Descendant of the Crane(58)

She rushed to his side. Was he sleeping? In this smoke? Elevens, was he dying? Was it the poison? Had his charcoal-water concoction been just that—charcoal and water?

“Akira.” She clutched him by the shoulders, giving him a hard shake. “Wake up. Akira.”

His eyes flashed open.

The breath thudded out of Hesina as she slammed into the wall. The rod bisected her throat. Light and dark blotched her vision. Ringing filled her ears. Smoke clogged the rest of her senses, dulling the pain, the shock.

Akira pressed the rod closer. The fire backlit his face in washes of red and umber. His hair was down, out of its tie, brown bangs screened over gray eyes devoid of recognition.

This wasn’t Akira. This was somebody else. A stranger. A killer. A scream rose in Hesina’s chest, but her throat clamped down. No. She couldn’t. She couldn’t bring the guards running unless she wanted to lose her representative.

“Akira…it’s…me…”

Somehow, someway, she got a hand between the rod and her throat. As she strained, something twitched in Akira’s expression. The death-like stillness to his face cracked, and the pieces scattered like mah-jongg tiles.

The rod clattered as it fell.

Hesina slumped, choking on air. Akira lifted a hand as if to pat her back, but withdrew when she flinched away. He removed a jar from the cross folds of his hanfu and tossed its contents over the flames. The fire died under the rain of white powder.

He retrieved the vial of poison from the ash and embers and showed her what once had been the orange-toned liquid, now reduced to a gray powder. He explained his process of condensing the gas into a liquid and distilling it, outlined further tests he planned to conduct. It was more than he’d ever spoken at once. It was a plea to forgive and forget.

He was talking about how all substances had distinct boiling and disintegration points when Hesina couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stop that.” Akira fell quiet, and she leaned her head against the wall, wheezing. “Are you okay?”

He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I should be asking that of you.”

Hesina was a little shocked, a little bruised, but mostly she was fine. She wasn’t the one who’d drunk a horn full of poisoned wine. “I’m summoning the Imperial Doctress if the poison is still bothering you.”

“Not the poison.” He gathered his hair back and retied it at the nape. “It’s okay. This is normal.”

Sleeping through fires wasn’t Hesina’s definition of normal. And Akira didn’t look okay, upon closer inspection. The skin under his eyes was creased and translucent. His face was sallow. His collar had shifted to the side. Again, Hesina caught sight of that inked leaf, hooking over his shoulder like a demon’s claw.

She made up a story of a boy who’d done terrible things in his past. It was a tale of names shed like leaves, and old ghosts that visited when he slept—if he slept.

Am I right? Hesina wanted to ask. But it didn’t feel right to take his secrets from him, so she took his face instead, cupping it between her hands.

“Akira, I’m here.” She searched his eyes, willing him to understand. “I see you. You could be a convict or a merchant robber, and I would still see you as you are now. My representative. My friend.”

His lashes beat once as he blinked. Slowly, he closed a hand over her wrists and eased her hands off his face. But he didn’t drop them. The pulse in Hesina’s veins went erratic, and without thinking, she gave a tentative tug on her wrists.

He didn’t resist.

She drew him to her. The crowns of their heads met. Their breaths mingled, mismatched, her inhales his exhales, his exhales her inhales, tasting without touching, stealing what they willingly gave. His hold on her wrists tightened. Thin skin and warm air stood between them—nothing else. Nothing could stop Hesina from giving more.

“Don’t.”

The whispered word warmed her lips. Then it was gone, snuffed like a flame as Akira pulled back. “Do you know why I’m helping you?”

“To watch the spectacle.”

But Hesina knew it wasn’t true even before Akira shook his head. It was just another one of his non-answers.

“You seemed so certain of what you wanted.” Akira released her wrists, and her hands dropped to her lap. “I’ve never been. I helped you, hoping to find myself along the way.”

He lifted his rod and considered it. It’d gained several nicks from the journey, but his gaze glossed over the imperfections and flicked to her throat.

“But you haven’t,” she guessed. It wasn’t her fault, but she felt as if she’d let him down.

“No.” His lips quirked with a rueful smile. “Only I can help myself.”

“That’s not true.”

The smile disappeared, and Akira shrugged. “You say you see me, but you don’t. And trust me, you wouldn’t want to.”

His words unmoored her, left her floundering with no reply. She cast her gaze out to everything but Akira before anchoring on the book on the floor.

“I can read it.” She could almost hear Lilian’s groan. Tactless. Luckily, Lilian wasn’t here to see Hesina flush when she realized she’d never shown Akira the book. “It was the item in Mother’s chest.”

To his credit, Akira took it into stride. “The title?”