Page 108 of The Blood Orchid

“Jiejie,” I said, “can you look for Zheng Sili? Maybe there’s enough of him to bring back.”

Yufei nodded and tightened her scarf over her face, then took off running.

I turned back to Wenshu as he sat down beside me, digging my last three stones out of my satchel and pressing them to his arm.

Emperor Gaozong, I thought as the world dissolved and the forest breathed me in.

I landed on all fours at the river where his soul should have been. Only days ago, it had been filled with fish and plants and racing waters, but now there was nothing but a murky riverbed with dying fish writhing in the mud and river plants lying in limp green puddles.

What happened to him in the last ten minutes?I thought. Had his soul been reliant on the Empress’s in some way? I didn’t know any alchemy that would do it, but Gaozong had already showed me that there was a lot about alchemy I still didn’t know.

I walked onward until the riverbed curved sharply to the left, and in the darkness, I could just barely make out a dam.

“What on earth?” I whispered, laying my hand against it.

I had broken through many dams to resurrect people back in Guangzhou, which was how I knew right away that this one was different.

When someone died, a dam of rounded gray stones appeared, cutting off the body’s qi. Only chicken-blood stone and alchemy was powerful enough to break through it.

But this dam was made of dark wood with jagged edges, the same as the trees that had once surrounded the river. I glanced to the edge of the forest, where only stumps remained.

Someone made their own dam, I realized. Gaozong’s life had been cut off from the inside.

“Zilan?” said a voice behind me.

For a moment, I didn’t turn around. The river plane was cold and cruel and didn’t want me here. This could only be a lie, something that bloomed from the desire in my heart.

“Zilan?” he said again.

And despite all the reasons I knew I shouldn’t, I turned around.

Hong stood on the other side of the riverbank.

I remembered the first time I saw him standing on the Road to Hell back in Guangzhou, so out of place in his clean purple silk and golden shoes, like he’d stepped out of a fairy tale. Somehow I had known, even then, that my life would forever change when I spoke to him.

Standing in front of me now, he looked just as lost as he had back then, the same wide and haunted eyes, like a deer that would lope off if startled. But this time, when his gaze met mine, all the fear vanished. He smiled and stepped down the slope.

I rushed forward and met him halfway. The sticky mud trapped one of my shoes, and I fell forward, but Hong caught me with a laugh and held me to his chest. I crushed him against me, my heartbeat so loud and fast I was sure he could feel it in his bones.

“I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you,” I whispered intohis shoulder. “I looked for you, I swear I tried, but I couldn’t—”

“Couldn’t find me,” he said, pulling away gently, a soft smile on his lips. “I know. I was hiding.”

“Hiding?” I frowned, disentangling myself from him. “Didn’t the Empress take you?”

He shook his head, his hand sliding down to lace his fingers with mine. He turned around, gesturing to a young girl standing on the lip of the riverbank.

In the dim light of the forest, it took me a moment to recognize her. The last time I’d seen her had been in the prince’s blood-soaked closet, where she lay limp in my arms, her soul still trapped in the river plane.

“Gao’an?” I whispered.

“Hi, Zilan,” she said, smiling.

This was the prince’s little sister, the one I’d sworn to bring back once I made it to Penglai Island. I’d tried to revive her after the Empress’s monsters had ripped her throat out, but I’d failed, leaving her soul trapped in this plane. She was the first in a long line of failures on my part, but at least she didn’t seem angry.

“Gao’an is very good at hiding here,” Hong said. “She found me and helped me hide when she saw the Empress drawing closer, but unfortunately that meant hiding from you as well. I didn’t mean to deceive you, but it seemed preferable to letting the Empress capture me.”

“She never had you,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. I was a fool to believe anything the Empress said. Hong must have been long gone by the time she’d found his tree and hidden there.

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