Page 40 of The Blood Orchid
That was, if I could find her. She was here, that was certain—I had killed one of her stolen corpses, so whatever part of her soul had occupied him must have returned here.
I hadn’t known souls could be fragmented in so many pieces. But of course, the Empress had never been scared to test the rules of alchemy. Anything could be done if you sacrificed enough.
I rolled over, trying to extract myself from the freezing mud that was starting to solidify around me, as if dragging me into a cold, wet grave. Who could have helped the Empress do something like this? What kind of powerful alchemist would have helped her? None of the royal alchemists, and they had supposedly been the best in the country.
Something whispered through the trees, a flash of light like the golden tail of a comet across the dark ground.
I rose to my feet.The Empress should be here, I thought. Perhaps I hadn’t cut deep enough, and the man was bleeding out too slowly. Or perhaps there had been a nearby alchemist who had managed to heal him, and I was waiting for nothing while the Empress ripped my brother limb from limb.
The trees parted with a sigh of wind, as if welcoming me deeper. I stepped back, the ground now dry beneath my feet.
Fan Zilan, a voice whispered from the forest, a thousand miles away, yet somehow perfectly clear. It wasn’t the Empress—the words were too bright and airy, like morning birdsong that the wind would carry away.
I knew that voice.
As the echo faded and the night fell silent as if waiting for my answer, I remembered darkness and fire, my name tangled with sparks and wet echoes and frantic heartbeats.
I blinked hard, rubbing my eyes as if I could scrub the images away. The last time I’d had vague recollections, it had been memories of my own forgotten death bubbling to the surface. I didn’t like that my memory was now a tattered cloth, holes large enough for the night to whisper through.
I swallowed and backed up, away from the forest’s edge, and thought of the Empress’s name once more. This plane didn’t want me here, and it was trying with all its might to devour me because it knew my mind was a labyrinth with no way out.
I imagined myself carving the Empress’s name into the sky, each brushstroke firm and deliberate. The dry ground slipped away like a rug pulled out beneath me, and I fell to my hands in wet mud. Footsteps approached, and a pair of embroidered gold slippers stood before me, impeccably clean.
Slowly, my gaze traced up the line of shimmering gold fabric, and at last, there she was. A bright star in the dead, barren landscape. The first blade of sunlight that rips that night open. Wu Zhao, the eternal.
My Empress.
“Scarlet—” she said, but she would never finish her sentence.
I lunged forward and wrapped my hands around her throat.
We rolled across the riverbed, our clothes snagging on twigs, sharp stones tearing fabric, yanking our hair. She reached for my eyes, her honed fingernails only a breath away, but I bit down hard on her hand until I tasted blood. Her scream scraped through my eardrums, echoing forever into the dark sky. I had never before heard the Empress’s scream, even when she’d died.
Her fist crashed into my face. My teeth ached at the impact, blood filling my mouth. Her fingers scraped lines into my cheeks as I ripped her hair back, forcing her face away. She managed to shove me back just long enough to stand up, her foot planted on my chest. I grabbed at her ankle to topple her, but she stomped down on my face, and my vision exploded into red.
The real Empress was not a fighter, but the river plane was a game of minds, not physical strength. And the Empress had always been one step ahead of me.
“Let me tell you a story,” the Empress said, and in the moonlight, looking down on me, her bright eyes glowed like those of a wolf stalking through the woods at night. “Once upon a time, the Crown Prince Li Hong was caught fleeing his country like a coward after his loyal citizens rebelled against his unjust laws. He was caught by a private army on the Mongolian border, and his corpse was dragged back to Chang’an, where the people hung his body from the city gates, along with his treacherous concubine.”
“How imaginative,” I said, the words coming out too weak and breathless, the way I had always felt around the Empress, now amplified in this in-between world.
“With no one else in the House of Li,” the Empress continued, as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “the kingdom then belonged wholly to his grieving mother, the Perpetual Empress Wu.” At last, she looked down at me, shifting out of the moonlight, the glimmer dropping from her eyes, suddenly flat and black.
“This is the story that scholars will write down,” she said, her voice low. “This is the only version that history will remember. This is the story you will help me create, Scarlet.”
I clenched my jaw. “Why don’t you ask your alchemist friend to help you?” I snapped. “Or do you expect me to believe you’ve been resurrecting yourself?”
The Empress stilled. It was only a moment, almost indiscernible, but quickly the cold smile curled across her face again. “Youare my alchemist, Scarlet. You always were.”
Her words curled tight in my chest. I felt as if she’d branded me just like the peasants whose bodies she stole. She’d made me the Scarlet Alchemist, so in a way, we were forever intertwined.
“Wu Zhao,” I said, using her common name instead of her title because I knew she would hate it, “I am not yours. I never was.”
The smile dropped from her face. Slowly, she sat back, turning her gaze toward the moon. Its white light spilled pale across her throat, and I remembered tearing it open with my teeth.
This had gone on long enough. I didn’t come here to let the Empress push me around. I came here to distract her, break her mind in two.
I reached out and took the Empress’s hand, lacing her fingers through mine, mud slick between our palms. She hesitated, frowning down at our entwined fingers.