“Jinya,” he tried to say, but his voice cracked. “I-I’m going to save you. I’m going to bring you home. I promised we’d go back, once the rebellion is over. I promised we’d go home.”
Jinya’s spirit was unrecognizable. Like a dying fire, embers emitting a faint hiss. She twitched once, twice, and then—her eyes flew open.
Her irises were white and unseeing. “The spirits wanted me,” she whispered, her voice as dry as sand. “I buried myself here to hide, like we used to do, but…they found me in the end.”
“N-no,” said Kuro, shaking his head. “I’m going to save you. I’m going to bring you home.”
She exhaled slowly. Despite our proximity, I couldn’t sense her qi. The spirit energy was too strong in this place, ever hungry and pressing closer.
Kuro shook her by her shoulders. “Jinya, stay with me. You can’t go yet. Wait for me.” Clenching his jaw with sudden resolve, he took out a knife and slit his palm. Fresh blood gushed forth, and the spirits above and below seemed to pause in their whispering, before drawing nearer: eager, curious.
Without any regard for his own pain, Kuro pressed his wound to Jinya’s cracked lips. “Drink,” he ordered.
But here in the spirit realm, it was not Jinya who drank, only a shadow of who she’d once been. She drank, and drank, and drank, until the light revived in her eyes. But those were not her eyes.
“Kuro,” I said uneasily. “You’re only luring spirits with—”
Jinya began to convulse, before letting out an earsplitting shriek. We both jumped. Her skin was turning deathly pale, as white as parchment.
My panic rose. “She doesn’t have enough spirit affinity—”
Her body spasmed, and then she screamed again, a sound ofpure agony. It was so wretched I could not stand it. I, who did not even call her a friend. No one deserved to suffer like this.
“I’m sorry,” I said, swallowing hard as I drew my sword. “You know what I must do.”
Black tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her body contorted at an unnatural angle as she screamed again, seizing.
“No,” said Kuro, raising a hand to stop me. I tensed, preparing to fight, but he said, “I-I’ll do it. It’s my—” His voice broke. “It’s my responsibility.”
He knelt beside her, cradling her face in his hands. He tried to speak, but only a strangled sound emerged from his throat. He tried again; still nothing came. Jinya’s body twitched like a trapped animal, unable to escape. My eyes stung with tears, but I couldn’t look away. With trembling hands, Kuro pressed his knife to her neck. He was shaking so hard the knife would not stay still.
Jinya was writhing again. “Kuro—” I began.
He slit her throat.
It was not cleanly done. Blood spurted everywhere as he hit an artery, and Jinya bucked, her eyes rolling back in her head. Kuro held her as Jinya’s spirit released a final defiant hiss, before surrendering at last, fading into oblivion. The sudden silence in her absence felt like condemnation.
You did this. You started this.
Numbly, Kuro got to his feet, staring at his bloody knife. I struggled for breath, but the thick grief and guilt hanging over us seemed to suck all air from this place.
Without warning, Kuro let out a bellow of pure rage, and the spirits hovering near us dispersed like flies.
“Kuro—” I tried.
“Leave me!” he roared.
“It’s not your—”
He swung toward me with murderous intent. “Get out of my sight!”
I ran. I ran as far as I could, but still I could not escape my guilt, which followed me as a shadow. My throat closed and I wheezed for breath, trying to draw air. The lixia swarmed in my bones, my veins, seeking an outlet, a release. The war had not ended with Chancellor Sima’s death, as I’d once foolishly believed. No, the war was ongoing, and the death toll only rising as the beasts we’d let out to play stole more and more from the lives we’d once deemed commonplace.
I had hated my former life. I had been so ready to give it up, to trade it for six months of freedom and a roll of the dice. But I had not realized then what a luxury it was to trust your own mind, to know that your loved ones slept soundly beside you, to know that the days would go on and that you were not responsible for the destruction of the world.
I had always sought to prove myself, to become the best, to have my name recorded in the annals of history. But I had never considered the possibility that it might be as a villain.
All at once, I found myself standing before the Wen River. The place my mother had drowned. White plum blossoms drifted down from the overhanging branches into the river. From above, it looked as though the trees were crying.
