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If Wen’s power failed her, then neither of them would last long enough to worry about anything ever again. And the Dragon Boats would be Zhang’s problem.
    Taking a deep breath, she started reciting the prayer to the gods of wind and air, and to her ancestors. She begged them to take the Dragon Boats and bear them aloft, bend them to her commands.
    After she finished, there was a long, expectant silence, then the whispers started again, behind her, in various tones of worry. Then, suddenly, the jewel caught fire. Warmth and light shone from it, displaying the bones of her fingers through her skin. She made a sound of surprise and removed her hand, and the red light of the jewel shone over the Dragon Boats. And then the boat rocked beneath her feet, rising slowly, like a bird taking wing.
    With her ringed left hand, she pointed above and to the west, in the direction the boats were to take. And, as one, they rose, bright and tattered under the sun—Dragon Boats with their elaborately carved prows, their multicolored sails, their shabby decks, their multitudes of gaudily dressed dragon lords.
    Jade cast a triumphant look at Zhang. Was she mistaken, or did he look a little disappointed?
    But he also looked excited. And greedy. They would raid at his command, but if he thought Jade would be confined to the women’s quarters as she normally was when everything started, he was out of his mind.
    The twin jewels, with their power, were too rich a prize for the ambitious Zhang. No, this was one raid Jade herself would take part in. Her father had taught her to fight as well as most men her age. And though he hadn’t encouraged her to go to battle, she was as capable as most. More capable than Wen. She would put men’s clothes on and join the fray.
    Zhang could not be trusted out of her sight. And she had no intention of letting the Dragon Throne be stolen.

 

    THIRD LADY

     
    Jade turned from the flying. Once the boats had lifted and been set on their course, the other Dragon Lords could make the adjustments necessary to the flight. The emperor—or his representative—was no longer needed. Her presence on deck wasn’t required. And on this, the last day of her mourning for her father, the first day of her brother’s reign, she wished to be alone, to seek the comforting solitude and familiarity of her quarters.
    They were not on this boat. This boat was Wen’s, and the domain of the male members of the family, their counselors and eventually their sons—though her father had produced no other son than Wen. And no other daughter than Jade. And whether Wen would ever produce sons…
    Jade shied away from the thought. Her father, conscious of the frailty of his succession, had arranged Wen’s marriage very early, when he was just fifteen. And when no children from this marriage ensued, he had given his son two more wives—the second wife a beautiful noblewoman of the Tiger Clan; and the third, a singsong girl of the Fox Clan, the youngest daughter of a minor fox nobleman. And though he showed more affection for Third Lady than for his first two wives, Wen’s true love was still his opium dreams, and no son had so far made an appearance.
    Jade took the plank at the back of her brother’s boat, and stretched it across to the boat following so close behind that perfect timing was needed for the flying. There were indentations on both vessels for the plank. It might have looked like an unsteady bridge, but Jade—who had been used to these since earliest childhood—half ran, half danced across it to the boat that was the women’s quarters.
    She was removing the plank linking the two boats—because any sudden shift, however minute, was likely to splinter it—when she heard soft steps behind her. Turning, she saw Third Lady bowing to her.
    Third Lady was beautiful—smaller than Jade and of a lithe, graceful build that went well with the triangular shape of her face and her slightly too large eyes. The whole made one