This was followed immediately by a familiar cold mental voice. Humans near the tower must clear a space for me to land immediately. Those who will use the gate should gather next to it.
This must have been sent to everyone, judging by the reactions of those around her. The Fists blanched and looked around wildly. The Kanas seemed awestruck but obedient, beginning to move right away.
“I can’t,” Lily said flatly. Her hand still pressed the pad to Gan’s chest. It was scarlet, soaked through with blood. Gan’s face was still that terrible bleached color. Her eyes were closed. “Gan’s badly injured. Did you—was that—is the construct gone?”
She is not mortally injured. My son is. Move her next to the gate.
His son? Which one?
Rule reached her and pressed one hand to her shoulder. “The construct—”
Later.
“Is it over?” Cynna asked, her voice tight. She stood a few feet away, carrying Diego, who still slept. Like Toby. Like several of the Fists. “Is Gan—how bad is she hurt?”
Lily swallowed. “The sword went right in the center of her chest. She said he killed her heart.”
An enormous, blood-spattered tiger padded up on Gan’s other side. Grandmother bent and licked Gan’s face, purring loudly.
Gan opened her eyes, scrunched her face up in a scowl, and spoke in a thin, disgruntled voice. “He did. I’m going to have to grow it again from scratch. It’s a good thing I’ve got a spare.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
FANG cleared the area with a few snapped orders. The Fists he’d brought carried away the injured and the sleeping. The dead were allowed to remain for now.
Cynna laid Diego down next to the door that was also a gate. She sat next to him, cradling her broken arm with her good one. It was probably hurting. Rule moved Gan and Toby—Gan first. She gave out little squeaks of pain with every step. He settled Toby slightly apart. Eventually he would wake up and he wouldn’t be safe company. Grandmother sat next to Gan and started grooming her gory fur, and Lily hurried to retrieve Rule’s pants and the charm necklace he’d lost when he Changed. She’d spotted them earlier while looking for her clips, which were still missing, dammit. He raised his brows when she handed them to him—clothing was not his priority—but slipped the chain over his head and was pulling up the pants when Reno descended.
In the fading light, he looked more black than green as he reached for earth with his taloned feet, the great wings out at first, then folding. As they did, two of his sons arrived. Kongqi floated down in the usual upright position, one hand on his brother’s shoulder as he guided him gently to the earth in front of Reno. Dick Boy wasn’t upright. He didn’t look injured. He looked dead. His eyes were half-closed, only the whites showing. His white shenyi was torn and bloody. It looked like he’d been struck by one of the spears.
Reno lay on the ground, half-curled around his two sons. The old man—Ah Wen—walked up and knelt beside Dick Boy. Dìqiú. Whatever. “I speak for her,” he said, but his voice was quiet now. Subdued. “Jiānqiáng. I am with you.”
Cynna, next to Lily, whispered, “What did he say?”
Oh. Right. Cynna couldn’t understand. Lily whispered a translation as Dìqiú’s eyelids twitched. Slowly his eyes opened fully. He stared up at the enormous dragon looking down at him, eyes lambent in the dusk. “Mother.” His voice was weak, thready. “Can you . . .”
“I cannot,” Ah Wen/Reno said sadly. “You and your brothers wrought too well with your death spells.”
“I missed you.” A pause. “Mother . . .” His voice was a thread now.
“I am here.”
“Did I do the right thing? I tried, but . . .”
“You did well, my son, my Jiānqiáng. You did very well. I am proud of you.”
His face relaxed in what might have been a smile as his breath sighed out. He did not inhale again.
Lily’s throat felt tight. Her eyes burned as if she might cry, and that was absurd. Dick Boy had been a murdering sociopath. He’d killed a small child . . . and he’d loved his mother. Craved her approval. Maybe he had tried to do the right thing. Maybe he’d been too damaged to know what that was. She drew a shaky breath. And maybe she was way too emotional right now to think straight.
In the silence, two more bodies floated down from the sky—these bodies upright, alive, and bound with what looked like strands of faintly glowing air. Zhu Tú’àn and Zhu Shuǐ landed less gently, their knees buckling with the impact. Neither attempted to rise. Maybe they couldn’t. Willingly or not, they knelt before the green dragon.
Ah Wen’s voice was loud again, and cold. Icy cold. “You killed your brother.”
Neither of the spawn replied for a very long moment. Finally Zhu Tú’àn—give him credit for guts—said coolly, “It was not our brother we were attempting to kill.”
This time the silence went on. And on. About the time Lily thought she might confess to something, anything, to break it, Ah Wen/Reno spoke again. “My anger is too great for clear thinking. You will be placed in your living quarters until I am able to decide rationally what to do with you.”
In the pause that followed, Lily whispered a quick translation.
Cynna did not whisper. “Did he just ground them and send them to their rooms?”
Reno must have heard. He ignored it. Nothing happened for several moments . . . “First Fist. I have placed the two errant Zhuren in stasis.”
In stasis? Lily stared at the spawn . . . who were really, truly not moving now. Not breathing or blinking or—or anything. They looked like that bird in Kongqi’s workroom. Hadn’t he said it didn’t work with mammals? “Uh—the First Fist is tied up,” she said. “About that stasis thing—”
They cannot remain in stasis long, said the cold mental voice, but they are well enough for now. Even as Reno spoke silently to Lily, his head swung around to stare at Fist Second Fang as Ah Wen spoke aloud. “Fang Ye Lì. Your superior is dead. He was killed when the Zhuren caused an earthquake, which in turn caused the crystal topping their tower to fall, striking him. You are now First Fist.”
Reno, she realized, must have been reading minds at superspeed. He seemed to have a pretty good grasp of how things were set up here.
Fang’s eyes were wide. He thumped himself in the chest in salute. “Sir.” A pause. “I do not know how to address you with proper courtesy.”