Page 84 of The Wind Dancer
“Do you want to break our deal, Shadow Feng Lao?”
I shook my head. “No, partner. We must destroy them together.”
“Good, because I have information about where Fouche will be tomorrow night.”
We spent the next couple of hours going over it, reaching an agreement and finishing another jug of rice wine. As much as I wanted to go to bed with her, we had a catastrophic shortage of time. The information she had just received from me, combined with what she dug up on her own, meant that she had to urgently go to the capital. The threat of Zhao invading our province was too great. Which took priority over everything else.
No matter how important the assignment her mentor gave her was, as an Imperial official, her priorities lay with the Empire. So, a messenger was sent immediately after the conversation. But a messenger was just a messenger, and a personal testimony from a Claw Lord was an entirely different thing. Especially if we managed to capture Fouche alive. Honestly, I wasn’t going to let the bastard live. I didn’t want him to start talking. He might say something inconvenient.
“He’s not hiding,” she said softly, without looking up. “Actually. He chose the highest-profile place in the city. Apparently, he was allowed to do so.”
“Where?” I already knew that I wouldn’t like the answer.
“The Heavenly platform.”
My body tensed up. It was suicide for a cultist to go there. So why?
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“I doubt it’s an accident. It’s the highest point of Cloud City. The very first building. The lighthouse lit during the Heavenly Breath Festival. You can see the entire Cloud City from there. He will be the center of attention.”
I swore under my breath.
“How? It’s always full of guards. He may be a crazy cultist, but he’s not stupid.”
Mei Lin looked up, a trace of mockery in her voice.
“Did you read your mentor’s documents? Or did you just not analyze them? Someone from the city council is backing him. Or maybe even several people. He needed to be there, and he got access. Meanwhile, I was denied.”
“You requested access? But that would tip him off to get out of there.”
“He already knows that the Secret Chancellery is involved, but my hands are tied. Cloud City is not my jurisdiction. I have a permit to work on a specific case, but Fouche is a different topic. So the highest power of the Sunset Empire is working against us... bureaucracy.”
I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. The wine in my cup was now untouched. It was just as bitter as I was now.
“Why the lighthouse? They’re always trying to go deeper underground, closer to the creatures from the underworld.”
“You really don’t understand how the essence works, but that’s not surprising for a newborn. Essence is the energy of souls. Any soul. Even ordinary people have it, just in smaller quantities. But there are always exceptions to rules, which happens to be our problem right now.”
“Can you elaborate?”
“Essence is affected by emotions. That’s why innocent victims are so valuable to the cultists. Their pain and despair make their essence ideal for the unholy.”
“So this is happening now because of the festival.”
“Exactly. He specifically chose this day. You saw it yourself: the lanterns, the songs, the dancing. There will be thousands of people. Everyone will be filled with joy, glee, and trepidation. Their emotions will be a wave of energy that he will harness at the peak of the celebration with the help of the altar. If he performs a specific ritual at the right moment, he will be able to distort the fabric between the worlds.”
“He wants to tear through it.”
“It’s already tearing.” Mei Lin ran her palm over her cheek. “The altar you saw was a part of the preparation. We found four more locations that we presume are a part of this. The whole city will be covered by the ritual. And the tower is the center point. The tip of the spear, with which he will pierce the sky.”
I closed my eyes. I imagined the city at night, the sky covered in paper lanterns, and Fouche, standing on topof the lighthouse and chanting into the darkness, summoning atrocities. The wind embraced me and whispered“the Distorter must die.”
“You think he can do it?” I asked.
“If we don’t interfere, yes.” I was surprised by how capable this bastard was. The remaining question was, what was the real purpose of this?
