Page 9

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I register the shock on the sea of faces, but I’m more focused on the figures on the golden dais. They resemble humans, yet somehow, they are more: from the way they glow like the morning sun to how their long robes ripple like celestial rivers. As if they are too light to be tethered to the ground of this realm. Of course, I know what they are.

Immortals.

They look ethereal, their faces holding a gentle flush, exuding life. There is a perfection to their appearance that no mortal body can achieve: their skin is smoothed over as though made of pearl dust; their hair shines with the luster of polished black onyx; their features are distinct, with eyes small or large, faces square or round, noses soft or sharp, yet all coming together to form a portrait of radiant and impossible beauty. They are flowers at the brightest bloom—but while flowers fade and mortals’ youth turns to ash, immortals’ brilliance is eternal.

There are eight of them, each distinctively dressed in silks and gauzes adorned with flora and fauna, robes crafted so well they ripple with life.

The Eight Immortals. I have read of them briefly in my father’s notes—but more so in all the legends of the realms. Long, long ago, they were mortals who crossed the Endless Sea to the realm in the skies beyond ours. The Jade Emperor, ruler of the immortal realm, was moved by their courage. He drew eight drops of his own golden blood, condensing them into pills that would infuse spirit energy into their mortal souls and grant them eternal life. Find me the best warriors of the mortal realm, and offer them a chance at glory, power, and eternity, he’d commanded them.

Thus began the Immortality Trials.

I study the Eight Immortals now, seeking a trace of their past in their faces, but they wear their immortality like stone polished smooth by timeless waters. I wonder if eternity would make me forget my humanity, too.

The immortal announcing arrivals pauses and arches a brow. His outfit blazes red and gold, almost imperial in appearance. “Oh?” he says in a lofty, melodious voice, and the bejeweled bamboo scepter in his hands gleams as he leans forward to peer at me. “But the twelfth gong has sounded.”

“No need to argue with a mortal who is due for the Nine Fountains, Jǐng’xiù,” says an immortal holding a large fan made of what resemble the finest ostrich feathers across the realms. His robes hang loose on him, baring much of his chest. His gaze slides over me as though I am a part of the floor. “I shall call the guards to throw her out.”

Sunlight lances off the white-gold armor of the dozens of guards lining the hall.

“No,” I gasp, my gaze returning to the immortals seated on the dais. “I arrived before sundown. I was at the temple threshold by the twelfth gong. I qualify.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath all around me as the candidates whisper among themselves.

Someone laughs; I trace the sound to an immortal on the far left. They wear a pure blue robe and carry a woven basket of plants: sprigs of heavenly bamboo, sun-yellow chrysanthemums, and jade-green pines, stalks of magic fungi and flowering plums. “She argues!” they exclaim and gift me a wide smile, the corners of their eyes creasing. “I like her. Shall we let her pass?”

“The rules are the rules, Cǎi’hé!” snaps the immortal on the far right. He’s holding a white-flowered gourd in his arms. Plumes of golden smoke waft from its spout, curling into the air.

Cǎi’hé tilts their head. “Well, technically …she did arrive at the Temple of Dawn by the twelfth gong….”

The world is no longer spinning. Instead, I feel something hot and powerful course through my veins and fist in my heart.

I am suddenly furious. I have crossed the mortal lands and survived all the monsters and demons lurking there; I have fought and bled and sacrificed to reach this place—this place that holds the only key to saving my mother’s life. I have lived, picking at scraps and screaming through nightmares of my father’s blank, unseeing eyes and harvesting lotuses for my soulless mother in our dying mortal kingdom for all these years…and they are arguing over my entry as though it entertains them.

Before I know it, I’m shoving through the crowd of candidates. They part before me as though I am something they do not wish to touch. I come to stand before the dais, holding Fleet and Healer in my hands.

“The invitation I received stated that the First Trial was to arrive here by sundown today,” I say. I point Fleet at the open doors, where the setting sun colors the skies and the clouds in shades of coral. “It is sundown. I am here. Therefore, I qualify for the Second Trial.”

Toward the center of the dais, an immortal leans forward. Her face was in the shadows earlier, but as the light strikes it, I see that her features are softer than the others’, her beauty subdued and pure. She holds a lotus; over its blush petals, her eyes rove up the crescent blades in my hands to my soaked white dress and come to meet mine. In the moment that they do, they light up my entire world.

Then her gaze passes easily over me, and I realize that, to these immortals, I am a drop of water in an ocean, a speck of sand in an unending desert.

“I agree with the mortal,” she says to the immortal next to her, at the center of the group. He is the tallest and most imposing; he wears a high gray scholar’s hat and matching somber robes of heavy brocade. At his hip is a red-tasseled sword. “Honorable Immortal Dòng’bīn?”

“Always the mortal sympathizer, eh, Shī’yǎ?” The immortal with the feathered fan smirks.

“Silence.” The immortal at the very center of the group—Dòng’bīn—has spoken. The rest obey, their attention focused on him in a way that tells me he is the highest-ranking. Power crackles from him, electrifying each sweep of his hand, each shift of his body.

That’s when I realize: I can argue all I want. I can burn alive with my anger. But in the face of these immortals who guard the gates to the Kingdom of Sky, there is nothing I can do. After all this time, I am still powerless.

“These trials seek those with not only strength of the body but also strength of the mind,” Dòng’bīn says. “Persistence against all odds is the spirit of the heart that first tided us through the Endless Sea into this realm.” At this, a few of the immortals have the grace to look humbled. Dòng’bīn’s gaze, like the center of a storm—cold, ancient, and powerful—shifts to me as he declares, “She may pass to the Second Trial.”

My knees knock together; I nearly drop my blades. There’s a roaring in my ears as my adrenaline finally leaves me and exhaustion catches up to my aching limbs. The last thought I have before my mind goes blank is that I am going to collapse before an entire hall of immortals and candidates out for my blood.

Except I don’t.

Hands catch me, light and warm against my back and my shoulders. Someone whispers in my ear, in my mind, telling me to walk, and somehow, I do. I make my way through the crowd of candidates toward the back.

Arms encircle my waist. I’m pressed against someone’s chest, hard and firm, my head leaning against a shoulder. My vision settles: high bejeweled ceilings, fluttering silk paintings, white stone inlaid with gold and lapis.

“It’s all right now, little scorpion,” comes a deep, familiar voice.

Every nerve in me stretches taut to the point of breaking.

It’s him.

Yù’chén.

I try to jerk my hand away, but I can barely summon the energy to stand, let alone fight off someone as strong as he is. Yù’chén pins me in place, twisting my wrists slightly to angle my blades away from him.

I lean back, and he tilts his head with a smile that does not reach his eyes. “Are you really going to stick me in the middle of their pristine palace?” His lips are so close to my ear, I feel the low thrum of his words against my skin. “Right after you were almost disqualified?”

There’s a ripple of excitement throughout the hall. On the dais, the immortal with the bamboo scepter shifts, and a glint of gold catches my eye.

I look, and I forget to breathe.

There, nestled like a pearl in the immortal’s palm, is a perfect golden pill. It catches the fading sunlight like liquid gold.

“The pill of immortality,” Jǐng’xiù booms, his voice amplified by that scepter. “Upon the conclusion of the Immortality Trials, each judge will select one candidate they deem most worthy of taking under their discipleship. They will grant the candidate a pill of immortality created from a drop of their own golden blood and spirit energy and invite the candidate to the Kingdom of Sky to cultivate their power as an immortal.

“You will be judged by a variety of factors: characteristics that each of the Eight Immortals value uniquely, tested in each trial.”

I can practically hear each candidate doing the math. By my count, there are over forty of us, and only eight judges. Eight spots.

I have to beat thirty-some other candidates—many of whom are trained practitioners from richer provinces—to win the pill of immortality for Mā.

Jǐng’xiù closes his palm, and the pill vanishes. Around me, candidates blink as though released from a spell.

I feel stronger and more clearheaded than earlier. Yù’chén’s hands press against my waist and the small of my back, holding me steady. A tingling warmth I now recognize as spirit energy pours from him into me.

Why? I think, the unanswered question since the first day we met. Why is he healing me and still helping me when I am clearly weak and wounded…and most important, when I have seen him use dark magic that only mó can wield?

As though hearing my thoughts, his eyes dip to mine.

I tighten my grip on my dagger. Instantly, Yù’chén’s hands snap back around my wrists. The motion is swift, subtle, but his grip is like iron.

“Don’t,” he murmurs. Slowly, he bends my arms to wrap around his waist, drawing me forward so I have no choice but to lean close to his chest. At the front of the hall, Jǐng’xiù is now giving instructions about our rooms, our schedules, our meals, and the rules of the temple. “You don’t want to give them any reason to disqualify you.”

I hiss at Yù’chén, “I think they’d appreciate it if I tell them that you—”

“That I what?” He lifts an eyebrow.

I open and close my mouth several times. “Enchanted me,” I say at last.

He looks pleased. “Did I?”

“You—” I clench my teeth as several of the candidates nearby glance our way in annoyance.

I angle my dagger at his ribs, and his grip tightens on my wrist as his smile widens. In this bizarre silent struggle, we turn to listen to Jǐng’xiù’s instructions.

“…welcome to attend the Trial Banquet tonight. You will find your Candidates’ Courtyard room assignments on your invitations,” the immortal says cheerfully.

“Are we free to come and go as we please?” hollers one candidate at the front. “I’ve got a sweetheart out in the Southern Province!”

This earns him some laughter, and even a few smiles from the Eight Immortals themselves.

Jǐng’xiù chuckles along with the group. “No,” he says pleasantly. The candidate with the sweetheart stops grinning. “The wards protecting the Kingdom of Sky are impenetrable. You were granted entry through our wards today by measure of your mortal blood and mortal hearts, but by the twelfth gong, the wards once again sealed off our realm. No one may enter, and no one may leave. And might I remind you that anyone caught cheating, stealing, or exhibiting any other unsavory behavior under the principles of the Heavenly Order…will regret having ever crossed into this realm.”

His words are met by silence. No one is smiling anymore.

Jǐng’xiù throws back his head and laughs. “Oh, you all look so serious for a group of mortals who have just passed the First Trial!” He spreads his arms. “Congratulations, candidates. Welcome to the Temple of Dawn.”

Yù’chén releases me just as the speech ends. A ruckus arises in the hall as the air ripples with spirit energy. When I look down, my invitation scroll has morphed into a glowing, molten-gold bracelet that twines over my left wrist. At its center is an inlaid mother-of-pearl engraving of a tiny sun over a swirling white cloud—the symbol of the Kingdom of Sky—and a number. It is one that does nothing to improve my mood.

Forty-four. A cursed number: four is the homonym for death.

Yù’chén is studying his own wrist. The number on his gold bracelet flashes: two.

These are not arbitrary numbers; they’re the order in which we arrived. I, dead last, the forty-fourth candidate of these trials.

And Yù’chén, second—only because I slowed him down.

A knot hardens in my throat as I remember the Immortal Steps, him reaching for me, eyes wide and lips parted as though in genuine fear.

“You,” I grit out, “are a very good liar.”

Yù’chén turns to me, not quite meeting my gaze. “If I were, you would not have suspected me,” he replies.

It’s an admission of what happened out on Heavens’ Gates, by the Immortals’ Steps. Of the dark magic he used.

I flash my blades at him. “Follow” is all I say as I whip around and begin walking down the hall, merging into the rest of the crowd as they stream toward the Candidates’ Courtyard. I’m keenly aware of the Eight Immortals’ eyes on me, of the guards watching me as I pass them.

Yù’chén gives a low chuckle as he falls into step behind me.

The Hall of Radiant Sun opens to a veranda of billowing gauze drapes and high marble pillars that catch the rays of the setting sun. On either side, glittering waterways fall into mist and nothingness below. All around us, as far as the eye can see, are rolling clouds painted in the last rosy corals of sunset.

Méi’zi would have loved it.

The voices and footsteps have faded. The candidates have gone far ahead, mere silhouettes between the translucent gauze drapes.

I slow to a stop and glance behind me. Yù’chén stands several paces away, making no move to approach. An errant breeze sets the drapes around us aflutter. I glimpse his crimson cloak, his untamed black hair, and a corner of his soft lips and strong jaw.

I don’t know how he did it, but I do know that there is something terribly wrong with him. Mortals shouldn’t be able to command other mortals as mó do. In the context of this trial, it gives him a horrifying advantage over the rest of us.

“How did you do it?” I ask quietly.

He only stares at me, saying nothing. This close, in this perfect, radiant realm of white stone and pale clouds and fiery skies, he looks ethereal in a way that shouldn’t be possible.

I raise my blades. “Speak, unless you want me to report this to the Eight Immortals.”

“I was trying to save your life,” he says. “You were frozen, and I couldn’t think of any other way—”

“How?” I demand again. “I’ve studied practitioning for nine years. I’ve never come across any talisman or form of magic granting a mortal the power of command over another’s mind. That’s dark magic, unheard of even in the yāo’jīng. So don’t you dare lie to me.” The more I speak, the more convinced I am that the man standing before me is a creature wicked and dangerous—one that shouldn’t be here. And when he remains silent, each heartbeat between us compounding his guilt, I say softly, “What kind of a monster are you?”

At this, he flinches and turns his face from me. I catch the sharp hitch to his breath, the movement of his throat as he swallows and, at last, speaks. “Halfling,” he says quietly. “I’m a halfling. Half-demon, half-mortal.”

My thoughts stutter. “That’s impossible,” I whisper. “There are no mó halflings.” The wards between our realms have been sealed for eternity since the gods created the world under the Heavenly Order. Mó ichor is poisonous to mortals; it is said the dark force that runs in their bodies counteracts the life force of mortals, making it impossible for a living creature to bear both.

“There is,” Yù’chén says. “One.”

I stare at him. Slowly, everything clicks into place. How impossibly powerful he is. How he was able to wield spirit energy, the energy only immortals and mortal practitioners can use. How he was able to call off Qióng’qí, and perhaps so many other beasts of the Kingdom of Night along the way, yet still present to me the evidence that made me trust him. Blood and heart—and dark magic.

And…the way he looked at me after I saved that halfling from áo’yīn. The gentle way his fingers touched me, smoothing my clothes and straightening my collar.

I shake off the memory and stagger away from him. He’s half-mó. Half a demon, half of something that should never have set foot in this realm. Half of the creature that destroyed my world and tore apart my family and drank my mother’s soul—

I turn to run, but his hands close over my wrists, dragging me back to him. “Wait,” he’s saying, desperate. “àn’yīng—”

“Don’t touch me,” I gasp, and to my surprise he obeys. He steps back from me and lifts his hands in a placating gesture. His chest rises and falls sharply, and my attention snags on the soft spot between his ribs.

I need to kill him. I’ll put a blade in his heart now, push his body off the edge of this corridor into the skies—

“Give me a chance.” His voice is low, deep and intoxicating with a power I should have realized was demonic from the very first day. He holds a hand out to me, palm-up. “Cut it open.”

I hesitate only for a fraction of a second before I plunge my blade straight through his palm.

Yù’chén gasps in pain, but I’m focused on where the steel of Fleet connects with his flesh. Blood, red and warm, wells up and drips down the sides of his hand, his wrist, his forearm. It splatters the perfect white marble, gleaming like rubies under the dying sunlight.

I remember why I decided to trust him in the first place. Demons don’t bleed.

I look up at him to find his eyes on me. His jaw is clenched, his mouth in a sullen curve. But he does not pull away. Without breaking his gaze from mine, he wraps his long fingers around my hand, curling them over the hilt of the blade wedged in his flesh to reach me. Blood drips down his arm as he draws my hand to him and presses it against his chest.

I start, but he holds me firmly—and that’s when I feel it: the pulse beneath my palms. A memory surfaces, of him pulling me onto Heavens’ Gate, his body warm and firm beneath mine. My cheek against his chest, listening to the strong thud-thud-thud.

Demons don’t have hearts.

“Half-mortal,” Yù’chén says. Our fingers are intertwined over the steady beat of his heart. “You heard the Eight Immortals: ‘By measure of your mortal blood and mortal hearts.’?”

“You are no mortal,” I growl.

“The wards admitted me. I qualify, too.”

I narrow my eyes. “The immortals,” I say slowly, “have spent the last nine years building their wards against the mó. They should know that one has managed to slip through.”

Yù’chén’s mouth twists into a humorless smile. “Little scorpion,” he says, “if you report me, what do you think they’ll do to you? The entire hall saw me helping you earlier. They saw us leave together. They’ll think us either allies or lovers—”

“Don’t,” I snarl, “debase my name by suggesting I am involved with the likes of you. ”

His smile slips. “You know it’s true. Whatever they do to me, they’ll do to you for being involved with…the likes of me.”

I stare at him, furious. As much as it kills me to admit it, he’s right. If I’m the one who reports him to the immortals, they might decide I have something to do with the mó. I recall their impassive expressions and distant gazes. They barely admitted me into the trials earlier. Something tells me they won’t bother listening a second time.

I have fought too hard to get here. And I have too much to lose.

My blade is angled against his chest, the soft spot between his ribs where his heart beats. All it would take is one push.

Yù’chén senses my hesitation. “àn’yīng, please,” he says. “You see it, too.”

I shake my head. “The only thing I see,” I say, “is that you’re a monster. ”

“I was born in the Kingdom of Rivers, just like you—”

“You are nothing like me!”

I twist my blade in his hand, and he makes a choked sound, his knees buckling at the pain. I bend over him, my other blade swiftly finding his throat. He goes still, breathing hard. A malicious thrill swoops through me. This time, I have the power.

“Why are you here?” I demand.

His lashes flutter. “The same reason as you.”

“Liar.”

“Can’t I want what you want?” he rasps. “A better life, in a better place? Or am I not human enough to desire that?”

The tip of my blade digs into the curve of his neck, drawing a line of red. As I stare at it, I find that I cannot move.

“I mean you no harm, àn’yīng.” The way he speaks my real name sends shivers down my spine, for all the wrong reasons. “I am a life. I, too, have a beating heart.”

And just like that, with those words, the moment’s gone. I know that, despite every vow I’ve made myself regarding the mó, I cannot kill this man right now.

With a hiss, I pull my blade from his palm.

He curses and doubles over, cradling his wounded hand. Red puddles on the pristine white floor. I study his blood under the faint light of dusk, searching for abnormalities. But it’s the same red as mine.

By the time I look up, his bleeding has already slowed; his flesh is already beginning to knit together.

My hands fist. “You’ll live to see the next trial,” I say coldly, and turn to leave.

“Wait,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. His fingers wrap around my wrist, spinning me so I’m forced to look at him.

“àn’yīng,” Yù’chén says. He tries to smile. “Ally with me.”

The sincerity in his voice is so damn real.

“Don’t touch me,” I snap again.

His smile falters, but he lets go. He stands there with his hands by his sides, one blood-soaked. “Ally with me,” he repeats.

I level a blank look at Yù’chén. “I don’t think you understand,” I say. “From now on, I want nothing to do with you.”

His lips part as he searches my face. His gaze ensnares me.

I hold it and carve my words to hurt. “You disgust me.”

Then I twist away and leave him there, caught in the shadows of twilight with the question I didn’t ask.

Why? Why does he still want me to ally with him when I have made clear my revulsion for him? When I have nothing to offer in terms of skill or physical prowess?

After all that…why?

It no longer matters. In the end, if the trials do not kill him, I will.