by M. Lynn
Anger burned through Hua, the Nagi’s anger, as she sliced her knife across Jian’s side, cutting through his robe. Blood left a trail of red.
Hua hammered harder against the walls of her mind, but she couldn’t break through.
Jian touched his side, pulling his blood-coated fingers away to stare at them. “Hua is still in there.” He lifted his gaze. “I won’t give up on her.”
The Nagi sneered. “She is gone. There is no hope for you. Soon, you will join her in death. I will not let anything stop me in my mission.”
Indecision warred in his eyes, and Hua wanted to cry out, to tell him it was okay to choose his brother over her. If he didn’t stop the Nagi, the emperor would pay.
And still, he remained in place, weaponless.
The Nagi lifted her dao. “I have had enough of this game. Kneel.”
“They will stop you.” Jian dropped to his knees.
“Who? There is no one left.”
“There is everyone. Piao will protect its emperor.”
The Nagi rested the blade against Jian’s neck. “Like they protected Piao’s citizens? Those with dragon blood? Enough words. They are meaningless in the end.” She drew the blade away, swinging it back in a methodical arc.
Pain ripped through Hua as she screamed, her voice reaching every space of her mind, pushing past barriers as she watched the path of the dao while the Nagi prepared to take Jian’s life.
It started with one finger, the sensation. It twitched against the hilt of the knife at her side. Little by little, her body came to life as she pushed further to the forefront of her mind.
The dao knocked Jian’s knife away before she forced her arm to freeze. Blood dotted the blade as she pulled it back and released her grip, letting it fall at Jian’s side.
His dark eyes were glassy moments before his end, but now they studied her.
Hua’s knees shook beneath her before collapsing. She fell against Jian, a sob escaping her lips.
“Hua?” he whispered, his tone disbelieving.
“Jian,” she cried.
Jian pulled her into his arms, holding her against his chest as she trembled.
“I almost killed you.” Even if she wasn’t responsible for her actions, her hands would have still been coated in his blood.
“Shhh.” He brushed her hair back and rested his chin on her head. “I thought I failed you.”
She pulled back to meet his gaze, hearing Healer Liqin’s voice in her mind. “Do not claim a failure that is not yours.”
His eyes settled on something over her shoulder, and she scrambled away from him as she remembered everything the Nagi had done.
“Luca.” She crawled to his side as his eyes slowly opened.
“Hua?”
Tears coursed down her cheeks as she nodded. “It’s me.”
He blinked away tears of his own as he tried to sit up.
“We need to get off the street.” Jian searched the square for anyone who might have seen them, but they were alone in the dark with only empty storefronts facing them. He helped Luca to his feet and slid one arm over his shoulder. “Are you okay to walk, Hua?”
She nodded, standing on shaky legs and following them through the door into the jiuguan. A woman came rushing toward them. “Sirs, are you okay?”
“Bandits.” Jian half carried Luca to the stairs despite his own injury. He didn’t pause for further explanation. “We will require fresh water and something to eat.”
The woman nodded and scurried away.
Hua peered through the inn to the courtyard garden it centered around before following Jian up the narrow wooden staircase. Peeling paint told stories in intricate designs, but she was too tired to examine any of it.
“We have two rooms.” Jian stopped outside one of them and shouldered the door open to reveal sparse furnishings. He deposited Luca on the small bed. “Are you going to be okay?”
Luca nodded. “You need rest, Jian. Go take care of your injuries, I’ll be fine.”
Jian ran a hand over the top of his head and heaved a sigh. “Hua, you’ll stay with me. I’m not taking my eyes off you.” With a grunt, he walked back into the hall.
Hua stared at the door for a moment before turning back to Luca. “Are you really okay?”
He nodded. “Your Nagi friend didn’t do too much damage.” His eyes ticked toward the door. “He has been scared, Hua, and the Jian I know does not scare easily.”
She wrung her hands. Jian had gone from relieved she was with them to the commanding general quickly. “I know. He is worried what happened to Kanyuan will happen to Dasha with me here.”
Luca shook his head and then groaned as if regretting the gesture. “He does not fear losing Dasha, Hua. He fears losing you.”
A knock sounded on the door, and Hua answered it, letting an older woman come in with a tray of cheeses and breads. Hua slipped out to find Jian waiting for her in the corridor. He didn’t speak as he led her into a room down the hall from Luca’s.
Hua’s gaze swept the same sparse furnishings. A bed sat along the far wall opposite a cold hearth. Two chairs and a table took up the center of the room.
Jian closed the door and untied his sword belt. He hadn’t thought to retrieve his dao, so the belt hit the floor with barely a sound.
Untying his cloak at the throat, Jian folded it over one of the chairs before dropping into it. “Are you cold?” He didn’t look at her.
Hua rubbed her hands up her arms but not from the chill. The Nagi’s heat coursed through her, warming her from the inside out. “I’m okay.” Was she? The words felt strange as they left her lips. She’d spent the last two months wrestling for control over her own body, her own mind. She’d killed people and almost been erased entirely. The people she loved felt as far away as ever, and there was a voice in her mind telling her she had to kill the emperor her sister had loved.
No, she was most definitely not okay.
Someone knocked, and she opened the door, moving aside for two servants to enter. One carried a tray of food like they’d brought to Luca. The other set down a bucket of water with a cloth hanging over the side. “I’m sorry, Taitai.” The servant bowed as she issued the term of respect. “We do not have wash tubs here.”
“This will do.” Hua’s voice was small, quiet from disuse.
The servants started a fire in the hearth before leaving Hua and Jian alone once more. Hua wasn’t sure what to do or how to act.
She hadn’t been alone with Jian—while she was in control—since that night at Prince Dequan’s estate where they looked to the stars for answers, for hope.
A part of her still felt like the incompetent soldier who’d shown up at his camp, hiding her identity. And he was her intimidating commander.
A hiss passed Jian’s lips as he shifted, and their past fell away. They were no longer those people. Hua rushed toward him, taking in the injuries she’d almost forgotten about. “The Nagi hurt you.”
“I’m okay,” he wheezed. That word was just as wrong as when she’d said it only moments ago.
“Sir, we can’t know that until we look at the wounds.”
“Sir.” He grunted. “I know you too well for you to call me sir, Hua. I sat by your bed for weeks on end after the battle of Kanyuan. Your family became mine. I watched you and tracked you for months. But you don’t remember any of that, do you?” He sighed. “You don’t know me at all.”
She wished she could tell him he was wrong, but she only knew him as her commander, the man riding at her side into battle. There was something bonding in that, but it was nothing to the look in his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
He shifted his eyes away. “It is no fault of yours.”
It didn’t mean she didn’t care for him. She hadn’t stopped thinking of him since the first time he challenged her during training, the first time he treated her like she was capable. He’d believed in her, trusted her.
Reaching out slowly, she felt the cut in his robe. Blood soaked the
fabric. “You need to take this off.”
His eyes locked on hers, and she couldn’t move. In the recesses of her mind, she felt the Nagi squirm, trying to break free, but she held it back, not wanting to leave Jian again, not wanting to let him down. It took every ounce of strength to stay here with Jian, but she’d give everything she had to fight the Nagi.
With a simple nod, he reached for the bottom of his robe and slid it up. Hua moved closer to help him as his face twisted in pain. Each movement revealed more smooth skin until she yanked it over his head, leaving him in only his silk pants.
Muscles rippled in his chest, creating dips and valleys she wanted to run a hand over, to feel the strength underneath his skin.
Kneeling beside his chair, she dragged over the bucket and dipped the cloth in it. “I’m sorry I did this to you.” She dabbed the cloth against the wound in his side.
“It wasn’t you.” He clenched his teeth. “You might not know me like I know you, but I don’t believe you’d ever do this to me.”
The cloth froze against his skin as she lifted her eyes. “Jian, I do not remember your time at my home, but everything else is still fresh in my mind.” She returned her attention to cleaning the wound. “Only you could have helped me regain control.”
His hand reached down and grabbed her wrist. “Why me?”
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she finished cleaning the wound before methodically cutting a bandage from the bottom of his robe. Getting to her feet, she gestured for him to do the same. She wrapped the silk bandage around his torso a few times and tied it as tightly as she could. “It’s only temporary. You should go see the healer in the morning.”
He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head back so she looked at him. “Hua?”
She swallowed. “Do not ask questions that will do us no good to answer.”
“Why me?”
She held back the Nagi’s incessant drumming in her mind. It was a constant reminder that whatever time Hua had was temporary. Soon, she’d lose control once again, and the ones closest to her would pay. The Nagi had already nearly killed both Jian and Luca.
“It’s not important.” Her breathing slowed.
Jian’s gaze hardened, and he stepped back. “Thank you for cleaning my wound.”
Hua nodded. “You’re welcome, sir.”
“You should rest. Tomorrow, I will bring you to your family.”
Fear snapped through her, and she stumbled back, shaking her head. She couldn’t go anywhere near her family, not with the Nagi living inside her. They’d never be safe from her.
“I would never hurt the blooded, Hua.” The Nagi whispered in her mind.
“I don’t trust you.”
“They are my family too.”
Those words filtered through Hua, bringing her anger simmering to the surface. “No,” she shouted. “They’re not.” She scrambled away from Jian and his sympathetic eyes.
“What’s not?” Concern entered his gaze.
“They don’t belong to it.” Her family descended from the last dragons as were all dragon-blooded in Piao and Koulland, but that is where their affiliation ceased. Hua would not let her family have any connection to the enemy inside her.
“I am not the enemy, Hua.”
Hua gripped the sides of her head as tears sprang to her eyes. “Get out of my head.”
“I can’t. I am you. You are me. We are together in this.”
“No!” Hua lunged for the knife that had been discarded on the table. Her fingers fumbled for the hilt, and she lifted it to her neck. “I don’t belong to you. I could slice through my neck right now, and you’d die. You. Can’t. Stop. Me.”
“Hua.” Jian tried to reach for her, but she sidestepped him. “Think of what you do.”
“I know exactly what I do.” Her eyes begged him to stay back, to let her choose her own fate.
“Hua Minglan.” The Nagi’s screams echoed in her mind. “Lower that knife.”
Her eyes met Jian’s. “It’s scared. I can feel the fear coursing through my veins. The Nagi let’s arrows bounce off her. She walks through fire. But nothing is invulnerable.” She pressed the blade hard enough against her skin to draw blood and satisfaction rolled through her. “You see that? Blood. The neck is the most vulnerable part of any creature.” She lowered the knife to her arm, drawing it across her skin, a line of red following in its wake. Yet, she felt no pain.
“Hua!” The Nagi demanded she listen, that she obey.
But Hua Minglan was done listening.
Now, she was in control.
Jian held up a hand, begging her to stop.
She shook her head, letting her tears fall free. “If I die, this will be over. Your brother will be safe. Piao will be safe.”
“This isn’t you, Hua.” Jian’s eyes glassed over. “Please.”
“You don’t know me.”
His gaze softened. “The day Huan Minglan appeared at my camp, my life changed. I didn’t realize it then.” He stepped forward. “He was strong and determined, the best warrior I had.”
“No, he wasn’t.” She sniffed, not lowering the knife.
He took another step. “He was. Not the most skilled, but he had the kind of bravery I can’t teach. And now I know why. Huan Minglan was a woman, and not just any woman, one fighting battles in her own heart.”
“I can’t stop her.” Hua blinked away more tears. “The Nagi is going to destroy everything.”
Another step. “I have spent months searching for the woman who saved me from a battlefield in Kanyuan.” He stopped in front of her but didn’t take the knife. “You’ve saved me time and again. This time I wanted to save you.”
“You can’t.”
“I know.” His gaze latched onto hers. “You have to save yourself.”
“This is how I do that. I won’t ever be free, Jian. Not until the next life. At least let me protect everyone I love.”
“I didn’t travel all the way into Koulland searching for you only to lose you again.”
Her mind barely registered his words. He’d gone into Koulland for her? Her grip on the knife weakened.
“Listen to him, Hua,” the Nagi crooned.
Hua’s fingers flexed around the hilt. This was what the Nagi wanted, for her to lose sight of the real issue. She’d come to Dasha to kill the emperor.
The man Luna had sworn her life to, her heart.
The man Jian loved with his whole being.
“I have to stop it,” she whispered.
Jian’s hand closed over hers, forcing the knife down. “And we will. We’ll find a way, Hua. Together.”
She stared into his dark eyes, losing herself in their fathomless depths. Their breathing struck a rhythm as they remained locked in a trance, as they held the knife in both their hands.
Jian was wrong. They wouldn’t find a way. But she could. A plan formed in her mind, one that would take her from the man she couldn’t imagine leaving behind. If this was her last night in this life, she needed to make it count.
Reaching up on her toes, she crashed her lips to his for what could be both her first and last kiss. The knife slid from their grasp, clattering to the floor as his hands wound through her hair.
Hua slid her palms up the ridges of his chest, feeling the muscles flex beneath her fingers. He walked them backward toward the bed, not taking his lips from hers. He consumed her, everything she was, everything she could have been.
At least she would live on in this memory forever.
She pushed him back onto the bed, and he sank down, wincing as his side stretched. Careful to avoid his wound, Hua hovered over him, her hair hanging down around them.
He kissed her like they’d do this for the rest of their lives.
She kissed him like it was the end.
Hua pulled her robe over her head and tossed it aside. The moment her skin touched his, warmth spread through her.
“Hua,” Jian whispered. “Why do I feel like you’re telling me goo
dbye?”
She answered him with a kiss, letting him interpret that as he would. It was a moment she’d yearned for since first meeting the stern commander, one she’d never dreamed would become her life.
But this wasn’t her life. It now belonged to the beast inside her.
All Hua had were moments like this, fragments of a life she could have lived.
Tears dampened their kiss, and she rolled onto her side, pressing herself to him as tightly as she could. His arm wound around her waist, refusing to let go.
“Is this okay?” Jian asked, dragging his lips down over her collarbone.
More than okay. If she was going to die tomorrow, she’d still feel the touch of his lips as she left this life.
“If I have to suffer in life before reaching Nirvana.” She lifted his chin so their gazes connected. “I want one night of joy.”
Samsura wouldn’t defeat her. This life, the Nagi, was only one more cycle of the suffering she had to endure before reaching final peace.
“Hua.” He pulled her lips back to his because there was nothing else he could say. “I love you.” Except that.
She averted her eyes, blinking away tears. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
Because it made it that much harder to do what she needed to. “You can’t love me.”
“There was a moment when we were looking at the stars on that rooftop. You looked at me and I could see a future I’d never envisioned before, one beyond wars.”
She closed her eyes. “That’s the problem, Jian. I am war. I am blood and death. I am fire. You cannot love me because that love will be the end of you.” She rolled away from him and reached for her robe, shrugging it over her head.
Jian looked at her with such pain in his eyes, like she’d taken the sun from his world. “You can’t make me stop loving you.”
She nodded, a tear dripping from her nose. “I know. But I can keep myself from loving you back.” Even as she said the words, pain shattered through her heart. Loving Jian had never been a choice, and neither was walking away from him.
She couldn’t meet his tortured gaze as she slipped from the bed. “You need rest. I’m going to check on Luca.”