Serpentine (19 page)

The forest beckoned, and Skybright couldn’t resist. Although it was a less direct path through the trees than on the main road, she’d travel much faster as a serpent. She ran into the thickets and undressed, carefully folding her clothes and placing them in her knapsack. Reaching for that searing heat within, she felt it meet her mind with a powerful surge. She shifted in an instant, and the world expanded through her serpentine senses. Skybright picked up the knapsack and slung it over her shoulder; it felt bulky and odd, like something that didn’t belong to her. But she kept it, knowing she needed it to survive while in human form.

Slithering beneath the massive trees, she caught the low buzzing of bees high above, their drone prickling her scales like a caress. It brought to mind a particular day, early this summer, when she and Zhen Ni had snuck away for a picnic in the forest. It was during that outing when her mistress had first suggested they could spy beyond the tall walls of the monastery to see what went on behind its grand facade, to find out what the monks did hidden inside each day.

To prepare, Skybright would only need to practice climbing trees.

At first, she had refused, but Zhen Ni wheedled her into it, as she always did. Skybright had been quite high off the ground on her third attempt when she heard the low hum of the beehive and let out a cry. She had scrambled down as fast as she could, even while Zhen Ni asked her to try and get some fresh honey.

Skybright had glared at her mistress when she set foot back on the ground. And Zhen Ni had sniffed, indicating her disappointment. Suppressing a smile at the memory, Skybright blinked, tasting the tears that did not reach her eyes.

She paused after dawn to gauge her progress. She had a very clear sense of direction as a serpent, and hadn’t taken a drink of water since she was in human form. These mortal concerns obviously didn’t touch her as a demon.

A creek wound its way in front of her, maybe the same one that was near the Yuan manor. She glided past a grove of sandstone pillars, stretching high enough into the sky to block the sunlight, standing like silent sentinels. They were marked on the map with a few oblong shapes drawn in a circle, but not named. She ran a hand down the rough, tan rock, wondering how they got there and at their significance. Stone suddenly sprang into her mind, the mysterious immortal with the powerful presence. The man who claimed to have known her mother, Opal.

Skybright left the grove, trying to sense Zhen Ni or others. But no humans were near. She veered toward the next town before midday, hoping to gather some news there. Thirst and hunger struck her like physical blows when she shifted back into a girl. Her muscles ached as if she had been running non-stop for leagues. Skybright smiled wryly and ate two cabbage buns and an apple. Her stomach growled in reprimand as she gulped down mouthfuls of water from her flask. She patted her hair, still wound in tight buns at her nape, and smoothed the tunic and trousers she had pulled on. Her face throbbed again. She cautiously applied the ointment Nanny Bai had made for her, wincing as she dabbed it over the stitches. It was another hour before she walked through the open gates of a small town called Chun Hua. The main street was quiet. Merchants fanned themselves by their bamboo stands or perched outside their stores on stools, eyelids drooping.

The midday sun was hot and blinding. Skybright paused near an announcement pasted outside a restaurant’s wall. She couldn’t read it, but recognized the portrait of Zhen Ni drawn by the brush artist. It was a good likeness, capturing her spirit with a few strokes. Her chest tightened to see the slight upturn at the corners of Zhen Ni’s wide mouth, as if she were about to burst into laughter.

She pushed through the swinging wooden doors and stepped inside the restaurant. It was almost empty. A few patrons sat in the far corners, enjoying small dishes with rice wine or tea. Skybright approached the server girl, who didn’t look more than thirteen years, leaning lazily against the back wall, keeping cool with a paper fan. “Have you any news about that missing girl?” Skybright asked.

“Some men came through yesterday looking for her.” The girl stared at Skybright’s wound, not bothering to hide her grimace. At least she didn’t ask how she had gotten it.

“And what did you tell them?”

“Nothing. Except an hour after they left, a girl did come in.” She stopped and puckered her lips. “Might’ve been her.”

Skybright fished a gold coin from her pouch and held it in front of the girl, pinched between two fingers. “What did she look like?”

“Tall. Thin. Wore her hair exactly like yours. Her clothes and face were dirty. Her hands too. But she spoke educated, like you.”

Skybright lifted her eyebrows at that.

“She asked about the poster too. I told her about the men who had come in earlier and pasted it on our wall.”

“What time of the day was it?”

“Early evening yesterday. She bought some food, and gave me two gold coins, she did.” The girl snapped the gold coin from between Skybright’s fingertips and slipped it into a pocket. “I offered her our washroom so she could clean up a little, since she had been so kind with her coin, but she said no and left.”

It had to have been Zhen Ni. Here less than a day before!

“Did she say anything about where she was going?”

The girl shot her lips out again and shook her head. “She was nervous. Fidgety. She left the moment she got her food.”

“Can you tell me what she was wearing?”

“Sky blue tunic and trousers. I could see it was good quality.” The girl paused, considering Skybright. “Another gold coin and I’ll give you what she left behind.”

Skybright lifted her chin, trying not to betray her racing pulse. What could Zhen Ni have left? Certainly not a note? She held out another gold piece for the server, but did not let go of it at once. “It better be worth the coin,” Skybright said.

Although they were the same height, the girl shrank back a little, and drew something from her pocket. “I would have kept it, but it’s not very well done.” She held out a pale gold handkerchief.

Skybright recognized it immediately, and took it from the server, smiling. “I made this.” She ran her thumb over the emerald dragonfly stitched in the corner.

“Your embroidering is awful,” the girl said.

“I know.” Skybright ignored the sting behind her eyes. “It was a birthday gift.”

“Your friend dropped it. By the time I picked it up, she was long gone.”

“Thank you,” Skybright said.

Skybright left the restaurant and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the town, hoping to gather more information, but had no luck. Finally, in the late afternoon, Skybright left the small town and walked back into the mountainous forest of Shi Lin. She fought the urge to change into serpent form the moment she was deep enough within, surrounded by towering cypresses. Retrieving a small wash cloth, she sat beside the creek she had passed earlier that morning and wiped her face and neck. She remembered Kai Sen leaping over the water, his figure limned in sunlight, as if he were flying. Remembered how he twisted and jumped before he plunged his saber into the giant demon with the vulture’s head. She shivered as the forest darkened around her. Zhen Ni wouldn’t be traveling tonight—she was almost certain, felt it in her core. Skybright needed to gather her thoughts.

She lit the small travel lantern she had brought and perched it on a smooth rock, setting the light by her feet. Her mind flew over everything that had happened to her in these last weeks. Who was she? What was she turning into? Only one person could answer these questions for her.

She spoke his name aloud before she could stop to reconsider. “Stone.”

Skybright kept still, and waited. She heard nothing but the soft stir of the forest. And then, everything went silent, as if she had suddenly been robbed of hearing. The dirt near the creek began to whorl, caught in a tight twister, spinning and rising in a funnel. The twister gathered more earth, pebbles, and rocks, even larger stones around it, until it solidified into the shape of a tall man.

Stone.

He materialized a lifeless dark gray at first, a statue. Then in a moment, he was flesh, armored in magnificent silver and gold. She could recall the taste of his scent on her tongue, even now, the memory sharp and potent.

“I did not think you would ever speak my name.” He strode forward so the faint halo of lantern light touched his boots. But she needed no light to see him. He glowed. “I have been waiting,” he said.

She had never encountered him while in her mortal form, but his presence provoked the same emotions, awe and an indefinable sense of longing. He drew one step closer, and all the hairs on her arms stood on end.

“Your cheek,” he said in that deep voice and dropped to one knee, the movement so swift she was unable to follow it. One moment he was towering over her, and the next, he was crouched before her. “He did this to you. That boy, the false monk.”

Her mouth went dry, and her throat worked before she could speak. “It was an accident.”

Stone’s fingers touched her right cheek—the uninjured one—and his black eyes swept over her face. She held still, resisting the urge to jerk back from him, knowing she couldn’t escape even if she wanted to. His fingertips traced her jaw line, and she could feel the heat in his touch, tamped down because he willed it. His fingers brushed to the other cheek, and he cupped his hand over her wound.

She gasped, as a tremor convulsed through her, and her cut tingled, feeling of fire and ice.

Stone dropped his hand after a moment and tilted his head. Her breath caught, he was so handsome. Frightening in his perfection. “I have healed you, but the scar remains.”

Her hand flew to her cheek, and she felt the raised scar, a smooth painless ridge across her face. “Who—what are you?”

Despite his impassive features, she didn’t miss the wry humor that touched his eyes. “A thank you would have sufficed.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled, her fingers still pressed to her cheek.

He caught her wrist and drew it aside. His touch was always gentle, but firm. She suspected he rarely needed brute strength. “You’re more beautiful now because of the scar. It emphasizes the symmetry of your face.”

Skybright pulled her arm back and rolled her eyes to the night sky. All this talk of beauty. Did beauty help her make beds neatly or apply Zhen Ni’s cosmetics with more expertise? Beauty did nothing to make her a better handmaid—and only caused trouble in other areas.

Stone chuckled, and the humanness of the sound surprised her. “You think it is frivolous?” He draped an elbow across his knee, still managing to appear majestic while hunched in front of her. “The beauty of your kind is precise and deliberate. Specially crafted to suit your purpose.”

Seductress. Temptress. Murderer.

“What is my purpose?” she asked.

He slanted his head and scrutinized her for so long she was certain he could see into her mind, read her thoughts. “I do not know. You are unique. I have met none other like you.” He pressed a hand into the dirt and the air filled with the pungent scent of earth and deep roots. “You do not behave as I would expect from a serpent demon … like your mother did. She preyed and killed men with such finesse. She perfected it to an art form. You, I have only seen you kill the undead.” He chuckled again, amused for some reason.

“Is that … wrong?”

“Wrong?” He lifted his broad shoulders. “There is an endless supply of undead as long as there are human corpses. But you take pleasure in killing them. I find that interesting.”

Stone was right. She did take pleasure in killing them. He had spies everywhere, he had said. Did he see everything that she did? He seemed to read her so easily. She didn’t like that. It put her at an even greater disadvantage during their exchanges. Then she almost laughed aloud at herself, because she was trying to outwit an immortal.

“Do you know where my mother is?” She wanted answers that only he could give.

“Opal.” The way he spoke her name was weighted, but with no emotion she could identify. “It is difficult for me to gauge time in human years. But our paths have not crossed since she became pregnant with you.” He continued to twist the earth with one bare hand, and it vibrated with life—she felt it through the large rock she sat on. “You are sixteen or seventeen years?”

“I just turned sixteen.”

Stone nodded, thoughtful. “She was well when I last saw her. Eager for her next kill. How she became with child will always be a mystery. It is supposed to be an impossibility.” He paused. “To be truthful, I do not believe she survived the birth.”

She recoiled, not knowing how to feel. “Why?”

“I have not sensed her presence in this realm for some time, Skybright. It is as if she winked out of existence.”

She dropped her head into her hands. She was so tired. Tired of not knowing why she had turned into a serpent demon, tired of hurting those she cared for because of what she was. Tired of lying. Tired of hiding. Her feet hurt and her legs ached. She felt empty inside.

Stone lifted her chin with one hand. “May I?”

Skybright’s chest seized. He wanted to kiss her and had only asked as a courtesy. But she realized she wanted to, was curious to see what it would feel like to kiss an immortal. He continued to cup her chin in his warm hand and tilted his face, pressing his perfect, sensuous mouth against hers. His lips were hot, as if he had a fever, and she caught too long a glimpse into his infinite eyes. She closed her own, head spinning.

Then it felt as if she literally leaped into a well of rushing starlight, both hot and cool, and she was plunging endlessly into its brightness, exultant, cradled within its vast glow.

Suddenly she slammed back into herself, bulky and weighted. Stone had pulled away, studying her. She gulped for air as her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. She gripped the rock’s edge, trying to steady herself.

“That was not what I expected,” he said.

Skybright barked a short, strangled laugh. “Nor I. Do you kiss all the serpent demons you meet?” Then she blanched at the thought that he might have kissed her mother. And more.