Behind Lan, Tai made a sudden noise. She turned to see him standing still, head hung, swaying slightly. “I cannot sense Shàn’jun’s soul,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “I am a Spirit Summoner, and yet I cannot…”
And then, the Spirit Summoner knelt on the ground and wept.
Lan’s heart ached as she watched him, unsure of what to do or how to comfort him. Tai had never been expressive in their interactions, following like a shadow to Shàn’jun’s light. To see him without the easy smile and trailing laughter of the Medicine disciple was a lonely sight.
Lan glanced ahead. Dilaya had not stopped. Instead, the girl slammed her fist against a tree trunk and swore. “Clever,” she said. “They’ve used evasive techniques to flee, but that meanswecannot track them, either. They started out westward, but now there is no telling where they went.”
“Dilaya,” Lan said. She’d followed the girl numbly at first as they’d put as much distance as possible between them and Skies’ End. Now, though, the night had gone, and with the light of day, they needed to face the horrors they had been running from. “Can we just slow down and…and talk?”
“Talk,” the other girl growled. “About what, Lan? The fact that we are all that is left to stand against an entire empire?”
Lan fought the urge to snap back. The weight of events hung heavy in her chest, as did the final words of their masters.
The final mission of the Order of Ten Thousand Flowers bequeathed to them. To her.
Find the balance. Destroy the Demon Gods.
She had spent the entire night pondering the events that had led them to this point: pieces of a puzzle her mother had left her, and the path it pointed to. The one she still needed to follow.
Mama had been part of a rebellion—one that served neither the clans nor the Imperial Court but the people. It had aimed to destroy the Demon Gods and thus remove the source of power that the ruling parties struggled over. Together with Dé’zi, she had found and bound two of them: one in herself, the other in Skies’ End.
That left the Black Tortoise and the Crimson Phoenix. Yet the pieces had shifted—the Black Tortoise was bound to Zen, but the Azure Tiger had been set free. The sole aspect of the equation that had remained the same was the mystery of the Crimson Phoenix. The imperial family was said to have held on to it—but the imperial family was dead.
Lan’s hand rested against the smooth clay surface of the ocarina at her hip. Wherever the remaining Demon Gods were, she would find them. She would find the Godslayer.
Then she would destroy them.
“Yes,” she replied to Dilaya. “That’s exactly what I want to talk about.Wesurvived.Weare alive, whether we wished it or not.Wecarry the legacy and hopes of everyone who died in that battle. And so it is our duty to fulfill them.” She narrowed her eyes. “Or have you forgotten the famous words of your own ancestors?”
“You—” Dilaya’s face was pale, her fingers tight around the hilt of her sword. “Don’t youdareinvoke my ancestors’ names.”
Lan’s chest churned with a storm, one that made her want to scream, to lash out, to destroy this world and herself along with it.
She met Dilaya’s gaze. “Don’t run from the words they and our masters left us. We’ve all lost people in this battle.” She sensed Tai straightening to look at her. “We lived so we could fight on for them. And to do that, we need aplan.”
Dilaya was the first to turn away, breaking eye contact. “And whatplanwould you propose?” she said, but there was less of a bite to her tone.
Lan sat. Her legs shook from exertion, and every part of her felt like lying down in the silver grass and never getting up again.
She drew a deep breath. “To win this war, we must defeat two enemies,” she said. “The Elantians—and ourselves. Our Demon Gods.” She was aware of Tai leaning against the gnarled roots of an old ginkgo tree, listening. The Spirit Summoner’s hair was in wet tangles over his face, showing only glimmers of his gold-rimmed eyes. “The grandmaster spoke to me of the history of the Demon Gods. He spoke of balance, and the fact that the Demon Gods’ power was never meant to go unchecked.” Her hands went to her belt, to That Which Cuts Stars. “These instruments are only temporary checks on that power, but they cannot break the cycle of power and chaos inflicted by the Demon Gods’ presence. To do so, we must cut their tethers completely.”
Dilaya’s eyes narrowed. “So we need that instrument my mother mentioned.”
Lan nodded. “What your mother was referring to is a weapon capable of splitting the core of qì that makes up a Demon God, so that they may return to the flow of this world and the next. The first shamans devised it as a way to check the power of any one practitioner who grew too greedy under the influence of a Demon God.”
“The Godslayer,” Tai said quietly. Both Lan and Dilayaturned to him in surprise. He stared straight ahead. “The imperial family kept many secrets. This was one of them. But the advisors closest to them knew.”
They had not only known. They had searched for it. Quietly, at the risk of their own lives.
“The grandmaster told me about it,” Lan said. “Before…before his death, he told me that our most important task is to bring balance to this kingdom. Our history is fraught with tensions between warring clans, the rise and fall of dynasties and imperial family lines. And all this…for what? For power?” She plucked up a shoot of grass and lifted it to the brightening sky. “It’s time someone did what was best for the people of this kingdom, and not for the throne.”
“Didn’t know you actually paid attention in class,” Dilaya muttered.
“Here’s my plan,” Lan continued. “We find the Godslayer. We use the power of the Demon Gods to fight back against the Elantians. And then”—she leveled her gaze at Dilaya and Tai—“we destroy the Demon Gods’ cores with the Godslayer. No matter the cost.”
“That’s absurd,” Dilaya said.
“It isn’t,” Lan returned. “By the first principle of the Book of the Way, power is meant to be borrowed. Its nature is meant to be transient. The first scholar sages and practitioners used the term ‘borrowed’ because it is meant to be returned, never owned. This was how the earliest shamans and practitioners were able to wield the power of the Demon Gods. Yet when the Godslayer was lost, the imperial family gained immense power through the Crimson Phoenix—and they held on to it.Acquiring power for power’s sake was never meant to be the Way.”
