Free Scale-Bright by Benjanun Sriduangkaew Page B

It goes on for too long, as if she is retching up her lungs and everything she's ever eaten since she grew teeth. When she emerges her eyes are streaming and she grips the doorframe for support.
    "Olivia?" The mortal's voice is hoarse.
    Without meaning to, Xiaoqing reaches for Julienne. She's shoved back. It's without strength, but the surprise stings far more than the push.
    "Don't touch me," Julienne says, wiping her eyes, "not after what you did."
    Xiaoqing stares at the girl and resists the urge to scream at her.
    "I need to be alone. Aunties."
    Julienne storms out. The archer follows, mouth pursed shut.
    "My wife will keep her from doing anything foolish," Chang'e says, settling at the desk's edge. "I believe you've been wanting—what was it—an audience with me."
    "I've hoped for it." Xiaoqing drops to one knee, bowing her head. "One in better circumstances, Lady Chang'e."
    "They surely can't get any worse, but I shan't tempt fate. What is it?"
    "I'm Bai Suzhen's sworn sister. A monk, Fahai, trapped her in a pagoda without just cause. It's a wrong I've sought to right since."
    "It's a rare demon that doesn't deserve her chastisement."
    She bites the inside of her cheek. "Her only crime was to want more than what was allotted her. It was such a small thing, to have a husband and a child, and to live in peace as any human woman might. Great Guanyin took pity and granted her reprieve once; what was one mortal man, monk or not, to contradict that?"
    "Men have a habit of not listening to women, monk or not." The goddess bends her mouth, between grimace and amusement. "The monk has help that's celestial if not holy. Is that why you're looking to us? Neither of us can confront another immortal, least of all on your behalf."
    "I'm not asking for that. The monk's been relocating the pagoda to keep ahead of me, and I've scoured all the worlds. Heaven alone remains a realm I haven't searched, one I can't reach. An immortal favoring him—" As she suspected. "That means he may enter heaven."
    "Xiaoqing, is it?"
    "Yes, Lady Chang'e."
    The goddess paces, graceful even at that. It's hard to believe she could have been some village girl. "I'm not pleased you got my niece involved. Do your peers seek to harm her?"
    Your peers , not your kind or your breed. Xiaoqing marvels at it. "Only the very young and the very foolish. The archer's reputation precedes her and those on good terms with me would never bring Julienne hurt. I took her to an opera in banbuduo."
    "Did you?"
    "I meant—she was perfectly safe there." Xiaoqing's knee aches. She doesn't know what possessed her to mention that.
    Chang'e waves her hand. "Take a chair. Fahai is beneath notice, but the immortal behind him has long held a grudge against my wife. The laws of heaven being what they are…" A toss of long, gleaming hair. "Were Houyi a man she could have demanded judicial restitution or a test of arms, warrior against warrior. She would win, too, and that'd have concluded the sorry mess."
    "Do you want me to remove him? Heaven's customs hold no sway over me."
    "Then someone would be obligated to come after you," Chang'e says, dispassionate. "Likely Houyi. You wouldn't want to be her quarry."
    "As long as Bai Suzhen can be free the risk would be as nothing."
    "To have the pagoda located, is that all?"
    "Yes."
    "Not so unreasonable. I may even be able to convince my unreasonable spouse that it is not. You'll have something of Bai Suzhen."
    She gives it to the goddess, a box where Bai Suzhen's scales lie preserved: the white of polished silver, of new ivory, of jasmine in first bloom. Xiaoqing does not know if she will have them back, these last pieces of her sister.
    But it's closer to reaching Bai Suzhen than she has been in eight hundred years, and that must have to do.
     
    2.4
     
    In long and longer strides Julienne leaves the hotel behind. Experience has taught her that she needs a safe, private spot to have her breakdown. The apartment is too far. She could have