“Whine all you want, but your stubbornness is going to see us both killed.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Nor I, you.” Sonam takes a deep, slow breath before exhaling sharply. “We’re not going to make it far if we don’t work together. We need a… truce.” The last word sounds like he’s fighting back a gag.
“Your enthusiasm strikes great confidence,” I say, eyeing him up and down suspiciously.
“The sooner we work together, the sooner we can leave.” The captain’s face is impassable, as hard as the carved jade of his family home. There’s a heavy tension in the air, our eyes locked onto one another—two vipers ready to strike.
I lean in as close as I dare. “You may have your truce,” I whisper, “but the moment we get out of here and our deal is done, I’ll kill you.”
“Likewise, Fox.”
“Yue.”
He frowns. “What?”
“My name,” I tell him as I stand. “It’s Yue, since you never bothered to ask.”
“Moon?” he translates. “That’s far too delicate a name for a demon—”
I kick him in the chest. Not hard enough to break what’s just been repaired, but with enough strength to get the message across. He lands on his back with an unceremonious grunt, glaring daggers up at me. I ignore him and turn away.
I’m stronger than him. Faster, too. The only reason he managed to capture me in the first place was because he had help. But he’s all alone down here, not an ally in sight. He’d be foolish to forget that.
I take in my first few glimpses of my surroundings through renewed eyes. Tales about the Ten Courts of Hell are common among the human folk. It was hard not to overhear stories whenever I’d come to the city to hunt. They’d pray to their gods, pray for their souls, fearing the oceans of devils and storms of liquid fire. Where suffering is a universal language, agony a common song.
How wrong they were.
It first appears that we’ve arrived back at the capital city ofLonghao. Except it isn’t quite. It’s empty, abandoned of all life and drained of color. The air is still and quiet. There are no songbirds to fill the silence, no idle chatter by the water markets, not even a whispering breeze. My breaths come too loudly. I’m afraid that if I speak, I may shatter my own eardrums.
There’s little to no light here. The sky above is pitch-black. No stars, no clouds, no moon, no sun. It’s as though someone’s taken a thick blanket and sewn it in place. There is, however, a faint green light emanating from somewhere in the city, casting an almost sickly glow against the surrounding buildings. I crane my head back to get a better look, feeling the segments of my spine pop one by one.
It’s the Jade Palace. A version of it, at least. It shines as a lighthouse on rocky shores, but I know not whether to run from it or be drawn to it. This place isn’t right. It’s strange and dark and cold. It smells rotten, putrid. The same horrible scent I detected back on the surface. The Jade Palace above, the one on the mortal plane, must have been built directly above this hellish abomination. As above, so below.
“How do we get out of here, then?” Sonam asks.
“How should I know?”
“Don’t play games with me. All demons come from Hell.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was born on the surface.”
He shoots me an incredulous look. “How is that possible? I thought—”
I snort, hands on my hips. “You humans and your twisted tales. Demons are not born in Hell. We are born from human suffering. Be it rage, sorrow, pain, or lust—we come to be by your pathetic hands.”
The captain frowns deeply. “I don’t believe you.”
“If you’re not going to listen to me, don’t bother asking stupid questions.”
Sonam sets his jaw, too proud to speak his mind. I, however, am not above prodding. “What?” I ask. “Go on. Say it.”
“I look forward to killing you,” he replies bitterly.
