Fevered Dreams

Be careful making wishes in the dark

Can't be sure when they've hit their mark

And besides in the meantime I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart

[My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark: Fall Out Boy]

Marin had never felt as uncomfortable in the presence of her Seishi as she did the next morning when they all gathered to set out for Mt Daichi. Her hangover was mercifully gone, but the overwhelming sense of guilt and shame was strong, and under it all there was a thread of anger. One slip, one moment when she let go, and now they were all eyeing her as if they were trying to work out when she might crack and destroy them all.

Zifeng was stiff and silent at her side as the gates of Zhao Manor closed with a solid thunk behind them. She had expected that. And Xuelian hedged her in on the other side. Marin felt her teeth gritting. Did they think that she was going to break and run?

When she glanced back over her shoulder Marin could see Zhang Yong hovering too close to Daisuke, a perpetual glare on his face and his hands gripping his staff purposefully. Daisuke didn't seem to be paying him much mind, but if Zhang Yong kept it up then there would probably be blood shed before they made it to Tai Yi Jun's stronghold.

The trees arced over their heads, casting a green light on Zifeng's robes in front of her. The path crossed the stream where it narrowed, and Zifeng held out a hand to help her across without meeting her eyes. He still hadn't looked in her direction, and Marin wasn't sure what she would or should say if he did. He was treating Xuelian to cold silence as well, and the doctor looked as though she'd had a death sentence passed on her.

As they silently climbed the path, Marin could hear Meixing giggling behind them at something Tian Zhen said, and Daisuke swearing faintly as he slapped at another insect bite, with a jeering response from Zhang Yong.

"Why him, of all people?" Zifeng said suddenly, so quietly that Marin almost wasn't sure she'd heard anything. His gaze was still fixed on the path ahead. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, nothing I wouldn't give you. He mocks you, and fails to treat you with the respect you deserve, and yet you went with him."

Zifeng finally looked at her, and the stony resolve in his eyes was unnerving.

"You belong with me," he said in a fierce undertone. "The gods themselves have brought us together, and no otherworld bastard is going to change that."

He pulled away, leaving her as he stalked ahead in solitary hostility. When Marin glanced up, she found Xuelian beside her, picking her way over the rough path. The two girls walked in silence for some time.

"You kissed Daisuke," Xuelian said quietly, and the look she shot at Marin was loaded with judgement. "You know what's at stake here. What were you thinking?"

"I don't know. I don't know!" Marin took a steadying breath. "I wasn't thinking. I was just caught up in the fireworks and the festival, and then he hit me with that grin of his, and I wanted…" That smile that practically invited her to trouble, the light in his eyes that made her feel that it would all be worth it. And for one magic moment, when she kissed him, it had been. "I don't want to talk about it."

"How could you do that to Zifeng?" Xuelian asked fiercely. "When he's done so much for you."

"I know."

Silence fell between them again. Most of the group were out of sight around the bend between the trees. Tian Zhen had fallen behind out of ear-shot, scanning for potential threats following them.

Xuelian said softly, "What is Daisuke even doing here? I know he comes from your world, but ever since he came you've been distracted and turning away from Zifeng. You and Zifeng were so much in love. What's happened, Marin?"

Marin drew a shuddering breath. How could she even begin to explain to Xuelian that what she felt for Zifeng had always been an uncomfortable sense of what ought to be? That he was every girl's dream, that everyone knew that they belonged together, that the fate of the world rested on it being so. Those things were true, and so Marin must be in love with Zifeng. It was inevitable. And yet.

"At Suzaku's temple," she admitted slowly, "I wished for true love. I wanted to feel what the poets write about, and all the things my younger sister talks about every time she falls for another boy. I thought Suzaku would help me feel that deeply about Zifeng. But then Daisuke dropped out of the sky, and now I don't know what I feel."

"You've already made a wish?" Xuelian asked, horrified.

"I didn't say the words! It wasn't a true wish, but… what if Suzaku was listening, and that was His answer?"

Xuelian was looking at her in dismay.

"Then… what are you going to do?"

"Don't worry," Marin said wearily. "I'll keep my promises, to all of you and to Zifeng."

They walked on in silence, and Meixing had just come up beside them when Xuelian suddenly asked, "What do you see in him?"

The princess looked from Xuelian to Marin, her eyes bright. "Who are we talking about?"

"How can you even look twice at someone like Daisuke when you have Zifeng devoted to you?" Xuelian asked, but Meixing was the one who answered.

"Are you joking? With those hazel eyes of his, and don't you just want to run your hands through that hair of his? He's so gorgeous! Not in a pretty-pretty way like Zifeng, but a bit rougher," Meixing said with enthusiasm, bouncing on her toes a little. "He acts like a troublemaker, but underneath he's really sweet."

"Sweet?" Xuelian said sceptically, and Meixing nodded brightly.

"Well, he is to me." The princess gave a fluttery sigh, one hand pressed dramatically to her cheek, and Marin couldn't help a smile.

"He'd have to be heartless to not be sweet to you," she told Meixing.

"He's not sweet to you," Xuelian said over the princess' head, her voice flat, and Marin fell silent.

Xuelian was still watching her, waiting for her response, but how could Marin possibly explain the way that Daisuke made her feel? The way he'd push her and grin at her like she'd given him a gift when she pushed back, and how good that felt. The way he set her world on fire and how much she wanted to feel it burn after all those years of chasing cool perfection. The way he felt like the answer to every question she'd ever asked.

"I'm not looking at anyone," Marin said tonelessly, and shifted her eyes back to the path ahead of them. "I have Tamahome."

…

The weather had been good. The scenery was delightful, and the path they had followed had been untroubled by demons or rogue Seishi. And Marin felt more exhausted than she had by all the mountains they'd scaled and deserts they'd waded through by the time Zifeng called a halt for the night. Marin rummaged through her pack with unnecessary force, yanking out a book that she had carefully buried under other less important things.

"I'm going for a walk," she muttered. Zhu Yi started to get to his feet.

"Sit down!" she snarled, and Zhu Yi froze, his eyes widening then turning cautious. "I don't need a minder. I'm not going out of reach, and if anyone follows me I will end them."

Catching the concerned exchange of glances between Xuelian and Zifeng did not help her mood at all. If she didn't get a few moments to herself there was the strong chance that her first wish to Suzaku would involve homicide. She could still hear the faint sounds of her companions when she came to a halt, but at least they were out of sight for the moment. Marin suppressed the urge to scream, or punch a tree, and opened the book. It could not be said, however, that she actually took anything in, and the fifth time she found herself staring at the same words she dropped it into her lap with a sigh.

How had everything become so complicated? Daisuke was like a one-man force of chaos incarnate. Or maybe she was the one who had broken everything because she was incapable of falling in love properly. It should have been so easy; Zifeng was every girl's dream prince, and her sister would have been smitten from the start if she had been the one to stumble into the book. Maybe it should have been Kimiko.

"What are you reading?"

Marin startled, catching at the book as it tumbled out of her lap, and she scowled at Daisuke. He was standing at the edge of the tree's reach, his hands tucked into his belt. The shadows of the tree had shifted, and Marin became aware of how much time had passed.

"I know you're not done being angry, but someone had to let you know that dinner's ready."

"And they sent you to get me," Marin said drily. "Were you the sacrificial victim?"

"Well, Zhang Yong would be just as happy if you stuck your knife in me," he conceded. "But they didn't exactly send me. I didn't bother to mention where I was going. His Lordship would have got all bent out of shape if he knew." He nodded at the book emblazoned with a gilt firebird in her hands. "Where did that come from? I thought all the Suzaku books went down with the ship."

"I found it in the Zhao Manor library."

Daisuke's eyebrow lifted. "And Master Ice King just let you take it? I would have thought that the world would end before he'd let anyone lay hands on one of his precious family treasures."

Marin shifted uncomfortably, trying to get some feeling back into her legs.

"He must really like you."

"I didn't ask. I stole it," she muttered, goaded into confessing. Daisuke's face lit up with that infuriatingly heart-stopping grin of his, and he laughed.

"Brains, beauty, and criminal tendencies. You are the perfect woman."

The grin faded as Marin looked away.

"We'd better head back before Zifeng and Zhang Yong assume that I've kidnapped you and come looking for us," Daisuke said, all the humour leeched out of his voice. He turned and started walking back towards the camp, not looking around when Marin dropped down from her branch and caught up. She grabbed his arm, and he came to a halt.

"I'm so sorry," she said softly, and that did get him to turn to her. The look in his eyes was one of pain and resignation that cut her to the heart. "I didn't mean to hurt you. But you have no idea what's at stake."

He made a sharp gesture with one hand, quickly reigned in. "Oh, I've got a pretty good idea. I just don't think it's worth it, if it means reducing you to nothing more than some sort of pure and noble sacrifice. But you think it is, so there's nothing I can do. I promise I won't make any more trouble between you and Zifeng, although I still want to punch His Lordship in his perfect face."

That strange look was gone, shuttered behind the quick grin he flashed at her.

"So are you going to tell me what you were reading?" he asked, and Marin accepted the change of subject.

"It's an Imperial account of your mother's arrival in Hongnan," she said, slanting a sideways look at him as he winced.

"I think there's a few errors in the translation, though." Daisuke gave her a look of enquiry, and she kept going. "There's a bit that says that her matchless grace was equal only to her… appetite? That's got to be a mistranslation, right?"

"I don't know about matchless grace, but Mama does eat like a horse," Daisuke said drily. "You have no idea how weird this feels."

"That your parents were epic heroes literally out of a book?" Marin teased.

"Look who's talking. It does make sense of a few conversations I overheard growing up."

They were laughing as they entered the circle of the camp, but Marin felt her smile fade in the chill of Zifeng's unwavering regard, and the blowtorch look of fury that Zhang Yong turned on her before he swung around to sit with his back to her.

Marin left Daisuke's side to take a bowl of stew that Meixing was holding out to her, and she sat next to Zifeng, uncomfortably conscious of his rigid form beside her and the space between them as she ate and said nothing.

…

Daisuke stayed true to his word and kept to the far side of the campfire, laughing at something Jing Yun said without actually being aware of what it was. Through the gathering gloom and the haze of the fire, he was aware of Marin sitting stiffly next to her destined love. She was wearing what he thought of as her Mona Lisa smile, wary and tight-lipped, giving nothing away, and it felt as though his heart was breaking to see it.

Zhu Yi said something beside him, filling his cup from the flask that was doing the rounds, and Daisuke gulped it down without really tasting it. Zhu Yi just shook his head and refilled the cup for him. When Daisuke raised the cup again, he realised that it was trembling in his hands and he looked down in surprise. As he looked up again, the campfire blurred and the tongues of fire turned into a golden snake watching him with reptilian eyes. He blinked. The snake morphed into a dragon that scattered upwards in bright sparks and vanished just as intense pain twisted his gut and he dropped the cup to clutch at his stomach in agony.

"Daisuke?" he heard Marin say as if from a very long way away. "Daisuke, are you alright?"

Pitch swallowed the stars, and heat consumed him. The last thing he saw as he fell into flaming darkness was a strange look of horror on Zifeng's normally impassive, annoyingly perfect face.

Time lost all meaning and turned back on itself as hot wings of fire swept over him and everything convulsed in pain. He had no idea how long the pain lasted. In the swirl of fiery delirium, he could hear the sound of someone crying and he tried to reach out to them, but another flash of agony lanced through him and his back arced in pain.

After hours… days… aeons of excruciating heat and dizzying torment, the blaze of fever died down for a moment, leaving him drenched in sweat and shaking and briefly lucid.

"Poison," Marin's voice was saying, soft with horror.

"It must be," Xuelian answered from somewhere behind him. "This is not natural, and the fever alone should have killed him, but if he can survive that then it should burn the poison out of him."

He opened his eyes to find Marin bending over him, her cheeks wet, and he reached up with one aching, shaky hand.

"You do care," he teased in a voice that sounded shredded and hoarse. His eyes shifted to the disturbing darkness above them. "There's something wrong with the stars. Someone's eaten them." Then the fever swept over him and unconsciousness claimed him one more time.

…

When Daisuke collapsed, Zifeng knew a moment of frozen incomprehension as his deepest, vilest, most buried wishes played out in front of him. Accidents happen, a jeering voice whispered, and he had a nightmarish memory of his own slow nod. Accidents happen, Zhang Yong's whisper reminded him.

He jolted back to himself when Marin cried out and Xuelian pushed past him to get to the outworlder.

As everything disintegrated and focused on Daisuke, Zifeng grabbed Zhang Yong's arm and spun him around, marching him away from the circle of firelight and confused activity and out of earshot.

"What did you do?" he hissed, and Zhang Yong stared up at him in angry confusion.

"Only what we agreed on. It should have worked by now!"

"You poisoned him?" Zifeng said incredulously.

"But you agreed with me," Zhang Yong protested, a note of alarm creeping in. "He was corrupting Marin and taking her from you. We had to stop him."

"And so you poisoned him?" Zifeng repeated, his voice rising.

"What did you think I meant? That we should go to Daisuke and say 'Please, could you stay away from the Priestess?' and he would just leave?"

"I have to tell Xuelian. Perhaps she can cure him before it's too late -"

"There is no cure," Zhang Yong cut him off. "With what I gave him, he should have been dead already. You can't tell anyone; what do you think Marin would think if she knew? You'd lose her completely."

Zifeng's eyes turned involuntarily to the campfire, where Marin was kneeling beside Daisuke's convulsing form. He was losing everything anyway – his honour, his duty, his family. He couldn't lose her too.

Zifeng's hand fell from Zhang Yong's arm. The young boy's eyes narrowed, and Zifeng could read the faint contempt in them. It was nothing less that he deserved.

…

Marin stayed at Daisuke's side, holding the compresses that Xuelian passed her to his burning skin and trying not to let herself think about how terrified she was. Sweat soaked the pallet under him and darkened his hair to blood red, and she brushed the damp strands back. The heat radiating from Daisuke felt as though it scorched her fingertips.

When Xuelian finally forced her to rest, to eat, to drink something, Marin made her way over to the campfire. She barely noticed when Zhu Yi pushed a bowl into her hands.

"How is he?" someone asked softly.

"It will be a miracle if he lives," she said harshly, her voice thick with all the fear and fury she'd been pushing down for the past few hours. She lifted her eyes to take in the faces of her Seishi, and it felt as though she was looking at strangers. "One of us poisoned Daisuke."

The air grew tense and silent, broken only by the faint crackle of the campfire. Xuelian moved away from Daisuke's side to get the pot of water she'd been boiling, and her face was grim.

Eventually Tian Zhen asked, "Are you sure it was poison?"

"Very sure," Xuelian said darkly.

"Well, it wasn't me, so you can all stop looking at me like that," Zhang Yong broke in with a hint of insolence in his voice. "I haven't been near him."

Meixing made a hiss of fury, but Marin held up her hand.

"No one has accused you of anything," she said with iron control. Zifeng raised his eyes to Zhang Yong for a long moment, but said nothing.

"Yes, but I know what you're all thinking, just because I don't like him much. Maybe that Seiryuu Seishi is still following us. Or maybe this is another one of the otherworlder's schemes. How do we know he didn't do this to himself?" Zhang Yong pushed.

"Why would Daisuke poison himself?" Meixing asked incredulously.

"Think about it. He hasn't died, has he? And maybe he thought he could turn the Priestess against us."

"You're being ridiculous," Meixing scoffed.

Xuelian shook her head. "There is no way he could have done that. It would be too risky. The dose he had in his system should have killed him."

"But it hasn't," Zhang Yong insisted. "Just think about it. How did he survive?"

Marin turned and walked away before she could say or do something she would regret. It was only when she reached Daisuke's side again and knelt down beside him to touch his burning forehead that she realised that her hands were shaking badly.

Xuelian leaned over her shoulder to pass her another herbal compress, and Meixing dropped on the other side of the pallet. The princess hugged her knees tightly, her gaze fixed on Daisuke. She let out a tiny whimper as Daisuke cried out and his back bowed again in agony. Every muscle was straining, and Marin choked down her own whimper of fear as she soothed him until the moment passed and he collapsed down onto the pallet again without ever opening his eyes. She could feel his heartbeat racing erratically under her palm.

A shadow fell across them. Marin glanced up at Zifeng, but his eyes were on Daisuke.

"Is there anything I can do to be of assistance?" he asked.

She looked back down, and said, "No. Thank you."

"Marin, if he was poisoned-"

"Not now," she cut him off with sharp finality. "This is not the time."

He lingered uncertainly for a moment, but Marin kept her eyes on Daisuke, vulnerable and feverish. Eventually she heard Zifeng move away.

"He was only trying to help," Xuelian said quietly, and Marin shot her a fierce look.

"Do you really think I'm going to let one of the two people with the strongest motives to do this anywhere near Daisuke right now?" she asked harshly. Xuelian's expression shifted.

"After everything that you've put him through lately, now you're accusing Zifeng of trying to kill Daisuke?"

"Are we so sure he didn't?" Marin shot back, then said slowly, "No, but someone did, and I do think that Zifeng knows something about it."

Xuelian's calm face was the closest to angry that Marin had ever seen her.

"You may be distracted right now, but even you know that Zifeng is too honourable to ever even consider such a thing."

"Don't be too sure," Meixing spoke up from where she was still huddled at Daisuke's side, and Marin turned to look at the princess. There was an odd, stiff tension in the normally mercurial girl. It occurred to Marin that Meixing had been far less exuberant since Daisuke had taken ill.

"You may have spent a lot of time in the Palace, Xuelian, but I grew up in the Imperial women's quarters. I know just how little it takes to turn even the sweetest, noblest person to cruelty with the right push."

…

Two days later, when the fever finally broke, Daisuke opened his eyes and groaned with the effort. Shivering, exhausted and tacky with dried sweat, he turned his head slowly and found Marin curled up and asleep on a pallet beside him, her hand stretched out across the blanket towards him.

"She's been watching over you for two days now. The only way I could get her to sleep was to put her there and promise to wake her up if there was any change," Xuelian said softly, moving into his field of vision. She was holding a cup as she knelt beside him. "I didn't think you were going to make it."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Daisuke croaked, and Xuelian held out the cup.

"If I help you, do you think you can drink a little of this?" she asked. "You've been running a punishing fever for two days, and you're seriously dehydrated."

It took some careful manoeuvring, but eventually the doctor managed to lift Daisuke enough to help him swallow a little of the liquid from the cup. The effort used all of his fragile energy, and when he lay down again he was shaking and drained but at least his throat didn't feel quite so parched. Daisuke fell asleep.

When he woke up again it was morning, and Marin pulled her hand back from his forehead as he opened his eyes. He was tempted to reach out and keep her hand there, but she stood before he could do anything.

"Good. You're awake," she said. "Do you feel up to eating now? I kept some soup hot for you just in case."

He struggled on wobbly arms to sit up, and nodded. Daisuke's eyes followed Marin as she moved away, and he turned back to find the doctor watching him with an unreadable expression.

"I know she kissed you," Xuelian told him. "Are you planning to keep chasing her?"

"I don't think I'm in any condition to chase anything right now, do you?"

The doctor kept watching him. Daisuke sighed.

"Marin made her choice," he said, trying to keep the note of bitterness out of his voice. "She's going to follow her duty as Priestess and stick with Zifeng."

"Her duty," Xuelian said with uncharacteristic savagery. "I love Marin dearly, but sometimes I could just throttle her."

Daisuke looked at her in surprise, but Xuelian's attention was fixed elsewhere.

"I've known Zifeng since we were children," she continued in a distant voice. "He grew up having it drilled into him that it was his purpose in life to protect the Priestess, and he's spent his whole life trying to be worthy of her. Worthy! He deserves to be loved, not suffered as a duty."

"Don't we all," Daisuke sighed.

As Xuelian turned to go, Daisuke levered himself up with painful care.

"Xuelian." The doctor stopped, turning back to look at him. "Was it really poison?"

"Yes," she said baldly. "It certainly wasn't illness."

"Could it have been accidental?"

"It's hard to see how. It wasn't something you ate or drank. If it had been in the food or drink, you would most likely have had more vomiting, and probably bowel flux to go with it."

"Charming," he said drily.

"Regardless, I don't think you ate anything that we didn't share." Xuelian came back to his side. She reached down and touched a finger to the base of his neck. "And if it was accidental, I don't know how to explain this."

He reached up with a hand that still trembled and felt the inflamed lump there. He looked up at her incredulously.

"That?"

"That isn't an insect bite or a thorn," she told him clinically. "A poisoned dart or needle could have made that mark. An insect bite or sting wouldn't have. Do you remember feeling anything odd in the past few days? Any sting or prick?"

He shook his head slowly, trying to think.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, but there've been so many midges and mosquitos that I'm not sure I would have noticed."

"The telling sign is the pattern of inflammation," Xuelian said, and she touched the base of his neck again, tracing the outline of the swelling. The shape her finger made felt like rays, or petals, radiating out and Daisuke flinched away from the painful contact. "I've been trying to remember where I came across a marker like that, and if I'm right then the poison that was used on you shouldn't exist. I've only ever heard of it in stories and myths, and I've never seen a credible mention of it in any medical text I've ever read. Killing Seed, it's called."

"Well, that's certainly what it feels like," Daisuke said, lying back down again. Everything still felt wobbly.

"No, you don't understand. What few rumours there are all say that it's invariably fatal, a tiny amount is all it takes, and there is no antidote. It's so rare that it's regarded as a myth. Every text or physician I ever heard mention it talks about it as something that doesn't exist. If this was a deliberate attempt on your life, and if Killing Seed was the poison used, then that leaves a few deeply disturbing possibilities," Xuelian said. It was hard to disagree with that.

"But… how? Who?" he said, more to himself than to her. Even with his head thumping with a lingering headache, he had a pretty solid theory about that.

"It could have been anyone. You aren't exactly universally popular."

"No?" he asked in mocking dismay. "And I've tried so hard to get everyone to love me. I suppose the obvious suspects are Zhang Yong and Zifeng. They'd both happily see me dead."

Xuelian made a swift movement of denial.

"Not Zifeng," she said sharply, and Daisuke gave her a curious glance. She repeated more calmly, "Not Zifeng. I know you don't like him, but he would never act so underhandedly, no matter how much he hated you. I've known him all my life, and there isn't a dishonourable bone in his body."

"You really care about him, don't you?" Daisuke asked gently, and she brushed his words away with a quick gesture of her hand.

"It could have been me," she deflected the conversation.

"For what reason? If you wanted me dead, I'd be dead. And the only reason I can think of that you might want me out of the way is so ridiculously altruistic that it's not even worth considering."

"Maybe I don't like that annoying smirk of yours," she suggested drily, and he grinned at her.

"What I want to know," Daisuke said slowly, "is where did he get that poison from?"

Xuelian shot him a swift look.

"You know who administered the poison." It wasn't a question. And there was really only one name left.

"I know. It gets kind of suspicious when someone goes from shunning me to dogging my heels right before I collapse from a lethal dose. He's just not that subtle. But I doubt that my would-be assassin could have just picked up a mythical poison by the side of the road," Daisuke speculated, and Xuelian shook her head.

"No."

"Which brings me back to the question, who supplied it? I have a feeling there's more going on here than someone being pissed off with me."

…

Daisuke waited until he was feeling stronger and they were back on the path to Mt Daichi before he found a way to corner Zhang Yong, falling in beside him as the rest of the Seishi moved ahead.

"I'm beginning to think you're avoiding me," Daisuke said conversationally, and the young monk startled, his knuckles going white where he gripped his staff. "Anyone would think you've got a guilty conscience."

Zhang Yong sneered. "Maybe I just can't stand your arrogant face."

"I think that's pretty well established."

Zhang Yong quickened his pace away from him.

"You probably don't want this conversation where everyone can hear it," Daisuke pointed out.

Zhang Yong shot a glance down the track to where Marin was walking with Meixing and Xuelian, and his footsteps slowed. He glared at Daisuke, but there was a hint of fear in his eyes.

"I'm not going to waste time asking if you tried to kill me," Daisuke told him. "I'm not even going to ask why, although if you thought that killing me would help your cause with Marin any, then you're a bigger idiot that I thought."

"How is she going to find out?" Zhang Yong sneered. "She may have her suspicions, but she hasn't said anything, and if you were going to tell her you would have already done it."

"I don't have to. In case you missed it, she's a smart girl, and I'm pretty sure she's already figured it out for herself. Did you really think trying to kill me was going to achieve anything other than pissing her off?"

"Marin's changed, and she's not listening to us anymore. You've clouded her judgement," Zhang Yong summed up, a growl in his voice.

Daisuke snorted. "Has it ever occurred to you that Marin might be seeing things more clearly than any of you?"

"Ever since you showed up everything's gone wrong. If you're really who you say you are you'd be helping us get to Tai Yi Jun and summon the beast god so you could get home, but you don't act like that's what you want. You keep pushing her to go against everyone, when even the Great Sage is telling her what she needs to do, but it's my world that's going to be destroyed if she doesn't summon Suzaku!"

The boy was breathing hard. "And if you think I'm just going to sit back and let you steal Marin away from Zifeng -"

Daisuke felt a feral snarl ripple through him, and saw Zhang Yong' eyes widen slightly at the sound.

"Oh, I'm well aware that you have plenty of reasons to want me dead," Daisuke said dangerously. "But I don't think that you came up with that little scheme all on your own."

He stalked towards Zhang Yong, his grin sharpening, and took a savage pleasure in the way Zhang Yong stumbled back a step.

"What I want to know is, who gave you that poison?"

…

At the sound of a disturbance back on the path, Zifeng turned in time to see Zhang Yong gripping his staff tighter, raising it as if preparing to strike. Daisuke was facing him, that insolent half-grin on his face, and as Zifeng strode towards them, Daisuke's glance swept sideways to include him.

"You tried to kill me," Daisuke said dangerously. His stance was relaxed but Zifeng was well aware of the muscles tensed and ready to act, and the hands hovering close to his dagger hilts. "I think you really do believe you're protecting Marin, and I can sympathise with that, but I'm not the threat here unless you make me one."

Guilt fuelled Zifeng's voice as he snarled, "Stay away from Marin. She belongs with me."

Zifeng was expecting a challenge and that cocky grin, but when Daisuke turned to meet him there was something dark and ruthless burning in the depths of his eyes. Zifeng's breath hissed out as Daisuke took a step towards him. For the first time, Zifeng had a sense that this was a very dangerous man.

"She belongs wherever she says she belongs," Daisuke said implacably. "You still haven't figured it out yet, have you? I don't give a fuck what you want, or what you think. She chose. But she can always change her mind."

Daisuke's eyes burned with a relentless fire.

"And I will do whatever it takes to give Marin what she wants." The threat wasn't subtle as Daisuke's fingers curled over the hilts of his daggers. Zifeng stiffened, and he shook off the strange compulsion in Daisuke's gaze.

"We fought once," Zifeng said coldly. "Do you truly think you could best me?"

They both heard the purposeful sound of Marin's approach, and Daisuke's expression shifted into that familiar, cocky grin.

"Well, I've had a bit of practice with these since then," he said, patting the golden firebirds on his dagger hilts. "I don't imagine you'd be much harder to kill than a god. But Marin would be pissed, so let's not find out, hmm?"

He shot a smirk over his shoulder at the distrustful look Marin was giving him.

"It's okay," Daisuke told her. "Nothing's going to happen to me if you take your eyes off me for five seconds."

Marin flushed, and Zifeng felt his heart crack.

"If you get yourself poisoned again, I'll kill you myself," she told Daisuke.

"That's fair."

Zifeng watched Marin's eyes follow Daisuke as the otherworlder strolled away. The look Marin turned back on Zifeng and Zhang Yong was considerably less forgiving.

"What was all that about?" she asked suspiciously. Neither of them volunteered an answer, and she turned to follow Daisuke back to the rest of the Seishi who had stopped further down on the path, watching what was going on in concern.

Zifeng caught at Marin's wrist and she froze.

"Surely you don't think that I could have done this?"

Marin looked up at him, her face giving nothing away. Finally, she said slowly and carefully, "I have no reason to think so."

Then her expression changed, and Zifeng flinched at the iron in her voice. "You and I are bound, but I tell you this - if anything else happens to harm Daisuke, I will walk away and let this world burn before I do anything to save it."

The sweep of her glance took in Zhang Yong, frozen and startled.

"You don't mean that," Zifeng said uncertainly, but Marin stepped backwards, and he let her go, watching her walk away to where Daisuke was sitting by the campfire.

Zhang Yong shook himself free of his shock.

"You see?" he said fiercely to Zifeng. "You see what that outworld bastard is doing? He's turning her against us, and if he does, how will I get my family back?"

"I will not lose her to him," Zifeng said, and the steel in his eyes almost masked the fear in his heart.