The brightest and most beautiful flowers are the most poisonous.That strikes a chord in me, deeper than he’d know.
I turn away, studying the closest body. The victim is a young woman around my age. Her eyes are still open, blank and unseeing, but the fear in her expression is unmistakable.
I lean down and close her eyes. The proper funeral rite for our realm would be cremation, releasing anything left of their life energies to the realm of death beyond the Nine Fountains in hopes of reincarnation. Unlike immortals, the vast majority of mortals don’t reincarnate; our souls are too fragile for that. We are made for one lifetime.
I’m aware of the practitioner watching me. “Why do that?” he asks. “She’s gone.”
I look away. I don’t tell him that every time I see a body, I’m imagining my father’s blank eyes and gashed chest. That if I were in the shoes of the dead girl’s parents, I would wish for someone to do the same for me.
That, for all the sins I have already sown and the deathsI have seen, I hope these small gestures will continue to remind me of what it means to be human.
“She lived, once” is all I say as I straighten. We’ve wasted enough time dancing around the topic, so I cut straight to the point. “Are you looking for the convoy?”
“Convoy.” His tone is between a statement and a question.
“The convoy to the Kingdom of Sky.”
“Ah.”The corners of his eyes curve in a look I cannot decipher. “Yet another mortal seeking immortality,” he says softly. “Why is it in our natures to want that which we cannot have?”
My lips part, but that’s when I catch sight of something over his shoulder. A shift of a shadow between the trees, a glint of metal—
I’m moving already, acting on instinct as I reach into my sleeve and sweep my arm out. My sixth crescent blade, Arrow, flies from my hand. There is a sharpplinkand the sound of metal against metal, but my aim was a fraction off, my throw too weak, and it wasn’t enough to fully deflect the dagger soaring from the trees, toward the red-cloaked practitioner’s head.
I can’t even make sense of what happens next. One moment I’m watching the dagger fly toward him. The next, Red has shifted and the dagger is nowhere to be seen. All I catch between one blink and another is a billow of his crimson cloak in a phantom wind, as if I’ve missed a few moments of time.
Red spares me a glance over his shoulder, and I swear he smiles before turning his attention back to the part of the bamboo forest where the attack came from.
I raise Fleet and Shadow just as the assailant steps out from the darkness.
He’s huge, dressed in black practitioner’s robes and holding a long, thick saber that looks as heavy as me…one that is covered in drying blood.
Around him, figures are emerging from the forest: practitioners, judging from the sophistication of their weapons and practiced fighting stances, all young and dressed in dark, travel-suited shifts and boots. I’m certain, from the fullness of their frames and the crispness of their clothes, that they must be from the other provinces, perhaps nearer to the borders of our kingdom, where the mó have not reached.
I count six of them, each armed with different weapon types: bows and arrows, serrated-metal whips, throwing stars, spears, and swords. They’re all aimed at me and Red.
They must be the convoy…or what’s left of it.
The largest of them—the one who attacked us—takes a step toward me, and to my surprise, so does Red. They’re equal in height, but the newcomer is built like a brute, with a neck as thick as a tree trunk and hands that look as though they could crush my head. Metal sings through the air as he draws his saber.
Red stands calmly, arms folded. Smiling. Somehow, that sends a chill down my spine.
“Believe this belongs to you,” he says, and when he holds out his hand, the brute’s dagger flashes in his palm.
The brute snarls and lunges. Quicker than a blink, Red tosses the dagger at his face, forcing him to pivot so he doesn’t get stabbed by his own weapon.
The newcomer just manages to swipe his weapon from the air. He lookspissed.I would be terrified to be on the receiving end of that look, but Red doesn’t balk. Instead, hesmirks at me. “I think we’re better off without the convoy if it’s going to be them, don’t you?” he asks me.
“Bastard,” the brute sneers. “All these bodies you see?Ikilled them. The rest obeyme.”
The world cracks on those words. As I stare at his widening grin, everything suddenly comes together into a horrifying, gruesome picture. The dead practitioners, their flesh unconsumed and their chests sliced open.
“Why?” The question slips from my lips before I can help it. My head feels oddly light. This is all wrong. This convoy was meant to unite us in the face of our common enemy, the mó.
The murderer turns to me, and his grin splits his face. “Why?” he repeats. “Don’t you know how the temple at the Kingdom of Sky works? They don’t let in all the riffraff. You have to survive their selection tournament to qualify. Only the best mortals can make it out alive; out of those, only a handful are selected to become immortal.” His eyes glow maniacally. “And if I eliminate the strongest of the convoy, I eliminate competition.”
Red snorts, and every eye in the clearing turns to him. He’s covered his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he’s trying to smother his laughter. “Excuse my manners,” he says, and with what appears to be incredible restraint, he schools his features into a semblance of seriousness. “See, I don’t think that’s how it works. Even if you kill every single eligible practitioner out here, you still won’t be chosen if you’re—let me put this delicately—shit.”
The brute turns an ugly shade of plum. I hear one of his lackeys call out to him, “Yán’lù, want us to finish them off for you?”
