Chapter 6: Chapter 6

The jade pendant burned against Jie's palm. Not with heat, but with something far worse—recognition. The energy thrumming through the carved dragon was his father's, unmistakable and intimate, like hearing a voice you'd thought silenced forever.

But the young man before him... that was something else entirely.

"You're lying," Jie said, though even as the words left his mouth, he felt the lie in them. The blood in his veins sang a different tune. It recognized this stranger. It *reached* for him.

Long Sheng tilted his head, a gesture so achingly familiar that Jie's chest tightened. "I could prove it," the young man said. "But I suspect you'd rather I didn't do it here, in the middle of the street, where your brothers' spies might be watching."

Jie's eyes narrowed. "You know about my brothers."

"I know a great deal about all of you." Long Sheng's smile widened. "I've been watching the Celestial Palace from the outside for twenty years. You'd be surprised what you can learn about dragons when they think no mortals are listening."

The pendant pulsed again. Jie forced himself to close his fingers around it, to tuck it into his sleeve. "Mother Chen said your line descended from a daughter. A half-blood."

"Great-grandmother," Long Sheng corrected. "She died when I was seven. But she lived long enough to teach me what I am. What we are." He paused, his grey eyes—Mother Chen's eyes, Jie realized, *their* eyes—studying Jie with uncomfortable intensity. "You feel it too, don't you? The pull. The recognition."

Jie didn't answer. He couldn't. Because yes, he felt it—a resonance that went deeper than blood, deeper than qi. It was the call of dragon to dragon, the primal acknowledgment of shared essence.

"Come with me," Long Sheng said. "There's a teahouse two streets over. Private rooms. We need to talk."

"We need to do nothing," Jie said, but his feet were already moving, following the young man through the dusty streets of the provincial capital.

The teahouse was modest, tucked between a silk merchant's shop and a noodle stall. The owner greeted Long Sheng by name and led them to a back room without a word, closing the bamboo door behind them. The room smelled of old tea and older secrets.

Long Sheng sat first, pouring two cups from a waiting pot. "You're wondering why I sought you out."

"Among other things." Jie remained standing, his hand resting on the pendant hidden in his sleeve. "You said you've been looking for me. Why?"

"Because you're the only one who might listen." Long Sheng pushed a cup across the table. "Your brothers—the full-blooded ones—they see mortals as insects. Useful, perhaps, but disposable. You've spent three hundred years among us. You know better."

"I know that mortals die," Jie said quietly. "I know that their lives are brief and brutal and precious. And I know that my father—" He stopped, the words catching in his throat.

"Your father," Long Sheng finished, "slept with a mortal woman and left her with child. Then he returned to the Celestial Palace and never spoke of her again."

The words hung in the air like an accusation. Jie felt something twist in his chest—not anger at Long Sheng, but at himself. At his father. At the cruelty of a world where a dragon could love a mortal and then simply... forget.

"How do you know that?" Jie asked.

"Because great-grandmother told me." Long Sheng's voice softened. "She told me everything. How he came to her village during the mortal wars, wounded and dying. How she nursed him back to health. How he stayed three months, taught her to read the stars, and left when the fighting called him away." He paused. "She never blamed him. She said he was a creature of duty, and her love was never meant to cage him."

Jie finally sat, his legs weak. He picked up the cup of tea and stared into its amber depths. "And the child?"

"My grandmother. She had my father when she was nineteen. He had me when he was twenty-three." Long Sheng's smile was bitter. "We're a short-lived line. The dragon blood burns hot in us, but it burns fast. We live longer than most mortals—my great-grandmother reached a hundred and twelve—but nothing like you."

"Why aren't you afraid of me?" The question slipped out before Jie could stop it. "You know what I am. You know what my brothers are. And yet you sought me out."

Long Sheng laughed. It was a warm sound, completely at odds with the tension in the room. "Because I've heard stories about you, Long Jie. The youngest son. The one who chose mortality over immortality. The one who—" He stopped, his eyes sharpening. "The one who's being hunted."

Jie's hand tightened on his cup. "What do you know about that?"

"Enough." Long Sheng leaned forward. "I know your brother Long Wei has placed bounties on your head in three provinces. I know he's sent shadow-hunters to track you. And I know—" He paused, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I know he's found out about us."

The air left Jie's lungs. "What?"

"Three of my cousins disappeared last month. Farmers, both of them. Simple people with no knowledge of their heritage." Long Sheng's jaw clenched. "The shadow-hunters took them. I don't know if they're alive or dead, but I know why they were taken."

Jie felt the jade pendant grow cold against his chest. "Because they carry dragon blood."

"Because they carry a claim to the throne." Long Sheng's voice cracked. "Even a bastard claim is a threat to a man like Long Wei. He won't risk any loose ends when the Trials begin."

The Trials. Jie had almost forgotten them in the chaos of his escape from the Celestial Palace. The Dragon Ascension Trials—seven tests across the mortal and immortal realms, designed to prove which of the nine brothers was worthy to succeed their father. He'd fled before the first Trial was announced, unwilling to participate in a game that would destroy him.

But now...

"Your cousins," Jie said slowly. "Do you know where they were taken?"

Long Sheng shook his head. "No. But I know someone who might." He reached into his robe and pulled out a folded piece of paper, yellowed with age. "My great-grandmother kept a journal. Toward the end of her life, she wrote about a place—a sanctuary for those with mixed blood. Half-breeds, she called us. She said there was a network of them, hidden across the mortal realm. Mortals who knew about their dragon ancestors and wanted nothing to do with the Celestial Palace."

Jie unfolded the paper. It was covered in cramped handwriting, the ink faded but still legible. Names. Locations. Symbols he didn't recognize.

"She said the network has a leader," Long Sheng continued. "A woman who's been hiding half-bloods for over a century. If anyone knows where my cousins were taken, it's her."

"And you want me to help you find her."

"I want you to come with me." Long Sheng's grey eyes met Jie's. "You know the shadow-hunters. You know their tactics, their weaknesses. And you—" He hesitated. "You're the only one of your brothers who might care what happens to us."

Jie stared at the journal in his hands. The weight of it—not physical, but emotional—pressed down on him. His father's secret. His father's shame. His father's other children, scattered across the mortal realm like seeds thrown to the wind.

And now his brothers were hunting them.

"Why me?" Jie asked again, his voice hoarse. "Why not go to the Celestial Palace? Why not claim your birthright?"

Long Sheng laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You think I want to be emperor? You think I want to sit on a throne that's been soaked in blood for ten thousand years?" He shook his head. "My great-grandmother lived to a hundred and twelve because she never touched that world. She had a farm, a family, a life. She was happy." His voice softened. "I want that. I want my cousins back. I want to live in peace, without looking over my shoulder for dragons who think I'm a threat."

Jie looked at him—this young man, barely more than a boy in mortal terms, with his callused hands and patched robes and desperate hope. He looked nothing like a prince. Nothing like a dragon.

But his blood sang with the same song.

"Your cousins," Jie said slowly. "They might already be dead."

"I know."

"And if we find them alive, we'll be walking into a trap. Long Wei doesn't leave loose ends."

"I know."

"And even if we succeed, even if we save them, you'll spend the rest of your life running. Your brothers will never stop hunting you."

Long Sheng smiled—a tired, knowing smile that seemed far too old for his face. "I've been running my whole life, Long Jie. I'm used to it."

Jie studied him for a long moment. Then he looked down at the jade pendant in his hand—his father's pendant, warm and pulsing with ancient power. The coiled dragon seemed to be watching him, its closed eyes somehow knowing.

"Who is this woman?" he asked. "The leader of the network?"

Long Sheng's eyes lit up. "You'll come with me?"

"I didn't say that." But even as the words left Jie's mouth, he knew they were a lie. He was already in. He'd been in from the moment he saw Long Sheng's face—that familiar, heart-wrenching face—and felt the pull of shared blood.

"Her name," Long Sheng said, "is Yan Mei. She runs a teahouse in the eastern province, near the coast. They call her the Crane Mother because she's always moving, always watching." He paused. "Her grandmother was one of the first half-bloods my great-grandmother ever met. They were friends for sixty years."

Jie tucked the pendant back into his sleeve. "And if she doesn't know anything? If your cousins are already dead?"

Long Sheng's smile faded. "Then I'll bury them. And then I'll find a way to make your brother pay."

The cold certainty in his voice sent a chill down Jie's spine. This was not a mortal speaking. This was a dragon—a young, unblooded dragon, but a dragon nonetheless. And dragons did not forgive.

"Alright," Jie said, surprising himself with the word. "I'll come with you."

Long Sheng's face split into a grin—young and bright and utterly mortal. "You won't regret this."

"I already do," Jie muttered, but he was already reaching for his pack, already calculating the fastest route to the eastern province, already thinking about shadow-hunters and what he'd do to them if they'd hurt Long Sheng's cousins.

And beneath all of that, a darker thought stirred. His brothers wanted to eliminate the half-blood line. They wanted to ensure that no one but the nine sons could claim the Celestial Throne.

But the Dragon Ascension Trials were about proving worth. And what greater proof of worth than protecting the innocent? What greater claim to power than justice?

The thought was dangerous. Jie pushed it away.

But it lingered, coiled in the back of his mind like a sleeping dragon.

Like the pendant in his sleeve, waiting to wake.