Prologue
22 YEARS AGO
Purple-white tongues of lightning forked through a midnight sky, revealing for an instant the roiling black clouds over the Shangyang Mountains. A crack of thunder followed, shaking the walls of a teahouse nestled in Kokuji, the fishing village at the foot of the highest peak. Rain poured down all at once as if the lightning had broken open the sky. Storm waves pounded the beach in the village’s little cove, and fat, heavy drops battered the teahouse’s roof, partially muffling a scream of agony from within.
“Shhh!” a young woman whispered, squeezing the hand of the laboring soon-to-be mother. As one of the few sensha, or entertaining girls, not engaged this night when no travelers would venture out into the rain to traverse the mountain pass, Daitai was standing in as midwife for her friend. With her free hand, she wiped the sweat-soaked black hair from the young mother’s bright jade eyes. “You have to stay quiet, Lanfen. If you disturb the guests, Madam will send you out into the streets!”
Lanfen fell back onto the bed mat as the contraction ended, limp with relief. She saw the truth in Daitai’s admonishment. Madam was already furious that her most admired sensha had been unable to work these last three months, when it was no longer possible to hide her blossoming stomach. Lanfen would be years in paying back all the silver links Madam believed the teahouse had lost because of her pregnancy. It was enough that her child was coming into the world stained by a house of ill repute. Lanfen wouldn’t further dishonor its first breaths by giving birth in the streets like a stray dog.
As the next contraction ripped through her delicate body, Lanfen bit down on the knuckle of her first finger until she drew blood. Sweet singing drifted through the wall, accompanied by the sharp notes of a double-necked lute. One song after another, interspersed with the clinking of fine cups set down too hard by callous, slightly drunk hands and the occasional peal of raucous laughter. Through it all came the angry clatter of rain on the roof and rolling thunder overhead.
The next cry that went up was reedy and small, brought forth by a throat just learning to make sound. Daitai forgot to admonish the infant or the mother in her wonder at seeing life’s first moments. It was much smaller than she’d ever imagined, much bloodier. Gently, she bathed the boy with the pile of fabric scraps and the small pot of boiled water Madam had allowed them. Tiny fists, with long, graceful fingers, tipped with scratchy little nails. Scrawny, kicking legs. A head of thick black hair. In the brief flashes that his eyes were open, Daitai saw jade starburst irises brighter than even his mother’s.
As she washed the delicate shell of the boy’s right ear, Daitai found a moon-mark nestled in the hollow behind his jaw. She wiped the spot clean, then pulled a jasmine-scented oil lamp closer and leaned in to inspect it. Pale white against his ruddy skin, the mark was like a painter’s hint at a distant sheet of falling rain.
The more she looked at it, the more the mark reminded her of one of those ancient glyphs from Deep Root, the Old Language, with its multitude of intricate lines layering together to make the words. Babies born marked by those old letters were said to be children of prophecy, their destinies written on their skin. The glyph for white celery predicting a beauty who would topple kingdoms, cicada foretelling the first of an immortal dynasty, phoenix for one who would end a great plague. Or was that cause a great plague? There were so many prophecies that Daitai could never keep them all straight. Lanfen would know—she had such a sharp memory—but the exhausted young mother was dozing so peacefully that Daitai didn’t have the heart to bother her over it.
“Who are you, little one? What does your glyph say you’ll do for us?” Daitai grinned as she chucked the baby’s nose.
He blinked, startled, then opened his mouth.
Daitai giggled. “Are you so hungry? Let’s wake Mama.”
Daitai took the infant back to Lanfen’s mat and knelt at her friend’s side.
“Mama Lanfen,” Daitai whispered, nudging her friend softly. “Your son is desperate for his first meal.”
Groggily, Lanfen pushed herself up and took the child to her breast, whispering soothing nonsense as she helped him find his first meal.
Daitai played with a strand of her hair while she watched the mother and child together. She couldn’t recall a destiny for a baby marked by distant rain fall. Could she have been misreading it? She’d never really mastered reading Deep Root. Who needed it these days when the simpler, more civilized characters of the New Script were so much easier to read and write?
“Does Lanfen remember the destinies prophesied by moon-marks from the Old Language?” Daitai asked, twisting her hair around her finger.
“Mm,” Lanfen said, nodding without looking up from her son. “Why?”
“Oh, silly Daitai!” She pulled a face that never failed to charm the teahouse’s patrons, then gestured to the infant. “He has one behind his right ear.”
The new mother lurched upright on the mat and pulled the baby from her breast. He let out a cry of protest as she folded his tiny ear out of the way and studied the pale mark.
“Is it rain fall?” Daitai asked. “I thought it might be rain fall.”
But Lanfen didn’t answer. Her bright green eyes sparkled with unshed tears, and she caressed the mark with her thumb.
A tingle of fear crept up Daitai’s spine. “What’s wrong? Is his prophecy bad?”
“It says thunder,” Lanfen whispered in a ragged voice.
Daitai’s brows furrowed, then soared for her hairline.
“The chosen one? Daitai held the chosen one?”
