I.

LAST SERVING DAUGHTER

Perhaps it was the daughter.

In the lambent flicker of lamplight illuminating his private study, Lord Zhou stared at the missive in white-knuckled silence. A smothering heaviness blanketed the chamber, eating at the embroidered silk walls. In his tense fingers, the wooden plank bore splotches of mould, the signature decay of its travelled route. It was unsigned, dry to the touch, but the smell of salt and mildew lingered. In place of ink, the characters had been carved carelessly, concisely by a knife into the face of the wood, the strokes crooked and imprecise, made in haste. In desperation.

A sharp headache staked through his temples. His wife had birthed a daughter yesterday, the first in a proud line of three sons, and she had come into this world with a ruinous cry that threatened to tear his walls asunder. Rationally, Zhou knew the birth of a girl had little bearing on his business, but as his eyes scoured the missive, all he could think was that it was the daughter that'd tarnished his luck, unspooled the prosperous tapestry of his life that'd been promised since his own birth.

Zhou unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk, the keys jangling in the vast silence of his study, and pulled out a bamboo scroll. No Baxian would find familiarity in this cipher, for the language had originated from the islanders of Tenuk, unique to their native dialect.

He sat upon a chair made from yellow flower pear trees, a rare harvest and a limited merchandise, which sat upon stone floors built upon a mere fraction of the sprawling acres of land he owned. This empire of arms empire built upon the backs of his ancestors' hard work, keeping them in favour of the crown. In under a decade since his father had passed on the business to him, he'd taken it from lordship to foreign commerce. When trade along the Silk Road spread throughout the continents, the merchants of Baxia rose through the economic ranks. In the far West, Zhou had heard of travelling merchants matching their lords in income and infamy, and shuddered to think of the middle class pounding their filthy fists on his doors and demanding to buy back their land, or worse—to take seats at his banquets.

So began his ventures into trade, capitalising on the businesses his land propagated—iron ore from the mines, silk from his workshops, weapons from his craftsmen—and took his family's arms business to international waters, liaised with gold and textile magnates of Arve and Zuhra. The diplomatic trade deal that'd sweetened his monopoly over the industry. No longer was his business exclusive to the Baxian military. The venture had been blessed by the Emperor before he'd taken to his illness and relegated his only son to acting regent.

But this missive had come from neither Zuhra nor Arve, and it was not the first time he'd received an asynchronous report on his product in such a crude fashion.

Ship seized by Water Patrol. Product lost.

Less than ten words, but the bleeding was all the same.

Zhou flipped the plank on its side, thumb slipping over the notches scored into the finger width's thickness. What one may have easily discounted as the expected wear and whittle of transportation was, in fact, a numeric code detailing the losses of his product.

Beyond the expansion of his arms business, he'd walked into the bloodied waters with his arms wide open. Piracy along the Silk Road had been rife since the dawn of trade, an institution that rivalled the age of militia. Despite the blood and bone his family had built its business upon, despite the graveyard left in wake of his name, Zhou's father had always kept his dealings landlocked, clean in the sense of the accounts.

Despite the mirror Zhou held up to his father's face, the mirror that echoed centuries of faces that converged to metamorphosize his own, he was not his father. He'd evolved the business to grow the name, and with it, the hunger that crawled beneath his skin.

With the rise of the Silk Road, came the insurgence of piracy. With his iron and weapons shuttled down open waters, there was little he could do against the savage naval attacks on his product, gouging wounds in his profit and bleeding his business to the bone. But if his father had taught him anything, it was to look for the silver linings. This was how he had come to know about the Imperator.

Rumours carried downstream cut the Imperator into a figure born from legend, risen from the abyss, cutlass soaked in blood and viscera, black flag splashed across the horizon glittering with omen. The Kingslayer had amassed its own notoriety amid lesser pirates, a ship shrouded in myth and monstrosity. Amid the noise, Zhou sought out the true meat of the information. The Imperator had haunted the seas for almost a decade now, blasting apart everything standing in its way, pillaging and pulverising even the most formidable naval fleets. Working his way through the underworld of Baxia, Zhou had spun his own network of rebels and merchants from harbour to harbour.

Eventually, word reached the Kingslayer.

To be in the arms industry for generations was to know the Baxian militia's comings and goings, where they were dispatched and what sort of weapons were required to fulfil their duties. Zhou knew every single armoury in Baxia, but one in particular had interested him.

Budashiri, a barren city in Ganbold Province, located in the northern region of Baxia, housed not only weapons but one of the crown's greatest secrets.

As it turned out, Zhou was not the only one interested in Budashiri, and the trove of stock hoarded within the armoury's stone walls.

Till this day, Zhou had yet to meet the man behind the stories. All of their communication was condensed into these wooden planks, messages scored into the salt-eroded surface. He didn't imagine these shoddy, hasty etchings the work of the Imperator, nor had he imagined what the Imperator could possibly want with Budashiri. It wasn't his place to divine reason, however. The profit they turned and the strikingly reasonable cut the Imperator took placated his curiosity enough.

What he could imagine, however, was the lack of deliverables incurring the Imperator's wrath.

Sharp spikes of pain pricked beneath his fingers, drawing him out of the spiral that threatened to drag him under. When he released the missive, he noticed the splinters staked into the pads of his fingers.

Releasing a sharp exhale, Zhou stood. A drink. Something strong, sweet, to tide him through the next few hours of scraping together a solution to plug the haemorrhaging gash in his accounts, all the blood in the water, all the lost souls gone down with the ship. Without a second thought, he consulted the ceramic jar laced with intricate blue markings, tucked in the corner of the study containing his own personal store of aged wine, reserved for nights like this.

He wouldn't make it ten steps beyond his desk.

First the cold kiss of metal, then the burning sliced through the flesh of his throat so quickly he'd thought it a cough at first. Until he did, and expelled only blood—hot, warm, gushing down the front of his silk robes.

Shock lanced through him. His hands instinctively flew to his throat, clawing at the gaping slit that gushed something warm and liquid down his front. Eyes wide, he opened his mouth to call for the guards standing post outside his study, but only a thin, hapless gargle sputtered out. He felt himself falling, felt the ground rush toward him before he felt the firm hand gripping the back of his robes, cushioning his fall. Horror flushed through him, an icy torrent turning his blood to slush. Zhou's vision blurred, warping in and out of focus as he attempted to force air through his lungs, to make sense of this senseless spinning, the lamplight flickering upon his desk, open flame and shadow.

And the lithe silhouette that stood over him, the flash of silver rippling in the palm of a dark hand, wicked and writhing.

✷

Perhaps it was the daughter.

Not Lord Zhou's, whose primal infant cries had shattered through walls across the compound from the window overlooking the garden of water lilies, but a daughter of blood and shadow.

Death's daughter caught the nobleman by the scruff of his robes and lowered him soundlessly to the ground. Under the black cloth mask obscuring the lower half of her face, her steady exhale warmed her. Snaking out from beneath her sleeve, a ribbon of silver coiled around her wrist, thin as a garrotte wire, and slithered under the fold of dark fabric.

Throughout her lifetime, Lei went by many names, each an ode to the same cold, cutting weapon.

Eyes wide and blinking rapidly, his face white as a sheet, Lord Zhou let out another gurgling gasp. Bloodied bubbles popped in the valley of his lacerated throat. Crouched low, Lei cast a furtive glance at the door. In the beating silence of the study, the only sounds permeating the fear-curdled air were Zhou's laboured attempts at breathing.

Lei glanced back down at her target, his aged face, pale and drained with panic, so much like the thousands of others she'd seen. By now, years into this line of work, Lei had encountered dozens of faces like this one—pale and drained of vitality—and they'd begun to blur into one, a blotch of features melded together, with only the eyes to distinguish between each one.

Eyes, Lei learnt, she could never flinch from. Zhou's eyes, so wide she could see most of its writhing whites, peered back at her with startling clarity from a face bloated with gluttonous living, his age worn upon the lines of his face pronounced now in panic.

In the flickering lamplight, she glimpsed the reflection of her own masked face and beetle black eyes within the muddied brown of his, an abyss echoing inward.

If she had known a life before the blood behind her teeth and the weight of her knives in her hands, she had forgotten it. Violence was a god worshipped only in the blood and Lei had been paying her respects since she was a child.

Standing vigil over him, Lei cocked her head and watched his mouth gape and close like a gasping fish, the column of his cut throat wracked with spasms, the blood pooling around his body spreading outward, the life in his eyes guttering like a flame. She couldn't bring herself to believe in a world beyond the physical realm, the way Haoran often spoke of the Heavens, as if they awaited him in death, his God-given right to ascend to those godly planes. Once the light in Zhou's eyes faded, so did her interest in his business.

Light flared from the lanterns mounted on the wall. Lei spied the books spread open across his desk, papers arranged in coordinated stacks. As far as Lei knew, Zhou had inherited his trade from his father and hadn't worked a single day in his life to earn it. Nobility enjoyed lavish, decadent lifestyles while the rest of the common folk starved, scavenging to eke out a feeble existence in the provinces. Their luxurious existence devoured in one day the sustenance of a thousand common men.

Now was the part where she vanished.

Just as Lei started toward the window, instinct snagged on the back of her tunic and turned her back toward the desk at the centre of the room. Documents crowded the surface of the desk, jade paperweights and gold-tipped brushes gleamed in the firelight, but Lei's attention tunnelled on something nestled amid the glistering distractions.

She picked up the plank of wood before she even knew what she was doing, tracing her fingers along the sides. Various etchings marked the worn plank, as though scored with a knife, the deft work done in haste. Lei couldn't understand the markings, but she'd seen enough encrypted intelligence that she understood there had to be a cipher somewhere. She lifted the plank and sniffed, catching a putrid whiff of salt and mildew.

Vessels of correspondence were typically analogous to the wealth and affluence of its recipient. How odd that an arms magnate—let alone a Lord—should receive a missive transcribed on anything other than bamboo tablets or stitched into silk. She wondered, briefly, how far this missive had travelled, what sailor had a direct line to Lord Zhou, whose vast empire of arms flowed through foreign channels.

Her second secret stung her nostrils and sent her recoiling from the stench.

In truth, Lei didn't know why she'd been ordered to terminate Zhou, or what he'd done to deserve such a death, but her job wasn't to question the Regent's orders. Her place at Haoran's side was to be his weapon—to manage collateral, excise the tumour before it became malignant. She could go her entire career without ever considering who she killed, as long as she did it. Everything else was secondary. Recently, however, the questions were beginning to grow in both persistence and pervasiveness. Through her, Haoran had means, which meant that all Lei had was means.

What threat did Zhou pose to the empire?

A light set of footsteps shuffled down the corridor—a maidservant, perhaps, or a wife—muffled through the door. Lei pocketed the wooden plank. If the cipher was anywhere in this room, she wouldn't have the time to search for it.

Slipping onto the balcony—both her entry and exit point—Lei slid the bamboo doors shut behind her and pulled two knives from their sheaths beneath her sleeves. It wasn't uncommon for an aristocrat—especially one who profited off weapons production for the military—to own an insulating layer of protection.

As illuminated to her what felt like a lifetime ago, the hardest part of the job was the exit.

Lei dropped into the dark garden below, landing behind a potted bonsai tree. Dew slicked her palms, her nostrils filling with the fragrant miasma of lilies, the soft grass beneath her silencing her fall. Just in time, Lei melted against the garden foliage as heavy-set footsteps rounded the corner.

She spotted the guard on patrol in a split second. His patrol route took him across the garden's perimeter, and Lei noted his large outline, divining a stature that spoke to a raw strength she lacked.

Lei waited until he came within range, nearing the foliage she'd concealed herself behind.

Then she struck like a viper.

Alarm flickered in his eyes, chased by the pale sheen of fear as he grasped for his slit throat, fingers clawing at the gaping laceration. Blood gushed down his dark blue uniform like a crimson waterfall, and he stumbled back, crumpling into the grass.

Nobility valued their privacy as much as they valued the division between themselves and the common folk. Even in a dense, capital city like Erdene, most of the wealthiest aristocrats preferred vast landscapes where they could build their estates, acres upon acres of land before they would even be able to see their neighbour's estate. Granted, though far from the heart of the city, Zhou's estate was so far inland, the distilled serenity of his fortified land was easily permeated by the sound of someone choking on their own blood.

She moved fast, a shadow darting across the night.

One-by-one, the guards dropped like flies. Throwing stars sought out jugulars. Knives embedded themselves in skulls with frightful precision. Slashing her way out through the compound, Lei's blades were quicksilver in the dark, moonlight glinting off metal. Once she started, she couldn't stop, lest one of the guards raised the alarm, lighting up the whole compound.

Halfway out, Lei scaled the ornate stone walls, using the intricate carvings as hand and footholds, and slipped along the rooftops.

Her exit loomed within view.

The second courtyard, overlooked by Zhou's younger brother's residence, was one hitch in the last stretch before she could access the main wall facing the river she'd entered through. The vast courtyard gaped before her, an impossible gauntlet in the face of her exfiltration plan. Six guards were posted along the walls, swords attached to their hips.

Lei flipped her blades over her knuckles, heart thundering against her ribs.

It wasn't fear that set her pulse racing.

Pressing the blades between her palms, Lei focused on the subtle hum of the metal, a unique frequency that reverberated against her beating pulse, ringing through her body and peaking between her ears. Every fibre of her being hummed with the metal in her blades. Under her fingers, she felt the metal give.

Lei's third secret vibrated beneath her skin.

Sweat trickled down her temples as she felt the metal liquefy between her fingers, pulling apart like tar. Then she split the metal of her blades into six solid, daggered shards.

With a flick of her fingers, Lei sent them slicing through the air. Each shard found an eye. Six heavy bodies dropped like sacks of stones to the ground. Lei clenched her fingers into fists and pulled the metal from their skulls, straining against the suction of sinew and bone. Each shard tore free, and shot back into her awaiting palms. In seconds, she melded the metal back together, two blades materialising in her palms. More hummed beneath her sleeves, a river of steel coiled over her forearms, waiting to be shaped.

Footsteps pounded against the flagstones.

Lei sucked in a steadying breath. The moment she spotted the first guard burst into the open courtyard, she leapt from the rooftop and landed squarely on his shoulders.

She slammed both daggers into either side of his neck and slashed. An audible rip shattered the silence of the garden, the reverb of cartilage tearing echoing down her forearms. Warm blood gushed from his neck, a tide of crimson spraying across the desk, drenching the papers in carmine. Lei's hands were slick with it. Stumbling back, the guard clutched at his marred throat, blood gurgling in his mouth. Lei jerked the blades out of his neck. Using the momentum of his fall, Lei rolled off his shoulders and rocked back onto her feet.

A dozen more appeared in the corridor. Before they could sound the alarm, Lei sent blade after blade hurtling toward the guards, striking them dead. A cold rush surged through her veins as she pulled her arms toward her chest. The knives dislodged from flesh and bone, soaring back toward her.

Before the second wave of guards could flood the courtyard, Lei fled for the outer wall. It loomed over her, thirty feet tall. A loud, sonorous gong sounded, its powerful reverb echoing throughout the compound. A flood of red torchlight basked the courtyard in vermillion. Someone had raised the alarm. Lei saw the trap door closing. She had only a sliver of a moment to make it out alive.

Behind her, the second wave had spotted her. She heard the sharp whistle before the arrow struck one of the houses, barely missing her ear by inches. Metal slipped into her fingers, solidifying into five blades. They shot out of her hands, cutting a curved path, slashing through the dozen guards just as the last reached her.

The last guard dodged the blades Lei hurled at him. They clattered to the ground a fair distance behind him.

She saw the bright arc of the sword bearing down on her, meaning to cleave her head in two, and leapt out of its path.

White-hot pain seared down her arm as the sword sliced through skin. Lei let out a sharp hiss. It wasn't deep enough to strike bone or muscle, but Lei knew instantly the flesh wound would be a hindrance. Anger roiled through her body, thrumming with the pulsing agony in her arm. Blood slipped down her arm, soaking the tunic.

Irritation blazing beneath her skin, Lei lunged, slashing and slicing with deadly precision, aiming for the soft parts, for the vital organs, for the tendons in the back of his knees and heel. Much younger and more limber than the rest, he only sidestepped each attack.

The guard charged her again, sword raised. She slipped out of reach and the blade struck sparks against the stone floor. The momentum of his swing had thrown him off, leaving his side exposed.

Cool as the steel in her hands, Lei rammed her foot into his knee. It shattered with a sickening crack, and contorted in a way that Lei could only class as broken. The sword clattered to the ground as he dropped to his knees, lips parted in a silent scream, pain contorting his pallid features.

With a flick of her hands, the metal coiled beneath her sleeves shot out in thin ropes. She felt them pierce through his armour, burrowing into the cavity of his chest, wrapping around something thick and pulsating. Eyes wide, whites writhing in the dark, the guard clutched at the metal ropes bored into his chest as a wet crack echoed through the silence.

A muscular organ the size of her fist, dark and beating, burst from the hollow of broken ribs. Hot, viscous blood splashed onto Lei's skin as the guard convulsed, more dark liquid spilling down his chin, soaking through his uniform. Thick in the night, its coppery miasma flooded her senses.

Lei levelled him with an impassive stare. The metal ropes retracted beneath her sleeves. Slick and sinuous, the heart pulsed in her hands.

Fear flickered in his eyes as he clutched blindly at the gushing hole in his chest, mouth slack.

"M-Mo... Mogui..." he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper.

Demon.

Throughout her lifetime, Lei went by many names, each an ode to the same monstrous weapon—mogui, among them.

What he really meant was shangdi, benders of the five qi elements, powerful but unnatural. A threat to the empire.

In Baxia, to be shangdi was a death sentence.

To be shangdi was to be hunted—both by official Baxian militia sanctioned by the crown and bounty hunters looking for a handsome payout. Like cattle, they were herded away and carted off to the slaughterhouse prison in Budashiri. Lei had heard rumours, stories from common chatter, that the captive shangdi were vivisected and injected with mysterious liquids until the pain of the torture ruptured their organs. Then they tossed the dead into putrid, rotting piles and cremated the bodies to make way for fresher stock.

Better a demon than livestock.

Lei dropped the still-beating heart and it landed with an audible splash in the dark and lacquered pool of blood that'd formed, spreading through the cracks in the tiles. Kneeling in it, soaking in her silence, the guard peered up at her, his face death-pale. Drawing in a trembling breath, he toppled over sideways, the hole in his chest gaping hopelessly at her. Moments before his body went slack and the light in his gaze went cold, Lei vanished over the wall, soundless as a shadow.

Better to be something feared than something hunted.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

welcome back to Kingslayer! Lei's journey is going to be SO exciting!!!!! (even though writing about politics and commerce is making me sweat behind the knees. i'm kind of enjoying myself learning about new things. i'm nowhere close to business savvy, but i'm good at research, so there's that!)

also i know this book is lacking in wattpad's #1 reason for existence (romance) but it's there. it's the romance of finding a new home, a new place to be from, and the romance of the sea. (jk. there is real romance. it's just not the focus of this book. it's going to be so subtle so PLEASEEEE bear with me!!! I PROMISE IT WILL HIT SO GOOD LATER!!!! BUT FOR NOW BELIEVE ME!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!! I'M A STARRRRR!!!!!!!)