Chapter 24 | Serpent’s Guardian
Assassin came on the third night after the war ended.
Xu Tianlong had doubled the guards around Feng Lianzhu’s wing, rotating them every 4 hours as he’d promised Lin. But the Pavilion’s operative was patient. He waited until the moon vanished behind a bank of clouds, until the guard on the eastern corner turned to exchange words with his replacement, until the space between heartbeats was just wide enough for a shadow to slip through.
Then he moved.
Feng Lianzhu was awake when the door to her room slid open. She’d been sleeping poorly since her father’s capture, her dreams filled with fire and the sound of her own voice saying words she couldn’t take back. The soft hiss of wood against wood brought her upright, her hand reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.
The figure in the doorway was dressed in dark leather, a black cloth wrapped around the lower half of his face. Pale eyes gleamed above it. Pale, almost white, like a blind man’s. But this man could see. She knew those eyes. She’d seen them once before, watching from the balcony of her father’s hall.
"The Intermediary sends his regards," the assassin said. His voice was barely a whisper, the kind of voice that was used to not being heard. "He’s disappointed in your family’s lack of discretion."
Feng Lianzhu’s hand found the teacup on her nightstand. It wasn’t a weapon, but it was something. "The Intermediary is chained in a wine cellar."
"A temporary inconvenience. The Pavilion’s reach extends further than you can imagine." The assassin drew a curved dagger from his belt. The blade was coated with something dark. Poison, probably. The Pavilion’s favorite tool. "You’ve been talking to the young master. We can’t allow that to continue."
Crash.
She hurled the teacup at his face.
He batted it aside with his free hand, the porcelain shattering against the wall.
Clink.
Clatter.
Fragments scattered across the stone floor. The assassin lunged, his blade aimed at her throat. She rolled off the bed, landing hard on her shoulder, the impact jarring through her bones.
’This is it. This is how I die. In a borrowed room, wearing borrowed clothes, killed by the same people who destroyed my family.’
The dagger came down.
And stopped.
Xu Tianlong’s hand closed around the assassin’s wrist like a vice of iron and bone. He’d come through the window, silent as the shadow he’d been hunting, his bare feet making no sound on the stone. The Iron Bone Fist technique hardened his grip to something unbreakable.
Snap.
The assassin’s wrist broke with a sound like dry twigs. He screamed, a raw, animal sound that echoed off the narrow walls. The dagger clattered to the floor. Xu twisted the broken wrist and drove the man face-first into the stone. A second blow to the temple, measured and precise, and the assassin went limp.
Silence.
Feng Lianzhu stared up at him from the floor, her emerald eyes wide, her chest heaving. The gray robe she wore had slipped from one shoulder, exposing the pale skin beneath. Her burgundy hair was a tangled mess around her face. She looked nothing like the proud, manipulative princess who’d knelt in the ruins of her clan. She looked like a woman who’d just stared death in the face and was still trying to understand why she was alive.
"You..." Her voice came out hoarse. "You saved me."
"I did." Xu released the unconscious assassin and straightened. His knuckles were reddened but unbroken. "You’re welcome."
"Why?" She pushed herself up on her elbows, her eyes never leaving his face. "Why would you risk yourself for me? I’m your enemy. I’m the daughter of the man who tried to destroy your clan. I’ve given you nothing but fragments and half-truths. I’m—"
"Mine."
The word stopped her cold.
"You’re mine," he repeated. "I told you in the ruins of your compound. I told you when I brought you here. You’re not a prisoner. You’re not a hostage. You’re an investment. And I protect my investments."
She stared at him. The silence stretched, broken only by the assassin’s ragged breathing and the distant clank of guards rushing down the corridor.
"You’re insane," she said finally.
"Probably." He knelt beside her, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her emerald eyes. "But I’m also the man who just saved your life. And I think that entitles me to an honest answer."
"About what?"
"About everything. The Pavilion. Their base. Their leadership. Whatever you’ve been holding back because you thought it would keep you alive, or because the truth was too painful, or because you didn’t trust me enough to share it." He met her gaze and held it. "The assassin called it. The Intermediary is disappointed in your family’s lack of discretion. Which means the Pavilion knows you’ve been talking. Which means they’ll send another killer. And another. Until either you’re dead or they are."
"You want to destroy them."
"I want to destroy anyone who threatens what belongs to me. Right now, that includes you."
She searched his face for something—deception, manipulation, the cold calculation she’d seen in her father’s eyes when he made deals with the Pavilion. Whatever she found, it wasn’t what she expected.
"There’s a base," she said quietly. "Beneath the city. In the old drainage tunnels under the market district. That’s where the Intermediary operated from. That’s where they kept their records, their weapons, their prisoners."
"Prisoners?"
"People who knew too much. People who’d seen things they shouldn’t. The Pavilion doesn’t kill everyone who crosses them. Some of them are too valuable. Some of them know secrets that can be extracted over time." She swallowed. "There was a woman. I only heard fragments, but they called her ’the lost one.’ Silver hair. A tattoo of a black moon, just like theirs. But she wasn’t one of them. She was a prisoner. They were keeping her alive for something. An experiment. A ritual. I don’t know."
’Xiao Ruoxue. The silver-haired woman from the poisoner’s testimony. She’s in the drainage tunnels. Still alive.’
[Ding!]
The panel shimmered to life beside him.
[Trust Level Updated: Feng Lianzhu — 45%]
[Note: Subject’s walls are beginning to crack. Protection has created an opening. Continued investment recommended.]
"45 percent," Xu murmured.
"What?"
"Nothing." He stood and extended his hand to her. "Can you walk?"
She took his hand. Her fingers were cold against his palm. "I think so. My shoulder..."
"You’ll live. Qing’er will look at it." He pulled her to her feet. "The drainage tunnels. Can you draw a map?"
"I can try. It’s been years since I saw them. My father took me once, before the Pavilion came. Before everything changed."
"Then start drawing." He turned toward the door, where Lin had appeared with four guards, her sword already drawn. "Take this one to the wine cellar. Put him in chains next to his employer."
Lin looked at the unconscious assassin, then at Feng Lianzhu, then at Xu. Her expression was unreadable.
"You could have been killed."
"I wasn’t." He touched her shoulder as he passed. "Post guards outside her room. Two on the door, two under the window. No one gets in without my authorization."
"And the drainage tunnels?"
"We go at dawn." He looked back at Feng Lianzhu, who was already sketching a rough map on the back of a discarded ledger page, her burgundy hair falling across her face. "All of us."