“Lei,” I said, as it occurred to me. “Were you poisoned?”
Confusion washed across his features. “I don’t know.”
This was bad. We had just been at the Arrival of Spring the night before, mingling among friends and strangers alike. Who had poisoned him? Had it been Sky? No, Sky would never commit an act he deemed dishonorable. But Lei’s enemies were far-reaching, and as a hostage prince in a foreign kingdom, he’d been easy prey.
I reluctantly let my mare go, mounting his horse instead. “You can lean on me,” I said, sensing the waning of his qi.
But the old horse suffered under our combined weight, and in the wide-open plain, we were obvious marks. “We can take shelter in Canyuan,” I decided. Hopefully I could barter for an antidote there.
“Leave me,” he said hoarsely. “You must go on—”
I ignored him, and he was too weak to argue.If only I could use my spirit power, I thought grimly as we rode into Canyuan. Then I could compel a villager and make them offer us shelter.
But I’d forgotten I had other assets available to me. We’d barely made it down the main road when a crowd gathered around us, villagers gawking at the peculiar sight we made. For Lei’s robes clearly marked him as nobility, and the sword I wore on my back, beneath my long flowing hair, was taboo.
“The woman warrior?” someone asked. “Is it her?”
“Look at her! Of course it’s her.”
“Phoenix-Slayer,” a young woman said, prostrating herself on the road. “My life for the rebellion.”
Bewildered, I wondered if they’d mistaken me for someone else. Yet I’d been called Phoenix-Slayer before.
“My life for the rebellion,” others murmured. One woman even came forward to kiss the back of my hand. Taken aback, my first instinct was to run and leave this town behind. But we needed help. In Lei’s current condition, we could not survive alone. If these villagers were rebels, then they did not support the throne. An enemy’s enemy was a friend.
“The prince took me hostage, but I escaped,” I said. “He will come after me. Are you willing to hide my companion and me?”
The woman who kissed myhand was the wife of a winemaker, who’d built a house with a sizable underground cellar. “The tenant farmers hide all their unreported crops there,” she explained. “Canyuan’s tax collectors are suspicious, of course, but they’ve never been able to find the trapdoor.”
“Thank you,” I said, as she led us through her front gate, which was crowded with countless chickens and two children. “We won’t stay long. Only until…”
We both looked at Lei, who was barely managing to walk on his own. “Stay as long as you need,” Madame Wu said. “Where is your journey’s end?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. If I told her about the eternal spring, she might think me mad. “First Crossing,” I answered instead, which was the last major trading port at the base of the Red Mountains.
“For the Three Kingdoms Treaty?” she asked. “Do you mean to involve yourself?”
I shook my head. “I will be journeying on to Leyuan after.” It was not technically a lie, given that the vast majority of the Red Mountains extended into Leyuan.
“Leyuan,” she mused. “You will find much support there, Phoenix-Slayer.”
“Please,” I said. “Call me Meilin.”
She smiled. “Of course, Meilin. I’ve heard a lot about you, you know. My cousin works in the palace, and your attendant Duan Lily used to live in Heyi, the village just over the river. They were both singing your praises here when they visited for the Spring Festival. That is how we knew your heart belonged to the rebellion, no matter what the Imperial Commander and his scribes would have us believe.”
“But…” I faltered, not wanting to confess my limited loyalties to her cause. I had not been training those girls for war. I had not wished for another war. Wasn’t one enough? How did we keep coming back here—these endless cycles of violence? By answering the dragon’s call, had I made myself an indispensable majiang piece, to be put in play every round of the game? Or had my decision been set in stone much earlier—when I’d run away and joined the army?
“You must’ve had quite a night,” said Madame Wu, once we were safely in the underground cellar. “I’ll bring food and water, and a change of clothes for you.”
“Wait,” I said, recognizing that she’d been ignoring Lei all this time. “Could you also bring a change of clothes for my friend?”
She shot a dubious glance at Lei, who was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut, his breaths rapid and shallow.
“Who is your friend, Meilin?” she asked, a coldness creeping into her voice.
“An Anlai noble loyal to the cause,” I lied.
After she left, I used Xiuying’s herbs to concoct a simple tea against pain. It would not cure Lei’s illness, only dull his symptoms, but this was all I could manage for now. After forcing Lei to drink it, I slumped beside him, then slept like the dead.
