The moment the ntern shattered, Three sprung out into hunt.

  She lunged behind a man, knife out — a stab, and she was gone, vanishing into the treetops.

  She didn’t linger long enough to catch the sound of the man’s body hitting dirt.

  Her eyes narrowed, the qi concentrating in her senses and muscles. The darkness lit up with hazy shadows.

  Eleven left to kill.

  Like a leopard, she crept through the branches and leaves, searching.

  Of the remaining men, three were strong; four were probably around her level; two were dangerous and the st two were weak.

  The weakest man was walking by the ke’s edge — if he came any closer, he would soon walk underneath her.

  She stilled with bated breath —

  She dropped down, swinging her knife and smoothly slitting his neck. Hot wet gushed out over her fingers — the man thrashed, coughing and gasping and dying, he broke away from her and stumbled into the water with a spsh —

  ‘There!’

  ‘The shadow’s there —’

  ‘Kill her!’

  Shit!

  She ran — she couldn’t die, not now — but a knife whistled by her ear, forcing her to stop. Spun around, and two men were running at her — she ran to meet them, then ducked into a roll and sshed her way out —

  A man screamed, blood flying — she’d slit his stomach on the way out — and a punch smmed down on her back, smashing her into the ground, dirt hitting her chin — she twisted, wrapping herself around the man’s arm — her ankles locked around his neck, choking coughs spttering into the air — a burning pain, a bde, stabbed into her side — she spun and broke his neck.

  Fists hailed down on her. The other man didn’t use his knife anymore — did he fear ruining his companion’s corpse? Twisting, she crawled under that dead body and lifted it as she would a shield, her muscles burning her qi away like a fire as she smashed it into the other’s face.

  As he recoiled, she ripped a knife from her boot and smmed it into the other’s neck.

  He fell down dead.

  Heaving, blood dripping down her arms and a knife lodged in her side, she staggered a few steps — eight more to go.

  That bde scraped against her ribs. Bck spots fshed in front of her, pain sparking up and searing her like boiling oil. She couldn’t take it out now, or she’d die from the blood loss, but the damned thing pinned her muscles and tore at her skin.

  She edged her left arm up and down, but pain ripped through her side — with each flex, pearls of blood rolled down to seep into the bck robes.

  Eight more.

  That number swam and danced in her head.

  Just eight more.

  She stumbled, then forced her legs to jog. She had to make sure that the princess made it — that Xi Qian’e had gone to the emperor — that the other assassins didn’t catch up —

  If she couldn’t find the princess, that was good.

  If she couldn’t find the princess, but found the st eight, then that was even better.

  And out of the darkness, from the gravel that crunched underfoot, dark silhouettes spun to meet her eyes.

  She ducked behind a tree and raised a knife. Poised herself, leaning against the trunk. Threw it hard — and a shadow fell to the ground as the others shrieked.

  ‘The guard!’

  ‘It’s the shadow guard —’

  A boy called out, ‘Search!’

  The group split up and roved over the gardens.

  She gritted her teeth and set out to move again. With that knife sticking out of her, at least two broken ribs and bruises littering every bit of her skin, she couldn’t climb or move fast.

  While she couldn’t kill everyone, she could at least lead them away. By then, the princess would be safe.

  She backtracked through the dark to find the pair of corpses from before, retrieving a knife. Then, she pushed one into the pace ke and id down beside the other.

  Footsteps came, muffled and quiet over the carpet of grass. A whisper, low and hoarse, rippled over her ears. ‘Big Brother? Brother, are you okay?’

  A youth’s voice.

  Probably her age, or a little younger.

  The boy’s hands fell on the body next to her. As the boy pushed at the corpse, the dried blood and snapped neck lolled about to sp her in the shoulder.

  ‘Brother, wake up. Please wake up! We need you; she’s killed Er-ge already, I’m scared, that guard is too strong…’ As a wetness grew in his voice, he turned to touch Three, whimpering, but before his fingers could feel the thinness of her silhouette, she snapped up, an alligator lying in wait, her fingers and its bde puncturing the boy’s throat, muscles seizing up by her chest and distant starlight dancing in the boy’s reddened eyes, death swooping in as knees buckled and hands clenched and tears mixed with blood rolled down a young, soft face.

  She left the boy’s corpse there and stumbled away. Vomit fought its way up her throat, with a burn worse than liquor.

  But she had no time to dry-heave — she ran away from the dead bodies before a stronger, sharper man could find her.

  And so, she and those hunters pyed the most ridiculous, almost hiriously stupid game through the night, running this way and that, leaving blood drops like pearls and throwing stones like treasure maps.

  Her breaths, they were so loud.

  How long had it been?

  The number of assassins trailing after her was slowly whittled down from seven to five, from five to four. Now, she could vaguely make one out to be straying away.

  Her breaths came hot. They burned in her throat.

  She scooped up a stone and carelessly threw it, hitting a tree. The dull thump of rock on wood had the vengeful men swooping in like crows.

  Then, quickening her pace, she slid away. But —

  A dagger whistled by her ears.

  Too slow.

  Pain smashed into her. She was weightless — then she fell, smming into the dirt. The other man lifted a knife, bringing it down on her head — she rolled, crawling away.

  ‘Brothers! She’s here —!’

  ‘I’m coming —’

  Shapes came out from behind the trees. Her mind raced — she couldn’t run, couldn’t escape, couldn’t win —

  But in the dark, as she scrabbled on all fours, her fingers came to a sharp dip in the ground.

  A deep, giant hole.

  When the next stab came down, she tilted her neck and let it lodge beside her shoulder bde, her hair sticking to the wound in a bck mess. The pain had the world fshing, hazy with nausea, and she let herself go limp, rolling into the earth —

  She smashed into something bony but wet, wrapped in a coarse, crusted fabric.

  A voice said, ‘Where’d she go?’

  The man called back, ‘She fell down, into the hole we dug earlier.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yeah, I got her neck.’ The man walked away, his footsteps shaking dirt onto Three’s face.

  ‘You sure? It’s too dark to see —’

  ‘Look, even if I didn’t, she’ll die from blood loss anyway.’

  Three held back an angry sneer; while the men had given her quite the good ones, her stab wounds were still plugged by the knives — she’d be fine for a few more hours.

  But infection was another story.

  She tried to force her qi to seal her wounds, only to give up — she didn’t have enough to spare. Any less and she’d pass out or die on the spot.

  ‘Good.’ The other’s words grew distant as he walked away, ‘You report to the empress and First Prince, I’ll go get… I’ll retrieve the others.’

  ‘…Alright.’

  Then, a head peered over the edge.

  Three held her breath, stiffly holding her shape. Her eyes didn’t even flicker, even as her heart pounded louder and louder as the ringing in her ears grew into a firestorm.

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ the man cursed. He spat down at her and missed, then walked away.

  Fuck you too, she thought.

  Quiet settled down. She could no longer distinguish between the darkness and her own hazy vision — regardless of it all, she wouldn’t be able to see anyway.

  Twisting a little, she rolled onto her front, her hands pushing into a thin softness with a crunch. Her hair, having long come undone, had caught itself on something heaven knew what and fuelled her raging headache.

  She reached out, clenching the bck ribbon that had once bound her hair, and struggled to blindfold herself. But it wouldn’t stay, not with her shaking fingers and waning strength.

  Her hands fell.

  Cold.

  It was very, very cold, and she was very, very tired.

  She y there, quiet. Letting the heat bleed out of her and into the freezing air. Until something soft, a little powdery, almost bitingly painful in its numbing cold, fluttered down onto her head.

  Her left arm, her legs, they had vanished from her. She could only lift that right arm of hers and cup the te-night air.

  The powder filled her hand and crumbled through her shivering fingers.

  A smile cracked on her face.

  The first winter snow had arrived.

  But then dizziness stole over her and pulled her eyelids shut.

  She let the pure snow bury her under.