Dragon Rising

Chapter 1-3

When Luna didn’t say anything, Hua gripped her tighter. “Promise me!”

Tears streamed down Luna’s face. “Yes.” She squeezed her eyes tight. “I promise.”

Hua released her. “Go.” She looked to the eunuchs and serving girls. “Get her to that palace.”

Footsteps sounded against the stone as the crowd continued to run, ducking into buildings that would be no use as the Kou came down from their perches on high to s*******r them all. Hua’s hands shook as she watched Luna’s people form up around her. With one final glance, Luna started to run.

She took the steps two at a time, holding the ends of her robe up to prevent herself from tripping. Her ebony hair broke free of her knot and flew about her face.

Hua couldn’t move from her place until Luna was safe inside the palace. She watched her grow smaller and smaller as she neared the palace entryway.

It happened in slow motion. A crossbow bolt sailed through the air, ripping through Hua’s life, as it reached its intended target.

Luna’s body jerked back, frozen in time for only a moment, before slamming into the stone, her chin bouncing off a step.

Her servants scrambled to check on her, to see if she still lived.

But Hua knew the moment her sister’s heart stopped beating because it matched the stillness within her own chest.

An arrow flew through the air near Hua as she sprinted up the steps. Luna’s servants left her, running for their own lives.

Hua couldn’t blame them for their self-preservation, but she also couldn’t leave her sister. Luna was her everything, her best friend. She collapsed to the ground next to her body, knowing when she felt for a pulse, there would be no beat against her finger.

Tears didn’t come because it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

Luna was larger than life. She was the joy of an everyday existence, happy and free. She loved and didn’t hold back. Not like Hua.

Luna deserved to live.

Hua couldn’t focus on anything other than the chasm opening inside her as she cradled her sister’s head in her lap. People ran by, taking no notice of the girl frozen in grief or the blood dripping down the steps.

A roar sounded in the distant spaces of her mind as warriors clad in lacquered leather armor cut through the crowd.

The emperor’s forces ran out to meet them, daos crashing against halberds. Steel glinted in the silver moonlight, reflecting it back into the sky as if this kind of world deserved no light. A world without Luna. A world where even the center of Piao was vulnerable to a brutal attack.

“No.”

Hua recognized the voice of the emperor as his guards tried to force him up the steps.

“We need to get you to safety,” one of them yelled back over the din of battle.

Hua lifted her face, wanting to see the man her sister claimed to love. Did he even love her? He’d had a claim on her in life, but in death, she didn’t deserve anyone who wouldn’t trade places with her.

He froze, catching sight of her, his eyes drifting to Luna. A cry broke free of his lips, and the young man, the most powerful in Piao, did what Hua could not. He wept.

“My Luna,” he cried.

Did he know she’d carried his child? Had she told him?

Hua used her body to shield Luna from the man who’d done this to her. He’d brought her here. He’d chosen her. She should have married a simple man and been safe in the village not far from her family. Instead, she’d abandoned them for the prestige promised to her.

Was death prestige enough, she wondered. Did it mean Luna earned her place?

Hua narrowed her eyes as the emperor continued his tortured wailing. His guards forced him up the steps and managed to get to the palace safely.

A woman’s cry broke Hua out of her daze. “Mama.” She knew it wasn’t her mother, but somewhere out there, her parents ran from the same danger. “Ba.” She jumped to her feet just as a body collided with hers, sending her rolling down the final steps.

A volley of arrows sailed toward the spot she’d been only moments before. The man, her savior, landed next to her with a thud.

She wanted to thank him, but the words sat cold in her throat.

As arrows fell down around her, one flew right for her chest. It struck her right above her heart but did not pierce her skin. She cried out, expecting to feel it tear through her flesh. Instead, it clattered to the ground. Her entire body froze as she stared down at the tiny hole in her robe, a hole made by an arrowhead.

It wasn’t possible.

The man who’d tackled her glanced back at her. Did he see that, or was she hallucinating in her grief? He pushed his muscled frame up to his feet. “Come.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the pillars. It was the same place she’d watched her sister fall.

Tears hung in her lashes, not daring to fall. How was any of this possible? She shouldn’t be standing there. The arrow should have sent her into the next life to join Luna.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” the man asked, his voice unkind as he peered around the pillars. His dao hung in a scabbard at his waist. The single-edged sword was a warrior’s weapon.

But he wore no uniform. Instead, his robe hung to his knees with trousers appearing underneath.

What would he say if he’d seen that arrow?

“I have to find my baba and mama.” She breathed heavily, trying to stop the images of her death flying toward her through the sky.

The man threw a scowl over his shoulder. “You need to stay here and let Piao’s warriors handle this fight. I should be out there, but my brother would be disappointed if I left some… girl… to fend for herself.”

Hua didn’t ask who his brother was. She didn’t ask his name. None of that mattered. Nothing mattered. Not anymore.

The festival of dragons had turned into a b****y affair, and she wasn’t sure Piao would ever be the same.

She sure wouldn’t.

Maybe she’d imagined it in her grief over losing Luna. That was the only explanation.

A Kou warrior dropped to the ground in front of their hiding place, a halberd stuck in the back of his head. One of the emperor’s men pulled the battle ax free without so much as a second glance at the hulking brute he’d felled.

The Kou were unlike any foe of Piao’s. Brutal and strong, they hacked their way through countries. They’d been trying to take everything Piao had for a decade. They didn’t want to settle among the Piao folk, only conquer them and control the trading routes along the Liudong River to the sea.

Hua didn’t know when the fear left her. Maybe it was about the time she wished she could join her sister and stay with her forever. Maybe it was when she faced her own end. But the fight didn’t scare her.

A Kou man caught sight of them and ran their way. Hua’s savior—as she called him—prepared to meet the charge, and Hua took the opportunity to run past them both, dodging out of the way of the attacker’s long spear.

Neither of them could follow her as they fought each other. Out in the square, chaos reigned supreme. Dead bodies littered the ground, blood coating the stones. Dasha would never be free of these memories. No matter what happened this night, the blood would never wash away.

She twisted out of the way of another attacker and darted through the crowd of swarming warriors intent on killing each other. The soldier she met briefly with her father—Luca-- ran past her, throwing himself against the enemies, trying to break them. Hua kept running.

Ordinary citizens had already either found places to hide, or they were dead.

She refused to believe her parents left her too.

“Hua,” someone called to her.

Hua turned on her heel. A man waved her forward. She recognized him as a friend of her father’s but couldn’t recall his name. Sprinting toward him, she didn’t wait until she reached him to speak. “Have you seen them?”

He didn’t get a chance to answer her because her father appeared at the window, and she ran into the shop, launching herself into his arms. “Ba.”

He squeezed her as if he’d never thought he’d see her again. “My dear girl.”

“Where’s Mama?” she asked.

He pulled her farther into the shop to get out of sight. “She’s here. We’re both okay.”

None of them were okay. Their central city was attacked. People died. Yes, the emperor’s forces would fight them off. They were the best-trained army in the world, and the Kou didn’t stand a chance.

But still, it would never be okay again.

She followed her father down a staircase into the back, where more people than she could count huddled together, flinching at every sound. Her mama jumped up when she saw them, climbing over people to reach her daughter.

She put a hand on each shoulder, checking her over.

Hua should have told her she wasn’t injured, that her body was fine. But how could her body be fine when her insides felt hollow? How could it be fine when she’d felt the sharp point of an arrow against her skin?

“Luna’s dead.” She spoke so quietly at first no one heard her.

Her Ba’s brow creased.

Hua cleared her throat, knowing how empty her voice sounded. “Luna… she’s… she died.”

It took a moment for the realization to sink into her parents. Their eldest daughter would never smile at them again. She’d never dance or laugh until her sides hurt.

Their faces fell, slowly at first, and then it was as if they collapsed in on themselves. She’d never seen her mother cry before and couldn’t take her eyes from the moisture coating her cheeks. Her father gathered them both to him, only releasing them when a loud bang sounded above.

For the first time, Hua looked out over the faces in the room. These people were witnesses to the Minglans’ grief, to their heart-wrenching agony.

Hua broke away from her parents and found a spot in the far corner to curl in on herself and pretend there was something, anything, she could do to fix her family.