Page 37 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

I ignored his ill-timed joke. We were about to be slaughtered and he was really grinning as he wrapped his fists with bandages? No matter how formidable a fighter he was, his fists would do nothing against a hundred bandits.

“One powerful spirit wielder is worth a hundred swordsmen, in my humble opinion.”

I looked down at my iron manacles, which seemed to hum at my attention. Could I? No, I thought, rubbing my blackened veins, hadn’t I overused my lixia enough? And yet…what difference did six or two months more of freedom make if I was going to die today?

A man who appeared to be their leader rode toward us on horseback, undeterred by the danger the marshes posed to his horse.

“We’ve been following you,” he said to Kuro. “Thanks for making it easy.”

Kuro drew his curved saber. “Easy?” he said. “I never promised easy.”

“Kill them, but keep their corpses intact,” the bandit leader ordered his men. Raising his voice, he shouted, “Today, we’re rich men!”

A bead of rain fell on my cheek.

“ I gave you an ocean of might and you chose a drop of rain instead ,” Qinglong had once told me. He was right. I had nearly died that day, and moreover, I’d let my friends and companions die.

While I still lived, I would do anything necessary to survive.

Rain began to drizzle across the marsh, turning the already wet earth into oozing mud.

“Kuro,” I said under my breath, “I need you to break my irons for me.”

I rolled up my sleeves to show him my manacles. His eyes bulged with surprise and indignation at my irons. “What are you wearing those for?”

“Ask me later,” I snapped, balancing my wrist against a protruding rock. “Hurry!”

Taking the steel hilt of a dagger, he rammed it with considerable force against my manacle. I clenched my teeth at the impact, but we both saw the crack that split the iron. He struck again, this time hitting the weakened spot, and the iron shattered into pieces.

I felt my lixia stir within me like a sleeping beast.

He went to work on the second manacle as one of the faster bandits swung at him from behind. “Watch out!” I shrieked, and Kuro ducked just in time to avoid getting beheaded, though he cursed as the saber glanced off his shoulder.

Forced to separate from Kuro, I dodged a flying arrow and threw a dagger of my own, listening for the satisfying thwack as the dagger met its mark.

I tried to draw on the overflowing water around me, but the iron blocked my lixia. I had to get back to Kuro, fast.

A trio of men came at me from behind. I sidestepped them once, twice, three times, weaving them into a tight formation where they became impediments to each other.

Impatiently, one man’s cudgel struck out too soon—thwacking his companion, who let out a cry of anger as I slipped out beneath them and ran.

“Kuro!” I shouted, as he felled a man with a single punch. The man did not get up. “Finish the job!”

I stabbed the man attempting to jump Kuro, then tripped another who ran at me.

A third bandit locked me in close combat, and I managed to slit his throat, but not before taking a long gash to the arm.

Sweating with pain and adrenaline, I steadied my left wrist on the rock and gestured frantically to Kuro.

He raised his blade in the air just as an arrow came flying toward him from behind.

I could tell him to duck, I realized, but then I would be no closer to freedom.

And this time, with the majority of the bandits upon us, we would not make it.

Squeezing my eyes shut in a moment of weakness, I did not see the arrow embed itself in Kuro’s shoulder, but I heard his howl of agony. Still, he did not waver as he brought his dagger down on my manacle, smashing it to pieces.

Qi and lixia coursed through me—yin and yang, dark and light.

All at once, the world opened itself to me.

I screamed in pure exhilaration as I opened my arms wide and brought the marsh to life.

The sleeping tides pulled out from under the bandits like quicksand, and I watched and laughed as men stumbled, fell, drowned .

Their screams echoed across the vast plain, and all the while the waters rose and fell upon them, as turbulent as ocean waves caught in a monsoon storm.

My vision flickered in and out, but I ignored it, my bloodlust overcoming my fear.

There was one man remaining—one man who had somehow shielded himself against my lixia.

I felt the small irritation like a kitten’s scratching.

Turning, I caught sight of the spirit summoner, his eyes yellow as he pointed at me.

Birds of prey obeyed his command, diving toward me with their talons out.

I used the rain to divert their path, sending them whirling back into the sky, before narrowing my focus on the lone summoner.

I could feel the itch of his lixia, like a tiger sensing the nibbling of a rat.

With a savage smile, I contorted my elemental threads to match his—then infiltrated his mind.

“ Who sent you? ” I asked, and in the sound of my voice, I heard the echo of Qinglong’s. I sensed the strangeness—that I should’ve felt fear. But in my lixia-addled state, I felt only dizzying elation.

“I-I’m not sure,” he stuttered. I narrowed my eyes at him, focusing as the world around us dimmed. “Old Gu mentioned something about the big man. The…rebel leader. He gave us the tip-off—”

He choked, blood sputtering from his mouth before he fell to his knees. Behind him, Kuro had slit his throat.

“Impressive,” said Kuro, inclining his head toward me in a mock bow. “I barely had to lift a finger.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. As I stared in numb shock, I saw that all the bandits were dead. I had killed them all.

I let out a gasp of panic as, all at once, the fight left me.

I swayed, struggling for balance, before collapsing to my knees in the mud.

My sight went out like a snuffed candle as my body shook from lixia withdrawal, and I only had time to bend over before I vomited my guts out onto the river weeds.

I clutched my head in my hands, trying not to hyperventilate. Qi gong, remember your qi qong. But my control had deserted me, and try as I might, I could not bring air into my lungs.

Without my vision, the world spun around me, and I felt as though raindrops were flying into the sky. I was too weak to rise, but I felt the presence of another, his boots thudding toward me.

“ The rebel leader ,” the bandit had told me. “ He gave us the tip-off. ”

I was not safe, I reminded myself, my hands clenching into fists. I needed to defend myself—to fight—

But I could barely summon the strength to raise my head, much less stand. “You…you set me up,” I said numbly, as Kuro stood over me. “Was this your plan all along? To wear me out, then kill me yourself?”

I felt him squat beside me. “My dear,” he said. “Didn’t I say we were friends?”

“Then…” I squinted at him. I could make out faint outlines once more, but his face was barely visible through the rain. “Why?”

His smile grew distorted in my vision. “What can I say? I’ve always wanted to see the power of a Cardinal Spirit summoner.” He leaned in and I flinched. “It was better than anything I could’ve imagined.”

He’d used me. He’d used me like a prized animal, as nothing more than mindless entertainment. Every death today had been unnecessary, serving no more purpose than Kuro’s amusement. I coughed, tasting blood in my mouth.

“Let’s get you bandaged up,” he said, ignoring the arrow sticking out of his own back.

He pulled out swaths of clean linen from his bag and wrapped them generously around my wounds before turning to his own injuries.

I half expected him to ask for help, but instead, he gave them only a cursory inspection.

“Ready?” he asked, to my surprise. There was an arrowhead still embedded in his shoulder.

“You’re not going to…”

“Are you willing to dig it out?” he asked, arching a brow.

I expelled an angry breath. I could not have resented him more in that moment—for using me, and then guilting me into helping him. But who knew what blood loss he’d suffered, and if he died now, his death too would be on my hands. Hadn’t I caused enough death today?

“Turn around,” I ordered stiffly. He squatted beside me, saying little as I cut the shaft and dug the arrowhead out of his shoulder, wincing at how deep it had penetrated the flesh. This would take months to recover from.

“What about your mother?” I asked. “Does she actually live here?”

“I don’t have one,” he said. “She left when I was a child.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “For all I know, she could be living out here.”

I shook my head, too weary to hold on to my anger. “Done,” I said, sitting back on the rock.

“Can you stand?” he asked, holding out a hand.

Burying my pride, I clung to his arm as I tried to pull myself up. But my knees gave out, and the attempt left me dizzy and nauseated. My old shoulder wound from the war throbbed painfully, a familiar ache that always flared when I reached the brink of exhaustion.

“Get on my back,” he said.

I looked up at him. “No.”

His lip curled. “Are you going to die for your pride?”

“N-no.”

“Then come on,” he said. “Before it gets dark.”

The thought of being left out here in the cold and dark was enough to spur me into action.

After I climbed onto his back clumsily, he lifted me as if I weighed nothing and went on his way, whistling and humming a melody under his breath.

Although I thought it impossible, with his even, steady steps and song like a lullaby, gradually, I fell asleep.