Jade Fire Gold(106)

Half a step too many.

Sunlight flashes. A dagger flies through the air.

No! roars my blood. Time slows as I watch helplessly. The dagger is moving too fast. I can’t get there in time. Can’t push Ama out of the way.

An arrow cuts into my vision, hitting the dagger off its course.

Time rushes forward. I’m screaming, hurtling toward Ama. Vicious arms haul me back.

“Let me go!”

My father drags me away as I kick out desperately. I crane my neck in time to see Tang Wei helping Ama up. She’s alive, my heart sings. That gives me the strength to fight. Thrashing, I try to wrest the sword from my father. His fingers fan out. Flames torch my hands and I howl. It feels like the empress’s illusions, but as I gape at my bubbling skin, I know that this time it’s real.

“Ahn!”

Bow in hand, Altan is sprinting toward us in a blur of crimson and gold, deflecting and dodging missiles and flames from the priests.

“Altan!” I scream, struggling against my father’s grip.

Altan releases a trio of arrows. A priest falls. He pulls another three arrows across his bow.

“Let her go!” His shout is hoarser than usual.

My father wrenches my head back. Hair tears from my scalp. The blade of the dark sword slices into my neck. I try to summon my magic, but the pain from my blistering hands is too overwhelming.

“If you kill me, there will be no one to raise that army for you,” I say.

“I have lost my leverage. I know you won’t do it,” snarls my father.

He uses me as a human shield, pulling me toward the edge of the wall. The fall is fifty feet. Fifty feet onto jagged, unyielding rock. And then down to the valley below. My father might survive if he uses his magic, but I’m not sure about myself.

Altan draws close. But he’s not going to get a clear shot.

“Let me go, Father.”

“I would rather kill you myself,” he growls with a ferocity that hollows me.

“Ahn!”

I turn my head.

Altan notches three arrows in his bow.

I hold my breath as he releases the bowstring. I follow the impossible arc of his arrows as I’m yanked over the wall. I feel the force of their blows behind me. The loosening of my father’s grip. Instinct takes over and I grab the sword.

But I am falling.

Tipping over the wall as my father’s arm stays wrapped around my waist despite the arrow that strikes it. Something pushes me upward, and my father’s arm falls away as he plunges down. I don’t know if it is Altan’s magic or my father’s regret.

Thrown back over the wall, I hit the stone hard. Everything hurts. I heave a breath and try to stand. The sword shimmers smoky green in my hands. Hands that shriek as the blisters burst and blood drips. Still, I hold on to it. The sword that has caused such misery. The sword that can make everything right again.

I clutch the hilt. Desperate. Determined. No one should have it. I must destroy it. My mind’s eye shows me the vision of Yuan Long. An old man, full of regret, kneeling by the sword that he coveted. The sword that brought his own downfall. His words, whispered to the gods, echo in my ears.

Free me.

He tried to free himself of the lure of power. Tried to atone for his sins in the end. But little did he know that his act of killing himself bound his dark magic to the sword and tainted the land. If the blood of one Life Stealer disrupted the balance of the world, surely it means the blood of another will restore that balance. And without the Life Stealer, the sword will be rendered useless.

You can choose to protect.

The sword isn’t the elixir that everyone is fighting for.

I am.

“Ahn!” Altan wraps me in his arms.

I allow myself to feel for a moment before gently pushing him back.

“This needs to end.” My voice sounds like someone else’s.

He releases me, looking like he’s desperate to commit my face to memory. Does he know I’m doing the same thing?

“End this,” he says. “I know it has to be me. Do it before my courage fails.”

I see in his eyes that he’s prepared to die. I smile. “Don’t you understand? It has to be me.”

“What—what are you talking about?”

My fingers graze his cheek and he shivers at my touch. “You are immune to the life-stealing magic. The sword can’t harm you.”

“Gods . . . what have I done?” he whispers. Horror spreads across his face. “What have I done?”

I raise the sword.

“Stop—no! We can find another way—”

“This is the only way.” I point the dark sword to the Heavens.

Thunder rumbles. A flash lights up my world.

Altan’s face is the last thing I see.

And then, darkness.





53


Altan


I die the moment she plunges the sword into her own chest.

My heart splits. A new chasm opens.

I catch her as she falls. Hold her as the pale green light drifts from her and out of the sword. Hold her as she stops breathing. Hold her as my stitches unravel and I fall apart.

Before my eyes, the dark sword transforms into an iridescent white jade.

It was here all this time, hidden in plain sight.

The cruelest joke.