Chapter 5: Cold Nights

Mingjue was already walking toward the stair, and every lamp he passed went blue.

"Mingjue. Stop."

"The headman asked for silver in my name."

The frost was creeping up the walls behind him.

"He will learn what it costs to use it."

"And my sister will watch the river king drag him out of his house," Liyan said.

"She'll be afraid of you again, and so will everyone."

The dragon stopped.

He stood with his back to Liyan and his hands in fists.

He was breathing slowly, counting.

"Let me go up in daylight, as myself," Liyan said.

"I know how to make him look small in front of his neighbors."

"You would do that."

"I teach eleven children. I've handled worse than Ma Dechang."

A long moment passed.

The frost stopped spreading.

"Tomorrow, then," Mingjue said, rough. "And I will wait."

He turned.

His face was grey, and he had one hand against the wall.

"I am not," he said carefully, "sure why I am standing in this particular way."

"You're tired."

"I do not tire."

By supper he was shivering.

Liyan found him in the lotus courtyard at the edge of his black pool, sitting hunched on the stone, arms wrapped around his own knees.

His teeth were chattering.

"Mingjue?"

"I have never felt this before," the dragon said.

His voice shook.

"The water is the same, but I am not. Is this what the word means? Cold?"

"Yes. That's cold."

"It is disgusting."

Liyan did not laugh, but it was close.

He took Mingjue's wrist and found it freezing, the scales along it rough as river sand.

"Come on. You're coming to bed."

"I do not sleep."

"You're coming to bed anyway."

It was Liyan's bed in the east wing, because it was nearer.

Liyan did not trust himself to think past the next five steps.

He piled the quilts on.

Mingjue lay stiff under them in his thin white undershirt.

He was six feet four of cold dragon with the face of a boy at his first funeral.

"It is not working," he whispered.

"Quilts hold warmth in. You have to have some to hold."

Liyan stood at the bedside, taking in a long breath.

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