Page 35 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)
I thought of how Lei had brought water to my cell.
How even before that, he had come to my aid in the dungeons, when I’d lost the will to live.
Everyone marked him as a monster, but what if he was one of the most selfless people I knew?
It was hard to tell, with him. He went to such lengths to conceal his true motivations, so that no one would ever suspect kindness lurking behind that wicked grin.
With trembling hands, I took one of Lei’s knives and sliced open my wrist. Before the blood could leak down my arm, I brought my wrist to his mouth.
Reflexively, his lips parted. I watched his throat work as my qi transferred to him.
When the pressure of his mouth diminished, I bound my wound, then pressed my ear back against his chest. Lightheaded with exhaustion, I felt tears drip from my eyes as I listened and listened, and then at last heard a slow, faint rhythm.
I treasured that sound, pressing my cheek against it as if I could shelter it from the cold and wind.
It was like him to make life so troublesome for me, to make even his death as inconvenient as possible. “Ming Lei,” I whispered. “Fight it, you bastard.” In a quieter voice: “Don’t leave me here alone.”
He forced one eye open, reaching for me. I gave him my hand gratefully, squeezing it with all the strength I had left.
“I’ll stick around,” he said, in a voice so low I had to strain to hear it. “I’m not done with you yet.”
On the morning of the third day, Madame Wu brought breakfast with a radiant smile. “They answered our call,” she told me breathlessly. “At last.”
“Who?”
“The Black Scarves,” she said, before clarifying, “the Leyuan rebel forces—who overthrew Warlord Yuan.”
Lei had mentioned them, I recalled. He’d warned that they were moving west.
“They just finished a mission in Chuang Ning and are now returning to Leyuan. They’ve kindly offered to escort you to your journey’s end.”
“My journey’s end?” I repeated.
“To First Crossing,” she replied. “They have to pass through the city regardless on their way to Zhong Wu. And their military leader is here too.” She giggled unexpectedly. “He’s rather memorable.”
I swallowed with distaste. I wanted no part in their rebellion, but I would have to use them for my own means. I could allow them to escort us as far as Weiyang, I decided, so that we were out of Sky’s grasp. Lei and I would split off from there.
Nodding, I wolfed down a few scallion pancakes, braided my hair, then secured my sword on my back.
“Phoenix-Slayer,” Madame Wu said, nodding with approval at my appearance. “Long may you live.”
My face heated with discomfort. For I was beginning to see the similarities between how they addressed the Imperial Commander and how they addressed me.
“Help me take the throne because you know me. Because you know I’ll be a better ruler than the rest of them.”
“ Meilin ,” Lei had asked, and under the dragon’s influence, I’d thought him absurd at the time, “ what makes you so sure you’ll be better? ”
“He’s coming!” cried Madame Wu.
We all felt the rebel leader’s presence long before we saw him. His heavy, hulking footsteps shook dust into the cellar, and I wondered if he was stomping on the floor to make himself known. Then, when he dropped through the trapdoor, I understood.
He was a man built like a mountain, so tall his head nearly bumped the ceiling.
The cellar had felt spacious to me, but with the rebel leader inside it, the room grew cramped, as if he took up the space of a dozen men.
He wore a pair of thick eyeglasses, though he did not give a remotely scholarly appearance.
His hair was tousled and unkempt, tied in a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his skin marked by months on the road: freckled, weather-beaten, and strewn with fresh cuts and old scars.
Still, despite the lines around his eyes and mouth, he looked to be in his mid-twenties, for there was an undeniable air of exuberant youthfulness about him, as if he believed he could do anything, and he could convince you of the same.
“Tan Kuro,” he said, without any of the usual courtesies. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Hai Meilin.”
I inclined my head. My neck hurt just looking up at him. “I can’t say the same about you.”
“Then I haven’t been doing my job,” he said, smirking. “By the time I’m done here, everyone in Anlai will know my name.”
“As a hero or as a villain?”
He laughed. “That depends on whether they’re smart enough to pick my side.”
I appraised him carefully. “And what makes you so sure your side is the winning one?”
He shrugged. “People like me don’t doubt themselves,” he said, exuding the sort of elusive, magnetic confidence I had struggled so hard to make my own. “Otherwise we’d never have the guts to do what we do.” He extended a hand to me, motioning toward the trapdoor. “Shall we?”
I did not take it. “How much do you know about me?” I asked, testing him.
He shot me an easygoing grin. “I know you’re a skilled warrior who could probably cut me down with that thing faster than I could blink.
” I raised a brow at the way he described my blade.
“I know you’re pretty enough to charm a man in your sleep.
And…” He leaned in. I did not want him so close, but I refused to back down.
“I know you probably have more powers than you’re letting on, if the rumors are anywhere close to true. ”
The back of my neck prickled with unease. “What rumors?”
“They say you slayed the Vermillion Bird, but no one knows how you did it. Well, I have a theory or two.”
I used my silence as bait.
His grin widened as he placed a scarred finger on my neck, then slid it down, slowly, hooking it around the string of my necklace—
I jerked away from him, my hand slamming down to conceal my jade. Breathing heavily, I glared at him.
He raised his hands in a conciliatory manner. “I mean no harm,” he said. “I’m just despicably curious is all.”
“Touch me again and you’ll lose the hand,” I snapped.
He grinned. “I do love a feisty woman.”
My glare deepened. “A third time and you lose your head.”
He laughed. “All right. I got the message. You like your personal space, and I like my limbs attached to my body. Now, let’s get on the road?”
“One more thing,” I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my trousers. “My friend comes with me.”
Kuro shot a skeptical glance at Lei, who was passed out in the corner. “He’s a near corpse,” Kuro pointed out. “You can’t let the man die in peace?”
He said it jokingly, but the remark made me stiffen. “I thought you were a powerful leader of a great force,” I said tightly. “Use your multitude of resources to secure an antidote for him.” I bit my lip. “Or I’m out.”
“ You’re out?” He choked on a laugh. “My dear, you’re the one trapped in a cellar because your spurned lover is ransacking the kingdom for you. And you’re trying to tell me what to do?”
“You need me,” I said, bluffing. “You wouldn’t be here if that weren’t true.”
Our eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. At last, Kuro sighed. “I take it back,” he said grumpily. “I don’t like feisty women. More trouble than they’re worth.”
I waited, not moving a single muscle in my face.
“All right,” he agreed. “We do have a healer in our crew. She’ll fix him right up.”
I suppressed the urge to smile. Perhaps I was better at bluffing than I thought. Lei humbled me with his ability to read my every feeling, but most people weren’t Lei.
“Help me lift him,” I said.
“Demand after demand,” Kuro grouched, but his eyes were full of mirth, and I could tell he hadn’t really conceded anything that had cost him.
“Who is he, anyway?” Kuro grunted as he took the brunt of Lei’s weight on his shoulders. “A bit too handsome for just a friend, no?”
I flushed at the insinuation. “He was my personal guard in the palace,” I said, for I’d torn apart his expensive silk robes and removed all jewelry from his person. “He’s very…dear to me.”
Kuro grinned knowingly. “A woman of the people!” he said emphatically. “Well, a handsome bodyguard will fit right in with the stories we spin. I’ll get a scribe to—”
“No,” I said forcibly. “I want no part in your—your propaganda—”
“Propaganda?” said Kuro, mock offended. “My dear, this is history .”