Inside, the light was dim. Yi slipped through the door and shut it silently behind him. The room was bare, save for a waist-high dais in the center. On it, resting on a gold stand, was a command token.
It appeared to be made of dark iron, engraved with the totem of the Yanyun tribe.
Yi pressed himself against the door, scanning the room. Four lamps stood at the corners of the dais. That was all.
After a moment, he smiled. He flicked his wrist, sending a plum blossom dart spinning through the air. Clink. One of the lamps shattered, plunging the room into deeper shadow.
But the floor had changed. Where it had been smooth before, now it was uneven, riddled with depressions. And in each depression, a spike of iron waited.
"Yanyun shadow paint. I'd heard of it, but seeing it is something else," Yi muttered with a low laugh.
He had heard tales in the Vermilion Bird Camp of a special pigment used by the tribes. Under certain light, it could make uneven ground look flat, perfectly concealing traps.
He tucked the hem of his robe into his belt. With a light tap of his toes, he launched himself into the air, skimming over the deadly floor and landing near the edge of the dais.
He didn't approach it directly. The room screamed trap. One wrong step would be his last.
Three lamps remained. One flickered. Yi, focused on the dais, didn't notice. But another anomaly caught his eye.
"If that token leaves the stand, the room seals itself instantly," a voice whispered from the shadows in the corner.
Yi sucked in a breath, his body rigid. When did he get in here? He hadn't sensed a thing. If the man had attacked…
"Scared already?" The voice scoffed. "I thought anyone bold enough to steal the command token would have more skill. It seems the First Prince worried for nothing."
"Worried?" A faint smile touched Yi's lips as he straightened, turning toward the voice. "Haven't you heard that those who underestimate their enemy are destined to fail?"
"Fail? Hah! By your hand?" The figure stepped out of the shadows, balancing perfectly on one of the raised sections of the floor.
He was wrapped in a cloak of ink-black, blending seamlessly into the darkness. A ghost. He stood on a space no larger than a palm, steady as a rock.
He has reason to be arrogant.
Yi stood with one foot on each of two raised spots, the iron spikes glinting coldly beneath him.
"So you plan to stop me?" Yi asked, a crooked grin on his face.
"Yes."
"Hah! By your hand?" Yi threw the man's words back at him.
Before the echo faded, Yi moved. He snatched the token from the dais and, without waiting for the man to react, sprinted for the door.
Click-click-click. The sound of mechanical locks engaging rippled from the windows to the door.
The dais was rigged. Lifting the weight triggered the mechanism, sealing the room from the outside. Not just the windows and doors—even the roof was lined with traps. Break a tile, and hidden crossbows would turn anyone trying to escape into a pincushion.
Yi stopped dead, turning back to the man. His smile remained, betraying none of his anxiety.
"Prepared for everything, I see."
"You have no skill, but catching a turtle in a jar saves trouble." The man sneered, then stepped back, vanishing once again into the darkness.
Yi's heart skipped a beat. He strained every sense. The man had simply… disappeared. No sound, no breath. Yi didn't dare move. He tucked the token into his robe.
A candle flickered. Yi whipped his head around, but he was too late.
A heavy blow struck his back. The force sent him stumbling forward, straight toward a bed of spikes.
Just as his throat was about to meet the iron tip, he twisted, slamming his hand onto a raised spot. Using the momentum, he flipped, landing lightly on a safe patch of floor.
Close. He let out a breath. But he couldn't relax. The man was fast. Too fast. A head-on fight was impossible. And soon, the Yanyun soldiers would surround the building.
His chest ached. The blow had been heavy; he tasted blood. His qi was in turmoil.
He slid a dagger into his hand. He took a deep breath, scanning the floor, and smiled. No matter how invisible, everyone has a weakness. As long as he's human, not a ghost.
The candle flickered again. Yi didn't hesitate. He dodged, his body a blur as he circled the room. When he stopped, he saw a mark on the doorframe where he had just been standing. A cut from a dagger or short sword.
"Another short-blade user." He spun his own dagger in his fingers. He had never met his match with a dagger in the Vermilion Bird Camp. Now, faced with a master, his competitive spirit flared.
He moved again, his feet dancing across the raised spots in a chaotic, unpredictable pattern. No style of lightness skill moved like this.
The man in the shadows frowned. This intruder was not as simple as he had thought.
Yi stopped in a corner, his grin widening. He's wary of my footwork. He won't attack rashly.
Then you'll never get the chance. Yi snorted. He pulled three darts from his robe and threw them. Three cold flashes of light, and the remaining candles were extinguished.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A sharp intake of breath. The sudden change had surprised the hidden man.
And that reaction betrayed him. In the instant he moved, Yi was already there, striking.
Clang. Dagger met short sword. Yi immediately switched his grip to reverse, slashing horizontally as his opponent tried to change forms.
He missed. The man used the wind from the blade to dodge, but a grunt of pain escaped him. Low and short, but enough to make Yi laugh.
"It's dark. You don't know where the traps are. Even if I don't kill you, the spikes will. Let me go, and we both live."
"Dream on."
Yi didn't waste any more words. He closed his eyes, tracing a path in the air with his dagger. Then he launched himself like a bolt of lightning.
He had stepped on every safe spot. He had memorized the map of the floor. In the dark, with his eyes closed, the room was clear in his mind.
The man parried desperately, nearly falling into the traps time and again, saved only by his reflexes. Yi attacked relentlessly. He knew he couldn't win on skill alone. His only advantage was that his opponent had to watch his step.
He drove the man into a corner, then backflipped, kicking off a pillar to launch himself upward. At the same time, he slashed at the roof, his dagger tearing a hole through the tiles.
Cold wind rushed in, carrying a few flakes of snow that melted on his face.
He didn't have time to think. As he landed on the roof, the wind howled in his ears. Crossbows from all four sides fired at once.
Yi sucked in a cold breath. But in that same breath, his body seemed to turn to liquid. He twisted, contorted, weaving through the gaps between the arrows as if he had no bones at all.
He broke through the rain of arrows and, in a few leaps, was outside the compound walls. The soldiers knew that if the man inside couldn't stop him, they had no chance.
Moke, the new Khan, stood in the courtyard as the man in the black cloak walked out slowly.
"He escaped," Moke said, his face expressionless.
"Send men to search. He won't make it out of the city alive," the man said with a faint laugh. "Anyone touched by the Falling Snow poison has only one road left: death."