Beneath it, Sòng Lián and Xan Temurezen held on tightly to each other.
But something was wrong. The ribbons of the Godslayer that were wrapped around the Phoenix were beginning to fray. Pieces fluttered away like burning parchment, edges curling as they disintegrated.
“The Seal,” Zen said. “It’s not strong enough.”
A shriek of triumph rent the air. A massive wave of demonic energies shook the world as the Crimson Phoenix spread its wings, breaking free from the fetters of the Seal. The Godslayer shattered, and Lan watched as its last, broken shards went up in smoke.
“No,” she whispered.“No—”
The Godslayer was gone—but it had managed to inflict damage upon the Crimson Phoenix. The Demon God’s light was dimming, its wings crumbling in rains of ash.
As the Phoenix’s power waned for the first time in centuries,so, too, did the Seals it had spun around Shaklahira. The unnatural flowers in the gardens dissolved into sand. The bright colors of the palace faded. Overhead, the Boundary Seal flickered, while the Gate Seal at the Crescent Spring rolled back to reveal a broken stone bridge.
With a final cry, the Crimson Phoenix vanished, leaving behind a clear sky and a tremor in the air. The sands settled. The flames receded to darkness. The world grew quiet.
By Lan’s side, Zen drew Nightfire. Sweat dotted his brow, and she could tell from the unsteady bursts of qì from him that he was exhausted, burning through his own Demon God’s power now. “Do not let your guard down,” he told Lan. “It will be back, sooner or later. It’s merely wounded from the parts of the Godslayer you did manage to conjure.”
In the desert, less than a dozen steps from them, a figure lay curled up between two sand dunes. The crimson hàn’fú he wore pooled around him, yet when he pushed himself up, his face had lost its unnatural beauty, the feverish flush to his cheeks and lips. He was pale, trembling. He looked…ordinary.
Hóng’yì lifted a hand. Qì began to gather around him, shimmering into what Lan recognized as a Gate Seal.
“No,” Lan croaked. He must have heard her, for his eyes lifted, meeting hers from across the desert. There was pure, unfiltered hatred in his gaze. As the Seal spun around the prince in a whirl of sand, she saw his lips move, mouthing a message to her.
We are far from finished.
When the dust settled again, the imperial heir was gone, along with the Crimson Phoenix.
I’ve failed,Lan thought faintly. The world began to fade around the edges, and as the strength fled from her, she barely remembered her head hitting the sand.
Táng monks are well-practiced in the Art of Double Swords. Originating in the northwestern mountains of the kingdom, they are devout worshipers of the Way and disciplined fighters.
—Various scholars,Studies of the Ninety-Nine Clans
The crimson had drained from the sky, daylight leaving it a periwinkle blue over a horizon of cracked porcelain. Pale clouds reached spindly fingers from east to west. The sun’s rays landed on the white leather tome before Zen, the traces of that blazing Seal scattering like windblown ash.
He reached into his storage pouch and retrieved the first half of the tome: his copy of theClassic of Gods and Demons,bound in black leather. He flipped it open to the page where he had discovered the Seal left behind by the Crimson Phoenix, the Seal that had stolen away the second half of the book…which he now held in his other hand, opened to the same page.
As he watched, the Seal in his black copy pulsed gently, mingling with the energies of the Counterseal Hóng’yì had unlocked on the white copy. Like magnets, the two halves came together, their pages blending, scripture flowing from one to the other.
When the process was complete, Zen found himself holding a single tome. One cover—hiscover—was black with thetitle sewn in the feathers of a red-crowned crane. When he turned it over, the cover was white with the title stitched in gold.
All the answers to everything he sought—his great-grandfather’s army, the key to taking back the Last Kingdom—now lay in his palms, two halves now forming a whole.
He exhaled slowly, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders. A breeze dried the sweat on his brows and tossed his hair from his face. There was so much more he needed to do. But all that could wait.
Zen turned to the girl by his side. She lay still in the sand, the red ceremonial gown Hóng’yì had conjured now reverted back to her simple white páo without the heir’s Seal to hold it together.
Twice now, he and Lan had found each other against all odds. He had not expected to find her at Nakkar. And he had not expected to find her here.
Zen had not allowed himself to believe in the red threads of fate. But this moment, with the sun beginning to breathe light into the sky and the girl he loved beside him, felt like a making of destiny.
Please,he prayed, reaching for her.Please be alive—
That was when the world slowed and the darkness in the back of his mind unfurled.You ought to be careful which gods you pray to,came an ancient, rumbling voice.
Dread gripped him. It couldn’t be. Already, the voice of his Demon God was back; already, its great shadow lingered at the edges of his mind, its claws beginning to sink back in. He had paid the price for the Seed of Clarity; it shouldn’t have faded so fast.
But he had expended so much qì earlier fighting the Crimson Phoenix. He could feel the seed’s strength waning, hisown core of energies growing weak beneath the shadow of the Black Tortoise.
