Chapter 47 Sonam
They haven’t gone far. Just a few city blocks and then around a sharp corner. She has him trapped in a dead end. With my newfound strength, I barrel toward Yue, swiping away errant demons with my razor-sharp claws.
The moment our eyes connect, I sense it.
A fiery determination. We’re capable apart, but together we’re unstoppable.
This ends once and for all.
The Maskmaker’s lip curls into a sneer. I can’t tell if his face is red and swollen with anger, or if his own fire is what’s painting his skin such a vibrant crimson. “Having fun with what’s mine, thief? I’m going to kill you both.”
Yue’s body is a coil, tightening like a spring about to burst forth. “No wonder the Heavens wouldn’t take you,” she says venomously. “No one could ever love such a wrathful god.”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” the Maskmaker says darkly. “Don’t tell me you actually care for these pitiful creatures.”
“I respect them. Something you’ll forever be incapable of.”
The Maskmaker laughs maniacally. “They’ll never let you forget what you truly are, you know. They’ll turn on you the moment they have the chance.”
I take a step forward. “I won’t let that happen.”
He scoffs indignantly. “Two fools. Fine. Come to me and die.”
Yue charges first. I’m right behind her.
We lunge at the Maskmaker just as he burns brighter and hotter, the flames consuming his body so scalding they appear blue.
We come to a screeching halt. There’s no way we can get close enough.
Even if we do, he’s ensured that we’ll suffer for it.
The Maskmaker isn’t looking for a fair fight.
Honor means nothing to him. The only way we’re going to stand a chance is if we stoop to his level.
I take a deep breath and let out a howl so loud it seems to shake the city itself.
“What are you doing?” the Maskmaker snaps. “Crying for mercy already?”
I howl again, louder and higher, praying that they can hear me. When I hear a thunderous, mighty roar from up above, I know they’ve found us. Something swoops in from overhead, barely visible through the smoke. I spot a tail. A serpentine body. Blue scales as pure as mountain water.
A water dragon. Just like the one my favorite brother, Jun, saw all those years ago when he was only a boy. Just like the one I painted onto a mask for Sooah to wear.
She roars again, diving down beneath the surface of the canals, emerging with such speed and force that water trails behind her in a stream.
It slides off her iridescent blue scales, arcing over the burning buildings with a whip of her long tail.
She showers Longhao in a storm of her own making, quenching the city like a blacksmith’s sword into ice cold water.
The Maskmaker, thoroughly drenched, can only manage the smallest of flames now. Steam rises off his body, droplets evaporating the moment they touch his skin.
“But how?” he asks, eyes narrowed.
“You lack imagination,” I reply. “Leave it to a god to shape the world in their image. All these years, you only ever painted human faces. Never once did it occur to you that you could transform into anything your heart saw fit.”
The Maskmaker clenches his fist. We’ve moved beyond words.
He deals the first blow, singing the fur on my arm with his iron-hot palms. Yue runs up behind him, sticking her tails out so that he accidentally trips. Not technically an attack—and therefore not a violation of her oath.
I bite his shoulder. The bitter taste of his blood coats my tongue. With a feral cry, the Maskmaker throws us off of him with immeasurable strength. He flings me into a nearby wall with such force that it crumbles, the structure weakened from fire and water damage.
The moment I’m back on my feet, I lunge for his throat.
It won’t be a clean kill, or an easy one, but that hardly matters.
All my life, I thought I knew what it was to look into the eyes of a monster.
But there is nothing more horrendous than a spited god.
The world cannot exist in harmony while he remains.
The Legendary Archer did not balk when he set out to kill the stars, and I will not dishonor his memory by giving up now.
While Yue and I do our best to slow him down, Sooah soars overhead, diving down with alarming speed to crush approaching demons from the palace with the weight of her body. She’s as majestic as she is terrifying.
Our fight with the Maskmaker reaches a precipice.
I can sense him tiring. He bats us away, throwing his fists and launching fire with fury, but his movements grow sluggish.
He’s out of breath. He may be a fallen star god, but Yue and I are both seasoned hunters. He can never hope to match our stamina.
I tear the first chunk off of him—more fingers from his other hand. Then patches of his face, his torso. All the while, Yue serves as a distraction, swooping in only to dash away, the swish of her tails leaving the Maskmaker disoriented. Before long, he looks like a decaying corpse.
“Enough!” he screams, snatching me by the throat. He violently tears off my mask and crushes my windpipe, lifting me off of the ground.
“Don’t you dare touch him!” Yue shrieks. She runs, trying to remove me from his hold, but the Maskmaker drives his fist forward and sends her crashing into the building beside us. Its foundation can no longer support the weight of the roof, which comes crashing down over her head.
“Yue!” I try to call out, struggling against the Maskmaker’s grip. I can’t breathe. Black spots blot my vision. This can’t be how I die.
The Maskmaker pulls me close and spits in my face. “I’m going to melt that blessing right off your bones.”
“Do your worst,” I rasp, spitting back. “You don’t scare me.”
“As you wish.”
The hand he has wrapped around my throat bursts into flames.
The fire climbs up the side of my face as though it has a mind of its own, searing into my flesh without remorse.
I scream until my throat is bloody and raw.
No matter how much I fight, I can’t escape.
He brands his hatred onto my skin, the pain so intense it knocks the air from my lungs and sends sharpened knives scraping across my nerves.
I should be dead. No mortal man could survive such a horrendous attack. And yet I remain to feel every torturous moment of it, the sickening smell of my own charred flesh filling my nose.
Something massive sweeps in from behind.
I was too focused on staying conscious to realize the approach of the hulking creature.
With one giant hand made of bricks and wooden planks and terra-cotta tile, the beast knocks the Maskmaker to the side.
I fall to the ground, finally free from his brutality, but I’m too weak to stand.
I can only lie there, straining my neck to see what’s going on.
It’s Wen, masked as the Sleeping City itself.
This mask was the most difficult to paint, but I’m glad to see the transformation suit him so well.
He towers over all of us. Over Longhao, even.
We stand eclipsed in his shadow as he drags himself forward, crushing demons too foolish or too slow to get out of the way.
Wen raises his monstrous fist of broken shanty huts and mangled roads and brings it down upon the Maskmaker with a mighty bellow.
The star god narrowly escapes, fleeing for his life as he sends fire crawling up Wen’s arm.
Thankfully, he’s drenched in the rain Sooah summoned.
The flames don’t catch as easily. We may stand a chance.
I try to lift my head, eager to return to the fight, but I can’t feel anything on the right side of my body. My ears ring loudly. I can barely see out of my right eye. It’s frankly a miracle I survived the Maskmaker’s maiming at all.
The sound of shuffling rubble. Heavy panting. Claws clicking against broken cobblestone. Is that my name I hear? It isn’t until I feel soft fur grazing my cheek and a wet nose near my ear that I am sure.
“Sonam,” she croaks. “Sonam, look at me.”
I do my best, but my eyes are swelling shut. I must look atrocious, judging by the horror in her six obsidian eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” she says, though she can’t suppress her whimper. “We’re going to be okay.”
I have just enough strength left to reach for something attached to my belt.
A single needle—the very last one I have coated in Zhenniao poison.
I held on to it all through Hell just in case, but now feels as good a time as any to use it.
All it will take is a small pin prick, and the Maskmaker will fall.
The problem is that I can’t move anymore; my mind is too tired and my body too strained.
“Take… this,” I murmur. “You have to do it. I can’t—”
“You can,” she insists. “I can’t harm him, remember?” She gently grasps the front of my robes between her teeth and pulls me into an upright position. “I need you, Sonam. We can do this together.”
With a groan, I stand, leaning heavily against her. I think of her pushing beyond her limits in the Court of Despair. She’s right. I can still fight. We survived Hell together, which means we can survive this, too.
I climb onto Yue’s back and hold on tight as she rushes in leaps and bounds.
She jumps from one shaky rooftop to another, the rain and ash mixing to form a thick mud.
Sooah, Wen, and the Maskmaker are near the docks at the furthest edge of the city.
They’re keeping him at bay, but who knows for how much longer?
The blue dragon dives toward him, jaws open wide to devour him whole, but the Maskmaker burns Sooah’s mask off without hesitation.
She transforms midair, plummeting into the frigid seawater.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I see her breach the surface and start swimming toward the nearest moored boat.
Wen keeps fighting, growling and snarling as he brings his arms down to swipe at the Maskmaker like a fly.
“He’s distracted,” I shout over the clamor. “We need to get up high!”
I’m not sure Yue hears me, but then she darts toward Wen. She runs with such speed that her claws barely have time to scrape the ground.
“Hang on!” she shouts at me as we climb up the Sleeping City’s back.
She uses Wen as a ramp of sorts, putting us at a height advantage.
Using the hard ledges for purchase, she climbs her way up until we’ve reached the top of the Sleeping City’s head.
From this distance, the Maskmaker looks like nothing more than an ant.
She jumps down without fear, much to my—and the Maskmaker’s—stunned amazement.
This is my only shot.
Before he has a chance to react, I fling the needle from between my fingers—
And hit him in the throat with it.
Our landing is the furthest thing from graceful. Yue goes tumbling into the water. I land on the hard surface of the docks, rolling three or four times until my momentum finally comes to a stop. I can’t feel my legs anymore. I wonder if I’ve broken my back.
I can barely see Wen taking off his mask, shrinking down to his lanky human size. I spot Sooah, too, hurrying over to rejoin the fight.
The Maskmaker lies on his back only a few arms away.
Black Zhenniao poison crawls through his veins, a reaching spiderweb spreading out beneath the surface of his skin.
He chokes on his swollen tongue, his bloodshot eyes bulging with terror.
He sputters, grasping at his throat as it closes and the rest of his body seizes, twitching like a spider in its final moments.
When he dies with his eyes open, it should feel like a triumph.
But my only thoughts belong to Yue.
Panic grips me as I look around for her. Where is she? Is she hurt?
“Yue,” I croak. “Where—”
Something cold and wet brushes my arm. Fur, soaked in seawater. “I’m here,” a voice whispers in my ear.
I give in to the weight of my eyelids and exhale heavily. If this is how I die, so be it—as long as my fox is safe.
For my beloved monster of monsters, I would kill the stars.