and pull her behind him.
At first he thought the attacker had punched him. Sharp pressure struck his side, knocking the breath from him. But the pain continued. It spread as he fell back with a hand clutched to his abdomen.
A stream of heated blood seeped between his fingers.
His hands had become nerveless. His sword. He was under attack and needed a weapon, but shock and pain overtook him as he reached for his sword. He staggered and crashed to the ground. Ru Shan appeared above him. Suyin cried out, but the rebel soldier held her back.
‘Lady Ling, you must come with me.’
‘Get away from me!’
Ru Shan’s hair was unkempt, his jaw scraggly with a growth of beard. Suyin clawed at him until he let go of her. Li Tao watched each action while his heart pounded. With each beat, he bled, his strength draining quickly. His gaze narrowed as Suyin collapsed beside him. She pressed both of her hands over his, over the wound. She was trembling. Frightened. He needed to say something.
His lip curled. ‘Fitting.’
All of Suyin’s clever manipulations, all the deaths he’d inflicted.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘What do I need to do?’
Her face was wet with tears, but he couldn’t brush them away. He didn’t want to get blood on her. There was blood everywhere. She was going to watch him die if he didn’t do something.
His chest heaved. It took a surprising effort to speak, but he was only searching for one word.
‘Suyin.’
She leaned close. With his free hand, he stretched out his fingers to touch her cheek. So soft. She always felt like an indulgence, an undeserved kindness. He didn’t want to look away.
The upstart Ru Shan was careless. He’d missed the vital organs. This wound would bleed him towards a slow death. Ru Shan had swooped in on the wings of righteousness, honourable and unwavering. He’d wanted to save the beautiful consort from the tyrant. All things came around and back again, didn’t they?
‘Go with Ru Shan,’ Li Tao said.
‘No.’
He met Ru Shan’s eyes briefly. ‘He’ll protect you,’ he urged.
‘This was my doing,’ she cried.
It tortured him to see Suyin weeping and broken. She laid her cheek against his. Her breath fanned against his ear. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded through her tears. ‘Tell me what you’ve been refusing to say.’
His mouth curved involuntarily. Imperious to the last. He couldn’t help but obey.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I will never love anyone else—in this life or the next.’
She sank against him, her face buried against his neck. ‘I will die without you.’
‘You won’t.’
Her body shook with each sob. He looked up to see Ru Shan watching them. The knife lay slack in his hand, dull with blood.
‘Take her,’ Li Tao said.
The soldier could finish him easily, if that had been his true intent. Almost obediently, Ru Shan reached out to pull Suyin away.
She shoved him aside. ‘Don’t touch me!’
Footsteps padded swiftly in the distance. An Ying, winding like shadows and smoke through the trees.
Li Tao tried to warn her. ‘They’re coming.’
His eyes fell closed. His body sagged heavy against the earth. So this was how his victims must have felt: the shock of pain, this creeping numbness, the exhaustion of a lifetime pressing down on his bones. The last thing he knew was Suyin pulling him close. The enticing scent of jasmine wrapped around him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Li Tao awoke with a start. He remembered the numbness, the blood, the salt of Suyin’s tears against his cheek.
‘Suyin—’
He choked out her name. A firm hand pressed against his chest to guide him back down on to the mattress.
‘Slowly or your wound will open.’
He opened his eyes to the sight of a strange bedchamber, but the reproachful tone was familiar. It had grown raspy with time. His former master sat by the bedside, struggling to fix his sightless eyes on to him.
Li Tao pushed himself to sitting position. The quilt fell from his chest and he slid his hand to the dull throb in his side. His wound had been bound.
‘You did this?’
‘Do you think I only enlist butchers like you?’ Lao Sou asked gruffly.
There were too many questions. The first of them being, how he was he still alive when the lord of assassins sat by his bedside? One thought overpowered all the others. He could still see Suyin next to him, holding on to him even as he commanded her to go. She never followed orders.
‘Suyin?’
‘She is safe.’
‘Let me see her.’
Lao Sou reached for a cup of tea and