Free Dragonkeeper 2: Garden of the Purple Dragon by Carole Wilkinson Page A

Yang, the imperial hunting lodge where she had met the Emperor.
    When the wagon reached Ming Yang Lodge, a nervous guard untied Ping’s hands and feet. The others pointed their spears at her as she stiffly climbed down. She stared up at Ming Yang Lodge. It looked different. The roofs were no longer black. Gleaming yellow tiles had replaced the gloomy black ones. The Emperor had gone ahead with his plan to change the imperial colour. Ping smiled—even though there were spear tips sticking in her back. She had suggested that Liu Che change the imperial colour from black to yellow.
    The lodge seemed quiet. Two serving women hurried by, glancing fearfully at Ping, but there wasn’t the bustleof servants and ministers that there had been the last time Ping was there. The smell of cooking wafted from the direction of the kitchens. She could smell garlic, ginger and plum sauce. Her stomach rumbled. They were the fragrant aromas of an imperial banquet. Her heart thudded. It could only mean one thing. The Emperor was at Ming Yang Lodge. She had thought she would have weeks to work out what she would say to Liu Che, how she would plead for her life. Now she had no time at all to think about it.
    Ping felt a strange mixture of excitement and dread at the thought of seeing him again. In the brief time she had spent at Ming Yang before, she had enjoyed his company very much. Besides being the Emperor, he was also the only person she’d ever known who was close to her own age. The only boy. There had been young men working at Huangling Palace from time to time—sour-faced, scowling stable hands and gardeners—but they had all avoided her as if she was an ugly spider. The handsome young Emperor, despite his exalted position, had smiled at her and treated her with respect. He had taken notice of what she had to say, even though she was just a slave girl. She longed to renew her friendship with him, but she knew that would not happen. She had seen the look on Liu Che’s face as she had flown away with Danzi.
    The guards didn’t take Ping before the Emperor or to the pretty chamber where she had slept on herprevious visit to Ming Yang Lodge. Instead they led her to a new building some distance from the lodge, hastily constructed of bamboo canes, roughly thatched with untidy bundles of twigs. Ping could hear strange sounds coming from it. Animal sounds—growls and screeches. Inside were bamboo cages. One contained a large black cat as big as a tiger. Another contained two sad-eyed monkeys. The guards kept away from the cage containing the black cat. One of them touched a deep scratch on his arm.
    “I’ll be glad when it’s released into the Tiger Forest,” he muttered.
    Ping remembered how Liu Che had decided to turn the Tiger Forest that lay beyond the gardens to the south into a wild animal reserve for creatures from all over the Empire.
    “Where’s my rat?” she asked.
    They ignored her and led her to an empty cage. The guard reached out to take the ladle from her arm.
    “Don’t touch it!” Ping shouted.
    But he took no notice. As he touched the ladle, a strange expression passed over his face before he collapsed to the floor and lay like a plank of wood. The other guards opened the door of the cage and shoved her in. A pile of dirty straw and a bucket were the only furnishings. They locked the door and left her with the animals. Any hopes Ping had that the Emperor might forgive her disappeared.
    Ping shut her eyes as the ladle on her arm turned into a small dragon.
    “Hungry,” said the sad voice in her head.
    A few days earlier, nothing would have made her happier than hearing Kai say another word. But now she had much more serious concerns. She had to keep them both alive.
    Ping sank into the straw. It smelt of horse manure.
    “Good boy, Kai,” she said, scratching him around the bumps on his head, trying to sound pleased. “You did well today.”
    The little dragon whimpered. Her cheerful words didn’t fool him at