I’ve never seen a halfling child before; so rare and despised are they that even the stories and paintings don’t acknowledge their existence. The depictions of yao’jing I have come across are all twisted, vicious monsters, eerie in their humanlike appearances.
There is an ethereal, nearly inhuman beauty to the girl’s face: the sharp angle of her jaw, the perfect smoothness of her skin, the distance between her angled eyes. It is only when she blinks that I realize her eyes are a deep amber.
She blinks again, then does the strangest thing.
She inclines her head to me.
Then she’s gone. I am alone in the cathaya forest that spans the Way of Ghosts. The sun has set, its last rays of fire receding from the sky, yielding to the deep blue hues of twilight and true night. Wind threads through the branches, bringing the coo of a bird…and the crunch of leaves.
I spin, lashing out with Striker before I catch a blur of red. The curve of my blade comes to rest against the exposed crook of a throat, steel to skin. And I lift my gaze to meet a familiar one.
Yù’chén’s breathing hard, one hand raised in a placating motion. Slowly, he uncurls his other from the hilt of his sword and raises it, palm out to me. Completely weaponless.
“I heard the screams,” he says calmly. His throat moves against the edge of my blade.
I swallow, but I cannot bring myself to lower my blades despite the ache flaming up my wrists from Áo’yin’s ichor.
“It’s all right now.” His eyes narrow, taking in our surroundings before coming back to focus on me. He’s speaking to me in a low voice, as though I am a wild animal to be scared off at any moment. And I realize how tightly I am wound, how quickly my heart races. “It’s all right now, little scorpion.”
It’s that infernal nickname that brings me back.
I loose a breath and shift my crescent blade away from his throat. My hands are beginning to spasm with pain, the skin turning red. I know ichor is poisonous to mortals, and I’ve never been this careless as to get it on myself before—but I’ve also never fought off a legendary hellbeast.
The hilts of my crescent blades burn against my palms. I can’t help it; I let my blades drop.
“Let me see,” Yù’chén says, and after a pause, I hold out my hands.
Yù’chén lifts his gaze to mine. “Does it hurt?” he asks.
I look away. I don’t want to say yes. I don’t want to admit to weakness. And I don’t want him to see the tears welling in my eyes.
What happens next is something I would never have expected.
Slowly, Yù’chén lowers his mouth to my knuckles. I suppress a shiver at the warmth of his breath as he presses two fingers to my hand and writes out a talisman. He blows on it, golden life energy streaming like sunlight from his lips to my skin.
I can only stare at him as the pain dulls. I’m not used to kindness in this dying world, where I’ve been surviving on my own for so long. That must be why his gentle touch inspires another emotion in me, fluttering in my chest like a trapped butterfly. Something akin to the fear and the thrill of when one starts to fall.
“I saw you defeat Áo’yin,” he says quietly, moving to perform the talisman on my other hand. “What did you do to it?”
“I stabbed it.” Skies, my voice sounds so horribly thin. I suddenly feel exhausted, as if I could sink onto the silvergrass and sleep for days.
“YoustabbedÁo’yin?” Yù’chén echoes. He straightens and his hands on mine tighten momentarily. “How?”
I have no idea how to describe to him the light, the glow, the rush of power I felt as I carved the blade up. Even if I could, I don’t know that I want to. So instead, I mimic angling my blade up and make a stabbing sound with my teeth.
Yù’chén chuckles, which sends a strange warmth shooting through my stomach. The healing talismans glow with his life energy across my knuckles, working on their own now, though he doesn’t let go of my hands. And I don’t pull them away. “Do you have any idea how lethal that beast was?”
I shake my head. “Do you?”
“I’ve studied all facets of practitioning extensively. Áo’yin is one of the ten most feared beasts from the demonic realm. And you just fought it…and lived.”
I don’t know what to make of everything that just happened, so I say nothing.
Yù’chén is watching me closely. His voice is different when he says, “You saved the yao’jing.”
I close my eyes. With the pain receding now, my exhaustionbegins to kick in. The world sways slightly, and I fear I will pass out.
Hands at my elbows, warm and steady. When I open my eyes again, my red-cloaked ally fills my vision. “Why?” he asks.
