Page 136 of Night's Reckoning
Tenzin lifted the blade and swung down, severing Johari’s hand at the wrist. She screamed in pain and crumpled to the floor, blood pouring from the empty stump on the end of her arm.
She tossed Johari’s hand in her backpack and slung the bag over her shoulder. “There is my mercy, Saba’s daughter. Your hand will grow back eventually, but your mother will know what it means. Tell her I know. Tell her I know everything.”
Tenzin bent and retrieved her bronze blade, keeping both swords in her hands as she floated up the stairway, past the bloody dining cabin, and onto the bridge. She needed to leave the ship, which was beginning to list dangerously as the storm grew stronger.
The two humans on the bridge were desperately trying to keep the ship steady, but Tenzin knew it was futile. They turned with wide, terrified eyes when she stepped onto the bridge.
“You should go,” Tenzin said. “Get the rest of the crew and take shelter in the lifeboats.” She looked down the stairs as the men stared at her. “There’s no one left to protect.”
She pushed open the door with a gust of wind and walked into the storm. Once she was far enough away from the bay and hovering over the storm, Tenzin threw Johari’s hand into the sea.
She flew a little farther and a little higher, her heart racing as she clutched the Laylat al Hisab in her right hand. She was heading north, back to her father. Back to Benjamin. If she was lucky, she’d make Cheng’s ship by nightfall.
Somewhere past the storm, along the north end of the South China Sea, Tenzin held out her left hand and let the bronze blade slip from her fingers.
34
Tenzin lay motionless on the couch in Cheng’s cabin, staring at the sword. Cheng had put it in a beautiful leather box lined in silk. Because it had never been exposed to saltwater, it didn’t need to be desalinated. With only a little polish, Cheng had returned it to its original glory.
“Your father will be pleased.” Cheng placed another blanket around Tenzin’s shoulders, but she still felt cold.
He sat next to her on the couch and draped her legs over his knees.
“Look at it, Cricket. Focus on what we have accomplished—what you accomplished—finding the sword. Be proud of that right now.”
Counting all the treasure found in Harun’s clever glass boxes, Tenzin would be returning to Penglai Island with one sword, a pair of jeweled throwing daggers, five gold necklaces of intricate beauty made in the Sassanian style and set with polished jewels, a richly decorated headband with braided silver and gold, eight gold goblets decorated to honor the Eight Immortals, and various pieces of precious metal and polished stones.
The treasure of ninth-century Arabic glass that had been recovered would need to be treated at the university laboratory and would likely go into a museum collection of some kind, along with all the research and video footage obtained from the wreck, but the treasure in Harun’s boxes was for Zhang and his fellow elders alone.
Tenzin stared at the sword and the treasure, searching for the satisfaction she would have felt if Benjamin had been beside her. They would have opened champagne and played music. He would have made her dance, and he would have sung when he became drunk.
If they were in New York, he would have stumbled out the door with Chloe at midnight, forcing Gavin and Tenzin with them as they went to search for their favorite late-night street food. They would have eaten waffles with chocolate or french fries or shawarma from the vendor near the park.
“Tenzin.” Cheng shook her shoulder. “Stop.”
“Do you know his story?” Tenzin asked Cheng. “Do you know Harun’s story?”
“Not really.”
“Harun al Ilah was a master of fire,” she began. “Steel, glass, or gold, he could work with them all. He created crowns for ancient kings and mastered every style of weapon. It is said that the genius of Damascus steel began with him. That he was the first to order his steel from India, and he searched the whole continent to find the finest and most flexible metal to forge his weapons.”
“And he shared that technology with the humans?”
“Eventually, yes. But he was the first. He created weapons so strong they could win any duel. In the hands of wind vampires, they could lay waste to armies. He designed blades specifically for our kind.”
“Was he from a wind clan?”
“No one knows who his sire was or where he came from. He was very old, very powerful, and had no enemies, because who would make an enemy of the man who could forge the finest blades?”
Cheng chuckled.
“But he wasn’t kind. He was unmerciful to his human assistants. He could be a brutal craftsman and was known to kill those who didn’t work to his exacting standards.”
“And humans still came to him?”
“Oh yes.” Tenzin sat up and rubbed her temple. “They came and they learned his secrets when they pleased him. He did beautiful things. Impossible things like these boxes.”
“He sealed them somehow,” Cheng said. “I still can’t figure out how not a single one leaked, despite how long they were in the water.”
