Page 34 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Twenty-four

It was rumored that the spirit of the Great Warrior had been reborn in Leyuan, for the leader of the Black Scarves stood tall as a mountain, broad as an ox, and fair as a spring morning. Astride his red-maned stallion, the rebel leader commanded the wind itself.

The sun crept stealthily over the mountain peaks as we rode east, avoiding the main roads in favor of the surrounding foothills.

My eyes hurt from squinting, but the warmth of the sun did much against the cold wind buffeting my back.

Although the mares were old, we made good time on the flat, well-groomed roads paid for by the capital city’s high taxes.

But only a couple hours later, though Lei did not speak, I noticed him slipping in his saddle. Concerned, I drew up next to him, shouting over the wind. “Do you need to rest?”

He shook his head, his jaw clenched tight. But as we neared Canyuan, one of the last rural villages in the Chuang Ning prefecture, I caught sight of his slackening body, and I pulled my horse toward his just in time, catching him before he fell.

“Lei!” Up close, I saw that his skin was slick with sweat. I felt his forehead—high fever.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“I-I don’t know,” he said, as his eyes fluttered shut.

“When did you start feeling symptoms?”

His breathing was turning increasingly shallow.

“Answer me!” I demanded.

“A few hours ago…I think,” he rasped.

A normal illness would not have set in this quickly. Unless this wasn’t normal.

“Lei,” I said, as it occurred to me. “Were you poisoned?”

Confusion washed across his features. “I don’t know.”

This was bad. We had just been at the Arrival of Spring the night before, mingling among friends and strangers alike.

Who had poisoned him? Had it been Sky? No, Sky would never commit an act he deemed dishonorable.

But Lei’s enemies were far-reaching, and as a hostage prince in a foreign kingdom, he’d been easy prey.

I reluctantly let my mare go, mounting his horse instead. “You can lean on me,” I said, sensing the waning of his qi.

But the old horse suffered under our combined weight, and in the wide-open plain, we were obvious marks. “We can take shelter in Canyuan,” I decided. Hopefully I could barter for an antidote there.

“Leave me,” he said hoarsely. “You must go on—”

I ignored him, and he was too weak to argue. If only I could use my spirit power , I thought grimly as we rode into Canyuan. Then I could compel a villager and make them offer us shelter.

But I’d forgotten I had other assets available to me. We’d barely made it down the main road when a crowd gathered around us, villagers gawking at the peculiar sight we made. For Lei’s robes clearly marked him as nobility, and the sword I wore on my back, beneath my long flowing hair, was taboo.

“The woman warrior?” someone asked. “Is it her?”

“Look at her! Of course it’s her.”

“Phoenix-Slayer,” a young woman said, prostrating herself on the road. “My life for the rebellion.”

Bewildered, I wondered if they’d mistaken me for someone else. Yet I’d been called Phoenix-Slayer before.

“My life for the rebellion,” others murmured.

One woman even came forward to kiss the back of my hand.

Taken aback, my first instinct was to run and leave this town behind.

But we needed help. In Lei’s current condition, we could not survive alone.

If these villagers were rebels, then they did not support the throne. An enemy’s enemy was a friend.

“The prince took me hostage, but I escaped,” I said. “He will come after me. Are you willing to hide my companion and me?”

The woman who kissed my hand was the wife of a winemaker, who’d built a house with a sizable underground cellar. “The tenant farmers hide all their unreported crops there,” she explained. “Canyuan’s tax collectors are suspicious, of course, but they’ve never been able to find the trapdoor.”

“Thank you,” I said, as she led us through her front gate, which was crowded with countless chickens and two children. “We won’t stay long. Only until…”

We both looked at Lei, who was barely managing to walk on his own. “Stay as long as you need,” Madame Wu said. “Where is your journey’s end?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. If I told her about the eternal spring, she might think me mad. “First Crossing,” I answered instead, which was the last major trading port at the base of the Red Mountains.

“For the Three Kingdoms Treaty?” she asked. “Do you mean to involve yourself?”

I shook my head. “I will be journeying on to Leyuan after.” It was not technically a lie, given that the vast majority of the Red Mountains extended into Leyuan.

“Leyuan,” she mused. “You will find much support there, Phoenix-Slayer.”

“Please,” I said. “Call me Meilin.”

She smiled. “Of course, Meilin. I’ve heard a lot about you, you know.

My cousin works in the palace, and your attendant Duan Lily used to live in Heyi, the village just over the river.

They were both singing your praises here when they visited for the Spring Festival.

That is how we knew your heart belonged to the rebellion, no matter what the Imperial Commander and his scribes would have us believe. ”

“But…” I faltered, not wanting to confess my limited loyalties to her cause.

I had not been training those girls for war.

I had not wished for another war. Wasn’t one enough?

How did we keep coming back here—these endless cycles of violence?

By answering the dragon’s call, had I made myself an indispensable majiang piece, to be put in play every round of the game?

Or had my decision been set in stone much earlier—when I’d run away and joined the army?

“You must’ve had quite a night,” said Madame Wu, once we were safely in the underground cellar. “I’ll bring food and water, and a change of clothes for you.”

“Wait,” I said, recognizing that she’d been ignoring Lei all this time. “Could you also bring a change of clothes for my friend?”

She shot a dubious glance at Lei, who was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut, his breaths rapid and shallow.

“Who is your friend, Meilin?” she asked, a coldness creeping into her voice.

“An Anlai noble loyal to the cause,” I lied.

After she left, I used Xiuying’s herbs to concoct a simple tea against pain. It would not cure Lei’s illness, only dull his symptoms, but this was all I could manage for now. After forcing Lei to drink it, I slumped beside him, then slept like the dead.

I awoke to an uneasy stirring in my gut. I could hear thudding footsteps above us, and the dull murmur of voices just beyond the walls. Standing on the rice bags to gain height, I pressed my ear to the cellar trapdoor.

“We found two escaped mares just outside Heyi. If you’re hiding her here, you and your descendants will pay—up until the seventh generation.”

My throat constricted at the threat, but Madame Wu sounded unperturbed. “If I hear of any news I will report it back to you, General. We have always followed the Imperial Commander in this household.”

There was the low thrum of activity, and then a new voice, from farther away. “She’s here, somewhere.” Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead at the familiar timbre of Sky’s voice. “I can feel it.”

Damn you , I thought miserably. For making me feel this way, small and afraid. For making me loathe you, when all I once wanted was to spend my life by your side.

Lei’s condition worsened. His skin burned fever-hot and yet he shivered uncontrollably.

He would take no food and barely any water.

By the second day he could not keep his eyes open, having drifted into a restless oblivion.

His pulse felt sluggish to me, and there were several times I panicked, thinking his heart had stopped entirely.

Despite my best efforts, I was losing him. He would die under my watch.

“ Leave me ,” he’d told me. “ You must go on. ”

Had he Seen it, that he would die? Or had it only been a calculated remark, to convince me to leave him behind? And who had poisoned him—who wanted the Ximing prince dead?

We had already wasted two nights hiding in this cellar, and still Sky’s troops swarmed every village in the prefecture. Sky would stop at nothing to find me. And I could not leave Lei behind like this, half-dead but still half-alive.

All the while, my time was running out.

I brewed more herbal teas to keep busy, though he refused to drink most of them. I could feel the contamination of his qi, like a once-roaring river now choked with algae.

His face was perturbed even in sleep, and I smoothed the crease between his brows, my hand lingering on his face.

His beauty was the first thing I’d noticed about him, and it had intimidated me, how handsome he was.

Yet now I understood he used it like a shield, so that others overlooked him, mistaking his vanity for foolishness.

Somehow, over time, his beauty had become a comfort to me; it was his mind that frightened me still.

I sat up, realizing I could feel no breath from his lips. He wasn’t dead, was he? Even though he was resting, selfishly, I wanted assurance. “Lei,” I whispered, trying to recall the last time I’d heard his voice. “Lei, wake up.”

He did not stir. Jagged fear gripped me, sending my pulse into a frantic race.

I leaned over him, fingers trembling as I undid his tunic and pressed my ear to his bare chest, straining to catch a heartbeat.

Silence. Only the furious pounding of my own filled my ears, and I wished for a foolish moment that I could transfer a part of mine to him.

There was a way, I thought, recalling old legends of the autumn and spring periods. There was a way I could lend my qi to him. But my life force was already so weak. Could I afford to give more of it away?