Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author Name: Amélie Wen Zhao
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- Edition Language: English
- Date of Publication: January 3, 2023
- File Format: PDF / EPUB
- PDF / EPUB Size: 9 MB
Elantian Age, Cycle 12
The Black Port, Haak’gong
The Last Kingdom had been brought to its knees, but the view was
mighty fine from here.
Lan tipped her bamboo hat over her head, parting her lips in pleasure as
the cool evening breeze combed through strands of her silky black hair.
Sweat slicked her neck from the afternoon’s work of hawking wares at the
local evemarket, and her back ached with the beating she’d received from
Madam Meng for stealing sugarplum candies from the kitchens at the
Teahouse. But in rare moments like this, when the sun hung ripe and swollen
as a mandarin over the glittering sea, there was still a shattered-glass beauty
to be found in the remnants of a conquered land.
The city of Haak’gong unfurled before her in a patchwork of
contradictions. Red lanterns were strung from curved temple eave to grayshingled rooftop, weaving and wending between pagodas and courtyards
wreathed in the halo of night bazaars and evening fairs. On the distant hills,
the Elantians had settled on higher ground, building their strange architecture
of stone, glass, and metal to watch over the Hin like gods. The skyline glowed
a dusky auric from their alchemical lamplight that spilled through stainedglass windows and arched marble doorways.
Lan rolled her eyes and turned away. She knew the story of the gods—
any gods—to be a big, steaming bowl of turd. Much as the Elantians wished
to pretend otherwise, Lan knew they had come to the Last Kingdom for one
thing: resources. Ships full of powdered spices and golden grains and verdant
tea leaves, chests of silks and samites, jades and porcelains, left Haak’gong
for the Elantian Empire, across the Sea of Heavenly Radiance, each day.
And whatever was left over trickled into the black markets of Haak’gong.
At this bell, the evemarket was in full bloom, merchants having filed in
along the Jade Trail with jewels that gleamed like the light of the sun, spices
tasting of lands Lan had never seen before, and fabrics that shimmered like
the night sky itself. Haak’gong’s heartbeat was the clink of coin, its lifeblood
the flow of trade, its bones the wooden stalls of marketplaces. It was a place
of survival.
Lan paused at the very end of the market. She took care to lower her
dǒu’lì—her bamboo hat—over her face lest any Elantian officials prowled
nearby. What she was about to do could very well earn her a spot on the
gallows, along with other Hin who had broken Elantian laws.
With a surreptitious glance around, she crossed the street and made for
the slums.
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