Serpentine (25 page)

The silence seemed to stretch on forever. In truth, it was probably only a few moments. Then all the undead turned from her and stumbled back into the forest. At first there was no sound except for their awkward movement, then a monk said, “The serpent demon is their mistress! She’s sent them elsewhere.”

Still trying to grasp the meaning of what had happened as she watched the undead retreat, her attention snapped back toward the group of monks. They had fanned out, their weapons still poised to slay, uncertain if they should pursue. Skybright could tell in one glance that they were all exhausted from fighting.

“We kill the serpent demon first,” a tall monk standing near the front of the group said. Skybright’s heart sank when she recognized who it was.

Han, Kai Sen’s friend.

He ran forward, saber raised, and three others followed right behind. The forest was too blocked with hundreds of meandering undead for her to escape. She slithered backward up the mountain road, eyes never leaving Han and the others bounding toward her, trying to put enough distance between herself and the masses to be able to dart back into the trees.

“Stop!” Kai Sen leaped out from behind the group, then twisted to face them, planting his feet. “No one touches her.” He extended his own saber until it was a mere hand-width away from Han’s chest, who had skidded to a halt. “
Ever
.” Han stared at him, astounded, as a soft rumbling rose from among the other monks.

“Are you mad, Kai? She’s a demon! How many monks has she killed?” Han tried to push Kai Sen’s saber aside with his own, but Kai Sen held firm. “How many innocent people has she murdered?”

“None. She isn’t one of them,” Kai Sen said. His tone was soft, but there was steel beneath. “She’s not killed anything except the undead.”

Han pulled his arm back, his saber raised. “Get out of my way, Kai Sen.”

“Make me.”

“You
are
mad! You’ve been bewitched somehow by that thing,” Han said. “Take him away, brothers.”

Three monks stepped forward, their hesitancy obvious. Kai Sen thrust his torch out at them and they jumped back. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, Han. But I’m serious. No one touches her.”

Han gave an imperceptible tilt of his head and the other monks fell back before Han raised his saber, swinging it. It met Kai Sen’s with a loud clang. “Her? I think you mean
it
.”

Skybright flinched. She had stopped when Kai Sen had broken from the crowd, as astounded as everyone else. What was he doing? He’d get himself killed over her. She retreated further up the road now, her serpent senses resonating with each clash of metal against metal. Kai Sen and Han were circling each other, eyes locked. But she couldn’t leave; she had to be certain that Kai Sen would be all right.

“You can be sure that Abbot Wu will hear of this.” Han lunged forward and struck. Kai Sen parried and thrust his own blade. The two young men engaged in a complicated series of attacks and parries, neither landing a blow. Both drew apart, breathing hard. They had tossed their torches to the side.

“What’s the worst he can do? Expel me from the monastery?” Kai Sen feinted, then hit the flat of his blade against Han’s temple, stunning him and drawing gasps from the other monks.

“Stop this!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Kai Sen brought the hilt of his saber down hard against the inside of Han’s forearm and Han grunted, taken off guard by the blow to his head, and dropped his weapon. “When he would never accept me as a true monk in the first place,” Kai Sen said.

Several monks ran up to the two young men to pull them apart. “Enough!”

“It’s obvious why the abbot never accepted you as a true monk now, isn’t it?” Han spat out, shaking his arm that had been struck, as if trying to bring feeling back into it, before retrieving his saber from the ground.

Skybright slithered behind an outcropping of rock, beyond sight, feeling sick to her stomach.

“I should have you strung up for treason.” Han’s voice shook with anger.

“Do what you will, brother, but she saved us.” Kai Sen sounded resigned, tired. “She sent those undead away.”

Han snorted as Skybright sped into the shade of the ginkgo trees. “I don’t know what enchantment holds you,
brother
. But demons do us no favors. They kill us. They
turn
us.”

And then she slid beyond hearing distance, unable to listen to any more, unwilling to acknowledge what Kai Sen had given up to protect her.

Skybright slithered blindly through the forest, not knowing where she went and not caring. Zhen Ni’s presence never dimmed within her, but neither did it grow stronger. Her chest felt too tight and her head throbbed. Her vision was hazed. Finally, she stopped beneath a massive pine tree with branches so thick and twisted that they bowed to the ground to form a small shelter against the trunk. She shifted, desperate to be human again, desperate to crawl out of her own skin. Hunger, thirst, and exhaustion knocked Skybright to her sore knees. Hands trembling, she took a long drink from her water flask then pulled her travel blanket tight around her shoulders, not caring enough to even dress. She ignored her hunger and the aching of her limbs, and dragged herself into the tight enclosure created by the tree’s overhanging boughs. Pine needles prickled her back, and she curled up tight, breathing in their wonderful scent.

Hot tears slid down her cheeks and she dashed them away with an impatient gesture. It seemed that she was only capable of failing those she cared for. What would happen to Kai Sen now, after he had defended her so publically? And where was Zhen Ni? Skybright sensed she still lived from the faint taste at the back of her throat, by the delicate connection she still had with her mistress through her supernatural senses. But how much time did she have?

She should rise, shape shift, continue searching for Zhen Ni. But the thought of changing into a serpent again caused bitterness to rise in her throat. She had heard the contempt and loathing in Han’s voice, could taste it in the air, like something sour wafting to her from the group of monks. Stone had been right all along—she wasn’t human. She could never belong. She was something to be interrogated then slain, a demon without a name. These monks cared nothing that she was loyal to her mistress, that she felt affection for Kai Sen, that she enjoyed singing and loved freshly steamed taro buns. It meant nothing to them.

The tears continued to fall unbidden, and she was too tired to wipe them away. Skybright tried to push herself up, to change again so she could save her mistress. But her limbs were stone heavy, unresponsive. Instead, she forced her eyes shut, humming to herself a lullaby that Nanny Bai used to sing to her on rare occasions when she was a small girl. Skybright began singing, her voice soft and wavering at first, then steadying, gaining strength. She sang of the stars shining at night while the crickets made their evening song, lulling the animals to sleep.

It was nearly dusk when Skybright woke. She was starving, and ate a cabbage bun then a custard one without pause, washing the food down with water. Had it only been the previous day when she and Zhen Ni had found them, still steaming? She wiggled from her shelter, reluctant to leave its safe confines, but she couldn’t hide forever.

Skybright stood on her toes and stretched her arms wide, shaking the pine needles from her blanket, when a rustle from beyond the trees startled her. She took a step back and pulled the blanket tight, cursing herself for not sleeping with Zhen Ni’s dagger out. The weapon was still wrapped neatly in her mistress’s knapsack.

And for the briefest moment, she thought—hoped against reason—that perhaps it was Zhen Ni hidden in the wild forest.

A figure emerged from between the trees.

Kai Sen.

Skybright blinked, certain that her mind was playing tricks on her.

But the grin that spread across Kai Sen’s dirt-smudged face was very real. “I’ve found you,” he said, before sweeping her into such a tight hug that her nose was pushed against his chest. Her arms were trapped within the blanket, and she struggled against him, like a fish wrapped in banana leaves. But his arms were too strong, and she finally gave in, leaning against him. The steady thudding of his heart beneath her ear calmed her.

“How did you find me?” she murmured into his tunic.

Kai Sen finally drew back a step so he could see her. “I couldn’t discern your tracks the entire way.”

She tensed, her mind suddenly filled with the awful image of dozens of monks carrying torches, storming through the forest to hunt and kill her.

Kai Sen’s dark eyebrows pulled together, and he squeezed her arms. “No one followed me. I came alone, Skybright. I used my … clairvoyance to find you. Just as I had sensed you that first time, in the forest.”

She shook free and stumbled back from him. “Why are you here? Han’s right. You
are
mad. Mad to chase me. Mad to talk to me. You shouldn’t be—”

“Don’t.” He lifted a hand to stay her words, but it was the firm tone of his voice that stopped her. “You saw our fight then.”

Skybright pulled the blanket closer, cocooning herself; she missed the feel of his arms around her. “I saw everything. You shouldn’t have risked so much for me, Kai. It isn’t worth it. Don’t you understand who—what—I am?” Her throat tightened, but she pushed on. “You read that book with me. I’m a serpent demon. I
kill
people. I’m a seductress. A murderer.”

Kai Sen rubbed his palms over his face, and she saw how weary he was. How long had he walked, ran, to find her? When he dropped his arms, there was a slight smile on his lips. “Come here.”

She shook her head.

“As the goddess breathes, you are stubborn, Skybright.” Then he was behind her with both hands on her shoulders, guiding her to her previous shelter. The blanket hindered her movement and she waddled, eliciting a chuckle from him. He helped her ease down against the gnarled trunk before sitting beside her.

“So you’ve started killing people since I last saw you?” he asked in a casual tone.

“No. No!” Without the use of her hands, she slammed her shoulder into him and he grunted in surprise. “It’s not funny, Kai Sen. I don’t even know who I am anymore.” Her voice had become gruff, and she wrenched her body away from him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to anger you. It is a serious thing. But I was serious too. Have you become a murderer?”

“Why would you even believe me if I said no?” she asked.

Kai Sen leaned back against the tree and tilted his face toward her. “I have a knack for gauging people, Sky.
I
know who you are.”

She flushed, to hear him use her shortened name in such a familiar way. Only Zhen Ni had ever called her Sky.

“You sent those undead away to protect us, didn’t you?” Kai Sen asked.

Skybright nodded.

“How?”

“I ordered them to leave. In my mind. I … I can’t speak in demon form. And I don’t know why they followed me as if I were their leader. I only realized right before I sent them away. I had killed so many of them.” She had thought they were approaching to attack her, when they were drawing near because they believed she commanded them.

“Do you know why?”

She sighed and rested her head against her raised knees, face slanted so she could see Kai Sen. The sun had vanished, and she barely made out his features in the dim light. She was grateful that she was wrapped so tightly in the blanket still, as she wanted more than anything to reach out and touch him. “I have no answers. Other than what … someone told me.”

“Who?” he asked.

Stone. She wouldn’t speak his name aloud. “An acquaintance who said he knew my mother, a serpent demon.” She felt him examining her.

“I see,” Kai Sen finally said, not pushing her to reveal more. “So you did save us. You aren’t what a book tells you. You’re defined by your actions, by the choices you make. And I’ve only ever seen you fight for our side.”

Our
side. The human side.

“That won’t stop the other monks from hunting me. From the abbot putting me in a cage if he ever has the opportunity again,” she said and thought she saw Kai Sen flinch, but wasn’t certain in the fading light. “I came across you while searching for my mistress. She was taken by a demon. Have you heard or seen anything at all in the last day? I’m terrified for her.”

“I’ve not seen any girl in these past few days, only hordes of demons and undead. I’m sorry, Skybright.”

Her chin dropped, even as Kai Sen pressed her arm in an attempt to comfort her. She knew it was unlikely he knew anything, but she had hoped …

“Do you carry a lantern in your knapsack?” Kai Sen asked. “May I?”

She nodded and Kai Sen retrieved her small travel lantern, lighting it and setting it beside them. They turned toward each other, she with her knees drawn up and he with his legs crossed in front of him. She was grateful for the soft glow of light, so she could see his face again. Grateful that they could talk like this, if only for a short time, between the chaos and killing that punctuated their lives. They sat there for a long while, silent, studying each other. Kai Sen’s dark brown eyes were liquid in the lantern light, open and guileless. She finally spoke, because she could no longer hold his gaze.