Chapter Fifty-Eight
OUR CONVOY DEFINITELY DIDN’T BELONG.
It felt as if we’d stepped through history to a simpler time where stone roads, grassy verges, and a slower way of life ruled. White-washed buildings sprinkled the mountainside as if people had built wherever they felt like it—rather than following boundary lines and municipal plans.
Lucien sat beside me in the back of a rugged jeep that didn’t look anything like the flashy G-wagons from Cinderkeep. It had rusty dents and off-road tyres as if the rugged mountain road wasn’t welcoming to visitors.
Uncle Wen drove carefully, avoiding potholes, glasses perched on his nose, and a smile on his face as he waved at villagers he knew. Behind us—in equally weathered off-road vehicles that’d been stored in a huge outbuilding behind Ashfall Cliff—Dillon and the fifteen Snowflake Corp guards followed.
“How far is it to Brimstone headquarters?” I rested my hand on Whisper’s neck where he sat between us. The panther glowered out the windscreen, his eyes flicking from running children, fluttering laundry, and prayer flags looped across the street.
“From what I remember, it takes about two hours to get there,” Lucien replied, his eyes locked—just like Whisper’s—on the chaos darting outside.
A flock of fat chickens scratched beneath persimmon trees, pecking at the fallen fruit.
Another crowd of children darted in front of the car, waving at Uncle Wen as he stopped to let them pass—half-made lanterns swinging in their hands.
“Is it always this busy?” Lucien asked. “I don’t remember it being so...festive.”
“It’s Zhongyuan Jie.” Uncle Wen caught my gaze in the mirror. “That means the Hungry Ghost Festival. It’s the night we talk to the wandering souls and spend time with our dead loved ones.”
My eyes widened as we drove past a table full of young men and women, all carefully bending bamboo strips.
More bamboo bundles waited by their feet, soaking in shallow basins to make it easier to bend into lantern ribs.
A couple of women smoothed translucent rice paper over the dried frames before passing them down the line to be painted with Chinese calligraphy.
Uncle Wen smiled at my curiosity. “We spend the day making the lanterns so when night falls, we can send them into the heavens, taking our notes to our loved ones.”
My heart skipped a beat as we kept driving—passing clusters of children making their own lanterns and groups of adults hard at work. “It seems as though everyone in the village is making a tribute. Is that normal? Has death touched every family in this village?”
His hands clenched around the steering wheel. “Every family, no matter who they are, has lost someone but...you’re right. Unfortunately, the past twenty years haven’t been kind to the people of Mistwood or the other villages throughout this mountain.”
Lucien stiffened. “What happened to them?”
“Not sure.” Uncle Wen took a corner, bumping over a few rocks and waving at an elderly woman as she carried a basket of washing on her back.
“So many have gone missing over the years. Of course, the river has flooded, and the rains have brought heavy landslides but...sometimes they go missing without cause.”
“And no one has thought to try to find them?” Lucien’s face went stony.
“Of course they have.” Uncle Wen braked as yet another flock of children darted past, raggedy but happy, half-painted lanterns flying behind them.
“Mistwood and all the surrounding villages have arranged multiple search parties over the years. Together, we’ve searched every inch of the Gaoligong Ranges—the parts that are passable, at least—but no one has ever been found. ”
“Even their bodies?” Lucien asked.
Uncle Wen shook his head sadly.
The coldness inside me woke up, tiptoeing along my ribs. Lucien shot me a grateful look, sensing the ice that’d risen to combat his increasing heat, but he wasn’t the only reason the frost stirred.
I couldn’t shake the awful feeling that something bad had happened to them...
We inched past a pack of dogs sunning themselves in the middle of the road.
“Lao Wen!” An old man rose from his stool where he sat with a group of elders playing mahjong. Cigarettes dangled from their wrinkled mouths and the sun was held at bay thanks to the gnarled ginkgo tree. “Here to paint your own lantern?”
“Mei already made ours.” Uncle Wen pulled to a stop and clasped his friend’s hand through the open window. “We’ll be back when it’s dark to light our candles. However...” He shifted in his seat and pointed at Lucien. “We’ll have to send one less this year. Jin and Meilin’s boy is finally home.”
“What? No, it can’t be.” The old man peered at Lucien as if he was seeing a ghost. “Luxin? Little Master Luxin is finally home?”
Lucien gave him a polite nod.
“Shouxin, get back here! You’re ruining the game.” One of the old men threw a crab-apple at us. “Stop gossiping and play your hand.”
“See what I have to put up with?” Shouxin rolled his eyes. “So I’ll see you tonight?” His sharp gaze landed on me, widened on Whisper, then fell back to Lucien with a look of awe. “You’ll come to the festival. Let off a lantern for your parents?”
Lucien balled his hands and flickers of his feelings bled into me. Suspicion and distrust...the same wariness filling me.
Too much death.
Too much loss...
“We’ll stop by once we’ve returned from Brimstone.” Uncle Wen prepared to pull away.
“Good, good.” Stepping back from the car, Shouxin bowed at Lucien.
“The villagers in these mountains wouldn’t have survived without your company employing so many of us, Master Luxin.
We will always be grateful to the Yunhuis for bringing prosperity to us.
Please do come. We’d love to give our respects. ”
“Of course.” Lucien forced a smile, his gaze going past the old man to the rice paddies twinkling in the sun, carved into the hillside like a giant’s staircase.
The dogs moved and Uncle Wen resumed driving. Dillon followed—our convoy snaking its way slowly toward the outskirts of the village.
Lucien didn’t speak but I could feel him.
Feel him thinking, burning.
The bond flickered each time we slowed for a child or paused for another roadblock—his impatience growing hotter.
I tried to imagine how I’d feel heading back to Snowflake Corp after so much time away...but he’d only been a child when he’d inherited Brimstone. Marcus had snatched it off him before he’d even ruled and...I had no idea what we were driving into.
“Are you alright?” I asked quietly.
His hands flexed into fists on his thighs. “No.”
At least he was honest.
A waft of heat bled off him, making Uncle Wen look out the window. “Strange weather we’re having. I swear it’s getting warmer by the second.”
Reaching behind Whisper, I placed my hand on Lucien’s hot arm. “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
He shot me a grateful look, then placed his other hand over mine.
“Promise me you’ll stay close when we get to Brimstone.
Like the old man said, my parents hired as many locals as possible to run the geothermal sites throughout these mountains.
They’re completely innocent and I don’t want to hurt them. ”
“I’ll be beside you every step of the way.”
“If Marcus is there—”
“I’ll take Whisper and Uncle Wen, and you can burn him into a piece of overdone jerky.”
He chuckled, his temperature cooling a little. Leaning close, he whispered, “I can smell you—that intoxicating scent that corrupts all my senses. It’s taking everything I have not to take you right here.”
My pulse skipped.
The jeep became far too small and far too hot as his breath brushed the shell of my ear. “Fuck, I want you, Rook.”
Desire shot between my legs.
“I guess you’re going to have to be patient.” I hid behind Whisper as I blushed. “However, you’ve now made me very eager to get home.”
His eyes darkened instantly. “Home? You’re calling Ashfall Cliff your home?”
“You’re my home.”
Whisper huffed as Lucien’s hand slid from mine and gripped my thigh, his fingers curling possessively. Lust heated the backseat as his thumb traced slow circles, making my breath hitch. “If you keep saying things like that, I’m going to snap before we even reach the village gates.”
Frost webbed over the back of my knuckles, looking as if I wore a pair of ice gloves. He groaned as he linked our fingers together, palm to palm, pulse to pulse.
Electricity fed through the link, tight and tingly. I shivered as he ran his thumb over the delicate veins of my wrists.
“You have no idea what that does to me...feeling you. Knowing you need me as much as I need you.” Leaning closer, he breathed, “That damn bond isn’t helping either...it’s taking an axe to my self-control and I’m hanging on by a thread.” His mouth hovered over mine. “Kiss me.”
My eyelashes fluttered; my lips grazed—
BEEEEEP!
Uncle Wen leaned on the horn, stomping on the brakes. “What in the heavens?! What is he doing? I almost ran right into him.”
Lucien ripped away from me, his eyes locking on the roadblock.
An old man stood in the middle of the narrow road, his chest heaving as if he’d run to intercept us. Barefoot with his trousers rolled up to his knobbly knees, his hands were covered in soil as if he hadn’t had time to dress or wash.
His gaze locked onto Lucien. His white-streaked hair blew in the breeze, and he took one step toward the jeep before his knees gave out and he kowtowed in the middle of the road.
“Now what is he doing?” Uncle Wen unclipped his seatbelt. “I’ll go and make sure he’s okay.”
“I’ll do it.” Lucien opened the door and climbed out before anyone could stop him. Whisper growled as his master moved toward the old man bowing with his forehead pressed to the dusty road. The faintest tendrils of steam appeared from his shoulder blades.
I went to join him without thinking.
“Stay here, Whisp.” Darting out of the jeep, I caught up to Lucien, my borrowed blue dress slightly too long and trailing behind me.
Lucien bent to help the man up, but the moment he touched his shoulder, the elderly villager shot upright and grabbed Lucien’s hand.
The air shifted.
The gravel beneath Lucien’s boots smoked.
My body reacted instantly.
The hem of my dress crystallised, stiffening as ice conjured from nowhere. Cold lashed outward to counter him, meeting his heat in a crackling hiss that made the old man wobble on his knees.
Lucien tried to break the man’s hold on him, but he scrambled to his feet, clinging to Lucien with both hands. “Luxin? Master Luxin?”
Lucien nodded, his blazing fingers curling around the man’s wrist. Gritting his teeth, he plucked his hold off him. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to play in the road?”
The old man gasped, shaking so badly he almost fell back down.
“I...I need to talk to you.” Shooting a panicked glance around the busy village, he winced at the happy children, almost sobbed at the young adults making lanterns for their lost ones, then grabbed Lucien as if his heart had given out.
“I’ve been waiting twenty years. I knew an Ashfall would return.
I knew it would be you. You have to listen to me. Have to trust me. Please.”
Another waft of heat came off Lucien as he disengaged again and stepped away. “What’s wrong? Why are you in such a state?”
The old man’s eyes filled with frantic desperation.
“Please.” Backing toward the small pathway where he’d come from, he put his dirty hands together in prayer.
“Please come. You must come. Please? But not here.” His gaze darted to the convoy—to Uncle Wen and Dillon who stood beside the vehicles with questions on their faces.
“Not in front of them. Just you. Only you.”
Lucien didn’t answer, but I felt his control fraying.
Fire coiled beneath his skin like a dragon straining at its cage. The air around him shimmered, distorting the sunlight, just as hairline cracks splintered the road as if the earth itself couldn’t bear his power.
The old man stiffened, staring at the heat bending light around Lucien’s shoulders.
We both tensed to see how he’d react but.
..there was no surprise in him. No fear.
He merely sagged with weary confirmation as if his long wait was finally over.
“Please...” He held up his hands again. “Please come with me. Let me speak.” Staggering toward Lucien, he tried to grab him again, only for Lucien to jerk back.
A pulse shot through my heart—the bond delivering echoes of Lucien’s dislike at being touched by strangers.
Without looking in my direction, Lucien extended his hand to me. The tips of his fingers glowed, barely there but growing worse each moment I didn’t touch him.
I went to him.
The moment my ice-laced hand slid into his, he shuddered.
The frost inside me arrowed into him like a dart, delivering an antidote to the flames poisoning him.
Inhaling sharply, his fingers crushed mine. “Just tell me here—”
“No, no, no.” The old man shook his head. “Not here. It can’t be here.” He flinched as he looked at the Snowflake Corp guards. “Just you.”
“I’m not going anywhere without her.” Lucien tugged me to his side. “If you want to talk to me, you’ll talk to both of us.”
“Fine.” The old man took off, hobbling toward the path between the two buildings. “That’s fine. More than fine. Come. Hurry.” He disappeared into the shadows and Lucien shot me a look.
“Do we go?” he asked quietly.
“You kind of already agreed.”
He grunted with annoyance.
“Xiao Lu?” Uncle Wen called as we stepped toward the shadowy alley. “Where are you going?”
“Rook?” Dillon shouted. “Wait. I’ll come with you—”
“No need,” Lucien huffed. “Stay here.”
He dragged me between the buildings, and shadows swallowed us whole.