“Release him!” I shouted, the strength of my cry tearing at my sore throat.
The spirit’s wails ricocheted, formlessly, around the clearing. Ren’s agonized howls easily met their volume. I didn’t need to see his face to guess the torment twisting his features.
Suddenly, his sobs cut off. The quietest wheezes and whines escaped his throat as he was choked by invisible hands.
I gritted my teeth, struggling to calm my thoughts. If I couldn’t see the spirit, how was I to exorcise it? I could blindly slap a purification talisman on Ren, assuming the spirit was strangling him like she had me. But I wasn’t sure what the talisman would do to an undead corpse. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps something.
Ren’s whimpers were fading, his broken limbs hardly twitching against his captor’s grip.
I didn’t have a choice. I drew out a handful of purification talismans and threw them in a fan across the clearing. A gust of wind blew the yellow papers away from Ren. One landed on a protruding tree root, and the spirit shrieked again—this time in pain.
My body moved before my brain could register what had happened. I shook my staff, the bells ringing softly. My lips parted to recite the incantations.
“Stop!” a male voice yelled, shattering my concentration.
There was no time to brace myself against the brutal force that struck my face and smacked me to the ground. My brain seemed to slosh against the walls of my skull. Iron bled across my tongue. I spat dirt and blood from my mouth, cheek throbbing.
As I pushed myself up, a hand clamped around my arm. I felt myself being pulled away from the clearing, away from the evil spirit. Still dizzy, I could do nothing but struggle to stay on my feet, knees bumping into unknown surfaces, pulse thundering inmy ears. It was impossible to tell whether it was my body or the forest that trembled uncontrollably.
At last, the grip on my arm loosened. My eyes peeled open. I no longer stood in the woods, the trees behind me like a fortress and a dark field spread out before me. The sky was still overcast, but I knew the main road was somewhere on the other side of the field.
I looked to my right, expecting to see Ren. But standing next to me was an older man, a stranger. When he spoke, I recognized his voice as the one that had stopped me from purifying the spirit. I blinked blearily, struggling to make sense of his words. My skull was still aching, my vision wobbly. He seemed to be asking me to follow him.
“I… can’t,” I managed to say, twisting toward the forest. The movement made me want to vomit. “Ren…”
But even as I spoke the words, I could feel myself losing grip on what I was saying, where I needed to be. My feet stumbled, though I didn’t recall taking a step. The man caught my arm again. With a disapproving sigh, he tugged me into motion, away from the forest and Ren.
The man’s name was Liu Guowei.
“I make bread for a living,” he told me as we entered a congregation of houses puffing smoke from their chimneys. He’d gone to the forest to gather firewood, as the night had suddenly been overtaken by a cold wave. That was how he’d heard my struggle with the evil spirit. Without his intervention, I would’ve been killed.
“I was carrying out a… a job,” I mumbled weakly. “As a ganshi priestess.”
“Priestess or no,” he said, “you shouldn’t be wandering the forest at this time of night. Just look at the state you’re in.”
Though gruff, his concern reminded me, fleetingly, of my father. He gestured at my disheveled appearance, at the scratches and bruises marring my uncovered skin. Beneath the physical wounds, my head was screaming for relief, my feet tripping over each other as I walked.
“But I must… go back,” I slurred, gripping the side of my head. “Ren… he’s still in there.”
So was my peach staff. Already its absence gnawed at my vulnerability.
“You’re no help to him in your condition,” the baker grumbled, holding my elbow to steady me while he pulled me along.
“He’s injured too,” I protested, remembering Ren’s broken body. Another wave of nausea rolled through me. “And I—I—”
I need him.I’d bet everything on the prince. I couldn’t risk losing him. Regardless of what I’d told Ren about prioritizing my own safety, when faced with the decision, I realized I couldn’t abandon him. Baba’s life was counting on Ren’s survival.
“Don’t worry,” Guowei said. “She can’t hurt one who’s already dead.”
He’s not dead, I was about to say. But then my focus latched on to the baker’s choice of words, his tone casual with familiarity. I echoed, “She?”
The baker muttered something indiscernible, his shoulders hunched. He said nothing more as we neared our destination. Still dazed and exhausted, I had little choice but to follow.
Liu Guowei lived in a cramped two-story house made of wood and rammed earth. Overhanging roofs weighed down by black tiles loomed over us as we approached.
The ground level was for business, cleaning, and cooking.The second level comprised the living area. Guowei motioned toward the latter, leading me past a warm, sweet-smelling kitchen and up the creaky stairs to a guest room tucked inside a narrow hall. He left a candle for me on a low desk and said, “I’ll have my wife bring you tea and treatment for your wounds.”
“Tea?” I said, pushing past my dizziness. “Thank you for your kindness, Mister Liu, but I can’t stay long. I must return for my companion.”
