A soldier slices the side of my arm, and sticky blood trickles down my skin and drips off my fingers. Someone rushes me from behind with a war cry. I turn in time to see his raised sword, arcing down to sever my head from my shoulders, but Feng is able to come between us, ramming her dagger into his brain from just below the jaw. Jyn, too, shows no mercy, sinking her teeth into a soldier’s flesh, the crunch of bones audible even over the clamor of battle.
When my dragon lands, it’s with a harsh thud that shakes the ground. Arrows riddle her body, her exhaustion evident in the heavy hang of her head. I stagger toward her, half-dead but still putting myself between her and the approaching soldiers.
“You have to escape,” I wheeze. “Leave this place.”
Jyn snarls, as if in disagreement.
“I’ll be back,” I promise. “If he kills me, so be it. But you know I’ll always come back for you. Please, you have to leave.”
This time, she hisses.
“I’m not asking.” Desperation shreds through my words. “You’re the one he wants, Jyn. I can’t let you fall into his hands. I’ll hold him off for as long as I can.”
“Get ready,” Feng snaps at us. “The fight ain’t over yet.”
We are surrounded, Imperial soldiers cautiously closing in on us. My hands are shaking so hard that I can barely grasp my blade. I hold it up anyway, more than happy to strike down the next fool who dares make a move.
They rush at us.
We fight ferociously, moving together as one. Feng moves like smoke, impossible to catch until it’s too late. Jyn picks off approaching soldiers one by one with her teeth, while I hack my way through anyone who gets too close. It’s violent. I take on more damage than I deal, but I no longer care. One, three, five, the whole horde—Jyn and I will cut down each and every one of them.
Can we possibly make it out alive? I should know by now that luck is never on my side.
Something heavy and scalding hot hits us both. A net woven of metal, heated to a glowing orange. The Imperial soldiers have fired it from a cannon, the momentum knocking Jyn and me to the ground. Her concentration broken, Jyn shifts into her smaller human form. Her roar shifts into a woman’s chilling scream.
The hot metal sears our skin, melts through our clothes. Trapped beneath its weight, we can only writhe in agony. The net crushes my strength to keep fighting, too heavy to lift, and my bones too brittle and broken.
The emperor steps out, finally showing his face now that our defeat seems certain. He crouches down and examines Jyn and me with a cold indifference.
“Yuèmu,”he says flatly. “It is lovely to see my mother-in-law after so long.”
Jyn roars, “Do not call me that, yousnake!”
The emperor clicks his tongue. “Is this not nice? It has been several thousand years since we’ve had a family get-together. We should hold a feast in your honor.”
“You have already devoured our son’s soul!” I bellow. “What more could you possibly want from us?”
His eyes narrow. “What makes you think I would ever divulge my plans to you? I ought to execute you here and now.”
Jyn shrieks. “If you harm him, I won’t transform!”
The emperor pauses. “No?”
“That’s what you want, is it not? To harvest us the way you did A-Qian?”
He goes stiff at the mention of our son’s name, something shifting behind his eyes. The emperor seems to lose hold of his emotions for the first time, brow furrowing deeply as he clenches his teeth, sharpening the prominent line of his jaw. He tightens his hand into a fist, his severed gray thread still hanging freely from his little finger. He rises and gestures to a nearby soldier.
“Bind them,” he orders. “And break their legs. We don’t want our honored guests running off.”
“What of the huntress?” one of his officers asks.
Emperor Róng regards Feng with general disinterest, like how one might notice a fly buzzing overhead, and motions for a sword. “I have no use for her,” he says before driving the tip of the blade through Feng’s back.
“Stop!” I bellow, but it’s too late.
I see the light fade from her eyes, her pupils blowing wide without focus. It’s a quick death, but horrifying all the same as I watch her thread fall away into nothing. Her Fated One, wherever they are, will not know her in this lifetime. Guilt racks my mind. We may not have seen eye to eye, but Feng didn’t deserve this death, especially not at the whim of a monster. I silently thank her for sparing my life. Her death will not be in vain.
After they drag the metal net off us, they pin us down, kneeling between our shoulder blades and on the backs of our calves to keep us still. I reach for Jyn, only to have my arm twisted back painfully, my hands suddenly trapped by metal cuffs. The more I move, the more they tighten, sensitive springs within the contraption twisting the cuffs that much more.
