“Well, mortal child? Have we a bargain? All that I need is your word.”
The shape in the snow grew clearer; the boy could make out a pair of black eyes limned the color of blood, bones and flesh shifting into some semblance of a warped face.
He was not frightened. He knew that the true demons in this world wore the faces of men.
“Yes,” Zen said, the word falling from his lips like the cleave of a sword. “We have a bargain.”
Present day
Central Plains
Black waves. Gray sand. And a sky that, just moments ago, had been in the palm of his hands.
No—something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. Just moments ago, he’d been looking into that pair of black eyes ringed red like an eclipse, set in an emaciated face, whatever semblance of flesh and bone the thing had mustered falling from its face like smoke. Its lipless mouth had peeled back, too many rows of shiny, sharp teeth bared at him in the mimicry of a smile.
The debt is paid,that voice inside him had hissed, and the teeth had begun to drip blood.The bargain is ended.
No, no,no,impossible. Because if the debt was paid, that meant—
He reached inside himself, deep into his heart, where he’d kept this secret over all these cycles.
Instead of a writhing abyss of power beneath his master’s signature golden Seal, he found nothing. Just the flickers of his own qì, clean, natural, yin and yáng in balance. Silence as deep as a slumbering mountain. And, for the first time in over twelve cycles, peace.
He stretched into his memories, and they blended into a familiar nightmare. He’d been bound to an interrogation chair, and there had been an Elantian magician. An Alloy, his arms stacked with cuffs of the different metals he could channel. The Alloy had pointed metal needles at him.
Then he’d stabbed the blade into Zen’s heart, right into where the core of his demon rested. Into the center of the Seal.
He could remember Dé’ziSealing the demon’s power away as though it had happened just yesterday: the incense of the Chamber of a Hundred Healings, the blood red as poppies against its floorboards, Dilaya’s screams faded to muffled sobs, and then silence. The golden light of Dé’zi’s qì had revealed deep lines etched around his mouth and furrows in his brow as he weaved.
“This Seal shall command the demon to lie in slumber, yet can be broken through should your life be in danger,” the grandmaster had said quietly. “But as Master Gyasho has taught you, all Seals, including this one, remain only as strong as your will to hold it in place. It is but a single layer of protection against the influence of your demon. The foundation of it, Zen, rests in the will of your heart.”
The memory faded.
Zen clapped a hand to his breast and heard the pings ofmetal falling into the sand next to him. He turned his head to look. Four needles and a blade, all bloodied. He dimly remembered the magician sliding those needles into his veins. That blade into his chest.
And then he saw his hand. The sky was silvering, the bleached light of a faraway dawn casting his skin in a sickly pale pallor. Skin that was now smooth. Unmarked.
He began to tremble as the pieces of a dream came back to him: Erascius pushing the blade into his chest, pain exploding through his bones like fire. Then: kneeling on the stone floor, the oppressive tang of metal crushing in from all around, the power of his demon cut loose inside him, the Seal giving way as Zen began to die. His mind had split, he’d felt the powerful qì of his demon wrap around the wound in his chest and begin to heal it. He’d gazed into the eclipse-like eyes of his demon and known no more.
“…Zen?”
He flinched and sat up so quickly that his head spun. Huddled beneath a willow farther back on the banks of the river was Lan. Her face was drawn, her eyes large as she watched him, arms wrapped around her knees.
Relief crashed into him, and he almost lay back down on the sand. Alive—she was alive. “Lan,” he croaked, and began to turn toward her.
She drew back.
He froze. She was looking at him with fear written plainly on her face—and the worst part was that he recognized it. Had seen it, more than once before.
“Lan.” He struggled to keep his voice even. “What…happened? Please. I cannot…I cannot remember.”
She shifted her arm, and that was when he realized that the cherry blossom patterns on her páo were actually splattersof blood. “How do you not remember?” she whispered, and the accusation in her voice hurt more than any blade. The last time someone had spoken these words to him, it was Shàn’jun, kneeling on the floor of the Chamber of a Hundred Healings, clutching a bleeding, eleven-cycles-old Yeshin Noro Dilaya.
Dread clamped his throat shut so that he could barely breathe. His hands—his clean, unscarred hands—shook as he pressed them to his face.
Lan had been the only person in his life to not know of his past, and he had wanted to keep it that way. She’d trusted him, and he’d held on to her trust like a drowning man to air. He’d liked the way she looked at him, gaze clear of the prejudices that clouded that of others at Skies’ End.
He’d liked living in a lie with her.
