All eyes are on the stranger standing at the mouth of the narrow alley. They have a mask on their face, and are clad from head to toe in a hooded dark green cape, so dark that it appears almost black. Confusion lances through me. Is this another thief, hoping to take my coin? Why do I feel like I’m being…pulledtoward them, as if there were a strong wind behind me?
The newcomer moves swiftly, so nimble that their movements are an almost-imperceptible blur. A powerful kick sends another monk careening into the wall, his skull smashing against the jaggedbricks. A terrifying strike knocks the last of my attackers out cold, the crack of his ribs echoing loudly in my ears. One after another, the thieves meet their brutal defeat, but my savior doesn’t stop.
They charge at me next with such alarming speed that I stumble backward and raise my hands in surrender, heart hammering against my rib cage.
“Wait, please, I—”
The stranger’s hand flies out. But instead of reaching for my coin purse, they snatch my ordinance scroll from my belt. I stare in awe as they quickly unroll it, revealing the three different paper talismans stuck to the inside. They are thin yellow bits of parchment covered in expertly drawn red-ink calligraphy. I do recognize the symbols, but the characters are too ancient for me to comprehend.
Before my mind has the chance to spiral, my attention is pulled elsewhere. As the hooded stranger wordlessly rips my ordinance scroll to shreds, I see their hands.
Tied around their right little finger is a fraying gray thread—its end connected to mine.
My mouth falls open. I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. I try to get a better look at their face, but it’s completely covered by their mask and hood.“You.”
They toss the bits of the ordinance to the ground and give my chest a hard shove. My back slams against the alley wall. The contact is brief, but there’s no denying the sudden heat that flickers over my skin where they’ve touched me. It’s an explosion of firecrackers, alarming at first, then oddly pleasant.
“Leave,” the stranger hisses. The voice of a woman, of myFated One.
“Wait!” I exclaim, winded and shaking. “Wait, I beg you!”
She turns on her heel and sprints away without a word. My heart sinks. No, this isn’t right. I can’t let her go. Not without answers.
I’ve nearly lost her by the time I round the corner, but thankfully see her fleeting silhouette out of the corner of my eye. I give chase right up until the canal’s edge, deterred only by the deep, dark water. All I can do is watch as she jumps from the embankment and leaps from river boat to river boat, vanishing into the thick fog rolling in to blanket all of Longhao.
I watch in confusion and dismay as my gray thread of fate tugs weakly along after her. Any remaining thoughts I have of giving chase evaporate the moment the thread changes direction, pointing directly into the now-raining sky.
11
There y’are!” Feng huffs infrustration. She stamps her foot like a petulant child and brushes her wet hair back with one hand. The light rainstorm is already passing, but it leaves the air sticky and smelling of petrichor. “What in the nine suns took ye so long?”
My mouth drops open only to shut again. How am I to explain that I have come face-to-face with my Fated One—adragonwho can somehow take human form? There was certainly no such detail in the legends. Could I have imagined it somehow? I could have sworn that the end of my thread was connected to that green dragon earlier.
“My head hurts,” I mumble, rubbing my temples with a sigh. The pounding pressure behind my eyes threatens to crack my skull open like a chick bursting from its egg.
“Did ye at least get the food?”
I toss a burlap sack full of food rations in her direction. Feng opens it up, examines the contents, and scrunches up her face.
“That’s it?” She pulls out a half-rotten onion. “Do ye Northerners have no sense of taste?”
“This was all I could find at the market. It’ll be fine if we cut off the slimy outer bits,” I insist. “The vendors have had an unsteady supply of food since the start of the North’s embargo.”
She rolls her eyes. “That, or they’re keeping the good shit from ye. Lemme guess—no spare coin?”
I shake my head, pulling the pockets of my robe inside out. “Not even a bronze piece.”
“Fine. If we run low, we’ll hafta barter fer supplies in the next town,” Feng tells me as she mounts my horse. My steed has taken a far greater liking to the woman than me, nipping at my hair whenever I stand too close. She offers me a calloused, dirty hand and helps pull me onto the saddle behind her.
The journey is arduous. I’m not yet accustomed to the ever-present humidity of the South, sweat soaking into my robes as heat radiates off my skin despite the fact that we’re in the beginnings of winter. We ride for hours, the city of Longhao now just a dot on the horizon. It will be dark soon, the air growing chillier by the hour.
“How much farther?” I complain.
“Would ye quit yer whinin’? You Northerners are a prissy bunch.”
“I prefer ‘delicate and refined.’?”
We travel along the perimeter of the thick jungle on a dirt road made soft by the afternoon’s light rainfall. The skies above are gray and cloudy, the threat of a more violent storm brewing in the distance.
