I need this convoy.
I decide to continue east a little in case the convoy has somehow bypassed me and gone farther on.
The rising wind rustles the long silvergrasses, drowning out my harried footsteps as I pick up my pace to a light run. Too soon, I catch something dark smudged against a stalk of bamboo.
Blood, still wet. Fresh.
Alarm tightens my muscles, sharpens my focus to a point. There is a clearing up ahead, and in the dying light, I make out shapes crumpled on the ground.
The convoy.
I select the fourth of my eight crescent blades. The talisman on Shadow activates with a pulse of my spirit energy, shrouding me so that I am nearly invisible to the mortal eye and less detectable to whatever else lurks in these mountains.
My steps fall in near silence as I advance. Between the thinning bamboo, I make out something that raises gooseflesh on my skin: a lone silhouette in the clearing, drenched in the bloody light of the setting sun. A ripple of wind stirs the figure’s crimson cloak, illuminating the pattern of golden swirls on it.
I freeze. The color of the exquisite raiment conjures a familiar image in my mind: the red-lipped demon’s garnet hairpin glinting as she looked up at me from my father’s dead body. The oldest, most powerful of the mó, the Higher Ones, are the royalty of the Kingdom of Night. It is they who led the mó armies into our realm and planned the war strategies. I have heard stories of them: how they are sharper, more beautiful, and more sophisticated than any mortal emperor or empress in history. How they are utterly lethal.
The wind shifts the trees and shadows again, and this time, I catch a clearer look at my quarry. It’s not my father’s killer. This one is too tall, shoulders wide and muscular—a male.
Higher Ones are exceedingly rare; the only one I have ever seen is the red-lipped woman. If this being in the clearing before me is a Higher One, I have no chance of putting up a fight, even less so of escaping. I am dead either way.
And I would rather go down fighting, with my blades in my hands and on my own two feet.
I palm blade number five, Fleet. The forest around me blurs as I charge, spurred on by the temporary burst of speed Fleet grants me and masked by Shadow.
The mó half turns at the last second. The movement is graceful, and because every ounce of my focus is trained on him, I see him shift as though time has slowed, rendering him like a painting in the dying dusk. His hair, billowing like swirls of ink; his eyes, flashing golden like embers in the sun; the strong, sharp cut to his jaw and the ghost of a smile on his lips. As the wind whips the jade-green leaves into a flurry and lifts his red cloak into a silken dance, his gaze rises to meet mine.
He isbeautiful.
In that moment, I wish I could carve out my foolish mortalheart. I know mó are dangerous. I know we exist for them as prey. Still, I can’t help but stare.
And then we collide. He grunts as we slam to the ground, my body on top of his, my legs hooked against his for grip, my blades already at work. I aim at his neck with Shadow—
—and he catches my hand.
I’m thrown off guard by this. Shadow is meant to conceal my movements, and the blade itself is impossible to track with the naked eye, even for some mó.
Higher One,my senses scream.
So be it.
I grit my teeth and push, but then I catch sight of something that unsettles me once more.
His expression. He’ssurprised.
I have never seen any mó display such a mortal countenance; I do not think they feel emotions as we do. I hesitate—just for a fraction of a heartbeat, but it is too long. When I aim Fleet at the soft part of his neck, his other hand flies up to snag my forearm, throwing off my strike. Fleet barely nicks the curve of his throat.
His eyes narrow, and a grin drags open his lips, baring his teeth. Faster than I can blink, he flips me over. My head rams into the ground so hard that I see stars and my teeth rattle. I blink furiously, and when my vision clears, I find that I can no longer move. He’s holding both my wrists against the ground over my head and pinning me with his body. I can feel the hard planes of his inner armor pressing against me, crushing me under his weight.
He cocks his head, his gaze raking my face. “Do I know you?” His voice is as deep and smooth as the night.
I attempt a kick, but he catches the movement with hiship, locking my leg with his. He watches me struggle with a small, lazy tilt to his lips, as though he has all the time in the world to play with his food.
“Interesting,” he says. “A scorpion dressed as a chaste young maiden. Are there more stingers beneath that beguiling white dress?”
I hate him fiercely in that moment. I’m trapped beneath a mó, my arms too weak, my blades useless between my fingers. He will probably use my body first, then feast on my flesh as he drinks up my soul. I think of my father twitching on the ground, of my mother’s blank stare. I think of Méi’zi, small and alone beneath our town pái’fang, holding on to my blade and the promise I made her.
My throat locks. I think of crying. I think of begging.
