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This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2011 by Dori Jones Yang

Map copyright © 2011 by Steven Yang

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yang, Dori Jones.

Daughter of Xanadu / Dori Jones Yang.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Emmajin, the sixteen-year-old eldest granddaughter of Khublai Khan, becomes a warrior and falls in love with explorer Marco Polo in thirteenth-century China.

eISBN: 978-0-375-89727-6 [1. Soldiers—Fiction. 2. Sex role—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. 4. Mongols—Fiction. 5. Kublai Khan, 1216–1294—Fiction. 6. Polo, Marco, 1254–1323?—Fiction. 7. China—History—Yuan dynasty, 1260–1368—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.Y1933Dau 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2009053652

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For Paul,

who inspired me to try to bridge the gap

between East and West

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Emmajin’s Family Tree

Foreword

Epigraph

Part I - In Xanadu

1 – A Taste of Victory

2 – A Thirst for Glory

3 – Shame

4 – The Archery Contest

5 – Final Round

6 – Elephant Ride

7 – A Tale of Bandits

8 – Above Xanadu

9 – Foreign Menace

10 – In the Garden

11 – The Khan’s Banquet

12 – The Grasslands

13 – Crucial Information

14 – Overheard

15 – Betrayal

16 – Commission

Part II - Journey to Carajan

17 – The Army

18 – Training

19 – Departure

20 – Archery Lessons

21 – Bamboo Fire

22 – Tibetan Village

23 – To Carajan

24 – Dragon Village

25 – Dragon Hunt

26 – Fire Rats

27 – To Battle

28 – The Battle of Vochan

29 – The Battle Rages

30 – After the Battle

Part III - Return to Khanbalik

31 – New Possibilities

32 – Precious Medicine

33 – Under the New Moon

34 – News

35 – Reentry

36 – At the Monastery

37 – Chabi’s Wisdom

38 – The Emperor of China

39 – Face to Face

40 – Search for Marco

41 – The Khan’s Hunting Camp

42 – Becoming a Legend

43 – The Khan’s Decision

44 – At the Ocean

Glossary

Acknowledgments

About the Author

FOREWORD

This is the story of two adventurous hearts from thousands of miles and worlds apart: one from medieval Venice and the other from the royal court of the Mongol Empire. A quirk of destiny brought them together, and their tale is revealed here for the first time.

To each, the world looked totally different. For Emmajin, life centered on the court of her grandfather Khubilai Khan. Outside the thick walls of the palace lay the streets of the capital city, and beyond that, land after land that her ancestors had conquered, across the grasslands, over mountains, and through deserts to the primitive kingdoms of the Far West, where men had beards and round eyes of strange colors. The vast Mongol Empire, the largest in history, was at the peak of its power; it controlled most of the known world, and her grandfather was determined to conquer the rest.

Like all Mongolian children, Emmajin had learned to ride horses before she could walk and handled a bow and arrows with ease. She heard stories of brave Mongol women who were her ancestors, brilliant, resourceful, ambitious, and