Part VII: Blood Revealed
"Do you expect me to be impressed?" Zu shrugged. "I'm sorry, but what you call yourself now changes nothing. I don't know what you're trying to do and I'm not really looking forward to finding out, but it seems that I have little choice. What do you intend to do now, Blood?" he asked, enunciating each word archly, "Torture and heal me again until I break?"
Despite his bold words, Snow could sense the fear and tension beyond the bravado. Her mind's eye distinctly visualized the changes in his aura - a shifting cloud that hovered about him - and she saw that his usual, thoughtful oranges had deepened to dark blues and grays, the colors of uncertainty and fear. After all that, he still has the gall to deliberately goad me? She couldn't decide whether to be impressed or angry, but a note of annoyance crept into her voice at his ingratitude, "I don't recall you having a death wish, Zu."
His face hardened, not liking what he heard in her tone. Damn you! You set me up for that.
"Your threats mean nothing. Even if I die, there will be others to continue the cause. We won't be stopped. The time is coming when even your reign will end. Live or die, the will of the Heavens be done."
She blinked at the familiar words, remembering a time when Inquisitor Jia had said almost the exact same thing before Zu had… died. The sudden recall of unpleasant memories only served to emphasize the strangeness of her current situation, and it unnerved her more than she liked.
"That's just the thing!" she retorted in a heated whisper, trying to shake the improbability of talking to a man who should be very, very dead, "I don't know what you're talking about! What 'reign'? What 'Empress'! You say the Assassin army outside is mine? I only just got here! I do not remember aligning myself with the Lotus Assassins and I mostly certainly did not kill Princess Lian! Whoever you think I am Zu, it's not me."
The two glowered at each other as if to prove their point by the sheer force of their staring. Snow gritted her teeth, trying not to lose any more of her temper. The rain pattered over the canvas rooftop for quiet moments until the sudden and loud interruption of a war trumpet broke the tension. It was followed by the squelching sound of booted feet running over mud. She could feel the chi energy of the spirits drawing closer and finally relented:
"Look, we don't actually have time for this, so argue with me later. Your spirit army is headed this way as we speak, and I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in hanging around to find out if an entire army of Lotus Assassins is their match. I doubt they'd recognize you either, much less listen to your command. So let's set aside whatever differences we have for now and just focus on getting out. It wouldn't be much of a rescue if I left you here anyway."
She tried to give him a smile but the joke didn't go over at all. For a moment she was afraid that Zu might consider attacking her again. She counted up to four before he finally reached a decision and relaxed his stance, folding his hands over his chest to give her an appraising look. Snow favored him with a tight grin which he didn't return.
"That is easier said than done. You might be able to simply walk out of here if you like, but I doubt that Sky would take kindly to me leaving. Although, if what you claim is true, I doubt it would take long for him to figure out the difference and grow suspicious anyway."
"Sky?Sky's here? Is he a prisoner too?" She frowned at Zu, remembering what he had said during his earlier delirium. "No, no. Of course not." Her mind scrambled to put more pieces of this strange world together even as her heart was wrenched by the revelation: first by relief and then by pain, the heart-twisting pain of realization followed by revulsion in its wake. She bit her mouth to keep it from quivering and fought not to show weakness. She couldn't deny it. She had seen it in Sky's eyes when she first met him in Gao the Pirate's den. It was in his voice when he spoke about hunting down the men responsible for killing Pinmei. The shadow and darkness had always been there, it merely needed something to give it form. She guessed, unhappily, that it must have been her, the twisted version of 'her' that Zu was trying to uncover with his questions. She looked to him, hoping he would tell her she was wrong.
"If you must know… Sky is the one who commanded the slaughter in the fields. He kept me alive to question me for the whereabouts of Dawn Star and Sun Li."
The genuine look of shock and grief on her face surprised Zu, though he was leery of trusting her, remembering the subtle edge of anger he heard earlier in her voice. Monshuiye had never spoken an unkind word to anyone, not even in the most desperate of situations, at least, not until she became Blood. But he had to admit right now that he couldn't feel any trace of the near-palatable waves of fear and anger that followed in her presence since she became the Empress-Goddess. Despite his misgivings, he found himself giving credence to the belief that for whatever reason, she really wasn't the same woman as when they had last met. Regardless of the cause for her sudden weakness, Zu hoped he could use it to his advantage.
Snow studied Zu's face carefully while she chose her next words, trying to digest the information while registering the odd mixture of calculation and confusion in his eyes. Did he really hope to accomplish something with such transparent provocations? Nothing helpful, it seemed. Metaphorically swallowing the irritation, she made an attempt to reassure him.
"I really didn't know, Zu," she said and hoped she appeared sincere. "Does this mean that he's working for me? Whoever this 'me' is that you seem to think I am. That must mean those atrocities would have been committed in my name, right? Or, rather…" the strange name came disdainfully to her lips, "Blood's."
Zu didn't respond, but she continued. "I'll admit I find all this hard to believe. I don't want to think he could have turned out that way… I… I never would have suspected." The last part was only partially a lie. She had noticed some of Sky's shadier tendencies, but decided that complete honesty wasn't always the best policy. "I have a lot of questions about what's happened to you since the Lotus Assassin fortress, Zu, and I'm sure your have questions for me too. I promise I'll try to explain everything once we get out of this camp and I hope you'll do the same. In light of our mutual difficulty, can we call it a truce?"
He still looked at her dubiously. Snow ran a hand through her matted hair and laid out the rest of her tiles.
"Look, I can see that you don't want to trust me, and whatever your reasons, I'm choosing to believe they're good ones. But I really don't remember half the things you're accusing me of doing. Killing Lian? Commanding the Lotus Assassins? I can't imagine why you'd think that after everything we've been through, especially since we've been fighting them since Two Rivers." She raised her hand to stop him before he could disagree. "Please, allow me to finish. I actually have some of my own theories about what's going on, but I need to know more before I can be sure. In the meantime, I'd like you to understand that I'm working with you, and I need your trust, even if it's just for now." She held Zu's gaze earnestly and waited until she knew he had agreed. She watched the gradual change in the color of his aura from an uncertain gray to a steady red before continuing.
Satisfied, she nodded and said, "I may have a suggestion for how to get out of here, but I'm going to need your help. I need you to tell me a little something… about myself… " She knelt and began stripping the body of the Lotus Assassin at their feet while she outlined her plan. After more baleful glaring and some thinly veiled insults, she managed to convince Zu that for the last time she really was not trying to kill him and persuaded him to give her a more or less objective description of Blood's mannerisms and behavior. Zu was outfitted in the acolyte Executioner's armor, which fit distressingly well on the ex-Assassin's lean frame, and they strapped the poor dead man's body into the stocks. They had to mutilate him a little to make the pretense of torture and injury to look convincing, but fortunately, the body had not yet set into rigor mortis and they were able to draw some real blood which she smeared over the dead man's face.
The identity switch complete, Snow held the lock in her hands for a moment and focused on calling up the power to meld the metal back together. Her hands glowed red and blue then white again and it was done. Zu watched her work curiously, drawn in despite himself. She gave him a sideways glance and arched an eyebrow, but he quickly looked away. Snow smirked. As a finishing touch she added the gray sash around the dead Assassin's face. They'd probably be long gone by the time anyone would even dare to check, but the strategist in her demanded no less.
The armor fits him perfectly, she thought as she turned to appraise Zu's disguise, though she kept the opinion to herself. I'm sure Zu would just be delighted to know that he still looks every inch the Assassin after all this time.
"Ready?" she asked as she ran her fingers through her hair and tried to shake out the stray clumps of drying mud.
"Way before you," he scoffed.
"Then — I HOPE YOU ARE PREPARED TO DIE LIKE THE DOG YOU ARE, SAGACIOUS ZU." She suddenly charged at him and let loose a powerful kick, augmenting her attack with a wave of chi to send Zu flying out the tent and into the night. A shout of alarm went about the camp as Assassins came running out of other tents, and guards turned mid-march to stop and stare.
Energy crackled about her like a blue and purple dust storm as the tent shook under the pressurized release of her power. Ropes strained and snapped against their pegs, causing the sides of the tent to go flying upwards, billowing wildly between the storm of energy below and the rainy sky above. Two very startled guards turned around and found themselves facing the fury of a goddess's wrath, tent and hair streaming behind her, buffeted by the tempest of her chi. Her eyes flashed a dangerous and unnatural ruby red.
"Forgive us, Empress!" sputtered the guard on the right dressed in orange robes as he fell to his face on the ground in a deep kowtow. His body bent rigidly in obeisance and his hands were folded like a temple roof over the top of his head. "Please! Forgive us!"
Blood was thrumming in her ears as power raced throughout her body and Snow stepped forward to glare contemptuously down at the pitiful man. Kill him, came the voice from the woods again and it kept echoing in her mind.Kill them all! It is our blood right. End his miserable existence and relish our power. Use it, kill him!
No! Snow resisted, fighting the temptation, to unleash the power in her into the land and wash the world in fire and light.
We are the same, you and I. I am you and you are I. It whispered, And yes, oh yes, we are divine…
Of course we are. Mongshuiye flexed her hands. Such power danced at her fingertips. There's nothing else in the world we'd rather be.
Footnote:1) Mah-Jong. A four-person game wherein players each holds thirteen or sixteen tiles based on the variation of the game and compete to be the first to complete a set of tiles containing three to four consecutive or identical tile sequences from the same suite. The winner of the game is the first to reveal their complete set, thus the common reference to "showing all your tiles" meaning the laying out of all your plans.
