It had never been that simple. Power always came with a price, each victory with a terrible cost. She had no idea whatbargain her mother had made. What the conditions were, how easily she might lose control to the god whose power now lay coiled inside her. One wrong decision, one trick move, and Lan would be sent plunging into the abyss.
And yet…what if shecouldsever its power when she was at the brink of losing control? Her hands were cold, yet the hilt of That Which Cuts Stars rested slick against her palm. She had cut off the Black Tortoise’s grip on Zen with it, albeit temporarily. What if she could do the same thing to herself?
If she could succeed here, she could save Skies’ End. And if she could use her power to protect those she loved, she could yet save the Last Kingdom.
Several steps beneath her, Tai lay unconscious against the mountain wall that the explosion had flung him against, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. His hair, wet and tangled, covered his face. She thought of the way he smiled when he watched Shàn’jun feed the carp in the moonlight.
Lan thought of Shàn’jun, nursing her patiently beneath the fretwork window frame of the Chamber of a Hundred Healings.
Of Taub, red-faced from the heat and steam of her kitchens; Chue, chatting to her as they took their meals in the refectory; of the early-morning bells, the conversation of disciples beneath crisp winter sunlight threaded through with mist; of all the joy she had found in Skies’ End that had made her life worth living again.
Of Ying, running to save her in nothing but a flimsy lotus dress.
She thought of Zen: the first time she had met him in a crowded Teahouse, then his arms wrapped around her as he whispered of a future for them, his lips brushing her cheeks to kiss away her tears.
She clenched her teeth now, the rain turning warm againsther skin. This time, though, he was not there to wipe it away. Might never be there again.
Her heart broke all over again, and with that, her will shattered.
Anger filled her.
Her Demon God reared up, its light dusting the mountains like a second moon. It watched her with eyes as blue as the heart of fire, scales shimmering like the first snowfall frozen to ice. A vision, an illusion, a part of herself.
Lan reached out a hand and dipped her finger into the stream of power that flowed from her Demon God’s core.
The world breathed. She could sense it all, the brush of each raindrop against pine leaves and branches, kneading into the soil, clattering against the armor of the Elantian army that wound all the way to the next mountain.
Fear and anger swelled in her throat. Yet with it came something new: a curiosity aimed at the battle sprawled before them. A clinical study of the odds, as though she were hovering over a chessboard and each person—eachlife—were a piece to be used and discarded at will.
So this is how it feels to be a god,she thought to herself, and in that moment, Lan vowed to never give in. No matter what, she would remember, until the very end, why she did all this. Ying. Shàn’jun. Zen. Dé’zi. Mama.
So long as she held on to what made her human, she would never become a god.
She gave the command.
Destroy them.
A Seal flowed from her fingertips, drawn by the god, and she suddenly understood what Zen had meant when he said performing Seals was an art in its highest form. The weave of energies was more complicated than any she had ever come across: so intricate that it might take her hours to unravel, thestrokes straddling the boundary between science and art. Her hands moved together in a dance she did not know, guided by the presence of another.
Power hummed in the air around her. A glow spread from her, shrouding the mountains around her in white, reaching up into the sky itself.
The moment the Seal closed, a shockwave pulsed through the trees. She could feel it, for she was everywhere and nowhere at once, soaring through cloud and rain and plunging down the mountainside. Something deep within the ground began to shift: a tremor, reaching all the way to where the Elantian army stood.
Through the rain and darkness, all that Lan could see was a mass rising darker than the night sky, like a giant maw opening behind the army. The earth itself was bending to her will, pines and brush and soil cresting in a great tsunami to bury the Elantians. Shrieks filled the air as the soldiers, suddenly so small, began to run from Lan’s Seal.
A deep-throated chuckle reverberated in Lan’s head.Fascinating, is it not, how power reduces those you once feared to naught but squirming maggots?murmured the dragon.
Fascinating,Lan thought. She watched and tried to remember all the times the Elantians had wronged her, but in this moment, her mind was filled with their desperate screams, their lives snuffed out like candles as the earth swallowed them whole. She was drifting, swept away by the great tide of qì that coursed from her.
A blur of a silhouette barreled out of the rain, slamming her into the ground. Her concentration broke; the river of qì faltered, and her Seal dimmed.
Lan blinked. She lay on the ground, the same place on the steps she had been during the second explosion. Yeshin NoroUlara stood over her, outlined in the faint yellow glow from the school buildings just a dozen or so steps away.
“What have you done?” the Master of Swords cried. Her face was slicked in rain and mud—none of which masked her wide-eyed terror. This was the first time Lan had seen Yeshin Noro Ulara look afraid.
“I’m helping us win the war,” Lan shouted.
“You are destroying Skies’ End!” Ulara screamed. “The soil of the pine forest is the foundation to the mountain—you are digging out its roots!”
