The maps flickered out, and that was when a shadowbehind Lan moved. Zen tore his gaze from the sky, the map to the Crimson Phoenix seared into his vision.
Erascius’s teeth shone like the glint of moon on his blade as he looked at Zen. “Ah,” he said softly. “We meet again. What will it be this time? Will you finally unleash the full potential of your Demon God to kill me,Xan Temurezen?”
Zen had spent cycles learning the Elantian tongue to use on the missions he had carried out forDé’zi.It never failed to chill his blood, to conjure memories of a dungeon, of sharp scalpels and pale hands in the dark.
He pulled on his own qì. He was still a practitioner of the School of the White Pines. Even without the Black Tortoise, he could still fight.
“Zen, don’t.”
His head snapped to Lan, and in that moment, nothing else mattered. Erascius had pulled her against him; the metal shackles unwound from her limbs like serpents, disappearing into the metal cuffs Erascius wore at his wrists. He held Lan like a doll, aprize,his blade digging into the curve of her neck.
Zen’s chest constricted; fury blazed in his veins. “Lan—”
“He has soldiers surrounding Nakkar.” She spoke, detached and with clinical precision, as though the choice they debated had nothing to do with her life. As though one of their conquerors did not hold a knife to her throat. “Nakkar and other cities. If we strike back, innocent people die.”
Let them die,whispered that faint voice of darkness and smoke in Zen’s head.War is not without cost. What is power to be used for if not to protect those you love?
His stomach turned at the way his Demon God twisted words Lan had once used. No, he would not become Xan Tolürigin. He would not use his power senselessly, would not sacrifice without meaning.
“You Hin,” Erascius sighed. “Always too noble. There is no power without sacrifice. There is no victory without death.”
And with that, he rammed the hilt of his blade into Lan’s temple and shoved her off the edge of the cliff.
—
Zen didn’t think. Didn’t blink. Just reacted.
Wind roared in his face as he leapt after Lan, a blur of shadows and shapes, tree branches and jutting rock. She tumbled before him, páo fluttering pale in the moonlight. He could sense demonic energies awakening within her: a silver glow began to emanate from her skin and all around her; the shape of a great, serpentine thing cocooned her.
Logically, he knew—knew—that the Demon God within her was bound to save her life. Yet Zen had always found it nearly impossible to act on logic when it came to Lan. There was no conceivable way he would simply stand and watch as the girl he loved plunged from a cliff.
In every life, whether this one or the next or ten thousand more, Zen would jump with her.
He pushed qì to his heels, propelling himself to fall faster,faster…. He could feel the qì of solid earth and trees rising to meet him. At this rate, she would hit the ground before he reached her.
He gritted his teeth and pushed himself forward again. Stretched out his hands. Wind shrieked in his ears. The ground loomed. His fingertips grazed the fabric of her sleeves…and then he caught her wrist and pulled her into his arms.
The ground yawned before them. He would not die, he knew that; the Demon God inside him was mandated to protect his life. But he had run out of space, out of time, before the Black Tortoise took over.
He twisted sharply, flinging out what he could of his qì to summon a Seal, expecting the power of his Demon God to take over.
It didn’t.
With acrack,he slammed into the ground—and in the moment before his world went dark, felt the acute pain of every bone in his body splintering to pieces.
Once formed, the Demon Gods are awakened beings, with wills and minds of their own.
—Xan Tolürigin, Ruler of the Eternal Sky and the Great Earth,Classic of Gods and Demons
The world drew together, one piece at a time, behind the pounding pain in her skull. Stars crystallizing. Pines swaying. Mountains breathing. And underneath it all, a current of qì running as deep and dark as vicious waters.
Warmth trickled down her left temple. Lan touched a finger to it; her hand came away glistening.Blood,she thought, and the memories returned. Erascius, the threats, the star maps.
Her gaze snapped to the top of the Öshangma Light Mountain, yet she felt no more of the metallic qì signature of the magician. He was gone.
She had no recollection of how she’d gotten to the bottom of the mountain.
The currents of qì in the air intensified, washing over her in cold, wrathful waves.Demonicqì.
