The Ruin of Beasts by Maria Ying

Author:Maria Ying [Ying, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hua Publishing
Published: 2023-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHUN HYANG

I blink awake in a dingy hostel, on a couch that is too short and too lumpy for use by any human, much less one of my height. I’m not quite certain where I am, except that it’s still England—this place has a stench to it that I will not miss—and that I am not alone; Xinfang is with me.

She sits across from me now, reading a copy of Lancelot-Grail. She doesn’t know I am awake yet, or feigns ignorance; I watch her through half-lidded eyes, admiring the arch of her back, the curve of her shoulders. Briefly I imagine lying here forever, just drinking her in.

Finally she puts down the book and sighs. “If you’re quite done staring, you should eat something. You’ve slept for hours.”

I grin and sluggishly pull myself up, body sore from disuse. I recall the ghost leaning to tie a cloth around my hand; it takes me a moment to realize it is still there, and even longer to place what it was. The green silk remains fine and whole, unfrayed by time, and the gemstones—emeralds and peridots—glitter with clarity. “Is this… the Girdle of Bertilak?”

“Yes.” There is a bit of a bite to her voice; on closer examination, I can feel how tired Xinfang is, how hungry she is for sustenance. The luminance of her is muted, and I am shocked to see she has pulled on real clothes—the better to preserve her and my flagging power, I assume. She’s fetching a pack of biscuits and tearing it open, and shoving it at me; she is herself surrounded by dozens of empty wrappers, where she has evidently tried to consume calories for the both of us. “The knight was screaming about Morgan le Fay a lot. Talk about learning something new about my own family.”

Obediently, I eat. “Was it a tough escape?” I ask, realizing how much of herself she must have expended to flee Talbot and xer ghost.

“Yes, though not in the way you might think. It took all of my reserves to”—she affects a cough, uneasy—“turn Sir Gawain corporeal.”

“You did what?!” I guffaw, imagining Xinfang turning the tables on a ghost that could now be punched. And then: “Wait, that was Sir Gawain? And we lived! And… now they are technically alive, too? Unless you killed them again? Or something?”

Xinfang stands, thinks better of it, and then hauls me into a sitting position so she can flop down on the couch beside me. “I am quite good at making immaterial things corporeal. In this case… it meant that Gawain was no longer a bound ghost, and she was pissed about having been made an unwilling guardian of Talbot’s vaults. When I left with you, she was taking on a regiment of soldiers with her sword and winning handily.”

I raise an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Yes, she’s a woman,” Xinfang groans. “Very handsome, in one of those knightly ways—dark skin, black and brooding eyes, a nose that has been broken a dozen times. Well-made, as they’d say in the medieval texts.

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