‘Deep breaths,’ Syà whispered.
Her hand touched his, steadying his grip.
He inhaled deeply and let it escape. Slowly. Tracking the approaching silhouette, he found his aim. A fiery blaze crashed down into the center of the garden. For a fragment of a second, it lit the garden brilliantly.
He saw the archer.
The archer saw him, and shifted his aim.
Zhu released the arrow.
The arrow struck the archer. Along with its small payload of gunpowder. It exploded across his face with a satisfying pop and he slumped to the ground. Zhu didn’t hear him fall. It was so sudden and quick he wasn’t sure any of it actually happened.
He scanned the courtyard, his pulse overpowering all other sounds. There was no one else. They were safe in shadow.
He looked down to see Syà pry an arrow from her leg. Her silk undergarment had stretched without tearing to cover the arrowhead as it penetrated her skin. She removed the barbed arrow cleanly and wrapped a ribbon of cloth over the wound. Zhu realized she’d already done the same with the arrow in her arm, forcing her to swap her saber to her left hand.
The Imperial Garden looked empty now.
‘The meteor fragment,’ he said. ‘It drove the Mongol soldiers into retreat.’
‘No.’ Syà shook her head. ‘It’s a feigned retreat. One of their most effective tactics. They’ll lure the soldiers out of the gate. Then they’ll rush in from both rear quarters, cut off their retreat and eliminate them.’
‘OK, so we’re not going out there.’ He helped Syà to her feet.
‘No, we’re not.’
She seemed able to walk, but not fast. She directed him into the building and along the main hall. It was large enough to be a palace in its own right, with dizzyingly high ceilings and passageways wide enough to race horses, most of it swathed in shadow, rarely used and sparsely lit. He knew the way, but he let her give directions. It would help keep her focus off her wounds.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘For what?’ she asked, limping slightly. ‘Take a left here.’
He followed her direction, leading them through to a wide passage.
‘I’m the reason you’re hurt,’ he said.
‘No, the Phoenix is the reason I’m hurt.’
He walked two paces in front of her, his bow in both hands. Unlike Syà and her saber, he wasn’t covered in the blood of Mongol soldiers. But he had killed someone, and that felt strange.
He could hear her drawn breaths behind him.
‘You’ve been in the emperor’s service for some time,’ she said. ‘Before the Phoenix, why did he need you?’
‘I’m good at what I do.’
‘And what do you do for him?’
‘I give him elixirs for the plague. From the comets.’
‘Now that makes more sense,’ she said. ‘It’s wiped out more than half the population. Why don’t you share it with the common people?’
Zhu kept walking. He didn’t reply.
‘It doesn’t work, does it?’ she said.
‘I could never get it working and I—’
‘Still wanted to stay in the palace?’ she said. ‘Where it’s nice and safe and there’s food and water and no comet plague? Or at least if you could trick the emperor into thinking this, yes?’
‘The food served in the palace is like nothing else. Meat from animals and fowl,’ Zhu said. ‘The poor eat nothing but rice. And the plague takes them quickly.’
Syà laughed. ‘So you have the royalty fooled into thinking it’s your fancy elixirs keeping them alive when it’s nothing more than roast mutton and fried sparrow?’
Zhu shrugged. ‘Or the wine. The emperor drinks enough of it.’
‘Quite a charade you have going there,’ Syà said. ‘Shame it’s come crashing down.’
‘I lost my family to the plague,’ Zhu said. ‘Everyone except my brother. I’ve been trying to find a cure ever since. Then the emperor gave me a skystone to study. The skystone was from a mountain in Tibet. It was just the first, but it changed everything.’ He turned to her. ‘I thought comets brought us nothing but the plague. They were vile stars. But these are worse. I started to think of them as a gift. But now I understand they are destined for horrible things. If you knew what they could do …’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ she said.
Zhu drew to a halt in the center of an antechamber. ‘How do you know so much?’
She blinked but said nothing.
‘The secret tunnel you’re taking us to,’ he said. ‘The way you fought those soldiers. The Mongol’s feigned retreat. The skystone. My three elixirs. How can you know all of this?’
‘I know enough to help you,’ she said. ‘I know precisely what I need to know.’
Zhu found himself drawing an arrow. He was aiming it at her.
Her jade eyes burned. ‘We don’t have time for this. Once they realize you’re missing, they’ll comb the entire inner city. We don’t have long.’
‘You’re not the royal guard. And I’m not going into the tunnel with you until you tell me who you really are.’
‘You could ask without the bow,’ she said.
Zhu smiled. ‘The bow speeds things up.’
She sighed and lowered her saber until the tip rested on the ground.
‘I’m not of the dynasty,’ she said. ‘And I’m not of the Mongol empire.’
‘Then what are you of, Syà of the yet to be determined?’
‘The White Lotus.’
Zhu felt his stomach tighten. He drew his bow to match.
‘White Lotus,’ he said. ‘The one everyone’s calling a—’
‘Heretical cult? I’ve heard the stories too,’ she said. ‘Like the one with the sorceress for a leader who can command gods and demons. That’s my favorite.’
‘Your orders are to take the Phoenix skystone and my three elixirs,’ he said. ‘Not to destroy them. Why is that?’
‘It’s not my place to question orders,’ she said.
‘But it’s mine.’
She exhaled slowly, her face glistening with sweat. ‘It’s very simple, Zhu. We don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.’
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this: all hands are the wrong hands,’ he said. ‘You don’t even care about me. I’m not your mission. You don’t need me. You could get rid of me right now.’
Her saber moved fast, cutting the bottom of his bow and severing the wood. The tension on the arrow disappeared and the arrow dropped uselessly to the floor. He leapt backwards, clear of her blade.
Syà stood before him, strands of raven hair stuck to her face. But she didn’t strike again.
‘I don’t need you,’ she said. ‘I needed you to put everything in that satchel and then I was going to take it. Otherwise you would slow me down. Get me killed. Which you almost did.’
Zhu dropped the broken bow. ‘At least you’re honest.’
‘But then those soldiers breached the hallway and I couldn’t just leave you there. Not like that.’
‘I can’t stop you from taking this,’ Zhu said. ‘But if you do, I’m not going with you.’
Syà pointed the saber at Zhu’s chest. ‘Hand me the satchel.’
Zhu took the satchel from his shoulder. ‘It’s not too late.’
He dropped it on the floor, hoping the impact was hard enough to break the elixirs, but then remembered the sheaths he’d sewn to protect them.
Syà stepped forward, the tip of her saber pushing him back across the antechamber.
‘You could smash the elixirs on the floor,’ he said.
She reached down with her injured hand and picked up the satchel by its strap. He watched her search the bag, confirming the skystone pieces and the elixirs were inside.
‘You could drop the skystone into the ocean,’ he said.
He watched her wince as she pulled the strap over her shoulder.
‘And then it’s all over,’ he said.