Sometime during their conversation, the last strands of daylight had retreated from the sky. The waning moon had woken. Zen stepped forward into the square of silver light that poured into the room through the doors. “There is a very short window of time for you to learn to conjure the Godslayer to use on me,” he repeated.
Her mind was stuck on those words. Their meaning would not filter through, as though he spoke in a different language. This had to be a trick, some other lie he had fabricated to use against her, to betray her again. “I don’t understand.”
“I do now.” Zen’s gaze was clear. “I understood the moment I set eyes on Hóng’yì, the moment I found out about the Seeds of Clarity he harvested from the spring outside. When the Black Tortoise began taking me over, I was angry and I was terrified. I wanted more time. I wanted…a life ahead of me.
“The soul of the immortal at the Öshangma Light Mountain,” he continued, “told me the Seeds of Clarity would strengthen my core of qì and help me maintain command over my Demon God’s power. Little did I know…” That wry smile again, the flash of darkness to his expression. “Little did I know what it would cost. That I would be consuming another’s soul to preserve my own. That is no life, Lan. That is no existence. I had taken the first step down a path that would bring me to the same destination as the imperial family I so reviled.
“And yet, my soul was tainted from the moment I killed shi’fù—no,” Zen mused, “much earlier, throughout many moments in my life. Perhaps it was the moment I accepted a bargain with the Black Tortoise. Or the moment I betrayed you. Or the moment I annihilated that Elantian outpost, with the innocent Hin—”
“Zen—”
“—or when I hurt Dilaya all those cycles ago, or when I first sought out the demon He With Eyes of Blood….” Zen’s eyes had closed, his brows furrowed as though he were in pain. When he opened them again, they were only sad. “It began long before any of us knew about any of this, Lan. Hóng’yì was right. My path has always been one painted in blood. And if I must walk to the end, so be it—my soul is forfeit already, so let me give it in service of this land and its people.” His voice was raw. “Use me. Let me unleash the Black Tortoise’s power against the Elantian regime. And when the end comes, stop me from destroying anything more.”
She inhaled deeply through her nose, fisting her hands. “Do you realize,” she said, her voice low, “how dangerous the plan you propose is? To unleash the full power of your Demon God…what if I can’t conjure the Godslayer? What if it doesn’t work as it’s intended? Innocents could die.”
“Innocentshavebeen dying. For the past twelve cycles, our kingdom has been suffering a slow death. The practitioners are nearly all gone. This is war, Lan, and people die during war. That doesn’t mean we don’t fight.”
She chose her next words to be cruel, to cut. “Your entire life, you have feared following in the footsteps of your great-grandfather. Yet now you seek reason to walk down the same path.”
His eyes had shuttered. “My great-grandfather did everything he could to protect my clan,” Zen said. “What would you have chosen, Sòng Lián? Either way, death stared in the face of the Mansorian clan. Either way, we were doomed. My great-grandfather chose to fight, to use his power to try to change the course of history. Just as you said, his power burned down everything. His name, his legacy, his people—all gone.” His jaw was tight, and his eyes glistened. “But you know what Xan Tolürigin wished but failed to do? He wanted todestroythe source of his power. Only the Demon God took him before he had the chance.”
“That isn’t possible,” said Lan. “Xan Tolürigin went mad with the power of the Black Tortoise. He reveled in it, just like the imperial family. He never wished to destroy it.”
“So the tale goes,” Zen said quietly. “But I have a piece of the story we never heard. My great-grandfather wrote his desire in this book.”
He reached into his storage pouch and drew out a tome: one side was bound in black leather, the other side in white. As he lifted it, Lan caught sight of the title.
She drew a sharp breath. “TheClassic of Gods and Demons,” she whispered. The book Elanruya had spoken of earlier.
The one that held the truth to the Godslayer.
If there were moments that felt like fate in the making, this was one of them.
Lan turned, tipping her head to the open skies visible through the doors of her chamber. The night was clear, stars glittering like diamonds scattered underwater. She was suddenly aware of how insignificant they were, two mortal lives in the great span of kingdoms and dynasties and eras, shooting stars in a great, unchanging desert. There, and then gone.
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You can’t be serious,” she said to the night.
Zen’s steps were silent, that velvet tread he had perfected throughout his cycles as a practitioner, but she still felt his approach like a cord to her own chest drawing tighter. “I am always serious,” he said.
Lan spun, and then he really was in front of her, just as she’d pictured, that lock of his hair fallen before his face and that courteous smile curving his lips. By the time it reached his eyes, it had turned to sorrow.
“Don’t,” she said, holding her hand up as though he’d threatened her. He had stopped moving, leaving a respectable five paces between them. She wished it were farther. She wished it were closer.
She drew a long, shuddering breath and glanced at him. “Is your Demon God listening?” she asked quietly.
Understanding flickered in his face. He shook his head. “I am still in control. We are safe.”
She searched his eyes and nodded. This time, she did not pull her gaze away. “If I can complete the Godslayer,” Lan said, “then I won’t be long in this world, either.” She tapped her ocarina. “You forget, the Demon Gods are tied to their binders’ souls. Destroy them, and you destroy their binders as well. And I intend to destroy all Four.”
His jaw tightened. “Not yours. Yours is tied to your mother’s.”
“I changed that. I made the Dragon switch the bargain.When we reach the end of our bargain, it will release my mother’s soul and take mine instead.”
Zen’s throat bobbed; for a few moments, he seemed at a loss for words. “The end of the bargain,” he repeated softly. “I see.”
They were silent, steeped in their own thoughts. Each stunned by revelations the other had yielded. Between them, the once-hazy realization began to take shape: that to end this cycle of power and destruction meant to end their own lives.
And it began with the Godslayer.
