Chapter Four #2
“I can’t,” Zahra said in a breathy voice, her lungs closing in on her until drawing breath became difficult. When not nearly enough air entered her lungs, the edges of her vision danced with darkness.
Her head spun. Her vision darkened. Her limbs loosened.
She felt herself leaning backward before she could register what was happening.
The ladder shifted violently beneath her hands moments before a large shadow passed over her.
Strong arms reached through the rungs on the opposite side of her and held her steady against the ladder, pressed tightly against the solid muscles of his chest with wooden rungs squished between their bodies.
“Take a breath,” Weiyu said, a steady hand pressed against her back. “There you go. Don’t look at anything else but me.”
“It might help if I could see your face,” Zahra jested feebly when her body felt as if it might collapse at any moment and doom her to a deadly plummet.
“If anyone saw my face, or my shift for that matter, the result might turn contention into war.”
“Did the clan leader not take two of your lives? You have every right to declare war.” Her voice became stronger the longer he held her close. He was like the comfort weight of a blanket on a chilly, stormy night.
Instead of answering, he squeezed her waist with his arm. “My friends have the guards preoccupied inside the Perch. If they catch sight of us on the ladder...”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “Alright.” They needed to keep moving, no matter how terrifying the descent.
They continued downward one rung at a time.
Hand hand. Foot foot. Although he no longer kept a steady arm around her waist, the brush of his fingers against hers gave her the encouragement necessary to keep herself from losing control of her own body.
She kept her eyes on him rather than focusing on the wind picking up around them or the distance to the ground.
“H-h-how much farther?” she asked, cursing her stuttering tongue.
“We’re almost there.”
Her foot slipped. A muffled scream escaped her with her mouth clamped tightly shut. She lost her hold on the ladder and fell through the air for only a moment before Weiyu caught hold of her hand.
She dangled back and forth, her eyes shooting wide open when faced with the perilous drop still waiting to claim her.
She gasped. “You said we were almost there!”
“I lied!” he grunted, hoisting her back up and onto the ladder where she proceeded to cling to the rungs.
“No k-k-kidding!”
From the way her stomach violently churned and her head spun unceasingly, her body warred between throwing up and passing out.
A loud phoenix cry echoed through the air, two more answering the call.
She glanced up with frantic eyes to find the tail feathers of a red phoenix turning sharply through the air as a guard cut through the skies.
He’d spotted them. And judging by the two other phoenix guards headed their way, what little time they’d saved by sneaking through the Perch had thoroughly expired.
Weiyu swore under his breath. “We need to hurry.”
The rigid set of his shoulders said he’d fight the phoenixes if necessary, but doing so would reveal his identity when his Aquatic Core would shine through his feathers and give him away.
Zahra quickened her pace. Hand hand. Foot foot.
Halfway down the ladder, the first phoenix attacked Weiyu.
With its claws outstretched, the red phoenix guard swooped down and dove at the cloaked phoenix king.
Weiyu ducked beneath the attack, snatched a knife from his sleeve, and struck the second guard who dove at him.
The knife sliced through the phoenix’s side.
The guard emitted a wounded distress call from its beak.
Faster, she urged herself despite her fiercely beating heart pounding in her skull, so loud as to drown even her own fearful thoughts. Hand hand. Foot foot.
She looked down. But instead of inspiring terror, this time the action brought relief. Ten more rungs to reach the rich brown earth.
Two phoenixes attacked at the same time. One at Weiyu, and the second crashed its body into the ladder, shaking it forcibly back and forth through the air. Zahra lost her grip on the rungs, crying out as she fell.
Her body hit the damp earth with a thud, knocking all the air out of her lungs. The fall momentarily stunned her, or perhaps it was the shock of touching the ground after her entire life of gazing at it from afar.
The earth...
The fresh scent filled each breath. The rich texture brushed the palms of her hands. Sturdy. Fertile. Fresh. Solid ground...
Weiyu grabbed her beneath the arms and hoisted her to her feet. “Are you hurt? Can you walk?”
She put all her weight on her feet but then hissed as her right foot filled with fiery pain and collapsed on her. Still, she gritted her teeth. “I can walk.” Weiyu had managed to get her this far. She refused to be any sort of burden to him.
But just as she started to take the first step, he swooped her off her feet and hoisted her onto his back. She gasped, clinging around his neck in surprise. Why would he go through all the trouble to help her escape? Without a shift, she should be a nobody in his eyes.
He rushed forward with a burst of speed, carrying her as if she weighed little more than a hollow-boned bird sitting on his finger.
The three aerial guards swooped toward them and shifted mid-air, dropping directly in front of them.
One of the guards pressed a hand to a stab wound in his side and held back.
The other two rushed forward with swords drawn, though with the princess herself as his “hostage,” they appeared hesitant to lift weapons against them.
“Release her!” one of the guards shouted. “By order of the rightful phoenix king, release prin—oof!”
Two large feet slammed into the man from above.
Zahra’s heart leaped into her throat at the sight of the tall man with light golden eyes previously posing as Captain Xuehe.
The man spared her only a sliver of a glance before returning his attention to his opponents, fighting with his hands alone.
He moved almost too fast for her eyes to follow, kicking and punching, breaking bones and inciting fear.
He created a path just large enough for Weiyu to slip through while carrying her on his back.
He ran through the dense warm forests of the volcanic island as if he’d grown up racing through them as a child, familiar with the twists and bends of the branches and the way the earth must have felt beneath his feet.
Completely at odds with Weiyu’s quiet, nimble strides, crashing feet lumbered behind them. Instinctively, her arms tightened around the phoenix king, though she couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her shoulder.
Her father’s burliest, most viscous muscle guard chased after them, the shine of his bald head glinting beneath the light of dusk. His hard, dark eyes locked on her, his teeth gritted in a snarl as he pumped his legs fast and hard in his pursuit.
If the guard caught up to them, Weiyu would most definitely lose his life twenty times over.
With determination flowing through her veins, she grabbed the end of an overhanging branch, allowing it to slip through her fingers all the way to the end. When it stretched to its limit, she released it, and it snapped back and whipped the man in the face.
He cried out in surprise, stumbling on his feet as he clutched a hand to his cheek. It slowed him down a little, but not entirely, giving another man, Weiyu’s red phoenix friend, the opportunity to rush forward and throw a powdered substance into the guard’s eyes.
Zahra watched as the guard became disoriented enough for the attacker to throw on a cloak and scarf exactly the same as Weiyu’s before holding a bundle of cloth in his arms as if to mimic Zahra’s presence.
The guard, in his confusion, turned to give chase to the imitation “Weiyu,” giving her and the real Weiyu a chance to escape.
“Who are your friends?” she asked quietly, easing more comfortably onto the king’s back when the immediate threat had disappeared. At least for now. “They aren’t normal guards.”
He shook his head and turned the slightest bit as if to look at her despite his hooded face. He never lost a hurried step through the forest in their flight.
As if running with a woman clinging to his shoulders didn’t deter him, he replied in steady breaths, “Undefeatable combat specialist. Feisty dagger wielder with nasty tricks up her sleeve. Poison master. They’re the best of the best.”
Silently, she wondered if these three people had been with Weiyu during the red phoenix ambush, would he have survived? Or would they have lost their lives just like the soldiers the king had brought with him that fateful day?
Her eyes shot wide open when she spotted a flicker of red tail feathers. “Watch out!”
But her warning arrived too late as another guard transformed mid-air and tackled Weiyu to the ground.
Zahra rolled over leaves, sand, and broken branches, her ankle screaming in protest at the vicious treatment from the fall.
She came to a rough halt, pushing up on her hands to find Weiyu grappling with the attacker.
The other man stabbed downward with a knife.
Weiyu caught his wrist with both his hands, his arms shaking with the effort to keep the sharp tip from piercing his flesh.
Eyes frantic, she searched the half-sand, half-forest around her and spotted a fallen tree long dead.
She grabbed a bare branch and pulled. The wood easily snapped in half in its decaying state.
Without hesitation, she limped toward the other two men grappling with the knife, fully knowing she held the advantage.
The guard likely saw her as no threat when he assumed her to be a kidnapped victim.
Which was why he didn’t even flinch when she raised the branch and brought it down heavily on the back of his head.
The guard’s grip on the knife slackened, and he slumped forward unconscious before hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
Zahra dropped the branch, eyes wide. “Did I kill him?” she rasped.
Weiyu grabbed onto the man’s wrist and felt for a pulse before shaking his head. “He’s alive. But we don’t want to linger should he wake up.”
He climbed to his feet and picked her up again, this time with one arm around her waist and the other braced against her inner knees. She wrapped an arm around his neck, grateful for the energy he spared to keep her from injuring her ankle further.
She noticed him slowing as if growing tired and attempted to hold on tighter to take some of her weight off his arms. They traveled deeper through the trees, across a small stream bed, and over a damp trail mixed with gritty sand.
After a few minutes, the trail opened into a small cove with black sand covering the beach.
Her lips parted for an astonished breath at the way the small waves caught onto the pink, yellow, and orange sunset colors and brought them to the shore with dazzling, shimmering light.
“We’ll stop here.” Weiyu took off the outer layer of his cloak, only to reveal a second one beneath. With her still in his arms, he spread out the cloak on the sand and carefully deposited her on top.
“Are we safe here?”
“Mn.”
He gently removed her shoe from her injured foot, and she balled her hands into fists to hide her discomfort from the accompanying pain.
He moved his fingers slowly, using his magick to coax the water from a small vial in his opposite hand.
It slithered through the air like a snake and coiled around her foot.
But instead of wrapping her in a painful grip, the touch brought relief.
The water flickered with a calm blue light. Cooling. Healing. Rejuvenating.
She gasped when she realized what was happening. She only knew of one thing in her culture that could heal so quickly.
The tears of a phoenix king.