Chapter Fourteen—Purple Kuschelia

Nearly taking the Black Cobra’s blade in his chest, Shiro was forced to lunge backward.

Both men paused.

Behind, Jessamine breathed heavily, a look of sheer anger and frustration, but mostly of fear on her face as her chest heaved heavily. Her hair was plastered to her face, her dress completely soaked through from the rain.

“Shiro…” she said weakly.

He was ready to die now. Their blades would cross, and it would end. He was about to strike, his muscles tensing, when Jessamine screamed.

“STOP!”

“We surrender.”

“Nani?!”

The Black Cobra didn’t move, didn’t glance back. He probably suspected some kind of trick from either her or Shiro.

“Yes…” Jessamine continued, her shoulder slumped. She came forward toward Shiro’s side and took his face in her hands. “It’s over.”

“Iie!”

“Give him the bag, Shiro.”

He shook his head. “No! I can’t leave you with him,” he said in a hissed whisper.

There is no point in you dying here, she conveyed.

“No!” he said firmly. “I won’t do it. I won’t give in to this…”—he gestured to the Black Cobra, his eyes flicking from hers to the adventurer four strides behind her—“…this mercenary!”

“You can come back for me, Shiro,” she said, her voice pleading. “Do it. For me.”

He ground his teeth together and screamed.

“Shiro…”

She put her forehead to his.

“Give him. The bag.”

Shaking with pure anger, he knew that she was right. Nothing could come of him dying only because he refused to give it over.

If he gave her up, he still had a chance.

He slung the bag off his shoulder and dropped it into his hand. The weight of her lamp and his other things was substantial, but not heavy.

She stepped aside and Shiro slung the bag to the Black Cobra in a contemptuous underhanded throw.

He caught it with one hand, his eyes not leaving Shiro’s.

The Black Cobra didn’t need reassurance about the item in the bag—the very same item the disgraced vizier Faridoon was so eager to spend the majority of his remaining fortune to get.

Unless this Shiro Takeda and the mage woman who accompanied him were the best actors he had ever seen, the item in question was here.

Shiro snarled as the Black Cobra looked at him with his pale blue snake eyes, a subtle smirk touching his lips.

He walked forward casually and passed Shiro and Jessamine.

Without a reason to attack them, and unable to defend themselves had he decided to, they didn’t even react to his passing by.

“No,” Shiro muttered, shaking his head.

“Goodbye, Shiro.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry.”

She backed away from him.

“NO!” he screamed, his grip on his sword tightening so hard his knuckles must have gone white.

“Don’t!” she commanded, her eyes widening.

Shiro screamed.

Then he turned around and lunged at the Black Cobra.

Jessamine watched in horror as their blades flashed, Shiro screaming as the two adventurer’s feat moved about in a complex dance as their steal flashed in the rain.

And then—before it had hardly begun—it was over.

Shiro felt the knick of the Black Cobra’s blade. It wasn’t deep, but his muscles went taut. He recovered, limping back from the blow.

“Shiro stop!” Jessamine begged. “Please!”

Breathing heavily, blood running from his upper arm, there was no way he could defeat the Black Cobra now, not with all the help of the gods and a bonded jinni at his side.

He blinked, feeling he had caught something viscous in his eyes.

The Black Cobra lowered his blade. “It’s the poison,” he said.

“What?” Shiro said.

“It’s coursing through your veins as we speak.”

“No…” Jessamine said weakly.

“You’ll be dead in moments.”

As he said the words, Shiro’s vision blurred slightly. Jessamine ran to him, put her hands on his body.

He could feel the warmth of her healing touch.

And then his legs gave out.

Shiro sunk to his knees.

“It’s not working,” she said. “The poison. It’s too strong!”

“From the Purple Kuschelia Flower,” the Black Cobra said in way of explanation. “Goodbye adventurer. Your struggle was… honorable.”

He turned and strode out of the alley.

It was over. Jessamine’s image seemed to stretch and sway.

“No!” Jessamine said, taking his hands in hers. “Shiro, there must be someone you can go to for help, somewhere?”

He looked at her, saying nothing as his heart started racing, his vision blurring. He was feeling hot. Too hot. His skin was on fire!

“Think, Shiro!” she cried. “I can’t—I can’t stay much longer.”

“Jessa—Jessamine…”

“Shiro!”

“I can’t…”

“NO!”

“Jessamine…”

“SHIRO!”

Jessamine’s touch disappeared as she dissolved into a plume of blue smoke, her scream lingering in the air for just a moment, leaving Shiro on his knees, his hands outstretched, clasping the air.

Thunder cracked and travelled through the sky. And then he fell to the cold wet cobblestones.

All went black.