Rui ran forward with her swords, and the screaming stopped.
“Poof,” she whispered. Each dead Revenant dulled her pain. It was like medicine, an opioid she was addicted to.
Across from her, Ada was shooting qi-infused spikes from a one-handed crossbow. The spikes burned holes in the incoming Revenants, destroying them immediately. Teshin’s experimental weapons didn’t always work, but the crossbow was more effective than Rui had expected.
But the Revenants coming for Ada were normal ones, or what Rui had come to think of as normal. No human faces. No human expressions. They were ghoul-like things that couldn’t speak intelligibly and possessed no emotion other than the desire to feed.
The Revenant woman that had just attacked Rui was different.
She heard a gasp.
A young boy was crawling to Ada. Was it Rui’s imagination or did he look like Aidan?
Ada lashed her whip. The deadly metal hook at the end stabbed a hole in the chest of the little Revenant boy.
Ada pulled hard, a wretched cry bursting from her throat.
The boy exploded into smoke and cold air.
Ada’s face was bloodless, her hands shaking as she stared at the empty spot where the boy had stood.
Rui ran to her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ada said, but she looked on the verge of tears. “Let’s get the rest of them.” She sped off without another word.
Rui started to follow, but something stopped her in her tracks.
Behind you.
She spun around, swords raised, expecting another Revenant.
But instead—
One of her swords fell to the ground with a clatter.
Itwasanother Revenant. Except... how could it be?
Rui had seen his face again and again in her nightmares: the twist of his sneering lips as his eyes watched her hungrily, the heavy set of his jaw, the scar running down his neck where the curls of his dark hair ended.He was even wearing the same clothes from that night—jeans and a shirt with blue stitching.
Her mother’s screams filled her ears, and the scars on her legs itched. She was fourteen again, attending a mundane school like any other normal kid.
It had been a full moon that night. There was political talk of a curfew in those days, but it hadn’t been implemented yet. It was late, but Rui had insisted on making a detour to the Night Market for some rock candy. It was her birthday, and she wanted her treat. She didn’t know she had a strong spirit core or that her high yangqi could attract Revenants more easily. It had never happened before.
So when a man approached her mother and her for directions on a quiet street on their way home, Rui didn’t give it a second thought, even though she felt a weird jolt when she saw him. After all, Revenants were supposed to be grotesque creatures; they didn’t look human.
Then the man bared his teeth and lunged.
Funny how a split second can change a life forever. Her mother was gone, and Rui’s life was upended. If her mother hadn’t given in and brought her to the Night Market, ifRuihadn’t thrown that tantrum... her mother would still be alive, and Rui wouldn’t wake up every morning hating the person she saw in the mirror.
Now, the Revenant wearing the face of her mother’s murderer was staring back at her.
Hot tears burned her eyes. She had trained for this very moment. Trained to kill this bastard if she set eyes on him again. Fourteen-year-old Rui had promised her future self this reward when she enrolled at Xingshan Academy.
But eighteen-year-old Rui stood still. Frozen in fear.
The Revenant smiled. “Remember me?” He grabbed her neck, cold fingers digging into her flesh. “I wonder if you’re as tasty as you smell.”
Something sharp pierced her skin.
