Chapter Twenty-Three Arun
The one THING Arun would never get used to in the under-realm was how damn cold it was. He longed for the humidity of Bakrute, the soupy air and a sun that burned so hot it could bake the sweat into your skin.
That was why, when he shivered, it was only because of the cold.
As soon as Kasu and Ruo had stepped into the next room with Lady Camellia, the door had disappeared. Gingerly, Arun crawled out of his hiding place and pressed his hands against the now empty wall where it had been.
He tried feeling around the wood for a secret hatch, tried shoving his shoulder against the wall in case it gave way, but nothing worked. The wall was just a wall and the door – along with Kasu and the others – was gone.
There was no way out.
He was trapped.
There was no point panicking. He could not leave without the elixir, anyway.
There were still plenty of bottles on the shelves around him, though they all contained the same noxious green smoke that had exploded into the air when some of the bottles had shattered.
Though they weren’t what the Pale Lady wanted, Arun grabbed one from the shelf just in case.
What else was there? A portrait scroll hung on the back wall – a man dressed like a peasant stared down at Arun through dark, half-lidded eyes.
A strange choice of décor. Arun peeked behind the painting, but there was nothing there either, just more solid wall.
He gave it a hard kick for good measure, and winced as his toes met hard stone.
What was he supposed to do now? With every second that passed, his concern for Kasu and Ruo grew. What if Lady Camellia had eaten them? Could he slice open the demon’s stomach and pull them out like in the story of the wolf and the hunter?
Returning to the middle of the room, Arun sat down to think. The mirror those ghosts had used to escape was still on the floor, untouched. When Arun reached a hand towards it, he felt a strange sensation tugging him forward.
He pulled away. Or rather, he tried to. Like a set of invisible chains around his wrists, something held him and would not let go.
There was no time to scream as he was sucked through the glass.
Arun landed with a thud somewhere soft and cold. Grass and dry soil caught in his fingernails as he pushed himself to his feet.
“Stranger, strangeeeer,” the trees whispered around him.
The mirror had brought him to the shadow forest. He looked around wildly for any sign of Lord Cobalt’s men, but they had already fled.
He was alone in a clearing dotted with pale white flowers that emitted a soft glow. Despite their beauty, there was something undeniably eerie about the way their petals fluttered and swayed without the slightest breath of wind.
“Arun!” He turned in time to see Kasu rushing towards him.
“Kasu! Are you all right? Did that demon hurt you? What happened?” The force of Arun’s relief threatened to bowl him over.
He met Kasu halfway and seized her by the shoulders, inspecting every inch of her.
Was it his imagination or was she paler than before?
Had she always had that small tear at the bottom of her dress?
“I–I’m fine.” Kasu took a step back.
Like dropping hot coals, Arun released her. “Good! That’s good.” His cheeks burned.
“Ran away, ran away like a cowaaaaard,” the trees mumbled and sighed.
Kasu ignored them. “Lady Camellia dumped me out here. What about you? How did you get out? Where’s Ruo?”
Before Arun could reply, a wisp of smoke wafted past his ear, followed by a flicker of darkness, and Ruo appeared before them, body pressed to the ground and breathing hard.
Kasu rushed to the cat’s side. “Ruo! How did you escape? Are you OK? Did Lady Camellia do anything to you?”
“The window in her office. I flung myself out of it and then warped here. I’d better avoid Camellia House from now on.” Ruo tried and failed to appear unbothered. Arun had seen Lady Camellia swallow a ghost whole; he couldn’t blame Ruo for wanting to avoid the demon lord’s ire.
Kasu’s expression coloured with guilt. She looked the same whenever she was thinking of the Heavenly Principles and beating herself up about them.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the cat. “I shouldn’t have let you enter Camellia House with us.”
Ruo pulled their lips back and flashed their fangs.
“Why did you reveal yourself?”
There was a tension in the air that Arun didn’t understand. Something must have happened when Lady Camellia took Kasu and Ruo away. But Kasu had told him that she was fine. She was fine, wasn’t she? She had to be.
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not!” Ruo growled. “Your contract! Three hundred more years?”
“Wait,” said Arun. “What are you talking about?”
Kasu ignored him. “And what should I have done instead?” She asked Ruo. “Let you handle it?”
“I would have made something up.” Ruo huffed.
“You were terrified. You were going to tell her all about me anyway.”
“I slipped up and accidentally mentioned your name, but I wouldn’t have told her you were there. Why would you think that?”
“What are you two talking about?” Arun shouted. “What about Kasu’s contract? Three hundred years? Did Lady Camellia—”
“I said it’s nothing!”
“I thought the Heavenly Principles forbade lying.”
“The Heavenly Principles also say not to involve yourself in the business of others,” Kasu said, waspishly.
“Good thing I don’t care about them, then.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s fine. My contract with Lady Camellia was extended, but this will just give me more time to do good deeds and devote myself to the Heavenly Principles. Perhaps I should think of this as a blessing in disguise. It will certainly teach me patience.”
Never had Arun wanted to shake sense into someone so badly.
Even the monks serving in General Shusa’s temples were not this stubbornly devout.
Or stupidly self-sacrificing. Kasu had set the bar for herself so high that she would never be able to reach it.
She would run herself into the ground trying, and then punish herself when she inevitably failed.
It was all so ridiculous. So infuriating.
“I should have done something too,” Arun muttered.
“If you had, she would have killed you. Lady Camellia only spared me because I belong to her. A pet dog that wriggles into the hen house can be disciplined. A stray fox has to be killed.”
“Yes but, three centuries? Isn’t there some way to shorten it? Or break the contract altogether?”
“Why didn’t you trust me to handle it?” Ruo interjected.
Kasu gave the cat a weary look. “Because…”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but Arun could guess what she was thinking. A curse was not like a ghost or a demon. Kasu had not wanted to rely on the impulses of such a creature.
She had not trusted Ruo to be more than a curse.
Whether the cat had reached the same conclusion as he had, Arun could not be sure. Ruo’s tails flicked, then after a moment, they disappeared, leaving nothing but a bitter wisp of black smoke lingering in the air.
Arun sighed.
“What?” Kasu snapped.
“What?” Arun echoed.
“Nothing.”
Arun sighed again, louder, and sat down in the middle of the forest. “I think I can understand Ruo. I don’t blame you for what you did, but if I cared for someone and that person just gave themself up because they didn’t believe I was capable of protecting them – well, it’s humiliating, isn’t it?”
“That’s not it. You just don’t understand how things work in the under-realm.
When I first met Ruo, they told me they’d stick around for the fun of it.
Curses are whimsical and unpredictable, and Ruo only hangs around me when there’s food or fun to be had.
We’re not— Ruo doesn’t owe me anything. They certainly have no obligation to protect me from Lady Camellia. ”
“Well, maybe Ruo wanted to help you.”
Kasu stared at him as if the possibility had never occurred to her.
“Why are you helping me?” asked Arun.
“You know why.”
“Yes, I do. You’re doing it because when your contract is over and you’re free, you hope that saving me will impress the heavens and you’ll be able to reincarnate as a human again.
But if something else comes along that will earn you even more points with the gods, or if this investigation causes you to compromise your morals too much, you’ll just throw me by the wayside. ”
“A good deed is its own reward. The Heavenly Principles say that it’s wrong to help others with the expectation that you’ll be repaid for it,” Kasu replied, curtly.
“See? Now you’re angry at me. You want me to trust you. You want me to believe that you care about me for more than just selfish reasons, and you’re insulted when I don’t.”
Kasu flushed.
“Ruo is a curse. It’s different,” she mumbled. “Why don’t you tell me how you managed to escape?”
Arun wasn’t sure “escape” was the right word. “I tried touching the mirror that those other ghosts left behind and ended up here.”
While he spoke, something caught Kasu’s eye. She pushed herself onto her tiptoes so that she could see over his shoulder.
Arun turned.
A small hand mirror lay nestled in the hollow of one of the trees, the glass reflecting nothing but its own darkness back at the world.
“What’re you lookin’ at, huh?” the tree grumbled as Kasu reached into it, careful not to hover her hands over the glass, and prised the mirror out.
“It’s a mirror of departure. They’re enchanted mirrors that come in pairs, allowing you to travel between them,” Kasu explained.
“And they left it behind?”
“They must have been in a rush to escape. We could use it to return to Lady Camellia’s chambers and search for the elixir.”
Arun grabbed the mirror from the hollow and smashed the glass over his knee.
“What are you doing?” Kasu didn’t shriek – there was probably some kind of Heavenly Principle about maintaining proper speaking volume – but she did stare at him as though he had suddenly grown a third eye.
“The other half is in Lady Camellia’s chambers. If she comes back to clear away the glass and finds it, the mirror will lead her straight to us.” Arun didn’t trust their odds of surviving another confrontation with the demon lord.
“Then what do we do?” asked Kasu.
Arun lifted the memory bottle he had taken from Lady Camellia’s shelves. Giving it a little shake, the green smoke swirled before his eyes.
“That’s not what the Pale Lady asked for.”
“It will have to do. We’re not going back.”
It was not cowardice, no matter what the mumbling trees might claim.
Kasu sighed and rubbed her eyes. Arun couldn’t blame her. He was sure they both felt the same way.
Tonight had been an utter catastrophe.