Page 45 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)

Thirty

I advise the use of erxin berries. Even those trained in poison cannot develop resistance to them, making them an effective and discreet option.

First Crossing had descended into total chaos.

Despite the flood of newcomers here for the Three Kingdoms Treaty, most trading stores had been closed and boarded up, so that basic supplies like rice and salt were selling for ten times the market rate.

Spirit gates had appeared along the edges of the city, making it even more challenging for travelers to enter.

As if this weren’t enough, the inclement weather made it so the mornings were frigid with icy rain, while the afternoons blazed hot as a furnace, the lack of vegetation on the mountain peak making for scarce shade.

Lei’s expression was grim as we crossed yet another spirit gate, this one so small only a child could squeeze in.

And by the looks of it, a child had. Her head was facedown in a puddle of water, her little hands clenched into fists.

When Lei turned her body over, I gasped in fright to see her face—inky black veins extending out of her eyes across her cheeks.

Lei grimaced, closing her eyes and moving her body out of the main road. Was Kuro responsible for this? For surely the Black Scarves had reached First Crossing weeks before we had, with their many horses and supplies.

As we entered the crowded thoroughfare of First Crossing, my neck crept with anxiety. Road-weary travelers surrounded us, some looking to trade, others looking to steal. In the houses overhead, I scanned the boarded-up windows and doors, unable to shake the suspicion that we were being watched.

Lei had stolen from the bandits we’d encountered, so that we had a reasonable amount of coin on hand.

The trouble was, we hadn’t anticipated how high the demand would be, and how limited the supply.

With the surging prices, we wouldn’t be able to afford even a week’s worth of provisions, and the trek across the Red Mountains purportedly took months, if you lived to see it through.

“We’ll need to sell some of our jewelry,” I muttered, looking around the thoroughfare for vendors.

“Not here,” Lei cautioned. “It’s too public.”

Abruptly, he turned and jerked me into a nearby alleyway off the main road.

Caught off guard, I nearly tripped over a sleeping man in the corner of the longtang, who’d curled up in the shade of the wall.

“I’m sorry!” I said, before looking more closely at the old man.

He was barely a skeleton, his skin hanging off his bones in ragged folds.

“Food,” he croaked, reaching for me. “Please.”

Overhead, a light rain began to fall. I hesitated, wondering what I could spare, but Lei dragged me away.

“I only—” I protested.

He covered my mouth with his hand, pressing me into the shadows. Confused, I tried to shake him off, before he jerked his head toward the roof.

Over two dozen soldiers were crouched on the rooftop, scanning the thoroughfare below. Most puzzlingly—they did not wear Anlai colors.

They wore Ximing uniforms.

“But,” I tried to say, into Lei’s hand. He tightened his grip.

The old man looked from us to the soldiers. Then he grinned, revealing several missing teeth. “Over here!” he shouted, above the growing rain. “They’re over here!”

Lei swore. “We could’ve given you coin, old man.”

“Not as much as they can,” the man replied cheerfully.

Lei pushed me forward to run, but it was too late. The soldiers had spotted us and begun rappelling into the alleyway. We both drew our swords, but the space was too narrow, and we were outnumbered fifteen to one.

Hands shaking, I reached for the key to my irons. The rain was thickening now, and it would become my instrument.

“No,” said Lei immediately, his hand closing around my wrist. “I won’t steal more of your life force.” He stepped forward and sheathed his sword. “I’m the one that you want,” he said to the soldiers, making his voice heard above the rain. “Let her go.”

This had to be Zihuan’s doing, I realized. He saw his younger brother as a formidable threat and was determined to eliminate him before he could rise to power. In that way, we were in agreement: Ming Lei was a formidable threat.

“Lei,” I ground out. “Don’t do this.”

“You paid your debt,” he told me lowly. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Then not out of debt,” I decided, “but friendship.” And I slid the key into its lock.

But before I could act, an arrow whizzed past me, embedding itself in the shoulder of a Ximing soldier.

The soldiers, lulled by our apparent defeat, were slow to react. In the time it took for them to draw their weapons, Lei cleaved one of them in two. I wondered if he’d known the soldier.

A girl with a black scarf yelled as she swung down into the longtang, skewering another soldier with a long spear. Could it be the Black Scarves? But the rebels had abandoned us, and there was no love lost between their leader and me.

“Friends of yours?” Lei asked, as he took down another soldier who’d come at me from behind. Before I could respond, I saw the knife whizzing toward me and ducked, tripping the soldier to my side so that he took the brunt of the blade.

More and more Black Scarves joined the fray, fighting with shoddily made spears, cheap throwing stars, and even rocks. But one girl—I recognized her by her gap-toothed grin.

“Lily?” I gasped, astonishment surging through me, closely tailed by fear. “What are you doing here?”

“The rebellion!” she shouted. “It’s begun!”

A migraine pounded at my temples. I squinted against it as I struck, dodged, slashed. It was a numbers game now, and this time, we had the advantage. As the rain cleared, the remaining Ximing soldiers began to retreat, and then run.

“After them!” a rebel cried out.

“No!” said Lily. “Remember Kuro’s orders!”

“Kuro?” I tensed, the sting of betrayal sharper than any battle wound. “You’re working for him now?”

“He’s the one who sent reinforcements. He’s been looking all over for you, Phoenix-Slayer.

” She yanked off her drenched scarf impatiently.

Her face had tanned from time spent outside the palace, and she seemed to have grown even taller in the past few months.

Lily was so young, no more than sixteen.

And already she was out here, killing in the name of the rebellion.

“ I want a different sort of childhood for them ,” I’d said to Lei the night before. “ Not like the kind we had. ”

And yet, what was I willing to do about it? Nothing.

“Come with me, my lady,” said Lily, before laughing. “I mean, Meilin. I’ll bring you two to meet him.” She grinned conspiratorially. “We’re planning something monumental. A way to take down every tyrant at once. Now that they’re all gathered at First Crossing, they’ve made it so easy…”

But when the other rebels surrounded us, I pulled away uneasily. “I don’t think I should go with you, Lily,” I said, taking Lei’s hand. If they were targeting monarchs, then Lei would also be in their sights. “You see, we didn’t exactly end things on good terms.”

“Nonsense,” said Lily. She leaned in, lowering her voice. “I think you’ll find Kuro’s much changed.”

I frowned. “It’s only been a month since we last saw him.”

“A lot can happen in a month.”

Kuro’s Black Scarves had set up their own camp in the network of secret catacombs running beneath the city.

I hadn’t known about them, but Lei clearly had.

I watched his face as we descended, and I could see the mental calculation in his gaze as he tallied up the hidden tunnels and their capacities.

Inside, the air was dank and chilly, an ever-present drip-drop of water coming from far away. Without warning, Kuro appeared in a tunnel doorway like a ghost. I jumped in fright as his giant body leered over us, the top of his head nearly skimming the ceiling.

“Phoenix-Slayer!” he exclaimed, lumbering forward with a limp he hadn’t had a month ago. He made as if to reach for me, but I drew my sword, creating distance between us.

“No, no,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “I mean no disrespect. Come in. Please. ”

Lily was right—Kuro had changed. His previous confidence and charisma had been replaced with nervous twitching.

His complexion, once tawny and vigorous, was now sapped of color.

Most strikingly, his eyes, formerly a vivid gold, had darkened in hue, with streaks of black now threading through the brilliance.

He motioned for us to sit, but when I refused, he sat first, anxiously. He cleared his throat, but the words wouldn’t come.

I was the first to break the silence. “What happened to you?” I asked bluntly.

“I-I…” He swallowed and licked his dry lips. The rebels standing guard looked pained. I examined their faces. Jinya was nowhere to be found.

The back of my neck tingled in a sudden premonition. I glanced at Lei, his eyes steely with understanding. He’d guessed too.

Kuro cleared his throat again. “I lost Jinya,” he said, his voice breaking at her name. All at once, the words poured out of him. “She disappeared eleven days ago. There’s no trace of her anywhere.”

“The spirit realm,” I guessed. “Have you tried the spirit realm?”

“I’ve tried every day. I’ve walked the forests and the plateaus and the mountains. But it’s too slow. If you help me—”

His choice of words was strange. “You’ve walked ? Have you not tried impulsion?” I asked, recalling how I’d located Chancellor Sima in the spirit realm, during the war.

“What’s that?” Kuro asked, and I raised a brow.

He flushed crimson. “Apologies for not being as learned as you, my lady,” he bit out. “Not everyone had the privilege of growing up in the imperial palace.”

“I didn’t grow up in the palace,” I snapped, though I understood to Kuro, it hardly made a difference. I’d grown up a noble, and he’d grown up a commoner.

“Impulsion is a way of infiltrating the emotions and thoughts of another,” I said. “If you use your spirit power—”

At this, he seemed to deflate. When he spoke, his voice was small. “It’s no use, then. I’ve tried to call on Baihu, but she does not answer.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, astonished. Even when the dragon and I were feuding, he had never been able to restrict my powers before.

“We are bound to each other. If she stops using her powers, so must I.” He exhaled sharply. “I think she’s gone into hibernation. Before she left, she told me she had no desire to play any part in the veil’s destruction.”

My mouth fell open. How selfish of her, then, to abandon us to our own ruination. If she was truly so noble, why didn’t she help us? Why didn’t she intervene with her great power?

But in fleeing to the eternal spring, wasn’t I doing the very same thing?

“Y-you were right,” Kuro said brokenly. “I opened too many gates. I should have been more careful. Jinya…Jinya didn’t want to make a bargain with a spirit. She had no interest in lixia. But…you know how hard it is to resist.”

I narrowed my eyes. “To resist what?”

He swallowed again. “The lure of power.”

“Are you blaming her?” I asked.

“N-no!” he cried out, gesticulating wildly.

“I-I only…You of all people must understand. When I accepted Baihu’s seal, she fed on my pride.

She nurtured it within me—like a pig for slaughter.

” He let out a broken laugh. “I changed. I thought I could do no wrong. I refused to listen to anyone who disagreed with me. Even when Baihu and I started clashing, when I began tearing more rifts in the veil, even then I believed I no longer needed her. I-I changed,” he said again. “I don’t know how to go back.”

“You can’t go back,” I said harshly.

“Please.” He stood, reaching for me. I tightened my grip on my blade, intimidated by his stature despite the frail, pleading emotion in his eyes. “Please, my friend, help me. I’ll do anything—give you anything. I just—I need to find her. I need to make things right.”

Then, to everyone’s shock, he got down on one knee, and then the other.

Trembling, he kowtowed before me. I could almost imagine Baihu’s presence in the room with us, bristling with humiliation and affront.

The spirit of the Ivory Tiger, the West Wind, who drew upon pride and arrogance for power…

and here was her human vessel, fighting against her very nature.

Kuro stood a chance, I realized. He was not subsumed yet.

Indeed, when he raised his eyes to meet mine, I could see the natural shades of black within them, flickering against the gold.

The realization was followed by piercing jealousy.

Was his willpower stronger than my own, or was it his sheer desire to live?

But if Kuro could do it, if Kuro could stand against his master—so could I. I was not lost either. Not yet.

If I used my lixia, I would upset my already depleted life force. And yet Kuro had saved Lei’s life. He’d twice spared me. It was true I had only a few months left to live as a free person. But if Jinya was lost in the spirit realm, she had none.

“All right,” I said, and the tension seemed to ease from the room. Lily smiled, the other rebels sighed, and Kuro, to my infinite astonishment, began to weep. Only Lei appraised me in his impassive way, a knowing glint in his eyes.

I wondered if he could read my thoughts. Because there was another, more selfish motive I had in mind: I wanted to see my mother again.

“Thank you, my friend.” Kuro rose to his feet unsteadily. “You won’t regret this.”

I thought of the last time I’d tried to enter the spirit realm with another summoner. It had not ended the way I’d planned, with Chancellor Sima and I somehow falling into a third realm, the space between realms.

“The safest way to enter together,” I said, thinking aloud, “would be through a physical gate.”

Kuro nodded, glancing down at his arm, which I saw was covered in cuts. Rather than entering through a gate, he’d been drawing his own blood to enter. For efficiency, perhaps. And because up there, with the imperial families congregating in First Crossing, he was a wanted man.

“Lei,” I said, turning to him. “Will you stand guard? My body will be…unprotected.”

He nodded curtly, and I made to leave before he caught my wrist. “Are you sure about this?” he asked lowly, his familiar scent enveloping me in a cloud of cedar and jasmine. “You know the cost.”

His gaze held mine. For a moment, he let his mask slip.

Worry, concern, fear, and understanding all flashed through the luminous amber of his eyes.

I did not know the full extent of his Ruan abilities, and I guessed I’d never know, but I understood then that he could not truly predict the future.

That he was as vulnerable and ignorant to fate as the rest of us, living day to day with nothing more than our feeble hopes and prayers to keep us from sinking underwater.

“I know the cost” was all I said.