Page 62 of The Blood Orchid
Then his hands shot to his throat.
Zheng Sili and I moved at once, each grabbing one of Hong’s arms and trying to pull it away. But Hong fought against us, fingers white and tense around his throat, feet kicking up gravel.
“What did you do to him?” I shouted, barely dodging an elbow to the face.
But Zheng Sili didn’t have a chance to answer, because the next moment, Hong surged forward and grabbed Zheng Sili bythe throat, pinning him to the dirt.
“Don’teverdo that again!” he said, and I knew at once from the tone of voice, the hard slope of his shoulders, the rage in his eyes, that he wasn’t Hong anymore.
I hated myself for the pang of disappointment that wrenched through my chest.
“Don’t kill him,” I said half-heartedly, tugging Wenshu’s arm until he released Zheng Sili, who sat up and coughed.
“Hey, it worked,” he said, backing away when Wenshu glared at him. “You’re back, aren’t you?”
“What the hell did you do?” I said, trying to scrub the blood off Wenshu’s throat with my sleeve, because if he noticed he was dirty, he might actually kill Zheng Sili.
“Well,” Zheng Sili said, turning to cough as he massaged his throat, “you have one body with two souls who have a claim to it. One of them vanished, and the other is sitting around waiting, so I figured we could just... borrow it for a bit?”
“You tried toresurrect him?” I said, my grip tightening on Wenshu’s sleeve.
He shook his head quickly. “It wasn’t a resurrection,” he said. “That would obviously require a huge sacrifice. I used jasper.”
I clenched my jaw, not liking where this was going. Jasper was a firestone used to draw blood back into meat served to the royal family, essentially making it fresher, winding back the clock. Transformations with jasper were always powerful but short-lived.
“So it wasn’t a resurrection as much as... holding a door open for a bit to see who wanders through,” Zheng Sili said, looking absurdly proud of himself.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” I said incredulously. “Who the hell would teach you that?”
He shrugged. “It made sense in theory, so I thought I’d test it.”
“Onme?” Wenshu said, and he probably would have choked Zheng Sili again if I hadn’t held him back.
“I know, I know,” Zheng Sili said, rolling his eyes and wiping off his robes, “only your sister can do dangerous, experimental alchemy on you.”
He started walking, waving us after him like animals. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back to the inn before you go boneless on us again.”
Wenshu still looked ready to commit murder, but I tugged him to his feet, hurrying after Zheng Sili.
“Are you all right?” I whispered.
Wenshu didn’t answer for a moment, still glaring at Zheng Sili’s back. “I think so,” he said at last.
“Why did you choke yourself?”
“I don’t remember that,” he said quietly. “It just felt like... I was fighting to be myself. Suddenly someone else was alive inside my bones, and I had to get them out, no matter what.”
Zheng Sili looked over his shoulder. “Probably because you wanted the body more.”
Of course he was eavesdropping, I thought. “How wouldyouknow what he wants?”
“Because he’shere,” Zheng Sili said. “Alchemy is about intention.”
Unfortunately, I understood what he meant. Hong had resigned himself to waiting patiently to get his body back and never would have fought my brother for it. But to Wenshu, the body now belonged to him as much as mine belonged to me. It was no wonder he’d seized it back within moments.
My mind wandered back to the look in Hong’s eyes, the firsttime I had seen him in the real world in so long. But treasuring that moment felt like a betrayal, so I clenched my teeth and tried to focus on the scent of watermelons and earth, the chill of the desert wind, the alchemy ring bright and warm on my finger... anything but Hong.
We reached our inn just before sunrise bled across the horizon. Wenshu dropped off to sleep right away while Zheng Sili stared broodily out the window, but I stayed awake clutching the opal ring, watching the swirling clouds inside of it.