At night, Minh dream of ash and smoke. Of tears and pain and desperation. Of choking on soot and dust while being burned alive in a raging inferno. Sleep only tortured him with vivid reminders of the day the Nguyen estate burned to the ground—the brutal downfall of a sacred legacy.
He fell every time his eyes closed. Endlessly, hopelessly, drowning in the seething depths of ruby horrors. The wailing screams and clashing of metal blades, the sharp crackling of fire and fury, the acrid taste of blood in his mouth and stinging cold in his lungs. Once again he stood under the interminable stretch of crepuscular sky and the glistening blood moon. A brilliant, wretched crimson—not even the moon that night remained untouched.
Minh could scarcely remember what had gone on in his head that day, having been nothing more than fifteen. Merely a cretinous, reckless youth who made a split-second decision. When fire raged through the compound, he spotted her—Ngọc Vinh. Why he grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the fire, he didn't know. She was the spoiled daughter of the Emperor and a concubine and never paid him any heed. He owed her no kindness.
Ối giời ơi, he'd rescued her anyway.
Not that it mattered years later. Not when she now lay unconscious on the bed, her long black hair fanned out on the pillow. If it weren't for the deep blue and black bruises marring her skin, Ngọc would appear to be sleeping. There was a nasty gash on her cheek while red-soaked bandages bound her left hand. Grunting, he leaned over to undo the white wrappings. Carefully and methodically, he cleansed her hand and applied ointment to the severed skin—where a finger was missing—before redressing her wound.
Finally, he gingerly released her hand and reached for a bottle of rượu rắn, uncorking the cap and swallowing a healthy gulp to numb the pain. Earthy and faintly sweet, the rice wine was a delicacy, said to have been buried at the northeast corner of a three-way crossroads for 100 days. Particularly, people commonly believed that led to the wine obtaining optimal balance with nature. Infused with spices and snake venom, it was claimed to cure multiple ailments along with granting multiple health benefits.
Minh cast a glance at Ngọc's sleeping form. On the contrary, it didn't do much for her medically nor did it improve his own wounds. Not that he knew what to expect, but it was now noon of the day following the attack. Even now he clung to hope. Since it was all he possessed; without it, the desperation would consume his mind, his body, his soul.
He had no clue why Ngọc had lunged at the group of assassins or even how they'd managed to fend the attackers off. Eight years of living in hiding had inured her heart to violence, and she always put her personal safety first. Not that Minh blamed her. Losing an entire family came with its concomitants. Having both been orphaned by the Empress Dowager, they were the same in that regard.
Could that be why he saved her eight years ago? Since at that moment, she lost her family. If he could give her anything then, it'd be her life. Looking down, Minh turned Ngọc's bracelet over and over in his hands. Said to be a protection token that warded off misfortune and crafted from the finest imperial jade, it was a translucent emerald green and smooth to the touch. A miracle how it hadn't broken in the fight. He set it down on the bedside and surveyed the area.
Across the room sat the soldier from the pub earlier, still as a statue, scarred hands folded in his lap. He'd sustained his own shares of injuries, including a deep gash in his thigh and a slice across the torso. Without his iron armor, he appeared smaller and younger.
Even so, Minh narrowed his eyes. The man had provided them a room at the inn, bought medicinal wine—no one was that generous. Exactly what did he want in return?
"Who even are you?" Minh whispered. An irrational fear gripped him that the mere question of the man's identity would summon the assassins to their room.
"No one of importance," replied the soldier.
Hands curled into tight fists and his entire body tensed. His gaze flicked to the swords. "Well, why were assassins after you?"
"Calm down. If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done so by now."
A reasonable argument. Nevertheless, the soldier's words weren't comforting. People always had ulterior motives. He knew enough about the royal court to recognize that plotting nobles bid their time in gaining an enemy's trust. The dignified way the stranger carried himself and arrogance in every step made Minh suspect he was a noble in disguise. Such cachet and privilege weren't easy to hide.
"You didn't answer my question," Minh said finally.
The stranger glanced down and set a hand on the pouch strapped to his waist. "Let's just say the Empress Dowager doesn't want me alive."
"That makes all of us."
"So why does she want you dead?"
"My family happened to be one of the numerous who offended her."
Minh shrugged and leaned against the wall. He did not expect much from this week—or life in general—but he'd envisioned better than hiding out in an inn. Releasing a shuddering breath, pressing his sweaty palms into his thighs, he resisted the urge to down the bottle of whiskey. No longer could he drown his thoughts like before, not when he needed to stay alert more than ever.
Minh's stomach grumbled, but he wasn't about to go out and leave Ngọc alone with the stranger. As if reading his mind, the stranger stood up. "I'll buy food."
When the door shut, Minh began to pace around the room, the walls closing in on him. A trap, a prison, and a sanctuary all the same. He ran a hand through his hair and peered out the window from behind the curtain. The midday sun burned bright in the sky. Below was a bustling storm of energy, sweat-soaked villagers with dirt-streaked faces pulling along wheelbarrows and bearing bamboo poles across their shoulders.
When would they be able to leave? Helping out this stranger made him and Ngọc greater targets for Thái Hậu. The hunter and the hunted, with freedom being nothing but the distance between.(1)
From the bed came a rustle, then the shuffling of sheets. Ngọc Vinh's eyes fluttered open, glazed and unsteady. "You're up," Minh said lowly, a touch of surprise in his voice.
"Where am I?" A hand rose to her head, and she slowly sat up. Gradually, it lowered to the cut on her cheek, which was covered in white bandages.
"Some inn." He poured her another shot of rượu rắn and handed it over. "Drink. It's medicinal wine."
She gulped it down and set the glass to the side, her dark eyes now settling on him, expectant and demanding. Reflected in her gaze was the fire of a thousand suns, the kind that refused to be extinguished. After a moment, Minh finally said, "You lost a finger."
Ngọc stood and immediately, Minh moved to her side. She brushed him off and pushed her shoulders back, holding her chin high. "Did I lose my feet? No, I can walk perfectly fine."
She seized a sword from the pile scavenged from the assassins. With her unscathed hand, she swung it in a wide arc at the air and twirled it in a circle. "How long was I out?"
"Nearly a day."
"A day," she repeated. "And what of that stranger? Did he escape safely?"
Minh cleared his throat. "Actually, he's with us. Went to grab food a while ago."
"Does Sư Phụ know what happened?"
Sư Phụ. Minh's stomach twisted at the thought of the elderly monk alone in the temple, drowning in worry when they didn't return from the village. His expression must've said it all since Ngọc nodded curtly and lowered the sword.
"It's better he doesn't. If our suspicions are right and those were Thái Hậu's assassins, we leave him out of this." Her eyes hardened and her hand clenched. "He's done enough for us. We don't need to further endanger him."
Minh's fingers rapped against the table. What would they do? Where would they flee? The monastery had been their only home for the past eight years. As two orphans with no families or friends, the only people he and Ngọc had were each other. Side by side, they were alone together.
The door creaked open and the stranger from before appeared, one hand clutching a sack of food. In a flash, Ngọc had the sword aimed at the tip of his throat, the promise of a blade lingering before his skin. "Who are you?"
He simply smirked and raised the bag. "I brought food."
She didn't lower the sword. "I demand an answer."
His eyes flashed like the strike of lightning. But his face—his face was an unreadable mask that merely carried a serene smile. "Lê Ngọc Vinh, daughter of the murdered emperor and executed concubine Lady Nguyễn, who is nothing but a fugitive in her own kingdom, please lower your weapon."
Minh went still. Hairs prickled on the back of his neck as blood rushed through his ears. In the silence, he could hear nothing but his heart hammering in his chest. Anger superseded by fear, Ngọc stood paralyzed with trembling hands, but still did not lower the weapon.
"Surprised?" continued the stranger. "I figured it out when I first saw you." His obsidian eyes flicked to Minh. "And this, I presume, is your little servant."
"How did you know?" Gritting his teeth, Minh reached for a sword of his own, fingers tightening around the leather hilt.
"I'm not your enemy." Still, he made no move to attack.
Minh's eyes narrowed and he lunged forward, blade slashing at the leather pouch around the soldier's waist. Immediately, he was rammed against the wall, a burly hand pinning him in place. He groaned as the shock of impact ricocheted through his body, his vision blurring and the world spinning under his feet.
A golden turtle claw tumbled to the floor while a yellowed parchment scroll rolled across the ground and into Ngọc's feet. The scroll shimmered under the light, almost bursting with a sort of energy. She unfurled it and her eyebrows rose. "It's a map to Heaven's lost citadel," she whispered. Shock soon bled into anger, and her hands gripped the edges, nails carving wrinkles into the paper. "Release him or I'll destroy it."
The pressure around Minh's throat loosened and he sank to the floor. Already bruises stained his skin black and blue. Having fallen out of its topknot, his black hair fell in long, limp strands around his face. He dragged himself to his feet and leaned against the wall, hands curling tighter around the sword.
Heaven's lost citadel. Could it be the same one from the ancient apocryphal stories, crafted from hushed whispers and far-fetched dreams? Birthed by the crack of thunder and flash of lightning, it was claimed to have arisen from the earth with a jade and emerald palace for a princess to rule with her lover Chử Đông Tử. However, when a king sent his army to conquer the rival kingdom, it disappeared in a midnight storm, leaving behind nothing but a marshy pond and sandy beach.(2)
Chử Đông Tử had become a saint, one of the revered Four Immortals chiefly worshipped. In another legend, he appeared to Triệu Quang Phục, the second king of the Lý dynasty over a millennium ago. Quang Phục raised an altar in the marsh, lit incense, and prayed to the thần. In response, Chử Đông Tử descended from heaven atop a golden dragon. If the tales were true, if the thần answered prayers, if he had really once been a man born on earth...
Ngọc rolled up the map and held it out of the stranger's reach. "First, tell me who you are."
"Trịnh Kiểm."
Recognition flashed in her eyes. "House of Trịnh?"
The Trịnh lords—a northern noble clan that dominated Đàng Ngoài and threatened the Lê and Nguyễn families in power. Minh raised his sword, ready to strike at the man's back. This Kiểm had every reason to hand them over to the Empress Dowager, to elevate his standing in her wretched eyes.
"What do you want?" Minh hissed.
"I intended to drop off food for my saviors and carry on my merry way." He tossed the forgotten bag on the bed, then nodded at Ngọc and knelt down to retrieve the fallen turtle claw. "It appears your princess had other ideas."
The two shared a glance. In the case the tale of the lost citadel was true, perhaps the famed magic crossbow also existed. Hope pierced Minh's heart—potent, poisonous. He could almost taste the glory on his tongue, the wild daydreams he shared with Ngọc of one day getting revenge on Thị Anh. With the bow, they'd be invincible, unstoppable, with each shot killing over a thousand of her imperial army.
"Take us with you," Minh demanded.
"Absolutely not."
"You will never survive alone, not with the Empress Dowager after you. If it weren't for us, you'd be dead."
Hope uncoiled from deep inside his chest, craving vengeance, demanding to be fed. Chance dangled before him, tantalizingly within reach, yet as untouchable as the stars. Was Minh overtaken by desire or desperation? For vengeance was but a forbidden flame—dark and smoky and poisonous—that threatened to consume his heart, and yet, he coveted it all the same.
"You have the golden claw and we have the map. Either we come with you or you'll never see it again," Minh threatened, his words coated in steel.
Eyes darkening into a ferocious glare, Kiểm gritted his teeth before spatting out, "Fine, but you two better not slow me down."
From the bed, Minh opened up the bag to find steaming bánh bao, round white buns filled with ground meat, hard-boiled eggs, onions, and mushrooms. He tossed one to Ngọc, Kiểm, before finally biting into one himself. His teeth sank into savory pork and creamy quail egg and sweet sausage. In mere bites, he finished off the bun and reached for another. The three divided the remaining bánh bao evenly among themselves, the food cooling the boiling tensions.
With a full stomach, he and Ngọc headed out to stock up on supplies with a cut of Kiểm's money, the map tucked safely in the pocket of Ngọc's yếm. The Trịnh lord had gone off to buy more food, no doubt cursing the pair along the way. They stayed close to each other as they weaved through villagers and around rolling carts, invisible in the crowd of exhausted faces.
"What is even our plan?" Minh hissed to his friend.
"We sleep in shifts. One of us will stay on guard." Pressing her lips into a tight line, Ngọc shook her head. Under the beating heat, beads of sweat rolled down her face while her clothes clung to her skin. Her long black hair was pulled back with stray strands plastered to her slick forehead.
Narrowly, Minh dodged a food stall, where a group of people clustered around a tiny table. In the heat of the afternoon with the bright blue of the overhead sky, the marketplace was bustling with merchants and farmers and crones hawking wares from bolts of fabric and leather to wild rice and wheat grains to makeshift embroidery. Wooden chopsticks clacked against steaming bowls of white rice while dishes of seafood and tofu rested in the center. The sharp smell of roasted garlic and onions hung in the air.
Minh made his way over to a vendor selling clothing and shoes and slid over a sum of đồng strung on strings to the stall owner. The round metal coins, engraved with characters and marked with a square center hole, glittered under the glare of sunlight. The man shook his head, arguing that prices had increased. Biting his tongue, Minh handed over more money. He slipped their purchases into his satchel, clasping it close to his side.
"The price has doubled. This is absurd," he grumbled, beads of sweat curling on his lip.
"It's that fox, Thị Anh," Ngọc answered. "Everyone's trying to survive with the increasing taxes."
"All the more reason we find this lost citadel and enchanted crossbow." The rising rumors of rebellion were akin to balancing on the tip of a knife. A legendary weapon on their side could be the tipping point. It was exactly what they needed to spur mere talk into a full-fledged revolution.
When summer heat faded and the sun began to fall, the height of afternoon bled into blackening evening, and with it came the gentle glow of lanterns overhead. Under the blanket of darkness, the pair met up with Kiểm, who carried a satchel of food. He regarded them with cold black eyes and a tight-lipped smile.
Minh slipped on a cloak and flipped the hood over his head. The map held close to her chest, a compass secured in one hand, Ngọc led them out the village and to the north. They traveled past rice paddy fields and wilted crops. The earth was cracked and dry despite the stifling humidity. The rolling hills and mountainous terrain reminded Minh of the ocean—tumultuous, changing, uncontrollable.
Gray clouds clustered overhead in the sky, teasing, tempting. Minh looked away, knowing no rain would ever fall. It never did, not in the eight years when Empress Dowager wrested control of Đại Việt. He and Ngọc pressed close together. Each other's only comfort. Their lives were entwined together, impossibly knotted with survival, an iron bond forged from the fiery depths of anger.
The sun slipped beneath the horizon, and the last glimpse of sunset's rusted light vanished into blackness. Gentle, curling wisps of wind fluttered against his skin. His hand remained settled on the hilt of his sword, the hardened leather a comfortable weight against his palm. The silence, punctuated by winds howling through looming branches and incessant chirping crickets, hung between the trio. Minh and Ngọc spoke in gentle nudges and fleeting expressions, a language indecipherable to outsiders.
Minh stared up to the sky, and the world appeared to tilt under his feet. The heavens above stretched toward him as though he were falling into the stars. Brilliant pearls against the midnight blue, their cold fire glittered in the velvet dark. At this time, Minh would be lying in a bed at the monk's pagoda with silver moonlight streaming through the window. Often intoxicated as well, to the point where memory failed him the next morning.
The pain never left, not permanently. When the drunken haze dissipated, all that was left in his chest was the weight of horror and misery entangled in tendrils of smoke. The deep crimson that stained his hands eight years ago bled into his memory, securing permanent residence in the darkest recesses of his mind.
All Minh could wish was that his precious hope, so seemingly impossible, the only valuable possession he had left, wasn't all for naught.
1. Derived from a quote by Chinese poet Bei Dao.
2. From the tale of Chử Đồng Tử And Princess Tiên Dung.