Chapter Eighteen: Some Other Girl I would Never Want to Be

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SOME OTHER GIRL I WOULD NEVER WANT TO BE

After the last rays of sunlight shrink beneath the Great Wall, Sima Yi and the soldiers escort me back to Li Shimin’s cell via shuttle and then shove me in by myself.

“Be ready same time tomorrow morning!” Sima Yi says with no remaining patience before slamming the door. The crash reverberates through the walls, shaking off flakes of debris.

I swear he almost had a stroke when he finally came back to the cafeteria in fresh robes. After yelling his head off about how he was “gone for less than ten minutes!” and how much of a “nightmare couple!” we are, he managed to get Li Shimin’s penalty reduced from three days in solitary confinement to just one, citing “special circumstances.”

Sighing heavily, I collapse onto the bed. My hand scrunches the cold, coarse sheets. Concrete looms in every direction. As the silence stretches, it creeps in around me, squeezing my heart with a pang of fear.

I immediately get up to find something to do.

This is absurd. I should be relieved to not be locked up with Li Shimin again, not unnerved.

In the lavatory, the girl things under the sink look different now that I know he once had a partner.

During my solo lessons through the afternoon, while Sima Yi filled me in on details about Hunduns, Chrysalises, and qi, I pried for more intel on this girl. All Sima Yi would say was that her name was Wende, and she was powerful enough to have initially activated the Vermilion Bird with Li Shimin out of a rare King-class Hundun husk, but she didn’t survive their first real battle.

After scrubbing the layers of makeup off my face, I rummage out the bag of painkilling herbs that belonged to her.

The lavatory door creaks.

My spine whips straight. I glance over my shoulder. The lavatory doorway’s emptiness seems to warp, pulling at me.

But I shake off the fright as quickly as it came. If this girl has the ability to haunt the living, I sincerely hope she’s not wasting that energy on me.

“Girl, go somewhere else,” I say out loud, weary. “Go kill anyone else.”

Silence.

“Help me,” I mutter.

Nothing responds.

Duh. If dead concubine-pilots had any power, the army would be decimated by now.

Or maybe those girls are trying. Maybe they’ve reincarnated into Hunduns. That’s an unsettling thought—

A pounding booms against the bunker door.

My spirit almost scrambles out of my body. I keep still, braced at the sink, heart hammering.

A voice shouts something, but I can’t make out the words.

When I don’t respond, another bout of knocks comes, increasing in urgency. And so does the voice, but I still can’t understand it.

“What?” I call out.

More knocks. More unintelligible shouts.

My zapped nerves coil with frustration. Does this person not know I can’t open the door from the inside?

“What is it?” I leave the herbs on the sink and head to the door. “I can’t—”

The lock grinds. The door’s hurled open.

A hooded man barges in.

As I cry out in shock, he pulls a bag over my head.

I scream and fight back with every bit of strength I can muster, but he smashes my face into the wall. Pain explodes across my cheek. A sharp tone rings through my head.

Still, I bolt for the door. I need to get out and shut it. Then he won’t be able to—

A boot stomps on my foot.

Pain seizes me, frying my vision black. I collapse into his arms. He flings me to the bed and straddles me, his weight trapping my hips. His hands come crushing down on my windpipe.

Stars flood my obscured vision. Pressure surges into my head, seeming to compress my blood right against my face. I scratch and claw at his arms, but it does nothing.

“This is for Colonel Yang,” comes his muffled, hissing voice.

It’s Xing Tian, pilot of the Headless Warrior. He’s come to avenge his friend.

I writhe uselessly against him. My legs, dangling off the bed, kick at nothing. Tears burn my eyes. This is not how I want to die. This can’t be—!

“Get away from her! Now!”

Every raging stream of my blood stops moving at the voice.

Footsteps storm in. The pressure around my throat loosens, and I draw a huge breath. The moment Xing Tian’s weight leaves my hips, I scramble wholly onto the bed. A brawl erupts between him and the newcomer. Shouts rebound through the tiny space. Fingers trembling on an unreal level, I rip the hood from my head.

Xing Tian is scurrying out the door. The person left in the bunker with me, panting, covering one eye, wearing blue-gray robes and the folded black hat of a student strategist, is Yizhi.