Page 80 of The Blood Orchid
“Maybe an animal,” he said, pulling me closer. He’d seemed so still before he’d noticed me, but now his whole body shook, as if my warmth had reminded him to be cold. “Maybe a person? I don’t know. But I’m not alone here, Zilan. Aren’t I supposed to be alone?”
I gripped his shoulders, unsure how to answer. Either his mind was truly unraveling in death, or the Empress had made good on her promise and was looking for him in the land of the dead. I wasn’t sure which one was worse.
“Are you sure it’s safer up here?” I said, casting an uneasy glance down at the forest floor shrouded in fog.
“I don’t know,” he said, resting his forehead against my collarbone, letting out a sigh, “but it’s harder to fall asleep when I’m up here. I’m too scared to fall.”
I said nothing, pressing my hands to his back, feeling the cavernous silence where his heartbeat should have been.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Once the words left my lips, I realized I wasn’t sure if I’d even said them since he’d died. They seemed so small and worthless compared to his suffering. “I’m sorry, I wish I could—”
“It’s okay,” he said, pulling back and smiling softly. “Can you just... stay here a bit longer? Please?”
I nodded and held him tighter. As a prince, he’d been good at putting on an air of confidence when it mattered, but death seemed to be eating through him like moths devouring the fabric within a dark closet.
“Of course,” I said, holding him even though his coldness was bleeding into me, making me shiver.
It wasn’t wise to stay for much longer, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I was too exhausted—we’d already ridden deep into the night, past the first few closest towns, just in case the Silver Alchemist tried to come after us. If I fell asleep here, I would disappear in his arms, and that somehow seemed worse than telling him I had to go.
The leaves shivered around us, and from the ground below, I sensed a pull.
It was wordless, soundless, but I sensed it in the uneasy shifting of branches, the wisps of gray fog that murmured secrets across the forest floor. The wind picked up, a breeze rushing between us... and I felt it call for Hong.
He must have sensed it too, because his arms tightened around me, as if anchoring himself here.
“Zilan,” he said, the word muffled into my shoulder. “How long have I been here?”
The words sounded so soft, so lost that I wanted to cry. I swallowed the feeling down before I spoke so he wouldn’t senseit. What right did I have to sadness when he was the one trapped here?
“About a month,” I said. “But I have two out of three rings now. It won’t be much longer.”
“Just one more ring,” he whispered into my hair, as if making a promise himself. “Do you know where to find it?”
“I... haven’t discussed it with the others yet,” I said tentatively. A simplenofelt too cruel to say out loud. “Zheng Sili is such a know-it-all, I’m sure he’ll have a few theories.”
Hong didn’t respond, except to rest his head on my shoulder.
“I’ll go over my father’s notes again,” I said, wishing I could promise Hong something more. I wondered, for the thousandth time, if the missing page would have saved us.
More than anything, I wanted Hong to say something, anything except this resigned silence, like he too had stopped believing in me. “Maybe we mistranslated something and we’ll find a whole passage about a scarlet-winged tree.”
“A what?” Hong said tiredly, finally lifting his head.
“The child of Heaven, the scarlet-winged tree,” I recited. “It’s the next line of the transformation. But I don’t know what—”
“The child of Heaven,” Hong echoed softly, trailing off as if he’d already forgotten the second part. “Zufù?”
“Hm?” I said, tracing a hand down his hair, tucking it behind his ear. I had the strange sensation that he was breaking to pieces in my arms.
He sat up, his eyes suddenly bright. “My grandfather,” he said firmly. “Emperor Taizong.”
“Your grandfather,” I echoed, frowning. “What does he—”
“When he founded the Tang Dynasty, he was called Tianzi, Son of Heaven.”
“Okay,” I said, my mind spinning. I’d assumed the reference had something to do with mythology, but I supposed that its connection to the Mandate of Heaven—where the royal family believed they got their power—also made sense. “But we’re looking for an alchemist.”
Hong closed his eyes, frowning as if trying to remember something. “My grandfather died before I was born,” he said, “but I remember my father saying he was very interested in alchemy, and very close with his alchemists, even when they seemed to be poisoning him with their concoctions. He never lost faith.”