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In truth, Tonglong only desired one of the dragon scrolls—the one that was rumored to contain a map to a hidden treasure vault. If the rumors were true, the vault contained enough valuables to hire an army large enough to control an entire region. And if conditions were right and things were planned properly, that army might even be large enough to take over the entire country, and who knows what else.

Tonglong knew that he was going to have to take things one step at a time, as he had been doing. When he had let Hok, Fu, and Malao escape a week ago, he had overheard them discussing Shaolin. If Hok had been here, perhaps her brothers had been here, too. Or, even better, perhaps her brothers hadn't arrived yet.

Hok had no idea what day it was when she finally woke to excruciating pain. Judging by her parched lips and the swelling in her face and broken arm, she guessed she'd been asleep more than one day. Probably closer to two. The extraordinary number of insect bites on her arms, legs, and head seemed to confirm as much.

Hok touched her broken right forearm and shivered. It hurt more than any injury she had ever had, and she knew the pain was going to get a lot worse before it got better—she was going to have to realign the bones. She had learned how to treat injuries like this as part of her training at Cangzhen, but she had never done it to herself. Hok stared up at clouds forming over the afternoon sun and decided to take care of it right away.

She sat up, and the marsh began to spin before her. Hok turned toward the forest's edge and saw nothing but a whirl of birch bark and willow branches. She closed her eyes, counted to one hundred, and opened them again. The world slowly came back into focus.

Hok sighed. The Dream Dust was still definitely with her. This wasn't going to be easy.

Hok laid her left hand on her broken right forearm and gently applied pressure to the swollen area with her index finger and thumb. As she felt around the break, her eyes began to water and her hands trembled.

Hok knew that a person's forearm was actually two separate bones. She determined that only one of the bones had snapped, up near her elbow. The separated pieces were misaligned, but still seemed to be touching. She knew she was lucky. She had assumed a person's elbow would have been dislocated and twisted apart attempting to escape an armlock like that. Broken bones could heal. Snapped sinews in your elbow could not.

Without giving it a second thought, Hok pinched the break with her powerful fingers. Years of crane-beak fist exercises gave her a stronger grip than most grown men. She felt the broken bone segments in her forearm grind against one another briefly, and she cried out as they shifted back into their intended position.

Hok collapsed into her marsh grass resting place. Beads of cold sweat coursed through the dirty brown stubble on her head. The sweat ran down her bruised face and mixed with her tears. Her chest began to heave. The marsh started spinning again, and Hok closed her eyes for a long time. When she finally opened them again, she knew what she needed to do next. She needed to make a plan.

When Hok thought about everything she had experienced recently, her arm suddenly seemed to be the least of her worries. She began to wonder about her brothers, Fu, Malao, Seh, and Long. Where were they? Should she go look for them? Maybe they needed her help? She also thought about all the death and destruction at Cangzhen and Shaolin, and what it might mean to the region. And then, finally, for the first time, she began to think about herself.

Growing up pretending to be something she was not—a boy—meant Hok had spent most of her time worrying about other people. How they saw her. What they thought about her. Focusing all her attention on everyone else was normal for her, but the only person she could help right now was herself. So, what was she going to do about it?

Hok felt the presence of another creature nearby, and she stared along the edge of the marsh. It was the red-crowned crane. She watched it wade slowly in her direction in search of its next meal. Hok tried to remember the last time she'd eaten. She thought she recalled having a dream in which Tsung fed her some conjee—rice porridge—but she wasn't sure.

The crane continued to wade in her direction, and Hok reached for the tiny jade replica around her neck. Her fingers brushed against the tall, open collar of the red silk dress, but failed to connect with the silk thread that held the crane. It was gone.

Hok ran her fingers along the five razor-thin scabs on the side of her neck, now covered with insect bites. She remembered Tsung had swiped her with his fingernails. That must have been when she lost the crane.

Fresh tears formed in Hok's eyes. Until that moment, she had never realized how important that little piece of jewelry was to her. She knew it was from her mother, but her mother was only a distant memory.


Tags: Jeff Stone Five Ancestors Fantasy