Chapter 5 · That Wasn't His Voice

He's on his knees. The great Sect Leader Gu Hanchuan, on his knees, shaking like he's got fever chills, and he won't stop saying her name.

My mother's name.

"Yue... Yue'er..." His voice cracks on the second syllable. His hands are fisted on his thighs so hard his knuckles have gone white. "I'm sorry. I couldn't—I didn't—"

I take a step back. My spine hits the door frame. The bond between us is still there, still hot and tight around my ribs, but now it's doing something else. Pulsing. Like it's trying to drag something out of him and shove it into me.

I don't want it.

"Shut up," I say. My voice comes out flat. "Don't say her name."

He doesn't hear me. His eyes are open but he's not seeing this room. He's somewhere else. Somewhere that makes his breathing go ragged and his shoulders curl in like someone's beating him.

Good.

Let him choke on it.

I should walk out. Leave him here to burn through whatever this is. But my feet won't move. Because he's still talking.

"They said—they said if I went back she'd die. They said the poison would spread. I couldn't—" He sucks in a breath that sounds like it's cutting him. "I should've gone back."

My throat goes tight.

No.

No, he doesn't get to do this. He doesn't get to kneel here and play the victim and pretend he cared. I was there. I heard myself scream until my voice broke. I watched the torchlight move past the dungeon door and I knew—I knew it was him. He had the key. He had the access. And he walked away.

I crouch down. Get level with his face. His pupils are blown, unfocused, and there's sweat dripping off his jaw. The fire poison's doing something to him. Or maybe it's me. Maybe the bond's feeding him everything I felt that night, every single second of it, and he's finally choking on what he did.

"You walked past," I say. Keep my voice quiet. Let it sink in. "I called your name. You didn't even slow down."

His eyes snap to mine. For a second he's back. Present. And the look on his face—

It's not guilt.

It's confusion.

"What are you talking about?" His voice is hoarse. Wrecked. But it's his voice now. Not that distant, broken thing from a second ago. "I wasn't—Lin Wei, I wasn't in the sect that night."

I laugh. Can't help it. It comes out sharp and mean and I don't bother hiding it.

"Right. You weren't there. Just like you didn't know they were draining my spirit root. Just like you didn't know my mother died in a locked cell." I lean in closer. Close enough to see the red creeping up his neck, the veins standing out at his temples. "You're really bad at lying."

"I'm not—" He tries to push himself up. His arms shake. He gets halfway before his knees buckle and he goes down again, catching himself on one hand. "Dammit—"

The bond flares. I feel it like a hook yanking under my sternum, trying to pull me toward him. Trying to make me reach out and steady him.

I don't.

Instead I twist.

I don't know how I do it. It's instinct. The same way I used to pull on my sealed spirit root when I was younger, back before I learned it just made the pain worse. I grab the bond where it's knotted around my ribs and I pull it the other direction. Yank it toward me instead of letting it drag me to him.

Gu Hanchuan makes a sound I've never heard him make before.

It's not a gasp. It's not a groan. It's something raw and desperate and it cuts off halfway like he can't get enough air to finish it.

His hand shoots out. Grabs my wrist. His grip's weak but his fingers are burning hot, and when I look down I see it.

A mark on the inside of his wrist. Dark red. Shaped like a talisman character I've seen before.

The same character that was on the dungeon lock.

My stomach drops.

"Where did you get that?" I don't mean to ask. The words just come out. My voice sounds wrong. Too sharp. Too fast.

He's staring at me. Breathing hard. His hand's still locked around my wrist and I can feel his pulse hammering against my skin.

"Three years ago," he says. "Someone carved it into me. I don't—" He stops. Swallows. "I don't remember anything from that night. They said I was poisoned. That I tried to break into the forbidden archive and the defenses burned half my meridians before they could pull me out."

I'm not breathing right.

"You're lying."

"I'm not." His grip tightens. Just barely. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to keep me from pulling away. "Lin Wei. I don't remember. I've been trying to piece it together for three years and there's nothing. Just—" He glances down at the mark on his wrist. "Just this. And they won't tell me what it means."

They.

The sect elders. The same ones who locked me up. The same ones who smiled when my uncle said I was clumsy and that's why I had bruises. The same ones who signed off on draining my spirit root to 'test a cultivation method.'

I yank my hand back. He lets go. Doesn't fight it.

"So what," I say. "You're telling me someone used you? Poisoned you and puppeted you around and you just—what, you didn't notice?"

"I noticed waking up missing two days and being told I'd gone mad." His voice is flat now. Drained. He's still on his knees but he's stopped shaking. The fire poison must be backing off. Or maybe he's just too tired to fight it. "I noticed the sect leader—my father—looked at me like I was a mistake he needed to fix. I noticed they locked me in purification arrays for six months and wouldn't tell me what I'd done."

He tilts his head back. Looks at the ceiling. There's a muscle jumping in his jaw.

"And I noticed your mother's name was the only thing I could remember when I woke up. Just her name. And blood."

My hands are shaking.

No.

I don't—he can't—

This doesn't make sense. It's another lie. It has to be. Because if he's telling the truth then that means—

That means whoever killed my mother wore his face.

That means I've been planning revenge on the wrong person.

I can't think about that right now.

"Show me," I say. My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Show me the mark. All of it."

He looks at me. There's something careful in his expression now. Like he's trying to figure out if I'm about to bolt or stab him.

Smart man.

I haven't decided yet.

But he rolls up his sleeve anyway. Slow. Deliberate. And when the fabric clears his forearm I see it.

The mark doesn't stop at his wrist. It spirals up his arm in lines so thin they look like someone drew them with a needle dipped in blood. They twist around his forearm, over his elbow, and disappear under his sleeve. The character at his wrist is the anchor point. Everything else branches out from it like roots.

Or chains.

I know this array.

I've seen it in my uncle's notes. The ones he didn't know I could read.

It's a puppet seal. The kind you use when you need someone to do something they'd never do on their own. When you need them to forget afterward.

When you need them to walk past a girl screaming in a dungeon because if they stopped, if they helped, the whole plan would fall apart.

"Who did this to you?" I ask.

Gu Hanchuan's still looking at his own arm. Like he's seeing it for the first time.

"I don't know," he says. "But whoever it was—" He meets my eyes. "They knew your mother's name."

The bond between us goes cold.

And I realize, all at once, that I've been hunting the wrong enemy.

Someone in this sect wanted my mother dead badly enough to carve a forbidden array into the Sect Leader's son and use him as a weapon. Badly enough to make sure he wouldn't remember. Badly enough to lock me up and drain my spirit root so I couldn't ask questions.

Someone who's still here.

Still watching.

Still waiting to see if I'll figure it out.

I open my mouth to say something—I don't even know what—but I don't get the chance.

Because the door behind me slams open and a voice I know too well says, "Well. Isn't this cozy."

I turn.

Lin Yuan's standing in the doorway. My cousin. My uncle's golden boy. He's smiling.

And on his wrist, just barely visible under his sleeve, I see the edge of a red mark.