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The convoy is late.

It is sunset on the second day of my journey, and I do not wish to spend another night alone in the mountains. Journeying eastward through the Central Province to thick pine forests that wind through a narrow, uninhabited part of the Eastern Province, I have reached Gods’ Fingers, the famous mountain range that marks the final frontier of safety in the mortal realm. It is here that the convoy will meet to traverse the most dangerous part of the journey: the last stretch of mortal lands before the immortal realm borders. Named the Way of Ghosts, it is said to be filled with hellbeasts from the Kingdom of Night, prowling in search of a way through the immortals’ wards. For the nine years since they invaded our realm, the mó and their beasts have been seeking a way into the Kingdom of Sky—and have yet to succeed.

I pace, fingering the jade pendant at my throat and wondering for the umpteenth time if I read its latest message wrong. The messages are rare and disappear as quickly as they come, with the heat of magic.

Now the pendant remains blank.

The bamboo shadows are lengthening into claws, and the setting sun turns the sky a blood red. I have yet to stumble into any mó, but my luck may soon run out. With the added danger of hellbeasts roaming the Way of Ghosts beyond here, I know I am not strong enough to make it to the Kingdom of Sky alone.

I need this convoy.

I decide to continue east a little in case the convoy has somehow bypassed me and gone farther on.

The rising wind rustles the long silvergrasses, drowning out my harried footsteps as I pick up my pace to a light run. Too soon, I catch something dark smudged against a stalk of bamboo.

Blood, still wet. Fresh.

Alarm tightens my muscles, sharpens my focus to a point. There is a clearing up ahead, and in the dying light, I make out shapes crumpled on the ground.

The convoy.

I select the fourth of my eight crescent blades. The talisman on Shadow activates with a pulse of my spirit energy, shrouding me so that I am nearly invisible to the mortal eye and less detectable to whatever else lurks in these mountains.

My steps fall in near silence as I advance. Between the thinning bamboo, I make out something that raises gooseflesh on my skin: a lone silhouette in the clearing, drenched in the bloody light of the setting sun. A ripple of wind stirs the figure’s crimson cloak, illuminating the pattern of golden swirls on it.

I freeze. The color of the exquisite raiment conjures a familiar image in my mind: the red-lipped demon’s garnet hairpin glinting as she looked up at me from my father’s dead body. The oldest, most powerful of the mó, the Higher Ones, are the royalty of the Kingdom of Night. It is they who led the mó armies into our realm and planned the war strategies. I have heard stories of them: how they are sharper, more beautiful, and more sophisticated than any mortal emperor or empress in history. How they are utterly lethal.

The wind shifts the trees and shadows again, and this time, I catch a clearer look at my quarry. It’s not my father’s killer. This one is too tall, shoulders wide and muscular—a male.

Higher Ones are exceedingly rare; the only one I have ever seen is the red-lipped woman. If this being in the clearing before me is a Higher One, I have no chance of putting up a fight, even less so of escaping. I am dead either way.

And I would rather go down fighting, with my blades in my hands and on my own two feet.

I palm blade number five, Fleet. The forest around me blurs as I charge, spurred on by the temporary burst of speed Fleet grants me and masked by Shadow.

The mó half turns at the last second. The movement is graceful, and because every ounce of my focus is trained on him, I see him shift as though time has slowed, rendering him like a painting in the dying dusk. His hair, billowing like swirls of ink; his eyes, flashing golden like embers in the sun; the strong, sharp cut to his jaw and the ghost of a smile on his lips. As the wind whips the jade-green leaves into a flurry and lifts his red cloak into a silken dance, his gaze rises to meet mine.

He is beautiful.

In that moment, I wish I could carve out my foolish mortal heart. I know mó are dangerous. I know we exist for them as prey. Still, I can’t help but stare.

And then we collide. He grunts as we slam to the ground, my body on top of his, my legs hooked against his for grip, my blades already at work. I aim at his neck with Shadow—

—and he catches my hand.

I’m thrown off guard by this. Shadow is meant to conceal my movements, and the blade itself is impossible to track with the naked eye, even for some mó.

Higher One, my senses scream.

So be it.

I grit my teeth and push, but then I catch sight of something that unsettles me once more.

His expression. He’s surprised.

I have never seen any mó display such a mortal countenance; I do not think they feel emotions as we do. I hesitate—just for a fraction of a heartbeat, but it is too long. When I aim Fleet at the soft part of his neck, his other hand flies up to snag my forearm, throwing off my strike. Fleet barely nicks the curve of his throat.

His eyes narrow, and a grin drags open his lips, baring his teeth. Faster than I can blink, he flips me over. My head rams into the ground so hard that I see stars and my teeth rattle. I blink furiously, and when my vision clears, I find that I can no longer move. He’s holding both my wrists against the ground over my head and pinning me with his body. I can feel the hard planes of his inner armor pressing against me, crushing me under his weight.

He cocks his head, his gaze raking my face. “Do I know you?” His voice is as deep and smooth as the night.

I attempt a kick, but he catches the movement with his hip, locking my leg with his. He watches me struggle with a small, lazy tilt to his lips, as though he has all the time in the world to play with his food.

“Interesting,” he says. “A scorpion dressed as a chaste young maiden. Are there more stingers beneath that beguiling white dress?”

I hate him fiercely in that moment. I’m trapped beneath a mó, my arms too weak, my blades useless between my fingers. He will probably use my body first, then feast on my flesh as he drinks up my soul. I think of my father twitching on the ground, of my mother’s blank stare. I think of Méi’zi, small and alone beneath our town pái’fāng, holding on to my blade and the promise I made her.

My throat locks. I think of crying. I think of begging.

But no. I will not be prey.

If I am going to die tonight, then I’m going to do my damnedest to take him with me.

I do the only thing I can in this moment: I lunge up and bite his neck, clamping my teeth hard enough to break skin. I know mó have physical sensations, just as we do, and pain is one of them.

The mó shouts a curse and jerks back, but I go with him. I bite down harder, sinking my teeth in with all the hatred for his kind that I have. For all the deaths, all the half-eaten bodies and devoured souls and burned villages. For my father. For my mother. For the childhood stolen from Méi’zi.

I hold on, waiting for his ichor to sear my tongue, for its slow poison to seep into my body.

His skin is warm against my lips. He tastes of sweat, salt, and wind…and slowly, trickling into my mouth, is a familiar-tasting, hot coppery liquid.

I blink. It can’t be.

Demons don’t bleed. They don’t have blood.

Which means—

I release him, coughing as his blood swirls on my tongue. My captor groans out another curse, and when my head falls back against the grass, I see my teeth marks on the side of his neck…and the fresh red blood dripping from the wound.

My captor shifts so that he is gripping both my wrists with a single hand. He swipes the other at the blood on his neck and stares at his palm for a moment. Then he looks at me in disbelief. “You bit me.”

“You’re not a mó,” I gasp.

He swears under his breath again, then leaps up with a fluid lightness to his movements that I have seen in my father…and in other practitioners.

Skies. Did I just assault and… bite a practitioner?

“Observant of you, considering I’m not the one going around taking chunks of flesh out of people,” he says, but the disbelief in his eyes is replaced by an edge of laughter as he flicks his gaze to me again. “Ten hells, that hurt. ”

My cheeks heat, but I don’t have time for embarrassment and I’m not in the mood to apologize. I scramble to my feet much less gracefully than he did, then spit out the rest of his blood and wipe my mouth.

“What happened here?” I look around, my stomach roiling at the sight of the bodies strewn so carelessly. There are many monsters, ghouls, and spirits that roam the mountains and untamed lands of the mortal realm, but few known to kill us like this. No, the wounds on the victims are singular and clean, resembling the single slice of a blade.

Whatever did this didn’t do it to feast.

I count eight dead, and my heart sinks. Eight practitioners from the Kingdom of Rivers slain before the sun has set. Eight mortal lives taken from our ever-diminishing numbers.

My former captor folds his arms. “First you assault me, then you bite me, and now you accuse me of murder. Manners, little scorpion.”

I shift my blades in my palms, uncertain how to respond. I don’t remember the last time I made a joke. And I certainly don’t know anyone who would remain so cavalier when surrounded by death or facing the possibility of an imminent death.

“Why are you here?” I ask. If he was looking for the convoy as well, then dragons curse me, for he could have made a good ally. Until I accidentally tried to kill him.

He gives a deep chuckle. “Oh, for the fun of it. What more is there to life than wandering a bloody forest at night, surrounded by demons and getting stabbed and bitten by ill-mannered young maidens?”

I almost want to stab him again, but I settle for a frown. “You’re not dressed to travel,” I say, my eyes flicking to his crimson cloak, bright against the night that has begun to drape its shadows over us and the bamboo forest.

“Neither are you.” His gaze skims my throat, my chest, down to the waist, and snaps back up to my face. “Clever. Dress as a chaste maiden in silks to lower their defenses and lure them in, then cut out their hearts before they know it.”

I know he is mortal and I know he is a practitioner, but I still tense as he takes a step closer, then another. My village has largely remained safe from the aftermath of the invasion, but I’ve heard tales of how desperation brought out the ugliest, cruelest parts of humans.

“Demons don’t have hearts.” I raise my blades just slightly and bare my teeth. When he stops his approach, a pleasant twinge of power courses through my veins.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain.”

“I’ve killed enough to know.”

His smile widens. “My outfit is a disguise, much like yours,” he continues, answering my earlier question. His hands are slightly raised, as though to signal peace. “The brightest and most beautiful flowers are the most poisonous. Most would think twice about attacking me.” He raises an eyebrow and fixes me with a pointed look. “Most.”

The brightest and most beautiful flowers are the most poisonous. That strikes a chord in me, deeper than he’d know.

I turn away, studying the closest body. The victim is a young woman around my age. Her eyes are still open, blank and unseeing, but the fear in her expression is unmistakable.

I lean down and close her eyes. The proper funeral rite for our realm would be cremation, releasing anything left of their life energies to the realm of death beyond the Nine Fountains in hopes of reincarnation. Unlike immortals, the vast majority of mortals don’t reincarnate; our souls are too fragile for that. We are made for one lifetime.

I’m aware of the practitioner watching me. “Why do that?” he asks. “She’s gone.”

I look away. I don’t tell him that every time I see a body, I’m imagining my father’s blank eyes and gashed chest. That if I were in the shoes of the dead girl’s parents, I would wish for someone to do the same for me.

That, for all the sins I have already sown and the deaths I have seen, I hope these small gestures will continue to remind me of what it means to be human.

“She lived, once” is all I say as I straighten. We’ve wasted enough time dancing around the topic, so I cut straight to the point. “Are you looking for the convoy?”

“Convoy.” His tone is between a statement and a question.

“The convoy to the Kingdom of Sky.”

“Ah.” The corners of his eyes curve in a look I cannot decipher. “Yet another mortal seeking immortality,” he says softly. “Why is it in our natures to want that which we cannot have?”

My lips part, but that’s when I catch sight of something over his shoulder. A shift of a shadow between the trees, a glint of metal—

I’m moving already, acting on instinct as I reach into my sleeve and sweep my arm out. My sixth crescent blade, Arrow, flies from my hand. There is a sharp plink and the sound of metal against metal, but my aim was a fraction off, my throw too weak, and it wasn’t enough to fully deflect the dagger soaring from the trees, toward the red-cloaked practitioner’s head.

I can’t even make sense of what happens next. One moment I’m watching the dagger fly toward him. The next, Red has shifted and the dagger is nowhere to be seen. All I catch between one blink and another is a billow of his crimson cloak in a phantom wind, as if I’ve missed a few moments of time.

Red spares me a glance over his shoulder, and I swear he smiles before turning his attention back to the part of the bamboo forest where the attack came from.

I raise Fleet and Shadow just as the assailant steps out from the darkness.

He’s huge, dressed in black practitioner’s robes and holding a long, thick saber that looks as heavy as me…one that is covered in drying blood.

Around him, figures are emerging from the forest: practitioners, judging from the sophistication of their weapons and practiced fighting stances, all young and dressed in dark, travel-suited shifts and boots. I’m certain, from the fullness of their frames and the crispness of their clothes, that they must be from the other provinces, perhaps nearer to the borders of our kingdom, where the mó have not reached.

I count six of them, each armed with different weapon types: bows and arrows, serrated-metal whips, throwing stars, spears, and swords. They’re all aimed at me and Red.

They must be the convoy…or what’s left of it.

The largest of them—the one who attacked us—takes a step toward me, and to my surprise, so does Red. They’re equal in height, but the newcomer is built like a brute, with a neck as thick as a tree trunk and hands that look as though they could crush my head. Metal sings through the air as he draws his saber.

Red stands calmly, arms folded. Smiling. Somehow, that sends a chill down my spine.

“Believe this belongs to you,” he says, and when he holds out his hand, the brute’s dagger flashes in his palm.

The brute snarls and lunges. Quicker than a blink, Red tosses the dagger at his face, forcing him to pivot so he doesn’t get stabbed by his own weapon.

The newcomer just manages to swipe his weapon from the air. He looks pissed. I would be terrified to be on the receiving end of that look, but Red doesn’t balk. Instead, he smirks at me. “I think we’re better off without the convoy if it’s going to be them, don’t you?” he asks me.

“Bastard,” the brute sneers. “All these bodies you see? I killed them. The rest obey me. ”

The world cracks on those words. As I stare at his widening grin, everything suddenly comes together into a horrifying, gruesome picture. The dead practitioners, their flesh unconsumed and their chests sliced open.

“Why?” The question slips from my lips before I can help it. My head feels oddly light. This is all wrong. This convoy was meant to unite us in the face of our common enemy, the mó.

The murderer turns to me, and his grin splits his face. “Why?” he repeats. “Don’t you know how the temple at the Kingdom of Sky works? They don’t let in all the riffraff. You have to survive their selection tournament to qualify. Only the best mortals can make it out alive; out of those, only a handful are selected to become immortal.” His eyes glow maniacally. “And if I eliminate the strongest of the convoy, I eliminate competition.”

Red snorts, and every eye in the clearing turns to him. He’s covered his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he’s trying to smother his laughter. “Excuse my manners,” he says, and with what appears to be incredible restraint, he schools his features into a semblance of seriousness. “See, I don’t think that’s how it works. Even if you kill every single eligible practitioner out here, you still won’t be chosen if you’re—let me put this delicately—shit.”

The brute turns an ugly shade of plum. I hear one of his lackeys call out to him, “Yán’lù, want us to finish them off for you?”

I tense, but Red laughs again. “Can’t even do your own dirty work?”

The brute—Yán’lù—spits in the grass. “Stand down,” he bellows at the lackey, and turns to Red. There’s something assessing in his gaze, something I don’t understand as he growls, “I didn’t want to fight you.”

“Worry not,” Red says breezily. “It won’t be a fight.”

Yán’lù snarls a curse. Faster than I anticipated, he pounces, his saber swinging with the force to take down a tree.

Red easily sidesteps the blow—and the next, and the next. There is an exquisite grace to the way he moves, as if each step is effortless for him. He hasn’t even drawn his sword; a smile dangles at the edges of his lips as though this is all a child’s game for him. His crimson cloak and the bursts of spirit energies between him and Yán’lù whip up fallen petals and dust around them, and in the elegance of his steps, he is impossibly beautiful.

As though he hears my thoughts, his eyes flick to me and he cocks his head, flashing me a lazy grin. My cheeks heat, and I’m suddenly furious at myself and my traitorous, fluttering heart. The most beautiful things are the most dangerous. I have known this since I opened the door to the lovely red-lipped woman that sunlit morning nine years ago. It is carved into my heart, along with the death of my father and the loss of my mother.

Now my idiocy costs me again.

I notice, a half beat too late, that Yán’lù has turned to me. He is panting, his expression beyond furious, and I know he is looking for an easy target to kill and save face in front of his lackeys as he swings my way.

My crescent blades are up, but I no longer have Shield, and I’m not powerful enough to block against a proper weapon. No one has ever taught me to spar with a real sword.

The first blow throws me off balance. I feel Yán’lù’s strength rattle my teeth as I stumble back.

I lift my head, panting. Panic grips my chest. I know that when the next swing comes, I’m dead.

Except it doesn’t.

Instead, there is a flash of crimson before my eyes. I hear a screech of metal against metal. An incredible gust of power ripples through the clearing, rustling the grass and bamboo all around us.

Red stands before me, his cloak settling with the falling leaves and dust. He holds a sword, long and straight. In the darkness of night, it catches the dusty moonlight filtering through the clouds, glinting as if it is made of molten silver.

Molten silver, with a streak of fresh blood at its edge.

Yán’lù has leapt back to the edges of the clearing. When he swipes his hand at his midriff, I see dark red glistening against his fingers.

“Touch her and I’ll show you how it feels to actually have aim.”

Red’s tone has completely changed. It is cold, with an edge of cruelty, stripped of any earlier nonchalance or playfulness.

Yán’lù spits, but he knows defeat when he sees it. He raises his saber and points at both of us. “Even if you reach the Kingdom of Sky, you’re dead, both of you,” he growls. “The Temple of Dawn tournament starts now, as soon as we step beyond Gods’ Fingers into the Way of Ghosts. And I’ll be watching your every move.” He gestures at his group of lackeys. “Let’s go.”

They back into the trees and vanish into the shadows.

Red turns to me, sheathing his sword in one smooth stroke. He looks unbothered, his hair slightly mussed from the fight in a way that strangely suits him.

“Why did you do that?” I demand. I can’t make out his expression beneath the shifting clouds, but I do not lower my own blades. “Why did you save my life?”

“Out of the kindness of my heart.” He approaches me, stopping two steps away, as though he knows the measure of my discomfort. “Would that be so hard to believe?”

“Yes.”

He laughs without abandon. Then he holds out his hand and unfurls his fingers. In his palm is Arrow, the crescent blade I used to deflect Yán’lù’s first attack.

“For whatever reasons the Heavens or fates have conspired, our paths crossed,” he says. “You saved my life, and I mislike owing debts. In the churn of lives and destinies, all things happen for a reason, don’t you think?” He holds the blade out to me. An offering, but not without my yielding a step.

“Our paths crossed because I thought you were a mó and tried to kill you,” I say flatly. “I hardly think that deserving of any grand notions of fate or destiny.”

He regards me with amusement. “Even the unlikeliest circumstances are a matter of fate. Today, the stars and skies preordained me the gift of a charming maiden who tries to stab me and bite off my neck. Skies, I must have upset you greatly in a past life.”

“Mortals don’t reincarnate.”

“Mm. All the better that you met me before those brutes found you, then, no?”

I narrow my eyes, thinking back to the tremendous undercurrent of power I felt when he showed his spirit energy to block the brute’s swing. If he decides to kill me, it won’t be a matter of a step or two.

So I take the steps and close the distance between us. His palm is smooth and warm when I pick up Arrow. I slip the blade into my sleeve, feeling whole once more.

“Thank you,” I say. His lips curl, and I think I see something genuine behind that smirk. “What did he mean when he said the tournament starts now?”

“Rumor has it that the trials begin as soon as we set foot beyond these mountains. The first challenge is to get through the Way of Ghosts and cross the border of the Kingdom of Sky. What better way to test for strength than to see who survives a death trap of monsters and demons from the Kingdom of Night?”

I struggle to reconcile this turn of events with the recollections from my father’s journal entries. “I thought they would train us before the trials.”

“Train us? I highly doubt that.” Red’s eyes glint. “As far as I know, we’re on our own.”

I am beginning to realize how underprepared I am to survive this tournament. Not when my competition is the likes of this man and Yán’lù.

“Keep that stinger of yours sharp, because no one will see it coming.” Red touches his neck again, where the blood from the wound I gave him glistens dark beneath the moonlight. He makes a quick gesture; the air shifts with spirit energy as a talisman forms, dissipating the blood. “Well, I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but it has been fun. I hope to see you on the other side, little scorpion.”

Before I can summon a response, the jade pendant against my clavicle heats.

A message has come through.

My heart lurches into my throat as I fish it from my collar and hold it up. In the moonlight, I make out a single character:

RUN.