Chapter 14 Rui
Rui
Cold air burns her throat. Squinting in the falling snow, she tries to get her bearings. Craggy mountain peaks rise in the
distance, and smoke trails circle the air. Tall black pine trees surround her, their tops dusted white.
The last thing she remembers is being in her room. But this isn’t the Academy dormitories or anywhere on campus. Is this a
dream? It feels too real to be one.
Something red appears. A thread or ribbon, fluttering in the air through the snow. One end wraps around her wrist, the other end weaves between two shadowy figures in the distance, as if connecting the three of them.
She hears a voice whispering, To the ends of this world or the next . . .
Breaths ragged, Rui clutched her chest, gasping awake. It felt as though she’d been stabbed a dozen times in the heart, the
cruel knife twisting deeper with each entry.
Breathe, Rui. Listen to my voice; stay with me.
Gulping air, she counted down slowly from ten. Gradually, the pain subsided, leaving a phantom feeling like the leftover scent
of smoke after a campfire. Fragments of her dream-turned-nightmare came to her, flashing in her mind’s eye: winter giving
way to spring, flowers in her hair, a kiss as sweet as nectar, laughing with someone as she gazed at the stars . . .
Then, something terribly cold.
Who and what had she dreamed of? She remembered feeling a fleeting happiness and something darker lurking in the shadows,
waiting to pounce.
And it was that something that scared her.
As president of the Student Council, Ada had the privilege of living in a suite that was as large as Matthias Lin’s modest one-bedroom apartment, and she’d done up the place with black lace curtains and little pink plush cushions everywhere.
Standing by the windows, Rui stared at the ancient village in the distance. It had been abandoned centuries ago. Remnants
of old buildings remained, dotting the base of the tallest mountain in the rugged range.
Xingshan. The mountain of stars.
She couldn’t spot the ledge where she’d had her confrontation with Song Wei. It’d been less than two months ago, but she felt
like a different person.
This is the sacred place.
Song Wei had claimed the mountain was the birthplace of Exorcism, where the original cultivators came together to form a society
to protect the vulnerable. What was it about the mountain that made it special? Rui didn’t know, but she recalled an old legend
about how the mountain itself had gotten its name. Her mother had told the tale as a bedtime story, and for some reason, it’d
stuck with her.
Legend had it that there was once a constellation of ten stars overlooking the entire mountain range. They were Celestials
who kept watch over the realm of the living. But mortals were terrible and terrifying creatures, waging endless wars against
each other and the land. To punish them for their atrocities, the gods vowed to shroud them in darkness. As the Celestials’
light grew dimmer and dimmer, the mortals suffered. But one star in the constellation could not bear to hear their sad cries.
He was brighter than the other nine, and when he cast himself down from the skies, light returned to the mortal realm.
On nights when the sky was cloudless and sleep proved elusive, Rui had seen the constellation of nine herself, flickering
light-years away. Because of the fairy tale, she’d sometimes wondered about the tenth star, the brave Celestial who took pity
on mankind and sacrificed his light.
“What are you looking at?” Ada asked.
“Just the mountain,” Rui replied, taking the mug of malted hot chocolate her friend offered.
“You look awful.”
Rui crawled onto the sofa. “I feel awful. I need sleep.”
Hugging a throw cushion, Ada half yawned as she said, “Don’t we all?” Her hair was up in a messy topknot, and she was still
in her nightgown. A large bruise was forming on her arm, undoubtedly a result of last night’s mission.
Did Ada know about the mutilated corpse lying in Kodie’s lab? Ash had only mentioned Teshin and Mai. Rui sipped her hot chocolate,
deciding to broach that later. She was here for something just as important. Confessing wasn’t easy, not after she had held
on to her secrets for so long. But she owed it to her best friend.
“Remember that guy outside the karaoke club?” she said as casually as she could. “The healer Ash brought to the Academy?”
Ada sat up at once, suddenly wide awake. “The one with the strange blue eyes? The one you wanted to punch with your lips?”
Rui made an exasperated noise, and Ada laughed. “I assumed he was Ash’s new protégé, but I haven’t seen him around lately.
I guess he didn’t meet the recruitment criteria.”
“About that.”
“What about that?”
Rui exhaled a string of words quickly. “He’s kind of an immortal being, like a death god–possessed person, a lord of the underworld,
a—a King of Hell.”
Ada’s mouth opened and closed and opened again like a goldfish. “I don’t get the joke,” she finally said, looking confused.
Rui winced. “I’m not joking.”
Screeching like an owl, Ada threw her pillow right at Rui who, fully prepared for such a reaction, blocked it with an arm.
Still screeching, Ada scrambled over, sticking her face right up in Rui’s. “You can’t say something like that and not explain.
Tell me everything!”
Rui obliged, condensing as much information as she could into the next two hours, pausing only to answer Ada’s questions, of which there were many.
“I’m sorry for hiding everything from you,” she said at the end.
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not—but it is with me.” Ada hugged her tightly. “We’re good.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Ada promptly said. “Ooh, I just knew the two of you had a thing going.”
“How?” Ada had only seen them together twice, each time for barely a few minutes.
“Sometimes you see two people and you think, Oh, they fit together.” Ada shrugged. “Like soup dumplings and ginger in your dipping sauce.”
“Some people don’t like ginger with their soup dumplings.”
“Some people have an unsophisticated palate,” Ada said, shaking her head as if she pitied those people.
“That sounds like something Zizi would say.” Rui’s laughter died in her throat. She took a gulp. Hot chocolate scalded her
tongue. She wished it would burn away her memories.
“It was the way he looked at you, you silly goose,” Ada said with a soft smile. “That’s how I knew. I’m sorry about what happened.
I know he means a lot to you.”
“Meant,” Rui corrected, more to remind herself than anything.
“Don’t lie to yourself.” Ada tsked. “And for future reference, don’t lie to me either. I know you don’t want me to worry,
but I’ll worry anyway. You keep insisting on doing everything alone because you keep blaming yourself for things you have
no control over, and you think you’re the only one who can fix it. It’s okay to ask for help—that’s why we broke up, in case
you didn’t know.”
“I thought we broke up because you wanted to concentrate on training,” Rui mumbled, feeling both foolish for not connecting
the dots and self-conscious for being perceived so clearly by another person.
“Yes, but also no,” Ada said thoughtfully. “I can’t change who you are, and I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to change me so we would fit.”
It made sense, and Rui was glad for the closure.
“At the end of the day, I love as you as a friend.” Ada shot her a knowing glance. “But that’s not what’s going on with you
and Mr. Ocean Eyes.”
Rui groaned. “You say that like he’s not from the actual underworld.”
“Doesn’t mean what you shared with him when he was Zizi the boy wasn’t real. He shouldered the blame with the Guild and defected
to the Exorcists’ side for you, and he literally went to Hell for you. This is someone who would love you even if you were a worm. I think you should treasure
that.”
“A worm?” Rui burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.
Ada’s stern expression broke, and she giggled too. “Feel better?”
“Actually, yes,” Rui said, catching her breath between laughs. “But there’s something else,” she said, sobering.
Worry lines formed on Ada’s forehead as Rui shared her strange dreams. “Maybe holding on to Four’s supernatural power left
some trauma in your spirit core because that power doesn’t belong to our world, even if you’re a so-called vessel. Have you
thought about asking the school healers? You don’t have to tell them the truth, just your symptoms.”
“I doubt they can help. We don’t even learn about stuff like vessels at the Academy,” Rui grumbled.
“What about the lady who runs the hotel? Zizi’s fake grandmother—she might know something.”
Rui grimaced at the memory of her last interaction with Madam Meng. “I think she hates me.”
“We’ll figure something out together,” Ada soothed. “Let’s go grab a bite.”
They walked past the common study on their way to the main cafeteria. It was buzzing with conversation, and Mai waved them
over.
Frowning at the large group of junior and sophomore cadets gathered in the lounge, Rui asked, “What’s going on? Why aren’t
people in class?”
“Combat training got canceled. The Exorcists on mentoring duty were called to a top secret meeting.” Mai leaned in, whispering, “Maybe it’s about you-know-what from last night.”
The body in Kodie’s lab was supposed to be a secret. Teshin and Mai knew about it, but—“Wait, how do you know that I know?”
Mai smirked. “Because, Cadet Lin, we know Ash trusts you with his life. Of course he’s going to tell you.”
“And I know because I’m part of the squad,” Ada said. “All three of us are.”
If there really was a mole within the Exorcist Guild, it meant that Ash couldn’t trust anyone inside the organization except
for a select few like Kodie. Cadets didn’t know about the day-to-day operations of the Guild, and they definitely wouldn’t
know what went on in top secret meetings. So it made sense that Ash would recruit from his own mentees instead.
“Quick!” Someone ran into the lounge, waving his phone in the air. “Turn on the news!”
The television flickered.
“. . . and back to our breaking news—a ghastly scene was uncovered in the Novena neighborhood this afternoon when an elementary
student on her way home from school passed through a playground and saw what can only be described as a pile of mutilated
bodies. . . .”
Everyone in the lounge was checking their cell phones. The nonstop beeping of incoming messages rose in the air, punctuated
with gasps and swear words.
“. . . prime suspects are the supernatural creatures called Revenants, but it’s puzzling that the victims’ injuries are vastly
different from before. . . . Our network has chosen not to air the disturbing images . . .”
Mai looked up from her phone. “The uncensored images are all over social media. They’ll take them down or blur them out, but
everyone’s going to know by the end of the day if not earlier.”
The corpse in Kodie’s lab wasn’t the only human that the Hybrids had tried to cast the rogue spell on, and now it was clear to the public that something more sinister than they could imagine was happening.
“Should we contact Ash?” Ada said in a low voice.
“. . . no statement from the Exorcist Guild yet, but we’ve received word that there will be a press conference in the next
hour helmed by Captain Ash Song. . . .”
“I think he has other things to deal with right now,” Teshin said.
Mai wrung her hands. “What should we do, then?”
For some reason, the three of them were looking at Rui, as if she held the answers.
What about the lady who runs the hotel?
Rui did have an answer: the rogue talisman had to be destroyed, and to do that, she had to find its maker.