Page 115 of The Blood Orchid

“How can we possibly use alchemy anymore?” the Sandstone Alchemist said at last. “Knowing the cost, I can’t—”

But Taizong kept speaking, ignoring him entirely. “We need this power in my kingdom,” he said.

“Yourkingdom?” the ghost woman said. “You’re not even the Crown Prince. What makes you think China will be yours?”

Taizong jerked a hand up at the mountain. “With this kind of power—”

“We could destroy anything,” another one of the strangers said, a young woman with dark, haunted eyes. “Without meaning to, we could shatter the whole world.”

“And then we could build a new one,” Taizong said, waving his hand dismissively.

The Silver Alchemist slammed a fist into the tree trunk, and the whole world shivered, knocking half the alchemists off their feet, though I couldn’t feel the vibrations in the ground at all. She looked up with a grin, showing her empty palm.

“Only one earthstone,” she said. “Alchemical power is amplified here, so close to the source. Imagine what kind of transformations we could do.”

“I don’t want to imagine it,” the woman at the back said. “We should never have come here.”

The Silver Alchemist and Taizong shared a knowing look.

“Fine,” Taizong said after a long moment. “It would be a waste of breath to argue further. Your mind is made up.”

The Silver Alchemist looked between the nameless alchemists, her gaze settling on the Sandstone Alchemist. “What about you?” she said.

He shifted from foot to foot. “Does it matter?” he said. “The rule of three. You don’t need me.”

Need him for what?I thought, at the same time one of the strangers voiced the thought aloud, though it went unanswered.

“Unlucky number four,” the Silver Alchemist said, shrugging.

The Sandstone Alchemist grimaced, looking between Taizong, the Arcane Alchemist, and the Silver Alchemist with a pained expression. He let out a sigh, then stepped across the shallow end of the river, standing on the side with the four nameless alchemists.

“How disappointing,” the Silver Alchemist said.

But the Sandstone Alchemist didn’t respond. Instead, he reached into his sleeve, pulled out a keenly sharpened blade, suddenly the brightest point in the dark gray plane, and sliced a clean line across the closest woman’s throat.

I wanted to draw back, to cover my own throat reflexively, but I was the soil drinking her blood, the blade at her throat, the unforgiving coldness of the sky above, and I could do nothing at all.

The woman clutched the wound, falling to her knees. One of the strangers reached for her, but blood was already rushing through her fingers. She fell forward, landing face-first in the river, clouds of red spilling into its clear waters.

The three other strangers stared in disbelief, looking between the dead woman and the Sandstone Alchemist.

“Why?” one of them said, taking an unsteady step back.

But the Sandstone Alchemist didn’t answer. His hands trembled as he cuffed blood spatter from his face, then dropped his blade and turned away.

“Finally,” Taizong said, rolling his shoulders and drawing his sword.

The other three tried to flee, but each of the alchemists grabbed one and hauled them back to the river.

Taizong smashed one of the young men’s heads against a rock until his face crushed inward and he fell limp, gurgling in the shallow waters. The Arcane Alchemist stabbed the other man in the stomach, stepping back in surprise when the man continued to fight, yanking the knife from his own abdomen. He took a wide swing at the Arcane Alchemist, who only laughed and kneed him in the stomach. When he folded forward, the Arcane Alchemist held him facedown in the river until he fell still. The Silver Alchemist forced the last woman to the groundand pressed her knee into her throat, leaning harder and harder until the woman’s face turned blue.

When she stopped struggling, the Silver Alchemist rolled her body into the river, and the world fell quiet once more. The four remaining alchemists looked to each other, the river between them now rushing red.

“We shouldn’t have done this,” the Sandstone Alchemist said quietly, still staring out to the sea.

Taizong scoffed. “Spare me your judgment. You’re just the same as us.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” the Sandstone Alchemist said, his voice distant, the words so soft that the song of the wind nearly overpowered them.

---