“I once loved a man,” Mieshi said. “Damanhur. But we quarreled constantly. I don’t understand that part of myself anymore. Why I cared what he thought of me. It no longer matters. He was executed after capture. We serve the mistress now.”
A chill ran through her. Mieshi was talking about Damanhur’s death, his execution, as if it were nothing more important than the weather. Her bond sisters’ devotion to Xisi was like a spell blotting out their personal will.
“Has anyone else survived? Anyone from the original ensign?”
Mieshi looked at her impassively. “Marenqo lives. He serves the Dragon of Night, not our mistress.”
“His ability to speak languages makes him useful,” Zhuyi said.
“Were you two captured together?” Bingmei asked Mieshi. The ensign had been forced to disband as they approached the Death Wall, to make it more difficult for Echion’s minions to find them.
“We were,” Mieshi said. “And we were brought back here as prisoners. The mistress claimed me because of my beauty and martial skill. Echion claimed Marenqo for his usefulness. He crept into the training yard one day to try and plot with me to escape. I turned him in.”
Bingmei felt a spasm of dread. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“He was punished.”
Her heart went out to Marenqo. How had he been punished? She didn’t know, but she worried for him. It didn’t surprise her to hear he’d been working with the dragon. A servant would live to fight another day.
Bingmei hated being a prisoner again. She gazed up at the closed windows and wanted to fly up and wrench them open. But she still felt the Immortal Words binding all the exits shut. She couldn’t overturn the words someone else had written. What other words would help her? A burning sigil? One for strength or speed? Her mind raced for a word that would help her in this situation, but she felt she was trapped.
Mieshi and Zhuyi were not impatient or bored by their assignment to guard her. They did not pace, they just stood at attention by the screen door. It seemed to be the only way out of the room. She’d have to fight them both to free herself.
Bingmei sat on the bed, legs folded, and went into a meditative state. Although she did not yet have a way to physically escape the room, her consciousness could escape.
Closing her eyes, she sank into herself and searched for birds. Some were right outside on the roof. She knew there were caged birds in Xisi’s chambers, so she flung her consciousness from one bird to another until she got there. Xisi was gone, but Shixian lay asleep in the middle of her bed, nestled in some silk blankets. She lingered there a moment, allowing herself to look at him. All she could do was look at him. Even if she escaped, she wouldn’t be able to take him with her. Heart full of sadness, she went next to the Hall of Unity, gliding across the massive courtyard on the wings of a bird. Servants bustled about in small groups. So many had been summoned to serve at the palace. Bingmei saw a group of concubines walking together as well, and she remembered the painstaking labors they performed to present themselves to their overseers.
A little wren was perched atop the Hall of Unity, so she glided over to it and shifted her consciousness. The bird heeded her coaxing and flew through the upper windows of the darkened palace. She saw Rowen pacing in the room, a look of agitation on his face. His fists were clenched, and he brooded in his own private darkness. She understood why—he could sense she was somewhere on the palace grounds.
The wren flapped inside, and Rowen immediately whirled at the sound, his face turning up sightlessly.
The bird landed on a meiwood rafter, its little head bobbing one way, then another. She tried to calm the bird, to get it to stay.
Rowen slowly approached where the bird had landed. “I heard you come,” he said. “Where are you now, little bird?” He murmured, “I’m talking to a bird. Well, there’s no one else to talk to.” He walked up and put his hand on a nearby table, feeling along its surface for something. “Come closer. Are you a sparrow? I won’t hurt you.”
She could see the look of hope and anguish in his pleading expression. Bingmei’s heart panged for him. If she could not free Shixian, she would free Rowen instead. They would do this together.
Can you hear me, Rowen? she thought to him. Say something if you can.
Rowen didn’t react to her thoughts. He kept groping at the table, then he dropped to his knees and thumped the surface with his fist before squeezing his hands before his eyes. “How much longer can I endure this? I feel her so close. I’m in terror from it. Fly, Bingmei. Fly from this awful place. Save yourself. You cannot save me.”
His fist struck the table again, but there was no real violence to it. Rather, he seemed defeated. His shoulders slumped.
Filled with the resolve to escape, and to take Rowen with her, she left the bird and shifted to another. At length, she found the siskin again, still hovering at the window of her prison. It slammed itself against the wooden lattice, trying to knock it open. Bingmei thought it was exceptionally brave, but it was so tiny it couldn’t budge the wood.
She settled herself into it, feeling the frustration within its tiny skull.
You are too small, she whispered to it. You cannot break through.
The siskin flared out its quivering chest, anxious to keep trying. Was her phoenix-sister trying to help her still?
No, little bird. You need someone bigger. Someone who can open it for you.
The siskin responded to her thought with excitement. It hopped back and forth on the ledge.
Listen to me, little bird. There is a man here at the palace.
