Dragon's Fire Consort
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 1: Dragon’s Plunge
Captain Zhang Mei, 23, elite People’s Liberation Army special forces, her QBZ-191 assault rifle held at the ready through the dripping Himalayan cave on a foggy 2025 Xinjiang patrol. Squad chatter echoed faint; her boot crunched gravel.
The Himalayan cave smelled like wet stone and something older—mineral deposits that had been seeping through limestone for millennia. Captain Zhang Mei moved through the darkness with her QBZ-191 held low and ready, her tactical light cutting narrow shadows across uneven ground.
“Command, this is Viper Two. Proceeding into secondary passage. No contacts.” Her voice echoed slightly in her helmet comm.
Static crackled. “Copy, Viper Two. Mark and return in fifteen.”
Fifteen minutes. Standard sweep of the cave system their satellite imaging had flagged during yesterday’s high-altitude patrol. Probably nothing—smugglers used these routes sometimes, but the infrared had been clean. Still, protocol was protocol.
Her boots crunched on loose gravel. The passage narrowed, forcing her to angle her shoulders, and then opened into a small chamber. Her light swept across the space.
There.
Half-buried in the cave floor, something gleamed. Not the dull glint of quartz or mica—this was deliberate. Crafted.
Zhang Mei crouched, keeping her rifle trained on the passage behind her. With her free hand, she brushed away dirt and pebbles.
A brooch. Jade, intricately carved. A dragon coiled around a central pearl that seemed to catch her tactical light and hold it, pulsing faintly red. The craftsmanship was extraordinary—each scale individually rendered, the dragon’s eyes inlaid with something that might have been garnet. Along the edge, characters she didn’t recognize. Not modern script. Something ancient.
Mark and report. That was the protocol. Don’t touch, don’t disturb, call it in for the archaeology team.
Her fingers hovered over it.
Later, she would wonder what made her pick it up. Curiosity? Instinct? Some pull she couldn’t name?
The moment her skin touched the jade, the air changed.
It started as a hum—subsonic, felt more than heard. The kind of vibration that resonated in her chest cavity and made her back teeth ache. Her tactical light flickered. The cave walls seemed to ripple, stone flowing like water.
“Command, I—”
The words died in her throat. The brooch was burning hot against her palm but she couldn’t let go. Couldn’t move. The humming rose to a shriek that had no sound, and the world folded.
Falling.
Darkness that wasn’t the cave’s natural dark but something absolute, something that erased direction and distance and time. Her rifle was gone. Her gear was gone. There was only the burning pressure of jade against her palm and the sensation of being pulled apart and reassembled wrong.
Then nothing...
Silk.
That was her first conscious thought. Not the rough weave of her tactical uniform, not the familiar weight of her vest and gear. Silk, smooth and cool against her skin.
Zhang Mei’s eyes snapped open.
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
She was lying on a bed—an actual bed, not a field cot. Above her, a canopy of heavy brocade embroidered with dragons. The walls were lacquered wood, polished to a deep sheen and carved with more dragons, these ones coiling through clouds. Bronze mirrors reflected flickering torchlight. The air smelled of sandalwood and something herbal she couldn’t identify.
She sat up fast, her hand going automatically to where her sidearm should be.
Nothing. No holster. No tac belt. She was wearing a hanfu—layers of silk in deep blue and white that tangled around her legs when she moved. Her hair was down, longer than she’d worn it in years, falling past her shoulders.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. Training took over: assess, adapt, survive. She scanned the room for exits, threats, weapons. One door, heavy wood with bronze fittings. No windows—or none she could see in the ornate walls. A small table held a bronze incense burner and what looked like a tea service. No modern anything. No electricity, no plastic, no—
Her left hand throbbed.
She looked down. The brooch was gone, but a mark remained on her palm—a faint scar in the shape of the coiled dragon, as if it had branded itself into her skin before disappearing.
“What the hell—”
The door rattled. Zhang Mei was on her feet instantly, balanced on the balls of her feet the way her Krav Maga instructor had drilled into her. Her hand dropped to her boot.
Still there. The knife was still there, tucked into a boot that was no longer military issue but soft leather, embroidered. Small mercy.
A young woman bustled in, petite and dressed in indigo silk. She stopped short when she saw Zhang Mei standing, then dropped into a low bow.
“Lady Zhang! Forgive this servant—I heard you stirring. You’ve been fevered these three days, barely conscious. The physicians said—” She looked up, concern evident on her round face. “Are you well enough to stand? Should I summon—”
“Where am I?” Zhang Mei’s voice came out rougher than intended.
The woman—girl, really, maybe sixteen—blinked. “The Southern Ward of the Imperial Palace, my lady. In Xianyang. Where else would you be?”
Xianyang. Zhang Mei’s mind raced through her historical training. Xianyang had been the Qin capital. The Qin Dynasty. Which meant—
No. Impossible.
“What year?” she asked.
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