“Phoenix-Slayer,” Madame Wu said, nodding with approval at my appearance. “Long may you live.”
My face heated with discomfort. For I was beginning to see the similarities between how they addressed the Imperial Commander and how they addressed me.
“Help me take the throne because you know me. Because you know I’ll be a better ruler than the rest of them.”
“Meilin,” Lei had asked, and under the dragon’s influence, I’d thought him absurd at the time, “what makes you so sure you’ll be better?”
“He’s coming!” cried Madame Wu.
We all felt the rebel leader’s presence long before we saw him. His heavy, hulking footsteps shook dust into the cellar, and I wondered if he was stomping on the floor to make himself known. Then, when he dropped through the trapdoor, I understood.
He was a man built like a mountain, so tall his head nearly bumped the ceiling. The cellar had felt spacious to me, but with the rebel leader inside it, the room grew cramped, as if he took up the space of a dozen men. He wore a pair of thick eyeglasses, though he did not give a remotely scholarly appearance. His hair was tousled and unkempt, tied in a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his skin marked by months on the road: freckled, weather-beaten, and strewn with fresh cuts and old scars. Still, despite the lines around his eyes and mouth, he looked to be in his mid-twenties, for there was an undeniable air of exuberant youthfulness about him, as if he believed he could do anything, and he could convince you of the same.
“Tan Kuro,” he said, without any of the usual courtesies. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Hai Meilin.”
I inclined my head. My neck hurt just looking up at him. “I can’t say the same about you.”
“Then I haven’t been doing my job,” he said, smirking. “By the time I’m done here, everyone in Anlai will know my name.”
“As a hero or as a villain?”
He laughed. “That depends on whether they’re smart enough to pick my side.”
I appraised him carefully. “And what makes you so sure your side is the winning one?”
He shrugged. “People like me don’t doubt themselves,” he said, exuding the sort of elusive, magnetic confidence I had struggled so hard to make my own. “Otherwise we’d never have the guts to do what we do.” He extended a hand to me, motioning toward the trapdoor. “Shall we?”
I did not take it. “How much do you know about me?” I asked, testing him.
He shot me an easygoing grin. “I know you’re a skilled warrior who could probably cut me down with that thing faster than I could blink.” I raised a brow at the way he described my blade. “I know you’re pretty enough to charm a man in your sleep. And…” He leaned in. I did not want him so close, but I refused to back down. “I know you probably have more powers than you’re letting on, if the rumors are anywhere close to true.”
The back of my neck prickled with unease. “What rumors?”
“They say you slayed the Vermillion Bird, but no one knows how you did it. Well, I have a theory or two.”
I used my silence as bait.
His grin widened as he placed a scarred finger on my neck, then slid it down, slowly, hooking it around the string of my necklace—
I jerked away from him, my hand slamming down to conceal my jade. Breathing heavily, I glared at him.
He raised his hands in a conciliatory manner. “I mean no harm,” he said. “I’m just despicably curious is all.”
“Touch me again and you’ll lose the hand,” I snapped.
He grinned. “I do love a feisty woman.”
My glare deepened. “A third time and you lose your head.”
He laughed. “All right. I got the message. You like your personal space, and I like my limbs attached to my body. Now, let’s get on the road?”
“One more thing,” I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my trousers. “My friend comes with me.”
Kuro shot a skeptical glance at Lei, who was passed out in the corner. “He’s a near corpse,” Kuro pointed out. “You can’t let the man die in peace?”
He said it jokingly, but the remark made me stiffen. “I thought you were a powerful leader of a great force,” I said tightly. “Use your multitude of resources to secure an antidote for him.” I bit my lip. “Or I’m out.”
“You’reout?” He choked on a laugh. “My dear, you’re the one trapped in a cellar because your spurned lover is ransacking the kingdom for you. And you’re trying to tell me what to do?”
