If there was any goal Cheng wanted to accomplish during his reign, it would be to end their vampiric threat for good.
“Uncle,” he began, visiting his Da-Wio’s channeling room, where the man toiled over a bubbling alchemical elixir.
“Just one moment, my boy. Delicate procedure.”
“Of course.”
Drop by drop, the sorcerer added a mysterious reagent to the pungent brew. It changed colors and released a shifting fog that boiled over the edge of the bronze cauldron in shades of vermillion.
“Perfect. Thank you.” Da-Wio turned to face him, an exuberant smile on his craggy face. “How may I serve my emperor?”
Cheng passed the letter to him. “Word from Cairn Ocland. What do you know of these pixies? Mother spoke of them once to me when I was a child, but that seems so long ago.”
Silence fell between them as Da-Wio read the letter. When he glanced up from the parchment, his features were unreadable. “They speak to you of gnats and butterflies, beloved nephew. These animals are hardly worth the great concern that this queen implies.”
“But is it true that my mother and father struck a bargain with her to outlaw the capture of these…” Calling them animals struck a sore chord within him, and echoes of wrong pervaded Cheng’s senses. “These beings?”
“It is.”
“Then we will offer compassion and friendship to the men of the north. There is no reason that we cannot continue an alliance of sorts.”
“They are too different. If your parents made any mistakes, it was in trusting the beastmen to remain within their own boundaries. Yet, over time, they have encroached closer and closer to our lands, sweeping into our forests and inhibiting the movement of our hunters.”
“Uncle, you call them animals and beastmen, but what am I if not also a beast? Do my mother and I not also take the form of a dragon? Do I not walk on four legs and hunt prey with my teeth?”
“It is different. Your body is a divine gift from Yüying; your true form is a god-given right.”
True form. Something about the way his uncle spoke the words plunged a lance of discomfort into Cheng’s chest. Legend claimed each member of the imperial bloodline was one of her descendants, blessed with long life and the magic to transform into a majestic dragon in her image.
But the others had died out long ago, each branch of their powerful family perishing in the name of uniting their great empire and protecting it from the west. Soon, Cheng would have to seek a bride if they were to have any hope of continuing the last family line.
“My mother would have wanted us to honor our agreement. What are we if our word loses its value?”
“Your mother made that decision against my advice.”
“My mother made the correct choice, then.”
The last thing Cheng saw of his uncle was a glare sharp enough to shave ironwood.
As the season shifted from temperate spring to the sweltering heat of summer, letters flew back and forth between the mountains of Cairn Ocland and Liang’s Jade Palace.
The result of their correspondence lay on Cheng’s desk, an imperial decree awaiting his signature and infusion of magic. Today, great change would spread through the northern territory of Liang.
In the course of a month, not only had Cheng reaffirmed the peaceful alliance between the two nations, but he’d also scheduled a diplomatic visit to see his new northern allies. They had invited him to come to their lands, to dine at their table, sleep beneath their roof, and more importantly, meet the little pixies that they strove to protect.
In return, Cheng had decided to etch a new boundary between the kingdoms.
He would cede more of the forest to them, keeping the portion to the south where the Liangese harvested plants difficult to grow outside of their native region.
Contrary to all he had been told by his uncle over the past decade, the northmen seemed…far kinder and more civilized than he’d been led to believe. The queen wrote with eloquence and compassion.
They did not want to take the forests from Liang.
They wanted to share a border without physical boundaries for either of their citizens. All that mattered to the dragon monarchs was that their sprites lived in peace.
And so they would if Cheng had anything to say about it.
Cheng concluded the letter to Rua and Liadh, provided his personal seal, and encased it in a protective cylinder. Seconds after the messenger bird took flight with its parcel, Cheng returned from the balcony to find his uncle at the desk, glowering down at the parchment.
“You cannot do this, nephew.”
“Adjust the borders? Uncle, our lands are great and vast. They stretch for hundreds of miles to the south and west. We are four, if not five times the landmass of Cairn Ocland. We can spare them a single forest to guarantee the safety of their most vulnerable.”
It was, in Cheng’s opinion, a brilliant opportunity to foster trade between their nations.
“I cannot allow you to make a mistake of this magnitude, my nephew. I love you. I have always loved you, but our ancestral lands—”
“Ancestral lands? My ancestors conquered these lands and united them. Liang was once five great kingdoms and now we are one. To cede a small portion in the name of brokering a great trade agreement will not only show that we are powerful, but also wise. This is my decision. I will not bend.”
Da-Wio’s mouth parted. Rage flickered in his rheumy gaze and subsided just as quickly as it rose. He licked his lips then glanced aside. “Very well. You are the emperor, after all. Who am I to question you? Perhaps I am too old and settled in my ways.”
The tension left Cheng’s shoulders. Not for the first time since his ascension to the throne, he’d expected an argument from his uncle. “Thank you.”
Despite the critical disapproval in Da-Wio’s gaze, Cheng signed the imperial decree with a flourish, heated wax, and then pressed his thumb against the wax seal. It glowed green and gold under his touch and the lines of his print rearranged into the outline of a draconic body.
Tenderly, he placed the document into the other man’s possession. “Please see to this.”
“Of course, Your Majesty. I will see your will is done. But in the meantime, come with me. I came not to pick fights with you regarding our borders, but to request your presence in my laboratory. There are many things I must show you, including an assortment of spells to use in the defense of our western borders.”
“Excellent.”
The path from Cheng’s private quarters to the laboratory was a brief stroll from one wing of the palace to the next, then ascending a spiraling white staircase to the tower where his uncle worked his magic for the good of the empire.
Giddiness surged in him before they ascended to the highest level, passing walls and walls of shelved books along the way. Cheng had good memories of that tower as his uncle’s pupil. Their lessons had fallen to the wayside recently, as he adjusted to the responsibilities of ruling.
“What is it, Uncle? A new spell?”
“Of course. But first, a gift for my favorite nephew.”
Cheng chuckled. “Your only nephew.”
The man stepped over to the enchanting table and lifted an ornate, circular neckpiece crafted from white metal, engraved in runes that shone. “All the more reason for this gift to be the grandest of all.”