Chapter Twelve
“Creek!”Leander ranto his side, slipping a hand under his neck to ease his crumbled position.He was sweaty and pale, his eyelids fluttering and his breathing weak.“Creek!”He didn’t respond at all.Leander whirled around wildly, as if expecting to see the attacker who had felled Creek, but in every direction, there were only flowers—orange and pink and yellow.
For a moment, Leander froze, but then commonsense sent him dashing back toward the town.He needed help, and he had one person who might help him.Two if he counted Heng, but he was an acolyte, and Leander would have to talk his way past legions of lower-level acolytes and servants to reach him.Creek would be dead by then.
Hiking his robes up to his waist so his pants were obscenely visible, Leander practically flew down the hill, allowing gravity to pull him along dangerously fast.He just focused on keeping his feet under his body long enough to take the next step.A woman stepping out of her front door yelped in surprise when Leander nearly knocked her over, but he didn’t do more than shout an apology over his shoulder as he charged toward Auntie Daiyu’s house.
By the time he climbed the three steps to her front door, his chest hurt, and he gulped air hungrily.Ignoring the pain, he pounded on her door.He tried to shout her name, but he couldn’t get his lungs to cooperate.Despite the real threat of curses and lethal security, Leander pulled the knob, surprised the door moved.
Auntie Daiyu was in her manicured garden, the double doors allowing sunlight and the scent of flowers into the grand reception room.She took one look at his face and rose.
“Lian.What is wrong?”
“Xi.He’s...poison.”It was the only explanation, but saying the word aloud unlocked a terror that clawed at Leander’s ribs.It scraped him raw and stole his breath.
“Where?”Auntie Daiyu asked.
“The hills.”Leander lurched back in surprise as Auntie Daiyu flew at him.Literally.She caught his hand as she passed, her robes flowing around her as she soared out of the door.She was graceful, but Leander caught his left arm and both shins on the doorframe as she dragged him out of the house.
“Which direction?”she demanded.
Leander pointed.This time he was less startled when she hauled him higher into the air.His whole body tingled, the sensation strongest where she held him, and then they were soaring above the town.Or Auntie Daiyu was soaring; Leander was being dragged in her wake like a rowboat tied to a yacht as it cut through the waves.In seconds, they had reached the hills, and Auntie Daiyu floated down.Leander seemed to rediscover gravity a few feet above the ground, and he lost his grip on her hand, tumbling to the earth.
The donkey was still there, lazily eating flowers.Creek was lying in the pasture.Auntie Daiyu knelt at Creek’s side.Leander saw these things, but his mind recorded details without being able to think about them.He could only watch as she pressed her ear to his chest and touched various points on his body.She slipped her arms under his knees and shoulders and lifted him as easily as one might an infant.
“I cannot hold you both, so you must hold my waist,” she told him.
Leander blinked at her.
“Lian!”
He jerked himself into movement, wrapping an arm around her waist.Despite being a tiny, white-haired woman, she rose into the air with Creek.Again, the tingling flowed through Leander, this time so sharply it burned, but he held on as they soared through the air.The wind whipped his eyes and made tears stream down his face, but he still watched as they approached the Flying Swords school set high on the hills.The traditional structure was much larger than it appeared from town, and Auntie Daiyu landed outside the gates, taking a few running steps before slowing to a walk, Creek still in her arms.
“I can carry him,” Leander offered.
She snorted.“Knock on the door.”
“No need.”The huge double doors swung open, and a man in a dull yellow robe stood there.He had salt and pepper hair, a pock-marked face and a surprised expression.“Elder Daiyu, we are honored with your presence.”
“Move out of the way, Master Teacher Wang, or I will kick you in the shins.I need a bed, a doctor, and a purgative of some sort.He has been poisoned, and since those in the school study such things, I assume you are the best chance of saving his life.”She strode forward, Creek in her arms, and the man quickly moved from her path.
This was Master Teacher Wang–the most honored and powerful person in the village, and Auntie Daiyu treated him...well, like she treated everyone.
“I welcome you to our school,” Master Teacher Wang said even though all three were already inside.Master Teacher Wang had an amused expression that suggested he understood he had little choice in whether to welcome them.Leander might have enjoyed the man’s discomfort, but he was too shocked to note anything but the enormous landscape set in front of him.To the left was a sea that did not exist outside this house, and in the distance, majestic mountains dominated the horizon.The area where the doors to the outside world stood was a round pasture lined with flowers, but beyond that, a forest lined the slopes of the hillside and a path led down into the valley.On another hill opposite that valley stood a palace.
Auntie Daiyu had already taken to the sky, Creek in her arms.
Master Teacher Wang waved a hand, and the doors swung shut with aboomand a distant bell that tolled solemnly.“Come,” he said, and he took Leander by the arm.The now-familiar tingle and burn filled him, and they were soaring after Auntie Daiyu.
Underneath them, the dark forest whispered secrets to Leander, most of which he couldn’t understand.It spoke of creatures that crept through the shadows and flew between the trees, but they were fantastical creatures Leander could not identify given that the trees knew only how the claws felt when they dug into the bark.
The ocean shimmered, and the mountains cast dark shadows over distant valleys, but Leander focused on the palace and the ring of city with roads set out like spokes on a wheel.Buildings were set within inches of each other.The only plants were the small trees inside the courtyards or the vines that clung to the brick.The streets were too narrow and too shadowed for even weeds.
