Chapter 32 #3
It was all Alex could do not to grip his suddenly alarmed friend’s placating hands with deadly force.
One ragged breath after another filled his lungs as he lurched back, so dizzy with adrenaline and dismay that he nearly stumbled over.
“What is her… when? When did this… how?”
“Her name is Imperial Princess Hao Chan Huangfei, according to Xien Tang. A virgin princess who somehow blossomed with a century’s worth of cultivation without the aid of spirit pearls, tinctures, or artifacts.
A pristine practitioner who has managed to forge a path unlike any seen before.
A path that allowed her to ascend to Gold in just a handful of years. ”
“When?”
She blinked, tilting her head. “What did he say… around the time that the Red Prince was exiled here, doomed to stay until he joined the gauntlet and fought for the right to rule territory as a worthy conqueror, Peril’s Path supposedly putting all sins behind him.”
“When!?”
Sunlay blanched. “I don’t know… no more than a handful of years, certainly? I only first heard reports of Zuihaoshi falling under the rule of another, the city that’s become the Red Prince’s base of operations… maybe two or, no... three years ago?”
Alex stared at his friend in stunned disbelief. “Wait… I thought… I thought I had fallen into the river for decades? Centuries? But you’re telling me it’s only been three years?”
He flowed into a grateful bow, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you, Sunlay. You don’t know what it means to hear that… Thank you.”
Sunlay’s eyes widened in sudden understanding, her voice filled with unmistakable awe. “Wait… you know her! You actually know the imperial princess!”
Alex swallowed the lump of grief in his throat. “Once upon a time, we walked Peril’s Path together.”
“You were lovers? Only the Fox would dare. But I thought…”
Alex quickly shook his head. “No. I was her mentor. We walked a chaste path. But please, say nothing about this to anyone. Nothing at all…”
But Sunlay’s look of awe hadn’t lessened; it had only grown. “You, looking hardly more than a boy, actually taught the imperial princess an art that forged her into a Gold in just a handful of years?”
Alex flashed a bitter, rueful smile. “I did. And the peril we faced… best not mentioned. Ever.”
Yet still, amber eyes flashing with a woman’s intuition wouldn’t let him go. “You have feelings for her.”
“More than you can possibly imagine.”
For some reason, her eyes crinkled in mirth, rueful laughter slipping free of dusky lips. “Of course. Of course the Fox’s Disciple would fall in love with an imperial princess and risk putting the entire world in a state of chaos.”
Alex winced. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
This earned him a pointed look. “Do you even know what caused the original rift in the pantheon?”
Alex groaned, rubbing his brow. “Yeah. That.”
“WiFu claimed Long Wang’s wife as his lover and sired the kitsune race from her womb.”
“Yeah, I think it’s a lot more complicated than that, and it’s best that I say nothing more than what’s pretty much standard fare for all children reading the fables, for obvious reasons.”
Sunlay blanched. “Heaven’s mercy. I’m a fool to say as much as I have aloud!”
“Oh, you should be fine!” Linnea assured, somehow slipping to Alex’s side.
“It’s like what he said. You’re just repeating the pantheon’s propaganda that paints WiFu and Alex in a really bad light.
A story told a million times, I’m sure, so why would divine ears care?
But if Alex were to reveal juicy gossip that only the gods knew…
You do know some juicy gossip, don’t you, Alex? ”
Alex smirked at their too-intent stares. “No comment.”
“Exactly. See? Even he knows we’d all be struck dead on the spot! Except maybe Alex. But the rest of us would!”
Sunlay whimpered as the peril of the last twenty-four hours finally caught up with her in full. And after coming so close to death, she knew just how fragile a safe fairy tale ending truly was.
“Don’t worry. He didn’t actually say anything, and we did save the city, so we should be allowed a happy ending at least for a thousand years, since it was a Gold core. Right, Alex?”
Her eyes widened when Alex’s lips gently kissed her brow with a warm tenderness that had her eyes filling with tears when he gently stepped back and took to the air.
“Alex, wait! Where are you going?”
Alex smiled sadly at the beautiful Ruidian girl who dared to love him, despite knowing exactly what he was.
Welcoming his mind with her own when so many others would feel only fear and shame.
So he answered her in the truest way he could, allowing her to sense the terrible truth of the ever-increasing scale of conflicts he expected to encounter.
Leaving the realm of deep Bronze and half-step Silvers where, yes, experienced Ruidians, at least for a time, might walk on equal footing, until Silver depths grew so crushing that no Ruidian could hope to endure.
And soon, very soon, he would leave the realm of deadliest Silver entirely, daring to take on the perils of Gold.
He would deliberately seek conflict at pressures and depths where twenty Quickness and Vitality, just a tenth of what some of those monsters would possess, would see Linnea dead in the blink of an eye, no matter how impressive her Crimson Flame might be.
“And I could never forgive myself if I let that happen to you, after already losing so many dear friends,” he said with the softest of whispers.
Linnea paled, convinced by the utter certainty, conviction, and despair in Alex’s mind, far greater than words alone could ever convey.
When she lowered her head, she didn’t bother hiding the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I love you, Alex Hammer. Do you really have to go?”
Alex’s smile turned fierce. “My sworn foe thinks he can claim the entire YanTu desert and treat it like his plaything. I would be remiss if I didn’t show him the error of his ways.”
Linnea’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’re not going to look for another vulnerable city to defend. You’re going to go right to Zuihaushi to take him on directly!”
Alex didn’t bother denying it. He honored Linnea with fist to heart, his gaze making it clear that in another time and place, he would have loved nothing more than to take her as his wife and live a long and happy life by her side.
Blinking back tears of his own when Linnea crumpled in grief for a precious dream surrendered, he turned his gaze to Nili once more.
“I will avenge your daughter no matter what it takes, Nili. I promise you that.”
The beautiful kitsune woman, who looked so very much like her daughter after Alex’s miraculous rejuvenation of just weeks ago, choked back a sob. “Even if it puts you on a path of absolute conflict with the monsters who would see us all dead?”
The world grew deathly silent, and Alex knew better than to say a word.
Yet his wild smile said so much before he turned around, gazed up at what was now a brilliant blue sky through the opening that would soon seal itself shut for an entire year at least, and raced for the heavens as fast as he could.
His foes had let slip any number of enticing revelations while awaiting his death in the dueling ring, and now Alex knew exactly where he had to go, if he would dare the one city more likely to doom him than any other.
Zuihaoshi. Ultimate City. The final lair of Dongfang Hong and the twisted god that rode him.
As to what exactly Alex would do when he got there…
He laughed as he raced through the heavens, allowing the fury of battle and the taste of despair to wick away with the warm desert winds rustling his hair and caressing his skin.
After countless ages of bitterness and strife, Alex thought it high time that Shalu’s bitter tale finally came to an end.
* * *
--- End of Book Nine ---
The adventure will continue in Silver Fox & The Western Hero, Book 10, coming soon!