Chapter 4: The Curtained Chariot

The scroll said she must report to the Hall of Radiance by noon the next day.

Every new god had to be entered in the Heavenly ledger, it said, and no excuse would be accepted.

Qinghe read it twice and dropped it on the bed.

"They're calling me up the same stairs," she said.

Jinye was already dressed, and he looked at the scroll without picking it up.

"You don't have to go."

"I do, a little. If I don't, they'll say I was afraid."

"Are you?"

"No." She pulled on a clean white robe and tied the silver sash. "I want to see his face."

He did not ask whose.

He only held out his arm, and she took it.

Outside, on the stone terrace, a black chariot waited on a cloud with its silk curtains drawn.

A wiry man in a black army coat leaned on the wheel, grinning at the sky.

He had short black hair and a crooked smile, and a red sash around his waist.

"Your Majesty," he said. "Lady Su."

"Chi Wen," Jinye said. "My Left Marshal. He will say something rude in a minute."

"I'd never," said Chi Wen. "I only came to point out that you have been gone two days."

"I was busy."

"So I see. In the Abyss we assumed you were dead."

Chi Wen looked at Qinghe, at her flushed face and her loose hair, and his grin widened.

"Lady Su. Welcome. I've watched you in the Mirror for three hundred years."

"And?"

"You are even scarier in person."

"Thank you," said Qinghe, who had decided already that she liked him.

The heavenly envoy was waiting too.

He sat on a white crane at the edge of the terrace, in gold-trimmed robes.

Refused to look at the Demon Emperor.

"Lady Su will ride in the Heavenly escort," he announced.

"Lady Su will ride with me," said Jinye, pleasantly.

"The Prince's orders were clear."

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