The battle drums rang out at the break of dawn, but everyone in the Gi army camp had already been awake for hours. Worried faces cowered beneath dented helmets, nervously twitching hands clutching on to spears, swords and bows. A suffocating air of fear and despair hung over the camp.
Riding at the front of his army, Baixun looked like a god of war in his golden armour, unwavering and confident, shining under the rays of the rising sun.
Like a true king, Yuehwa thought.
"I don't like that look on your face," Shoya remarked.
"What look?"
"The admiration."
She laughed. "You have to admit that not any man is able to stand before an army of corpses and not look the least bit apprehensive about it," she said.
The two of them had not stayed on the battle plains with the Gi army. Instead, they had ridden up the mountainside in the wee hours of the morning with what remained of Yuehwa's Firebrands and were now camping beneath shade of the forest's foliage. Waiting.
"What if we fail?" she asked, a shadow falling upon her face.
This was their final stand. Even though Baixun's army was armed with their lead-tipped weapons, they had little doubt that the only thing that would do was to buy them a little more time. If they were unable to weed out Lady Kang, they would lose this war.
"We will not fail," Shoya replied.
And if we succeed—what will the cost be? Yuehwa didn't dare face that answer. She reached for her waistband and ran her fingers over the red silk fabric of the fortune talisman that Xin'ai had pushed into her hand before they left the camp. She had spent the better part of the night thinking about her interaction with the girl and the vague lines she had been left with, but this morning she was still none the wiser.
"For kingdom! For family! For honour!" they heard Baixun holler. He raised his sword in the air, and his soldiers followed suit, echoing their proud, solemn battle cry.
Yuehwa pushed the doubts out her head and focused her attention on the battlefield instead. The Dahai army had begun its charge, and the Gi army was ready to face the onslaught. Like a wave of poisoned sludge, the enemy surged forward, bodies clambering one over the other with their twisted limbs.
Even from this distance, Yuehwa could smell the pungent decay that was emanating from the corpses.
"I don't see any sign of her," she remarked, carefully surveying the sea of Dahai soldiers.
The first wave of arrows from Gi went flying into the air, striking down dozens of the undead. Sheng Yun had been correct about the effects of lead, as the zombies who had been pierced by the lead-tipped arrows screamed in pain, then began to disintegrate into piles of ashes.
But it wasn't enough.
Swords clashed. Spears flew. The deluge from Dahai continued, and still they saw no end to the onslaught. There were even dead animals in the mix—horses, bears, wolves—whose carcasses were likely raised from the depths of the Jilin forests.
Shoya had his arms folded across his chest, clutching the scabbard of his crystal sword in one hand. He was also observing the battle intently with a frown hanging upon his brows.
An hour passed. Then two.
Time seemed to crawl, and Yuehwa grew impatient with waiting. Already the Gi army was faltering and beginning to fall back. If they did not do something soon, then it would be too late to turn the tide. It was almost impossible for the Gi army to hold on until reinforcements from Feng and Hwa arrived.
"Come on, we're wasting time," she declared. "Let's move further north so that we can get a better view of the back end of the Dahai army, maybe she's—"
"Wait," Shoya interrupted. "Look over there." He pointed towards the distance, where a few horsemen and a golden carriage had pulled away from the right flank of the Dahai contingent and were heading in the direction of the mountains instead.
There was no reason for a carriage to be part of an army, unless it carried someone important. Like a king. Or a king's concubine.
"Let's go."
"Yuehwa." Shoya grabbed her by the wrist, holding her back.
She turned to look at him, puzzled.
"What're you doing? We need to hurry. If we take too long we might lose them in the forest."
Shoya waved Ru Fei and the other Firebrands ahead, but he kept hold of her hand until the rest were out of sight and they were the only two remaining. The clashing of blades and frenzied screams from the battlefield seemed to fade away, leaving only the serene rustle of leaves in the breeze.
"Yuehwa, I just wanted to tell you that I never meant to lie to you, and the last thing I ever want to do is to hurt you in any way. I've lived my entire life in the shadows, carrying the burden of my past alone, living, breathing and dreaming nothing but revenge against those who had tried to harm me. That was who I was when I first met you, but everything changed from that moment on. I know it might be difficult for you to believe me, or to trust anything that I say, but I still want to say it anyhow." He leaned over, and his warm breath tickled the side of her ear. "I love you, Yuehwa. And I'm so, so sorry."
"What do you mean? Sorry for—"
A sudden blow struck her at the back of her neck, and her vision went dark.
#
Shoya cradled the unconscious girl in his arms, carrying her over to a small cave he had spotted on their hike up earlier. He set her down gently against the stone wall.
If I survive this, then you can scold me, kick me, beat me as much as you like. Even if you hate me and never want to see me again, so be it.
As long as she remained alive and well, then it didn't matter what she thought about him. He would not—could not—let her dive headfirst into such terrible danger. He could not risk letting her face the same fate as Wan Jue.
Pressing his forehead against hers, he placed a gentle kiss upon her lips.
"Goodbye, Yuehwa."
He let his gaze linger upon her sleeping countenance for a moment longer, then he turned and left the cave, heading in the direction that he had sent the Firebrands to.
There was a deep unease about the entire situation niggling at the back of his mind. It seemed too easy for them to have spotted Lady Kang escaping from the main Dahai contingent. Why would she attempt something like that, when she could have remained camouflaged in the midst of the unrest?
He found Ru Fei and the other Firebrands crouched in wait behind the thick bushes, observing the carriage and horsemen who had come to a halt beside a stream in the middle of a mountain valley.
"What's the situation?" he asked, coming alongside the Firebrand commander.
"They just stopped here, like they're waiting for something." Ru Fei turned to look at Shoya, then he looked past the latter's shoulder. "Where's my regent?"
"We saw another suspicious figure lurking in the woods, so she went to investigate," Shoya lied. "She'll join us soon."
If Ru Fei suspected anything, he showed no signs of it. Instead, he pointed to the carriage and asked, "Do you think Lady Kang is really inside?"
"I don't know."
But they didn't have to wait long for an answer, because the next moment, the drapes covering the carriage's entrance was lifted by the slender fingers of a woman. Lady Kang, dressed in an opulent coat fashioned from flaming red fox fur, stepped out from within and made her way to the side of the fast-flowing stream. In her right hand, she clutched on to a gnarled wooden staff, topped with the head of a cobra.
The Staff of the Night.
Shoya knew that this could well be a trap and the woman was merely baiting him, but even so, he had to take the plunge. He had to destroy the staff—and its user—before Yuehwa awoke and found her way here.
"What is she doing?" Ru Fei whispered.
Lady Kang was kneeling by the river, her eyes closed and her dark red lips moving surreptitiously. With the tip of her staff, she made slow, languid swirls in the clear water.
Dark tendrils began to exude from the staff, spreading across the water's surface like a disease. A noxious smell filled the air, and an eerie silence fell across the valley, as if the moutain's inhabitants had all fled in fear.
A blackened pool spread within the stream—and then it was gone. The water returned to its original clarity, as if the earlier contamination had been a hallucination.
Then it happened.
A glimpse of a white underbelly, breaking through the water's surface, bobbing up and own like an overturned porcelain bowl. And another. And another.
"Is that... dead fish?" someone gasped.
But it wasn't only the fish. A small sparrow that hopped its way to the bank to take a sip of water trembled briefly, then fell to the ground in catatonic shock.
"She's poisoned the water," Shoya said. "Commander Ru, send your fastest messenger to locate the Hwa and Feng armies immediately and tell their commanding generals not to let their men touch the mountain stream's water at all costs." The mountain streams were tributaries for the Cloud River, the largest river that flowed through the Jilin range and would be the marching army's main water source.
Ru Fei nodded, swiftly moving to dispatch the messenger.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Your Majesty," Lady Kang suddenly called out in a sing-song voice.
Shoya frowned. The woman knew that they were here. A trap, like he expected, but what exactly was she trying to pull? If she had openly poisoned the water in front of them, then she probably did not expect any of them to leave this place alive. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a young Firebrand slip away into the shadows, bearing the message they had for their army. He said a silent prayer for the boy, in hopes that the latter would reach his destination unscathed.
"Don't be shy. Won't you come out and meet an old friend? After all, we haven't seen each other for... a hundred years? A thousand? Feels like only yesterday. Very fitting that we're having this little reunion back here, with these same mountains to bear witness. Different bodies—I much prefer this one to the old one—but the same, old souls."
What did she mean by that? A frightening thought floated to the forefront of his mind, along with an inhuman face with sagging, purplish skin and crazed eyes.
That's impossible, he thought. But then again, he had already experienced too many things that defied logic. His own existence—and the memories he carried from another life—were living proof of that.
Lady Kang looked around, stirring circles in the soil of the riverbank with the tip of her staff.
"Hwang Nanzhe, my patience has limits," she said, her voice taking on a sharp edge. "If you come out now, I might be charitable and let your underlings live. If you don't, then..."
Her arm shot out, fingers curved as if she were wrapping it around someone's neck. There was a scream, then one of the Firebrands who had been hiding in the bushes went flying forward, landing face-first in the mountain stream. The young man lifted his head out of the water to catch his breath, scrambling to climb his way out—but it was futile. Before his fingertips could even touch the bank, his entire body began to spasm and his eyes rolled backwards in their sockets. Dark, blackish blood oozed from all his orifices.
Then, he was dead. Floating on the surface of the water like all the fish that had gone before him.
"The poison, that's, that's..." Ru Fei was at a loss for words.
It was a terrible way to die.
Shoya moved to stand up, but Ru Fei caught him by the arm. "Your Highness, you cannot," he said. "This is obviously a trap. If you go out there, then she will have you right where she wants you. We should head back to the main army camp to wait for our reinforcements."
"No. We don't need any more lives lost," Shoya replied. He patted the back of Ru Fei's hand, then gently pried the latter's fingers away. "Once I'm out there, use the opportunity to retreat. Find Yuehwa. She should be at a small cave near our earlier observation point."
"But I thought you said—"
Shoya didn't give Ru Fei time to ask more questions. They didn't have time for that. He walked out of the shadows and into the open, staring unflinchingly at his enemy. The woman smiled, and on her perfect, porcelain face he saw nothing but the same ugliness and cruelty as the creature from Xin'ai's vision. Two bodies—one soul.
"Ah, finally," Lady Kang said. She walked over to Shoya, circling him like a hawk studying its prey. "Took you long enough."
"What do you want?" he demanded. There was a slight rustling from the bushes, and Shoya knew that Ru Fei had chosen to take his order after all. Ru Fei's allegiance was to Yuehwa and the kingdom of Hwa, and that was just as well. If he didn't make it past today, he would take comfort in knowing that Yuehwa would be surrounded by those who were so fiercely loyal to her.
"You know what I want." Lady Kang ran her gold nail guard along the length of Shoya's shoulders. "I want what you stole from me all those years back. This land, these kingdoms, all of it belongs to Wudi—not you."
"You were never fighting for Wudi. You only sought to control Wudi, to use the land and its people for your evil deeds."
The woman laughed. She did not look offended, merely amused.
"Are we not the same? Who were you fighting for? The people? The kingdom? Your beloved Wan Jue?" she scoffed. "No. Hwang Nanzhe—you were fighting for yourself. For your own power and control. If not, you would have walked away after you defeated me, isn't that right? But you didn't. Even after she sacrificed her life to save yours, you didn't. You became king. 'The greatest king that Feng has ever seen', so great that your own descendents are jealous of your name."
"I am not Hwang Nanzhe."
Even if he used to be, he was certain that he no longer was. The threads of fate that tied him irrevocably together with these people that he had known in the past might still exist, but they had led entire new lives, experienced new things, and that made a difference in shaping who they were. He was not Hwang Nanzhe. Yuehwa was not Wan Jue.
He would not let this monster force them down the same path.
"You can keep telling yourself that, but deep down," she pointed at his heart, "you know it is a lie. You cannot defy destiny."
While she spoke, Shoya flexed his wrist, letting the tiny bamboo projectile tube he had hidden up his sleeve slide down into the palm of his hand. It would not do to wield his sword at this point, so something a little less obvious—a little more befitting of the White Scorpion—would be a better option.
"Well then I'm glad that I don't believe in destiny," he replied coldly.
A flash of silver left the slim bamboo tube, heading straight for Lady Kang's abdomen. Each needle in the tube had been laced with the well-known poison Tiexin—or Iron Heart—that was known to stop a person's heart within seconds. At that distance, there was no way she would be able to avoid it. That was the reason why he had chosen to let her come so close to him.
But contrary to expectations, the needle did not do its intended. Instead, it went right through the lady's torso and out the opposite side, embedding itself in the trunk of a fir tree.
Lady Kang looked down, then she threw her head back and laughed once more.
"I expected more from you," she said, "but it looks like my expectations were too high. You know what, we're really not that different, because I don't believe in destiny either. That's why we're here, righting all those wrongs. This time, I will not lose." She took two steps back, giving Shoya a withering look of sympathy. "But this time, she will still die."
Shoya drew his sword in rage, leaping forward to strike the woman, but it was already too late. Her visage blurred, then she vanished into a puff of dark smoke, leaving behind nothing but thin wisps that soon dissipated with the cold mountain breeze.
Everything else also disappeared. The carriage. The horses. The horsemen.
Shoya was alone, accompanied only by the rush of the river and the corpses left bobbing in its waters.
Why?
Why did the woman go through all this? Only to taunt him about the past? To show him that she had poisoned the river? There had to be more to this. There had to be another reason why she had gone through such lengths to lure him here.
To lure him here. And away from Yuehwa.
"But this time, she will still die."
Fear began to crept up his spine, intercalating into a terrifying web inside his mind.
No, not Yuehwa.
He ran.