Chapter 25 Àn’yīng #2
I tear my gaze away and crane my neck up at the Immortals’ Steps, then at the impossibly high cliff wreathed with fog. On the other side of that fog is Heavens’ Gates, the mountain range that marks the end of the mortal realm. The one I crossed months ago to enter the Immortality Trials.
Fitting that the end should begin at the place where everything started.
I hold on tightly to Hào’yáng as he summons a great wave that lifts us upward. When we emerge from the fog, we’re back in the Kingdom of Rivers.
I recognize the clifftop we alight on, the expanse of rock covered in pines. The last time I was here, the sun was shining as I turned and gazed, for the first time, at the far-off palaces of the immortal realm.
I was here with Yù’chén.
Now the distant skies roil with storm clouds; fog churns restlessly beneath us, obscuring our view of the Four Seas. I search the horizon for the silhouettes of mountains drifting in the skies, for the curving golden rooftops and pearlescent walls of the entry to the Kingdom of Sky.
I find nothing.
“The last time I was here was when I was twelve years old,” Hào’yáng says quietly. He glances at me. “It was with your father.”
I turn to him, hungry for any kernel of a story about my father. “You never told me this.”
He searches through the thick clouds for a sign of the sun.
We agreed to begin our plan after dawn, when the mó are winding down from their peak of power.
“I had just lost everything and witnessed the death of my entire family. I was so, so tired, àn’yīng…
and when I reached Heavens’ Gates and realized there was still an entire ocean to cross, I couldn’t keep going. I didn’t want to.
“Your father turned to me then and he said, ‘You can either stop here and give up—or grit your teeth and continue on. We mortals have one chance at life, my prince. So long as you live, you are not forsaking your family and your people. One day at a time. Step by step, by putting one foot before the other.’ ”
My breath catches. “You said those words to me once,” I whisper.
“I wanted you to hear your father’s words. The words he gave me that helped me live—I wanted you to have them as well.”
I hold his hands tightly, and I know from the way he grips mine that he does not want to let go.
Neither do I.
I step back and tap my wrist three times.
Hào’yáng’s brows rise when the small fox tail appears like a furry white bracelet. It stirs lazily, as though emerging from a long sleep—and then gives a little wriggle in his direction, like a wave.
“Lì’líng?” Hào’yáng greets it curiously.
I give the tail a soothing stroke and then gently unwind it from my wrist. Then I press it into Hào’yáng’s palm.
“Come find us soon,” I whisper to it. It brushes my nose in a reassuring way, and I imagine Lì’líng’s laughing amber eyes.
I really hope I see her again.
I place my palm against Hào’yáng’s cheek. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him with a sudden, desperate ferocity. When we step apart, his face is open, emotions racing across it like a tempest.
I raise my hands, and the iridescent cloud of my spirit energies forms. It twines around my body, then pools at my feet.
I step on.
“àn’yīng.” Hào’yáng catches my hand. We’re both at a loss for words, for how can one hope to capture a lifetime of words in a single sentence? “I’ll be there soon,” he says, and I nod and let go.
The clifftop falls away beneath me as I rise into the air, my body reacting to every shift of the current as though I have become a part of the wind. That same rosy-gold glow dances beneath my skin, pouring out into the cloud that lifts my body as I will it.
I head down into the mist, following the shadows of the Immortals’ Steps that loom out of the fog every once in a while.
It isn’t long before I reach the Sea of Clouds. The skies, once clear and blue, are now a churning gray that laps at the borders of the Kingdom of Sky. Shadows swirl around me. In the absolute silence, the sounds of my breathing and my pounding heartbeat fill my ears.
A screech cuts through the clouds, followed by the sound of rapid wingbeats. I draw my lotus sword. Its glow is dim in the encroaching dark, but it brings me comfort.
Like this, I can see.
Like this, others can see me.
As though in answer, a gentle light pulses from somewhere ahead.
The wards.
I surge forward, and sure enough, there they are: tall and shimmering like sunlight on water. Strangely, where they used to be translucent, the other side is now dark, as though someone has pulled down the shutters on the entire realm.
Dread blooms in me. Just how far has the Kingdom of Night advanced into the immortal realm?
Nothing stirs around me as I draw up before the wards. The last time I stood this close to one was with Yù’chén. I distinctly remember those red scorpion lilies blooming, dangerously beautiful, as he opened his gates.
I draw a deep breath and plunge my hand through.
I feel only a brush of air against my skin…and then I’m through.
Hào’yáng was right: The wards sensed my immortal half and accepted me.
Soft light greets me as the unnatural darkness of the wards lifts and the Kingdom of Sky yawns open before me: a landscape of clouds drifting amidst floating mountains and flowering gardens.
From here, the immortal realm looks as beautiful and untouched as when I left it.
Curved rooftops peek out from forests of blooming wisteria; towns and villages are scattered throughout weaving bodies of water and undulating valleys suspended in the sky.
The sun is hidden somewhere beyond the clouds, lending a dim golden haze to the scene.
I glance back at the wards, curious as to why they’d appeared dark from the outside—and my blood runs cold.
In the spot where I entered, the flow of the wards has frozen. Growing fast are roses as black as night, their thorny stems twisting and spreading like an ink stain on parchment.
Without warning, a vine lashes out at me, lunging for my wrist. I jerk back, but not before one of its thorns pricks my skin.
I reel through the air, my iridescent cloud shifting faster in my panic. Pain flares in my forearm. From somewhere nearby comes a monstrous shriek and the sound of rapidly approaching wingbeats.
I raise my lotus sword.
The first hellbeast shoots out of the clouds like a shadowy arrow. All I catch is a streak of darkness and blazing red eyes before it is upon me.
I swerve, swinging my sword, but it becomes clear how ill-matched I am, even with my newfound powers, against a hellbeast. My coordination of flight upon my cloud is clumsy, like learning to move with a new limb; my skills with a sword are unrefined compared to my prowess with my blades.
As I miss the creature again, I’m thrown off balance.
I spin through the air, barely turning in time to catch the glint of sharp teeth and razor claws.
I dodge, letting myself fall, buying myself time—and as I do, I swap my weapons. My sword shrinks into the lotus hairpin; with a flick of my wrists, the hairpin is tucked safely in my sleeves…and my crescent blades Fleet and Striker are in my hands.
A blur of darkness overhead, and the next moment the creature is upon me. Its wing slams me solidly in the ribs. I grit my teeth at the pain and latch onto one of its wings, Fleet propelling my movements faster than the eye can see.
I rip Fleet through its wings, satisfied when I’m rewarded with the hellbeast’s earsplitting scream. Then I haul myself onto its back and plunge Striker through its head, where its core should be.
I let go as the creature begins to disintegrate into the shadows and ichor of its makeup, undone by the fatal wound I’ve dealt it. The last to go are its blazing red eyes and the ghost of its snarl as it fades into nothing but dust and ash.
Then there is only silence.
The second hellbeast strikes out of nowhere.
One moment, I’m in the air; the next, I’m falling, my stomach twisting with vertigo as the world turns into a blur of gray clouds and cold, sharp winds.
I can smell the rotten stench of the beast’s breath, see the saliva dripping down its dagger-length fangs.
As the creature wraps its claws around my ribs, I yield to its embrace.
And plunge Striker between its blazing red eyes, into its core.
The creature screams—and a new, white-hot pain blazes through my forearm. My fingers spasm, and to my horror, Striker tumbles from my grasp and into the darkness below.
“No!” The cry wrenches from me. Overhead, the hellbeast’s corporeal form disintegrates.
I twist as I fall, reaching out for Striker in the air. But my crescent blade is already gone, a speck of silver against the dark—before the shadows swallow it whole.
Another flash of pain lances through my left arm, and I find I can’t move, can’t breathe, as I plunge through the cloud-smothered skies of the immortal realm down, down toward certain death.
Only…there is a shift in the clouds around me. A great silhouette appears overhead; from the distance comes a rumble of laughter. A single white feather twirls through the sky. It stretches, and when it’s as large as a hammock, it suddenly dips beneath me.
I land on fluffy white down.
The clouds part. A great crane with a red crown glides gracefully overhead, and seated on its back, grinning at me with a hand raised in greeting, is…
“Honorable Immortal Jǐng’xiù?” I croak in disbelief, wondering if I’m hallucinating.
The immortal gives me a cheery wave with the bejeweled bamboo scepter he always wielded to amplify his voice as he spoke to us in the Temple of Dawn during the Immortality Trials.
The great feather soars up, depositing me on the back of his crane. “Hello again, Number Forty-Four,” he booms, and then chortles at my expression. “Never thought you’d see me again? Or, rather, never wanted to see me again, I presume?”
He’s right on both counts, but of course, I don’t say that as I pull myself into a sitting position.
The pain flares again in my wrist and I wince, but Jǐng’xiù appears not to notice.
He looks unchanged, as all immortals are: his face handsome and ageless, long black hair and beard flowing neatly beneath his imperial cap, and official robes blazing red and gold.
Legends say that he was once a mortal general distantly related to the imperial bloodline before he began cultivating his powers to cross into the immortal realm and earn eternal life.
“Thank you,” I manage, but that only makes him laugh harder.
“Only you would be grappling with one of those hellbeasts and trying to stab it instead of running away, my dear,” Jǐng’xiù says.
His levity irritates me, just as it did the first time I met him at the Temple of Dawn, when he tried to disqualify me for barely finishing the First Trial.
“Oh, don’t look so furious, child. Be glad you’re alive—unlike many others.”
The solemnity of his words lowers my defenses enough to ask, “Who else is with you?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Jǐng’xiù’s smile fades slightly, and his gaze slides to my left arm.
The wounds where the rose thorns punctured my skin have turned black.
“You’re injured. Unfortunately, healing that kind of a wound goes beyond my abilities.
We’ll have to see what tricks Cǎi’hé has in their basket. ”
Slowly, the adrenaline seeps from my body, and I’m left with exhaustion and a faint, tingling pain in my arm.
I nestle into the soft white feathers of the crane, its wings and the heat of its body shielding me from the cold.
I hold Fleet tightly to my chest, the image of Striker plunging into the darkness fresh in my mind.
And as the immortal and I soar deeper into his realm, I wonder if becoming immortal means losing more and more pieces of the human girl I once was.