Threads Chapter 9

Ling Qi steadied herself and turned back to Vengeance-for-Burning-Grove, doing her best to project confidence as she strode back to him. “Sir Vengeance, if you do not mind, I will wait with you. It will benefit me to speak with the King, I think.”

The burning tree made a crackling groan as he gave her a sidelong look from his deep-set, knothole eyes. “You flirt with danger, little wraith, but I will not gainsay you for the aid you have given. Wait then, and prepare to receive the King.”

The wait was interminable, but Ling Qi found any attempt at conversing with Vengeance dying in her throat under the ominous pressure approaching them. Yet that very presence seemed in no hurry. Seconds stretched into minutes until nearly a quarter of an hour had passed. The first indication of its approach was the noise, a strangely muted cacophony of beastly cries and tramping feet mixed with the creaking of bending wood and the tearing of the earth.

Soon, the smoldering fires nearby snuffed out,and even the flames burning on Vengeance guttered low. Ling Qi found it hard to breathe, and her raw animal instincts screamed at her to run, to flee, to cower. It was only long acclimation to Meizhen’s aura that allowed her to hold her ground without doing more than going pale and trembling.

She understood then that what was coming was not something on the level of Zeqing, but something far beyond that. The presence’s relative weakness was due to the fact that this was but an echo of events long past like the impression of a blinding light seen on the back of one’s eyelids.

That did little to take away from her growing nerves as she saw the shadow of movement in the now darkened woods. She did not know what she was expecting, but it was not what emerged. What stepped forth from the treeline, brush parting before him like a curtain, was a man.

Yet it was not.

Towering over her, tall enough to look down upon any human, the “King” was nonetheless slender and androgynous, similar to Sixiang’s briefly held flesh and blood form. Long, luxurious black hair tumbled down past his shoulders, loose and wild, kept from his face by curving, branched horns which rose from his temples like a stag’s. He wore an emerald robe of many layers that draped his form and rippled in the suddenly chill wind.

Despite those trappings of humanity though, there was something off about the King. The motion she could see of his legs beneath the billowy robe was wrong, and his footfalls were more like the sound of hooves than any human feet. His handsome features and dark eyes seemed perfect, but the lines of it were subtly off like a mask that did not fit quite right, and the burning viridian light of his pupils reminded her unsettlingly of Cai Shenhua.

That did not even consider his entourage. In his wake, trees writhed, nightmarish faces forming and disappearing in the lines of the dark, and the shadows seethed with hungry eyes that gleamed in the night. She saw predators and prey alike among the unnatural darkness, shadowed even to her gaze. Wolves stalked amidst stags, and the earth writhed with vermin under the hungry eyes of raptors perched in living branches. Behind him stretched a vast swarm of beasts, more than she could ever name. But the vast menagerie, the forest made manifest, was eerily quiet and dim and remained behind him, as if they were only his shadow.

“My King,” Vengeance rumbled, awkwardly bowing his burning trunk in a facsimile of the human motion. “This brother has survived the others to bring you the knowledge the Oathbreakers sought to destroy.”

Ling Qi very quickly imitated the tree spirit’s motion, clapping her hands together and bowing as low as she could manage. “This humble one greets Your Majesty and begs forgiveness for this one’s intrusion.”

The King neither replied nor glanced her way as he strode across the clearing to stand before Vengeance-for-Burning-Grove. “Thy vengeance shall be done,” he decreed as he laid his hand upon the burning tree’s bark, flames parting around his slender digits. “Thy death avenged.”

Ling Qi remained studiously silent, peering out from under her bangs, but her eyes widened as Vengeance stilled before his flames roared to life, engulfing his form entirely in an inferno. The sudden burst of ashen woodsmoke almost made her cough and gag. She heard the King inhale, and flames and smoke alike were drawn in, reversing the explosion that had happened mere moments ago. When the flames faded, Vengeance-for-Burning-Grove was gone, and the King stood, a faint trickle of smoke rising from his lips.

“So that is where my wayward brother’s final redoubt is hidden,” the King mused, lowering his hand. His voice was musical and almost feminine, at odds with the atmosphere he exuded.

His gaze fell on Ling Qi then, and she froze. She found her muscles locked, denied any form of motion as the King turned toward her, the primal green radiance that shone from his eyes casting her clasped hands in a sickly light. “And what possessed thee to remain on this night of blood?” he asked, casual and indifferent in tone.

Her mouth was dry, Ling Qi thought absently, as his shadow fell over her. She felt the patter of countless feet as the carpet of mice and rats engulfed her feet, and the wraiths of ancient and hoary trees rose around her, their limbs heavy with birds, staring down at her with gleaming, hungry eyes. How long had it been since she had seen the night as a mortal did?

“I want to understand what is happening,” Ling Qi said with more confidence than she felt. “Your Majesty, I have-”

“What an amusing creature,” he interrupted, taking a stride closer. “What does it matter to you, Magpie-Who-Wears-the-Crow’s-Plumes? Dost thou imagine that thou can change the outcome of this night?”

Why did it matter to her? The King had a point; the forces moving in this dream were beyond her, and she was beginning to suspect that this memory was neither as structured or as safe as an elder’s test. So why? Why did it matter enough to put herself at risk?

… Because this was the situation she had chosen to put herself into, was it not? She was a small piece moving around the field between titans, but she would eventually be expected to not only affect, but even contribute, to their plans, plans that she may have no understanding of and barely any context for.

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“Because I need to understand, if I am to survive.” The words came to her lips, unbidden. “Even if I am small, my actions can affect the paths of the mighty and draw their attention.”

“A good answer,” the King said, stepping closer still. “Very well. A boon then for shortening this night’s dance.”

Despite his words, Ling Qi only felt her discomfort rise as his slender hand clasped her shoulder, filled with a strength that could crush her in an instant.

“Before the Emperor and Empires, many Weilu strayed from the true path. They broke old pacts, cutting wood beyond the limits of our oaths and building festering nests of stone like the foolish apes to the north. They broke with the flow of the sun, the moon, and the seasons, as if they could forge a new order for themselves.”

“The King of the Forests tolerated this for he loved both of his sons and did not wish to raise his hand against one of them, and after all, the son’s depredations struck such a tiny, tiny fraction of the vast Emerald Seas.” The king’s lilting voice held an edge of contempt.