“Why not?”I’ve burned through my patience. I’ve had enough of elusive responses, of questions he won’t answer.
I reach into the folds of my dress. My half-sewn handkerchief is wrinkled and sandy, but the note wrapped within—because of its protective talisman—is as new as the day I found it.
I shove it at Hào’yáng. “The only legacy my father left me is on that piece of paper.” It’s hard to keep the tremor from my voice. “And all of it points toyou.”
Hào’yáng keeps his expression carefully blank as he reads the note. When he finishes, he looks up at me and sighs. “To tell you the truth,” he says quietly, “I’m here because I need you, Àn’ying.”
I hold very still. “Why?”
“The answer is dangerous,” Hào’yáng says quietly. “Many seek it, and would kill for it. My—and Lady Shi’ya’s—protection can extend only so far within the rules of these trials. I know you need to win the pill of immortality for your mother first, and that’s why I’m here now.”
I don’t recall mentioning Ma to him. “That’s my business,” I reply. “You don’t have to protect me, Hào’yáng.”
“I know how it feels to be hunted; I know how it feels to be prey. And I don’t want you to have to go through that.”
I realize I’m gripping my jade pendant so tightly, my knuckles are white. “Well, it’s too late,” I say in a low voice. “I already have.”For the past nine years.
His gaze is searing in its intensity. “I don’t want you to anymore.”
“Who are you to lecture me about being hunted?” Anger rises in me like flames. “You met me weeks ago, Hào’yáng. You knownothingabout me, about what I’ve been through.”
I snatch my father’s note back and shove it into my sleeve.“I’m leaving,” I say, and I turn and run toward Meadowsweet, ignoring Hào’yáng’s calls.
Surprisingly, the dragonhorse flies me back to our usual drop-off spot in the Celestial Gardens. “Thank you,” I whisper, petting her snout. She nudges me once and gives me a gentle look with her large brown eyes before taking off again.
The last rays of light are seeping out of the sky. The shadows have set in. The gardens are utterly silent as I walk; I am alone. In this moment, there is only one person I wish to speak with.
I lift my jade pendant from where it rests beneath my clothes. “Talk to me,” I whisper.
The stone remains cold, the surface blank.
And suddenly, I wonder if any of it was ever real. Whether my guardian was merely an enchantment my father created, one of the talismans he drew on a stone, just like the blades he gifted me. Whether, now that I have found my way to the Kingdom of Sky, my jade pendant has lost its purpose.
The thought hurts so much, I stumble. That’s when I hear movement behind me.
I turn, Shadow and Fleet in my fists, as a moan rises from the bushes. In the dim light, I catch sight of the hand first. It’s a slender, pale hand with long fingers, protruding from a camellia bush. Then I see the blood, and the hulking, monstrous shape between two willows that moves rhythmically. A strange slurping sound breaks the silence.
A choked sob; unmistakably feminine. And then a voice—one I recognize—moans.“Help…”
It’s Xi’xi. Number Five, the girl who was gossiping about Yù’chén.
I must have made a noise, for the thing in the shadows pauses. As it lifts its head toward me, I already know, with the bone-deep sense of having been hunted for half my life, what I’ll see.
Two eyes, blazing like embers. Staring directly at me. Eyes as red as blood.
A being of the Kingdom of Night.
Cold grips me even as I heft my blades, shifting into a defensive stance. I should run. I should get to the Hall of Radiant Sun, find Hào’yáng, have the immortals hunt down the demonic beast loose within their borders.
Number Five lets out another small sob, and something unmoors inside me. It’s the same impulse I had watching Áo’yin hunt down Lì’líng; the same impulse that makes me want to protect Méi’zi and Ma and all those who are weak and vulnerable and hunted.
If I leave that girl to die here, I will never be able to live with myself.
My breathing quickens. I’ve done this before. Fought mó. Killed them, even. I can do it again.
I raise my blades.
The beast snarls at me and lifts a great, clawed paw, angling it toward Number Five’s prone body for a killing blow.
