Chapter 29 Àn’yīng
àn’yīng
The Imperial City, Kingdom of Rivers
The distraction we’ve set up has worked.
While the Eight Immortals’ army engages the Kingdom of Night in battle at the Temple of Dawn, no one follows me as I make my way down the Immortals’ Steps.
The stone steps vanish into the clouds, and soon, I’m surrounded by a mass of swirling gray and shadows again, with only the sounds of my own breathing and pounding heart to accompany me.
I focus on my footwork, boots landing sturdily against moss-slicked stone.
The clouds begin to diverge from the steps as I reach the mountains of the mortal realm. Here, the skies are overcast, and raindrops soak me as I draw closer to the Heavens’ Gates.
When I’m far enough away not to be seen by any mó from the Temple of Dawn, I flare my spirit energies and summon an iridescent cloud.
I race through the skies of the mortal lands.
The rain whips in my face, and the wind tears at my cloud.
As I near the Central Province, an unnatural cold sinks into my bones, and the shadows begin to stretch longer.
Here and there, I catch glimpses of the land: bamboo forests, once-brilliant emerald leaves now dim and gray; undulating mountains wreathed in darkness.
I descend. It feels like instinct, finding the way back to my village.
But nothing prepares me for the sight of it.
Between the red and gold treetops and the muted darkness, a clearing opens with the bones of my home.
Xī’lín is in ruins. Charred remnants of our cheerful houses sit, desolate, in the downpour, burned to nothing but jagged wooden pillars.
I recognize the places where I used to play with the neighbors’ children before they moved away; the street corner where an old willow used to grow and we’d sit beneath it for shade in the summers; the carpenter’s house, where I’d admire his craft and, after the realm fell, I’d visit his daughter to ask for help with thatching our roof.
I soar around the most familiar corner in the village, where the plum blossom tree once stood, and my heart breaks. My house is gone; on the flattened ground are wood scraps and torn pieces of the curtains Mā and Méi’zi sewed, the bright colors of the floral patterns trampled into the mud.
From the ruins, a figure steps out. Gold lamellar armor gleaming wet with rain, the blade of a sword glowing with turquoise light. Through the pouring rain and wind, Hào’yáng’s eyes meet mine—and I realize I would cross realms again and again to find him.
He reaches out as I land, and he folds me into his arms. I hold him like it’s the end of the world, because part of mine has ended here along with the home I swore to protect.
But I hold Hào’yáng, and he anchors me in this storm, and I know I will see the sun again.
Hào’yáng draws back, his hands cupping my face. “The last time I was this afraid,” he says, “I was twelve years old and the war had just begun. As heir to the mortal realm, it is my duty to put kingdom above all—but I don’t know that I can make that same choice again when it comes to you, àn’yīng.”
“Once the war is over, you won’t have to,” I tell him fiercely. “Once the war is over, we’ll rebuild. Xī’lín, the Imperial Palace, every single village they took and home they destroyed, we’ll rebuild it all from the ground up.”
Hào’yáng presses a kiss to my forehead. “Together,” he vows. Then he slides his fingers through mine and says, “I received your message.”
He reaches into the silk pouch at his belt. When he unfurls his palm, a tiny pink butterfly flutters out. It lands on the hilt of my sword and transforms into a lotus petal, joining back with my vessel.
A shout rends the air, and I turn.
“àn’yīng!”
A small white blur darts through the rain to me, and the next moment, I’m laughing and crying as I greet my assailant in a tight hug.
Lì’líng draws back, amber eyes bright like the sun, hair still done up in two buns. She beams at me and then waves to someone behind her.
Tán’mù emerges, tall and dashing in her black cloak and boots. She nods at me in greeting, and though her expression is as neutral as ever, I think I catch the hint of a smile curving the edges of her lips.
Behind her, several other former candidates of the Immortality Trials trickle out. I count eight of us in total.
“The others chose to stay behind with the villagers,” Lì’líng informs me. “But a makeshift army of volunteer fighters has gathered from across the provinces in Hào’yáng’s name.” Her eyes twinkle. “They arrived here not too long ago.”
Dozens of figures emerge from the edge of the forest, led by someone very familiar.
Fú’yí’s hair is done up in a graying bun, her eyes fierce as she gives me that fiery grin.
She is dressed in blue battle robes, lamellar armor glinting with every shift of her strong, wiry frame.
She was a martial artist and practitioner, I knew, but she didn’t go to war after the first invasion, as she was pregnant at the time.
When her husband died, she lost their unborn son as well.
“Oh, my girl,” she says as I throw my arms around her.
She strokes the back of my head and whispers, “I am so proud of you. Today, we show those bastards from the Kingdom of Night just how strong we are.” She draws back and squeezes my hand.
“Your mother and Méi’zi say hello. They asked me to bring you this.
” She presses something soft into my hands.
It is a handkerchief, intricately embroidered with golden threads unique to the desert silkworms in the Western Province.
I recognize Mā’s and Méi’zi’s handiwork in the stitches, Mā’s coming a little neater and Méi’zi’s a little wilder.
They’ve sewn me a portrait of the three of us seated beneath the plum blossom tree of our house.
The sun spills across the scene like honey; the world is bright and clear, like the air after a storm.
It is as though they have peered into the dream I hold on to and stitched it into this handkerchief.
“Thank you, Fú’yí,” I whisper.
Her eyes soften. “They are safe, in a sunny village, far from the mó. They asked me to send all their love, and they can’t wait to reunite with you.”
An ache rises in my throat as I think of all those feathers Yù’chén brought me, allowing me to glimpse my family for a few moments each day.
It was real.
“Your summons reached quite far and wide,” Hào’yáng says, and cants his head to the skies.
A great bird’s cry echoes through the storm, powerful and melodic, like an ancient song across time and worlds.
Nine brilliant phoenixes soar through the rainclouds, their wings and crowns trailing flames, their feathers shimmering with iridescence.
They land before us on the clifftop, each the size of a horse.
With a great sweep of their wings, the pink butterflies that had borne my message to them release into the air and return to my sword.
“The Nine Sunbirds of the Western Province,” Hào’yáng tells me. “As creatures of fire and heat, they are threatened by the eternal night, too.”
The myth of Hòu’yì, the divine archer, is one we in the mortal realm grew up with.
Legend has it that the mortal realm once had ten suns, which dried up the land and the rivers.
Hòu’yì shot down nine of them, and they turned into golden sunbirds that remained in the mortal realm.
It is said that they reside in the mystical Kūn’lún Mountains of the Western Province, where the great deserts are warmed by the magic of their bodies and they, in turn, can continue inhabiting a land of fire and heat.
“I also present to you,” Lì’líng says proudly, “the nine-tailed fox spirits of the Kingdom of Green Hills.”
Through the trees, a dozen or so pale silhouettes emerge: foxes the size of tigers and the color of snow, eyes a brilliant carmine.
Their nine tails fan out behind them, the tips pluming into the same red as their eyes.
In the downpour, their fur remains sleek and dry as they watch me with calm elegance.
Then, behind them, more figures step out from the shadows. They resemble us in appearance, yet there is something inhuman to each of them, marking them as different: a horn here, a tail there, a flash of canines or a growth of flowers on their cheeks.
Yāo’jīng.
Tán’mù steps closer to them. “There is a resurgence of hope throughout the mortal realm,” she says. “These yāo’jīng have gathered from the mountains and forests to support us in this war.”
Traditionally, yāo’jīng have been feared across our realm, with tales of them luring mortals into traps and stealing babies in the night. But after I met Lì’líng and Tán’mù, I’d realized the stories were just stories.
I incline my head deeply to both the fox spirits and the yāo’jīng. They mirror me, releasing their pink butterflies back to me as well.
“Like Hào’yáng said, your word has spread far and wide across the realms,” Lì’líng says. “The fox spirits tell me they have heard talk of the return of the mortal crown prince; that other realms are speaking of the mortal heir and a Lotus Immortal who are fighting against the Kingdom of Night.”
Hào’yáng turns to me. The light of the sunbirds dances over his face. “Less than a day’s journey to the Imperial City,” he says, looking westward, in its direction. “Are you ready?”
I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready for what must come next. But I do know that I need this war to end.
I raise my palm to the skies and send a spark of my spirit energy to the Heavens. There’s a flash of corals and a brief illusion of a sunrise through the storm clouds.
Then, through the darkness, hundreds of sparks illuminate the skies. They swirl from the clouds, funneling toward me: butterflies—fragments of my lotus sword—returning to me from having relayed my summons message.
They gather between my fingers, and my lotus sword reappears, jade-green hilt and soft pink blade bright in the rain.