Page 13 of The Blood Orchid
“Then you should know that I could kill you easily,” I said. I didn’t exactly want to get kicked out of this village for murder, but I wasn’t about to let a stranger push me around just for a couple hours’ rest either.
The man didn’t even turn around, staring into the water that was slowly starting to steam. “Of course,” he said, “but you wouldn’t do that. You don’t kill people without a reason.”
“Not wanting to be turned over to a private army is a pretty good reason,” I said.
“What, those peasant boys with borrowed swords?” Junyi said, rolling his eyes. “Why would I waste you like that?”
He slammed two cups on the table, ladling murky water into them. He hadn’t let the tea steep for nearly long enough. It was such an unimportant detail, but something about it only amplified the sense of wrongness that surrounded him. Something about Junyi made me feel like I was one foot into a dream. Someone who had grown up in this village should have known how to lift heavy objects, how to strike matches, how to make tea, but he seemed more like one of the clueless aristocrats I’d met in the capital. I kept my back to the wall, hand still clenched inside my satchel.
“Is there a problem, Scarlet?” he said. Something in his words paralyzed me far worse than viper venom.
“Don’t call me that,” I said.
“Pardon,” he said, nudging the cup closer to me and taking a deliberate sip of his own. “Not poison, I promise. Come on, there isn’t much water out here, and I’ve used some of it just for you.”
Stiffly, I stepped closer and knelt in front of the table, picking up the lukewarm teacup but not drinking it.
Junyi took another sip, staring past me out the window at the empty paths. “My village is gone,” he said, his voice low. “Mymother used to do all ofthis.” He gestured to the teacups. “So I’m sorry if I seem... unpracticed, but I never thought I’d have to learn, and then it was too late.”
My fist unclenched in my satchel. I supposed that made sense. Maybe I was too used to looking for danger everywhere I turned. I laid my hands in my lap, staring at my reflection in the teacup. Did he know this village had been destroyed because of me?
“You’re all that’s left of the best alchemists in the country,” Junyi said. “You’re going to stop the private armies, aren’t you?”
I looked away, his gaze too earnest. “It will take time,” I said. “I’m not fighting armies single-handedly.”
In truth, I no longer trusted myself to devise political schemes. Just plotting one person’s death had wiped out nearly everyone in the palace. There was no way I could defeat several private armies all at once with only me and my brother. I needed the other royal alchemists with me, but their souls were still trapped in the river plane.
They were trained resurrection alchemists, so they knew to stay by the river as long as they could, to wait for someone to bring them back. But the river plane had a way of scrubbing your mind clean until your life was nothing but a hazy dream. They couldn’t wait for me forever—soon they wouldn’t remember why they were waiting at all.
Junyi leaned closer across the table, shifting out of the shadows of the shelves. The setting sunlight caught his eyes, a deep and warm brown with tiny—almost imperceptible—flecks of gold.
“How will you do it?” he said. The words were a reverent whisper, as if the question was a dark secret.
I thought of the Sandstone Alchemist nearly killing me formentioning Penglai Island. I certainly wasn’t going to broach the subject with a villager I’d just met.
“You don’t need to know that,” I said.
“Tell me, and I can help you,” he said. “I’m strong. Surely I’m more useful to you than that cottonweed trailing after you.”
“That’s my cousin,” I said, frowning.
Junyi went still, hands tight around his teacup. “Your cousin?” he said. “Not the Crown Prince?”
I clasped my hands under the table, regretting my words. I hadn’t thought any villager this far from the capital would recognize the prince’s face.
“How interesting,” Junyi said, leaning back. “And what have you done with the prince?”
“I haven’t done anything to him,” I said, standing up. But the man stood up at the same time, casting a dark shadow over me.
“Yet you’re dragging his body around with you as a... souvenir? A memento?”
I turned for the doorway, but Junyi got there first, blocking my path.
“Move,” I said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Oh, I get it,” Junyi said, ignoring me. He tilted his head to the side, inspecting me. “You’re going to resurrect him, aren’t you?”
I drew my knife from my sleeve, pointing it at the man’s throat. He didn’t move at first, as if he doubted I’d actually use it, but I drove my elbow into his sternum and backed him up against the shelves, the blade digging into his skin and drawing a whisper of blood that trickled down his throat.