Page 116 of Night's Reckoning
“Intact. Astonishingly intact. I can’t tell you more than that. It had been enclosed in…” Ben struggled to describe it. “Like a glass bubble or a case. The glass was thick, eaten away on the outside, but it wasn’t cracked. I saw the outline of the sword when I…”
When I shined my flashlight through the case and Johari speared me to the bottom of the ocean like a putting a toothpick in a sausage.
“Harun must have created a special glass case for the sword, not wanting it to be damaged by water,” Zhang said. “Clever, clever vampire.” He chuckled. “Now we simply have to retrieve it from the immortal who stole it.”
“Saba’s daughter,” Ben said. “She won’t be an easy target.”
Zhang’s expression could only be described as amused. “Saba’s daughter will never be a match for mine.”
29
On the second night after Ben had lost his mortal life, Tenzin cleaned up the wreckage of the room they had destroyed, folded the sheets he had slept on, and washed the bathroom he had used. Then she ate a bowl of noodle soup before she walked out of her rooms in Penglai Island and took to the sky.
Her father was waiting in the air. “The Laylat al Hisab is in an oblong glass case. Ben says he thinks it is red, but he was underwater and his memory of that night is incomplete.”
“Understood.” She kept her face expressionless and her thoughts to herself.
“He is doing well. His thirst is being sated by the typical amount of blood. He has no pain or memory of his injuries.”
She nodded.
“He has not asked about you.”
Tenzin kept her eyes on the horizon. “I understand.”
Zhang reached down and lifted her chin, turning Tenzin’s head until he could look her in the eye. “The truth is not always beautiful.”
“I learned that centuries ago.” She would not think of him. She would not think of anything but her mission. “I will find the sword, Father. I will kill Saba’s daughter.”
“Is that what you think I want?” He stared at her. “My daughter, if you resist change, you will never be who you were meant to become.”
She looked at him, the familiar planes of his face. The arched eyebrows and wide mouth. He was a man who had learned to laugh and smile when he was in company. He was a chameleon in a way she had never been.
“I know who I am,” Tenzin said. “I will return when it is done.”
Zhang released her, and Tenzin turned south. She flew over the ocean that guarded the sacred island and the fields on the mainland. She flew fast, marking landmarks as she passed them. She flew over Shanghai and didn’t stop. The flight to Cheng’s ship would take her most of the night.
Tenzin didn’t think about Ben. She didn’t think about the Laylat al Hisab or her desire to kill Johari. She opened her soul wide and absorbed the dark night around her, drawing strength from the emptiness of the sky.
I am as old as the wind I walk upon.
She dropped lower when she reached Fuzhou, blowing through the mist from the ocean and through the city air until she reached the ocean.
Murderer.
Liar.
Lover.
Thief.
Hero?
She could never be a hero. What she could be was a blade.
Tenzin dropped to the deck of theJinshéand walked past Kadek, who was ordering men moving the tanks.
“No, no! You’re going to tip— Tenzin?”
