A short faery -- no more than a head taller than Xi -- opened the door. Her four gray eyes ran over his head, legs, bundle, shoulders...

"Fenghuang. We have been expecting you," she said as if he had been in a habit of dropping by every week. "Or is it Chong Xi?"

"Chong Xi," he said, remembering her name in turn; she was the faery who went into exile with his mother and Yu. "May the Celestials bless your way, Sister Sayewa."

"My mother..." the rest of the question died in his throat.

The haunting string instrument he heard all over Tarkan, played deep in the house as well, but the tune was wistful, rather than titillating. Xi gently pressed the faery aside to walk towards the music as if in a dream.

The house had five rooms at most, running in a circle around a tiny courtyard. It was made smaller by the boxes, crates, and cases of scrolls. Despite the disregard for order, every visible surface was squeaky-clean, almost obsessively so. Or, perhaps, scholarly.

"Chong Xi, may we have a word first---" The faery nearly stepped on his heels, but he ignored her, searching for his invisible musician.

Sayewa kept up, his stubborn shadow, dropping yellow flowers with a sharp fragrance. Other than the extra eyes and the vegetation sprouting from her skin and hair, the faery might have been taken for a human in appearance, unlike her taller, angular-featured kin. As much as Xi was comforted by her presence, he did not stop. He was too close to finding his mother after all these years to seek a confidante.

The room he sought faced west.

It was full of scrolls too, but most of it was taken up by a bed mat and the gauze curtains. Xi did not care for furnishings and the principal directions: the musician sitting on the cushions looked like his grandmother would have, if she pinned her hair up with a single comb, and did not put on her Empress' face.

Startled by the noise, she had stopped playing even before he walked through the door. When he did, she lifted her eyes at him slowly, as if her eyelids were weighed. Just as slowly, she let go of her instrument, the zither. It slipped from her lap to the floor, producing a mournful sound.

His mother's fingers fluttered over his face. "Xi. You... you look so much like Ho!"

A momentary relief lightened his chest when she said his father's name, compared him to his father... then her feelings poured in with every touch. This new aspect of his hsin was unsettling, but he succumbed to being held, succumbed to breathing in her scent, her guilt, her joy, her sadness, her pride... everything that he longed for. He did not know if he should have kept his eyes opened, when they'd closed. Reluctantly, the rational part of him worked on slowing down the breathing and the racing of his heart -- he wished he could let it gallop instead, to the point where he would have to gasp for air out of joy.

She loved him.

"Then why?" he skipped ahead to the next question. He meant to keep it to himself, but he blurted it out into her ear.

"Xi, perhaps we can—" She glanced at the gauze bed-curtains, at the man lying on the mat, making Xi to finally remembered his promise to Jiang, to be courteous.

"Greetings, Yu." Xi made his bow not deep enough for a master or a father. Before he straightened up he knew why his mother and her companions did not leave Tarkan sooner.

All grown men look mighty to a boy who barely reaches their knees, but even when Xi was a boy, Yu stood out among men. The demon bloodline gave him wider shoulders, thicker bones and neck, heavier muscles. Yu used to have a warrior's look even when all he did was to kneel by the sick all day long.

Yu's gifts relied on qi and empathy, so Xi had seen his mother's lover stricken with every affliction imaginable, only to spring back to health in a matter of hours, then wander around intoxicated with the euphoria of his healing.

The half-demon was a strange man, unnatural, to some - even scary, but Xi grew accustomed to his oddness. Xi'd never forgotten these first bitter pangs of envy, he'd never forgotten a thing about Yu.

He did not recognize what was in front of him now.

Half-hidden by the bed curtains was not a sick man, not a euphoric one, and most certainly not a young warrior. Cadaverously thin, yes, yet not the thin of a starving beggar. Like a ghost, Yu no longer looked fully anchored to Tiandi. Even Yu's tell-tale red hair served to emphasize the lack of substance in his waxy face, making Xi doubt that he would bleed when cut.

Then the healer dipped his head and looked upward, from under his hair, and recognition had finally dawned on Xi. His eyes remained haunted with an eternal apology. He still begged to forgive his very existence of everyone but Tien Lyn.

"Greetings, Xi. I am glad you are here," Yu said.

Xi expected his voice to be like a falling sheaf of paper to match the man's sorry state, but it remained unchanged, like the eyes. There was an obvious joy in it as well, to shame Xi. He expected the unease to be mutual. As a child, the only thing he sensed from Yu was anxiety.

"Come closer, please," Yu said, "and stop blocking me."

He swallowed. "It's not that simple. I was trained to—"

A bone-thin hand waved away his objections. "Drop the shield, please, so I can heal you."

Xi knelt by the mat, letting Yu touch his cheek. The intrusion felt apologetic after the demon's barrage, calming down both the throbbing of the wounds and the sting of the medicine.

Yu winced clutching his own cheek. "Do not try to save silver on medics next time. I suspect that all his other patients are camels."

Good thing Xi had no use for the virility potions. If they were also meant for camels, he did not want to imagine the complications.

The scars come up red on Yu's face, visible through his splayed fingers. Almost immediately, they faded, and the familiar blissful smile of an addict curved his lips. The healer would be lost in his euphoria for a bit, but Xi mumbled 'thanks' regardless. It was wonderful to be free of the nagging pain, and he did promise Jiang to be civil.

Tien Lyn was devouring Yu and him with her eyes. Oh, Mother, your dreams had been even more foolish than mine, he thought in spite of warmth spreading through his chest.

He could not even move to embrace her again, paralyzed into standing there staring at his mother enjoying the vision of something that could have never been. I am Chong Ho's son, your husband's son, he wanted to tell her, you said so yourself. The tongue would not obey him.

Sayewa cleared her throat, and the delicate sound set them all in motion: Tien Lyn leading Xi away, and Sayewa taking her place on the cushions. She pulled a scroll from her sleeve and read to Yu. "The dragons used to be so numerous in the Echoing Mountains, that the raja of the principality had a castle cut in the mountainside to watch them fly."

The faery's soothing voice trailed from the sickroom, as he followed his mother to the kitchen, where she set about making tea. She picked up the thread of conversation without a preamble, answering the question that Yu interrupted.

"I left because I had lost too much. Your magic had manifested at four. Your adopted grandfather alone could lead you away from the madness of it. And Yu... Yu would have died without me."

He worshiped clarity, but he revolted against it. "Fifteen years, mother! Fifteen..."

She offered him a cup and stared down her own. "Fifteen years, yes. At first, it was crossing into the foreign lands, finding favour or refuge with the foreign courts and the faery monasteries. Then we had been kept as 'honored guests' for five years by a 'benevolent' demon ruler. Then a town that suffered demon's atrocities tore Yu to pieces.... But I could have returned sooner if it were just that.

'Everywhere we went, we picked up the shreds of knowledge. It told us that we were not ready to return yet, that we need more... and more.

'I knew you were growing up, Xi. That I've missed seeing you become a young man. If I turned back too soon I would have come back to see you die a young man. The Horde is gathering and the Empire needs a weapon."

She believed it, he knew, because he had squeezed her hand during her speech and would not let go. "What is happening to Yu, Mother?"

Tears welled up in Tien Lyn's eyes again. They had never been completely dry since he'd laid his eyes on her again. "It is how his kind ends if they do not cultivate qi by taking it. What he was born with, is now exhausted, and healing does not rejuvenate him enough to go on."

"I am sorry," Xi mumbled.

She turned away, stifling a sob, then eased her forehead onto his chest. "I want to hear about you. When did you pass your test? How is the father? And mother?"

He cradled his mother to his shoulder talked until his voice grew hoarse. Rustam's -- his adopted grandfather's -- doings, his test, grandmother Guang's gamble, his journey with Fenghuang. The demon... nothing about Zijun, his mother probably would not even remember her.

Sayewa joined them to whisper that Yu had drifted off to sleep. She jumped up to her feet the moment Xi spoke of the demon he buried. "A scout. The magistrate must be notified immediately."

Tien Lyn exhaled in frustration. "Have you not heard enough times that 'nothing can be done until the reinforcements arrive', Sister?"

"He must be told," the faery repeated stubbornly and slipped out of the house into the dark street.

"What is she going to do? Wake him in the middle of the night?" Xi wondered.

Tien Lyn laughed. "Oh, yes. But there is no reason to keep you awake. Let's settle you for the night, baby."

He was still grinning like a fool while they shuffled away a few scroll cases in the second bedroom, to separate it from Sayewa's mat, and Tien Lyn found him an extra blanket. "This will have to do for tonight."

Xi bit his lip before he dared to ask, "Have you... are you married?"

"Yu could only be my lover." She ruffled his hair. "When Rustam adopted me, he became your closest male relative, and he safeguards your inheritance. I can't compromise that. We did not need prayers or scrolls for another child. Yu had always feared the effects of the Blood, even in the second generation."

Xi found her eyes. "Is that why I got all those panicked looks from him when I was a boy?"

She cupped his face in her palms, traced his cheeks with her thumbs. The emotions flooded Xi, and he could not untangle hers from his own, love, regret, guilt... yet hope as well, quite a bit of hope. "You are Ho's son, it is stamped in your every feature. But you would have been stillborn if Yu hadn't shared his qi with you. Blame me for it, if you must, not Yu. I wanted you to live, I used his feelings for me to let you live."

"You have succeeded, Mother," Xi said. "I will live for centuries without an issue."

Tien Lyn shook her head. "I had seen magical things on my journey, but I still don't understand your nature. I only know that you are Ho's son, and that I am happy that you've lived. Good night, Xi."

She left him with a lamp for company.

He focused on its flame, trying to meditate away the bitter taste of his mother's shattered dreams.