I forced myself to exhale. Perhaps he was simply tied up in meetings. I thought of my time in the war, when Sky had certainly had his fair share of council meetings—most of which he hadn’t been able to escape. Kuro was the military leader of the largest rebel group across the Three Kingdoms—and we were reliant on him to mobilize his troops for our cause.
Somewhat mollified, I returned to the catacombs to search for him. But when I reached his rooms, the response from his guards left me more than a little uneasy.
“He’s not…himself right now,” said his personal guard. “I’d recommend staying away for a day.”
“A day?” I balked. “We don’t have a day!” I shoved him out of the way. “Let me see him.”
“Suit yourself,” said the guard, who looked as though he were throwing me to the wolves.
I marched inside to find the room smoky and airless, and Kuro himself lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as if it were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His eyes were as wide as saucers, but his irises were so constricted his eyes looked almost white.
“Kuro!” I cried out, rushing to him. “What’s wrong?”
I touched his skin—cool and clammy. I was about to ask if he’d been poisoned when I saw the opium pipe in his left hand. It was poison—but he’d done it to himself.
“You’re smokingnow?” I demanded.
With great effort he focused his gaze on me. “Phoenix-Slayer,” he said slowly, his lips curving into a vacuous smile.
I stifled the urge for violence. “Kuro,” I said. “Get up. We have to go now. Do you remember the plan?”
“I can’t,” he replied, his voice slurring. “I’m tired. I’ll stay here.”
“You’llstayhere?” I repeated. Now I couldn’t restrain myself; I grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him, hard. He let himself sway like an overgrown rag doll, limp and defenseless. “As if that’s an option—” In my indignation, I knocked over a liquor bottle on the floor. It fell on its side, but nothing came out.
“I can’t do this without her,” he told me, his voice threadbare. He closed his eyes, and seconds later, fell asleep in front of me. I swore. There was nothing I despised more than this—this waste and indulgence. Others told me my father had once been a clearheaded man, but I had never known him as such—because the opium had changed him. And now Kuro, smart, charismatic Kuro, had fallen prey to the pipe.
I got to my feet, assessing the damage. It was already afternoon, and we needed to get back before dusk—when the spirits came out to play. Sky and Lei were both occupied with their own equally important tasks. I could ask a few rebels to accompany me to the caves, but they could sooner become liabilities if possessed by a wayward spirit. No, better to go alone and leave less of a trail.
I scratched out a note and gave it to Kuro’s personal guard. I considered requesting a horse, then decided it was better to ask for forgiveness. Stealing a mare, I left the rebel base and galloped out of the city. The woods lay deceptively empty, though the air was far from calm. There was a tense stillness like the hush before a storm: no birdsong, no animals rustling in the grasses, not even the buzz of mosquitoes to disturb the uncanny quiet. In some places, thelixia was so thick in the air it felt like breathing in a drug. The aftermath of this violence would surely leave its mark for years to come. But would there ever be a day when the horrors of this war dissipated like dandelion fluff on the wind, scattering into fragments too small to see?
The future was always so hard for me to imagine. It brought me no comfort, as it did to others. If I were to die, I did not wish to think of it. But if I were to live, that too seemed impossible in its complexity. Others would move on. Others like Rouha and Plum would grow up and go to school and get married and perhaps even have children of their own. But I would not move on. I could feel it in my bones—that I lacked the normalcy that brought others happiness. It was why I ran away from home. Why I accepted the dragon’s seal. Why Idesired.
Without the usual foot traffic, I was able to make it out of the city roads in a quarter of the time. Dismounting before the Reed Flute Caves, I tied my mare to a nearby tree and left her to graze, listening for the sound of whispering spirits.
The lixia did feel thinner here; I did not know why. Perhaps they despised the dark, having spent too long in the spirit realm. Or perhaps the caves, devoid of people, were simply of little interest to them.
“Hello?” I whispered into the cavern, without quite knowing why I was whispering. Although we had passed the caves on our way into First Crossing, we had not stopped to venture inside. Beneath the low rays of golden sunlight, the stalagmites within seemed to sparkle like jewels. Like the Leyuan legend said, they did appear like mythical creatures, their sharp crags reminiscent of faces and bodies. The rock below was as smooth as polished marble and bore the rippling discoloration of a long-ago ocean floor. Howpeculiar, then, that these caverns now stood on a mountain peak far from the sea. How the world changed—and how it stayed the same.
My disquiet growing, I entered hesitantly, the sun’s rays at my back. I reached for a thin stalagmite and felt my vital energy pulse in response. As I gripped the stalagmite, my qi began to expand, spreading beyond the caves to the rivers and the mountains. I heard voices, laughter; I felt the beating hearts of people near and far. Gasping, I released the stalagmite and withdrew my knife, sawing at the fossil.
The dull thud of a boot startled me. I turned instinctively, just as a blur of movement flickered before me. That was when I realized—I’d made a mistake.
If I hadn’t shielded Qinglong from my mind, perhaps he would’ve warned me. Or perhaps he merely would have laughed. But by the time I turned, it was too late.
The last thing I saw was a finely dressed woman, her red-tinted lips parted in a wide, open-mouthed smile. A dark cloth suddenly covered my face, choking me. My training kicked in—I held my breath, twisting to drive my elbow into my captor’s stomach. But before I could summon the dragon’s power, nimble fingers struck my qi points with a precision few could match. I gasped, and my body went limp as I breathed in the cloth’s poison, my mind rejecting what my body already knew: I had walked into a trap.
I woke to a splittingheadache, the lixia withdrawal so brutal I felt on the precipice of death. I tugged weakly at my hands, before realizing they were secured by what must be iron manacles.This again.
Despite my many injuries, the lixia in the aftermath of the quakehad been enough to buoy me, lending me a false strength that resulted in overconfidence and conceit. Now, stripped of lixia, I felt like nothing more than an animated corpse. I ached everywhere; there was no muscle in my body that did not throb; my skin hurt as if stretched too tight; and beneath it all, ever present, coursed an undercurrent of violent lack. My body had grown to depend on spirit power, like a warped tree that requires a stake to stand. I needed Qinglong’s power now to breathe, to live, to evenwish to live. Belatedly, I understood that the only thing keeping me from keeling over was my chains. Without them, I would be fetal on the floor.
It was in this moment of weakness that Sky’s long-ago admonition came to mind: “You’re a good fighter, Ren, but you’re aterriblesoldier. You think for yourself. You don’t obey orders. And you look out for your own agenda over your platoon’s.”
He was right, of course. It was my instinct to act alone that had led me straight into this trap.
“How weak you are,” said a new voice. “I always wondered—however did you last in the Three Kingdoms War?”
With effort, I forced my eyes open. I was chained to a tapering column rising from the floor of the cave, my arms tied behind me and an iron collar fastened around my throat, which felt excessive.Because my captives are afraid of me, I saw. They were afraid of the power I possessed.
