green, her feet stomping in a pattern that might have been a traditional dragon dance and might have been pure invention. She was laughing. Yòu Lín was laughing.

A ring of dragons had gathered around them, watching. None of them looked disapproving. Most of them were smiling.

“Yòu Lín is teaching the dragons to dance,” Yàn Shū observed, appearing at Bai Yue’s elbow. “Or possibly the dragons are teaching him. It’s difficult to tell.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Across the plaza, Ruì Xuě was perched on Cāng Jì’s shoulders, his purple eyes wide as he watched the falling stars. The golden dragon was pointing at the constellations, explaining something, and Ruì Xuě was nodding.

Bai Yue’s heart ached with joy. She scanned the crowd again, looking for—

There.

Hán Bīng was standing near the edge of the plaza, her hair loose for once, catching the light from the waterfalls. Beside her, his arm almost brushing hers, was Elder Emberglow.

The old dragon had changed. His robes were new, or at least newer, dark gray with silver thread that matched the streaks in his hair. His scales, usually dull, were gleaming. He was saying something, something that made Hán Bīng’s lips curve in a way that was almost a smile.

Han Shān made a sound beside her. “Is that—”

“Your mother,” Bai Yue confirmed.

“With the dragon.”

“With the dragon.”

“The old dragon. The one who—” He stopped.

“She’s smiling,” Bai Yue said.

“She never smiles.”

“She’s smiling now.”

Han Shān watched his mother laugh at something Elder Emberglow said. Watched the old dragon’s face light up in response. His expression shifted through several stages: shock, confusion, and finally, resignation.

Before they could say anything again, the music stopped.

The crystals dimmed. The floating waterfalls, moments ago blazing with captured starlight, went dark. The dragons who had been dancing stumbled, confused, their hands falling away from their partners. The laughter died. The whispers started.

Bai Yue’s hand found Han Shān’s arm. “What’s happening?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the far end of the plaza, where the grand staircase led up to the Burning Sky’s palace. Where something was coming down.

“They wouldn’t,” Cāng Jì’s voice came from somewhere to her left. He had Ruì Xuě tucked against his chest, his arms wrapped around the cub, his face pale. “They wouldn’t dare. Not here. Not tonight.”

“Who?” Bai Yue demanded. “Who wouldn’t dare?”

The staircase darkened.

Three dragons emerged from the shadows. They were not like the dragons Bai Yue had come to know. Cāng Jì was golden and dramatic. Cāng Yáo was glittering and loud. The Burning Sky was ancient and terrible, but there was warmth in him now, buried deep but there.

These dragons had no warmth.

They walked through the crowd like it wasn’t there. Dragons who had been laughing moments before pressed themselves against the walls, their scales flattening, their eyes going anywhere but forward.

At the head of them was a dragon Bai Yue had never seen before. He was massive, broader than Han Shān, taller than the Burning Sky.

His scales were the color of dried blood, flaking at the edges like something that had been left in the sun too long. His hair was white, not the silver-white of Hán Bīng or the soft white of Ruì Xuě, but the white of bone.

He stopped in the center of the plaza. His eyes found the Burning Sky.

“Brother,” he said.

What?….

“Dà Jiāo Huǒ has a brother?” Bai Yue breathed.

Han Shān’s grip on her arm tightened. “Not literally. That’s how old dragons refer to themselves.”

Oh.

The Burning Sky stood at the far end of the plaza, Zhēn still in his arms, her small face pressed against his chest. He had not moved when the music stopped. He had not moved when the lights went out.

Now, slowly, he raised his head.

“Lóng Wēi,” he said.

“You were not invited.”

Lóng Wēi smiled. “Was I not? How unfortunate. I must have lost the invitation.” He looked around the plaza, at the frozen dancers, the dark waterfalls, the frightened faces pressed against the walls. “It seems I’ve missed quite a celebration.”

“You are not welcome here.”

“Am I not? This is my home as much as yours, brother. The peaks belong to all of us. Or have you forgotten?”

“I have forgotten nothing.”

“Then you remember what happened the last time you tried to keep me out.”

The Burning Sky’s hand moved. Just slightly. Just enough to shift Zhēn higher against his chest, to tuck her small face more firmly against his robes.

“You will leave,” he said, “or I will make you leave.”

Lóng Wēi’s smile widened. “You think you can? With your court in chaos? Your guards scattered? Your attention divided between your throne and a—” his eyes flickered to the bundle in the Burning Sky’s arms, “—a lowlander infant?”

The word landed like a slap.

Bai Yue’s blood went cold.

Around her, she felt her family shift. Han Shān’s hand left her arm, his body turning toward the center of the plaza. Zhāo Yàn’s tails had gone very still, very flat, the way they did before he struck. Yàn Shū was no longer breathing. She could hear Hóng Yè somewhere behind her, his voice low and fierce, telling You Lin to stay back, stay back, stay back.

Cāng Jì was moving. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, handing Ruì Xuě to someone, Wēn Jìng, she realized, the grandmother had appeared from nowhere, and stepping forward, his face pale but his shoulders straight.

“You heard my father,” he said, his voice hard. “This is not—you cannot—”

“Cannot what?” Lóng Wēi’s eyes found the younger dragon. “Cannot speak the truth? Cannot point out that our brother has brought shame to the peaks? That he has let lowlanders crawl into our home, into our celebrations, into our—”

“She is my granddaughter.”

The Burning Sky’s voice was quiet. It should not have been terrifying. It was.

Lóng Wēi stopped.

“She chose me,” the Burning Sky continued. “She chose me, and I chose her. That is the law of our kind. That is the tradition of our blood. You do not get to question it.”

“I question whatever I please.”

“Then you will face the consequences.”

“Because of that….tiny filthy thing?”

“Zhēn,” Dà Jiāo Huǒ said. His voice was soft. “My granddaughter. You will not speak of her again. You will not look at her again. You will leave this place, and you will not return, or I will remind you why I am the Burning Sky and you are nothing but ash.”

The plaza went very, very still.

Lóng Wēi’s smile did not waver. “You threaten me, brother? After all these years? After everything I have endured, everything I have sacrificed, everything I have lost, you threaten me?”

“I am not threatening you.”

Dà Jiāo Huǒ handed Zhēn to someone, Bai Yue did not see who, did not care, her eyes were fixed on the two dragon facing each other across the obsidian floor.

“I am warning you.”

Lóng Wēi didn’t listen.

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