“We need to get everybody somewhere safe,” Dilaya said. “Hóng’yì isn’t gone forever. Once the Phoenix heals, he may be back.” Her eye snapped to Lan. “So what’s next?”
Lan’s hand went to her chest. Beneath the layers of her páo lay a silver amulet, nested by her heart. A reminder of a time long gone; a reminder that she had once known happiness.
It was time to put those memories to rest, once and for all.
Drawing a deep breath, she unclenched her fist and brought it to her side. “I’m going to see Xan Temurezen.”
—
Evening had fallen over the Emaran Desert, a dusky violet coating the rolling dunes and cooling the air. Lan leaned against the doors to the chamber she occupied, taking in the sight of Crescent Spring. It glittered a lapis blue and was the only beautiful part of Shaklahira that had not been an illusion. Between the silver grasses, a figure in robes of purple knelt by the lotuses that grew in the water. Tai had gone to free the souls trapped within. The faintest chime of his spirit bell was carried on the breeze.
Lan sensed Zen’s presence before he knocked. As she turned to greet him, he took in the sight of her just as she did of him, each assessing the minute changes in the other that, over the course of just two moons, had made them into entirely new people. She had left him in Nakkar, broken from a fall from the mountaintop, his qì increasingly smothered by his Demon God’s as it sought to heal and possess his body and mind.
Now, standing in the frame of the sliding doors to her chamber, he looked as though he had stepped out of a painting. His skin was smooth and held a golden glow; his lips were flushed red. His eyes were a rich, midnight black, his qì steady again, and Lan thought back to the first time they had met, in that teahouse in Haak’gong; of how he’d taken her breath away with one look that had shifted the shape of her world.
She blinked and the memory vanished. The silence stretched between them. No, they were no longer the boy and girl who had found each other in the turmoil of a conquered land. They had changed irrevocably, past and present shapingtheir paths to be on opposite sides. It mattered not that she had once wished for their destinies to be bound and he had promised the same.
“Well,” Lan said, “I don’t suppose you stayed here for the delectable pork buns.”
His mouth twitched in response. A sad echo to a joke they had once shared. “No,” Zen said slowly. “So soon is the School of the White Pines Code of Conduct discarded. You forget I was raised on a diet of tofu stews, vegetables, and roots.”
She exhaled sharply. This wasn’t—shouldn’t have been—possible. Demonic practitioning should have corroded him with time. He should have become colder, crueler. She should revile him as easily as she reviled Erascius and the Elantians. But here he was, seemingly identical to the Zen she had fallen in love with once a lifetime ago, once a world ago.
“What do you want, Zen?” she demanded, all decorum falling from her voice.
“To find a way to save this land,” he replied, matching her tone. “That is all I have ever wanted. You know this.”
“No,” she cut him off fiercely. “I don’t know anymore. When you choose fire, Zen, you risk burning down everything you once wished to save.”
“Lan, we have both wanted the same outcome for our land and our people, from the very start. But we sought to approach it in different ways.”
She raised her hand as though to slap him, but then curled it into a fist and brought it before her chest. “Don’t compare us,” Lan whispered. “You betrayed everything and everyone who loved you for power. Skies’ End, the school,Dé’zi, me—” Her voice broke, but she pushed on: “And in the end, you chose power over us all.”
Zen had gone very still. Only his eyes flickered, burning asthough with a fire within. “I chose power because I needed it tosavethis kingdom—”
“—by destroying it first? You of all people should know what happens when practitioners make bargains with Demon Gods. You were willing to take that risk, to endanger all the people of this land—”
“How else are we meant to take down the Elantians?” he challenged, his voice rising. “Answer me that, Sòng Lián, and I’ll gladly sever all ties with my Demon God.”
She pressed her lips together.
“Answer me,” Zen repeated. When she remained silent, he went on: “Do you think I’ve enjoyed fighting its influence every moment of every day? Do you think I wished to give my body, mind, and soul over to it—to sacrifice my life, the one I had planned to spend with you?”
His words were a hot knife to her heart. Lan clenched her teeth, fighting against her body’s reaction as her throat closed and her breathing hitched. Through the haze of her tears, shefumbled for the red cord at her neck and tore it from her. The silver amulet flashed as she held it in her hands, crossed the room, and pressed it forcefully into his palm before quickly stepping back.
“Even after all you’ve done and how you’ve betrayed me, you expect me to believe you,” Lan said quietly. “You disgustme.”
Zen looked down at the amulet. He was silent for a few beats, his hair fallen into his face and obscuring his expression. Then his fingers closed over it and he nodded. “I once thought there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to become powerful, so that I could protect those in need and those I cared for. I threw away my sense of self-worth and everything I ever believed in. I turned myself into the worst kind of human.” He swallowed and looked up. “But I’ve found there are things I’ve done tomaintain this power that I cannot live with. Taking a Seed of Clarity was one.”
Horror dawned on her as she took him in anew. The flush to his skin, the strength to his qì, the feverish red to his lips—those came from consuming the qì of another soul.
Lan took another step back from him. “You…”
“Yes,” Zen said. “The guardian of those seeds warned me that power came at a cost. Back then, I thought there was no price I wouldn’t pay. This…proved me wrong.” His gaze sharpened. “That leaves me with a very short window of time to defeat the Elantians while I still have control over the Black Tortoise, Lan. And a very short window of time for you to learn to conjure the Godslayer to use on me afterward.”
Time seemed to slow. The noises in the world—the susurrus of wind outside, the rustle of the silk curtains, the brush of sand against the paper shutters—faded, so that there was only Zen and the words he’d spoken, suspended in the air between them.
“What did you say?” Lan whispered.
