Except myself, I didn’t add.
He shrugged. “There’s a growing number. With all these new gates popping up, anyone who dares can become a spirit wielder.”
I spared him a wary look. I heard no judgment or fear in his voice. “Would you dare?”
His smile was cutting. “Would I dare?” he repeated thoughtfully, before suddenly jumping to his feet with a ferocity that made me flinch. I shot upright as I felt it too—a slow rumbling, shaking the earth.
“Bandits,” said Kuro. “Sounds like a lot of them.”
A huge force of bandits slowly emerged on the horizon, charging across the wetlands and spreading around us like water circling a drain. My heart accelerated at the sheer magnitude of their force—there looked to be nearly a hundred of them. The bandits leading the vanguard held sabers and spears, while the ones in the back carried bows and arrows.
“Vultures,” Kuro spat out. “They’d join the rebellion if they had any moral code.”
Now wasn’t really the time for a lecture. “We can’t fight that many,” I muttered, edging closer to Kuro. “What do you think they want?”
“Our heads,” he said simply. “We’re both wanted men.” Then he glanced at me, a grin curving his lips. “Apologies, Wanted Lady.”
I ignored his ill-timed joke. We were about to be slaughtered and he was really grinning as he wrapped his fists with bandages?No matter how formidable a fighter he was, his fists would do nothing against a hundred bandits.
“One powerful spirit wielder is worth a hundred swordsmen, in my humble opinion.”
I looked down at my iron manacles, which seemed to hum at my attention. Could I? No, I thought, rubbing my blackened veins, hadn’t I overused my lixia enough? And yet…what difference did six or two months more of freedom make if I was going to die today?
A man who appeared to be their leader rode toward us on horseback, undeterred by the danger the marshes posed to his horse.
“We’ve been following you,” he said to Kuro. “Thanks for making it easy.”
Kuro drew his curved saber. “Easy?” he said. “I never promised easy.”
“Kill them, but keep their corpses intact,” the bandit leader ordered his men. Raising his voice, he shouted, “Today, we’re rich men!”
A bead of rain fell on my cheek.
“I gave you an ocean of might and you chose a drop of rain instead,” Qinglong had once told me. He was right. I had nearly died that day, and moreover, I’d let my friends and companions die.
While I still lived, I would do anything necessary to survive.
Rain began to drizzle across the marsh, turning the already wet earth into oozing mud.
“Kuro,” I said under my breath, “I need you to break my irons for me.”
I rolled up my sleeves to show him my manacles. His eyes bulged with surprise and indignation at my irons. “What are you wearing those for?”
“Ask me later,” I snapped, balancing my wrist against a protruding rock. “Hurry!”
Taking the steel hilt of a dagger, he rammed it with considerable force against my manacle. I clenched my teeth at the impact, but we both saw the crack that split the iron. He struck again, this time hitting the weakened spot, and the iron shattered into pieces.
I felt my lixia stir within me like a sleeping beast.
He went to work on the second manacle as one of the faster bandits swung at him from behind. “Watch out!” I shrieked, and Kuro ducked just in time to avoid getting beheaded, though he cursed as the saber glanced off his shoulder.
Forced to separate from Kuro, I dodged a flying arrow and threw a dagger of my own, listening for the satisfyingthwackas the dagger met its mark.
I tried to draw on the overflowing water around me, but the iron blocked my lixia. I had to get back to Kuro, fast.
A trio of men came at me from behind. I sidestepped them once, twice, three times, weaving them into a tight formation where they became impediments to each other. Impatiently, one man’s cudgel struck out too soon—thwacking his companion, who let out a cry of anger as I slipped out beneath them and ran.
“Kuro!” I shouted, as he felled a man with a single punch. The man did not get up. “Finish the job!”
