“Xinyue!” Someone was calling her name. Someone important.

  “Xinyue!” Xinyue dragged her eyes open.

  She looked up into blue eyes, so blue they appeared ghostly. Yichen. Right, the waterfall, the cliff, bandits. Xinyue dragged herself onto her elbows from where she was lying on the silty sand. Before her was the waterfall, still thundering into the pool of water that they had come from.

  “How did we survive?” Xinyue looked up to the cliff above them, and the mist from the waterfall made it hard for her to see. She evaluated her body and let out a hiss when she moved. Bruises were aplenty, and she may have sprained her wrist, but they had made it out of the rapids alive. That was more than she was expecting.

  “Cultivation. We both wrapped ourselves in it before we fell.” Yichen paused, thinking about something. His hand was pressed to his injured shoulder, where he had been shot by the arrow. He must have used some of his cultivation to staunch the blood. Xinyue doubted he had that much left in him, she had used up most of her own cultivation to soften the blow of the waterfall.

  “What?” He had something to say; she could see it on his conflicted face as he knelt next to her.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Okay,” Xinyue said, and struggled to get up from her position on the ground. Thinking was a dangerous thing, especially from this man. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what he had been thinking about.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what I’ve been thinking?”

  “Is it about the Master?”

  “No.”

  “The legend?”

  “No.”

  “The bandits?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then I won’t ask.” Xinyue had managed to get up off the ground. She gingerly took a few steps on her shaking legs. Her left ankle was banged up, but not too badly. She could walk. Xinyue rolled her wrists; her left wrist twinged. That could be a problem if they needed to fight again. “Did you happen to see what happened to the others?”

  “While we were falling to our doom?” Yichen asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “Never mind then.” Xinyue glanced again at the cliff in front of them. It would take some time to get back up there, especially with her ankle. She also didn’t know how long Yichen could staunch his bleeding and take care of his wound with cultivation.

  Yichen sighed. “They are either dead or taken as hostages.” Xinyue cocked her head to the side as she considered the different options.

  “Hostages.”

  Yichen gave her an incredulous look. “Aren’t you optimistic?”

  “I’m thinking about the Master. He needs us, if he needs us, he’ll need them as leverage.” Xinyue didn’t want to say it aloud, but she hated the idea that anything had happened to their small group of soldiers. It was better to be hopeful about the whole situation. It was out of character for Xinyue, but she couldn’t fathom that either Zixin or Haoran was dead. Even as she thought about Hongyi and Bowen, for the brief time that she knew them, she couldn’t imagine their funerals. The burning of incense and paper money as they moved to the next life. She refused to think that that was what happened.

  “Right.” Yichen didn’t argue with her, and she was grateful. “He probably felt our cultivation as we plummeted down the waterfall. He may suspect that we are alive.”

  “Hm,” Xinyue responded. She glanced around at the forest. There were several paths away from the waterfall. One of them looked to take them back up to the cliff, and Xinyue started to walk toward it.

  Yichen grabbed her by the arm. Xinyue stopped and turned to look at him. He leaned down into her personal space. Closer to his face, Xinyue could see the pale green star bursts around the pupils of his eyes, and the pale blue color suddenly was vibrant against the white. “I haven’t told you what I’d been thinking about.”

  “And I told you that if it wasn’t about the mission, then I wouldn’t be interested.” Xinyue leaned her face closer to his. Her gold eyes glinted in the sun, making her look dangerous, predatory. Her hair had fallen out of its topknot, and strands fell around her face, giving her an unkempt look. She didn’t want to hear what Yichen had been thinking about; rather, she was scared to hear what he had been thinking about.

  “You could leave.” Yichen’s voice was low and deep.

  “What?” Xinyue drew back, confused. It would be easy to break from his hold on her arm. He was injured and had used far too much of his cultivation. She could escape at any moment, but something held her back. Maybe it was the way he said his suggestion, like a whisper of a butterfly’s wings; it was soft, and the hope it gave her was fleeting.

  “I have a duty. A duty to the Kingdom of Wu.” Xinyue had turned her face away from his. She had known what he was implying when he made the suggestion.

  “They have never done anything for you.”

  “My mother-“

  “It is safe, under the King’s protection. Not to mention her father’s.” It was tempting, he was so logical. Everything he said made sense. “You could escape from here. I would tell everyone you died in the fall. That your body was carried downstream.”

  Xinyue looked at the river that the waterfall flowed into. The current was strong. It was a believable lie. Even if no one believed it, wouldn’t the Queen be happier if Xinyue died here? She wouldn’t blink twice if it happened. No one in the Wu Court would. They might be sad they lost a valuable asset, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about Xinyue’s rise to power.

  “The people-“

  “The people drag your name in the mud. They criticize you.” Yichen said viciously. What he said wasn’t wrong. While Yichen was adored as the God of Death, Xinyue was vilified as the God of War. For every positive column about her, there were two negative ones. They remarked on her character, her appearance, her lack of ‘womanly’ qualities, and almost any other thing imaginable. It was one of the reasons why Xinyue wore the veil: to take the pressure off her appearance. For everyone to focus on her success, her abilities. “You could be free of these shackles.”

  Xinyue didn’t respond. She didn’t want to face him when she knew her eyes would betray her feelings. Her feeling of longing. Longing for a life she knew wasn’t hers.

  “Be selfish. Let me take the blame.” Yichen’s voice reeked of desperation as he spoke to her. His words rose from the whisper he had spoken with to a more guttural, louder sound. This was the most unselfish thing he had ever done in his life. “If you want to go, go! Don’t look back. I’ll tell he world you died here, there wouldn’t be a need for you to go back. Back to humiliation, to being treated as less than you deserve.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. Be selfish. Even if it means losing the one person who could challenge me, who is worthy of my respect, I would let you go.”

  Xinyue wanted to shout that she never wanted to be worthy of his respect, that it meant nothing to her. She turned to him to say just that, but the words didn’t seem to want to come out. They stuck in her throat, choking her. He was arrogant, selfish, and mischievous. He decided at a moment’s notice and changed his mind in the next. He was everything that Xinyue should hate, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. In that moment, she recognized that his respect meant something to her. That she valued him as a companion.

  “Xinyue, consider it.” He had dropped her title. “For a moment. Consider it.”

  Xinyue hated how the thoughts and scenarios rushed to her mind. The idea of having a family, of no blood staining her hands, of being free to decide her next move- it was tempting. She could almost taste the freedom. It was the first time that Xinyue felt as if she actually had a choice. Not a choice based on society, on the number of troops, on tactics, but a choice she had for herself.

  She looked up into those pale blue eyes, his hand warm on the arm that he still grasped.

  “I-“ She paused. To leave would be condemning so many people. Who could take her place? Who would protect the people, the Kingdom of Wu? Haoran, Hongyi, Bowen, and Zixin’s faces came to her mind. One by one, she thought of them. Their memories together. If she left now, would she ever see them again? Would they survive? Even the man in front of her. He was injured. Low on cultivation. If she left him behind, there was no guarantee he would leave these mountains alive. They meant something to her, these people had become something to her. She didn’t know exactly when, but they had become more than just soldiers to her. “I can’t.”

  “If not to run away, if that’s what you fear. Come to the Long Kingdom.”

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  “What?”

  “Join me. Together we could do so much.” His eyes searched her face. He implored her to consider the option.

  To become a traitor. To go against the very kingdom she was committed to serve. The kingdom she would sacrifice herself for.

  “I can’t.”

  “Xinyue-“

  “Please, Yichen.” The name dropped from her lips before she could correct herself, and his eyes widened. It was possibly the first time in His Highness, the General, and the Crown Prince of Long’s life that he had been addressed without his title. If anyone found out, Xinyue would be heavily punished, but here, right now, it was only the two of them.

  Yichen stared deeply into her eyes for a moment longer, searching. He looked for indecision, for desires, but all he saw was determination. Her choice was made, and she would be sticking with it. “I will respect your choice.”

  Yichen let go of Xinyue’s arm.

  Xinyue tore a piece of fabric from her sleeve and made a sling with it. They wrapped Yichen’s arm so it wouldn’t become further damaged from where he was shot.

  “We should get started, shouldn’t we?” Yichen sighed and looked at the path they needed to take. All they had left was the knife at Yichen’s waist; the rest of their weapons were lost in the fall.

  “We should.” Xinyue nodded.

  “There’s no need.” The same creaking voice from earlier called down from the path that they were going to take.

  “He just keeps popping up, doesn’t he?” Yichen asked as the Master came down from the waterfall.

  “I knew you would survive. I felt your cultivation.” The Master had a smug look on his face. “Now, will you come with us willingly?”

  It wasn’t a question. The bandits surrounded the pool of water on all sides. In their arms were Haoran, Zixin, Hongyi, and Bowen, their arms tied with heavy rope.

  Hongyi’s mouth had a gag in it.

  “Ah, don’t worry! Don’t worry! They’re all safe.” The Master motioned to the writhing Hongyi, who wouldn’t stop moving and grunting. “Nothing is wrong with him, he just wouldn’t stop talking.”

  Yichen stared at Hongyi, anger clouding his face as the man struggled. “Bowen.”

  “We’re alright, General. There are some minor injuries, but other than that, we are okay.” Bowen glanced at Zixin. He had a cut across his right cheek, which looked pretty deep. It would scar.

  “Oh, that was a punishment. For earlier, you see.” The Master referenced Zixin’s escape from his grasp. “I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”

  Xinyue quelled and suppressed the anger. She glared at the Master, imagining her sword at his neck.

  “You son of a bitch!” Haoran kicked up with his legs as he tried to free himself. His face was bright red with anger, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Put the gag back in.” The Master sighed, and the bandits stuffed a gag in Haoran’s mouth. “We had to do that earlier, but he had seemed to calm down. I guess it was too soon.”

  “We will go with you.” Yichen made the decision. It wasn’t really a choice. Neither he nor Xinyue had enough cultivation left to fight off all of the bandits, and even if they were to fight, their subordinates would all die.

  “Wonderful choice.” The Master clapped his hands, and the bandits came forward. “Suppress your cultivation. Or at least what’s left of it.”

  Xinyue sighed and closed her eyes. The swirling cultivation in her stomach was barely a trickle of what it once was, it was almost easy to staunch. She opened her eyes as the bandits roughly grabbed her hands and tied them with rope. Yichen was in a similar position has hers. They had ripped his arm out of the sling to tie his hands together.

  One of the cultivators pressed his hand roughly to Yichen’s wound. Now that Xinyue’s cultivation had been sealed, she felt as if she had lost one of her senses. She could no longer feel the cultivation swirling around her. It was strange to watch the wound partially seal up, but not feel the magic trickle its way into the wound.

  “You’ll have to pardon us, General. We don’t have the cultivation to spare to fully heal you.” The Master nodded to the bandit who partially healed Yichen. What were they saving their strength for? “You made a wise choice.”

  The bandits pushed Yichen and Xinyue over to the rest of the hostages. They proceeded together, down a different path than the one Xinyue thought they would go to.

  “We’re not going to the lake?” Xinyue asked in surprise.

  “You thought that the Dragon would keep the Piece of Heaven in the open? At a lake, everyone had access to?” The Master asked, his brow raised. “It is not far from here.”

  The bandits were restless. It had been a while since they had been to the cultivation site to charge their energy. But there was something else. Something else they were worried about. They walked as if they were a funeral procession; the anticipation and worry were tangible. They tripped over themselves to move faster, to push on, their eyes above their masks solemn. They all seemed to know where they were going. The path they walked on was freshly made, the dirt barely packed down.

  The path twisted and turned, like the river they walked side by side with.

  “You made this path,” Xinyue said, the sentence not as a question, although the Master nodded, affirming what Xinyue had already assumed.

  “It took quite some time.” So, the bandits were well-organized and had planned this for an unknown amount of time. This was a highly unusual situation. Everything was almost perfectly planned, down to the kidnapping of the Crown Prince of Long.

  They continued down the path, the birds no longer called out to each other, and even the gnats seemed to avoid them. Even without her cultivation, Xinyue could tell that they were in a location with a high amount of magic. The quiet was strange in a forest that teemed with life. Xinyue looked into the river, and not even the smallest minnow could be found.

  They came upon a cave, the opening gaped and swallowed the river. On either side, there was what would be considered a footpath big enough for two people.

  “We will enter two at a time. You will walk with one of my men, and between each of you will be another of my men.” The Master called directions to the bandits. The ropes cut into Xinyue’s hands as they walked. She pulled at them and loosened the hold they had on her. Her wrists were red, and she bit her lip as the rope rubbed against her sprained wrist.

  The cave was wet and humid. The river flowed next to them as they made their way through it. The sound of rushing water echoed throughout the cave. Xinyue lost track of time as they walked. There was an eerie silence among the group members, and even the bandits seemed to be at a loss for words. It made Xinyue uneasy, her palms sweated, and her heart beat heavily in her chest. Something was coming, what, she didn’t know.

  The rushing of the river calmed. The path opened up, becoming larger, until they came onto a bank. The bandits had collectively tensed as they had walked onto the bank. Their eyes were wide and full of fear.

  The cave had opened up to a small lake. It sat in the center of the enclosure.

  Xinyue looked around the area. The ceiling of the cave was open, allowing streams of sunlight into the dim cave, which illuminated and drew shadows on the bandits’ faces. Vines and other greenery hung down from the opening. The lake was still, a glossy, black mirror.

  “It’s here. We know it’s here. They told us it was here.” The Master was mumbling to himself. His blank eyes were on the center of the lake. “We have him. It won’t attack him.”

  The Master leaned down and felt along the bank until his fingers came in contact with a stone. The bandit next to Xinyue tensed, the hand on Xinyue’s upper arm gripped it tightly, his knuckles white.

  With a quick, decisive movement, the Master slung the rock into the lake. It skipped along the surface before sinking and causing ripples in the water.

  The ripple grew larger. Spreading out along the surface.

  That’s when Xinyue knew. There was something in the water.

  Something that they were all afraid of.

  It broke through the surface of the water, its large body hanging over the party. The teeth were the size of Xinyue’s arm. Its blue and green scales glimmered in the sunlight from where the cave’s ceiling opened up to the sun. Magnificent and deadly, it loomed before them. But its unnerving slitted pupil eyes were what captivated Xinyue. She had seen eyes that color before.

  The icy blue, almost white color. The same color eyes as the man who stood next to her.

  A Dragon. They were facing a dragon.