Chapter Two
Mu Fanqing
The carriage rocks gently as the wheels roll over the rough dirt road, slowly bringing me closer to my fate. Although fate is far too generous a term for it. My doom, more like.
I shudder, wrapping my arms more tightly around myself.
A part of me wants to run away, disappear in this forest and never be found.
I believe I have enough skills as a cultivator that I could survive out here.
Hunting and foraging for food, my magic would protect me from most common beasts.
I could find a cave and live out of that.
Be a wild woman in the woods that people tell their children about to keep them from wandering off too far.
But I couldn’t do that to my family. If I left, I might escape an unwanted marriage, but could they escape the emperor’s wrath?
And besides, just because I could probably survive out here in the wilderness doesn’t mean that I would really be living.
I was not born to dust or dirt, but a more refined life. There are too many comforts that I cannot do without, and no marriage, no matter how unpleasant is worth sacrificing being able to wash my hair every day in order to avoid it.
I fold my arms as I sink deeper into my slouch. It isn’t fair.
Why would the emperor choose to do this to me?
I have always been an upstanding citizen.
So many of the officials and members of the high houses partake in treason as if it is their favorite pastime, but I haven’t ever harbored a thought of treason in my heart.
I even went so far as to desire to serve the emperor personally as one of the imperial palace’s personal scribes, working to make the realm a more peaceful place with my magic.
I’m not sure if it is worth it if this is where my loyalty got me.
Sold off like a piece of artwork at an auction.
Without a chance to appeal, or a way to change my fate.
The emperor so rarely deals in personally fostering marriage alliances and when he does, usually it is because one family is getting too far out of hand and he needs to reign them in.
It’s usually always a warning or a threat. So, what is it this time?
I doubt it had anything to do with my family.
We stay out of trouble and don’t interfere in the affairs and in-fighting of the other officials.
We are minor officials in the grand scheme of things, existing in the Ministry of Justice.
We are not wealthy nor are we poor, we are neither high nor low.
Existing like a fortress, immune to the turbulent storms of the court.
Which means that the culprit—the reason for this—could only be one person. Xiao Shu, my future husband.
The troublemaker.
I’m likely a punishment to Xiao Shu. It’s the emperor’s way of keeping him in check by forcing him to take a wife from such low birth when he is the leader of the fourth most powerful family in all of Da Xian.
But I’m sure I was not selected at random.
No, the emperor has always been careful and cunning when dealing with the noble families.
I curl my fist, bunching up the fabric as I sit there and stew. I have been taken away from everything I ever worked toward or wanted in order to marry someone. Once I’m his wife, his crimes could drag me down with him.
The message from the emperor is clear. Xiao Shu is important, more important than me, but he is getting out of hand. I must tame Xiao Shu with the Mu Family’s mild-mannered peace keeping ways or he will drag me down with him.
The carriage suddenly hits a bump, sending me flying to the side. “Ow!” I gasp out as I sit up, rubbing my elbow. The carriage has suddenly come to a stop. I feel myself frowning as I move to the front of the carriage, pulling aside the drapes to look out.
I spot the horses ahead, standing motionless, save for their ears which flick back and forth in confusion and distress.
The driver glances back at me. “Please don’t worry yourself, Lady Xiao, I will see what the matter is.”
I flinch hard at the title he decided to give to me.
It seems too early to start being called Lady Xiao; after all, we haven’t had the wedding yet.
But the driver probably thinks he is being polite.
After all, Lady Xiao is a loftier title than Cultivator Mu.
He probably thinks he is just being respectful.
And besides, with our engagement decreed by the emperor, we are as good as married anyway.
Still, I can’t help the bitter twinge of acid reflux that rises up within me as he calls me that. I’m so distracted by the driver’s form of address that I fail to notice the faintly shimmering pattern on the ground around the carriage until he has already leapt onto it.
“Stop!” I cry, reaching for him, but it’s too late. His foot has already touched the dirt.
Immediately his body goes still, all save for his face which scrunches up with confusion. “What’s going on?” he demands as he gasps for breath. “I can’t move!”
I curl my fingers as I sit back on my heels.
A holding formation.
Anything that steps foot on it is trapped there until they are either released by the person who created the formation, or the formation itself is destroyed.
The tricky thing is that the difficulty or ease in destroying a formation relies entirely on how strong the cultivator who cast it is and how strong of a cultivator you are.
I know I’m no novice, but I also know that someone won’t go around leaving formations on the forest floor unless they were certain that they could hold it.
I suck my lip between my teeth as I pull my ink brush out of its holster on my belt, unscrewing the lid of my travel inkpot. My eyes dart around, looking for any sign of the cultivator.
This will be my first time actually having to call upon my magic to fight another cultivator. In spite of the years spent training, I feel ill-prepared. I should have studied harder, memorized more spells, and better equipped myself for dealing with magic in the real world.
“Help!” my carriage driver yells. “Help!”
“Shh,” I hiss, reaching down and clamping a hand over his mouth before he can bring every bandit in the vicinity down on us on top of everything else.
There’s still a chance that I can disband this formation before anyone shows up.
I would rather just have to deal with the formation than the person who cast it.
My carriage driver’s eyes are wide over my hand. He looks like he might consider biting me in his panic, so I pull my hand back. I hold a single finger to my lips. “Shhh.”
As he quiets down, I make out the sound of a twig snapping.
I whip my head around just in time to see a woman step from the tree line.
Her face is quite pale with the only blemish on it being the dark circles around her eyes as though she has never slept in her life.
Her hair hangs loosely down around her shoulders, in an unkempt manner.
And as she walks her bare feet slide out from under the torn skirts of her black robe.
“What have we here?” she asks in a voice that resembles the sweet singing of birds. “Visitors?”
A chill travels down my spine, telling me that I’m dealing with no ordinary cultivator.
This woman may look elven and walk and talk like she is one of us, but there is something about her eyes that speaks of a wild energy.
A flatness to her gaze that makes me think she doesn’t have a soul.
No, just a spirit like the monsters and beasts.
Yaoguai is the scholarly term for her kind, but most just refer to her as a spirit.
From the look of her and how easy it is for me to identify her as a spirit; I would say that she is likely a forest spirit. One that has little interaction with humans and so no need to hide her true form.
Even I can recognize her as a spirit with simply the limited knowledge of spirits I’ve managed to glean from my scrolls.
I swallow as I study her. If she has nothing to hide, then she likely doesn’t intend to let us walk away from this situation. I can think of no other reason she would appear in such a manner when spirits are hunted across the realm.
Without removing my eyes from her, I reach back and begin undoing the ties keeping my satchel of talismans attached to my belt.
The female spirit stops walking and stands there studying me with her dark eyes. Her stringy hair falls against her high cheekbones as she tilts her head upward. “You’re a pretty little thing, what are you doing out in the wilds, do you have a death wish?”
I want to point out that this is a widely traveled road, but there’s a possibility that this spirit is from deeper in the wilderness. She may have wandered here by accident. However, if I point out that elves use this road quite often then she might decide to make this her new home.
My eyes dart to the carriage driver, hoping that I’m conveying that he needs to keep his mouth shut.
“We’re lost,” I say at last. “Can you help us?” I’m playing dumb, hoping that the spirit is unused to deceit enough to not notice my ploy.
It’s a desperate attempt, banked on her perceived lack of exposure to elves.
After all, her formation is visible, if only just barely and anyone who has stepped in it has wound up trapped.
She came out of the woods looking like a wild woman.
Only an idiot wouldn’t have realized what was going on and I hope that I don’t look like an idiot.
I mean, I did manage to get myself into a situation like this, but I do have some pride.
“Oh,” the spirit says, surprise dancing across her features. “Well then…step down from your carriage and I can help you. Of course, I can help you.”
I nod, half smiling, half grimacing. So, she did buy it.
I hope that she is just inexperienced when it comes to people and I don’t truly look like that much of an idiot.
I step toward the edge of the carriage, curling my fingers around the third talisman down.
My carriage driver’s eyes widen. “My Lady!” he hisses.
However, before he can warn me and make me wonder how I can look like a complete idiot when I’m so smart and well put together, I pull my talisman out of my satchel.
On it is written out the character for flight.
I slap it onto my foot and the next step I take, launches me into the sky.
I fly through the air, landing gracefully in the branches of one of the nearby trees.
I whirl, reaching into my satchel just as the spirit hisses. “The pretty little thing has pretty little wings!”
I hold up my arm for balance as I pull two more talismans out of my bag. The first is an immobilizing talisman similar to the spirit’s formation. I can’t help the smirk that overcomes my expression as I stare at her surprised face. Who looks stupid now?
Apparently, me because something glints through the air just as I toss the first talisman toward the spirit. My talisman never reaches her. Instead, it collides midair with the other object. A sword drops to the ground, a sword that had been headed straight for the spirit’s heart.
My hand flies up to my mouth as a stranger steps out of the tree line underneath me. He bends over, tugging on the hilt of the sword, but it remains completely still held in place by my immobilization talisman. He straightens slowly as the female spirit lets out a laugh.
“Such nice little tricks, now allow me to show you tricks of my own.” She thrusts out her hands and vines appear from behind her, swirling and waving through the air.
The newcomer sighs loudly before he holds up his hand, two fingers up.
I tilt my head in confusion as he bends a single finger.
A greenish wave of energy emits from him, spreading through the road and the nearby forest. It even passes over me but doesn’t seem to have any effect.
At least it doesn’t blow me out of the tree or cause any pain.
I blink in confusion. However, just as I start to think that it was a useless gesture, several things start happening at once.
The female spirit screams as her vines drop unmoving at her feet. My coachman lurches to the side. And the talisman on my foot that made me defy gravity drops to the ground.
I jolt in surprise, my booted foot slipping against the smooth bark of the tree’s branch. I reach toward the trunk to steady myself but I’m already falling. Leaves pass through my fingers as I close my hand in a last attempt to save myself.
A scream lodges in my throat, but nothing manages to escape as I fall downward. Suddenly, the person below me turns, his arms out. I land in them and he turns, moving with me so that I don’t get the full force of the fall.
I blink in surprise and find myself staring into a pair of dark eyes. He blinks once, then twice. Before he kicks the hilt of his sword. It flies up into the air and he snatches it, flinging it seamlessly through the air.
I know that my mouth is open, I can’t seem to close it even as the spirit’s cries are immediately silence.
Because there’s only one thing that could have been.
Only one form of magic that could immediately negate the spirit’s magic vines and cause my talisman to cease to work.
A magic cancelling spell. I’ve only heard of such a thing in theory.
It’s a technique that is supposedly only known by one family, only permitted for use to catch spirits.
That family being the Fourth Family. Which means that my savior can be none other than Xiao Shu. My future husband and my doom.