Exclusive Cover Reveal + Excerpt: K. X. Song’s The Dragon Wakes with Thunder

K.X. Song’s The Night Ends Up with Fire was one of the buzziest fantasies of 2024, a retelling of the traditional Chinese legend of Mulan that embraced popular tropes from wuxia drama even as it asked timely questions about female ambition, agency, and power. Readers everywhere are already eager for the sequel, which is set to arrive in the summer of 2025. 

Titled The Dragon Wakes with Thunder, the story picks up where The Night Ends with Fire left off. Heroine Meilin is in prison, her bravery and accomplishments ignored, and all for the sin of being a woman. Despite her great deeds, the boundaries of her world is still set by those who cannot see her as anything more than her gender. But the legend of a female warrior has captured the imagination of the people beyond the imperial walls, and a revolution is brewing in the east. Meilin must decide what her future will look like and who she can trust to help her claim it. And then there’s the small matter of what to do about the dragon who insists upon what he is owed….

Here’s how the publisher describes the story.

The war may be over, but Hai Meilin is still paying a heavy toll. In spite of securing victory for the kingdom of Anlai, she is imprisoned upon her return. Her crime? Wielding a sword as a woman.

In the palace, Meilin is an outcast and a social pariah. But beyond the imperial walls, the legend of the woman warrior has taken on a life of its own. To the east, a new rebel leader needs Meilin to helm his people’s revolution. In the south, a former enemy prince, now a prisoner of war, seeks Meilin’s aid in restoring balance to the Three Kingdoms. And back home in Anlai, Li Sky, Meilin’s commander and first love, requires Meilin by his side in his bid for the throne.

Pulled in all directions by those who seek to use her for their own ends, Meilin vows that this time, she will not be so quick to trust. Yet there is one she cannot help but listen to—for he dwells within her.

Beyond any human machinations, the sea dragon Qinglong has his own plans for the spirit realm. During the last war, Meilin wielded his power to cheat death and attain victory for Anlai; now the dragon has come to collect his dues. Meilin’s mother warned her long ago: The spirits demand blood. And Qinglong is ravenous.

Chapter 1

You may burn bamboo, but it will still stand straight. You may shatter jade, but its color will not fade.

—Book of Odes, 856

Time bore the quality of a tangled spool of thread. I could not unravel the knots, could not sense where things ended, could not recall where things began.

I started, like always, from what I knew: I was in the palace dungeons, in the capital city of Anlai, my home.

My home when I had no ability to choose where I called home.

I had been here for some time now. I had not tried to count the days, which had bled into weeks or months or years. By the chill in the air, and the fur lining of my jail warden’s coat, winter was fast approaching.

Snow would be settling on the branches of Xiuying’s beloved plum trees, which she pruned every spring. The snow would spread across the garden like colorless jewels, catching the winter sunlight and refracting it in every direction. Rouha would be chiseling out exuberant ice sculptures, and Plum would be trying to eat snow. Uncle Zhou would be simmering his favorite winter melon soup, which tasted heavenly on a cold snowy morning

The taste of life had been sweet, hadn’t it? But it tasted sweetest when it was taken from you.

I remembered the thrill of unfathomable power surging through my veins, that eddy of sheer delight as roiling waves rose to meet my call. Racing through a darkening forest, fighting side by side with my comrades in arms. Knowing my platoon had my back. Knowing I had friends to call my own.

Friends, they said, before betraying me. But we didn’t think about that anymore.

I remembered climbing onto a terrace railing and looking out over the dark expanse of water, the waiting ocean like a well of black, black ink. The recklessness that felt like a drug, better than a drug, the thrill of knowing the waves would catch me. Will you obey me? I’d asked the sea. Will you obey me as you obey the dragon?

And yet, down here in the dungeons, my memories felt as distant as dreams. 

The outer door to my prison cell clanged open. I heard the thud of footsteps, even and heavy Three sets of them.

“Good evening, sweetheart. Let’s continue where we left off last time, shall we?”

My heart began to stutter. A practiced response, a trained step in the choreography. Already I could feel the nerves in my hand tingling, anticipating the pain to come. Perhaps the anticipation was worse than the pain itself, for these days, pain lingered beneath every waking moment. There was the pain of separation: of no longer hearing the dragon’s voice. The pain of dependency; I needed lixia in my bloodstream like a person needed water. Then there were the more insidious hurts, carved into me like scars: the marks of betrayal, of loneliness. Of knowing there could be no happiness for someone like me.

A perversion. A threat to the state. A girl who desired for more.

“Get up.”

I did not move. They unlocked the door to my cell and lifted me. Still I did not resist. I felt them clasp chains around my legs, securing me to the interrogation chair.

“Your greed is unending,” the dragon had once told me. “An ocean’s hunger.” 

They fit wooden sticks around my fingers, opting for my left hand this time. Slowly, the guards pulled the ropes connecting the sticks, not enough to inflict pain, only discomfort. Ironically, the zanzhi, finger crushing, was a torture method reserved for women, as it was considered more humane than jiagun, leg twisting. But I had endured both.

“Where are the remaining black magic practitioners hiding?” asked Warden Hu.

I tried to speak but no sound emerged. It must have been days since I’d last spoken aloud. 

“Give her water.”

One of the guards forced a canteen of water down my throat, and I sputtered, coughing.

“Where are the black magic practitioners hiding?” he asked again.

I cleared my throat. “There are no others.”

 “You lie.” He nodded once. My throat tightened with the ropes.

I gasped as the pain came, sharp and staggering. Although the pain was concentrated along the base of my fingers, my entire arm reverberated with feeling. Despite the chill in the air, I was soon sweating.

They released the ropes. I sagged against the chair, my hand throbbing with pain. I stared at the useless appendage as if it belonged to a stranger. My right hand was too sore to use, and now my left would soon follow. How did they expect me to eat and drink? How did they expect me to live?

Or had this been their intention all along? To bide their time until Sky forgot about me, until my family forgot about me, until I could fade into oblivion, an unnamed scratch in the annals of history?

“The might of the sea,” Qinglong had said, “is yours.”

“Where are the remaining black magic practitioners hiding?” Warden Hu asked a third time, his voice as calm as a still lake.

“I know of no others,” I said hoarsely. “But perhaps . . . there could be minor spirit summoners in the south?

They are more open to lixia practitioning in Ximing . . .” “Ximing?” He leaned in. “Is that where—”

“Let me through!”

Warden Hu startled at the sounds of a scuffle. A figure clad in white shoved past the stationed guards, striding toward me like a mirage. His complexion was so fair and his robes so clean, he looked like he belonged in a heavenly realm, one set apart from the dank filth of this place.

“Warden Hu?” Sky’s surprise was evident. “What are you . . . ?”

Sky’s eyes flicked to me—and I caught the horror in them. Without meaning to, I shrank back from his gaze, as if I had anywhere to hide here. It stung for him to look at me like that, to see me with pity, and beneath it, revulsion.

“What are you doing to her?” Sky whirled on the warden. “Are you interrogating her?” 

Warden Hu straightened his shoulders. “Your Highness—”

“My father strictly forbade torture of any kind!”

“The Imperial Commander authorized me to conduct this interrogation,” Warden Hu said, careful to keep his tone neutral.

Sky glared at him. “Then why sneak around like this—in the middle of the night, as if . . .” His face changed as the answer came to him. “To keep me from finding out,” he finished flatly.

Sky was always like that, as expressive as an open flame. It endeared me to him, but also, it made me resentful. Because no women could live like that. No, what we were trained to do was conceal, conceal, conceal. Every emotion flung far beneath a smiling mask of good humor and grace.

“Your father believes you have more pressing matters to attend to, Your Highness. You need not concern yourself with the welfare of a state traitor.”

Sky ignored him, seizing the bars of my cell. “Meilin,” he said urgently, and up close he was so lovely and clean and pure it was difficult to look at him. He radiated health and vigor, like nothing else in these dungeon shadows. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise,” he said. “Just—hold on a bit longer. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I did not feel any particular emotion, and yet my eyes filled with tears. I did not know why I was crying. 

“Meilin,” Sky said again, but his face had become an indistinct blur in my vision.

“Conserve your qi,” the dragon had warned me. “You must learn to harness your power.”

 The Azure Dragon had lied about many things, but he had not lied about this. No matter—I had not listened. At first, I’d fled from my power, and when I’d finally embraced it, I’d broken every rule, believing myself the exception. I’d overused my lixia, draining my qi—all to keep going, to keep fighting. For what? To save my family, my kingdom? Yes, I had saved them. Yet still I felt empty. Because all along, what I’d really wanted was to prove myself.

I’d wanted to show everyone that I belonged. No—more than belonged. I’d wanted to be the hero of legend, to have my name whispered in reverence through the streets, my deeds etched in the stones of history.

Instead, Warden Hu had informed me: I had become a stain in the war annals, a cautionary tale passed from parent to child. Like my mother before me, my legacy would be one of madness and decay—a rot spreading in dark places, remembered not for what it built but for what it destroyed.

I was too depleted even to cry.

That young girl from a year ago, the one who’d dreamed of adventure, of seeing the world beyond the women’s quarters. She had sought wonder, wildness. She had believed in the world’s capacity for beauty.

Only a year had passed, and yet I could no longer recall what that felt like. To believe in the goodness of people. To seek justice but live with compassion. To hope for better days.

There was no hope for someone like me.

Some time later, I woke to a dark silhouette against my cell, slashing the light of the flickering lantern. His long shadow stretched across the length of the corridor like a grasping hand.

“Did I wake you?” the Ximing prince asked. His low baritone felt like the crackle of a warm fire.

I pushed myself upright, wincing as I put weight on my throbbing hands. “I no longer sleep these days.” 

“That doesn’t sound healthy,” he said, his tone light and teasing.

I was in no mood for his banter. “What do you want, Lei?”

He peered down at me through the bars, his eyes narrowing. “I heard you’ve been refusing food.” 

I looked away. “I’m not hungry.”

It was a lie. I was hungry all the time. Hungry for lixia, for the intoxicating surge of spirit power in my veins. I needed it, craved it, ached for it all the time. I could feel the nearness of my jade, its energy thrumming just out of reach. The lack left me breathless and off balance, as if I were missing a vital sense. The dragon’s seal was an irrevocable part of me now, and without it, I was no longer whole.

“Funny,” said Lei, his expression unreadable. “You used to strike me as a survivor.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped, losing my temper. How dare he judge me from his seat of privilege? “Go gloat somewhere else, will you?”

He crouched in front of me, so that we were eye level through the bars. “From one prisoner to the next—”  He tilted his head, his amber eyes seeming to absorb the flickering firelight. “If you lose your will to live, it’s simple. You die.”

With that, he rose to his feet. “Do you want to die? If you die, they win. Remember that.”

I started eating again. The food upset my stomach, forced me to use my broken hands, and heightened my lixia cravings, but at least I started to feel strong enough to stand again. To take a few steps around my cell. To think beyond the span of a day. Two days, a week—that was the limit of what I could take.

The warden’s questions kept coming, though they were no longer accompanied by torture. Vaguely, I wondered what Sky had done to achieve such a feat—what he might have bargained with. For there was always a price. I hadn’t known that the first time.

“Though you were initially accused of black magic practitioning,” said Warden Hu, watching me, “it seems now your accusers have retracted their allegations. Any guesses as to why?”

I shook my head.

“Let’s say you did know a thing or two about black magic,” he said. “How might one access such a power?” 

I told him nothing more than what was common knowledge.

“But why can only some access such a power?”

I said I didn’t understand.

“Why are some stricken with seizure and lunacy when confronted with spirit power, while others retain clarity of mind?”

For the first time in a while, I recalled that strange, rippling haze outside the inn in New Quan. The bandits who had wandered near were drawn by the lure of spirit power, moving toward the portal as if in a trance. 

“It is a tear in the veil,” the dragon had told me. “So that any human, not just those with seals, can enter our realm. But only those with strong enough spirit affinity can survive such a place. The rest . . .”

The rest lost their minds.

 “Are more gates appearing?” I asked, raising my head.

“Gates?”

“Portals into the spirit realm,” I clarified.

“What are they caused by?” asked the warden, more urgently now. “Why are they forming?”

“I-I don’t know,” I said, taken aback. “But I wonder if it has something to do with overuse of lixia,” I said quietly, thinking of a similar black haze I’d once found in my mother’s chambers, which were now sealed and boarded up.

If there were more gates appearing, that meant there were more spirit summoners at work. But who? Chancellor Sima was dead. I was locked away in an iron dungeon. Could there be someone else? Someone who’d been biding their time?

Lately, I’d begun to feel a prickling to my senses, though I’d chalked it up to lixia withdrawal. An uncanny sense, as if the spirit realm were somehow nearing, as if the worlds had begun to merge.

Before I could respond, the passageway door burst open. Sky raced toward us, his face alight with undisguised joy. “Father’s agreed!” he exclaimed, skidding to a stop in front of my cell. “Meilin can go free.”

I blinked at him, unable to process his words.

“Did you hear me?” he asked. “You can come out with me, now. Your maids are waiting for you—they’ll help you wash and prepare for court. I asked Mother to set aside a few dresses for now but once we get your measurements I’ll send for . . .” He trailed off as he took in my expression. “Meilin . . . why are you shaking?”

I could not answer. Cold fear coiled around my neck like an insistent noose.

Sky tried to enter my cell but found it locked. He impatiently motioned for the key before barreling inside.

But I shrank from the proximity of him.

“Meilin, what’s wrong?” asked Sky, kneeling before me, and his voice was so tender it made my eyes sting. I tried to push him away, but my broken hands were useless, unable to do what I wanted from them.

He caught my left hand and I gasped in pain. Immediately he let go, as if my touch burned him. “Meilin. Speak to me, please.” His eyes were wide and filled with feeling. It broke something within me, to see myself through his eyes. A pitiful creature, better left alone in the dark. “Don’t you want to be free?”

I was sobbing so hard now that I could not form words. He gave me his handkerchief but my fingers would not close around it, and the fine cloth fell uselessly to the floor.

“Meilin, I made a promise to you. I want to marry you. Did you think I would go back on my word?”

He tried to draw me into his arms, but I flinched away again. Hurt flashed across his face as he backed away, raking his fingers through his hair. “Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I-I can’t. I can’t go back to court,” I said, and I meant it. I couldn’t imagine myself in fine dresses, eyes painted like a doll’s, and—like a doll—face vacant but smiling, sitting silently by Sky’s side as I’d seen the warlord’s consorts do. “I want to . . . to leave this place—”

“I’ll take you out of the dungeons,” Sky said, but I shook my head.

 “No,” I rasped. “I want to leave the . . . palace. The city.” The world.

His face fell. “My father’s terms were for you to remain within the Forbidden City,” he admitted, “and to return to the ways of womanhood.”

The noose drew tight around my neck. So it was the old offer, made again. I would have to relinquish my sword, my freedom, my knowledge of the world beyond. I could be Sky’s pretty ornament, or nothing at all.

Yet memories of the outside world, however undesirable, still called to me. I missed the morning sunlight and the reflection of the moon upon water. I missed my family and the ability to run with the wind at my back. When the Imperial Commander had first offered me this choice, I hadn’t understood the stakes then. I understood them now.

But there was a third factor I hadn’t weighed. Here in the dungeons, I was suffocated by iron. There was no possibility of the dragon’s presence, his influence, his sly whispering voice in my head. The last time I’d seen him, he’d tried to kill me. Just like he’d killed my mother.

Perhaps once I was freed, he’d finish the job.

“Meilin? Do you want me to call your maidservants here?”

I shook my head. “Can you . . . can you give me some time?” I could feel his sadness like a millstone, pressing down on me.

“I’m sorry. Sky,” I said, and the sound of his name hurt us both. He tried to hold me, but again, I wouldn’t let him. Not like this.

“Please go.” When he didn’t move, I turned my back on him. Eventually, I felt the strength of his presence recede.

I didn’t know myself anymore. The girl he’d loved . . . I didn’t know if she still existed. So many conflicting desires battled within me at once, until I couldn’t make sense of any of them. I wanted to be free—of my loneliness, of my captivity, of my weakness. I wanted to be confined—I couldn’t be trusted with power, with responsibility, with choice. And all those people above, judging me, mocking me, wanting something from me . . . the thought made me want to hide forever.

Who was I anymore? And if I couldn’t trust myself, who could I possibly trust?

The Dragon Wakes with Thunder will be released on August 19, 2025, but you can pre-order it now. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB