And yet it feels so comfortable on my tongue, as though I have said it a thousand times before.
I feel the cool press of a damp cloth on my forehead. My skin erupts with heat, yet my frozen core makes me shiver. The humming ceases, the woman’s song interrupted. Even though my eyes are swollen closed, I can sense movement beside me.
“Drink,” her voice orders, and the solid rim of a cup is tucked between my lips.
I obey but gag around the sharp copper taste now trickling down my esophagus. Surely it must be poison, for it’s so disgustingly bitter that it makes my tongue swell and my lungs seize. The longer the taste lingers, the sooner I begin to realize what it is I’m being fed.
Blood.
I pry my eyes open, then thrash about, my broken body shuddering in protest. “Unpleasant” doesn’t even begin to describe it. This is disgusting, made ten times worse by the fact that I can barely see.
Beside me, I can just make out the silhouette of a woman.
“Relax,” she says, calm but firm. “You must drink every last drop.”
Protests die at the base of my throat.
“Where’s the dragon?” I rasp around a mouthful of her horrifying concoction.
“Be at ease.”
“No, tell me where—”
My caregiver—or perhaps captor?—tilts the cup steeply, dumping the remaining blood into my mouth. My reflex is to spit it out, but before I can, the woman forcefully grasps my face and crushes her lips to mine.
Stunned, I swallow it all down.
I blink several times, desperately attempting to clear my blurry vision. Something strange is happening to me. Not moments before, I was in so much agony I could have sworn I was approaching death’s door. The memories of the roadside attack come rushing back to me. Those soldiers beat me within an inch of my life and would have delivered the final blow, had it not been for…
I sit up abruptly, looking down at myself. I have been strippedof all my clothes and am as naked as the day I was born. What confuses me more than my indecent exposure is my lack of injuries.
Bones that I felt break are no longer broken.
Deep cuts and open wounds inflicted upon me have healed over without a trace.
My fever is gone in an instant, along with the ache of my muscles and general fatigue. I feel like a new man: my vision is clear, my breathing steady, my strength returning in full force. I am healed, almost as if by—
Magic.
I take in my surroundings. We appear to be beneath the shade of a rocky overhang in the middle of a glittering oasis. On all sides, we are surrounded by luscious plants and tall palm trees, a deep pond at the center of it all. Beyond our little paradise are the endless dunes and hot golden sands of what I can only assume is the Western Wastelands. The merchants of Jiaoshan always speak of how taxing it is to go around the desert plains rather than endure a straight path and subject themselves to the unforgiving climate.
I look to my side, marveling at the radiant woman kneeling beside me. It’s the same woman I saw on the roadside, though I was so sure I imagined her. Now that I have my wits about me, I can appreciate the full extent of her beauty.
I can’t place her age—A-Ma used to tell me it was a rude thing to ask a lady—but if I had to venture a guess, I would say she’s no older than five and twenty. Her long black hair is silky and thick. Her skin is as fair as porcelain, rivaling the elegance and grace of the most expensive tea sets we have at the shop back home.
She is by no means delicate or dainty. Her body is strong and lean, the hard curves of muscle evident beneath her pale skin. It’s her eyes that do me in. A vibrant, stunning emerald green that sparkles in the noonday sun. They leave me breathless, my heart skipping with unbridled glee when I find myself the object of hergaze. I can’t explain why looking at her makes me feel so wonderfully at peace. Like Emperor Róng, she has an ancient quality about her. Wise, but troubled with an indescribable burden.
And then I glance down at her hand.
It wasn’t a dream, then. We really are connected by the same gray thread. It has shortened in length with our proximity, but it still hangs loose, lazily dragging down like a boat tied to a dock with too much slack, rather than changing in color or tautness, as is normally the case when two Fated Ones draw near to each other.
“You,” I whisper, at a complete loss for words.My Fated One.
Very slowly, I reach for one of the blankets beneath me and place it over my lap to cover my indecency. This woman has seen me naked and kissed me in a matter of two minutes, and I am, to be perfectly frank, overwhelmed.
“Are you feeling better?” she asks me, her tone and expression flat. A far cry from the person I heard humming just a while ago.
I nod. “Yes, thank you.”
