Greenshoe awoke earlier than normal, his stomach gurgling from last night’s stew and his dreams uneasy. He had seen two great balls of fire descending upon his fields like the setting of twin suns, and for a moment the farmer thought his crops were burning. But when he rushed to the window and threw the shutters wide, he found nothing but the predawn glow in the east and the chirping of crickets.

  He might be able to crawl back into bed and get some more sleep. But, no. He was up. Might as well get going with the day.

  He dressed as quietly as he could and began moving about his daily chores, laughing at himself all the while.

  His father had always claimed some distant lineage from the Imperial Dragon clan, the Emperor’s own extended family. But Greenshoe had never been the one to take such claims seriously. It had been his brother who had gone seeking glory and status across the river. Of course, Redshoe – their parents had raised twelve children and had gotten a little tired of giving them all two names apiece – had done well for himself in the City of Lanterns, and had even held a post for a few years before regimes turned over and he had come back to the family farm with more than a little cash to spread around.

  But this morning, after that vivid dream, Greenshoe thought for just a moment that this could be some hint of a minor Mandate from Heaven. Who would have thought? Him, a commoner with a Mandate.

  He threw slop to the pigs and laughed again.

  Which star could bestow the power of prophecy again? He was just trying to remember which one he had allegedly been born under – had his mother claimed Green, or Black; surely it had been Green based on the courtesy name she had given him – when a thought brought him up short, just as he reached for a chicken egg.

  His hut didn’t have any windows facing the east! The predawn glow was on the wrong horizon!

  He left the chickens and rushed around the house to look north. As he squinted into the glow, he saw that it was not an even glow like the rising sun, nor was it the right color. It was a yellow so pale as to be almost green, and it flitted and swarmed like…

  Fireflies?

  Hundreds, thousands of them, forming a cloud around two small figures, walking hand in hand.

  Green Shoe’s own hands fell to his unsettled stomach again, but indigestion couldn’t make you hallucinate, could it?

  ***

  Our horses thundered across the fields, as regal as any cavalry charge, save for the fact that the now re-assembled warlords were still mostly in their pajamas. Bedclothes or not, when the peasant ran out to meet us, hands raised and shouting “Woah!” he risked being run down.

  I saw Snow Fox raise a hand and reign his horse in. The warlords followed suit.

  “Where is his majesty?” asked the most senior warlord.

  “His majesty,” said the peasant, a man who would later identify himself as Green Shoe, “Well, his majesties… or… their majesties?”

  “Where is the Emperor and his heir!?” snapped Uncle.

  “Eating breakfast. They’re worn out. They’ve had an accursed fright.”

  “Show us to them, immediately.”

  “Of course, of course. Just… please watch the fields. They’re so near to harvest it would be a shame to have them trampled and ruined.”

  Some of the lords couldn't help but groan at the delay. Surely the immediate retrieval of the Emperor was worth a few crops, they cited. But Snow Fox obliged the peasant man, and narrowed the cavalry column to approach via the farmer’s raised track.

  When myself, Noble Lion, Uncle, and Snow Fox – and perhaps a dozen other lords – crowded into and around the small peasant hut to see the Emperor with our own eyes, we were humbled. The two boys lay draped across one another, empty bowls of rice and half-eaten eggs littered across the table right alongside a pair of solid Jade pendants.

  SHINING LIGHT

  RANK 113: Emperor of the Land Under Heaven

  WORTH: 300,000 dan

  CLAN: Imperial Dragon | STAR: Green, Black, Red, Yellow

  FATE: Leaf-Water “Dispersing”

  MANDATE: Shining Light

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  LIU XIE

  RANK 110: Prince and Heir to the Land Under Heaven

  WORTH: 100,000 dan

  CLAN: Imperial Dragon | STAR: Green

  FATE: Leaf-Fire “Dwelling in Harmony”

  MANDATE: None

  The peasant had gone through every trouble to serve the Emperor and heir in his own home, but still, without the trappings of a throne and throne room, without the layers upon layers of robes and courtesies, the two boys appeared for all the world like what they were at heart: children. Well-dressed, high-ranking, and expensive children, no doubt, but they had been ripped from their beds, isolated from their families, abducted by creatures that bore familiar faces but heinous bodies and then – to hear the peasant man recount the boys’ tale – nearly drowned in the river upon crossing.

  The Chief of the Ten had perished in the deep blue waters, the boys had said, and they had been left to wander the far riverbank, cold and alone, until one of the boys – and at this point the collected lords erupted into chaos – had manifested his Mandate from Heaven.

  “Which one?”

  “The Emperor or the Prince?”

  “What was it?”

  “What color star?”

  “How many essences?”

  The peasant man held up a hand like the lord of the manor – he was, in a sense, though perhaps his station would have called for more deference to a lord in normal circumstances – and nodded sagaciously.

  “Fireflies,” was all he said.

  “Fireflies?” asked Noble Lion.

  “Fireflies,” the peasant nodded again, “He summoned fireflies to guide his way. As for which one of ‘em did it… I’ve no idea.”

  Another outburst from the combined lords, some literally hanging in from the window to make their voices heard.

  “What good is that Mandate?”

  “Yea, there aren’t any fireflies on the battlefield.”

  “What good is divine guidance, you ask?”

  “Yes! The fireflies guide him. What better Mandate for an Emperor!”

  “Perhaps he can command all beasts!”

  “Perhaps you want an Empire run by bugs!”

  “Maybe he can summon dragons and qilin, too!”

  “Surely it was Emperor Shining Light.”

  “Ah! His mother knew all along! That’s why she named him so!”

  “SILENCE!” boomed Snow Fox.

  Through it all, the boys continued to sleep. Their experiences must have been harrowing indeed.

  “It was the Emperor who commanded the bugs, no?” asked Snow Fox.

  The peasant shrugged. “I really couldn’t say.”

  “It was his brother,” I said, stepping forward and thumping the two overlarge jade pendants back onto the table after studying them.

  All eyes turned to me, including my Uncle’s. He let out a sigh as if he were tired of this routine, whereby I inserted myself into the most pivotal moments of the Empire’s future with bold, unfounded claims and he was supposed to scold me afterward, though I seemed to never learn.

  “How can you be certain?” asked Snow Fox.

  I couldn’t be, but if I said as much straightaway I would be immediately ignored and the prince, the heir, the younger boy – whatever you wanted to call him – might not live out the month. I didn’t really care which of the boys sat the throne but I knew what happened to those that came close to power but failed to cling to it. These children had done nothing to deserve their role in this cruel game… other than being born at the wrong time and wrong place, stars or no.

  I took a deep breathe.

  “The Ox Empress already knew the younger prince’s Mandate. He must have manifested it prior to her own son’s gift, which, if that became known, would have weakened her claim to the throne. She named her son Emperor Shining Light, effectively stealing his younger brother’s name, so that any shining lights would logically be ascribed to her own son. She wanted to make sure that any power would be attributed to her son, the Emperor, not his competitor for the throne. She was trying to ensure that this Emperor never met the same fate as his late father. But it was all a ruse. More court ploys worthy of snakes and monsters.”

  The room was stunned into silence while that all sunk in. Eventually, one lord, a commander within the Blood Haunt Province, I believe, spoke up, slow and somber.

  “Your words doom one boy to save another?”

  I snorted. “Certainly not. The Emperor has plenty of time to manifest a Mandate of Heaven. Emperor Shining Light, despite his youth, knew that when he named his half-brother his heir, he was buying the prince at least a few more years of life, probably against his own mother’s wishes.”

  They were catching up. This time, there was not so long a pause before someone from the Skylands chimed in. “How dare you embroil the venerable Mother-Empress in such conniving and cruelty!”

  “Oh, leave off!” said White Stallion. “We heard her confess to plotting against her own brother. You’d have to be an idiot to think the Ox Empress is above making her husband’s bastard disappear after that.”

  The other lords had no response.

  They were probably all realizing what I had a moment ago, when I had first spoken up. The tiny prince would only live so long as those in power – whoever it might be this month – wanted to keep a backup Emperor available. But such a stay of execution only lasted until Emperor Shining Light himself manifested a strong Mandate or he started having children. This fact would not be lost on the warlords and surviving ministers now, and so long as it was agreed upon that the current little Emperor might still manifest some power, both boys would live. Hopefully, by the time he really manifested something, Emperor Shining Light would be strong enough to protect his half-brother, permanently. Or, if Emperor Shining Light really did have a Shining Light Mandate as his pendant outlined, maybe one day the other boy, Prince Xie would grow into a Mandate powerful enough that he could protect himself.

  Snow Fox seemed to grasp all this as he shook his head slowly. “So we are still uncertain, but we know this much: one of the boys has a Mandate from Heaven, and both of the boys are now safe. Thank you, good man. You have done the Land Under Heaven a great service. Please, tell us your name and you will be richly rewarded for your loyalty.”

  Green Shoe did so, and he was. He was raised to Rank 103: Official Chief of the small county just north of the Blue River, which he immediately began lording over his rich brother Redshoe, who had only ever been a Rank 102: Government Official.

  Thus the epic tale of Greenshoe the farmer with perhaps royal blood and perhaps an inkling of a gift from Heaven, came to a happy conclusion.

  But the danger for the two boys had only begun.