Chapter Forty-Three To Deceive Heaven

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

TO DECEIVE HEAVEN

When I burst out of Sima Yi’s door, I hear Qin Zheng bounding down the balcony stairs, wood creaking under his raging steps.

I check Yizhi’s office, right beside Sima Yi’s. Empty.

Scythe in hand, I race to the stairway at the other end of the building while feeling for Yizhi’s spirit signature, more familiar than every other one in the palace. He’s somewhere on the premises. I nearly trip down the stairs on my way to the ground floor. The soldiers guarding the entrance startle when I barrel out into the sunset and swivel in Yizhi’s direction.

How could he have done this?

It’s been nearly six months since the coronation. Nearly half a year, he’s kept Qin Zheng prisoner with a lie .

If Qin Zheng catches Yizhi, he won’t make the death quick.

I dash into a roofed walkway beside a pond blazing orange under the sinking sun. Qin Zheng’s crushing spirit signature pulses behind me, closing in faster than I can move. The clanging of his armor sharpens in my ears.

“Get out of my way!” he bellows.

I spin around, pointing my scythe at him.

He skids to a stop, chest heaving, shallow breaths hissing through his teeth. He holds his sword at the ready, and his bead crown has transformed into an antlered helmet. His feral gaze sears a path from my scythe blade to my face. Every hair on my body rises at the sight of him free from his cage. My stomach turns when I remember pulling this suit of armor off of Di Renjie’s corpse in order to return it to Qin Zheng.

“You wish to fight me?” He gives a clipped laugh, cold as the temperature dropping around him. In his eyes, pitch-black with Water qì, seethes a wrath that destroyed six nations and burned down the world not once, but twice, across two centuries.

I say nothing. I stand no chance against him. I’m qì-exhausted. I can’t wield spirit metal the way he can. I’ve never beaten him in a single fight in our dream training.

I can’t let him get to Yizhi.

Qin Zheng advances through the staggered shadows of the wooden columns supporting the walkway’s roof, dragging his sword across the stone floor with a shrill noise that rings in my teeth. It takes every bit of willpower in me to not back away.

“Step aside,” he says, his voice like simmering tar. “I would truly rather not hurt you.”

He flings his sword at me. It morphs into a long whip of spirit metal that lashes around my scythe blade. I see it coming and channel the dregs of my Earth qì to hold the shape of my armor and weapon.

His face twitches in surprise when nothing on me budges, but he yanks me in by my ensnared scythe, Fire qì surging red through his meridians. I don’t let go quickly enough and end up stumbling into his range. His hand darts to my throat as my scythe clatters to the ground. His combat lessons and the moves I practiced with Qieluo flash through my mind. I twist to smash my forearms into his elbow before he can slam me against a column. The instant I spin free, I detach the sword on my hip and slash it at his head on his scarred side, where his vision is worse. He bends backward to dodge it, fury surging in his eyes.

Yizhi’s spirit signature approaches.

“Yizhi, he knows !” I croak over my shoulder.

He halts, far down the walkway. After a split second, he drops a bundle of papers and bolts in the other direction, rounding a corner hugging the pond. Qin Zheng rams me aside and chases after him.

“No!” I grasp at Qin Zheng, but he throws himself over the walkway railing. The moment his armor boots touch the pond, ice detonates over the surface with a loud crackle. The frozen path expands beneath his every step, letting him cut across the water.

I decide after two seconds of shock to keep taking the long way. This is not the time to brave the odds of slipping and drowning.

As Qin Zheng vaults into the branch of the walkway Yizhi is sprinting through, Yizhi tosses a pair of spheres out of his robes. Thick white smoke explodes when they hit the ground. Qin Zheng charges through it—then his arms start twitching.

“What—” He hardly has a chance to look at his hands before the spasms spread through his body. His legs wobble and buckle. He topples in a loud crash of metal on stone.

More white smoke hisses out of the spheres, building into a fog that reaches me past the walkway corner, faster than I can back off. A potent chemical smell stabs into my nostrils. My muscles lock up and convulse. I’m helpless to save myself from collapsing into a twitching heap, like Qin Zheng.

Out of the fog comes Yizhi, his face obscured by a monstrous breathing mask with black lenses at the eyes and multiple attachments near the mouth. Parting the smoke with a dagger, he crouches in front of Qin Zheng. He jerks Qin Zheng’s head up by his chin and puts his blade to Qin Zheng’s throat.

Don’t! I want to shout, yet I can’t make any sound louder than a wheeze. I can barely keep my eyes open, and I can’t feel any control over my qì. Qin Zheng’s face reflects in Yizhi’s mask lenses, his expression twisted with rage but his eyes blown wide. I have never seen him show fear like that.

Yizhi presses his dagger against Qin Zheng’s neck, piercing skin. Blood trickles down his pale throat.

I stop breathing.

Yizhi can’t do this. Not when we need Qin Zheng to take down the gods.

Yet, if I were free of Qin Zheng…

A tremor goes through Yizhi’s arms. I wonder if Qin Zheng can see Yizhi’s eyes behind those dark mask lenses, if he’s finally, finally gazing into the truth of what goes on in Yizhi’s head. I certainly have no idea. I don’t think I ever did.

Sounds of shouting and running rise behind us. Yizhi glances up, then leans so close to Qin Zheng that his mask almost touches Qin Zheng’s face.

“Remember why I spared you,” Yizhi says, his voice low and distorted. “ Remember this .”

He shoves Qin Zheng aside by the jaw and springs to his feet.

“End the terror.” Yizhi points his dagger. “Blame it all on me.”

Before he vanishes into the smoke, I swear he looks back at me. But with the smoke’s effects dragging my mind into darkness, I’m not sure of anything anymore.