“You aren’t in a position to question my methods, Your Highness.” I cut him a cool look. “I’ll be blunt with you—I’ll do my best to purify the spirit quickly, butshouldthe worst happen tonight, you can’t fault me for prioritizing my safety over yours. Even if you are a prince.”
He scowled. “I know that. I wouldn’t expect you to.”
Though he said it without hesitation, the slightest twinge of fear tightened his mouth. I added, more gently, “But I wouldn’t worry. I’m confident I can handle a single spirit. I’ve never once failed in my duties as a ganshi priestess.”
The tension in his shoulders lessened just a bit, and he cocked his head. “That’s quite the display of pride for a holy servant.”
I ignored his comment, not bothering to explain that my “pride” was more a matter of necessity than egotism. I couldn’taffordto fail—not when my failures directly affected my loved ones.
We walked northeast, in the direction of the former husband’s home, which had been marked on my map. The farther we traveled, the sharper the chill against our skin. Pine needles and leaves cracked, brittle, beneath our feet. A faint breeze mimicked the sound of a woman’s sigh. Goose bumps crawled up and down my arms like ants, despite the layers of my shirt and overcoat.
“It feels unbearably lonely,” said Ren, his voice fracturing the glass-thin quiet.
I glanced at him, having sensed the same. Then I noticed his tightly folded arms. “Are you cold, Your Highness?”
It was strange, asking a reanimated being how he felt when corpses normally felt and thought nothing at all. But then again, everything about Ren and our purpose there in the forest was strange.
“Yes and no,” he replied, head tilted back in thought. “The cold I feel has been with me since my death. I’m no colder in this forest than I was within the shelter of Lady Ming’s home. I assume it has something to do with my deteriorating state.” He shrugged as if he were discussing a mere scratch.
I studied his profile, lit yellow by the glow of my lantern. Though Baba wasn’t there to instruct me, I’d somehow found myself a student once more, learning more about death through my unusual companion.
Ren caught my stare and smiled dryly. “Don’t pity me, dear priestess. I’m not so weak or so faint of heart as to give up just yet. I’ve already made the decision to live, and so I shall.”
I turned away. “I’m not pitying you.”
My thoughts went, unwittingly, to my father. If only avoiding death were as easy as Ren made it sound. In reality, it was an ongoing war that promised pain and heartbreak. But it was a battle I’d resolved to win. I’d continue to push back against the enemy, bones groaning and flesh bleeding, for as long as I had breath. All to keep Baba safe.
I looked sideways at Ren. “What of the loneliness you mentioned?”
“Ah.” He ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. “I felt it the moment we entered the forest. Dense as the wood may be, it’s as if I’ve stepped into a tomb—cold and forsaken. Can’t you sense it?”
“Mm.” I wasn’t entirely surprised that Ren would be more sensitive to death, being himself so close to the next world. My steps softened as I focused on the air around me. I thought I heard someone weeping, an eerie, bodiless sound echoing through the trees. But then I realized it was only a scattered breeze.
“Come,” I said, forcing a calm voice. If I allowed my fear to settle, I’d have already lost to the evil I hunted.
The path before us had thinned and given way to underbrush and freely grown trees. We were forced to shove aside branches, step over rocks, and snake around broad trunks tocontinue forward. All the while our lantern cast writhing shadows around us. Childhood tales of demons and monsters suddenly felt more fact than fantasy. I clenched my jaw to keep from flinching at every sudden movement.
“So how long have you been a ganshi priestess?” Ren asked after several minutes of silence.
“What?” I said, startled by the sound of his voice. The forest seemed never-ending, the darkness thickening the deeper we went. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m merely curious.”
My first instinct was to refuse to answer, uninterested in sharing personal information with a stranger, least of all a royal one. But my growing unease overcame my pride. The feeling was so strong, I imagined I could reach out and touch it.
“Three years,” I said, choosing distraction over fear. “Three years of uneventful corpse-driving, free of evil spirits and dead princes come to life.”
Ren waved his hand as if batting away my reproach. “If those three years were uneventful, then surely this journey is bringing some much-needed excitement to your life.”
“I suffer enough excitement at home.” I thought of Baba and experienced a renewed wave of dread. The last time we’d been together, I’d found my father collapsed in a monastery corridor, blood spotting his lips. The local physician had deemed his condition terminal, unless I was able to provide him with more advanced help soon.
“And what’s that like?” Ren asked, not noticing my wince. “Home, I mean? You care deeply for your father, I’m aware. But what of your mother? And siblings, if you have any?”
“My mother passed from the fainting fever over a year ago.”
He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry.”
His apology, though considerate, sounded wrong to my ears. When the fainting fever first hit Sian, the result of a virus in Hulin’s livestock, the royal family had immediately locked the gates to the palace, hoarding the kingdom’s best physicians to themselves. Meanwhile, the illness had spread quickly through the rest of the land, razing the more vulnerable populations before county-mandated quarantines snuffed it out.
