Leizu calls a sharp warning from shore.
I stop and turn, yellow water surging over my shins and the hot breath of the waterfall beading on my face like spittle. I keep my body between Elena and the dark-haired woman. Leizu is standing on the riverbank, her dress dancing along with a comb of slender reeds in the water-specked wind. Her stolen blade is drawn, its copper dark against the bright haze. Beyond her, the vague form of my brother descends.
“Why defy me?” she calls. “When you could have been an emperor?”
Holding tight to my sister’s shoulder, I tap my chest—over my anima.
“But we are so much more than that,” Leizu says. “Each Word has as many interpretations as reflections in crystal. A pity you never learned.”
I turn away, urging Elena to go farther, holding her shoulder tight to keep the water from taking us over the edge. Leizu’s face flashes with anger. She gestures to my brother in the forest behind her. Elena and I make it a few more steps, marooned in knee-deep water at the swollen mouth of the waterfall.
We are out of rock.
Together, my sister and I stand in a roaring mist, the clockwork flutter of our bodies drowned out by the chaos. Upriver, the silt-stained flow of the water sweeps forward lethargically. But it transforms at our feet, erupting into a raging mist that claws through the sky, thundering as it falls, shouting its power to the world.
Leizu calls a sharp command. My brother draws an arrow, nocks it, and takes aim. A small, cold hand closes tight over mine.
“Brother,” says Elena.
I hear nothing, only see her mouth make the shape of the word.
My sister’s shoulder is a hard weight against my thigh, both of us leaning against the ceaseless pull of the river. Our fingers clasp tight. I think we are but two small pieces of interlocking machinery in the great, faceless mechanism of the world.
The arrow whistles toward me and I turn my face to let it pass.
My sister is looking up at me, desperate, clinging to my legs. With the last of my strength, I reach for her, pull her out of the river and up into the safety of my arms. An arrow bites into my shoulder and I do not react.
Elena’s hands clasp around my neck and the weight of her is so familiar.
For a last time, I hold her. I close my eyes and pull her close and inhale her smell mingled with the spray of water. Her weight is delicate in my arms, like a leaf carried on the quaking back of this monstrous river. I chose to protect her and I failed. I do not know if the choices we make are ours or not; whether the planets hold any more agency in their orbits than we do in ours. But even if I am a prisoner to clockwork, I cannot imagine leaving her.
Another arrow bores into my thigh and I find I can no longer stand.
“This isn’t the end,” she says, face buried in my shoulder.
Her arms, tight around my neck, are the last thing I know.
53
CHINA, PRESENT
High up on his throne, the automaton called Huangdi remains perfectly still, eyes closed for a long moment as the thunder of an explosion rolls through the massive cave, dying in angry echoes. As quiet returns to the tomb, the emperor lifts his ancient ruyi, the scepter hooked and knobby on one end where the dark iron is carved into the shape of a blossoming flower.
The necropolis is silent for a few heartbeats.
I trot in a wide arc around the throne, headlamp off, hidden in the dark among looming figures of clay. With a running start, I vault over a placid stream of mercury. Faintly, I hear the grating of rock. High-pitched chipping sounds, metal on stone. Reaching the wall, I can see the throne in profile. I move closer and slide behind one of the tall stone pillars that circle the dais, each sprouting dozens of long-extinguished, rusted lanterns.
The sun disk is mounted behind Huangdi’s two-story throne, just across the empty space ahead of me. From this side, I don’t think he can see me down here.
But how am I supposed to reach it?
From my hiding spot, I notice the front row of statues. Staring at them, I convince myself of a horrible truth—they aren’t made of terra-cotta. Unlike the other figures in the room, these are lying in poses of agony. Around them, the floor is sprinkled with colored dust in the outline of fallen robes, a thick powder littered with fans, shells, and the leather remnants of hats.
These avtomat have been killed, left here to rot for eternity.
“Leizu!” shouts the emperor, long and low.
I can see the emperor in profile as he scans the statues, scepter in his hand.
Reverberations of his shout sweep down from the throne and out over the low room beyond. Without the headlamp, my eyes have readjusted to blue-tinged darkness. Streams of silver thread through ranks of warriors, still and sinister under the dots of bioluminescent light embedded in the black rock ceiling.
From the breach, the hunched silhouettes of armed men are flickering through, their flashlight beams raking the walls. Dozens of men are entering, running single file through the new hole in the wall. Wearing balaclavas and complicated helmets with insectile optics hanging off, they carry stubby rifles with flashlights mounted on them. The commandos are nearly silent as they spread out along the edges of the room, stopping every few meters and kneeling.
All of them save one.
“Huangdi!” calls a voice, high and sweet.
Whip thin, Leizu strides down an aisle of terra-cotta warriors. She wears a dark cloak and carries a long sword with a copper blade, glowing blue-gold in the twilight. Her eyes are leveled on Huangdi, teeth bared in a predatory smile as she marches right into the semicircle of empty space before the throne.
Peter has faded away into the rows of still soldiers.
Crouched, I’m scanning the throne, eyes running over carved ridges of talons and teeth, looking for a dark circle the size of my fist. I keep one hand pressed against the gritty stone of the pillar, hiding from Huangdi and Leizu as they reunite.
“Leizu,” says Huangdi. “Do not fear. We are equals—”
“Once we were equals,” she interrupts, moving to the foot of the throne. “While you slumbered, I made a new world in my own image. You brought the peace of the first dynasty, but it was war men needed. With whispers and violence, I set their minds to the task of killing, and never have the short-lived progressed with such ferocity.
“Not since the days of the First Men have we seen such an age of wonder.”
Huangdi considers her for a moment. In sheaths of hard ceramic, the emperor looks so primitive compared to the tigress standing before him. Finally, he speaks, his inhuman voice tinged with disbelief: “Our fathers were gods. And you, Daughter of Darkness…you dare insult them?”