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Chapter Twenty
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Til mountains crumble/ Til earth and sky collide/ Not til then will my love die.
Celestial Palace of the Jade Emperor.
One moment they were calf-deep in water in an underground cavern, and the next Rui and her friends were back exactly where this adventure began—in the opulent great hall of the Celestial Palace.
“Ah, there you are,” the Master greeted them with a twitch of his long white mustache that blended seamlessly into his long white beard.
“Right on time.”
Without shifting his head or posture, his eyes slid casually to the gigantic red dragon Rui dragged with her through the portal.
“Very good. You followed instructions. I admit I had doubts.”
“Ahem.”
Ere cleared his throat while Rui looked down at her claws, barely paying attention to the Master’s musings.
“Iam the one who relayed those instructions,” Ere inserted. “She’s just the muscle.”
If Rui’s heart hadn’t been completely crushed at the loss of Wolfe, she might have snickered at Ere’s dry as bone humor. She was used to him now. He was almost never serious, but almost always amusing.
The Master’s unlined brow wrinkled a little with displeasure before he forcibly smoothed it out. Rui wondered whether the mere sound of Ere’s voice was enough to make him frown.
“And yet you failed to bring the Jewel of Dreams, which was the purpose of this quest,” he surmised sharply.
At this, Rui stirred to life.
Still in her dragon form, she untucked the Eye from behind her tooth and spat it into the palm of her foreclaw.
“I have it here, Master. But really, shouldn’t we find a way to put it back where it belongs?”
She eyed Merlin sympathetically.
The broken red dragon lay unconscious on the pristine floor of the Celestial Palace like a lump of bloody clay, shuddering fitfully with every other breath.
“Yes, yes,” the Master agreed, “we will put back his eye and see how he can be healed.”
He snapped his fingers, the sharp sound in the otherwise silent, cavernous hall enough to startle all three travelers into full attention, spines snapping straight.
Immediately, from thin air, severalxian nuappeared in their flowing silk robes. They formed a circle around Merlin, opened their hands, palms out, not touching him, and raised the dragon from the ground with their command ofqi. A moment after that, all of them disappeared as if they were never there.
Including the hard-won Eye from Rui’s palm.
“Where did you take him?” Ere asked, frowning and taking an inadvisable step closer to the Master.
“He will be looked after,” the ageless old man replied.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Ere persisted. “We saved him. He is our responsibility now.”
“He is the responsibility of the Jade Emperor, impertinentlong-er,” the Master snapped. “As all dragons are.”
He looked to Rui.
“Including the female you beheaded, treasure dragon. Her body has turned to rock where you felled her, and her soul has returned to our fold. She will be judged for the trouble she’s caused, and punished in the afterlife accordingly.”
