Chapter Forty-Two: One Wing and One Eye

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

ONE WING AND ONE EYE

Awarping scream and a flapping of robes lacerate through the stunned haze in my mind. Yizhi plummets near me in a pale blur.

My own scream gathers into a determined howl. I lash my wings against the tunneling pull of air and gravity, turning toward him, hand grasping through the wind. My fingers graze his billowing sleeve, then snatch hold of his elbow. I tug him in. Our weights collide. It sends us both tumbling toward the smoke and fire below. My lungs wheeze flat as we spiral and spiral. I whip my wings relentlessly, seizing control of our momentum.

Finally, in jerks and bobbles, we slow down. I orient upright, buoyed by wing beats. The sea of fire roars up at us like a furnace, drenching me in sweat, filling the valley with smoke. It stings my eyes and chokes my lungs. Yizhi coughs violently in my arms. I hold him tighter while pumping my wings to get out of the smog.

Where’s Shimin? He must have ejected himself too, right? He must have.

Why would he stay?

I look for him, but the change in perspective is so extreme that I can hardly stand to open my eyes. The burning trees, once insubstantial as straw, now waver several times taller than me. Wildfire whooshes and howls behind them, the flashing yellow and roiling orange shading them into silhouettes, as if monsters grown large to condemn me for their plight. Temperatures ripple around us in visible currents, some gusts singeing hot and others freezing cold.

All thanks to the Black Tortoise.

When I raise my head and get my first good look at it, fear paralyzes me. In its biggest Heroic Form, it shifts like a living mountain, blotting out half the sky. Sun rays backlight it, scattering around its contour. The Bird slumps in its colossal arm.

But what shakes me to the core are the Tortoise’s eyes—one glows yellow with Zhu Yuanzhang’s Earth qi, and the other is black with Xiuying’s Water qi.

She is perfectly aware and in control of what they’re doing.

I forget how to move my armor wings. Yizhi and I pitch and fall. Fresh terror tears from our throats.

The misstep turns out to save our lives as the Tortoise’s free arm comes swinging by, missing us by a hairsbreadth. A torrential coldness shoves us toward the mountainside, curving the smoke blooming from it. I barely recover in time to avoid the firestorm.

But maybe it would’ve been better to let ourselves burn. Both smoke and tears prick at my eyes. The world makes no sense—why is Xiuying trying to kill us too? What did we ever do to her?

I flap away from the Tortoise with all my might and urgency, yet my qi is so depleted that even my heart pounds sluggishly.

Another blow comes. I feel the air churn before the impact. I thrash my armor wings so hard that spots flood my vision and blood dribbles from my nose, yet nothing I do is enough. We can’t avoid it. We’re just too small. It’s going to smash us into paste against the mountainside—

A low growl resonates through the valley. Creaking like a rusted machine, the Vermilion Bird flaps its one remaining wing and sinks its claws into the Tortoise, shredding it, dragging it back. One of the Bird’s eyes beams solid red again.

Looking over my shoulder, my jaw drops. Shimin is still in there.

He’s piloting the Bird alone.

This is not possible. You can’t pilot a Chrysalis alone! Even a full suit of spirit armor is considered a stretch for a single mind!

“Oh!” Yizhi gasps at his wristlet.

Shimin’s profile beams on it, a stern ID photo accompanied by live bio-stats measured by his own wristlet. The red, beeping digits of his heart rate stab through my wobbling vision.

380.

A sickening dread fills me.

“We need to help him!” Yizhi cries.

How? How?

This is too much. Too much for a heart to beat, too much for one person to take.

Shimin’s going to die. He’s going to die, and I’m going to break forever, and…

No! No, no, no, no, no!

I start charging a qi blast in my palm, but it’s so pathetic that I don’t have the heart to finish.

Gnashing my teeth, I burn the qi on winging toward the battle down the valley instead. Useless tears fly from my eyes as the metallic scraping and crashing of the Bird and Tortoise echo behind us. My chest clenches, close to exploding, as I imagine what it would take to keep piloting a Chrysalis in Shimin’s state. What is he even burning? His primordial qi? That can’t be replenished once it’s gone. And he’s already out half of it from having one of his kidneys harvested.

Horror teeters in me, as if I’m looking down a cliff edge.

Hang on, I beg every force of fate that’s out there.

We reach the main battle. The wildfire has spread here, and so has a herd of noble Hunduns. Everywhere I look, colossal forms clash, quaking the smoky air. Yizhi and I are nothing but a tiny speck whizzing through the flame-licked pandemonium.

I spot the White Tiger, which is using its dagger-ax to slash at the Water-black tendril curled around its legs.

“Help!” I lunge to it and slam my hand over and over on its head. Yizhi latches tighter to my shoulders. “Help us! Please!”

The Tiger jerks around. I swing back so it can see me. It looks between me and the wrestling Bird and Tortoise in the distance. “What the—how are you—?” It speaks with a blend of Qieluo and Yang Jian’s voices, its eyes a mismatched green and black.

“Shimin’s piloting it alone!” I sob.

“What? That’s not po—”

“I know it’s not possible! But it’s happening, and you have to help him!”

“We’re…okay, just get in!”

A crudely carved hole flaps open beneath me and Yizhi. We stumble in.

The moment we hit solidity, spirit metal handles jut out beneath our hands. We grab them to secure ourselves. My eyes take several seconds to adjust to the dimness.

Qieluo and Yang Jian’s bodies lie in their pilot seats, faces and armor lit up with their respective Wood and Water qis. Instead of clamping his hands over hers on her armrests, he’s wrapping his arms around her, and she’s clutching his hands to her chest, shockingly tender—and in stark contrast to how ferociously they’re yelling with the Tiger’s mouth, demanding answers from the strategists.

“White Tiger, please focus on the battle,” Chief Strategist Zhuge says, alarmingly calm compared to how he was begging us a minute ago.

“Are you kidding me? You want us to ignore how the Black Tortoise is murdering the Vermilion Bird?”

“Just focus on the battle!” Sima Yi cuts in. “Other things are not your concern right now!”

Blood drains from my face.

“I am not giving up on you two!” Sima Yi once said.

Until you’ve outlived your use, he failed to specify.

The strategists never intended to let us leave Zhou alive.

“Screw this!” The White Tiger’s shout booms through the cockpit.

Everything lurches. Yizhi and I have to tighten our grip on the handles made for us.

The Tiger calls for the others to give it cover. Then, at last, it breaks into a free run. Heart fluttering, I check Yizhi’s wristlet.

And catch the exact moment it happens. The drop in Shimin’s heart rate.

372.

268.

I shriek, but I can’t stop it.

92.

43.

0.