A thrumming sound grows deep within the throne.
Blue light is glowing from somewhere, from nowhere, a halo that courses over the gnarled black spines of carved dragons. A torpor settles over me as the numbing light continues past me, washing out into the cavern. The others sway and fall to their knees.
“When we awaken, the First Men will embrace us!”
Cataracts of light waver across my vision. My strength ebbs, and a stubborn ache knifes into my chest. The power of my anima is fading, clawed out of me by the light, transferring into the throne. I hear someone scream. Something clatters to the ground and I see the others are writhing in pain, dying.
Something inside the throne is absorbing our power, ripping it from us.
My sister is curled under a bronze shield. She has dragged it away from a nearby clay soldier, cowering underneath the sparking metal as a searing light settles over her. Crying out, she thrashes under the golden shell. I try to reach for her, try to call her name, but my limbs are crippled.
This is wrong. My master has betrayed us. He is feeding.
Huangdi is standing now. His chest is open, his anima visible on its cradle as waves of light fall into it. He has drawn his divine blade, Xuan Yuan.
“And I alone will live to greet them,” he whispers. “Forever, if necessary.”
I do not know if my eyes are open or closed.
Pushing my hands out for balance, I touch the cool stone flesh of the throne. I lower myself to a kneeling position, my chin slumping to my chest.
A shout in the darkness. “No!”
My eyes open as a flash of white crosses my vision—Leizu’s dress, whipping past as she leaps onto the black steps of the emperor’s twisted throne. Her movements are sluggish, delayed by the tide of light, and she snarls with ragged determination, struggling to climb through the draining field.
Where is my sister?
Forcing my eyes open, I try to stand. My legs are numb, boots flickering with blue flashes that leap up from the stone. In disbelief, I watch Leizu mount the dais step by step, teeth gritted, a horrible malice in her black eyes. She ducks under the emperor’s divine blade and, with incredible strength, plunges a hand into Huangdi’s open chest.
She closes her fist around his anima.
“Sleep, old man,” she says, yanking her fist out.
Huangdi tries to shout, but his voice is lost, mouth locked in a permanent grimace as his soul departs. His body sits back on the throne as the anima separates from its vessel, spitting lightning from Leizu’s fist.
Paralyzing fingers of blue light release me.
Leizu turns to the fallen audience, holding the anima high, tendrils of blue light still coursing from it. Her high-arched, painted eyebrows seem demonic as she smiles in triumph, displaying her prize.
But all the long-lived are expired, lying motionless.
Unsteady, I moan in dismay, pushing against my thighs and trying desperately to stand. I climb to one knee as a dark figure rises beyond Leizu—it is my brother, his striking features twisted into an angry smile as he joins her.
“You chose wrong, Lu Yan,” Leizu says to me.
Throwing myself forward, I wrap my arms around her. She pushes me away, but not before I wrest control of Huangdi’s relic.
“Huangdi is still my master,” I manage to grunt.
My legs fail and I collapse, rolling down the stone steps, my body smashing into the front ranks of mud soldiers.
Turning, I see Leizu falling toward me, the divine blade angled at my chest. Something hits my shoulder hard and I sprawl as the empress lands, her blade ringing against stone. It is my sister, climbing out from under the smoldering shield, one hand latched to my shoulder. She drags me stumbling to my feet as I clutch Huangdi’s anima—this precious relic.
“You chose,” shouts Leizu from the base of the emperor’s throne, her face a white stone in a black waterfall of hair. “You chose this.”
My brother steps lightly down the empress’s dais, long blade in his hand. He is my equal in battle, and Leizu my superior. I cannot hope to face them both.
“Don’t,” I say. “Please.”
“We exist to serve, Brother,” he says, smirking. “And my master’s name is Leizu.”
Mouth opening and closing, I step back into the ranks of clay men, clutching the anima protectively to my chest. My sister’s shoulder presses against my thigh as she retreats alongside me. The two devils approach—we are the last alive.
Fingers thread through my own, tugging at my hand.
“Come,” says a small voice. “Follow me.”
I join my sister as she flees through ranks of motionless soldiers, a frightened sparrow leading me to freedom.
51
CHINA, PRESENT
Above the empty seashell roar of the cavern, before the sightless eyes of a thousand terra-cotta warriors, and under the glimmer of false stars, the avtomat emperor shudders on his throne and comes to life. His lips part to reveal a decorative mouth studded with tiny white teeth, layers of eggshell-thin porcelain grinding in his body.
Those black eyes blink again.
“I saw the sun disk in the back of the throne,” I whisper to Peter. “I think it’s what revived him. Where’s Leizu?”
“I imagine she is already here,” says Peter.
“Is he broken, do you think?”
“No, June, I think that Huangdi is just fine.”
“Then what’s he doing?”
“Listening.”
“Why?”
“He is learning our language.”
A fluttering music grows in the emperor’s chest, like the random plinking of a child’s xylophone. Out of tune and oddly alien in its unpredictable pattern, the tinkling sound grows louder and more complex until the myriad individual noises combine into the harmony of a single instrument—a voice.
For the first time in millennia, the Yellow Emperor is going to speak.
“Lu Yan,” he croaks with a strange accent.
Dust falls in rivulets from Huangdi’s body, coursing over the last traces of golden light that still cling to him. The emperor’s face is the glazed white of porcelain, his painted eyebrows arched angrily, lips and cheeks stained a faded red, and a long beard juts from his narrow chin.
“Huangdi—I am called Peter, now,” says Peter, still kneeling, both arms crossed over one knee, head bowed.
Ceramic eyelids click together over black, oval-shaped eyes, and the ancient machine’s voice switches accents. The language he uses is sprinkled with proto-Germanic, Latin-sounding words, old Chinese, and things that we have already said. As he speaks, I do my best to translate.
“Peter. My loyal praefectus. We use barbarian tongue.”
“Yes, Huangdi.”
The clockwork emperor lowers his gaze to observe his own carved hands, wrists draped in the disintegrating remains of a ceremonial robe.
“Leizu,” he mutters, music-box voice vibrating. “How long, dreaming?”
“Five thousand years,” says Peter. “My own memory has failed. Few of us live. I have awakened you for your knowledge.”