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  EY 3120:

  “Keishin, love, I need you to wake, and quickly.”

  “Petal Blossom?” Yinghao Keishin woke obediently to see his wife fully dressed for stealth. The cloth she usually wrapped around her nose and mouth was pulled down so that Keishin could hear her better.

  “Call me Widow– I’m working. The Forbidden City is under attack and burning. We need every Pure Flame Master we have.”

  Keishin got out of bed and dressed as quickly as he could. The pair left the Yinghao compound at a run, his wife pulling ahead easily.

  “It is that serious?” Keishin checked.

  “Yes. The Cantata were dealing with other incidents when they struck.” Petal Blossom climbed the wall with the ease of the Emerald Dragon. Keishin followed her with only a little more difficulty. She shook her head, half talking to herself. “I can’t understand how we got stretched so thin. The Yellow Dragon Guard, as well.”

  “There was no-one left there?” Keishin stumbled as he tried to jump between the rooftops while his wife soared. He really should train his Golden Phoenix skills more.

  “Your cousin Shen. A few others.” Keishin could hear the frown in Petal Blossom’s voice, “This was very well planned. By someone who knows how we work.”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Even if I was cleared for enough information to put that together, you wouldn’t be.”

  Keishin smiled, “That’s fine. Just tell me what I need to do.”

  “We’re going to head for the centre of trouble and find Shen. We’ll take out any attackers we find while you deal with the flames. Follow me.”

  They kept running. Keishin’s attention turned to the too-light sky. The Forbidden City was meant to be a place of tranquillity for the Emperor and their family to live in peace and safety. Most of the space inside the great walls was given over to gardens and administrative buildings, all masterfully constructed so that the Imperial family would see beauty wherever they turned.

  Now it lit the rest of the Imperial City like a torch, silhouetting the figures shooting towards it from all sides. Usually only priests could enter the Forbidden City, so it was them the palace had called on, but that didn't stop what felt like half the Imperial City filling the streets to gawk at the blaze. The Golden Phoenix priests were easy to pick out, their jumps carrying them between rooftops with practised ease to avoid the crowd. Down below Keishin could see the colours of the Tiger Rajah on the fastest runners, though the priests of the Ruby Dragon were making just as much headway by bellowing at the crowd to clear it.

  The top of the walls of the Forbidden City were oddly empty, but more importantly he could feel the heat of the flames even this far away. They paused for a moment at an ornamental stream to drench cloth and wrap it around their faces, then crossed a gravel garden which had clearly already been used to earth the fire by someone.

  Keishin's stance shifted to become steady and strong as they came to the Imperial Palace itself. He had never been in here before. For all he was a member of the Yinghao clan he was from a branch of the branch family, and the third child at that. To go into the Imperial Palace… he hesitated a moment before he felt his wife’s hand on his back.

  “Concentrate on the fire, not the building.”

  Keishin nodded and breathed, reaching out to grab the nearest portion of flame and pulling steadily until it came away from the wood in a stream. Part of it he wove together and suspended over his head and shoulders as a scarf of living flame, the rest he threw behind him into the gravel, hearing it flare out uselessly against the stone.

  “We need to go in. Are you ready?”

  He nodded and entered, keeping his mind and motions firmly on keeping the fire away from them rather than where they were. “Widow, where do we need to go?”

  “Follow me.”

  It was easier said than done to follow her with the smoke so thick. Keishin was glad of the water soaked cloth, for all the fire and heat couldn’t harm him. Tapestries that should have been beautiful enough to make him weep were in burnt tatters. The intricately woven rugs were black with soot. The light being red he was used to, but it was bright and hungry rather than tame.

  Keishin did his best to pull away the flame to clear a path, but with nowhere to ground it he decided to conserve his strength. He moved the fire from in front of them to behind to create a moving bubble of safety. One hand formed a wire pulling plate wreathed in blue ghost-light while the other pulled the fire through, slow and steady to avoid breakages or uneven spots out of sheer habit. It may not have been as fast as fully throwing the fire, but this way wouldn't put undue strain on the walls and risk bringing the place down on top of them.

  As their bubble moved Petal Blossom spoke again. “We’ll head for the Yellow Dragon Guard’s quarters, though I don’t have much hope.”

  “If anyone is still alive there I can try to treat them, though smoke inhalation is-”

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  “If they were able to move they’d be fighting.” his wife interrupted flatly, “I suspect the only ones they need are priests.”

  “Yes, but if they need extra hands to get people out then we should help, burning alive is a horrible death.” Keishin replied, increasing the speed of his movements.

  They left what Keishin suspected was a records store attached to the library and crossed a small courtyard to enter a building that was significantly less on fire. Keishin switched to chucking swathes of fire out of the windows into the gravel gardens. Keishin pulled fire out of his wife's path like whisking away soiled rugs. With that the pair were able to sprint along the corridors at a run.

  Someone shot out of a side corridor towards them. Petal Blossom was caught by surprise and thrown away. Keishin spread his hands with the fire held taut between them to block gleaming needles. Bladed rather than hollow, so not true needles - and less risk of venom - just needle-like daggers without a guard or obvious hilts. His assailant’s third strike was luckier, shaving a slice of cloth away as Keishin moved to get a good look at their opponent. Male, and in the robes of a Yellow Dragon Guard. But no member of the guard would strike at someone bearing the Cantata’s tattoo openly.

  Petal Blossom had obviously come to the same conclusion, shifting her stance so that her ribbon-like sleeves trailed freely and moved like extra limbs.

  Keishin didn’t give their assailant time to react, pulling fire from the walls to strike at their feet, then turning to strike upwards with his elbow in another arc of fire.

  The attacks were enough to make the attacker dodge hurriedly, kicking off two walls to launch themselves at Keishin. The lack of noise caught Keishin off guard - he'd been waiting to hear the man’s feet hit the wall to judge his speed and position. A deeper slice cut through Keishin's arm this time, knocking them both to the floor.

  A breath later Keishin was on his back, the flaming scarf caught between them to just barely block the opponent’s needles. Keishin was losing, struggling to keep the needles from creeping closer to his throat.

  Exactly where he wanted to be.

  Petal Blossom appeared from the smoke just as silently as she had vanished, her sleeves and glittering wire drifting around her like a spider’s extra limbs. Keishin closed his eyes as if he were accepting defeat; more than one opponent had seen her approach in his eyes before.

  More to the point, he didn’t want to see what came next.

  The assailant’s weight vanished, needles clattering to the ground. Keishin got to his feet immediately, but didn’t open his eyes for another few seconds. When he did Petal Blossom had turned their attacker’s face so Keishin couldn’t see him. Keishin felt his shoulders tighten with tension as he turned to make sure no-one else intervened. He disliked seeing his wife like this. For all he knew she was the Singing Widow Spider - and that this was an image she carefully cultivated - the way her victims dangled helplessly in the razor thin wires made him uncomfortable.

  Ignoring the slowly choking assailant, Keishin spoke, “Silent Bat Stylist?”

  “Yes, so that he didn’t need to bother with sight in all this smoke. I’m sorry I took so long, I needed to be more careful with silence than normal.”

  “Your apology is accepted and the help welcome.” Keishin replied, “But he wore the uniform of…”

  “The assailants must have come by disguises, but those are meant to be impossible to forge.” Petal Blossom paused. Keishin heard the faint high note of the web as she ran one finger along it. When she spoke again her voice was soft and razor sharp, snaring her prey as surely as the wires, “Who do you serve?”

  “Like I would tell you if I knew.” It was impressive that their assailant was still able to speak. Keishin gritted his teeth and tried to ignore his Blue Phoenix training, even if he could roughly work out how long it would be until the damage to the attacker's windpipe would be irreversible.

  Keishin’s head jerked up as a great bell tolled; long, loud and deep enough that it could only mean one thing.

  The attacker laughed, his voice loud and high as if he weren’t human, “Just long enough!” he spluttered, his voice little more than a mocking whisper with the last of his air, “Long live the Emperor, May He Live Forever.”

  Keishin’s mind froze. If the Emperor (may he live forever) was dead, then the Yellow Dragon Guard with him would have to be as well. There was no way they would let him die before they did. Where was Shen?

  “Keishin, go. We’ll come back for his corpse later, we need to find your cousin.” Even Petal Blossom’s voice was strained. How would this be affecting her? With that tattoo on her shoulder she had sworn herself to the Imperial family as tightly as Shen had, and she had been too late.

  The pair ran, going up the levels to run straight for the Imperial Sanctum, stealth abandoned in favour of speed. Fire trailed behind him in readiness he would no longer need. The corridors were rich with gold and blood, Keishin only very slowly realising what was wrong with the image. Almost no corpses wore the Imperial Purple of the Dragon Guard, and those that did wore numbered red masks.

  Not a single Yellow Dragon Guard, where were they that all the Emperor had to defend themselves were servants and scholars? How was this planned? How could they…

  They skidded round a corner to see the massive door to the Imperial Sanctum thrown wide open and filled with living people at last, a mixed group of Yellow Dragon Guard and those bearing the same tattoo as Petal Blossom.

  All of them settled into stance with weapons levelled before Petal Blossom showed her tattoo. After that they relaxed slightly, but not by much. Keishin stayed well back, attempting to put them at ease.

  “Singing Widow Spider reporting in.”

  “Who is with you?”

  “Master Yinghao Keishin, a Pure Flame Master who is helping me control the fire, cousin of Master Yinghao Shen.” The question hung unspoken in the air.

  One of the Yellow Dragon Guard near the front shook his head slightly. Keishin felt his fire fade as a sudden cold pierced him. “We will find who did this. They attacked both the late Emperor, May He Reincarnate Swiftly, and his brother, May He Live Forever, who is being tended to. We do not know where the Prince is, but fear he perished in the fire.”

  Petal Blossom nodded and bowed, Keishin belatedly following suit. To lose the Emperor and his heir in one night…

  “Do you know where the rest of the Yellow Dragon Guard are?” Keishin found himself asking, voice far politer and steadier than he expected, “I am worried for my cousin.”

  “We are directing people to the Spring Dragon room. If you wish to find anyone that would be the best place to look.”

  The pair of them bowed again and Keishin looked to Petal Blossom for directions. She led him down other corridors, left, straight, then left again only to stop short.

  Keishin blinked and looked up to see one of the Yellow Dragon Guard captains kneeling in prayer next to the armoured corpse of a Yellow Dragon Guard, a long sword standing proud in a way instantly recognisable as suicide from shame, borrowed from the Diamond Isles to the East. Something was familiar about the sword, but his eyes were refusing to acknowledge what it was.

  He found himself walking forward without being consciously aware of it, eyes searching the still face under the helmet and the glaive set neatly at the man’s side covered in blood. He blinked again, slow and dazed. He knew that armour, he knew that face, he knew that glaive, he knew the sword stuck into the body, he’d helped to forge it, his bear-like cousin laughing as Keishin had urged the flame hotter.

  He sank to his knees next to his cousin, tears threatening to spill as he half reached to check Shen's vital signs. The captain’s hand stopped him and Keishin looked up, then up again as Petal Blossom’s hand rested on his shoulder.

  He stood and wrapped her in a hug. It would be improper to show his grief here of all places, but even his White Phoenix training couldn't hold it all back. His tears broke free of his control as he hid his face in his wife’s hair with a silent scream.