Chapter 7 Àn’yīng
àn’yīng
Xī’lín Village, Central Province, Kingdom of Rivers
My blades are in my hands, and the world blurs around me as we run. The sky has begun to bleed into night, the gash between realms exposing a familiar bone-white moon. There, the periwinkle dusk is gone, eclipsed by the monstrous creature clawing its way into our mortal kingdom.
Distant screams rend the air as we draw close to Xī’lín. The fear in my chest is so thick that I can’t breathe, can’t think.
Hào’yáng tips his head to the skies and lets out a high-pitched whistle.
From afar comes a whinny as a silver light streaks toward us across the darkening night.
Meadowsweet canters through the air in her equine form, landing before us with unnatural grace.
Her eyes, normally a liquid brown, now churn like an ocean in a storm.
Hào’yáng swings up onto her back and pulls me in front of him. I hold tightly on to Meadowsweet’s neck as we gallop through the gates into the village.
It’s a cacophony of noise and activity. People run past us, crying, and suddenly, I’m ten years old again, the Imperial Palace has just fallen, the emperor and his family have been killed—and the mó have reached our village.
Except this time, there are no village practitioners here to fight them off and to raise wards around our borders. There is no Bà to draw me into his arms, the reassurance of his large hands covering my small ones as he pressed my blades into my palms.
This time, there is only me and Hào’yáng—and the hellbeast.
There is a familiarity to the way its ribs protrude from its shadowy mass, the wings that spread over rooftops.
I realize that I know this beast. It is one of the Four Perils of the Kingdom of Night, the same one that hunted me when I’d been traversing the most treacherous parts of the mortal realm in hopes of reaching the Kingdom of Sky for the Trials.
The one Yù’chén saved me from.
Qióng’qí.
I grip the hilts of my crescent blades so tightly that the grooves of the talismans dig into my palms. We’re racing down the dusty road that leads straight through the village to my home, and I’m craning my neck to catch a glimpse of my house when the earth before us splits open.
Meadowsweet screams, the world tilts, and I’m only aware of Hào’yáng’s arms around my waist as we’re thrown.
He breaks my fall, but there is nothing to break his.
He slams into the ground.
We scramble upright as a colossal shadow falls over us. In a blink, Hào’yáng is on his feet. He thrusts me behind him with one hand as he lifts his sword with his other.
Before us, where the carpenter’s house once stood, is now a gaping hole.
Earth crumbles into it, vanishing into utter darkness—a darkness that moves.
It ripples over the talismans my father and the village practitioners drew as protections before they died, which I have been reinforcing year after year, now broken and scattered.
Talismans that are nowhere near strong enough to hold back one of the Four Perils.
Claws appear from the writhing mass of shadows and gouge into the soil as the opening in the sky widens and another hellbeast emerges into our realm.
Its tusks gleam bone-white from a dripping maw; horns the length of spears protrude from a mane of shadows.
I recognize it from the myths: Táo’wù, another of the Four Perils.
Outlined against pitch-black skies, second Peril lifts its tusked head over the rooftops of our village and lets out a snarl that sends tremors across the ground.
Hào’yáng turns to me. “Go to your family,” he says, and then calls to Meadowsweet. “Go with her. Hold off Qióng’qí.”
“Hào’yáng,” I begin, catching his hand. The words at the tip of my tongue turn to ash, for it is now that the true meaning of my mother’s words to him hit me with full force:
Each and every day, you will need to choose between kingdom and love.
She spoke not just of Hào’yáng—but of me, and my life were I to be with him.
The heir to my kingdom, the man who can liberate my realm, stands before me. The logical thing would be to flee with him, let his dragonhorse carry us swiftly out of here to safety.
But choosing that means leaving my entire village behind to die. And in this moment, all I can think of is saving Mā and Méi’zi and my home.
Hào’yáng’s gaze does not leave mine. “Go,” he repeats. “Meadowsweet, with her—”
“No!” I steady my voice. “No, Meadowsweet, take him and run.”
“Meadowsweet,” Hào’yáng repeats. “Stay with her. If anything happens to her, then I—”
But the rest of what he says is drowned out by an earth-shattering roar. The second Peril’s crimson eyes sweep over us. Pin Hào’yáng.
Hào’yáng spins and kicks off, and his fingers slip through mine as he arcs through the air, an image I will never forget: a golden streak against the overwhelming darkness of the other realm—and Táo’wù.
àn’yīng. The dragonhorse’s familiar voice sounds in my mind like rushing currents of a river. Your house.
I turn, and my knees weaken.
Over the gentle curve of gray-tiled roofs, my plum blossom tree has vanished, swallowed by the night pouring from the gash in the skies.
A gate, I think, recalling the openings Yù’chén once made in the Kingdom of Sky’s wards, enabling us passage between realms despite the immortals’ magic.
No one knows for sure how the Kingdom of Night first gained access to the Kingdom of Rivers, but the rumors whisper of a gate opening between realms.
I have never seen anything on this scale: a gate large enough to envelop half my village.
And I can no longer see my house.
A scream dies in my throat as I run toward it.
The scene on my street unfolds in chaos and terror.
The tables and chairs meant for our wedding banquet are overturned, some splintered into pieces.
The lanterns and decor are trampled and torn, strewn like entrails in the dirt.
A fire has started; flames lick up Fú’yí’s wooden shed, illuminating the battle waging before me.
A small white fox darts through the wreckage of our wedding banquet. It turns back to bare its teeth as the entire sky seems to shift.
Overhead, Qióng’qí’s tangle of razor-sharp bones and skeletal form is cast into sharp relief by the firelight.
As it lunges toward Lì’líng, a shape rises between them: the silhouette of a monster I have never seen before.
Slate-gray scales and webbed wings that shift like smoke as they uncoil from a serpent’s body with a woman’s torso and arms. Bloody light limns the monster’s face, and I nearly stop in my tracks.
It’s a yāo’jīng—a halfling child of a human and a spirit—and it takes me a moment to recognize her as someone I know very well.
Tán’mù’s features are longer, sharper, and more terrible than her mortal form as she rises to meet Qióng’qí. Her tail whips out, catching the hellbeast square in the shoulder and sending it stumbling back.
By my side, Meadowsweet, too, is shifting.
Her snowy coat morphs into rippling silver scales; her hooves lengthen into claws, and then it’s no longer Meadowsweet cantering by my side but the full dragon form of She of the Moon-Frosted Sea.
As she leaps forward to join the battle, I swap my crescent blade Shadow for Striker and lunge.
My weapon barely scrapes the thigh of Qióng’qí before the monster pivots and vanishes from my sight. I feel a huff of fiery breath against my back, catch a glimpse of shadows in my peripheral vision, but I can’t turn fast enough…
She of the Moon-Frosted Sea lunges between us, jaws open. Mist pours from her mouth, forming a tide of ice. Qióng’qí rams into it with enough force to shatter city walls. Specks of ice tumble from the shield, and as the Peril’s tail whips out, I catch sight of something that draws a scream from me.
“Lì’líng!”
The small white fox looks up just as the shadow of the hellbeast’s tail smashes toward her—
A spark of spirit energy; a resounding crack echoes in the night as Qióng’qí’s spiked tail strikes an invisible barrier. As it recoils, I spot Lì’líng, now in her human form as a young girl—and before her, holding a very familiar crescent blade I gifted her, stands my little sister.
Méi’zi smirks as she lowers Shield. She’s in a pink silk dress, the shape of which mimics the white one she made for me. She’s woven her hair into two braids, and as she lifts her chin, the firelight catches in her eyes.
Tán’mù lets out an inhuman scream as she slices her claws at Qióng’qí. Behind her, Méi’zi pulls Lì’líng to her feet. The fox spirit bares her teeth and with a leap, she joins the fight by her lover’s side.
I race to my sister.
“Jiě’jie!” She folds herself into my arms. “Mā’s safe, sheltering with Fú’yí. We were waiting for you.”
“Méi’zi,” I begin, and that’s when Táo’wù, several streets down, lets out an earsplitting roar. I look up, and there, in the shadows, a streak of golden armor plummets from the skies like a shooting star.
Hào’yáng.
Suddenly, I recall the memory of Lady Shī’yǎ falling from Sansiran’s death blow, her spirit energy trailing ashes in the night.
Realize the consequences of the choice I am to make.
I take my baby sister’s face in my hands. Hold her tightly, so tightly, so that she knows in my heart, I wish to never let go.
“Find Fú’yí and get Mā out of here,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen as the meaning of my words sinks in. “Jiě’jie,” Méi’zi whispers, a tremor cracking her voice as she searches my gaze.
I take her hands in mine. Prise open her fingers.
And slip into them two more blades. “Healer,” I manage, squeezing her left hand, “to cure flesh wounds with life energy. And Shadow, to keep you hidden from prying eyes.” I swallow, my vision blurring as warmth pools in my eyes.
“Bà would be proud” are the last words I say to my sister as I turn away from her.
“Lì’líng! Tán’mù!” I call, and they’re both there, Tán’mù shielding us with the powerful wings of her full spirit form.