For No Mortal Creature

One

Present day

In the low light of the falling dusk, I found myself thus: half bent over, hands full of Shadowside, the point of a longsword against my neck.


A voice spoke from behind me. “Rise, trespasser,” it said, “and drop your loot.”
For a frozen, empty moment, I stayed still, weighing my chance of escape. Everything around me—­every sensation—­distilled into sharp focus. The forest, silent with the promise of unfallen snow. Dewdrops that sparkled on dried leaves beneath my feet. My heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Could I make a run for it? I was alone, and a good way off the open road, meaning I could potentially lose a pursuer in the dark, dense forest. But making even a single movement might prompt my attacker to drive in their blade. And foolishly, I was unarmed, having stowed my dagger in my boot.

No. There was no way to escape this mess.

Inwardly, I cursed my poor decision-­making and begrudgingly dropped the herbs.

As soon as they hit the forest floor, the delicate purple flowers began to wilt, disintegrating into the smattering of frost atop the soil. It was shuāngjiàng, late October, season of the Frost’s Descent, and even this far south the ground was laced with ice.

I clenched both fists, nails digging into palms, and willed myself not to scream.

Seeing the flowers dying was like a knife twist to the gut. I’d spent days traveling here on foot, with nothing more than a dagger and my wits, making camps up trees to keep safe overnight. And just before I was accosted, I’d spent upward of half an hour sawing through the woody stems with an increasingly blunt blade, cursing as my hands stung, cramped, and blistered. There was a narrow time window to gather Shadowside, and that was now—­at the confluence of day and night. At this precise moment, its effects were most potent. Any delays in harvesting it meant the power would wane, rendering it useless, and damnit I needed those herbs.

Without them, my grandmother would die.

My heart hammering, I rose slowly, raising my hands to show I was weaponless. Well, my hands were, at least. I didn’t volunteer any information about what was in my boot.

“Turn around,” the voice said, gruff.

“Remove your blade, then, so I may do so without slicing my neck.” I managed to keep my voice even. Internally, though, I wanted to scream. While I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong by hunting—­or gathering plants—­this interruption was wasting valuable time.

The sword’s pressure relented, just slightly, and I spun to face my attacker.

Typical, I thought, suppressing the urge to roll my eyes. A Lancaster soldier. They were always crawling around the forest like cockroaches: ugly, armored, and almost impossible to kill.

Like most of them, this one was pale, his shadowed eyes gray in the crepuscular light. If it was daytime, they would probably be blue. His helmet obscured the color of his hair, but not the thin rivulets of sweat coursing down his face. Clad in iron, he bore the Lancaster sigil—­a blue-­and-white shield with the silhouette of a tree—­upon his chest. Compared to the thin cotton of the hànfú I was wearing, and my feigned indifference, he looked positively overdressed.

“To what do I owe this honor, My Lord?” I said, masking the subtle sneer in my voice. I’d used the Trader’s Tongue, the mashed-­up dialect that had evolved along the towns and ports that lined the Stone Road, the primary route for trade. With its innumerable clashing cultures, the road’s dialect obscured some of the more expository accents of each region, though my black hair, brown eyes, high cheekbones, and pearlescent skin would no doubt mark me as being from west of the border.

“Declare yourself, woman,” he demanded, his voice cracking on the last word.

“Liu Jia Yi.” I gave my name promptly. No point lying.

The Lancaster soldier pushed on his sword again, the tip indenting the flesh of my neck. “Tell me,” he said, and I felt the tremor in his hands. “What are you doing hunting in the Forest of Seld?” His eyes flicked to the dead hare tied to my belt. Earlier that day I’d found it caught in one of my trusty snares.

The last vestiges of daylight slanted through the trees, their skeletal shadows gradually being swallowed by the slowly creeping dark. The boy’s breaths had grown uneven; his shoulders had gone rigid; the black of his pupils had flared wide. And it struck me, what he must be feeling, facing me:

Fear.

Great, I thought. A new one.

The Lancaster family, who ruled the neighboring country of Yske, had a habit of rotating their roving guard on a reasonably regular basis. The official explanation was that they wanted to ensure their ranks were trained evenly. In truth, I suspected the royal family just had little regard for human lives, even those who were born, lived, and died to serve them. Even those sent out here to patrol the trader routes. Especially those sent out here to patrol the trader routes.

The royals, safely ensconced in the Yskian capital, cared little for the fortunes of people stationed at such a far-­flung outpost. To them it didn’t matter if they sent unblooded youths into such a violent area. If the soldiers survived, they’d be subsequently drafted elsewhere. If they didn’t, well . . . There were always more.

“It is only named the Forest of Seld to you,” I bit back. My courage was bolstered by the knowledge my attacker was more afraid of me than I of him. “To us, it is Qian Xin Lin.”

The Forest of a Thousand Hearts. In the greater scheme of things, it was nothing but a sliver of woodland between the two territories. On one side, the kingdom of Yske. And on our side, its oldest enemy, the Jinghu Dao Empire.

Battles between the two were constant, but the last war between Jinghu Dao and Yske, around three hundred years ago, had been particularly bloody. It had raged for years, neither side gaining dominance over the other. That is, until my empire had revealed its secret weapon: magic.

My ancestors, a clandestine group of sorcerers and sorceresses, had been approached by the army general of the time. He’d recruited them, unleashing their powers at the last moment in order to defeat the rival army. The Yskian’s front line, taken by surprise, had been flattened. The remainder were forced to retreat.

Now the forest was all that separated our two territories. Supposedly neutral, this thin sliver of land was the only place along the Stone Road that belonged to no one, that had no rule.

Qian Xin Lin was known to be cruel, vicious, unforgiving—­rife with thievery and banditry and all manner of unspeakable things. But to my community it was life-­giving. It was the only patch of forest in this Mothers-­forsaken region that had anything approaching sufficient game, our main source of protein. The forests in our own province had been stripped bare; hunted to the ground.

Judging by the pattern of the growing moss and the loose formation of the trees, I had strayed quite close to the Yskian border. But I couldn’t help it. These conditions were favorable for growing the Shadowside that I needed. For the medicine I needed.

This soldier was shaking, the sword trembling in his obviously sweaty hands. He couldn’t be more than seventeen. My own age. Just a boy. A boy holding a girl at swordpoint in a forest.

“It is . . .” He swallowed visibly. “It is dangerously close to Lancaster territory, My Lady. I would suggest you—­”

I never got to hear what he suggested, because his words were cut off by the boom of a deep, coarse voice.

“What is this, boy?” the voice demanded. Its bearer, a brawny man with a trimmed black beard and closely cropped hair, strode into view. He looked down at me, a leer twisting his features, his face cracked in a grin. “What are you doing with this rat? Romancing her?”

The boy’s sword trembled even more, and I almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. The sword he’d pushed against my neck had a rather negative effect on my sympathies, quite frankly.

Anyhow, I had more pressing matters to attend to than the Lancaster boy’s comfort. When it had been him and him alone, I could probably have acted contrite, uttered some pretty ­niceties, and been sent on my merry way. This new man, though, I’d seen before. He was Andres Brisson, the lieutenant general, one of the prince’s right-­hand men. He had a reputation for being ruthless, for living by the book. And he was currently regarding me like I was an insect he would sooner squash beneath his boot.

“No, Sir,” the boy stammered, and he pushed on the sword a little harder, as if for emphasis. A sharp sting made me wince. The metallic tang of blood—­my blood—­permeated the air, and Brisson’s grin spread even wider. “I was interrogating her, Sir.”

Brisson leaned forward, his sour breath fanning my face. “No need to interrogate, boy,” he said. “I’ve seen this one before. She’s one of them. One of the hidden ones. A filthy”—­he spat on the ground—­“witch.”

The boy’s eyes widened incrementally and his voice wavered, but valiantly, he held his ground. “A w-witch?”