Page 42 of The Blood Orchid

The River Alchemist stood on the other side of the tree, fighting to drag the Empress onward, her robes soaked in sweat. The Empress was struggling to break free of our hold, but with both her arms held apart, she couldn’t do much more than kick at the dirt. We were no longer moving, suspended in place by the two opposing desires.

The River Alchemist’s arm trembled, and then we were slowly moving in her direction once more, as if trudging through quicksand.

I turned away from her, trying to concentrate. This wouldn’t work if it was only the River Alchemist dragging us across the world. I didn’t want to simply carry the Empress, but tear her in two.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I could of my father.

Laisrén, the name I had only recently learned, that somehow felt like I had always known. I thought of his notes that I’d pored over by candlelight, the dream he’d ignited in me, first with my hate, then with my determination.

If there is an elixir of eternal life, I will find it.

I will never stop until I can return to them.

And if I found this elixir, if I completed his dream, maybe I could bring him back as well.

The ground began to shift, rushing faster beneath my feet.My grip trembled on the Empress’s wrist, her joints clicking and loosening as I fought to move forward, the dry grass turning to golden sand under my feet. The Empress was screaming, but I could hardly hear the sound over the rush of sand, the loudness of the world cracking apart, trees collapsing and sky unfolding.

My feet sank into sand, and I fell to my knees, still holding tight to the Empress’s hand.

I remembered my father’s low voice, the language I had lost.

Get up, Zilan, he’d said.Please.

I trudged onward, even when I could hardly feel my shoulder at all, my nails piercing the Empress’s sleeve.

I was in the desert once more, but this time the sands were gray, the trees lying in parched pieces around me. And in the distance, backlit by the sun, was a dark silhouette, robes fluttering in the wind.

I ran toward him.

I could no longer feel the River Alchemist pulling in the opposite direction, so my desire was probably pulling all three of us across the river plane, but I didn’t care. The sands parted for me as I ran across the desert, the white sun swelling across the horizon, devouring the sky.

I was only a breath away, reaching out my free hand toward him.

I crashed down into hard dirt, my back slamming into crooked roots and jagged rocks. The sun overhead was only the distant moon, and my father was gone.

The Empress was on top of me, her face so drenched in sweat that her makeup was running in black streaks down her face, her perfect red lips now a bloody maw that dripped down her chin. Her face looked translucent, her whole body trembling, flickering in and out of existence. Both of her hands were free, whichmeant she must have broken away from the River Alchemist.

“You think you’re clever,” the Empress said, and even her voice sounded exhausted, far away and weak.

I turned toward the sky, as if my father might reappear on the horizon, but the world was dark once more.

The Empress grabbed my face with a trembling hand, forcing me to look at her.

“Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to play games with me?” she said.

Everyone died, I thought, her words pinning me to the cold ground.

“You have much more to lose than I do, Scarlet,” the Empress said, her hand sliding down to my throat. “Wherever you go, I will always find you. You and I are tethered, and death can never sever that thread.”

I tried to turn my head away from both her words and her burning gold eyes, but her other hand held my jaw tight.

Legends spoke of a red thread of fate, an invisible tether between souls who were destined to meet. I had once thought that Hong held the other end of my thread—the boy who had crossed the country and found me by the well in my broken city, only to meet me once again when I crossed the world myself.

But maybe the Empress was tethered to me in a different way, clawing against death to come back to me. Maybe we were always destined to destroy each other, for hate and love were equally sharp. She reached down to caress my face, and for a brief moment, I could almost see the scarlet thread tangled between her fingers—a curse, a promise.

I reached for her face to push her away, but my fingers tangled in her pearl necklace, only yanking her closer to me.

A blunt pain clanged through my head.