Chapter 12 #2
He attempted a smile for his killer. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
I was lifting the Fu talisman to his head when he suddenly recoiled from my hand and stood. “Don’t touch me!”
Yuyan.
“I won’t have a priestess ruin everything I worked for,” the jiangshi growled. “This body is mine! This mansion, this town, this retribution—it’s all mine!”
“Ren!” I stumbled to my feet, fear crushing my chest.
He came back, staggering forward to grip my shoulder. Then he coughed out the words, “Do it.”
This time, I didn’t waver. I pressed the talisman to his forehead and kicked my staff, the bells pealing through the courtyard.
The incantation fell from my tongue, clear and confident.
Ren exhaled, then slipped from my arms. He crumpled to the ground as Yuyan’s glowing, purified qi emerged from his lifeless form.
Without thinking, I reached for the energy and cupped it in my hand. Its light sank into my palms and disappeared. I felt a rush of warmth flow through me, the aches across my body ebbing. Even my dislocated wrist had quieted to a dull throb.
But I felt far from relieved.
Impulsively, I’d hoped to capture the qi for Ren. I didn’t realize that my living body would absorb it too, making the qi inaccessible to the person who needed it most.
With the qi gone, the courtyard fell into shadow once more, lit only by the fire flickering from the main house.
“Ren!” I dropped to my knees beside his unmoving corpse and ripped the purification talisman from his head. My shaking hands patted his face. “Ren, please open your eyes. Please, I’m begging you. This isn’t funny. Don’t you dare scare me.”
And I realized then that I was scared. Sometime in the past couple of days, I’d grown used to having Ren around. To having someone to talk to and to share the burdens of travel with. I’d grown used to Ren—his teasing, his laughter, his warmth.
But now he was gone, and I was alone again.
My shoulders sagged. Ren looked the same as the morning I found him lying in the battlefield. Eyes closed. Face blank and relaxed. Like he was asleep.
But his hand was cold when I grasped it, and he didn’t squeeze my fingers or joke about how I worried too much.
Despite my worrying, I hadn’t been able to save him.
In a ruling family greedy for power, Ren had been the only one willing to sacrifice his life for another. I’d accused him of cowardice and selfishness, but in the end, he’d proven those accusations wrong, sealing the evidence in blood.
And what had I proven? For all my criticisms of the royal family, I’d failed to do the one thing I asked of them—to help the person I was responsible for.
I stared at our clasped hands, willing him to wake. Of course he didn’t. He would never again.
But then my father’s gentle words returned to me.
These hands can do more than carry a staff or write talismans in blood. They can offer support and tend wounds, perhaps even save a life. You need only call upon the strength inside you to do so.
I sat straighter, feeling as if I were being guided by an invisible force. My mother, perhaps, lending me the strength that Baba had promised and directing my instincts.
I leaned into the feeling, bending over Ren and placing my palms on his chest, near his heart.
I closed my eyes and invoked Mistress Ming’s serenity, her focus, remembering what she had done after giving Ren the mala beads.
I breathed deeply, searching for the strength inside me.
The abundant qi that Yuyan had so desired.
Imagining my life force as light running through my meridians, I willed my qi to gather in my core and travel up to my shoulders.
From there, the qi spilled down my arms to my hands, then sank through Ren’s shirt—past skin, sinew, and bone to flow into his heart.
All the while, I prayed that his soul was still tethered, that it’d merge with my outpouring of qi and stay.
I pressed harder, ignoring the ache in my wounded wrist, and envisioned my life force spreading across his body.
And then he breathed—a single long, miraculous breath.
His eyes darted over his surroundings, landing on my face, then dropping down to my hands. “What—”
“It worked!” I threw my arms around him, forgetting all sense of propriety as I pressed into the warmth of his chest. His heartbeat sounded so wonderful against my ear, his breath soothing the top of my head. “Thank the heavens! I was so worried.”
His hand rested lightly on my waist as he returned my hug. “Perhaps I should die more often if it means coming back to such a warm welcome. But how did I come back?”
I released him and sank onto my heels, finally remembering myself. Sweat tickled my brow. I shivered, both from cold and exhaustion. “I … well, I gave you some of my qi.”
He shot up into a sitting position. “You did what? Are you in pain? Do you feel ill?”
I shook my head. “I’m just a little tired. It’s nothing serious.”
And it was true. Save for some fatigue, I didn’t feel significantly different from before. Of course, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t nervous about belated side effects. But it was worth it to have Ren beside me again, to hear his voice, even if it was tinged with disapproval.
“You foolish—” He made a frustrated sound with his tongue. “Why would you do such a dangerous thing? Lady Ming warned you against it!”
I reached for the mala beads around his neck, ignoring him. “How do you feel? Judging by how much you’re talking, it appears I was successful.”
My fingers ran over the smooth bone, dismayed to find only thirteen of the fifty-four beads warm. Yuyan had taken all our previous work.
“I’m fine,” Ren said, gently pulling back. He didn’t bother to check the beads himself, understanding enough from my expression.
“But you still don’t have enough qi. We must find other evil spirits to purify. In the meantime, I can give you more—”
“No.” He shook his head. “We don’t know the repercussions of you giving away more qi. You could die, or your lifespan could be shortened. We can’t take that risk.”
“Then we must quickly purify another evil spirit.” I fumbled for my bag. “I’ll study our map—”
“No,” he repeated, stopping me. “We can do that later. First, you need to rest.”
“But your condition—”
“I’ll be all right,” he said, at last gracing me with a reassuring grin. The sight of it made my tiredness suddenly less heavy. “If our adventures together have proven anything, it’s that I’ll not die so easily.”
“Don’t tempt heaven,” I warned.
But he only laughed. “How I missed your straitlaced disposition.”
“You were dead for just a moment.”
“And now you can joke about my death,” he said approvingly. “It seems you aren’t just another stuffy holy servant after all.”
I inhaled through my nose. “That’s not what I meant. And what do you mean, stuffy?”
He ducked to avoid my swinging hand, chuckling. Then his expression sobered, and he said more seriously, “I’m grateful for your qi, Mistress Kang, but you shouldn’t have risked your health to save me.” He frowned, leaning forward. “And didn’t you injure your wrist?”
“It’s fine,” I said, drawing my wrist behind me. It was still throbbing, but I didn’t dare bend it to test the pain. Changing the subject, I continued, “Besides, you saved me first.”
He shook his head. “That’s different. I was already dead.”
“And now you’re not. Shall we just call it even, be grateful to each other, and move on?”
He made a face but didn’t argue further. Instead, he stood and dusted himself off, eyes squinting across the courtyard. I stared at his silhouette, still marveling at the fact that he was alive and on his own two feet.
“Well,” he said, “shall we leave this place before that fire consumes the both of us?”
I glanced back to see that the flames had swept across the eastern wing, red-orange tendrils thrashing above the tiled roofs and casting aside the autumn chill. The sky, once black, was now an ashy orange, the smoke choking out the stars.
I accepted the hand that Ren offered and let him pull me to my feet. My joints ached from kneeling so long, causing me to stumble into Ren with a yelp. His chest was warm and solid and safe. I savored it for a heartbeat before catching myself.
“Thanks,” I muttered, quickly stepping back.
“Of course.” He kept gripping my elbows, steadying me. “Are you all right?”
I detached myself from his hold. “Yes.”
He studied me for a moment longer, his eyes like two cups of black tea warming everything they beheld—including me. I had to look away, focusing instead on the burning buildings behind us.
“Did Yuyan do that?” Ren asked, gazing in awe at the blaze. It was beautiful in a wild, dangerous way.
“I did, actually.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You, Mistress Kang, set a long-standing and priceless estate on fire?”
“It was a matter of life or death.”
“Heavens, I do believe you have a secret rebel inside you.”
I shrugged, which prompted another laugh. Hiding my own smile, I gestured at the gates leading to the outer courtyard. “Are we leaving or not?”
“We should probably inform the townspeople they’re now safe from a murderous jiangshi,” he said as he followed me out of the mansion grounds. “And perhaps rally them to help put out the flames. We wouldn’t want them to survive an evil spirit only to be devastated by fire.”
I nodded in agreement and stepped through the front gate. My feet paused as I beheld the dozens of men and women marching toward the mansion, bearing buckets of water in their hands. Children ran alongside the line, holding candles that flickered like fireflies.
“You’re alive!” shouted a male voice. “Thank heavens.”
My attention cut to the man at the front of the group. I recognized the fidgety resident who’d given us directions to the mansion. He still looked uneasy, his eyes flitting nervously to the burning residence behind us, but there was a new determination in the set of his shoulders.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, staring at the crowd.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the man said, holding up his own overflowing bucket. “We’ve come to help.”