Page 12

CHAPTER 12

REN

West of the Haebaek Mountains

Occupied Territories

REN SHELTERED FROM the storm in a small cave on the side of the mountain, emerging the morning after with new determination. The monster had come from somewhere west of the Haebaek Mountains, and so that’s where she had gone. And yet, from her vantage on the rise, she hadn’t spotted any signs of a village or settlement to ask the people there if they’d encountered a demon like the one that had attacked Gorye Village.

The healer had said Little Uncle only had three weeks before he succumbed to the illness, and she’d already spent half of one beneath the mountain. She was running out of time, to not only find a cure, but to go back .

She left the mountain behind her, setting a brisk pace. It was late morning by the time she came upon an enormous reed field.

Like a great, gilded sea, stalks of bronze and gold appeared to stretch endlessly onward. Birds looped patterns in the air, alighting onto stalks to chatter merrily. As she waded into the grass, the feathery plumes left dewy trails against her skin, like brushstrokes of ink.

However, after a few miles, the sunlight—which had been pleasant after the rain—turned grueling and harsh. The reeds were taller now that she was farther afield so that, even standing on her toes, she couldn’t see above them. If it wasn’t for the Floating World in front of her and the mountains behind her, she’d have lost her way entirely.

Feathery heads whacked her in the face as she trudged forward. The birds were in fact crows winging overhead, squawking their apparent delight at her situation. She put on her mask to scare them, but that only seemed to rile them up further, circling above to taunt her with their incessant cawing.

“Leave me alone!” she yelled when they got too close, stirring the reeds with their wings. She popped open her umbrella—the sharp movement, followed by the expanse of red, seemed to startle them for a short time, only for them to return a few minutes later, louder than before.

She hurried forward, keeping in sight the Floating World, hazy behind a bank of clouds. The crows grew bolder as time went on, a few winging down to scratch at her umbrella.

“Stop that!” she shouted. “Go away!” If Big Uncle hadn’t warned her of crows’ long memories and vengeful natures, she might have thrown rocks at them.

As she glared in their direction, she noticed they were making a strange pattern, circling above her only to swoop to another location, then back to her.

She climbed onto a large rock protruding from the muddy ground. The slight elevation brought her sightline above the reed fields. There was a disturbance in the reeds up ahead, about thirty paces to the west.

She stepped off the rock and hurried forward, letting the crows guide her now.

She pushed through the grass, her heart picking up speed as her feet did, rushing headlong through the stalks. She raced the last few steps and stumbled into a clearing.

For a moment she stood disoriented, momentarily blinded by the sunlight. The clearing was small, about half the size of a circle her troupe might perform in, and relatively dry, on a bit of higher ground from the marsh. Feathery reed stalks grew here, but they were crushed, many broken in half. The entire clearing was blackened—a fire must have caught the reeds, quickly doused by the storm. Lying amid the devastation was…

… a boy.

She glanced behind her, as if someone might appear to explain why there was a boy lying unconscious among the reeds, but her only company were the crows. They had perched on a nearby tree, watching with their beady eyes.

“Is he dead?” she asked aloud. They didn’t answer, of course.

Where had he come from? She looked around the clearing for clues. Broken reeds. Trampled earth. But other than the path she’d taken, the reed fields were pristine in every direction. It was as if he had fallen from the sky.

The thought made her look up, and she immediately felt foolish. The crows squawked in derision. As one, they lifted from the branches of the tree, flapping their wings and cawing in a storm of feathers before winging off into the clouds.

Now it was just the boy and her, quite alone.

Cautiously, she left the edge of the clearing and walked toward where he lay on his back at its center. He didn’t stir even as stalks snapped beneath her sandals. A few steps in, she noticed an object on the ground, covered by reeds blackened and charred from the fire. Crouching, she brushed them aside to discover a sword. The hilt was worn, though the blade shone like water.

She felt the back of her neck burn, the sun having reached its zenith, and she hurriedly brought her umbrella back up from where it had fallen to her side. She glanced from the sword to the boy. It must belong to him. Several paces away, a scabbard rested in a similar manner.

Reaching him, she knelt and lowered her face to his, relieved to feel the soft current of a breath. Faint, but there.

This close, she could see that he was around her age. The pallor of his skin was white; his black hair, cut short at the nape, appeared soft, like silk. She fought the urge to push it from his face, where strands had fallen across his brow. He had uncommonly long eyelashes.

He groaned, and she moved back, heat rising to her cheeks. When his eyes didn’t open, she peered once more at his face. She felt embarrassed for ogling him as he lay unconscious, but she’d never seen anyone like him before.

He shifted slightly, and she noticed his brow was furrowed. Was he feverish? Then she saw sweat trickling down the side of his cheek. The sunlight.

Hurriedly she raised her umbrella to cover him.

The effect was immediate, his brow smoothing over, his lips parting in a sigh. She pressed closer to him, using her body to block the sun’s rays.

Her gaze fell to his neck, where his robes had fallen askew, the vulnerable skin exposed to the sun. On instinct she reached out, thinking to draw his robes tighter, only to catch sight of something inked across his skin. She gently pushed his collar aside to reveal the topmost brushstrokes of a tattoo that extended from his shoulder to his chest, forming a single character.

She felt an odd, tingling sensation at the back of her throat. She’d seen similar tattoos before, while watching the soldiers training on the military grounds of the Floating World. Every person who served in the Sareniyan army was required to have one, as the character indicated the unit they belonged to.

The boy was a Sareniyan soldier.

She stood up abruptly, taking the umbrella with her.

Exposed once more to the light, the sweat quickly returned to his brow.

But it wasn’t just the light. He was having difficulty breathing, his breaths shallow, his chest hitched.

Frowning, she let her gaze rove over him until she spotted a rent in his clothes. Adjusting her umbrella so that it lay across her shoulder, she peeled back his robes farther, grimacing at the sight of a deep gash on the side of his body. His armor must have acted as a compress, otherwise he would have bled out hours ago.

Ren sat back on her heels. She should leave. Of her possible choices, that was the smartest. It was unlikely that he was traveling alone; there might be others.

She could hear Auntie’s warning. They’ll have seen it. They’ll come for you now.

Sareniyan soldiers had tried to kill her ten years ago; there was a high probability that he would try to kill her if he awoke.

And yet, even knowing that, she couldn’t leave him like this. Sareniyan or not, he was only a boy, who would die if she left him.

Cursing her foolishness, she reached for her magic.

She couldn’t seal the wound completely; unlike her affinity with wind, her ability to heal was feeble at best, otherwise she’d have been able to cure Little Uncle.

She could slow down the bleeding though, long enough for whomever the soldier was traveling with to find him. That should be enough—it had to be.

Grimacing, she pressed her hands to the wound; she needed to have physical contact in order to heal him. His blood was warm and slick, spilling over her fingers. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on transferring her Light into the wound so that it slowed the blood flow. She didn’t know if what she was doing would work, only that her magic had worked in similar ways in the past, the Light soothing what was hurt or injured. She sagged in relief when he began to breathe more evenly. He was out of danger, at least for now.

As she removed her hand, she frowned down at her fingers, coated in his blood.

Same as Little Uncle and the demon that attacked Gorye Village, the boy’s blood was blue.