The Immortal Words (The Grave Kingdom), стр. 34

My daughters embody many of my attributes. You are all strong-willed, determined, patient, and wise. But your most important qualities are persistence, the ability to withstand suffering and mockery without yielding to it, and grace, the willingness to forgive instead of hate. You have already demonstrated an affinity for these attributes. And you must also instill them in your child.

Do not think it will be easy when we return, Bingmei. Echion will not surrender his dominion willingly. He has built his wenming for thousands of years. It will not be toppled overnight. He and his dragons will fight to maintain their empire, and if they learn of your destiny, they will stop at nothing to destroy your child.

Will you join with me, beloved daughter? Are you willing to continue our fight against Echion and his evil until it is purged from Tianxia as well as the deepest chasms of the Grave Kingdom? It will not be simple. It will feel impossible. But know this: With my help, you will do wonders. You will make it possible for the world to be reborn. Are you willing to return?

Bingmei gazed into the faces of her sisters and saw the hope in their eyes, smelled their courage and confidence in her. Each one of them had made the decision. And many of them had been killed by Echion trying to do the phoenix’s will. If she went back, she had no guarantee that she—or her child—would survive. And yet she felt a longing, a painful longing, to be reunited with her body-soul. To see Rowen again, and Quion. To once again be able to cry and laugh and feel the sun on her flesh. And if she did her part for the phoenix, she would ensure all her sisters were, one day, reunited with their body-souls too. That they would once again be able to see their loved ones, now walled off from them in the Grave Kingdom.

“Yes,” Bingmei said.

She smelled approval, joy, relief, from the phoenix and from her sisters too. That single word she’d spoken was all that was required of her.

The phoenix lowered its head before her, looking into her eyes with its fierce yellow gaze. She felt like a chick, a baby phoenix that had not yet learned to fly. She felt so weak and insignificant, but the purpose inside her was a flame that could not be smothered. Echion and his hordes would not hold her back.

As the phoenix looked at her, images flashed through her mind. Dragons and phoenixes fighting. It was a glimmer of what she’d seen on her way to the temple. Of a shadow staining the world, turning all it touched to darkness. She heard the war shrieks of the great birds and the guttural roars of dragons. The battle had been fought for eons, and she was about to join it.

She felt the great bird’s beak brush against her forehead.

Hold me, the phoenix whispered to her mind.

She extended her arms and wrapped herself in the feathers. They were so soft and smelled so fragrant and lovely. She felt a sigil being traced on her back.

Light exploded from behind her, and she sank into the feathers, and the feathers sank into her, and suddenly, the two of them were one. Bingmei didn’t lose herself. In fact, she had never felt more herself before.

When her eyes opened, the phoenix was gone. All her sisters knelt around her in a circle. Juexin knelt as well, just as he had knelt before Echion, except this time it wasn’t in dread but in respect. She turned, in confusion, wondering where the giant bird had gone.

And then she felt the rustling of wings on her back.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

United

We are one in purpose, you and I. There is a bond between us, a sharing of power and commitment. Of feeling. This you will instill in your child. You may not always feel me, but know that I will always be with you. Guiding you. I will teach you the Immortal Words stroke by stroke. This is the first one.

The image of a glyph came to Bingmei’s mind. It burned in the air, bright and glistening.

This is the glyph for Shijian. Remember it.

Bingmei felt the glyph sear into her mind. And as it burned, she felt the knowledge of it transfer to her too. It was the concept of time, the passing of the sun over the sky, the shifting of the stars, the growth of a baby to old age, the seed to a tree. It was more than all those things, and yet she understood it like she understood how to breathe, how to swallow, how to blink.

Before you go into the future to visit your husband, you will need your body. Reclaim it.

Bingmei looked at those kneeling before her. Her spirit-soul was still in the immaculate pavilion, and yet she felt a pulsing awareness embedded inside her, like one of Quion’s fishhooks, connecting her to her body far away.

How do I go back? she asked in her mind.

Pull.

It wasn’t like pulling on a rope. But she sensed how to do it—and so she did. She was ripped away from those kneeling in the great hall in a rush of dazzling colors. It happened so quickly, the crossing of such immense space, as she followed the thread of her existence back toward her body.

She heard dragons shrieking as she crossed the Woliu, but nothing could snatch her. Nothing could stop her flight. Groans came from the ripples of existence. And then she was back in her body again.

Bingmei gasped, her lungs filling with air. In the past, it had hurt to awaken after dying, but this time she felt no pain, no pricking sensations. Returning to her body felt like an embrace, and she experienced throbs of satisfaction as if it were a bed and she was getting ready to sleep in it. Her senses were sharper now. The simple things she had been denied, the