I draw a deep breath. Then, clamping my teeth together, I sheathe Healer and palm Shadow and Heart.
White-hot pain streaks through my ribs. I bite down against a whimper and steady myself against a tree, gathering all my thoughts into a single, dagger-sharp desire: to beat my opponent and take their pendant. To win a spot in the trials and earn a pill of immortality. To see Ma open her eyes and recognize me again, sunlight in her gaze and her smile.
I want to sever my opponent’s pendant.
I tap Heart with my spirit energy and throw it. It curves through the air, a silver flash, and then vanishes through the trees.
Moments later, there’s a shout. I take off in its direction just as a throwing star whisks through the night. With a dull thud, it lodges in the trunk of the tree I was just leaning against—but I’m already halfway through the trees, Shadow obscuring my movements.
My opponent doesn’t see me coming. At the last second, he hears my footsteps; he twists and aims a kick. I swerve, then dodge another throwing star before aiming my own jab. He blocks awkwardly; in the moment he’s thrown off balance, I catch a glint of gold on the ground.
His pendant. Heart’s aim was true, severing it from the belt on his waist.
I switch Shadow for Fleet, and in the instant I become visible to him, my attacker lets out a shout.
It’s too late. I snatch his pendant from the ground and stumble back into the shadows of the trees. I don’t want him to see how badly wounded I am.
But my opponent does something strange. Instead of trying to stop me, he raises his hand to the skies.
The air ripples with spirit energy as the acrid stench of smoke reaches me. There’s a whistling sound and a spark, and moments later, fire powder explodes far above our heads. It shimmers in the air, red and in the shape of a crescent.
Its light illuminates my opponent, and I realize why he was fighting so awkwardly. Where his right hand should be is a stub, the hand cut off at the wrist.
My breath catches. It’s Yán’lù’s crony—the one who helpedabduct me that night in the Celestial Gardens. The one whose hand Yù’chén sliced off.
He glares at me, teeth bared. “Recognize me now?” he growls.
I lift his pendant. “I won,” I croak.
He spits in the grass. “You think I care about that? Ever since your lover cut off my hand, you think I still care about these trials?” Above us, the fading glow of the crescent from his firework paints his grin red. “I’ve found a new way in this life. Someone who’ll protect me, no matter what.”
My pendant glimmers; the engraving on it has changed to a new constellation of the zodiac, but I don’t take my eyes off my opponent for more than a split second. “I won,” I repeat. Blood soaks the fabric of my clothing at my midriff; I have to lean against the tree to stay on my feet.
He notices, too. His eyes roam down my bodice, and his expression turns malicious. “You don’t look so good.”
“That’s none of your business.” My voice sounds breathy even to my ears, but I jerk my chin up at his firework and snap, “Extinguish your weapon and leave.”
His grin widens. “Oh, that’s not a weapon,” he whispers, and I suddenly feel as though I haven’t won after all. It was easy, too easy…the way he barely fought me, the way he didn’t even try to take back his pendant. Instead, he sent…
A signal.
I sense them before I see them, shadows moving in the thicket.
“My flower,” croons a voice, and my entire body goes cold as Yán’lù steps out. He’s flanked by half a dozen cronies; the whites of their eyes and teeth flash as they close in from alldirections. Herding me so that the only place left to go is the cliff—and the fall into an abyss and a deep, dark sea.
Slowly, I back away from them. The wind rises, laced with a cold, sharp tang of salt.
“What do you want?” I’m gripping my blades so tightly, their hilts dig into my skin. My muscles are frozen with the memory of being pinned down, helpless, and drowning.
Yán’lù smirks. “I want to see who’s watching over you,” he replies.
I’m visibly shaking as I palm Fleet and Healer. The world sways, and the pain from my wound sends shocks of cold through my limbs. There is no way out: in front of me, fanning out in all directions, are Yán’lù and his cronies. Behind me, a jutting cliff that plunges into the depths of the Silver Sea.
Something whistles through the air, followed by a stinging sensation in my shoulder. When I look down, a sharp black spike the length of a finger protrudes from my arm, glistening in my blood and another viscous liquid.
A slow, numbing sensation spreads through my skin, and I realize what the spike was coated in:poison.
I stagger. My movements slow.
