Chapter 14 | Serpent Tongue
Poisoner woke to find himself bound to a chair in the Xu clan’s wine cellar.
It was the coldest room in the compound, and the coldest hour of the night. His breath misted in the air. The stone walls wept with condensation. The only light came from a single oil lamp placed directly in front of his face, its flame burning so close he could feel the heat against his skin.
"Comfortable?"
Xu Tianlong’s voice came from the darkness beyond the lamp. The poisoner couldn’t see him. Only the silhouette of a man sitting in the shadows, one leg crossed over the other, his posture relaxed. Patient. The posture of someone who had all the time in the world.
"You’re making a mistake," the poisoner said. His voice was steady, but there was a crack beneath it. A hairline fracture that hadn’t been there before he’d been knocked unconscious. "I’m not just some hired blade. I have connections. People who will notice I’m missing."
"I’m counting on it."
"Then you’re stupider than you look."
"Am I?" Xu Tianlong leaned forward. The lamplight caught the edge of his jaw, the cold calculation in his eyes. "Let me explain your situation. You’re in a cellar. Underground. The only entrance is behind me. The walls are 3 feet of solid stone. Even if you screamed, and you will, no one would hear you. No one is coming for you. Your only way out of this room is through me. And I have questions."
"I’m not telling you anything."
"You will. Eventually." Xu Tianlong settled back into the shadows. "The only variable is how much you suffer before you do."
The poisoner laughed. It was a thin, reedy sound. "You think pain will break me? I’ve been tortured by experts. I’ve had fingernails pulled. Bones broken. I spent three days in a Feng prison cell while they..."
"I’m not going to hurt you."
The words landed like a stone in still water. The poisoner stopped. Blinked. "What?"
"I’m not going to lay a finger on you." Xu Tianlong’s voice was calm. Conversational. The tone of a man discussing crop yields. "I don’t need to. Pain is temporary. It fades. What I’m going to do is much, much worse."
He stood. Walked slowly around the chair. The poisoner’s head turned to follow him, his bound hands straining against the ropes.
"I’m going to take everything you are. Every secret you’ve kept. Every loyalty you’ve held. Every wall you’ve built around yourself. And I’m going to dismantle them one by one until there’s nothing left but a man begging for the chance to tell me what I want to know."
"You can’t—"
"I can." Xu Tianlong stopped behind the chair. Leaned down until his lips were beside the poisoner’s ear. "Do you know what I was before I was a cultivator? Before the poison? Before all of this?"
The poisoner said nothing.
"I was nothing. A weakling. A failure. The kind of man who couldn’t look anyone in the eye. And do you know what that taught me?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "It taught me how to read people. How to find the cracks in them. How to press on those cracks until they shattered."
He walked back around to face the prisoner. The lamplight carved his face into planes of light and shadow.
"So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to ask you questions. You’re going to refuse to answer. And then I’m going to start talking about your sister."
The poisoner’s face went white. "I don’t have a sister."
"You do. Her name is Meilin. She’s fourteen. She lives in a village 3 days east of here. The Feng clan doesn’t know about her. You’ve been very careful about that. You send her money every month through a merchant named Guo. You’ve never missed a payment. Not once in 6 years."
"How... how do you..."
"I told you." Xu Tianlong smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. "I know how to read people. While you were unconscious, I had Qing’er go through your belongings. She found a locket. Inside was a portrait of a girl with your eyes. There was a letter, too. Addressed to Meilin. Full of apologies for being away so long. Promises to visit soon. You wrote it last week and never sent it."
The poisoner’s hands were shaking now. The ropes creaked with the strain.
"You wouldn’t. She’s a child. She has nothing to do with—"
"You’re right. She doesn’t. So why should she suffer for your silence?" Xu Tianlong leaned forward, his voice hardening. "The Feng clan isn’t the only one who can find a fourteen-year-old girl in a village 3 days east. I’m not them. I won’t hurt her. But I can make sure she knows exactly who her brother really is. What he’s done. The people he’s killed. The poisons he’s brewed. I can send her that letter you never sent, along with a detailed account of every assassination you’ve ever performed. How do you think she’ll remember you then?"
"You bastard."
"I’m the bastard who’s giving you a choice. Talk to me, and your sister never learns the truth. She keeps her innocence. She keeps her image of you as the loving brother who’s away on business. She keeps everything."
"And if I don’t?"
Xu Tianlong’s smile vanished. "Then I destroy you without touching you. Not your body. Your legacy. The one good thing you’ve tried to protect. I’ll take it apart piece by piece until all that’s left is a monster in a cellar, and the little girl who used to love him will spit on his memory."
Silence. The lamp flickered. The poisoner’s breath came in ragged gasps.
"You’re bluffing."
"Am I?" Xu Tianlong produced a folded piece of paper from his sleeve. The letter. The poisoner’s own handwriting, stained with travel and unsent emotion. "I could have Qing’er deliver this personally. She’s very good at finding people."
The poisoner stared at the letter. His sister’s name. His own words. All of it held hostage by a man who’d just proven he could find anything, use anything, destroy anything.
"What do you want to know?" His voice was broken. Small. The voice of a man who’d just watched his last defense crumble.
’There it is. The crack.’
"Who hired you?"
"I can’t..."
"You can. And you will."
The poisoner squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were wet. "There’s a... there’s an organization. They don’t have a name. Not one I’ve ever heard. But they have a symbol. I saw it once. On a document. A black moon. Crescent. Curved like a blade."
"A black moon."
"Yes. They’re the ones who hired me. Not the Feng clan. They’re just tools. Pawns. This organization, they’ve been pulling strings in Thousand Pines for years. The Feng clan is just their latest weapon."
"Who leads them?"
"I don’t know. I swear. I only dealt with intermediaries. Men in dark robes. They never gave names. But they all wore the same symbol. The black moon. It was everywhere. On their documents, their seals, their..." He stopped. His eyes widened. "Their skin. Some of them had it tattooed. On their backs. Their necks. Like a brand."
"A brand." Xu Tianlong filed the information away. A black moon. A secret organization. Tattooed members. This was bigger than a clan war. This was something else entirely. "Where can I find them?"
"I don’t know. I was contacted. I never contacted them. But..." The poisoner hesitated. "The last job they gave me. Before the poisoning. They wanted information about a woman. A cultivator. Someone who’d been in the city recently. They said she had the symbol on her. A tattoo of a black moon, just like theirs. But she wasn’t one of them. They wanted her found. Captured. I don’t know why."
’A woman with a black moon tattoo. Not part of the organization, but marked with their symbol. A rogue member? A victim?’
"What was her name?"
"I never learned it. They called her ’the lost one.’ But I heard something else. A rumor. She’s still in the city. Hiding somewhere. She has silver hair. And she’s dangerous."
Xu Tianlong straightened. Silver hair. A black moon tattoo. A woman hiding in the shadows of Thousand Pines while a secret organization tore the city apart looking for her. The pieces were incomplete, but the shape was starting to form.
’This war isn’t just about the Feng clan. There’s something else happening. Something I’ve been blind to.’
"One more question." He leaned down, his voice dropping to something almost gentle. "The man who hired you. The intermediary. Did he have a name?"
The poisoner shook his head. "Never. But I saw his face once. By accident. He had a scar. Here." He touched his left temple. "And his eyes... there was something wrong with his eyes. They were too pale. Almost white. Like a blind man’s. But he could see. He could see everything."
’Scar on the temple. Pale eyes. A face without a name.’
"That’s all I know. I swear on my sister’s life. That’s all."
Xu Tianlong studied him for a long moment. Then he tucked the letter back into his sleeve. "You made the right choice."
"Are you going to kill me?"
"No." He turned and walked toward the cellar door. "You’re going to stay here. You’re going to be fed. You’re going to be kept alive. Because when this war is over, you’re going to testify. You’re going to tell the City Lord everything you just told me. And then..." He paused at the door. "You’re going to disappear. Go back to your sister. Tell her you were away on business. And never, ever come back to Thousand Pines."
The poisoner stared at him. "Why? Why would you let me go?"
"Because everyone deserves a chance to be something other than what they’ve been." Xu Tianlong opened the door. The lamplight from the corridor beyond cast his shadow across the stone floor. "Even you."
He stepped through. The door closed behind him. The lock clicked shut.
In the darkness of the wine cellar, the poisoner wept.