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Wingbeats in the skies.

I don’t have time to ponder the message from my pendant and how it knows, how it spoke to me when I didn’t ask it for help this time. I do the only thing I can think of in that moment.

With Fleet in my hands, I leap at Red’s retreating back.

He’s so quick, he almost reacts in time. I see him turn, the moonlight casting his eyes like coins that reflect the color of his cloak. He reaches for me, but I crash into him first and we slam into the long grass.

He flips me easily and pins me against the ground, his legs twining against mine to hold them down as I kick. I bring up Fleet, but he knocks it from me before I even realize his hand has moved. Then his fingers are at my throat, his body crushing the air from my lungs.

I can’t speak, can’t breathe. Stars pop in my vision.

Ironic, that I was trying to save him—and now he is going to kill me.

His face is so calm, nearly bored, and still undeniably beautiful as he lowers it to mine. “Fool me once, I let you go. Fool me twice…” His fingers tighten.

I choke, but that’s when a shadow falls over us. We’re beneath a great cathaya tree, its branches fracturing the skies and the moon—and I see it the moment the slivers of light wink out.

The practitioner darts a glance over his shoulder just as the creature comes into view. Its wings are so massive, the air stirs the silvergrasses all around me and the ground jolts as it lands in the clearing where we confronted Yán’lù, where the rest of the convoy was slain.

Red swears softly, and his fingers lift from my windpipe. Even with my vision clearing, there is no mistaking the beast that stands in the clearing less than twelve paces from us.

From here, it resembles a winged tiger the size of my house—but as it turns and stalks into the moonlight, I see that it is nothing but a mass of shadows on a gnarled skeleton. Bones jut from its ribs and wings, as sharp as razors and undoubtedly capable of slicing me in half. Its hollow eyes flash with the blood red of beings from the Kingdom of Night: enhanced vision to allow them to see in a land of eternal darkness.

I’ve read of this hellbeast in the studies put together by mortal practitioners. It has a name: Qióng’qí. One of the great Four Perils of the Kingdom of Night, which once stalked the mortal lands…before the Heavenly Order. And now that the Kingdom of Rivers is sinking into the Kingdom of Night, their creatures are coming through the broken wards to haunt our lands. My father’s wards and my careful maintenance of them have kept my village safe…yet I can’t help but think what will happen once those fragile spells fade away.

Red shifts his head to me. Slowly, he presses a finger to his mouth.

Obviously. I roll my eyes, and he smiles. Like he thinks I’m funny.

Hilarious that both of us might be torn to shreds and devoured in seconds.

I flick my wrist, and Shadow slides into my palm. I slice open the skin on my index finger and jam it against the hilt. As the talisman ripples into effect, the night grows a bit darker, more muted, and I know we’re protected.

Red inhales sharply—just as Qióng’qí turns its dripping maw toward me.

“It smells blood.” Red’s mouth is by my ear, his breath tickling my cheek. I hear what he doesn’t say: You’ve just exposed us.

“Got a better idea?” I hiss.

He draws back, flicks a glance at the forest ahead of us. “Stay here,” he says, and then with that too-light movement typical of a well-trained practitioner, he leaps up away from me…and takes off.

I roll to my elbows, heart pounding as I search the darkness between the cathayas. He’s gone.

And I’m left, alone and defenseless, against one of the four foulest mythological beasts to ever grace the Kingdom of Night.

As a snarl rumbles like thunder behind me, I think of an old joke my father told me. It is night, and a group of merchants is traveling deep in the mountains. Suddenly, they happen upon a tiger. They are not fast enough to outrun it, not strong enough to fight it. What do they do?

You don’t need to outrun the tiger, I said, so long as you can outrun the slowest merchant.

Méi’zi was horrified at my answer, but my father roared with laughter.

I don’t need to outrun Qióng’qí. I just need to outrun the slowest practitioner in these mountains.

I think of Yán’lù, of where he and his cronies disappeared. They can’t have gotten far. And I may not be as strong as him or as powerful as that bastard Red, but I’m fast.

I’m on my feet in an instant, Fleet in my hand. This time, in my other, I palm my strangest and least used seventh blade, Heart.

Heart bears a talisman that my father invented: a spell of true aim according to the fiercest desire of the wielder’s heart. Over the years, I’ve used it to lead me to the light lotuses and to guide my hand where my skill was lacking. But Bà warned me that the talisman can be unreliable: sometimes the mind doesn’t know what the heart wants.

I know what I want in this moment. I want to see that brute Yán’lù torn to shreds by Qióng’qí.

I’m running already, my senses in overdrive. Fleet powers each of my steps so that my strides are longer, faster—but it’s still not enough to shake the beast. I hear it crashing through the trees just steps behind me, feel the ground shake beneath each of its great paws.

I jam my bleeding thumb into Heart.

Irritatingly, Red’s face pops into my mind first, impossibly beautiful and sharply elegant. I focus my thoughts to Yán’lù’s twisted smile, the practitioners he killed, and how I want him to pay for what he did.

I feel a slight pull at my blade as it begins to direct me—into the darkness between trees, into the unknown. Gusts of wind from the beast’s great wings slam into my back, knocking my knees together. Desperately, I blink the sweat from my eyes, but the forest around me blurs into a mass of shadows and echoes of the beast’s vicious snarls.

This could be my last few seconds in this realm, in this life, and all I feel is anger and burning shame that I couldn’t do better, that I’ve failed and that my failure means sentencing my mother and my sister to death.

Something tugs sharply at my foot, and the world veers off balance. I blink and I’m on the forest floor, supporting myself on my hands and knees, my left ankle twisted at an unnatural angle. As pain sears up my leg, I have strength enough to lift my head and meet my death.

That skeletal tiger’s face greets me, hollow red eyes burning. It opens its maw, each tooth longer than my crescent blades, dripping with saliva.

In the shadow of my death, I glimpse her again: the Higher One of nine years past. She appears as a red silhouette beneath the darkness of the pines, watching me calmly as she always does in my hallucinations. Drifting, as always, just out of sight. Reminding me that, in spite of all the years of training I have done, I am still powerless.

She’s gone in a blink. Above me, Qióng’qí’s tongue unfurls, a spiked thing said to scrape the flesh from victims’ bodies.

Then, it pauses. Lifts its head, attention pulled by something out in the forest.

I flip my blade in my palms and am about to aim a strike when the unimaginable happens.

Qióng’qí straightens and, like a scolded dog, backs several steps away.

The wind shifts, followed by the sound of near-undetectable footsteps approaching me. A hand slides across my back. I feel a ripple of a talisman warm my chest, soothing my frantic heartbeat.

“Think of the one wish you hold in your heart,” comes a voice, deep and melodic and strangely familiar. “The one thing you’d wish for before you leave this world.”

It is a bizarre thing to ask in the face of death, but I obey. My fear abates slightly as I speak. “I want my mother and Méi’zi to be safe.”

My vision is settling. A face emerges from the darkness, one of heartbreaking beauty, like the legendary heroes in our childhood stories. “What else?” he murmurs. “Something that you want, for you.”

“I want to see the ocean.” The confession unravels from my lips. My throat rasps, and my words are nearly lost, but I think of the girl who sewed the handkerchief. Yes, I was once a girl who wished to see the realm—all of it. Long, rolling deserts like burning gold. Rivers that bleed from tears of dragons. The ocean, which one tome claimed was as vast as the sky itself and undulated like a living, breathing thing. There must have been beauty here, once. “I want to see the world.”

When I blink again, the shadows have lifted slightly, and the hellbeast is nowhere to be seen. Leaning over me is the red-cloaked practitioner. He’s no longer smiling. “I told you to stay,” he says, his hands on my elbows as he pulls me to my feet.

I twist away but stumble as pain shoots up my left ankle. Those hands find me and hold me steady.

“And I was supposed to follow your instructions and do nothing while a legendary demonic beast figures out how it wants to eat me.” I spit out this reply with the last of my dignity.

I feel as though I have been undressed, my barest and most vulnerable parts exposed to him. Weak, slow, and now wounded. I’d wanted— needed —him as an ally, but he will never agree at this point. Who would take a deadweight in a situation where physical prowess is necessary?

He presses a finger to his lips and, in a fluid motion, he kneels. His hand slides to my left ankle. I jump at the shock of his palm against my bare skin. Spirit energy stirs, and as warmth spreads through my injury, the pain dulls.

He is healing my ankle.

“Where is it?” I hate how my voice shakes. “Where’s the hellbeast?”

“Gone.” Red gazes up at me, eyes clear and calm. Kneeling at my feet, his hand warm against my skin, there is a gentleness to his touch that twists my stomach.

“What did you do?” I whisper.

“Qióng’qí feeds on fear. I helped you take the fear away.”

Logically, it makes sense—and I curse myself for not having thought of that earlier. But I’m thinking of the moment before that. Before he arrived, when the beast had caught sight of something…and backed away.

A distant scream curdles the air. A familiar, snarling bark follows, cutting it off abruptly.

I dig my nails into my palms. This is wrong. Yán’lù and his cronies are practitioners. We are all mortal, meant to be fighting together against a common enemy.

The Temple of Dawn has made that impossible with its twisted tournament.

Like it or not, I am already in the game.

“Ally with me,” I say. Like this, him kneeling before me, we are close, close enough for me to feel the heat of his breath as he lifts his face to meet my gaze. His hand is still at my ankle, where pulses of his spirit energy flow into me like waves…and the pain of my injury has faded.

“Ally with you,” he repeats, and in a fluid move, he stands. He doesn’t break our gaze as an indolent smile curves his lips. “And why would I do that? What can you offer me, little scorpion?”

I do not miss the way his eyes flick to my lips, tracing up the edge of my jaw and cheeks slowly, deliberately, almost like a physical caress. I hold very still. The village elders who grew up at a time when customs were still upheld would shudder at his insinuation. But those customs—along with most societal norms—have long eroded. I have heard stories of women who traded their bodies in exchange for protective talismans. Fathers who gave their blood for a scrap of food to feed their children.

I am not above any of that. I will do what is practical.

My crescent blade Heart is still in my hand. I lift the knife to the practitioner’s cheek and touch it, just lightly enough so it does not cut. “I have saved your life twice. You stated you do not like owing debts.”

“Debts that are now repaid.” He watches me over the edge of my blade, dark eyes never leaving my face.

“The road ahead is long. Better to have someone watch your back while you sleep.”

“Or a knife in my heart before the morning to eliminate your strongest competition.”

I’m not above that, either. Eventually, that will come to pass, because if it comes down to a tournament, I will eliminate anyone and anything in the way of my getting that pill for my mother.

“Not before we get to safety,” I say. “Until then, you have my undying loyalty.” His lips quirk at the word undying. “I’m quick and I’m smart.” I have a jade pendant that watches over me. “I’m good with my blades. And…” I swallow and take a small step forward. We are now chest to chest, knee to knee, so that I feel the rise and fall of his body with each breath and the brush of his cloak against my dress. “I could be good at other things, too.”

He gives me a dull look I cannot read, then matches me with a step backward, creating distance between us again. “ Safety is a long way off, little scorpion,” he says. “That half-wit Yán’lù spoke truth. The first test of the tournament starts beyond these mountains. The area between Gods’ Fingers and the Kingdom of Sky is filled with monsters the Kingdom of Night has sent in an attempt to wear down the immortals’ wards.”

The Kingdom of Night has wanted to overtake the Kingdom of Sky’s power, favor, and authority under the Heavenly Order for years. It’s impossible, though, for demons to slip through the immortals’ wards, which are built to accept only those who bleed red. A first, that our fleshly mortal bodies should serve to our advantage.

I cross my arms. “In that case, perhaps you should pray that I’m here to help.”

“I don’t pray.”

“You were caught off guard twice. Thrice, if you count my attack. If I hadn’t saved you—”

“I meant to ask. Why did you attack me?” He’s grinning now, leaning closer and gazing up at me from under those long, dark lashes.

“I—” I’m caught off-guard as his question brings to my mind the moment in that clearing. The wind, catching in his hair and cloak, the leaves, framing him like a painting. “You were standing all alone in the midst of a dozen dead practitioners. What was I supposed to think?”

He blinks slowly, and I find my heart quickening and my face beginning to heat beneath his gaze. “It wasn’t because you found me handsome enough to be a mó?”

I lash out, and Fleet finds his throat before either of us can draw another breath. My face is burning, but I glare up at him. “You might’ve died twice had I not been there,” I say levelly. “I have secrets that will see me through alive, that warn me of danger before it manifests. How do you think I caught wind of Qióng’qí before it appeared?” I’m bluffing, but he doesn’t have to know that. “I’m not as strong or as well trained as you, but I have much to offer. Ally with me.”

“Hmm,” he says, and I feel the hum of his voice reverberate down my crescent blade. “If we’re going to be allies, you’ll have to work at pointing those stingers somewhere else, little scorpion.”

“Stop calling me—”

He moves so fast, I don’t even catch it. All I know is that there was a blur of red, pressure on my hand, and then Fleet and Heart are both in his hands. My breath catches in my throat. He is even more dangerous than I imagined.

“Interesting.” He’s studying the talismans engraved in the hilts. “Well, then, what will it take to begin this alliance?”

I understand the message he is sending me, accepting my offer with my crescent blades in his palms.

“Your name,” I reply.

He flips his palms and extends both blades toward me, hilt-first. His attention is back on me, and I cannot say I dislike it. “Yù’chén.”

Yù’chén—a homonym that sounds like meet the dawn. It’s a lovely name. No surname, but I won’t ask.

I take Fleet and Heart back. I’m careful not to touch his fingers. “àn’yīng.” No surname, and I won’t offer.

His lips quirk. “A lovely name.”

Embers of anger spark inside me. “Do not,” I say in a low voice, “mock my name.”

He blinks. “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t.” He arranges his features into a more cordial smile, his gaze softening in a semblance of warmth. “I find it lovely. The songs and poems all laud the beauty of nature in daylight, beneath the warmth of the sun. Rare are those who appreciate the beauty in darkness.”

I frown, uncertain how to react to his words. But I remember how quickly his face changed, and I tell myself not to forget. Masks, too, can be weapons.

Yù’chén must sense my unease, for he gives me a smile radiant enough to melt hearts. With a flourish, he proffers something to me on his palm. It’s a flower as red as his cloak, its petals round and tapering to razor-sharp edges. I recognize it: a scorpion lily, known for slicing the skin of those who try to pick it. It is frequently depicted in paintings of the realm of death beyond the Nine Fountains and symbolizes predestined tragedy.

“A beautiful flower for a beautiful maiden.” Yù’chén’s smile is startlingly sincere, but I catch hints of mirth at the edges of his eyes.

I make a sound between my teeth and shove his arm away from me. “A flower foretelling a tragic fate? You can keep it.”

He waves his hand and the scorpion lily vanishes like a trick of the light.

In the forest of cathayas extending into the Way of Ghosts, another drawn-out wail pierces the darkness, followed by that nightmare of a growl.

Yù’chén nods in the direction of the trees. “You thought Qióng’qí was bad? That was only the warm-up.”

As though on cue, a seam opens in the sky, and there is a flash of white light. Two sparks of fire drift down toward us, the flames slowly dying out to form curling, golden pieces of parchment.

I stretch out my palm, and the parchment comes to rest on it, delicate as the wings of a butterfly. By my side, Yù’chén has an identical parchment.

I hold mine up and read the characters written in swirly golden ink:

The Temple of Dawn cordially invites you to participate in

the Immortality Trials.