I found Tai-li alone when he presented me the gold he owed me. “This is five times too much gold.”

  Tai-li prostrated himself before me, his wife at his side. “It is what I promised the people who rescued my beloved wife.”

  She inclined her head with a slow blink of her eyes. I diverted my gaze from hers lest I grab the Mountain Cutter and behead her there. Doing so would shatter my honor and doom my quest to free the mountains of the West from my usurper. But I almost considered the price worth it.

  “May I speak to you in private, Lord Tai-li?”

  There was no price I could place on my honor.

  Tai-li hesitated, but motioned for the guards to leave us. When Falina remained, I looked at her and said, “In private, please?”

  He turned to his wife and tilted his head. But he shrugged and she scurried from the room. When she looked back at me, I knew the pit of malice and evil in her eyes. After all, I’d once killed my sister and turned her hide into armor.

  When the door shut, I looked Tai-li in the face and said, “Falina murdered Hanari.” He sucked in air, but I knew from the way he glanced over his shoulder he already knew. My voice was icy cold. “How did you know?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “She told me she could see the demon wearing my skin wasn’t me.”

  “Bullshit. She was trying to kill you.”

  Tai-li shook his head and smiled at me, indulgent, the way a parent looked at their child when they reported a nightmare.

  “I understand how you feel…”

  “No, you do not.” I cut him off and lifted up the incredible weight of gold he’d given me. It galled me to see such incredible potential wasted here, with Falina at his side Tai-li would not see two more summers. “Listen to me now and heed my advice. This is the last thing I will tell you as your master. You will forget these words one day. Your lovely young wife will bless you with an heir, and bandits or another scourge will tear through the countryside. They will evade your every attempt to bring them down until you take to the field yourself.”

  I turned toward the door.

  “And?”

  I nodded to Tai-li and pushed the door open with my foot. “To the great sorrow of your city and family, you will not return from fighting those bandits. And that will be the last the people hear of Tai-li of Fukan.”

  Before I reached the gate of the city to the East, I dumped the gold from the chest into the pockets of my armor and discarded the empty chest. It was not worth it, at least not to me. Though I’d intended to send her away, I would have preferred Hanari’s company.

  As the thought passed over my mind and I walked into the thick forests at the edge of Fukan’s influence, I saw a white shadow dart through the trees. My senses were keen enough to spot the red eyes of the she-fox as she leapt from shadow to shadow.

  I knelt down and wept.