He attempted a smile for his killer. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
I was lifting the Fu talisman to his head when he suddenly recoiled from my hand and stood. “Don’t touch me!”
Yuyan.
“I won’t have a priestess ruin everything I worked for,” the jiangshi growled. “This body is mine! This mansion, this town, this retribution—it’s all mine!”
“Ren!”I stumbled to my feet, fear crushing my chest.
He came back, staggering forward to grip my shoulder. Then he coughed out the words, “Do it.”
This time, I didn’t waver. I pressed the talisman to his forehead and kicked my staff, the bells pealing through the courtyard. The incantation fell from my tongue, clear and confident. Ren exhaled, then slipped from my arms. He crumpled to the ground as Yuyan’s glowing, purified qi emerged from his lifeless form.
Without thinking, I reached for the energy and cupped it in my hand. Its light sank into my palms and disappeared. I felt a rush of warmth flow through me, the aches across my body ebbing. Even my dislocated wrist had quieted to a dull throb.
But I felt far from relieved.
Impulsively, I’d hoped to capture the qi for Ren. I didn’t realize that my living body would absorb it too, making the qi inaccessible to the person who needed it most.
With the qi gone, the courtyard fell into shadow once more, lit only by the fire flickering from the main house.
“Ren!” I dropped to my knees beside his unmoving corpse and ripped the purification talisman from his head. My shaking hands patted his face. “Ren, please open your eyes. Please, I’m begging you. This isn’t funny. Don’t you dare scare me.”
And I realized then that Iwasscared. Sometime in the past couple of days, I’d grown used to having Ren around. To havingsomeone to talk to and to share the burdens of travel with. I’d grown used toRen—his teasing, his laughter, his warmth.
But now he was gone, and I was alone again.
My shoulders sagged. Ren looked the same as the morning I found him lying in the battlefield. Eyes closed. Face blank and relaxed. Like he was asleep.
But his hand was cold when I grasped it, and he didn’t squeeze my fingers or joke about how I worried too much.
Despite my worrying, I hadn’t been able to save him.
In a ruling family greedy for power, Ren had been the only one willing to sacrifice his life for another. I’d accused him of cowardice and selfishness, but in the end, he’d proven those accusations wrong, sealing the evidence in blood.
And what had I proven? For all my criticisms of the royal family, I’d failed to do the one thing I asked of them—to help the person I was responsible for.
I stared at our clasped hands, willing him to wake. Of course he didn’t. He would never again.
But then my father’s gentle words returned to me.
These hands can do more than carry a staff or write talismans in blood. They can offer support and tend wounds, perhaps even save a life. You need only call upon the strength inside you to do so.
I sat straighter, feeling as if I were being guided by an invisible force. My mother, perhaps, lending me the strength that Baba had promised and directing my instincts.
I leaned into the feeling, bending over Ren and placing my palms on his chest, near his heart. I closed my eyes and invoked Mistress Ming’s serenity, her focus, remembering what she had done after giving Ren the mala beads. I breathed deeply, searching for the strength inside me. The abundant qi that Yuyan had so desired.
Imagining my life force as light running through my meridians, I willed my qi to gather in my core and travel up to my shoulders. From there, the qi spilled down my arms to my hands, then sank through Ren’s shirt—past skin, sinew, and bone to flow into his heart. All the while, I prayed that his soul was still tethered, that it’d merge with my outpouring of qi and stay. I pressed harder, ignoring the ache in my wounded wrist, and envisioned my life force spreading across his body.
And then he breathed—a single long, miraculous breath.
His eyes darted over his surroundings, landing on my face, then dropping down to my hands. “What—”
“It worked!” I threw my arms around him, forgetting all sense of propriety as I pressed into the warmth of his chest. His heartbeat sounded so wonderful against my ear, his breath soothing the top of my head. “Thank the heavens! I was so worried.”
His hand rested lightly on my waist as he returned my hug. “Perhaps I should die more often if it means coming back to such a warm welcome. But howdidI come back?”
I released him and sank onto my heels, finally remembering myself. Sweat tickled my brow. I shivered, both from cold and exhaustion. “I… well, I gave you some of my qi.”
