Sharon Shinn - Gateway

Another round of preliminary fireworks went off, briefly showing Chenglei’s face surprised and intrigued. “Really? So it was just the scale of my reprisal that you found intolerable?”

“I don’t care about any of those people,” she said, her voice finding strength. Boldly, she stepped back from him, and he let his hand fall. She put her fists on her hips, tried to take the stance and tone of a mutinous girl. “My aunt would disown me if she knew-yes, and Quan’s heart would be broken!-but I have fallen in love with a cangbai boy, and he is a stonepicker who works in the river. He is the one I wanted to save today, not your stupid rebel, not any of those other people that I never met. You can call that treason if you like, but I wasn’t thinking of you when I sounded the bells. I was thinking of the man I love.”

“Now, that has the ring of honesty to it,” Chenglei replied. “Xiang would be justified in disowning you if she discovered such a dreadful secret! What is this young man’s name, Daiyu?”

“Do you think I will tell you so you can arrest him, too?” she scoffed. “He is nobody who will ever trouble you.”

By his voice, Chenglei was amused again-possibly even delighted. “Oh, you spoke the truth when you said you admire explosions!” he said. “How such a serene face can hide such an addiction to danger I can hardly understand.”

“We each have our secrets,” Daiyu said. “You know mine and I know yours. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

For a moment, there was silence, as if Chenglei was considering the bargain. Then there was a sudden rapid succession of detonations as the technicians on the stage shot off the first salvo of fireworks. Overhead, gorgeous golds and emeralds and sapphires bloomed across the night sky, seeming to stretch to the horizon. By their light, Daiyu saw Chenglei’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

“You almost persuade me,” he said. “And I will miss you, I think, when you are gone. But I cannot trust you and I cannot allow you your freedom, so I must refuse.”

It took her a second to assimilate the words, and then she realized what he had just said-and what he had implied. You will be arrested; you will be imprisoned; perhaps you will be killed. She must leave here, and instantly. Her right hand dove for her pocket as she spun on her heel to run.

But another burst of fireworks showed Chenglei exactly what she was doing, and his hand shot out and clamped around her forearm just as she yanked the pouch from her pocket. “A weapon, Daiyu?” he asked, amused again. “I would not have expected that from you!”

She brought her left arm around to strike at him wildly, but he easily blocked her blows with an upraised arm. “No-no-not a weapon-let me go-”

“Something you cherish, evidently,” he said. His grip tightened so cruelly that she cried out in pain and dropped the pouch to the grass. More fireworks covered the sound of her voice and showed Chenglei exactly where the bag had landed. Before she could fall to her knees and scrabble for the quartz with her free hand, he twisted her right arm so ferociously that for a moment she was blinded with pain. When her eyes cleared, she saw that he had scooped up the pouch.

She was whimpering on the ground, so he obviously felt it was safe to release her. “Let us see exactly what kind of treasure you reach for at your direst moment,” he said, and shook the talisman into his hand.

There was an intense flash of light, an echoing boom, and Chengleidisappeared.

More fireworks exploded overhead in an orgy of light and sound. Not even the technicians a dozen yards away would have noticed anything unusual.

Daiyu merely stared at the spot where he had been, cradling her injured arm against her chest. She could not remember crying, but she could feel the tight streaks of dried tears along her cheeks.

The fireworks display went on and on.

“IS THIS NOT the most magnificent holiday party you have ever been to?” Xiang demanded a few minutes later as Daiyu rejoined her near one of the cooking tents. People were beginning to recover the use of their ears now that the explosions had finally died away, and they were laughing and talking and indulging in another round of refreshments.

“I can’t remember anything like it,” Daiyu said truthfully.

“Too bad we have to wait another whole year for something this good! But we will have Chenglei’s collection to view tomorrow morning,” Xiang said.

“I’m looking forward to that,” Daiyu said. The throbbing in her arm was beginning to fade, though she was afraid if anyone touched her she would cry out in pain. She might have a bruise in the morning that she would need to explain away.

Although other explanations might soon become more pressing.

“Where is Chenglei?” Xiang asked now, looking around. “I have scarcely seen him all evening.”

“Neither have I,” Daiyu said, her voice steady.

Xiang waved a hand. “An important man like Chenglei of ten has to work even through a holiday celebration,” she said. “I hope he has not been in his office all night, reading reports! I hope he got to see some of the fireworks.”

“I hope so too,” Daiyu said. “They were spectacular.”

All around them, people were having similar conversations. What amazing colors! What a splendid party! Where is the prime minister, so I can compliment him before I go home? It was another ten or fifteen minutes before it became common knowledge that Chenglei was nowhere to be found, but, like Xiang, the other guests seemed to assume that he had been called away on urgent matters. A few people began to leave; others lingered by the food tents, exchanging last tidbits of gossip.

Quan found them just as Xiang had decided she and her niece should retire for the night, to be sure they were rested for their private viewing the next day. “Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked Daiyu.

“She will be too busy,” Xiang answered before Daiyu could reply. “She has an appointment with the prime minister in the morning-we both do-and many things to do in the afternoon. You may see her the following day.”

Quan was trying not to grin as he held out his hands, and Daiyu managed to smile as she pressed her palms against his in farewell. She had to grit her teeth against the pain in her right arm. “The day after tomorrow, then,” Quan said. “The time will seem very long.”

“I look forward to the next hour we meet,” she replied.

She wondered if she would ever see Quan again.

Xiang chattered during the whole time they climbed the stairs and walked down the hallway to their rooms. Daiyu thought she had never seen the old woman so happy. As they paused at the door to Xiang’s suite, Daiyu impulsively leaned down and kissed her wrinkled cheek.

“Thank you for everything you have done for me,” she said in a soft voice. “I cannot imagine that was I lucky enough to have you as my aunt.”

Xiang looked surprised but deeplyp leased. “And who would have thought I would have found a niece so much after my own heart,” she said. “You have proved to be a fine girl. Now, go to bed so that you will look your best in the morning.”

Daiyu obediently entered her room and let the servants undress her, and she lay on her bed as soon as she was alone, but she did not sleep. Instead she listened to the faint reverberations of fireworks being shot off in other parts of the city late into the night, and then she listened to the silence. As dawn slowly whitened the windows, she listened to birds greet the morning with their usual cheerful music. She knew this was the day that everything would change.

From the minute Xiang and Daiyu entered the dining room, it was clear something was wrong in the house. Daiyu took her place at the table, next to the other girls, while Xiang joined the adults standing in a knot at the back of the room. She already knew what the conversation was about, but she listened anyway to the scraps of dialogue she could overhear.