Jade Fire Gold(13)

The streets get more desolate as I sprint on. Soon, a stitch forms in my stomach. Desperately hoping, I crane my neck only to see two moving figures behind me in the distance. I cut across the street into an alley blindly, and trip over some wooden barrels. The force of the collision lands me on the ground. My hands take the brunt of my fall, nicked and stinging from the rough stones. I look up and curse.

It’s a dead end.

A ten-foot wall at the back of the alley blocks my freedom. I scramble forward and test it with a weather-beaten boot. Too smooth. Even if I manage to scale it, I may break a leg getting down the other side. The gods know I can’t afford to, but I have no choice.

Before I can even try, footsteps skid behind me. My stomach flips. The men have caught up, blocking the only clear path out of the alleyway.

Should have sold the damned ring. Sentiment made me weak, and now I’m paying its price.

The taller of the two men draws a broad sword from his waist. He’s muscled and looks combat trained. His companion is stout and pig-eyed with a nasty scar running across his forehead and a spear in his hand. They look like southerners with their short hair, and they wear no mourning robes. Traders? The taller man spins his sword round and round expertly with only his fingers on the hilt. Or soldiers? My heart sinks when I glance back at his companion. His spear is untasseled. He bears no military allegiance.

Mercenaries.

Mercenaries only have the heart for coin. Mercenaries don’t appreciate being stolen from.

“Just a peasant girl, Banu,” laughs the stout man in heavily accented Shi. He adds something in his own language, and Banu chuckles derisively.

There’s nowhere to run and I can’t beat them. They’re bigger, stronger, and skilled with weaponry. I’m just a street rat living off my wits.

My voice is an octave higher as I blubber, “Please, noble sir, please forgive me. You’re right, I’m just a peasant girl, a foolish girl to even think of stealing from a brave warrior like you.” I let out a huge sniff, wondering if I’ve exaggerated too much. “Please, take the sword and spare my life.”

Stout chortles and claps a meaty hand on Banu’s back, giving him a knowing smile. Banu’s eyes rove up and down my body before he grins back. “I’m thinking we want more than the sword now.”

Revulsion fills my throat, but I stop myself from glaring. The sword isn’t worth my life or whatever horrifying ideas the men have in mind. I’ll have to make a run for it. I’m fast and the winding streets I grew up in are my advantage.

This time, there will be no dead ends.

“Please, esteemed warriors, my grandmother’s ill and I need to go home. Take the sword and leave me be.” I choke out a sob that surprises myself with its sincerity. Ama’s sickly face crosses my mind but I blink it away. I will find another way to get her medicine.

Banu leers. “I think not.”

As they approach, something inside me shifts. A strange hum starts in my ears. Bright lights swim in my vision. Energy thrums through my veins as my heart batters my rib cage.

Gods, no.

I shunned my magic for my own safety and Ama’s. It lay dormant for so long, but now, that strange creature is awake. Rising inside me, forcing its way out.

A thin layer of ice starts to form around the blade of the sword.

Stout curses loudly in his dialect. “Magic—she has magic!”

“A gold tael for each Tiensai girl caught alive, that’s what the priest said,” Banu snarls.

He grabs my robes and throws me back. My spine connects with the stone wall. Air knocks out of my lungs. The humming in my ears crescendos like thousands of cicadas after a desert rainstorm.

Everything liquefies. The shock stops my breath.

A burst of sparkling clarity sweeps through my mind like a tsunami washing away all previous understanding. My senses heighten.

The world unfolds in front of my eyes for the first time. Everything is sharper, brighter. The sky is an astonishing shade of blue, so beautiful it hurts to look. The sun shines with an unnatural radiance, capturing my surroundings in an ethereal halo. Gravel crunches in my ears as things scrape the ground. The stench of sweat assaults my nostrils, mixed with an underlying scent of something else I can’t place. Energy courses through my blood and exhilaration floods my body. This euphoric sensation of control—I never knew I could feel it.

Never knew that I wanted it.

Guttural, wheezing sounds puncture my rapture. My brain doesn’t understand what my eyes show me.

The two men are glowing.

A strange pale green light emanates from them, moving like smoke as they convulse. Hands clutching and clawing at their throats. Faces turning purple, eyes bloodshot and bulging. Their skin loosens. Flesh retreats within. Banu gives a loud, strangled shriek as he starts to shrivel. With heavy thumps, both men collapse.

Lifeless.

I breath in and gag. The world shrinks back into mundane focus. Warmth saps out of me, chased by an inexplicable iciness quenching the fire in my body. I feel empty. Hollow. Like someone dug into my being and took the heart of who I am.

My hands shake. I’m cold, so cold. What just happened? That didn’t feel like my magic. That didn’t feel like me. It was something else. Something unknown. Like a claw yanking me down into the dark depths of the ocean where no light can shine through.

The men.

Nothing’s left of them but two corpses that look—Did I do that? But . . . how? I’ve never killed anyone before.