7. A CLOUDLESS NIGHT

Iwant to be . . .

Darkness. Dampness. Something rocks beneath me, like a boat. I'm back in Lotus's body.

Stars glimmer beyond the treetops, the sky cloudless.

More of my mind returns. Nighttime, in a forest, and I—I'm trussed belly-up to a horse. I tug on my binds. Secure. My heart sprints. Have I been captured? The last thing I remember is the arrow—Crow—Cloud—

"Cloud." Silence. "Cloud," I repeat, voice hoarse.

And like a miracle, I hear hers.

"Yuu." At the coaxing note, her mare falls back, bringing her to my side. "About time," she says gruffly.

"What happened?" The trees rustle; rainwater dusts my face.

"The arrow knocked you out. It was poisoned, just like my crossbolt."

Poisoned, like Cloud's crossbolt.The detail strikes me as important, but I can't pinpoint how. My head is foggy, my senses dull. Will it kill me? I wonder to Dewdrop as my struck shoulder burns. No reply. "Where are we?"

Heartbeats pass. No word from Cloud. No thoughts from Dewdrop. The silence is like one I haven't experienced in months. I'm still a god, in the mortal realm.

And right now, something tells me I'm the only one.

Dewdrop is gone.

"North," Cloud finally answers. "Somewhere north of Hewan."

Too far north. Behind us, the Marshlands have surely fallen to Cicada. Ahead? How much time before we run into Miasma?

"They retreated," Cloud continues, and it's as I warned. "They gave up Bikong hours after you fell, and I thought—well, I thought this was our chance to defeat the empire. So I chased—but they ambushed my flank." We ride through a slant of moonlight, and I see the blood on Cloud's cloak. Her armor is battered and torn. "They surrounded us, but my soldiers broke us out." Deep in the forest, water drips. "It's just us now."

The branches above us sway, casting down a second rain.

Our forces, captured or dead.

The two of us, on the run in empire land.

"Rice Cake?" I rasp, unable to identify my horse.

Dread buries me alive when Cloud doesn't immediately answer. "We were separated while breaking through the enemy lines," she replies at last, and I tell myself that separated doesn't mean dead. Rice Cake fled to safety. I'm sure of it. I say so to Cloud, and she looks away, teeth punishing her bottom lip.

"Hey." My voice cracks. "It's okay."

"It's not, and you know it." A breath, as if Cloud means to say more. I'm sorry, Zephyr. I should have listened to you. The apology doesn't come. Cloud's waiting, I realize, for me to speak. To admonish her, then tell her the strategy. Fear rules her silence, not pride.

Her fear is also mine. I have no plans, no tricks. My head throbs from the poison. "Let me think," I say, trying to buy time, but time is what we have the least of. Minutes later, the trees rustle with more than wind. The enemy emerges from the branches.

Their nets fall over us.

At first, everything is sharp. The ropes slicing into my arms. The bleak glare of the sun. Panic stabs my mind, memories bleeding from the cuts—

—the Battle of the Scarp—

—the coup against Xin Gong—

—the siege of Bikong—

—the blood I've spilled, the hearts I've shunned—

—will be for naught. They'll die—Cloud, Ren—like they do in my nightmares. Or is this a nightmare? I bite my tongue; blood runs down my throat, but I don't wake up.

Then the poison deadens the panic. Days blur. Locations. Out of the forest, we're taken. Through yellow, fallow fields.

Into the capital.

Into the palace.

Polearms whack our legs from standing to kneeling.

Dawn streams through the pillars at our backs, and despite my delirium, I force myself to place us. Dawn means east. East means throne hall, where the empress holds court, but this court holds no officials, or Xin Bao for that matter. The only souls here, it seems, are those of the ghosts, more plentiful than when I was last in the capital. Maybe this is all just a fever dream . . .

Then from behind the screens backdropping the throne, a shadow appears. It stalks through the clustered ghosts. Another shadow follows on its heels, and my delusions flee.

My gaze sinks to my knees as Miasma's voice chimes through the hall.

"Well, well, well. When Crow reported on our gains, I hardly dared to believe it. The mighty Cloud! Our paths seem destined to cross. It must be in our stars, to be lordess and retainer."

"Keep dreaming," Cloud bites out, arms bulging against her restraints.

"What do you say, Crow?" Miasma muses. "Shall I kill them both?"

I recognized his presence the second I saw his shadow. I know the shape he casts. The cadence of his speech.

I was once between his lips like a word, spoken.

But it's high time I remembered: He is no lovesick boy. I am not his weakness.

He will not have sympathy for my lordess's generals.

His answer to Miasma is as expected.

"Gao Yun freed you once. You freed her. Nothing is owed anymore. Free her again, and she will only ride back to Ren."

"What about this one?" Miasma's shadow-head nods at me. "I freed her too, and she ran right back to Ren."

"That is true," Crow concedes. "But if I may request a favor, Mi-Mi."

"Request away."

"I would like to keep her alive, as a prisoner."

My breathing slows.

"Oh?" A question followed by an observation: "You see something in that one."

"She calculated our retreat," says Crow.

"How curious," says Miasma, and my shock wanes. Crow would request that I be pardoned. I'm a riddle of a warrior; he won't rest until he's solved me.

Too bad for Crow, I doubt his lordess will grant the favor. She'll either kill us both, or kill me and spare Cloud. Miasma has always wanted to recruit her, I'm thinking, as Miasma waves a hand. Sound of soldiers, walking toward us.

Veering toward Cloud.

No.My gaze shoots up. I burned her fate. I stare at Cloud as she glares down Miasma, unflinching as the soldiers enclose her. Warriors don't fear death. But it's not cowardly to fight fate, and I will fight Cloud's with everything I have.

I will change it.

"You shouldn't have retreated," I blurt to Miasma as the soldiers reach for Cloud. "It harmed you more than it helped."

The prime ministress smiles at that. "Harmed? I don't see the harm in having not one, but two of Ren's swornsisters kneeling before me."

"You could have defeated us at Bikong. Instead you retreated. You benefited by capturing us, yes. But someone else benefited more." I pause for effect. "More than an ally should."

Yes, I know about the alliance with Cicada.

Ask me how.

Armor scrapes, as Cloud is seized. Is dragged on her knees.

Ask me anything at all.

Miasma holds up a hand, and the horrible sound ceases. "Do you know why Cicada broke off her alliance with you and turned to me? Because Charity Ren did not deliver what she promised."

"She never promised the return of the Marshlands." Couldn't, at the time, because the land was still Xin Gong's. And thank heavens it was; by then Cicada had already betrayed us. "You've given Cicada a new base from which to aim straight at the empire's heart," I say, eye boring into Miasma's. "You were a fool this time." I smirk despite my nausea. "Just like the time you trusted the Rising Zephyr."

Blink, and Miasma's kneeling, grabbing my face.

"An animal could not know me. And you, my dear, are nothing more than an animal." She wrenches my head to the side, and I see Cloud again. What are you doing? her eyes demand, and I remember the game of chess we played. I can still win.

It just won't be by a great margin.

"Frankly, I can't see what Ren sees in you," Miasma says, and I laugh, causing Cloud's brows to slash down in confusion, then rise.

Zephyr.

No.

I know, on the surface, we're both Ren's swornsisters. In the short term, losing either of us will hurt her. But it's not the same. Cloud is Ren's real family. Cloud is human.

Only one of us can afford to die today.

"Then kill me. Kill me, because I'd rather be Ren's animal than yours." I jerk away from the hand on my face and back to it, teeth crunching into bone. Miasma shoots to her feet, and I spit at her. "Daughter of eunuchs! You needed to declare yourself a god just to be legitimate! You're cursed, and you know it! Ghosts haunt you because you're scared of the people you've killed. I bet you're so scared, you wet your bed from the nightmares."

Miasma stares at me, unblinking. Silent. Blood drips from her hand. I wish I'd taken off her fingers. It'd be fair, considering the finger she took from Crow, who's also silent—gravely so. My actions don't bode well for the favor he asked of his lordess.

"Mi-Mi—" he starts.

"I'm sorry, Crow." Miasma doesn't sound sorry, only dangerous. "I've had a change of heart. Guards."

"No!" Cloud shouts as the guards grab my arms. "Kill me! Kill me instead!"

Miasma sighs. "Call me a fool, but I do believe there will come a day when I recruit you. Besides, I'll need another messenger to deliver the head." The guards start to drag me out but Miasma flicks her injured hand. "Right here will do."

I'm pushed onto all fours, the floor before me speckled with Miasma's blood.

It's nothing compared to the blood I'm about to pour. What am I doing? Have I lost my mind? No—I know exactly what I'm doing. If the Masked Mother won't let me come back—if this is to be my final earthly act—I'll set Ren up for success. So long as Cloud lives through losing Bikong, she'll defy her fated death, and Ren won't die either. I won't get to see them march on the North, but Sikou Hai will complete my mission. Hilarious to think I almost sacrificed him, pitting him against his brother in my stratagem to kill Xin Gong with a Borrowed Knife—

A borrowed knife.

If I were Crow, a strategist of the North, I'd advise Miasma to kill neither Lotus nor Cloud. I'd deliver them alive to Cicada. A gift to seal the alliance. Let her kill Ren's swornsisters.

Let Cicada be Miasma's borrowed knife.

Instead, Miasma will catch the flames of Ren's ire by killing Lotus. It doesn't make sense. The empire feeds off the discord between Cicada and Ren.

So who stands to benefit from Lotus's deathby the North's hand?

The same ones who benefited from Crow's retreat at Bikong, allowing Cicada to secure the Marshlands without facing Cloud's reinforcements. The same ones who benefited from the Battle of the Scarp that saw the destruction of the empire's navy—only possible because Crow failed to stop me from tricking Miasma.

If he ever meant to stop me.

Crow has never harmed the Southlands in his schemes. The Southlands, who now supply the empire with their signature poison. It coats their crossbolts. Their arrows. Struck myself, I feel what Cloud must have felt. Only difference? I have more experience at being poisoned than Cloud.

My symptoms now match my symptoms then, back when Crow drugged my tea.

His weapon of choice was this very poison, native to the South, even before the Cicada-Miasma alliance.

"Cloud—" I gasp as a soldier lifts his sword, metal blade reflected in the varnish of the floor. Last time I didn't get to finish. This time I will speak before I'm silenced.

"Cloud—" But my words are also for Miasma, and I look straight at Crow as I say them. If he's to be my final sight in this world, I will make myself his. "He's of the South."

The blade falls.