—A Comprehensive Overview of Lixia-Induced Disorders, 910
“Sky!” I screamed again, beforeeyeing the distance between us, wondering if I could make the jump from a three-story building.
But Lei read my intention and held me back. Quick as a thief, he withdrew a throwing star from his sleeve and threw it into the wind in the opposite direction.
“What are you—”
The miniature blade caught the gale and curved, reversing course and striking the great bird directly in the back of her neck.
She shrieked in pain, her wings rising involuntarily. Sky seized her moment of distraction to crawl away in search of his sword. But the spirit seemed to steel herself, falling upon Sky once more. Both of them went still. From this high up, I could not see Sky’s expression, but I could sense the surrender of his posture.
Was she speaking into his mind? I wondered. Was she offering him a bargain he could not refuse?
I could not abandon him to this fate.
Remembering the lixia texts I’d read, I withdrew my knife. I didn’t even pause to draw a breath—I simply sliced open my arm.
“What are you doing?” Lei roared, grabbing the knife from me.
I faltered as blood dripped liberally down my arm. Lei grabbed me, bracing me against him, before ripping a piece of his cloak to stanch the flow. But before he could bandage the wound, I stopped him.
“No,” I said. Was blood always this black, or was mine so tainted with lixia that it resembled ink? “Like flies to honey,” I recited, “so too are spirits to qi.”
Lei swore under his breath but left me to my madness. He withdrew both curved blades from his back, moving into a fighting stance. Far below, the giant spirit bird raised her head and shrieked, before lifting her wings and soaring into the sky.
Toward me. The way she flew was overconfident, as if she believed me to be easy prey. Keeping my gaze fixed on her, I took a few steps back, anchoring my energy.
“What in the twelve skies—” began Lei. As the bird loomed closer, I took a running leap—and crashed onto her.
My momentum lent me more force than I’d intended, and I collided into her with such impact that we both plummeted from the sky. Scrambling to hold on for dear life, I grasped at her feathers as she squawked and tried to shove me off. Desperate, I found her neck and clung to her like a child to a mother, so close I breathed in the particular scent of her lixia. How strange that she was corporeal, this spirit that did not yet belong to the human realm. It weakened her, I could tell, being here in this foreign place. And that was why I stood a chance.
We landed hard in the dirt, though her wings involuntarily cushioned my fall. I skidded off her, rolling into a crouch. I wincedat the trail of blood I left in my wake, quickly tying a makeshift bandage.
“Meilin!”
I looked behind me at the heap of rubble, remnants of a fallen building that had not survived the quake.
“Here!” The flash of movement caught my eye; it was Sky, half-hidden in debris. He gestured for me to come hide with him. I shook my head. The spirits had already scented my blood.
But I’d forgotten the one I should fear. In my distraction, he’d broken through my mental shields.
“There you are,” said Qinglong.
I’d never before heard his voice like this—both in mind and body. I covered my ears with my hands but it did nothing to stop the sheer impact from racking through my bones, the vibrations of his voice seizing me like a fly in a spider’s web. I fell to my knees, shaking at the reverberations of his words.There you are. There you are. There you are.
The Azure Dragon was so colossal he towered over the nearby trading posts. The air around him seemed to freeze as he descended, and even the great bird of prey went silent at his suffocating, exhilarating presence. Despite my terror, it was impossible to deny his beauty. The radiance of his gold-flecked eyes, like stars; the impossibility of his cobalt scales, which captured and held the light, so that gazing at him felt like staring into the heart of the sun. I was drawn to him, just as he was drawn to me. Like two mirrors searching each other’s reflections, unable to find the other, our combined ambition knew no limits. Just as I could not accomplish my goals without him, he could not accomplish his without me.
But he no longer had need for me, now that he could freely enter the human realm. And so I was reduced to an obstacle in his path.
He laughed coldly. “I do not view you as my enemy, Hai Meilin,” said the dragon. “On the contrary, I view you as my kin.”
I shook my head repeatedly as his voice burned into my bones.He lies, I told myself.He lies.
“I am doing this for the both of us,” he continued, and this close, his voice hurt me like a gong sounding in my ears.
“I don’t want to die,” I whimpered, like a child in my fear.
“Then don’t,” he said. “There is another way. You can live forever—through my power. But you must give your will to me.”
