Present

Shyong San Koida tossed and turned, trying to escape the paralyzing gaze of insane purple eyes. A deep black evil full of fury and hatred blurred across the feasting hall straight for her.

Murderess! it screamed in her sister’s voice, chopping down nobles and court officials on either side, Dual Swords glowing like burning blood. Die, murderess!

Koida couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. The best she could manage was a strangled moan.

Why weren’t the nobles running or trying to protect themselves? They just stood there and nodded as the purple-eyed blackness sliced them in half.

Murderess!

They nodded. The blackness slaughtered its way closer.

Koida stayed rooted to the spot, tears spilling down her cheeks in her terror. It was going to kill her, chop her apart, and she couldn’t even scream.

In a strangely lucid moment amidst the haze of nightmare, Koida felt the skin down the back of her neck crawl. She clawed at it, trying to scratch away whatever bug or spider was climbing on her, but her fingers fell instead on a scaly rope of muscle about as wide as her smallest finger.

The rope hissed.

Koida screamed, ripping the snake from her neck and flinging it across the clearing, nearly landing it in the embers of the previous night’s fire.

A thin adder of purest white, no longer than her hand, coiled tightly on the grass and put its back against a rock from their firepit. The tiny serpent hissed, its mouth open wide to reveal bright blue insides and disproportionately long fangs. It tucked its blunted arrowhead skull back against its spine, preparing to strike.

With a thump, a burled steel dagger pinned the creature’s head to the earth. Its tail whipped and writhed.

“Glass moon serpent,” Lysander said, rolling over to face Koida and the adder. He jerked his dagger from the ground, pulling the impaled reptile with it. “They’re drawn to strong emotion the way plants follow sunlight. If they weren’t so rare nowadays, you’d probably be covered in them.”

With more care than Koida would have thought the drunken foreigner could summon, Lysander used his thumb and first two fingers to squeeze the serpent’s mouth together and slide it off the blade. The creature’s head was cleanly sliced in half down the center. Inside, Koida could see the tiny compartments of its skull and all their contents. Its split brain was a pale gray-blue and pulsing gently. The two halves of its divided tongue slipped out of its jaws simultaneously, then dipped back inside and disappeared up into its sensory pits. She hadn’t realized before, but in the dim predawn light, the creature was giving off the faintest glow of pearlescent white.

Koida shivered and snuggled tighter to Pernicious’s comforting side, eliciting a grumble from him. Sometime during the night, the half-demon destrier had activated his Burning Heartcenter ability to keep them both warm. Lying down, Pernicious was nearly waist-high to a grown man at the withers, and that wall of horseflesh gave off heat like an overfilled hearth, but it wasn’t quite enough to rid her of the feeling of scales sliding across the back of her neck.

“How long will it stay alive?” she asked, both disgusted and fascinated.

Lysander shrugged, digging a wooden puzzle box from his sturdy traveling jacket. He opened it so deftly that she couldn’t tell how he had done it.

“It’s a demon beast, so I imagine it’ll heal itself with time,” he said.

“You called it a glass moon serpent?”

Lysander nodded. “Mostly valueless as demon beasts go. See?” He held the little adder out to Pernicious, but the bloodthirsty warhorse just snorted and shook out his mane. “Your mount can’t even be bothered to kill it. But they were hugely popular among assassins before the inji.”

“He likes prey that can fight back,” Koida replied absently. “Why were these so popular?”

“A soldier or an amateur assassin might flinch away from killing the first couple of times.” As he spoke, Lysander carefully coiled the adder into the puzzle box. It tried to strike him when he let go, but the right side of the head and the left seemed unable to agree. One went for his fingers, the other for the back of his hand, each pulling the other short of its target. “In fact, they might never develop a taste for it—especially not if they ever had to kill one of their close friends or loved ones. But the venom of a glass moon serpent kills all pain, physical and emotional. A soldier with that in his veins could fight on in spite of grievous injury, keep going until his legs were hacked out from under him. An assassin full of glass moon venom could take any life without a second thought and numb any remorse or grief that hounded them.”

“A bite from that little worm could do all that?” Koida watched the foreigner slide the pieces of the puzzle box back together, shutting the tiny demon serpent inside. Being numb sounded preferable to what she was feeling now. That nightmare had twisted the dagger in her still-open wounds and left her heart bleeding and broken.

Lysander disappeared the box into his jacket.

“It’s not a good path to start down,” he said. “Especially not for a princess who’s running for her life.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to try it,” she snapped. “And you really should speak up to me. I outrank you.”

“I don’t have a rank, princess, therefore no one outranks me.”

“Second princess,” she corrected him.

“Not anymore.”

Koida frowned. Lysander stared flatly at her. The silence in the clearing grew especially loud, and for the first time since waking, Koida realized Hush was missing. On the opposite side of the fire, a matted place in the grass indicated where the mute woman had slept.

She had probably gone off to take care of morning necessities. Koida needed to do the same, but she didn’t want to go until Hush was back.

She watched Lysander shake out the cloak he’d slept on.

“You said the glass moon venom was in high demand before the inji?” she asked.

“Inji are professionals trained from birth for killing,” he said, throwing the cloak around his shoulders and fastening it. “They feel nothing because they are nothing. They don’t need glass moon venom.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I tried to hire one to kill the annoying brat Raijin asked me to drag to safety.” Lysander dug the ivory flask from inside his cloak and took a deep drink. His mood was like a hand physically shoving her away. If she had been standing, Koida thought she would have taken a step back.

Perhaps Lysander was unused to waking so early. She doubted anyone who drank as much as he did would care for daybreak. Shingti had been proud of the fact that she could spend all night drinking and still rise early for battle, but Batsai had claimed it was a skill that diminished with age. Shingti had been only twenty-two years old. Koida had no other foreigners to compare to, but Lysander looked at least twice that.

After a handful of heartbeats, the urge to ask one more question got the better of her in spite of Lysander’s scowl.

“If glass moon serpents are worthless now, why are you keeping that one?”

Lysander sighed. “You really are a spoiled little princess. Well, here’s a lesson in life outside the castle, kid—answers, hot baths, subservience? They’re a luxury out here, and no amount of pouting or tantrums or endless questions will change that.”

Then he stuck an arm out to his side, pointing one blunt finger at the forest without looking. “Don’t lecture me, Hush. It’s too early. Let’s just break camp and get out of here.”

A moment later, Hush melted out of the thin shadows. The white of the wrappings covering her nose and mouth stood out in the gray morning light. In one hand, she carried a kerchief heavy with some unknown item.

Hush sent one final disapproving glance Lysander’s way, then went to Koida, kneeling beside her. Hush lifted up Koida’s hands, encouraging her to cup them together, then dropped a corner of the kerchief and poured vibrant purple berries into them.

“Gratitude,” Koida said, dipping her head politely, though food was the last thing she wanted. An awful yearning to be home again in the Sun Palace with her father, sister, and Batsai festered in the empty space between her throat and her navel.

Hush nodded, then stood and crossed the camp to give Lysander his share.

“You have them.” He lifted his flask. “I’m drinking breakfast today.”

Koida forced herself to eat, chewing and swallowing the berries woodenly. She may not feel hungry, but she needed the strength to continue training. Without that, she would remain as helpless as she’d been in the nightmare, as helpless as she had been at the feast.

While she ate, Koida turned her focus inward to her heartcenter. Her Ro—a cloud of amethyst surrounded by rings of pure, dense lilac—and Raijin’s deep jade pool shot through with flickering streaks of lightning circled one another like demon-baiting hounds preparing for the attack.

Unlike Hush and Lysander, Koida was certain that her betrothed still lived, and so it only stood to reason that Raijin must have wanted her to keep his Ro safe until he could reclaim it. However, she was unsure what that required of her in the meantime. Should she exercise it in resting meditation, as he had taught her to do with her own? Or was it safer to keep Raijin’s Ro hidden away like the glass moon serpent in Lysander’s puzzle box?

“Kid,” Lysander’s voice cut through her internal inspection. “Finish your berries and let’s ride. I’d like to be safe within Uktena territory in time for supper and a soft bed.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s one of the luxuries I forgot to mention earlier, so take it where you can get it.”

Koida tossed back the rest of her handful, forcing the lumpy mash through a tight throat. Plenty of nights she had gone out riding and fallen asleep far from the bed in her safe, warm room, never once considering what she was taking for granted. Now that she knew she could never go back, she would have given her throne for one more night tucked safely beneath the softest demon beast furs in the empire.

“First, I have to… I will return in a moment,” she said, face burning. “Then we may leave.”

Lysander was thankfully not crude enough to remark.

When Koida came back to the clearing, the fire was buried in wet sand from the nearby riverbank, and the royal horses they had stolen were saddled.

Pernicious, in stark contrast, lazed in the grass right where she’d left him. A good indication of the sort of day the half-demon was preparing for.

Koida sighed and braced herself for the fight to mount up.

Before she and the half-demon warhorse could begin their ritual combat of wills, however, Hush touched her arm. The silent woman gestured from Pernicious to Lysander, who was in the saddle of his stolen roan.

Koida’s brows came together in confusion. “You want me to let Lysander ride him? It’s not safe. Pernicious decapitated the last person who tried.”

Hush shook her head, then held up the reins to her own chestnut mount and handed them to Lysander. Hush jerked her cloth-covered chin toward the trees as if to tell him to leave.

“I’ll go,” Lysander said, “but don’t expect me to come back and pick the baby up when she sits down and cries about her delicate feet.”

Koida scowled.

With that, he nudged his horse into a quick trot, Hush’s mount running along beside as they disappeared into the forest.

“I hope he knows I don’t care for him, either,” Koida said.

At her side, Hush’s eyes crinkled in a hidden smile. The silent woman gestured first to Pernicious, then after Lysander, urging Koida to action.

“You want me to send Pernicious after him?” she asked. A cold finger of fear pierced her heartcenter. She took a step backward and wound her hand in the warhorse’s midnight mane. “No. I can’t.”

She felt her eyes widen with panic and her heart thud against the wall of her chest. She knew it was silly, but she couldn’t let the half-demon out of her sight. She had already lost her family, her home, and her betrothed. Pernicious was the last bit of familiarity she had to hold onto.

Hush raised her hands palm out to show that she wasn’t trying to hurt Koida, her dark almond eyes soft with understanding. The silent woman jogged a few steps toward the trees. At the edge of the clearing she stopped and beckoned for Koida to follow.

“On foot?” Koida asked.

Hush nodded.

It was to be part of her training, then. Strengthening her body by running.

Hush had agreed to instruct Koida on the Path of the Thunderbird in Raijin’s stead. Koida knew she should kneel and acknowledge that Hush was her new master, but she couldn’t justify such an action when she was certain Raijin was still alive and would eventually return to teaching her. She compromised, pressing a flat palm to her fist and bowing deeply to Hush to recognize the woman’s superior rank in this Path.

“Gratitude for the opportunity to train under you, Master Hush.”

Hush gracefully returned the bow, then ran into the forest.

Koida turned to Pernicious.

“Try to keep up,” she said, then ran after Hush.

Behind her, the half-demon warhorse whinnied with disdain. In moments, he had galloped to her side, his brimstone hooves striking sparks whenever they clipped a stone. He made a show of slowing his pace to match hers.

“I’m sure the Uktena would be happy to feed you to their children,” Koida huffed at the smug beast, though in truth, she wasn’t certain at all what the savages of the lower reaches were like. The story in the empire was that they ate wanderers who strayed too close to their encampments.

But she needed allies if she hoped to survive long enough to make Yoichi pay for what he’d taken from her. Compared to her thirst for vengeance, her fear of the savages was small.

Koida lowered her head and sprinted.