Sacrifice (8 page)

“I see.” She let out a small breath. Instead of becoming the chosen sacrifice, Skybright had given up her mortal life to save Zhen Ni’s. And yet, Zhen Ni still couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive her friend.

“It was what decided it for me.” Kai Sen clasped his hands in front of him, bowing his head. He looked too large for the carved stool. “I had no intention of accepting the role as Abbot Wu’s heir—but it became clear to me that he needed to be stopped. That this twisted covenant had to end. So I agreed to be his successor.”

“With the secret purpose of overturning the covenant? Of going against the gods?” she asked, incredulous.

“Well, when you put it like that.” The corners of his mouth quirked. “Don’t make it sound so hopeless.”

She stared at him. “You’re dreaming.”

He stretched his arms overhead, reminding her of a lithe panther, clothed as he was in black. “I had to say yes or both of us would be dead now, Zhen Ni. And some other chosen fool would have taken my place.”

“So you convinced the abbot not to murder me somehow?”

“I said you would keep your mouth shut. It appeased him for some time, but he brought it up again this week. The need to be rid of you. I convinced him I’d work a memory spell on you instead. So here I am tonight, supposedly making you forget everything.”

“This conversation isn’t improving. Perhaps I should have stabbed you in the dark when I had the chance.”

Kai Sen gave a low chuckle. “Of course I wasn’t really going to take your memories.” His expression softened. “It’d be wrong, but you’re the one person who cared for Skybright as much as I did. The only one who was as close to her.”

She observed him as he stared at his feet, hands clasped so tight the knuckles were white. The faint scent of sandalwood incense lingered in his clothes, and she wondered if he had been praying earlier in the evening before this visit.

“I miss her,” he said and raised his head. “Don’t you?”

Zhen Ni sighed. “Of course I do. But she knew what she was doing when she agreed to save us, Kai Sen. We have to make peace with the fact that we will never see her again. Besides—”

She stopped when she saw his eyes narrow.

“Besides what?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“She’s a
demon
. She isn’t the same girl we knew.”

Kai Sen leaped off the stool and began pacing in front of her, his frustration barely contained. She noticed that the ball of fire trapped in the lantern had grown, touched at its core now in a bright, pale white. It filled the glass lantern, tremoring, as if it wanted to escape its confines.

“She gave up everything she knew and loved to save us, and you would judge her so harshly?”

A twinge of guilt threaded through Zhen Ni’s chest. “It isn’t that I no longer love her. I simply don’t know if I know her anymore. She’s not
my
Skybright. My Skybright would never have lied to me so well and for so long.”

Kai Sen finally paused before her, and she noticed the saber, curved and lethal, strapped to his waist for the first time. “I think I’m close to finding her,” he said.

“What?”

“Abbot Wu was reluctant to teach me how to create portals—they allow you to travel anywhere within our world—but I learned on my own. I can sense Skybright’s presence when she’s near, and I’ve been using the portals to travel through the provinces looking for her.”

“All twenty-three provinces, Kai Sen?”

He shifted on his feet, saying nothing, looking as if he were ready to make a portal right then and leap through it.

“The Kingdom of Xia is massive!” she exclaimed.

“Not extensive enough to deter me.” He smiled. “I couldn’t sense her anywhere in all this time I had searched. It was as if she had disappeared from our earthly realm. But today, I felt the faintest trace of her presence in the south.”

Zhen Ni shook her head. His devotion to Skybright was obvious. “But aren’t you going against the agreement? Skybright isn’t ours to track down—”

“That bastard Stone lied. The breach isn’t fully closed.” Kai Sen fingered the silver hilt of his saber, shoulders set in a tense line. “I was attacked by the undead five nights ago, and both demon and undead sightings have been reported since then. Nothing like what we were battling last year—but I’ve warned Abbot Wu.”

“Goddess,” she whispered, then shivered, remembering the undead creature that Skybright had so bravely killed with a cleaver. Recalling again being abducted by that monstrous bull demon, its rough hands clutching her thighs as she dangled over its shoulder; feeling once more the coarse hair of its skin stabbing into her own flesh.

“So the agreement is off as far as I’m concerned. I can rescue Skybright and find a way to break this covenant once and for all.”

“I’m coming with you,” Zhen Ni said.

“No. It’s too dangerous.”

“Does anyone else know about your plans?”

His eyes narrowed a touch. “No one else can know. Abbot Wu doesn’t even realize that I can successfully create portals.”

“Well, if you don’t let me accompany you, I shall tell on you.”

Kai Sen’s mouth dropped. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would. I could go to the monastery this very moment and knock on that grand door.” She lifted her chin. “It’s my right to see her again too.”

He flexed his fingers into tight fists. “You’re the only one I can trust in this, Zhen Ni. The only one who can know. Please don’t put yourself in danger—”

“I’m to wed, Kai Sen.”

His dark eyes widened, then he cursed. “When?”

“In three days.” She twisted her face away and blinked back her tears. “This might be my last chance to see her. Even if Skybright returned with you, my mother would never allow her again to be my handmaid. As far as she knows, Skybright has abandoned our family.”

He touched her sleeve, and she forced herself to meet his eyes. His handsome features had softened. “We’ll do this soon then,” he said. “I know I’m close. I can feel it.”

And as mad as he sounded and as far-fetched his plan seemed, Zhen Ni had to go with him. The thought of seeing Skybright again, to be able to speak with her, eased the weight she had carried in her chest all these months. The confusion and betrayal she had felt over Skybright keeping the secret of her true self from Zhen Ni was nothing compared to how much she’d missed her every day.

“I’ll come for you as soon as I’m certain,” Kai Sen said. The blue flame grew brighter in the glass lantern by her bedside.

“I will wait for you,” she replied. “I’ll be ready.” And on impulse, she offered her hand; Kai Sen clasped it as if they were sealing an oath.

Kai Sen returned two days later in the early afternoon, scaring Zhen Ni half to death when he tapped softly on her lattice window. All her handmaids were in the adjacent reception hall, preparing the multiple trunks she would take with her to the Bei manor as a new bride. Zhen Ni lifted a hand, indicating that he should wait for her, and he disappeared from view like a ghost.

She sent all her handmaids away, asking them to leave her alone for the rest of the day and used the stresses of the impending wedding as an excuse. It was the perfect ruse to gain some precious privacy—almost impossible to have when she had servants tending to her every need from sunrise until bedtime.

She made herself even more sharp-tongued than usual, so that they left her alone gladly. Zhen Ni smiled at herself in the bronzed mirror, looking like the neighbor’s dog that had made off with a stolen sausage. She’d been a good daughter ever since she’d returned home, following all the rules of decorum, even agreeing to marry some wealthy man she had never laid eyes on. She could allow herself this—one last escapade to see Skybright again.

And if Kai Sen did manage to save Skybright from that horrible man called Stone, would Zhen Ni be able to continue to have a relationship with Skybright? Would she come with Zhen Ni to serve her in her new husband’s manor—despite her mother’s objections? Zhen Ni gave a sharp shake of her head to dispel such notions. How could they ever return to how things used to be?

A soft
tap
at the reception hall door leading into the courtyard broke Zhen Ni from her reverie.

“Enter,” she said softly.

Kai Sen slid the panel open and peered inside, before coming in and closing the door behind him. “I saw everyone clear out like a fire had been lit under their feet.”

She chortled. “I can make myself very disagreeable.”

“I believe you,” Kai Sen said, grinning. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wearing trousers before.”

“I stole them from one of the taller handmaids. She’ll get a nice pouch of coins at the end of the week.” She tugged at the waist of her pale peach trousers nervously, then touched the dagger she had strapped to her side. The feel of its elaborately carved hilt calmed her. “You don’t look as menacing in the daylight,” she said.

Kai Sen laughed. “I didn’t think it would be wise to be dressed entirely in black while skulking around town in bright sunshine.” His hand grazed the hilt of his saber too, as if for reassurance.

“Am I to assume from your good humor that you’ve found Skybright?” she asked.

His dark eyes became serious. “Yes. Her presence had seemed faded all these months. But today I felt it like a kick in the chest.” He touched a hand to his solar plexus. “She’s in Qing Chun. But we have to hurry. Stone has the ability to travel through portals too, and I have no inkling how long Skybright will stay put.”

Zhen Ni nodded, feeling solemn. They were going to do this. Try and save Skybright. But how could Kai Sen ever best an immortal who could draw snow from thin air and call lightning to strike down on them? “Do you have a plan?”

“The plan is to bring Skybright home safe,” Kai Sen said with more confidence than she felt. “Stone has broken his agreement in closing the breach to hell. He no longer has a hold over her.”

“You hope to reason with an immortal?”

He gripped his saber’s hilt once more—a weapon that would be of no use to him were he to face Stone in a fight. “I can summon hellfire against him. It can kill any creature from the underworld.”

“You think Stone is from the underworld?” She didn’t know much about the immortal, but she knew he was powerful, cold, and inhumanly handsome. One glance at Kai Sen and she realized he knew as little about Stone as she did.

No true plan then. Zhen Ni should never have asked.

They slipped out the side servant entrance near her quarters and ran toward the forest, Kai Sen having to slow his long-legged lope so she could keep up. Zhen Ni was grateful she wore trousers, even if the feel of the fabric against her legs as she ran was odd.

Kai Sen halted in a small clearing. She and Skybright used to sneak out and explore these same grounds when they were together, but ever since Skybright had gone, Zhen Ni had chosen not to step within these trees again. Her short forays were into town to buy sweets, a new trinket, or favorite fruit in season, always chaperoned by Rose and Oriole, and always at the prodding of her mother.

When they went, they were trailed by a muscular guard from the manor as well. Her mother believed that she didn’t know, but Zhen Ni did and said nothing.

Kai Sen was pacing in front of her, more nervous than she had ever seen him.

“I’ve never brought another person through the portal with me,” he said. “But I know it works from Abbot Wu’s books and teachings. Be sure to keep hold of my hand the entire time.”

He cleared his throat and began chanting an intonation under his breath. Zhen Ni’s mouth went dry, realizing they were truly going to try and travel to a town leagues away from Tian Kuan Mountain through some magical rent in the air. She had traveled through a portal when she had been kidnapped by a bull demon but remembered nothing of the experience, as she had been so terrified.

Kai Sen swept his arm in a half arc, and the air before them appeared to split. Zhen Ni caught a glimpse of water with the light green leaves of weeping willow hanging over it. “Don’t let go.” He extended a hand, and Zhen Ni grasped it. Kai Sen grinned and winked at her in reassurance, but it didn’t ease her sudden panic.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“Don’t be.” He squeezed her palm. “I’ve done this many times before. It’s quick, and no harm will befall you. I promise.”

Zhen Ni nodded. “For Skybright.”

“For Skybright,” Kai Sen repeated and led her through the portal.